She shook her head at the memory. “God, I thought it was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen, that hand-me-down. I took it in my hands and lovingly examined every seam, every pleat, every inch. The front had two feminine little pockets sort of like what you’d see on an apron.
“It was my most cherished possession. I’d put it on when I was all by myself and pretend I was the president,” she related, making me smile to myself a bit. Of course Finley wouldn’t have been the kind of girl to pretend anything else. “I’d made a makeshift oval office,” she continued, “out of the ironing board and an old sheet. Anyway, I put this little dress on knowing that the day was going to focus on me, and I just couldn’t wait.
“She placed the button on my dress and I just beamed. Most kids’ moms made cupcakes for the class but I guess my teacher knew that wasn’t going to happen for me so she brought some herself.” A little tear escaped and ran down her cheek. “They were strawberry,” she choked, “with cream cheese frosting.” She looked at me earnestly and smiled through soft tears. “She even put a tiny candied number five on the tops of each one.
“It was the happiest day of my life. After school, I came bounding up the rickety stairs of my mom’s aluminum trailer, eager to tell my mom all about it, but she was gone as she so often was.
“Instead, I hung up my little dress, did my homework, cleaned the trailer because it was expected of me and made a dinner of peanut butter and crackers I’d stolen from the school when I thought no one was looking. The water had been turned off so I went out back and used my neighbor’s hose. I washed myself as best I could and went back to the trailer only to discover that my mother had returned home and she was not sober nor alone.”
My breath caught in my throat.
“I contemplated,” she spoke softly, “just leaving and staying the night at that same neighbor’s house but being little as I was, I wanted to tell her about my day.”
“Finley,” I said, turning toward her and grabbing her forearm.
“It’s okay, Ethan. I promise,” she reassured me, but I still didn’t let go of my friend’s arm. “She sat at the plastic veneer table we had with all but one broken chair and as soon as she saw me, I knew I’d made a terrible mistake.”
I squeezed her arm gently.
“She stood up quickly, tipping her chair back onto the torn linoleum and almost fell over she was so intoxicated.” My skin heated uncomfortably at the thought of the times Finley had seen me shit-faced and I cringed knowing what her memories probably did to her. “She lunged for me but landed on her face, which just incensed her further. She stood and grabbed me and asked me where I’d been. I told her about my pseudo-bath and she slapped me across the face, yelling something about how she thought I was trying to embarrass her in front of her new friend. I frantically tried to soothe her but, of course, it did no good.
“She dragged me to my room and threw me to the floor before walking over to my closet and yanking my little dress off the hanger. She held it in front of me, ripped the pockets and tore it to shreds all the while laughing while I pleaded for her to stop, but she didn’t. When she was done, she tossed the dress to the side of the room and staggered a bit on her feet.
“I cowered there on the floor, afraid she would wail into me like she normally did, which made her laugh uncontrollably. She yelled at me to get up so I obeyed. She grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me, tears streaming down my face and said that I meant nothing at all to her and I better be careful or she’d sell me and I’d have to go live with the bad men.
“I was five. Barely five, really, and wanted so badly to stay with her despite how awful she was to me because, well, because she was my mother. I had no idea the other children in my class didn’t live exactly as I did. Besides, even people who hate their mothers love their mothers.”
She shook her head once more. “The first time I’d ever spent the night at someone’s house was when I was in second grade. I spent the night at Holly Raye’s.” Holly Raye. That was the girl at the bar. Our classmate. “She was the nicest girl I’d ever met and her mother was no different. I remember sitting at her dinner table practically shaking in my boots when I spilled milk all over their table. When her mother stood to clean it up, I cowered in my chair.
“The woman looked at me with such pity. She cupped my cheeks and kissed the top of my head and said, ‘No use crying over spilled milk, my darling.’ That’s when I figured it out. That not all mothers were like mine.
“When dinner was over, Holly Raye’s mama fed us two huge pieces of chocolate cake and I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. She let us stay up late and watch movies and talk. And soon enough, within a few hours I’d forgotten about my mother and my situation. I’d considered Holly Raye my sister that night. I still do, in fact. Needless to say, I practically lived there after that.
“That’s what I did.”
“Did what?” I asked softly.
“Stayed at people’s houses as often as they’d allow just so I could feel like I was part of a family. So I could learn, teach myself how to be normal, really.”
“Jesus, Finley,” I breathed, turning her toward me.
I brought her to my chest and hugged her, wrapping one hand around her neck and the other around her lower back. I held her tightly against me, but she didn’t cry or sink into me with any sort of vulnerability as I thought she would. Instead, she hugged me back fiercely and I realized she wanted to support me just as much as I wanted to support her and I loved her for it. As much as I hated to admit it, I pitied her for it.
Finley Dyer was as selfless and brave an individual as I could imagine, and even though I could tell she’d only tapped the surface of her past, of her tortured soul, she wasn’t going to let that past define her. I don’t think I’d ever respected someone as much I had grown to respect Finley.
We broke the hug and faced the water once more.
“Thank you,” I said as loudly as my rough voice would allow.
