“You don’t have to give everything to your mom, you know,” I tell him. “You can do whatever you want with it. You need to take this swim for you, Brand. Not for her, not for him and not for me. You need this… to be free from them.”
He stops, turns and pulls my face to his, kissing me as thoroughly as I’ve ever been kissed.
He pulls away and doesn’t say a word. He doesn’t have to. Everything he had to say was in that kiss.
We change and head back down to the beach. Todd arrives a few minutes later, holding a paper in his hand.
“It has to be from the beach behind your parents’ house,” he announces without preamble. “That’s part of the stipulation.”
“Fine,” Brand tells him, and without another words, stalks down the beach. He’s barely even limping.
I follow behind, and before long, we’re standing behind Brand’s childhood home. The buoy looms huge and haunting out in the lake, tilting with the waves. I shudder when I think that his sister died out here…. and that his father used to beat him right where I’m standing.
I feel someone staring at me, and as I look over my shoulder, I see Bethany Killien standing at her windows, watching us. Her face is set, and firm, and I don’t see any softness there. I shiver, and turn back around.
Today isn’t about her.
I grab Brand’s hand.
“Let’s do this.”
He nods.
And then he walks straight into the water, as if he’d never ever been scared of it. He dives under the surface with purpose and for a moment, I forget that I’m supposed to be swimming with him. All I can do is watch the strength with which he glides through the water, his strong arms pulling him through, stroke after stroke.
I’m mesmerized for a moment, until I remember that I’m supposed to be with him, so I follow his lead and dive into the surf.
***
Brand
The water is frigid, of course. Because it always is. It doesn’t matter if it’s August or November, Lake Michigan always feels like ice water.
But I don’t flinch or hesitate. I plunge in, and swim toward that motherfucking buoy.
Each time I surface, I take a breath and dive back in.
The water is clear, and cold, and everything I detest. But with each stroke, I realize that it isn’t the water I detest. It isn’t the lake. It isn’t even that fucking buoy.
It’s my father.
With every stroke, I shove his memory further away, decimating his power over me.
He doesn’t control me anymore. I’m not the kid that I used to be.
Nora’s right.
He’ll never control me again.
With strong, even strokes, I approach the buoy, gulp for air, and then explode through the surface, grabbing onto it. I cling to the buoy for a second, before I violently shake it, to and fro.
The bell rings out clearly, into the air, all the way to the beach. I glance toward my parents’ house and see the curtains of the living room fold close. My mother had been standing there, but she walked away.
That’s fine. I’d expect nothing less.
I ring the bell again, then again.
The sound is eerie and haunting and if I concentrate hard enough, I can almost envision my little sister standing on the beach, waving at me.
I smile at the thought, at the memory of Allison. Through all of my father’s beatings, at least he could never take that away. I loved my sister, and she loved me, and it wasn’t my fault that she died.
Ring the bell, Brand.
I ring it one more time, hard and fast.
Consider it rung, asshole.
Nora reaches me now and flings herself at me, and we both cling to the buoy. She’s wet and excited and wraps her arms around my neck, kissing me hard.
“You did it!” she cries out. “You did it.”
I know there was never a question. I was going to do it. I’m no pussy.
But I kiss her back and don’t say a word.
“Let’s go back to shore,” I finally tell her when we break for air. “I hate this fucking buoy.”
She laughs and we swim for shore. I chase her and grab her foot, she laughs and twists in the water. It’s as if I’m free now. Free from the constraining hate, free from the bitterness, free from all of it.
But then we reach the shore and reality awaits.
Todd waits.
My mother waits.
She’s come out of the house now and stands disapprovingly on the shore with the attorney, watching Nora and I frolic in the water.
“I’m glad you’re taking this so seriously,” she says icily, looking down her nose at us.
Nora’s head snaps back and before I can stop her, she stalks over to my mother and stares down at her.
