COHEN

I sit up in bed, startled by a sudden pounding against my bedroom window. I fling off the covers and walk the few feet from the bed to the window, drawing open the curtains and peering outside. It’s storming out, and the tree that lives on this side of the house whips in the wind.

My father planted that tree before he passed, leaving his business to me, and that tree has been through exactly one hundred and forty-two storms. Major storms, at least. That tree is one tough son of a bitch. My father was a self-taught meteorologist; it was a kind of quirky hobby of his, and one that he shared with me at each possible opportunity while I was growing up. The numbers of those opportunities just so happened to reach one hundred and forty-two until finally, one day, there were no more available to us.

We haven’t had a big storm like this since he passed.

One hundred and forty-three, I think to myself.

I lift my arms above my head to pull the drapes together, but I pause before I can complete it. There’s something outside, in the storm and behind my father’s tree, but I can’t quite see what it is from this angle. I lean forward to get a better look, closing the distance between myself and the window’s glass, which fogs in response to my breath.

I think I see someone standing behind the tree, near the road. There’s a figure there, standing motionless, shrouded in rain. From this view, it looks to be female; I think I catch a glimpse of long hair blowing in the wind.

What is someone doing outside my house, in the middle of the night? And in a storm?

I no longer bother with closing the curtains. Instead, I grab my robe from where I last laid it, slopped over the back of my computer chair, and head downstairs.

I take the long, spiral staircase multiple steps at a time, turning on a few lights as I pass. There was once a time when pulling a stunt like this in the middle of the night wouldn’t have been possible without me waking the help. My footsteps thud and echo in the tall ceiling. My butler, who lived with us for several years, had ears like a hawk’s eyes. He’d have been asleep at this hour, and I’m sure he would have joined me once he heard what was going on. He’d probably have come out, told me to go back to bed, that he’d take care of it himself. You couldn’t put anything past my security guard, either. It seemed like that man never slept.

It’s times like these that I question my decision to let them go – and not because I’m afraid.

Outside, the storm rages. Rain hits the pavement and creates a steady, deafening roar. It’s so thick that I have to use my hand to shield my eyes in order to see, as if I’m being blinded by the sun.

The stranger is still standing there. “Hello?” I call into the storm as I walk toward them.

I was right. It is a woman. She’s standing still, facing me as I approach.

She’s dripping wet, and her arms hang by her sides as the water runs down them. She had been looking down at the ground this entire time, but when I reach her she lifts her eyes and meets mine.

“Are you okay?” I ask. I’ve been out here for all of sixty seconds, and already I’m drenched, same as her.

She doesn’t respond to me.

I look for any sign of a car or someone else nearby. The street is empty, and so is the horizon. There isn’t even the glimmer of a headlight in the distance. We’re all alone.

Maybe she’s been drinking and she’s lost. I peer into her face. No, she doesn’t look drunk. But she’s obviously disoriented, and maybe even sick.

“Where did you come from?”

Still, nothing.

“Do you know where you are?” I give her a second to respond, but predictably, she doesn’t. “You’re in front of my house. I don’t think we know each other.”

I’m not sure the words register. Slowly, she raises her arm. Then, with a single finger, she points across the street. I follow her gesture, my gaze eventually settling on a flat horizon that’s somehow appeared in the distance. It’s the horizon of the ocean.

I freeze at the sight until I gather enough courage to look back at her, although I’m no longer sure of what I might see.

This time, she’s looking at me. “Wave,” she says, her voice monotone.

Suddenly, she’s different. Changed. She’s no longer unfamiliar; I now recognize that face. Her hair, which was at first auburn while blowing in the wind of the storm, is now blonde.

My jaw clenches. I want to speak, but I can’t. I’m interrupted by a flash of memory that appears in my mind.

It’s her.

It’s her same face, and it’s that same blonde hair, and those same deep, bright brown eyes. They stare at me, opened wide, before she cries out, “Help!”