“For what?” she asked.
“For saving me from making a horrible decision. From being the horrible person I’ve become.”
She nodded her head once. “I’ve been around horrible decisions before, Ethan. If you were as you say you are then it wouldn’t have been so easy to defuse you. When you mix alcohol, though, with a perfectly kind individual, that kindness can dissolve quickly. It’s toxic in so many ways.”
I nodded, letting the shame of her words sink into me. The reality of what I was going to do that night hit me like the atom bomb and my hands began to tremble in fear of what I’d almost done.
“You’ll be okay, Ethan Moonsong,” she said simply and turned her eyes toward the water once more.
After a few minutes of silence, she started a playlist on her phone and set it on a rock near the shore then removed her sandals and waded into the water. When the water reached the bottoms of her knees, she turned to me and signaled for me to follow her. I removed my own boots and socks but took my shirt off and met her side, soaking my jeans but I didn’t care.
“It’s tepid,” she said, running her fingers over the surface.
I nodded.
She stepped farther into the lake then began to float.
“Come on,” she said to the sky, so I obeyed. When I drifted close enough, she hooked her arm with mine. “We’re otterific.”
“What?” I asked, not able to stifle a laugh.
I could see from the corner of my eye her mouth turning up. “In the water, sea otters latch paws when they sleep so they don’t lose track of one another.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah.”
I smiled. “When?” I asked after a few minutes of silence, not needing to embellish further.
“Two weeks, three days.”
“For how long again?”
“One year.”
I thought about that. “That’s an incredibly long time. What type of work will you be doing?”
“The toe-curling kind
.”
A lump formed in my throat. “I’ll respect the vague. Just tell me one thing, though?”
“Depends on what it is,” she countered.
“Finley, is it dangerous?” I asked.
She was quiet, too quiet, making me nervous, but when enough time passed, I knew she wouldn’t be responding, so I had my answer anyway.
“Finley.”
“Please, let’s change the subject, Ethan.”
I sighed. “Why Vietnam?”
“Because I can. Next.”
“Where in Vietnam?”
“Hạ Long City.”
“I have no idea where that is.”
“It’s far north Vietnam and on the east coast, about two and half hours from Hanoi and about three hours south of China. It’s—” She paused then took a deep breath, “It’s a heavy tourist area.”
My gut tightened at her hesitation. I didn’t understand it but it made me nervous as hell. “I’m actually scared for you, I think.”
“I’m not afraid of death, Ethan.”
“Is death a possibility?”
“It is. I’m prepared for it. Plus, I’m carrying hope with me, so I’m cool.”
I turned toward her, my left ear sinking into the lake. “Finley, you’re not even the slightest bit afraid?”
She looked at me, the lake water rippling from her movement. “Ethan, you can choose to hope or you can choose to fear. Fear is a crippling disease. It takes over and paralyzes. Hope bolsters, motivates. People who fear, die. People who hope, live. Even in death they live.”
I let her words sink into me while we paddled closer to shore to prevent ourselves from drifting too far. We did this when the music started to feel too distant. We floated in silence, listening to her dynamite playlist and memorizing the stars and moon.
“Finley?” I asked a half hour later.
“Hmm?”
“You said at the bar that we were never friends in high school.”
“Right.”
I turned toward her again, our bodies rippling with the movement. “Do you really believe that?”
She sighed toward the stars. “Yeah, I do.”
“That’s bullshit,” I said matter-of-factly.
She didn’t respond, but I could practically feel her eyes roll.
“It’s bullshit,” I explained, “because there’s still merit in small conversations. Yeah, we might not have waxed philosophic, but we most definitely talked real life. I think you forgot that. To be honest, those seemingly nothing talks to you meant so much to me.” She furrowed her brow. “I needed to talk to someone so badly at that time about regular things, regular life. I was overwhelmed with responsibility then and felt like I was drowning. I found solace in our synoptic talks, Finley. I found worth in the culmination of those hundreds of hours we spent in one another’s company. I didn’t do that with anyone else.” I paused. “You were a soft place to fall,” I whispered.
Fragile tears pooled in her eyes and spilled into the lake beneath us. ”Don’t mistake me,” she explained. “They meant something to me as well. I just had no idea they signified anything to you. I assumed you were just passing the time with me, Ethan. It’s why I never considered us friends. I figured them as one-sided politeness on your end.”
“I was careful around you,” I admitted, her crush then an unspoken point, “but I was still vulnerable to you.” I was thoughtful for a moment. “I don’t want you to think that your friendship was only an escape for me either, though. I need you to know that I counted you as significant.” I looked at her and she looked at me. “You’re still significant, Finley.”
I tightened my arm and pulled her closer so that our legs and shoulders touched.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
CHAPTER SEVEN
I dropped Finley off at her apartment in Kalispell and headed home around three in the morning. My jeans were soaked but I didn’t care because Finley had saved my life. My house was dark, save for the small porch light. That light, in fact, was the only one for fifteen miles all around us, further solidifying just how isolated Montana, I, really was.