“You have no right,” Nora snaps, each word a pellet of ice. “You have no right to even be here. You have no right to hate Brand. You have no right to him at all. You don’t have the right. You forfeited any rights to him years ago. If he gives you anything at all, it will be a miracle, because you don’t deserve it.”
I grab her elbow and pull her away. “Come on,” I tell her firmly. “She’s not worth it.”
“Does your girlfriend know that you killed your sister?” my mother calls from behind us. The words stab me in the back and I stop, frozen in place, before I turn.
“She knows everything.”
With that, I start to walk away again, but my mother just can’t help herself. She has to keep prodding.
“Everything?”
The meaning of that one word is clear. Crystal fucking clear.
Everything. By everything, she of course means that my entire life is a lie. Everything I am, everything I’ve become… is a lie. In her eyes, anyway. Because she believes me to be a monster.
I’m frozen.
Completely still.
And Bethany Killian is as foreign to me as a stranger. She laughs.
“I didn’t think so.”
She spins on her heel and starts to walk back into the house, and anger wells up in me, red and hot, a fury that I haven’t felt in years. It’s so fierce that it clouds my vision, it’s everything I have bottled up inside of me….all the anger that I’ve been carrying with me for so many years.
It explodes within me like a volcano.
“Mom?” The word is as foreign to me as she is.
She stops, and turns halfway around. She doesn’t answer, but she looks at me.
“Go pack a bag. You have five minutes.”
Now she speaks. “What?”
“You heard me. Go pack a bag.”
She takes a step. “I don’t understand.”
“You don’t have to. Go. Pack. A. Bag. Take anything you want from the house. It will be the last time you’re inside.”
My mother looks at me uncertainly, and for the first time, I see a real emotion on her face. Fear.
She’s afraid to believe that I’m serious.
“You’re not kicking me out of my own house,” she says hesitantly, her eyes searching mine. “You wouldn’t.”
I have to fight a sneer. “I wouldn’t? Why wouldn’t I? What exactly have you brought me in life except for pain? Tell me that. Tell me one good thing you’ve ever done for me, and I’ll let you stay.”
My mother stares at me, looks away at the lake, lifts her chin and stares back at me.
“I brought you into this world.”
I shake my head. “Wrong answer. You brought me into the world, true. But I didn’t ask for that. And once I was born, you didn’t do a thing for me. It was bad before Allison died, but after that, it was unbearable. Not only did you allow my father to beat the shit out of me every time he came home drunk from the bar, but you tried to make a helpless kid believe that he killed his sister. You’re the fucking monster, not me.”
My mother’s eyes turn icy and she glares at me. “You did kill your sister. You heard her, Brand. I know you heard her and you let her walk into the lake. You coul
d’ve stopped her, but you didn’t.”
An eerie calmness descends upon me and for once, I don’t feel rage as I look upon my mother.
“I was six years old. I was upstairs asleep. I realize that when bad things happen, people blame someone when they’re grieving. It’s human nature. But to focus your grief and your rage on a six-year old kid… that was unforgivable.”
My mother’s eyes water and she looks away.
“My daughter died, Brand. You could’ve saved her… if only you’d listened for her. You were supposed to watch out for her. She was your little sister.”
Her voice dwindles off and she wipes at her eyes. Nothing in me softens at her show of sadness.
“I was six years old,” I reply. “You were supposed to watch out for her. Dad forgot to lock the door, not me. All of these years, if you had to have someone to blame, you should’ve blamed him. If you really are too small of a person to realize that sometimes accidents happen. Bad things happen. And sometimes there’s simply no one to blame. You’re a small, small person.”
“My daughter died,” she whimpers.
“Your daughter did die,” I tell her coldly. “But you didn’t have to lose both your children that night. That was a decision that you made. You’re paying for that decision now. Go inside and get your things.”
She looks up in disbelief and I see it in her eyes… she thought her show of tears would sway me. She was only trying to pull my strings… once again. Just like when I was a kid and she tried to make me believe I was a monster, that I’d killed my sister, that my father was only doing what he ‘had to do’ when he was beating me.
