Ryan
Hallowell, Maine
Present Day
“Hello?” I grumble into my phone.
“Ryan? You sleepin’?” It’s Dubbs.
I glance at the clock. It’s ten thirty p.m.
“What do you want, Dubbs?”
“Well, got myself into some trouble.”
I can tell just by the tone of his voice that he’s been drinking. Gambling and drinking and fishing became his lifelong companions a long time ago.
One thing my father has never done is ask me for help—whether it be financial or otherwise.
“What kind of trouble?” I run my hand over my face to quicken the waking-up process.
“Well, I sorta borrowed some money from a guy in Augusta, and he wants it back. Problem is, I need some more time to get all of it back.”
“You borrowed money from a money shark?”
“Well, when you put it like that—”
“Fuck.” I struggle to sit up, my ribs giving me every reason to stay in the lying-down position. “How much?”
“Five.”
“Hundred?”
“Thousand.”
Fucking A.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“If you give me the money, I’ll get it back to you next week. I promise. Look, it’s been a rough fishing season.”
I don’t ask why he owes the money. I know. It’s the gambling. He gets drunk and makes bets that end up as bad debts that he thinks he can pay back or maybe talk his way out of. I’ve seen this happen over and over again; he’s just never asked me to help.
Do I have the money? Yes.
Will I see it again? I’m not sure.
Has my father ever asked for my help? No.
“Come by in the morning.”
“Thank you, s—”
I hang up and throw my phone next to me on the bed. I don’t want to hear it. Whatever excuse he has. Whatever shit he has going on.
What’ll I tell Merit when Dubbs shows up?
I can’t drive and meet him somewhere while I’m on pain medication. I’m sure as hell not going to ask her to drive me somewhere and lie to her about it. Not ever again. I’ll never put her safety in jeopardy. It’s my business with Dubbs, and the answer I give her is the answer she’ll have to accept. But it’s Merit. She’ll push because she can’t stand Dubbs. Doesn’t trust him.
So, I lie here, in the dark, and listen for her. She shut the door to her bedroom, like she’s done before. On life. On Granite Harbor. On me. I’ll wait patiently though and slowly work back toward us. Because one thing I won’t accept is another seventeen years without her.
To fall asleep, I imagine Merit in the meadow next to the Youngs’ house. She’s wearing the blue dress she put on the day of Rebecca’s funeral. She’s smiling, and we’re young. She’s reaching for my fingertips as the daisies dance around her. She controls the clouds and the sun and the grass below our feet. When she moves, they move. And, if they had faces, they’d smile, too. They’d give in to her lean jaw, her defined cheekbones, her purposeful walk, and the love she gives the world.
Holding tight to this image, my eyes feel heavy once again. And I don’t think about tomorrow. All I think about is her smile and the way she pushes her blonde hair behind her ear. The grass. The clouds. And the daisies.
“One more thing, Dubbs is stopping by. We have business to take care of.” One thing I’ll never do again is not tell her something because I love her too much, too much to give her the truth or how I feel.
But I see her lip curl up, as if it’s an involuntary movement.
But Merit surprises me when she asks, “Worst-case scenario?”
It’s a game we haven’t played since we were kids. A game we played as kids and teenagers to put off the fears of what the future might really hold or not.
Carefully, I cross my arms, coffee in hand, staring at Merit in my home, smiling. Something I’ve dreamed about for years. Years when I used other women to try to satisfy a need that only Merit could fill. This I know now. Calling on last loves and situations to break up the heartache I still feel toward Merit.
“That Dubbs owes one hundred thousand dollars in back taxes, and he wants you to hide him from the IRS.”
Merit nods, picking up her coffee, taking a slow sip. She smiles. “Dubbs apologizes and wants a father-son relationship now.”
I tilt my head. “You’ve stepped up your game.”
“I taught the game to Abbey, my colleague on the West Coast. She’s pretty damn good.”
“That Dubbs owes one hundred thousand dollars in back taxes to the government, and he wants me to shoot him so he can fake his own death.”
She grins.
And, with this single act, I tell her what’s going on, “Dubbs needs to borrow five grand. He’s stopping by to pick it up this morning.”
Her jaw drops. “Five thousand dollars?”
I nod, taking a sip of my coffee and setting it down on the counter. “Merit, I’ll never not tell you the truth ever again.”
This comment makes her grow nervous, and I know this because she pulls at the tips of her hair in search of split ends.
Gently and carefully, I reach for her hand. She’s hesitant at first, but she lets me touch her skin, and I feel it in every dark place in my body. “He owes a guy in Augusta,” I continue.
Our hands stay where they are. The warmth of her slender fingers between mine makes me want to stay put.
“This is a worst-case scenario. You know that, right, Ryan?” she whispers, staring down at our hands.
I nod.
I didn’t ask Dubbs who because I don’t want to know.
