“There’s no rules to this illness.” I gritted my teeth to tether the frustration building inside. “We both know what’s coming. It comes for everybody, just not when you want it. There’s nothing in this world that’s going to be good for me. Not now, not later.” I forced a laugh to come out of my throat. Certainly not the truth...watching you and Debra work together when I know what you do for a hobby?
I sat up straighter. “You can relax. I don’t plan to fall into the water. That means I won’t be cold, after all.”
“I just want you to be safe. The headaches...what about those?” The cab pulled up to the hotel entrance.
I wrapped my fingers around the handle. “To hell with the headaches. I’m not going to spend the rest of my life waiting to die.” I tapped my fingers on the metal latch. “Besides, could you promise I’d be safe if you were with me every second? Even if you followed me into the bathroom?” I leaned close to him. “Would that keep this away? No. You can’t stop it.” I opened the door, effectively stalling Rob’s next protest as I got out and he gave the keys to the valet. He slid his arm around me as we entered the building.
Our proximity hardly felt natural anymore. At one time, I had felt we were two stones which had been sanded smooth by wind, and the grooves which had been marked into us fit together so perfectly.
We hadn’t had sex since that day I’d seen the two of them together, and I had gotten pretty good at playing tired when I wasn’t. He didn’t seem interested anymore, anyway, probably because he had Debra waiting. His fingers wrapped around my waist, and I just wanted to be free of him. “Kel, I’m sorry I’m not with you very much. That’s why I thought this trip was important—a chance for us to be together.” We walked through the lobby toward the elevators.
I closed my eyes. Yeah—you, me, and the secretary. I’m getting claustrophobic. “We are together, but you have a job to do, and I want to spend some time painting on the beach.” I opened my eyes and feigned a smile. “I’ve always wanted to see the sun set against the ocean.” I pushed the button for the elevator.
“I could go with you.” His voice softened and he swallowed sharply. I could see his Adam’s apple move.
I shook my head. “You’ve never been excited about sitting in one place while I stroked colors across a canvas. We both know that. We’ve always known it.” The bell chimed and the doors slid open.
Gary dropped his arm. “Why do you keep pushing me away?” He raised his hand and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “I’m doing the best I can.”
Gary and I entered the elevator beside two other couples, and our conversation died. Once again, interlopers had founds us. As the doors closed, I punched 15 and stepped away from the console. In my peripheral vision I saw Gary leaning against the back of the elevator. His fingers braided together, and he braced his shoulders sharply in the rigid posture of a piano player.
My husband and I were the first two to arrive at our floor, and we stepped off the elevator in the same silence we’d left. Gary walked ahead and pulled out the plastic card to unlock the door. Once the two of us were together in the room, I lay on the bed and curled up into a ball. Gary turned off all the bright lights and left on the single lamp to illuminate his side of things. He pulled out a John Grisham novel he’d half finished and opened it as I closed my eyes.
In that darkness, his soft breath was magnified until my heart aligned its pace to Gary’s rhythm of breathing. Angered by my own physical betrayal, I purposely held my breath until my heart thundered in my chest and the blood galloped through my veins. I’m alive! I thought as my fingers curled into the thick comforter. And I’m not yours anymore.
The blackness thickened, sweeping toward the cliff of dreams, and I let that hypnotic blindness capture me in the only freedom I knew.
* * *
Morning sunlight bled around the thick cream curtains as I woke. I rolled over slowly, feigning sleep just in case Gary still happened to be in bed. Through half-opened eyes, I saw the rumpled sheets emptied of my husband, and I slowly stretched my fingers out on his side of the bed, touching the pillow where he had slept. For some reason, the emptiness filled my eyes in the form of tears as I thought again about the man who came to my bed with shutters drawn tightly across his heart.
The tears spilling across my face had little to do with betrayal anymore. I had gotten quite used to that. My own body had betrayed me with cancer. What more damage could anyone do? I moved my hand from his pillow and brushed it across my wild hair before slowly crawling out of bed and climbing into the shower. As I styled my hair with the same mechanical motions I always used in my morning ritual, I only looked in the mirror when I had to, as though if I really didn’t pay attention, I wouldn’t see the obvious.
