AllFreeNovel
Share Us
* * *
Oliver came to pick her up on the Monday of the last week in March. She was still at school, and I hugged him harder than usual because I missed him and I couldn’t imagine what it must be like to be in his shoes. I took two beers out of the fridge and we walked out to the back porch. I lit up a cigarette and passed him one.
“Quitting smoking is great,” he said with a laugh.
“Fantastic. Liberating.” I blew out my drag. “How are things in Sydney?”
“Better than last month. How about here?”
“More or less the same. Leah’s making slow progress.”
He looked at the tip of his cigarette and sighed. “I can hardly remember what she was like before. You know, when she used to laugh at everything and was so…so intense that I always used to be afraid of when she’d get older and wouldn’t be able to manage her emotions on her own. And now look at her. Fucking ironic.”
I swallowed the words that were burning on my lips. If I hadn’t, I would have told him that for me she was still the same, still every bit as intense, even when she locked herself away and forced herself not to feel anything because if she did, it would be sorrow at what had happened and guilt at the idea of continuing to enjoy life when her parents no longer could, as if she thought that were unjust. Oliver had assimilated the tragedy from a different perspective, emotional, sure, but with that practical orientation he had little choice over. He had cried at the funeral, said his goodbyes to them, and gotten drunk with me the night afterward. Then he had gotten to work, organizing the family’s bills and taking care of Leah, who was stuffed to the gills with tranquilizers.
I had been thinking about death a lot lately.
Not about what happens when it comes, not about the goodbye we all have to say one day, but about how to confront it when it when it takes the people you love most. I asked myself if sorrow and pain were instinctive feelings, or if we had been taught these ways of dealing with the horror.
I finished my cigarette.
“You in the mood?” I jutted my chin out toward the sea.
“Are you serious? I came here straight from the airport.”
“Come on, it’ll be like in the old days.”
Five minutes later, I had lent him a bathing suit and a surfboard, and we were walking over the sand. It was windy that day and the water was cold, but Oliver didn’t hesitate when we walked out into the water. A few rays of sun filtered through the spiderweb of clouds that covered the sky, and we tried to catch a few waves, but they were low and weak. We managed to ride a few, with short quick movements, then we lay on our boards facing the horizon.
“I met someone,” Oliver said.
I looked at him with surprise. Oliver didn’t meet women, he just slept with them. “I didn’t see that coming.”
“Doesn’t matter, because it can’t happen.”
“Why? Is she married? Does she not like you?”
Oliver laughed and tried to push me off my board. “It’s not the right time to start a relationship. I’ll be back here in a few months, and then there’s Leah, my responsibilities, money issues, lots of stuff…” We fell silent, each thinking about his own affairs. “You still seeing Madison?”
“We hang out sometimes when I get bored, but I hardly ever do now that I’m a full-time babysitter.”
“You know I’ll always owe you for this, right?”
“Give me a fucking break.”
We emerged from the water and I saw Leah’s bicycle leaning against the wooden posts of the porch. When Oliver found her in the kitchen, he hugged her hard, even if his swimsuit was wet, and she complained. He pulled away, grabbed her by the shoulders, and looked at her closely.
“You look good.”
Leah grinned. “You don’t. You need a shave.”
“I’ve missed you, pixie.”
He embraced her again, and when our eyes crossed as he pulled her into his chest, I saw gratitude reflected in his eyes. Because he knew…we both knew she was better, a little more awake.
22
_________