There’s a knock at the door.
“Stay here.”
“I didn’t want to come back here, Ryan,” she says before I turn to answer the door.
“I know.”
“No, I didn’t want to come back here because I’m terrified of you.”
I don’t rush out the words that come to my mind. I want them to be heard. I know how she feels. I know how she feels because I saw her heart break into a million pieces seventeen years ago.
Instead of saying something reassuring, which I planned initially, all I say is, “I know, Violet. You have to let go of my hand because I can’t let go of yours.” I stare at her. “Not this time.”
Merit’s eyes leave our intertwined fingers, and she meets my gaze. She starts to say something, but the knock at the door interrupts her. She releases my hand and walks to her bedroom, so I can deal with Dubbs.
I grab the cash I keep in my gun safe and put it in a bag as I walk to the front door. I see a man standing there, who looks much less scary than he did when I was just a boy. A man who looks tired. Weak. The alcohol and the cigarettes have taken their toll. His thinning gray hair is combed back. His gaunt and yellowing face tells me there’s some sort of liver damage, but I don’t ask. I haven’t seen Dubbs in more than six months. Living in Hallowell, I don’t have the need or the want to stop and visit him in Granite Harbor. We’ve never had a stop-and-visit sort of relationship.
“Hey.” His hands shoved in his pockets, he waits, unsure of what to do.
“Money’s all there.” I toss him the bag full of bills. “You can count it if you’d like.”
Dubbs looks down at the bag. “Nah, I don’t have to.” His lonely, dark eyes first search the bag and then the ground for conversation starters. “How’s the shoulder?”
“Getting by.”
“Ribs?”
“I’ll live.”
Dubbs stopped by the hospital when he heard about the accident.
Dubbs never laid a hand on me after that day I stood up to him at sixteen. Never touched me again. He also never gave me a second look. Thought I should be a man. But the thing is, he didn’t teach me about the basic fundamentals of life. Love. Family. Responsibility. I learned all that from the Young family. And, even then, I’ve failed. Just look at the woman who came back to care for me, take care of me, after all these years.
“Just take the money and go, Dubbs. I don’t need your small talk.” Though, as a small boy, I would have died for a hug from my dad. But I don’t need it now.
He slowly nods, still staring down at the slats of wood in the porch, mulling over my words and his regret. There’s a long pause. “Thanks. Thanks for this.” He meets my eyes but only momentarily.
I give a slight nod and shut the door, leaving Dubbs standing there.
“You all right?”
“Jesus Christ!” I jump and wince and moan with pain, all at the same time, and grab my rib cage.
Merit is standing in the entryway behind me.
“How long have you been there?”
“Long enough.”
I hold my ribs as I wait for the pain to subside. Take a few short breaths. After a few seconds, I say, “Want to head to headquarters?”
She nods reluctantly and grabs my arm before I walk past her. We’re only inches apart, close enough for me to touch her face and put my lips to hers.
“Why do you continue to help him?” She isn’t asking out of spite or protectiveness; she’s asking to understand because she’s watched me do this time after time after time. Not so much the money part, but the part where I keep the metaphorical door open for Dubbs.
“Because no one else will.”
Her grip on my arm loosens, as if allowing me space, but I don’t want any.
“What about you, Ryan? Who is going to help you?”
I want to tell her she’s already doing it. She’s here. But I don’t say it out loud because my heart stands in the way, too afraid. But, at the same time, I need to prove she’s all I want. She’s all I’ve ever wanted.
So, instead, with my good arm, I reach up and slowly take the space between her cheek and neck. I take my thumb and rub it against her jaw, staring at her, willing her to see my regret.
Her breath hitches when I do this. Her eyes become slits, and my chest becomes heavy with ache. I want to kiss her mouth the way I used to. I can’t rush this. This can’t be on my terms. It has to be hers.
I think, too, she knows the answer to her question, but I can’t keep allowing her to pick up the pieces. Merit always seemed to be the one to fix my hurts, both emotionally and physically, when we were kids. At a young age, the mother to two boys and her father. I think she felt, maybe still feels, that it’s her responsibility to take on that role. Or it’s harder for her to separate between mother and woman.
The sexiest woman I’ve ever seen, both inside and out. I remember the small of her back after the first time we made love when I was seventeen. It wasn’t awkward. It wasn’t clumsy. It was as if our bodies had been made to do this just to each other. Forever.
“What?” she says. Her hand slides from my arm.
I want to tell her what I’m thinking about. About the way her body looked, open for only me. The way each of her breasts fit perfectly in my mouth and only my mouth. The way she felt the first time I pushed into her. The only person who’d done that.
I lean in close to her ear, pulling her to me, wanting her to know that nobody stands a chance against her, and that it’s always been her. I whisper, “Nothing.” Because I can’t tell her all this yet. It will only put her in a place she isn’t ready for.