I walked out of the bathroom and spied Tyler’s sweats where I’d neatly folded them on top of the dresser. Without thinking, I touched them, stroking my palm against the fleeced softness. I closed my eyes and savored the warmth of the fabric against my skin.
I snatched my hand away and thought, This isn’t getting you anywhere. You ought to just return them and forget about sailing. Forget about him.
I reached down and picked up my purse, along with the bag with paints and canvas, and shoved in the clothes. “I won’t stay long,” I muttered. “And I won’t even go sailing. Not again.”
I had already locked the door when I remembered the pills I had to keep with me. My fingers inserted the plastic card and I darted back into the room to get them, shoving the smoke-colored bottle into my purse and resumed my journey toward the beach.
The minute I stepped into the sand, I knew I had lied to myself about sailing, just as I had when I’d first felt the headaches and the lumps I’d reassured myself were normal. And the second one--the self-flagellation over untempered jealousy toward a husband I had once believed incapable of infidelity.
Yes, I had lied to myself. I would sail again. With Tyler.
I stared at the tide rolling toward me, and that’s when I knew the truth: my life had been leading toward this freedom, and I had finally arrived. I don’t know. Maybe in some stupid way I was lucky because the picture had been brought into focus by the cancer. What if I’d been killed in a car accident. How could I have thought that I had ever truly lived?
I pulled out my supplies and carried them down toward the water. For a few moments, I watched the constant motion and listened to the fluidity of the language exchanged between the birds and waves. Then I set out my easel and tried to mimic the soft caress of water ebbing at my feet.
For a while I had to glance at the view spread in front of me, but then something else happened, something unlike anything I’d experienced in ten years of holding a paintbrush and giving life to bland canvas: I closed my eyes and I saw the sea.
Time melted away as I steadily muted blues and greys together. For a moment, I stopped painting and rolled my shoulders, trying to stretch out the aching I hadn’t noticed before. I frowned and scrutinized the colors, checking to see if I had blended them right. My neck cramped slightly. I rolled my head slowly, and from the corner of my eye saw someone sitting perfectly still a few feet away from me.
I glanced in that direction and found Tyler with his legs pretzelled into a yoga position. That was the only part of his body that was meditating, however, unless I had become part of his ritual, I noted, feeling the weight of his stare falling upon me. This time, he wore jeans and a hooded grey sweatshirt instead of the black wetsuit. “How long have you been there?” I asked, taking my free hand and rubbing the back of my neck.
He shrugged. “A few minutes.” He stretched out his legs and picked himself up from the ground. “Long enough to know you’re a pretty good painter.” He walked over to where I stood and brushed his fingers against my cheek. When he pulled his hand away, I could see the gray paint. “But you really should keep it on the canvas.”
I laughed and started to clean my brush. “Most of the time I try to. I’m a much better painter than a sailor. I
assure you.” Tyler watched as I sorted my supplies and put them back together.
“Why are you quitting?” he asked, digging his left shoe into the sand.
“I was going to put these things away and take a walk on the beach. I think I’m kind of painted out for the day, if you know what I mean.”
“Yeah. I do. Here, let me help.” Tyler folded the easel and picked it up while I grabbed the bag of supplies. As we carried them to the rental car, Tyler walked beside me. I unlocked the trunk, and Tyler set the easel inside. When he stepped back, our shoulders bumped together. “Sorry about that,” he said, moving away.
We stowed the rest of the stuff in the trunk before I closed it and shoved the keys into my pocket. “How come you’re not sailing today?” I asked as we headed toward the beach.
He thrust his hands into his pockets. “How could I top yesterday?” He looked over my head, toward the waves stroking the beach.
“Tip the boat over.” I rubbed my hands up and down my arms, feeling the cool air through my sweater.
He laughed, the sound of it echoing over the gentle crying of gulls overhead. “I guess that’s an option. How was your husband when you got back? You said he might be worried about your absence.” Tyler stared at the ground.
