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Dad was always listening to music and I adored every note, every chorus, every chord; when I walked back from school with Blair and saw our roof in the distance, I always imagined our house like four magic walls with melodies and colors, emotions and life inside. My favorite song when I was little was “Yellow Submarine.” I could sing it with my parents for hours, covered in paint in my father’s studio or hugging Mom on the couch, which was so old it swallowed you up when you sat on it. It stuck with me as I grew up. The childish rhythm, the disordered notes, the unpredictable lyrics that talked about the town where I was born, a man who traveled through the sea and talked about what life was like in the land of the submarines.
A week after my sixteenth birthday, Axel came to our house, talked with Dad in the living room for a while, and knocked on the door to my room. I was mad at him because I was childish and he hadn’t come to my birthday, choosing to go to a concert with friends in Melbourne and spend the weekend there. At that age, things like that got to me. So I scowled at him when he came in and set my paintbrush down on the open watercolors case on the table.
“Why the long face?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Axel grinned, that grin that made my knees quiver. And I hated him for provoking that feeling and not even knowing it, for still treating me like a girl when I felt like an adult around him, for breaking my heart several times…
“What’s that?” I pointed at the bag in his hand.
“This?” He gave me an amused look. “It’s the present you’re not going to get unless that wrinkle you have here disappears…” He bent over and I held my breath while he smoothed out my forehead with his thumb. Then he handed it over. “Happy birthday, Leah.”
I was so excited that I forgot my anger in a split second. I tore the wrapping paper and opened the little box impatiently. It was a thin supple nib from a well-known company, and it had cost a fortune. He knew I had started using them to perfect my other techniques.
“You bought this for me?” My voice shook.
“So you can keep creating magic.”
“Axel…” I had a knot in my throat.
“I hope one day you’ll dedicate a painting to me. You know, when you’re famous and you’re all over the art galleries and you can barely remember the idiot who didn’t come to your birthday.”
My eyes were foggy and I couldn’t really see his expression, but with my heart pounding in my chest, I heard that childish melody, the notes swirling in my mind, the sound of the sea accompanying the first notes…
He couldn’t imagine the words getting caught in my throat, yearning to come out. The words that burned. That slipped back inside. I love you, Axel.
When I opened my mouth, all I said was: “We all live in a yellow submarine.”
Axel knitted his brows. “Are you talking about the song?”
I shook my head, confusing him. “Thanks for this. Thanks for everything.”
25
_________
Axel
Starting april 9, the beginning of the first vacation period, we started spending entire days together. Leah refused to get in the water in the morning, but when she did get up early, she would walk along the beach and sit in the sand with a cup of coffee in her hands. I would see her from afar while I waited impatiently for the next wave in the silence that accompanied the dawn.
We would have lunch together without talking much.
Then we’d work. I managed to make a space for her on my desk, and while I dealt with my commissions, she would do her homework and study in silence, an elbow leaned on the edge of the surface and her chin in her hand. Sometimes I was distracted by her even breathing or the movement of her legs beneath the table, but in general it surprised me how easy it was to have her beside me.
“Can I put on some music?” she asked one day.
“Sure. Choose the record.”
She put on one of my favorites, Nirvana.
After the first week of vacation, we had a routine marked out. At dusk, I would work a little longer while she would go to her room alone, lie down on the bed or draw with a little nub of charcoal. She’d come out to help me with dinner, and when she was done, we’d hang out on the porch.
One night, the cat came around.
“Look who’s here.” I got out of the hammock and stroked her spine. She responded with a purr. “That’s how I like her, sweet and grateful,” I said with a hint of sarcasm.
“I’ll go find her some food.”
