Ryan
Granite Harbor, Maine
Present Day
Mer and I get in the truck. Shut the door. Sit. Wait for a moment to gain clarity of what just happened.
Still in my hands are the pictures Blake handed me. Hero in gray. The dog that made my life bearable. The times he protected me as I tried to sleep, waiting for Dubbs to come into my room, drunk. The cigarette burns happened when Hero was stuck outside.
I laugh out loud.
Merit looks over at me. Watching me.
She catches on. Giggles at first, but then starts laughing until she’s crying. I let her cry. She needs to. She’s crying for me. I know. I think, too, she’s probably in shock. Neither of us expected Blake to draw the ghost of my dead dog. We also didn’t anticipate Blake to talk about Rebecca, her mom.
“What the hell just happened?” she asks, more rhetorically.
I shake my head, knowing the heaviness of the situation, yet my brain can’t quite comprehend the reality of it all.
“Do you need to do anything in town?” Merit asks.
“We could grab something to eat? Take it down by the harbor? Like old times.”
Merit’s eyes search the road. The harbor is a spot that means a lot to both of us. It’s where we spent time as kids, trying to catch a break. Put life on pause.
Merit slowly nods. “Harbor, yeah.”
“Grab sandwiches at Granite Harbor Grocery?” I suggest.
“Yeah.”
It’s just after eleven thirty a.m. As we drive down Main Street, it’s not too busy in town yet. Though the tourists are starting to gather on both sides of Main.
“We could walk Main. We have some time to kill. We could wander aimlessly, like we used to as kids. With no agenda. No breaks. And time on our hands.” Really, all I want is just time with her. Trying to bring back old memories maybe. Make her remember all the good times we had together.
She pulls into a spot near the post office.
“I’ll run into Rick’s and change real quick.” I pause as a sharp pain shoots through my abdomen, knowing the pain medication is wearing off.
You’ve got to have pain in life, Ryan. That’s the only way to know you’re still alive.
“I’ll go with you.” Merit meets me at the sidewalk.
“Excuse me, can you point us in the direction of the harbor?” a woman in a large-brimmed straw hat with a white nose lathered in sunscreen asks.
Her husband, in a matching hat with hands stuck deep in his pockets, stands behind her, staring at our old buildings. “Beauty-full place you got here.” He whistles through his teeth.
“The harbor runs parallel to Main Street. You can take a left down any of the side streets, and that will get you to the harbor.” I motion with my hands.
“Thank you, Officer.”
“You’re welcome.”
They cross the street and head down to the harbor.
We walk into Rick’s, and I make my way to the counter as Merit peruses.
“Warden Young,” Rick says. “What brings you in today?”
“I just need to use your back room to change.”
“Absolutely. Come on back. Reminds me of when you guys were kids. But you’re older. Taller. Much bigger now. I can remember when you had no front teeth and that dog always followed you around.”
“Hi, Rick.” I hear Merit say from behind me. “Do you still have double-sided tape?”
Rick is a talker. He’d talk your ear off all goddamn afternoon if you let him.
“Well, Merit Young, it is so good to see you back in Granite Harbor.” Rick walks out from behind the counter to meet Merit. Rick is a walking encyclopedia of weird facts. Don’t get him started on double-sided tape.
I smirk as I look back at Merit, watching Rick talk about the bonds of double-sided tape. Where it was invented and why it was invented. Quickly, she looks back at me, and I wink.
I mime the words, Thank you, and head to the back room.
On my way out, Boom, the office cat, is lying on the old staircase that leads up to Rick’s living quarters above the pharmacy. Boom must be about ten years old. His broken meow sounds just like it did we found him.
Boom lost his right eye when he was a kitten. I was brand-new to the warden service and found him in a gutter just south of town on my way out of town. He’d already been missing his eye, but it was fairly fresh, so I put him in the truck with me. I had to run into the pharmacy to pick up a few things and brought the little guy in with me. I’d planned to take him to the Granite Harbor Veterinary Clinic afterward, but Rick seemed to take a liking to the little kitten and decided to take him.
I give Boom a quick rubdown on his perch. “Good to see you, old friend.”
With a broken meow, he yawns, stretching out his paw.
“And that’s why double-sided tape should be kept in every home.” I hear Rick say.
Merit’s eyes are glazed over. “You’re right; I’ll buy some.”
Rick turns.
Merit’s eyes grow big as she stares at me. You owe me big, she mouths.
I smile and nod. She meets me at the counter and throws down the double-sided tape, and Rick’s assistant rings her up.
“Come again soon, you two,” Rick calls from behind the counter.
We wave.
“Will do, Rick,” I say.
Merit throws a little bag with double-sided tape in the truck as I hang my uniform in the cab part of the truck.
The sidewalks are quickly beginning to fill up as we make our way across the street to Granite Harbor Grocery.
“I’ve got it, Hulk.” Merit beats me to the door. “What are you staring at?” Merit’s head is next to mine.