“Gary was worried, as usual.” I stepped into bigger tracks which had been washed by the tide enough so that only an impression remained. “He probably would have lost his mind if I’d told him about going sailing.”
Tyler looked sharply at me. His eyebrows hunched over his eyes questioningly. “You weren’t in any danger, not with the life-jacket on.”His blue eyes focused on me, expecting an answer. He stopped walking. “Do you think he’d feel that way because you went with a guy?” He backed away and shook his head. “I mean, I can understand that, but this is what I do for a living, and you wanted to learn.”
I closed my eyes for a moment and tried to think of Gary’s face filled with jealousy, even one moment of it, during our marriage, and I found an empty black space in my mind. I looked at Tyler. “No, Gary’s not the jealous type. He just...” I struggled for an excuse, anything but the truth, “...hates the water. He doesn’t like for me to swim.”
A small flock of gulls alighted in front of us, and I watched the foursome scurry a few feet before one of them glanced our way and flew off, leading the others into a perfectly cobalt sky.
Tyler watched the shimmer of wings explode and vanish. “I always wanted to do that.” He looked down at the moist sand and spotted a quarter-sized pebble half-buried. He bent and dug it out before squatting and trying to skip it across the water. It jumped once and sank amid a wave. “So much for that,” he laughed, standing. He rolled his left shoulder, stretching his muscles and shoved one hand in a pocket. “So why doesn’t Gary like the water?”
I thought of ocean so deep light couldn’t penetrate the darkness, and that’s how I imagined the lumps inside my body appeared. “I guess he thinks I’ll never get back to the surface.” My hands brushed my arms a little more frantically as a slight breeze picked up, chilling me even more.
“You cold?” Tyler asked, staring at my hands. His calm matched the half-hearted smile on his face. The wind lifted strands of his hair, spiking them. “You’ve been doing that for quite a while.”
Feeling self-conscious, I stopped. “Yeah, I guess I am. It seems a little cooler today.”
He nodded. “More of a breeze.” He pulled his hand out of his pocket and pointed to his beach house. “You’re welcome to sit for a while and warm up. And I won’t even get you wet today.” He shoved his hand back into his jean pocket. “I can fix some coffee or hot chocolate.” He waited for me to answer. “It’s up to you, Kelly. If you think it would bother Gary, then let’s not.”
Right then I didn’t think of Gary, just Debra, maybe because it was a package deal. “No, I already told you he wasn’t jealous.” I forced stillness into my hands even though I wanted to keep moving them. “And I am pretty cold.”
Tyler nodded. “Okay. Let’s go.”
Together we walked up the stairs and walked inside the house. I stopped at the kitchen table.
“Can I help?”
“No, you’re my guest. Besides, I’m appliance-literate. Thanks just the same.”
I picked up the conch shell on the table, the same one I’d held before. “A modern man who cooks, cleans, and sails. Some mermaid’s going to get lucky.”
“Yeah,” Tyler snorted as he fed the coffee maker. “As if mermaids need appliances. Then again, it might give them a little charge, I guess.” He shook his head and pointed a warning finger. “If you tell me you see a mermaid when we’re sailing, I won’t be taking you back. I don’t mind clumsiness, but hallucinations are another story.”
We laughed.
Once he’d finished pouring the water, he stopped and stared at me, or more precisely at the shell I held. It filled my hand. “You like that, don’t you?”
I touched the polished interior, liking the way the smooth surface glided under my fingertips. “Yeah. Did you find it here?”
“No, Panama Beach, Florida, actually.”
He folded his arms across his chest. His silver watch glittered as rays of sunlight fell upon it. “You can take it with you, if you want. I have lots more. Part of a collection, I guess.” He arched his eyebrows. “There’s something magical about the ocean.”