I’m in the water. The metal of the maroon-colored SUV’s door feels smooth and icy as I desperately pull at the handle.

It doesn’t open.

I pound at the glass. I gouge at it with my elbow.

The water inside the car is rising. The water outside the car is rising, too, as the vehicle sinks further and further down.

I don’t stop trying. I can’t. When the water has risen so much that I’m forced to dive under, I do. And when I see her there, still struggling, I struggle with her.

She’s pounding at the window with all her strength. I want to tell her to kick with her feet, but in her panic, she doesn’t understand my gestures.

I stay with her, trying to free her, until my lungs start to burn. Until I have no choice but to come up for air. I touch the window in one last act of frustration and attempted communication.

She touches the window back, matching my fingers. Our eyes connect, hers full of fear, mine full of anger at my failure. Then I push off, leaving her alone.

When I break the surface, I gasp for air, my lungs instantly filling with the sweet, life-giving force, and then I collapse inside with the realization that she cannot have this.

I take a deep breath to dive again, but then I see it – the wave, rising tall and furious and coming right for me. Coming right for us.

The world pauses. My mind pauses. The car disappears completely under the water as the wave rushes over us, tossing and turning me further and further away from her.

When I open my eyes again, I’m at the water’s edge. Everything is quiet. To me, the water is strangely still. I stand, determined to go back in, when someone behind me grabs both of my arms and holds me where I am.

“No, man,” a man’s voice says. “It’s too dangerous. No.”

It may be too dangerous, but I wouldn’t know. I don’t notice the sudden increase in wind, and the even larger waves that are now visible on the horizon, the ones that are coming straight for us.

I twist in the stranger’s grip, but it only makes him hold on tighter. “Let me go!” I turn in his grasp and lift a clenched fist, aiming straight at his face. I want him to know I mean business, and he’d better let me go if he knows what’s good for him.

It works. He does. He lets me go and holds his hands up…and I take all of two steps toward the shoreline before I collapse to the ground. The last thing I remember is the sensation of soppy wet sand between my fingers. It oozes through that fist that I clench again, this time out of sadness instead of anger. I watch the bright stars twinkling above me, so quiet and peaceful in comparison to everything that’s going on beneath them.

Then I’m back in front of my house, standing with the girl. Her arm is still raised, pointing.

How is she here with me, alive?

“Wave,” she says again, more gently this time. Her voice echoes in the rain.

I wake with a gasp.

My heart pounds against my chest. I shakily breathe in and out, my lungs pumping to catch my breath. There’s a layer of cold sweat around the collar of my loose tee shirt.

This is the worst I’ve felt since the night it happened. I force myself to sit up and click on the light next to my bed, then I rub my face.

What of that was real, and what was a dream?

The light illuminates the room. Finally being out of the darkness helps me return to reality, and I start to breathe normally again.

I throw the covers off and swing my legs over the edge of the bed, resting my elbows on my knees. I’ve never had that dream before. That woman has never before come to me in any form – not in my memories, or my dreams. Until now, they’ve always just been brief flashes of the car or the water. I’ve done a pretty good job not remembering her.

I think the fact that she came to me tonight is because of the girl at the club.

In the bathroom, I splash some cold water on my face. For a long time, that used to make it worse. I couldn’t wash with anything except steaming hot water, because if it was so much as lukewarm, it would bring me back to what it felt like that night to be submerged in the freezing cold ocean with her. But I prefer not to think about that.

I splash my face one more time, then rub my face and hands dry.

It’s obvious from my reflection that I’ve been letting myself go. I’m in need of a good shave, for one. Leaning closer, there are traces of dark circles under my eyes. I’m still fit, I notice as I step back, since my workouts aren’t something I’m ever willing to give up. They’re my therapy, the one thing keeping me sane. I don’t show any sign of the occasional drink I still indulge in, even despite my gradual increase in age.

Speaking of drinking, I didn’t even drink enough to warrant a hangover at the club earlier tonight. I barely drink anymore, actually. I left my second beer unfinished at the table and flat out left because I’d had enough.