The house lights were off as well so I was surprised to hear my dad speak from the sofa when I opened the front door. The television sitting on the old metal TV tray against the half wall that separated the tiny kitchen and the living area was playing a rerun of Leave it to Beaver, a reminder of how innocent life could be if you so chose it.
“Hey, kid.”
“Hey, Dad, what are you doing up so late?” I asked, startled to see him.
“Waitin’ for you.”
“Seriously? Shit, Dad, I’m sorry. Don’t you have to be up in two hours?”
“First, watch your mouth.”
“Sorry.”
“And yeah, I have to up in two hours, but I’ve been trying to talk to you for days now. You come home when I’m asleep and wake up after I leave, Ethan.”
I fell onto our twenty-year-old gold plaid sofa and squirmed a little because my knees were practically in my chest.
“I never sit on this thing. Too tall,” I offered, grasping for any semblance of normality between us.
Normal was something my dad and I never did. Not since my mom died. She was our normal.
“Maybe I should get a new one.”
“What for? I doubt I’ll be living here for much longer,” I told him.
He didn’t reply but his chest stilled. I’d surprised him.
He looked at me. “Where’re you going then?” he asked before taking a swig from his Mason jar iced tea.
“Not sure,” I told him truthfully. “I just figured you’d want me out of here soon, seeing as how I’m getting older.”
He took another sip from his tea and set the glass on the ground near his foot. When he did this, he leaned forward a little bit and groaned when he sat back. A little piece of me died when I saw him do this. He was getting older as well and I hated that. Dads were supposed to live forever. So were moms, for that matter. Realizing in that moment that he was indeed mortal, that he was utterly human, made my chest ache in unimaginable ways.
“You always have a home here, son,” he finally said, making that ache in my chest throb just a little more stiffly, painfully.
“Thanks, Dad.”
He nodded.“Sober, I see.”
I laughed bitterly. “So?”
“I’m relieved.”
“Yeah, well, you can thank Finley Dyer for that.”
He sat up, not so perceptibly that anyone who didn’t know him would take notice, but I was keen to my father’s everything. He was so subtle in his movements, his words, that if you weren’t paying close attention to him, you could miss an entire feeling. I knew from that barely there action that he was interested in this new revelation. For whatever reason.
“Finley Dyer?” he asked. “She that russet-headed girl?”
“Yeah, that’s her.”
He nodded his head, but I also caught the faintest hint of a grin.
“She’s my friend,” I offered in explanation.
He could only nod his head again.
I stood because there wasn’t anything I could offer him that could explain what Fin’s friendship meant to me. He knew what I was struggling with getting over Cricket. He should have known that Finley could be nothing more to me than an earthly salvation. I didn’t know why Finley found me when she did but I wasn’t going to question it. So I stood because I was done talking.
“‘Night, Dad.”
“‘Night, son.”
The next morning, I woke surprisingly early for some reason and decided to cut and clear up the dead tree that had fallen over earlier in the summer in our front field. After watching my father the night before, I couldn’t live with myself if I let him do it on his own. If I was being honest with myself, it was probably also a little out of guilt for all the late nights and late mornings.
I secured my hair as well as bound a worn bandana across my forehead to catch the sweat. I
threw on a pair of jeans and boots but didn’t bother with a shirt and headed out to the old storage shed at the back of the house to grab the chainsaw and the canister of gasoline.
The tree fell about a quarter mile off and to the left of the house. The grass reached my knees and I felt it slap against my legs as I trudged through the field, the chainsaw balanced across my left shoulder.
When I reached the tree, I discovered that it had only partly fallen over making it sort of dangerous for one person to cut down by himself. I walked around it, deciding to start at the top of the tree and work my way down.
I’d just pulled the chain when I saw Finley’s little Bug kicking up dirt and gravel as she turned into my drive. She was about half a mile away from me and I was afraid she’d go all the way down the mile-long drive to our house before discovering I wasn’t there. I killed the chainsaw and set it against the trunk of the tree and for some reason I couldn’t explain, I started running toward her, raising my arms above my head in that usual way people did when they wanted to get someone’s attention.
To my surprise, she saw me and cut through the grass before I’d gotten far from my day’s work. She came barrelling a little too quickly toward me and slid to a stop a few feet from the tree. Her windows were down and a song I barely recognized, but knew was from the nineties because it was Finley, came tumbling out. It had a heavy beat and it spilled happily all over the field surrounding me.
She tossed her door open and turned up the volume full blast and jumped out, singing at the top of her lungs. She stood on the hood of her car, her arms raised at her sides, and continued to belt out the tune the only way Finley knew how to do anything, with as much life as her heart could give.
I burst out laughing almost immediately but that didn’t stop her. In fact, it only seemed to bolster her. She slid gracefully off the hood onto the field below and came skipping toward me still singing. She grabbed my hands and made me dance with her. I humored her but it was proving difficult because I was laughing so hard I could barely stand. When the song came to an end, she pulled away, her eyes gleaming and her chest pumping from the effort. She playfully fell to the grass, out of breath.