“Isn’t that the guy who was with Dubbs on the porch the other day?”
Merit squints. Watches the man. “That’s him. I remember the scar on his cheek. What the hell is he doing back in Granite Harbor again? There’s no way he’s from here.”
“I don’t know, but we need to stop by Dubbs’s house before we leave.” Something tells me this situation isn’t fucking right. I take a quick picture with my phone. Though grainy, it warrants a Google search later.
We take our sandwiches and walk down to the harbor. We take our seat next to our tree, just down a ways from the main traffic of the harbor.
“So,” I start, “you rehabilitate river otters.”
Merit finishes her bite as I take another.
“Did you know you wanted to do this straight out of college? That’s a pretty specific job.”
She shrugs. “I knew I wanted to work with marine life. River otters just fell in my lap.”
“Like what you do?” I set my sandwich down and take a drink of water.
“Pays the bills. I’ve been at the aquarium for so long; it’s what I know.”
I nod. “And you feel comfortable in that?”
Merit takes a bite.
On one hand, she’s always been a creature of habit. As if I have room to talk. Lived in Granite Harbor. Only moved to Hallowell because I have to live in the district I patrol. Never leaving Maine unless it’s absolutely necessary.
But Merit moved from coast to coast.
“What’s California like? It’s not really palm trees, movie stars, and beaches, right?”
“Southern California is similar to that. I’m not sure about movie stars though.” She laughs. “I live in the middle of the state. It’s on the coast, like here, but the beaches are sandy. Doesn’t get as warm in the summer as Granite Harbor. We get the fog. People are different. Not as friendly as they are here.” She shrugs. “Could be because we know everyone. I don’t know what an outsider’s perception would be of our people, but I suppose”—Merit looks at our now-packed streets—“we must be doing something right.”
Merit watches a family moving down the harbor, collecting shells, a dog in tow. She looks away as she takes another bite of her sandwich, pushing a strand of her fallen hair from her face.
“What?” She takes her napkin and wipes her face with her long, slender fingers.
I remember what those feel like. Her nails against my chest, my back.
“Nothing,” I say, trying to push the thoughts from my head.
“Do I have something on my face?”
“No.”
“Why are you staring at me like I have a deformity?”
“Well, you do. It starts right here.” I reach over, take my finger, and slide it across her jawline. I watch her entire body change in slow motion.
Her body tenses.
Her breathing hitches.
And she freezes.
“H-how’s my jaw a deformity?” she asks.
When I get this reaction, I know it’s my fingers that do this to her.
Just as I’m about to tell her how her perfect jawline, her bone structure, is a deformity, Lydia walks up.
“Hey, Merit! I heard you were back in town.”
Merit stands to hug Lydia.
When Lydia first moved to town, we slept together. Went on a few dates. My way of trying to rid myself of Merit.
“Hey, asshole.” Lydia turns to me.
I almost choke on my water.
“I’m kidding, Ryan.” She tosses a hand at me.
I deserve that. I am an asshole. She’s not kidding.
Lydia bought a bookstore in town about three years ago, which was about the time I heard some guy had asked Merit to marry him. Eli had casually mentioned it in conversation one day.
I was angry.
Hostile.
Fucking pissed.
Jealous.
I’d have slept with anyone if that meant I could chase Merit from my thoughts. None of that worked. Not a fucking thing. Lydia and I especially didn’t work. But we both knew that.
I watch as they exchange words, sentences in conversation, one I have no business being in. I turn my attention to the harbor and listen to the seals.
It’s amazing how quick our town fills up every summer. We double in population but not size, making it hard to accommodate extra bodies.
“You, too.” I hear Merit say.
“Bye, Ryan.”
“Lydia.” I nod.
“Guess she doesn’t like you?” Merit asks.
I want to tell her. I want to tell her I slept with Lydia. I want to tell her what a whore I turned into after she left. But she knows. Telling her would only cause her more hurt. She left her job in California to come help take care of me. She wouldn’t be here if she didn’t care. We’ve got too much history together. By telling her that I slept with someone who didn’t matter, how would that make her feel better? By telling her, I’d only be trying to clear my own conscience. So, I decide not to tell her. What would I say anyway?
Oh, Lydia? I let her suck my dick a few times. She’s a great blow. But nothing like you, Merit. Never. Nobody has ever reached the level that you and I had.
That’s why I always make it a thing, never to kiss any woman on the lips. Whether I’m fucking them or we’re doing other shit. My lips have always been for Merit.
“Guess not. Want to take a walk?”
Merit stands and grabs her trash and mine.
“I can take our trash—”
“Shut it, Ryan. I don’t want to hear it,” she says.
I smile as I watch her take our garbage to the trash can.
“What’s with Lydia?” she asks as she walks back.
I can’t—no, I won’t lie to her. “You want to know the truth?” I know it will kill her, but I also know I can’t lie to her again.
She hesitates at first but then says, “No.”