I make my way back into the bedroom. The clock next to my bed reads four thirty. So much for sleeping tonight. I’m up. This is all too familiar to me. Hours such as these are my loneliest, but they also tend to be my most productive. I use this time to plan out my day, schedule meetings and go over everything that needs to be done. And there’s always a lot to be done. Managing your own business can be profitable, and in the case of my business, very profitable, but it’s a lot of hard work.

Thatcher Enterprises is my business. My father left it to me after he passed last year. I was glad to accept it, seeing as it’s always been a passion of mine (my family always said a love for that business is in our blood), and it’s left me well off. So well off, in fact, that if I didn’t want to, I wouldn’t have to work anymore. I could retire right now, and comfortably at that.

I quickly log into my bank account using the app on my phone. I always try to keep a close eye on my funds, but I make sure to do it without obsessing. Obsessing is all too easy to do when you reach this level.

The spinning wheel signifying loading disappears, and my accounts pull up. My eyes run across the six digits in the checking account. My savings, on the other hand, fills the screen with at least nine digits.

Before I know it, the sun is up. Time always flies when I’m busy at work on my computer. I stretch, then put on some clothes and head downstairs.

“Hey,” sings a female voice from the kitchen when I’m halfway down the staircase.

That’s Olivia’s voice.

Shit. I forgot she comes on Saturdays. Hell, I even forgot today was Saturday.

Olivia is my sister. She’s the only person who comes around since I went through my little revelation a few months ago and told most everyone who worked for me that I didn’t need them anymore. Which, of course, is simply a nice way of saying I laid them off. I only kept around one member of security, and that’s because I had to – when I hired him, I signed a contract with his agency that obligated me to keep him on through May of this year, and tried as I might, I couldn’t get out of it.

Olivia keeps coming around because I’m a mess when it comes to housekeeping, and she knows I was going through shit there for a while. When it comes to bookkeeping and management, there’s no one better, even in the middle of a crisis or, in my case, a trauma. I buckle down and get it done. Cleaning up after myself after I’ve had a late night and there’s a pile of dirty dishes in the sink, making their way onto the counters and sometimes creeping into the living room? No one’s worse.

Olivia knows this, so she comes by to clean up for me and see how I’m doing.

“Don’t clean that,” I say when I enter the kitchen. “Just stop, Liv. I’ll take care of it.”

“You won’t, though.” She’s got the whole ensemble going on: thick plastic gloves on her hands, an apron tied around her waist. I’m surprised she’s not wearing a bandana, too. “Cohen,” she gasps, because she’s always been dramatic like that. “You look terrible.”

“Thank you,” I reply sarcastically. She’s only teasing, but I’m not in the mood. Not after a night of such crappy sleep. “Stop cleaning. You shouldn’t have to do that for me.” I take a seat at the large marble island.

To my surprise, she actually stops. She shuts off the running sink and stands opposite me in front of the island. “Rough night?”

“You have no idea.”

“Here.” She removes her gloves, walks to the automatic espresso machine and turns it on. It gurgles and within a few seconds some coffee starts dripping into one of my mugs. “Coffee fixes everything.” She winks at me. Eventually, she passes me a steaming cup.

“Thanks,” I say, using it to warm my hands before taking a sip. “Seriously, though, don’t come to clean up after me anymore. I don’t like it when you do that.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“You know that’s not what I mean.” I lift the cup to my mouth and say into the steam, “I love when my sister is here as soon as I wake up after a night out.” Knowing the whole time she can see the joking smile in my eyes.

“Oh, please.” She laughs and rolls her eyes toward the direction of my room. “Like you’d have anyone up there with you on a Saturday morning. And don’t kid yourself, by the way. We both know you’ve been up.”

I swallow and set the cup down. “Ouch.” That’s Olivia for you. Blunt.

“Well, I’m right, aren’t I?”