My fingers curled around the edges, and I gripped it hard as though it would save me from the black waters of my own body. I wanted someone to give me the ocean to take back. I clenched my teeth and exhaled softly. I could feel a headache coming. Not now, I thought. I don’t want him to know. I don’t want any pity. I gasped and set the shell back onto the table. My fingers clutched its surface so I wouldn’t lose my balance.
“Kelly, are you all right?”
My fingers probed my temple. “Yeah, I just have a headache. I need to go out to the car. Fresh air.” I winced and clenched my jaw, trying to ignore it. The pain was blossoming, diminishing all other sounds. No! I screamed inside, railing against what I knew was coming. He can’t see me like this. He can’t know. He can’t pity me!
“I have some aspirin. Or Tylenol, if you prefer.” Through the haze clouding my vision, I saw him walk to one of the cabinets and open a door. He pulled out a couple of small pill bottles and offered them to me.
“No, I’ll be okay.” I turned and stumbled toward the door. I managed to slide it open, even with the pain and blackness in front of me. At every step I felt that much closer to vomiting from the agony. I clambered down the steps, barely keeping myself from falling. The world was spinning precariously. A pain throbbed dully in my ankle, weak compared to the hurricane in my head. I can’t hide this. I’m going to pass out.
“Kelly?” Tyler’s distant voice yelled. “Kelly, what’s going on? Answer me, please.” His voice sounded frantic. Hands tugged at me and I pulled away. At some point, I made it to the car and managed to get the door unlocked. Then the blackness exploded in my head.
Chapter Four
The blackness throbbed in my brain as I struggled with the sluggishness controlling my body. In the distance, I heard someone calling my name. Gary, I thought. But that didn’t sound right. Tyler. I fought the suffocating stillness, trying to reach the surface, and wondered if this were what drowning felt like.
I opened my eyes, and shafts of pain ripped through me. I winced and licked my parched lips: my throat felt like sandpaper had been dragged across it.
“Kelly?” Tyler asked. The rising pitch of his voice suggested he knew I’d come back to consciousness. “Kelly, can you hear me?”
“Yeah,” I replied. I tilted my head and noticed I was lying on his living room couch. I grabbed onto the cushions and sat up hastily, immediately regretting it as the dizziness assaulted me. My head wobbled, and I dipped backwards slightly.
Tyler grabbed my shoulders and supported me. “Hey, why don’t you just lie back down for a few minutes.”
??
?I’m fine,” I protested.
He gently pushed me back. “Great. You can be fine from a different angle, okay?”
I stared at him, focusing on his ocean-colored eyes, searching for sympathy. Unblinking blueness peered back. “That must have been one helluva headache,” he said evenly as he sat in the recliner across from the couch. He leaned forward and clasped his hands together while staring.
You have no idea, I thought. “Yes, it was.”
Tyler’s eyebrows knitted together, and he frowned. “Ever pass out like that before?”
Now he’ll never offer to take me sailing again. My fingers curled deeper into the fabric of the couch. “Yeah, occasionally. It’s no big deal.” My voice sharpened with each word until my speech sounded rude.
“Have I said something wrong?” Tyler asked softly. “I don’t mean to pry. You just gave me a scare, that’s all.”
“No,” I replied more kindly tone. “It’s not you. My head still hurts.”
The frown faded from Tyler’s face, and he leaned back in the chair as I slowly sat up. Once upright, I waited for the disorientation, but it vanished along with the fog in my head. I looked out the window and spied the setting sun.
“I need a breath of air,” I said, standing. Tyler leaned forward again as I moved away from the couch. Every muscle in his body tightened as though he were a football player about to receive a pass. He expected me to stumble. Instead, I walked out the door and stood on the deck, staring at a fused pink and sherbet sky reflected by the ocean calm.
For at least an hour I watched the light flicker and die, trailing strands of gold as it passed. At some point, Tyler must have come outside, but I didn’t notice, not until the sky started darkening. Only then did I turn and see him standing close to the back door with his hands shoved deep into his jeans pockets.
I quickly searched the lines of his face, expecting to see the latitudes of sympathy. Instead, I saw only the corners of his mouth lift slightly. “What’s so funny?” I asked.