“Ah, here he is. You remember Miles Markell, don’t you, Grace? Our new youth minister? He’s going to help us again today, too. I think the two of you have a real connection.”
She relaxed when she saw Miles. The only face that didn’t scare her. She turned toward him and he smiled. “Hello, Grace.”
* * *
A knock at Grace’s office door. She was leaning against it, her duffel bag in one hand, the knife in the other. If it was Miles, what would she do? Did she have the courage, did she have the strength, to defend herself? She gripped the knife tighter.
“Grace, are you in there? Please, open the door. It’s me.”
Johanna.
She stood, slid the knife back in her bag, zipped it shut and opened the door. Johanna’s hair was windblown, her expression was tense. “Did you know?” she said, in an anguished tone.
Grace put a hand to her lips. “Shhh,” she said. “We have to whisper.” She pulled her inside. “About the storm? Of course not. I would have told you. I would have told everyone. I only found out a few minutes before I got to the restaurant. I don’t know what to do or how to get help, either. I have a laptop and a phone, but Miles has hidden both.” She had to put her mouth close to Johanna’s ear to be sure she could hear her. “And we won’t have any connection to the outside world, soon. This storm is going to be bad. I can feel it.”
The wind howled. Grace pulled herself away from Johanna. She moved across the room toward her desk. She wanted to show Johanna something. She moved aside books until she found the ones that she had hidden, spine in. She handed one over. “Reparative therapy?” Johanna whispered, an agonized expression on her face. The lights flickered again. Grace started looking for the flashlight she hadn’t used since the last storm—and that had been just a tropical storm. A little weather, as Miles had said, but it had still terrified her, had still brought it all back, as all storms did. Garrett—he was in the storm. And all of her mistakes, and all of her lies, and all of her shame.
No more.
“This is me,” she said softly, stepping close to Johanna again and bringing her lips to her ear once more. “I understand you as well as I understand myself.”
“What do you mean?”
“Those books were given to me by my church. Those methods of ‘curing’ homosexuality are what I had done to me, the kind of so-called treatment I received, starting when I was sixteen years old. Miles believed for a while that he had healed me. And that made him feel so great, so powerful. But it was all a lie. This is the way I am.” So quiet she almost wasn’t saying the words aloud, but she did: “I’m gay. I always have been. And when I was a teenager, around the time you figured it out for yourself, the ministers and elders at my church were attempting to purge it out of me. Miles among them. That’s how we met. He ‘fixed’ me. Except there was nothing to fix. They broke me. And now, here I am. A person who has always been as afraid as you, and maybe more.”
“Grace,” Johanna breathed, but she didn’t say anything more. Grace felt grateful for that: that Johanna kept still and waited for her, just as she had done for her, day after day. No other words were needed.
“When you spoke about feeling responsible for Cleo’s death because you were too afraid? I knew how you felt. Because my brother, Garrett, my best friend, died for the same reason. He killed himself because the church accused him of doing terrible things to me. And I never spoke up. I was too afraid to stand up and be who I was. He paid the price, for me. He was the collateral damage in my denial. But I was never going to change. And yet, there have been moments this week when, for the first time in decades, I felt whole again. And all of those moments revolved around you. I know how wrong that is. I know I shouldn’t say it. But something changed, the first moment I saw you. I stopped being a therapist. I became myself.”
Darkness, sudden and insistent. The power, gone again. Grace turned on the flashlight she had found. She could see the shadowy edges of Johanna’s perfect face now. “When you came, when you stood at the edge of the pool—tell me again. It was you, wasn’t it? That day at the cenote, wasn’t it?”
“Yes,” Johanna whispered.
Relief flooded through her. “I felt like what I had dreamed of and asked for, what I had truly wanted my entire life, had come to me fully formed. And it was you. I knew then that God didn’t hate me. You came. You saved me.”
“You saved me, too,” Johanna said, so close to her now their lips were almost touching. It was as if Grace had breathed all these words into her mouth, all her secrets that would always be kept safe and maybe even turn into something beautiful. “I felt the same thing, when I saw you. I knew it was impossible, an impossible dream, but I still felt it. Like you were my destiny.” She squeezed her hand tight, but then pulled it away. “But, Grace? There was a man. I thought he was going down the path to meet you. I thought he was your lover. I realize now—”
“Yes. It was him. Miles. He followed me there. Johanna, he’s planning to kill me. I was in his office earlier, and I saw messages on his laptop. He has a group, back in Texas. A group of women who believe his lies. I should have known something like this was coming. He wants more. He told me that. But I didn’t know what he meant, exactly. Now I see. He wants total devotion. To be worshipped. I don’t do that. I haven’t given him that. And I haven’t given him children, either. That’s something else that Ruth and I weren’t able to give.”
“You and Ruth?”
“Shhhh. Be quiet, okay? I think he’s spying on me. We have to whisper.” Johanna’s eyes widened. “I thought maybe Ruth was a solution, a long time ago. She fell in love with him and I know he cared for her, that he at least enjoyed the adoration, so I made a deal. If he left me alone he could take a second wife.”