I nod. “Yeah, yeah.” I cross my arms, resting my elbows on the cool marble. “I’ve been up since four thirty.”

“Ah, see? I was right.”

“Of course you were.”

“Is it the nightmares? Sorry– I mean, the dreams?” She knows I don’t call them nightmares. Dreams make them sound so much more innocent, and it feels better that way. Because dreaming every night is normal. Having nightmares every night, on the other hand…

“Yep.” I don’t tell her that this time they were different. That this time, I actually saw the woman. “So you wanna tell me how much longer I can expect to find you creeping into my house?”

“Well, you’re the one who gave me a key, Cohen. And someone has to do it.” She pauses. “Not creep around your house, I mean. Someone has to clean up after you. Why did you let your help go, anyway?” She makes a face, looking around at the remaining dishes and the crumbs on the counters.

I shrug. “I wanted some peace and quiet. I thought it might help.”

“You should have known better than that. Seclusion doesn’t help anyone. You think you’re some kind of exception?”

I shake my head. “Never have.”

She suddenly turns serious. “Well, that, little brother, is why I still come around. It’s not to clean up after you.” She takes a sip of her own cup. “Okay, cleaning up is a big part of it. But mostly, it’s to make sure you’re okay.”

Fair enough. There’s nothing to say to that. I press my lips together and focus on my drink. I can see my reflection in it, and this version of me looks even less put together than the one in my mirror.

“So, did you meet anyone?” she asks curiously, breaking the silence.

I should have seen that one coming. Olivia loves that kind of shit. Gossipy shit.

“Didn’t you just say I’d never have anyone with me on a Saturday morning?”

Instead of answering, she resumes cleaning. She rubs and swipes at the counter, carefully scooping the crumbs into her hand the way our mother used to do.

“Anyway,” I continue, “you think I’d meet someone at a strip club?”

She stops. “Cohen! Really?”

“What?”

“A strip club? What are you doing going to strip clubs?” She makes a face that shows her disdain.

I get it. Really, I do. A year ago a strip club would have never been my thing. And it still isn’t. “It’s just a… stupid and desperate attempt at distraction.”

“I’ll say.”

I almost start to tell her about what happened with the girl last night, but I hold my tongue.

“That’s just so not like you,” she says, shaking her head. “That’s so…”

“Desperate?”

“Trashy.”

I lean back in my seat. Trashy works. Olivia knows me better than to think I’d be desperate, but it seemed to be a fair enough guess at the time. “Well,” I put my cup down, for good now, “I agree. It’s not like me.” I walk to the silver coatrack next to the door before realizing my coat isn’t there.

Shit. That’s right.

“You heading to work?” Olivia asks.

“Yeah,” I answer as my head is somewhere else.

“What is it?”

“Nothing. I must have misplaced my coat last night, that’s all.” I open the nearby closet. “It’s okay. I have more.”

The open closest reveals a wide assortment of high-end jackets, all of them black or some shade of grey. I pull one out randomly and put it on.

“Well, I know you have more,” she says. She sighs. “Did you misplace it, or forget it?”

I laugh as I adjust the collar around the back of my neck. “What difference does that make?”

She shrugs. “It’ll help me know if I need to come around more.”

I glare at her jokingly. “I misplaced it.”

“Okay, okay.” She glances at the clock above the stove and looks around at the work still to be done. “I’ll be here for a little while longer. Probably another hour.”

I reach around her for one last sip of my coffee, then give her a quick peck on the cheek.

She gives a small smile and lightly touches the side of my arm. That’s Olivia’s way; despite how outspoken she is, that outspokenness doesn’t apply when it comes to her displays of affection. She’s always been modest in that way. These moments between us don’t call for anything more, though. Ever since the accident happened, all she needs to do is give that look of hers, the one that speaks a thousand words without actually uttering a single one. And she’s giving me that look right now.

I clear my throat. “I thought you weren’t really here for the cleaning,” I say, referring to the timeframe she just gave me.

She smiles again. “I’m not.”