My blood chills as I look at her and all I can feel is distaste. For my own mother. Even worse, I see the exact same emotion in her eyes as she stares back at me.
She hates me and it is apparent.
“Go.” I repeat. My voice is like ice.
She spins around and stalks away. I watch her disappear into the house, I watch the old peeling door slam behind her, I watch how the windows of the house seem to mock me, like large eyes that watched my father beat me on the beach, time and time again. This house is a tomb of bad memories. And I don’t think I can look at it any longer. In fact, I don’t even want it to exist.
I want all of it to just go away.
I turn to Nora.
“Could you do me a huge favor? Could you run down to the cottage and get the gas can from the garage and a box of matches?”
Nora stares at me, paralyzed.
“Please?” I prod.
She nods, confusion in her eyes, but she doesn’t question me. She just takes off running down the beach barefoot. I watch her for a minute, then turn to the attorney.
“The house is mine now, correct?”
Todd nods. “Yes. Everything in it. And the woodshop and the garage in town. And the assets from the business. Everything.”
“Good.”
Todd eyes me uncomfortably. “What are you planning?”
I level a gaze at him. “A bonfire.”
He stares back in apprehension. “That’s arson.”
“Not if I don’t make an insurance claim,” I tell him. “I simply want to get rid of the house so that I can clear this land and start fresh. I might even build another house here in the future. So that’s not arson. That’s demolition.”
“You need a permit for demolition, son.”
I narrow my eyes. “I’m not your son. And if Angel Bay PD wants to fine me, so be it.”
Todd continues to stare at me uncertainly. “Okay. Well, this is yours now, too.”
He hands me the key to the wooden box my father left for me and I shove it in the pocket of my swim trunks. I’ll deal with that later.
Nora returns just as my mother walks down the steps with a suitcase in her hand. She jogs up to me with the gas can and matches, and my mother’s eyes widen, the first real reaction I’ve seen from her.
I walk up to her.
“Mom, I loved you for the longest time, long after you stopped deserving it. I don’t hate you now. I don’t. But I’m done with everything toxic in my life, and that includes you. I’m going to sign over dad’s business to you. I’m going to give you the money he had in the bank, his truck, his workshop. But I’m not giving you this house. I’m getting rid of every bad memory I have of this place today.”
She sputters and then stops as she sees the expression on my face.
“You’re serious.”
“Dead serious.”
Without another word, I shake gasoline out of the can all over the porch and fling it up on the walls.
I look at my mother.
“You might want to get back.”
She takes a step back, then another.
I pause. “I know that I’ll probably never see you again after you leave here today. And I’m okay with that. I can’t deal with the all the toxins of my childhood anymore. If you ever want to have a real relationship with me, the normal kind of mother-son relationship, then look me up. Until then, take care of yourself.”
I turn away and my mother hurries to her car without a word. She drives away without looking back and I have no doubt that I’ll never see her again.
It does hurt, but I swallow it, because I know I have to let it go. If I’m ever going to get past everything that happened here, I have to let it all go.
I toss a match onto the house.
It ignites immediately and the heat presses against us, trying to push us away from it, almost like it’s trying to protect itself from destruction.
It doesn’t work, because I toss another match, then another.
It burns quickly.
I watch the flames lick at the sky, the smoke spiraling into the heavens. Every bad memory I have spirals away with it. One after the other, after the other.
It’s surprisingly cleansing and with every board that burns, I feel weights being lifted from my shoulders.
I’m not guilty of anything. And I’ll never have to look at anything or anyone again who tries to pretend otherwise.
Nora comes up from behind and wraps her arms around my waist as we watch it burn. Her cool arms bring comfort, the kind of comfort that only comes from someone who accepts me for who I am.
“You ok?”
I nod. “Yeah. You?”
“Yeah.”
We watch the flames for a while, the oranges and blues and reds, before we walk away, down the beach to the only house that ever truly felt like home to me.
Chapter Twenty-One