“But he’s so religious. Why would he do that?”
“Miles? He’s not religious. Not exactly. He hides behind religion, he bends it to suit him. But Miles doesn’t believe in anyone but himself. I’m so ashamed.”
“Why are you ashamed?”
“There are so many things I could have done. Should have done. I stood by and let him hurt people.”
“I don’t see what you could have done. It’s like what you said to me about Chad. Miles was always going to be this person.”
“No. Maybe not. Maybe I gave him too much power. Maybe I should have left a long time ago, at the very least. Been true to myself if nothing else. I never could though. I was too scared. Not just of what he’d do but who I’d be without all this.” She gestured toward the room, the couch, the table, the desk, and the light from the flashlight bounced like a ball. “I love this part. I love talking to people. Helping them. I love being a therapist. It’s the only time I feel whole, the only time I can forget about everything I hide, everything I am.”
“We should run away. Together. You can be who you are with me. And I can be who I am with you. I know that. You can be whole again.”
A strong gust of wind outside. “I know that, too,” Grace said. “But we can’t go anywhere. Not with this storm rolling in. We won’t be safe anywhere but here.” Then she covered her face with her hands and the flashlight dropped to the ground. “But here—I’m not safe. Miles thinks the storm has been sent by God. He wants to use it as a cover to kill me. I’m terrified.”
“No,” Johanna said, bending to pick it up. “It’s okay. We can stop him. We can go to the police.” She was close to her again.
Grace put her arms around Johanna’s waist and spoke into her hair, as quietly as she could. “The police aren’t going to come out here. Trust me, they’re already busy dealing with other things.”
“But if we get his laptop,” Johanna whispered back. “If we bring it to the police. If we show them the messages.”
A banging at the door caused them both to jump apart. Johanna clicked off the flashlight. They stood in the darkness. Miles’s voice: “Grace, are you
in there?” Another knock, softer. Then Ben’s voice. “Johanna?”
Grace grabbed her, pulled her back. The couch was angled against the wall. They crouched behind it in the darkness.
“I was sure I saw a light in here when we were walking up,” Ben said.
“Sometimes the mind plays tricks,” Miles said, his voice soothing. “They must be somewhere else. We’ll keep looking.” A pause. “We’ll find them.” And Grace knew. She knew that Miles was well aware that she and Johanna were hiding from him, just a few feet away. That he was enjoying their fear. Controlling it. “Grace and I always find each other. It’s what good couples do.”
The door closed. Their voices faded away. Grace and Johanna stood.
And for just a moment, Grace forgot her fear. She reached up in the darkness and touched the silk of Johanna’s cheek. Johanna lifted her hand and touched hers, too. Their lips met, for just a moment. Then Grace pulled away and whispered, “I have an idea.”
“I’m scared,” Shell said.
“Don’t be,” Colin replied. “We’ll get through this. The phone at the front desk was still working. I called the Canadian consulate. They transferred me to the Emergency Watch and Response Centre in Ottawa. They’ve got their hands full right now, but someone is going to get back to me.”
“We have to get home.”
“We will get home. I promise you.”
But then they both stood still, and watched the moving waves, and she knew what they were both thinking: that the word home didn’t mean the same thing anymore. What did they have to go back to? He took her hand, like perhaps he was going to show her.
His bungalow was the same as the one she had been staying in, and the one they had been staying in before, but there was one major difference: it smelled like him. It smelled familiar. It smelled like home.
“I’m so sorry,” she said when they were inside. “For everything. For even letting him—”
“He took advantage of you. He should go to jail. He will go to jail. I’m the one who’s sorry. I shouldn’t have let this happen.” They had changed out of their rain-soaked clothes. She was wearing one of his T-shirts and he was barefoot and shirtless in pajama pants she hardly recognized anymore, soft flannel ones he used to wear and—oh, it hurt her heart to think about it—play with Zoey on a blanket Shell would put on the floor for tummy time. She remembered him on the floor, too, lying on his stomach in front of the baby, making funny faces while Zoey lifted her head and grinned her gummy grin at him. Meanwhile, Shell had sat in a chair in the living room, tired, changed, not the woman she had been before Zoey had come along. Blurred at the edges, softer. She hadn’t known how lucky she was. She should have been paying attention.
All at once, she felt something break that had already broken, so many times, and she felt the sadness spilling out and she was helpless, chagrined—not now, not now, he doesn’t like it when you do this—but the tears fell down her cheeks anyway and all she could do was stand still and let them. She was prepared for him to look away from her now, she even turned her head away in preparation for it. But instead, he reached for her. He looked into her eyes. It must have been awful, what he saw there, but still he stared into it.
“Oh, my darling. I am so, so sorry.” He was crying, too, the tears that slid down his cheeks mirroring her own.
She reached for him. There was nothing to say.
Outside, the rain fell and the wind pummeled the windows. But they paid no attention. Silent, bottomless grief. But this time, finally, it was shared. They moved through it together.
He kissed her and sobbed. It had been so long that he felt new. She said, “I want—” But she didn’t need to finish. He had lifted her up and was carrying her to the bed already and everything changed. They were given a reprieve, and who knew how long it would last? She seized the moment. She threw her head back and he kissed her neck. Hot breath, his lips and tongue, they were two broken pieces fitting together and finding when they did they weren’t as broken anymore.
“Whatever happens next,” he began, moving inside her.
“I’m with you,” she finished. “We’re together.”
And suddenly, the word home had meaning again.
Day Seven
Morning
Dear Guests,
As we are all now aware, a hurricane is heading our way: Hurricane Christine, Category 4, with sustained wind speeds of nearly 150 mph. Traveling at 250 mph, the full force of the storm will make landfall late this evening—but there is nothing to fear, as long as you follow our directions carefully. We understand that many of you are hoping to find flights out, but there are no longer any flights leaving this area. We will assist you in arranging for transportation once the storm is over.
You may sleep in your bungalows tonight, but first thing tomorrow morning, please report to the main villa with all of your bags packed. Please also bring your bedding and pillows, and any water bottles remaining in your room. Remember: anything you leave behind may not survive the storm. And once you have arrived at the villa tomorrow morning, there is no leaving to retrieve anything from the bungalows.
The villa is a strong building that has weathered many storms, some of them worse than this one. It is very likely that the safest place to be in this entire region tomorrow night is our spacious basement. We have plenty of food, water and supplies; you will be safe and cared for. All we ask is that you have faith in us and follow these simple rules:
—Stay in the basement of the villa.
—Move to the center of the basement in the afternoon and evening, when the storm will get stronger, and do not leave that area until you receive the all clear. Ruth will be giving the instructions. Do not do anything without her go-ahead.
—Do not, under any circumstances, go outside at any point during the storm. There will come a time tomorrow night when all will be quiet and you may think the storm is over. That is the eye of the storm and—with a fast-moving system like this just making landfall—will only last a few minutes. The safest thing to do once the eye arrives is stay in the basement, as close to the ground as possible, and wait for further instruction.
But please, don’t be alarmed! Have faith that you are safe and cared for. Remember: a crisis can be a great opportunity to show love and care to your partner. Let’s all use this opportunity to show our strength, and fight for what we love and want the most.
Sincerely,
Miles Markell and your Harmony Resort Team
CELEBRITYSCOOP.com
ONLINE UPROAR ABOUT BEHAVIOR OF CELEBRITY MARRIAGE COUNSELOR MILES MARKELL—“He didn’t fix my marriage, he broke it,” says sexual assault victim.
Hurricane Christine is heading to Mexico, but that may be the least of worries for celebrity marriage counselor Miles Markell, who is one half of a marriage-fixing power couple who may be living a lie. Comments about Markell sexually harassing, drugging and even assaulting clients began surfacing on social media yesterday when a woman known only as Zoey W. posted detailed accusations. Click here for the details. Now as many as a dozen women have shared portions of their stories and indicated they want to share more—but they also want the man himself to respond to them.
So far today, he has ignored all social media comments (which is unusual because he’s normally quite active on social media) and has not taken calls from CELEBRITYSCOOP or, according to other news outlets now picking up the story, anyone else. His wife has also failed to comment thus far. And people with loved ones at the resort are getting very worried. “I’ve been trying to contact my sister for days,” said a woman who does not want to be named. “I’ve been quite concerned. We talk or text daily, but since she got to that resort, it’s been total silence. Now I think she should know that the man who is counseling her on the state of her marriage could be a sexual predator. But she hasn’t replied to any of my calls, texts, or emails. And when I call the reso
rt itself, I only get voicemail.”
Could it be the resort staff are simply preparing for the coming storm, or is something more sinister going on? Watch for developments on this story.
Him: Did you know about the storm?
Her: That was a surprise. Storms are always a surprise.
Him: You knew before everyone else did, though.
Her: Yes. And it brought us even closer together, or so I thought. Commiserating on what we would do. How we would keep everyone safe. We were a team. He put me in charge. I was quite pleased.
Him: Why would you not just tell the guests right up front that a storm was coming?
Her: [A pause.] He said high-pressure situations brought people closer together. He said if it was going to be his last session, if we were going to run away together as I had suggested, he wanted it to be a huge success. It was bad enough that Colin and Shell Williams were so broken, were so hopeless. He didn’t want any of the other couples to fail. He wanted to go out with a triumph. That’s what he told me. And also—
Him: Yes?
Her: He told me Grace was very afraid of storms because of something that had happened in her past. He was concerned for her. He said she had been behaving erratically, and that the best thing to do for all of us would be to keep her in the dark for as long as possible.
Him: Do you think there’s another possibility? That he just wanted to be in control? That he wanted to play God? That it was one of his games?
The Last Resort Page 21