October 13, 2017
I’ve been up since four a.m., creating a chart for my data collection to dump the data into once all my notes are collected. Really, I think the chart creation is just a feeble attempt to free my aching mind of Eli Young.
It’s just after six in the morning before I quietly tiptoe into the kitchen to make some more coffee. Then, I hear him stir. I glance up through the early morning darkness, the sun not yet making its ascent over the ocean. That has taken some time to adjust to—the sun rising over the ocean.
Filling the pot with water in the sink on the island that overlooks the living room, I look up, and Eli’s staring at me.
I stare back, and every inch of me becomes warm, uncomfortably warm. “Good morning. Coffee?”
Eli places his hand behind his head, still shirtless, still staring. “Please.”
I’ve got to shake this. Book research, Alex. That’s what this is. Just book research.
“Is this how a game warden wakes up?”
Eli smiles, and I see the innocence in his eyes. The tenderness.
“Been to Acadia National Park yet?” He’s still watching me.
I haven’t been in Granite Harbor long and I already have a game warden sleeping on my couch—named Eli. The question returns. Is this the Eli who sent the postcards? Surely, there’s only one Eli, maybe two, in Granite Harbor, right? How would he have the same exact penmanship as Kyle?
“Sorry, what?”
“Have you been to Acadia National Park?” He stands and folds the blankets—again, smiling, still shirtless.
“Not yet.”
Eli looks to the couch arm and sees his folded shirt. “Thank you.”
Nodding, I try to shake off whatever grip he has on me. “Might be a good idea to put it on. We don’t want you causing car wrecks today.”
Eli slides his shirt over his head.
Thank God, my lungs say.
I look down at my hand, remembering I took my wedding ring off last night and set them on the nightstand. “Do you need to shower?”
“You get ready, and then we will go to my house,” he says.
I nod, pulling myself from the counter, but not before filling two cups of coffee. “Not sure what you like in it, but it’s poured. Half-and-half is in the fridge.” I put my cup to my lips and make my way toward the bedroom to wash off the impure thoughts of pushing, pulling, and anything else having to do with two people and their opposite anatomy.
Eli’s on the phone again when I come out of the bedroom. He stops. Stares. Bites his lip. Looks away. “Yeah, just have Greg come pick up the deer. It looks like natural causes. Could be something else though. Yeah. Autopsy.” He hangs up the phone and eyes me.
I look down at my attire, a smile dangling from my lips. “What?” I have on jeans, a Golden State Warriors sweatshirt, and tennis shoes that I purchased yesterday in town.
Eli tips his head back and laughs. “You think you’re smooth with the GSW sweatshirt? Like I’m not going to notice?” He shakes his head. “Sweatshirt goes, or I leave you here.”
“Come on. It’s just a little healthy competition, Warden Young.”
He points to the bedroom. “Not only is the team offensive, but you’ll also stand out like a sore thumb. The last thing I want is to draw attention to you.”
“Why?”
He stares at me.
I wait for an answer, watching Eli squirm from his own words.
“Please, just go change,” he pleads.
“Aye, aye, Captain.”
On the way to Eli’s, Rookie has his muzzle resting on the shoulder of my seat, staring straight ahead. I reach back and give him a rub on the head.
“When did you get Rookie?” I ask, taking in the beauty of what Granite Harbor has to offer in the fall in the early morning light. Steam rises from the black asphalt from the torrential downpour.
“About five years ago.” His hand rests comfortably on the wheel. Eli takes his eyes from the road and puts them on me.
I grow fidgety. “I have a cat named Larry. Kyle actually brought him home from a fire …” My voice trails as I’m still stroking Rookie’s head.
Eli drags his eyes away from me and looks back to the road. “It’s all right, Alex. We don’t have to talk about Larry if you don’t want to.”
Quiet sits between us like a layer of film, waiting for us to move, to speak, to break the silence. But we don’t. We just ride.
We make our way through town to get to Eli’s and see Ida and Ruthie out, walking. Ruthie waves at the sight of Eli’s work truck, and Eli pulls over.
“Need anything, ladies?”
“We’re good, Eli. Thank you. Well, hi there, Alex Fisher. Hey”—Ruthie reaches into her backpack and pulls out yet another one of my books—“can you sign this one, too? It’s for my sister in North Dakota.”
Eli, confused, looks at the cover, looks at me, and then hands me the book.
“What?” I say, grabbing a pen from his center console, as if I’d been here before. As if I’d done this, riding in his truck, using his pen. I reach past Eli, careful not to touch him, and take the book from her.
Ruthie and Ida exchange a look, and I watch as the smoke billows from their ears while they try to wrap their brains around why Eli and I are in the same truck in this early morning hour.
Ida gives me a wink and whispers to her daughter, “Never liked Grace anyway.”
“Mother!” Ruthie turns to Ida, red-faced.
Ida shrugs. “Truth is a bitch, Ruthie.”
“Mother.” She turns her body toward her mother.
“Oh, come off it, Ruthie. God knows we cuss, smoke cigarettes, and have sex.”
I sign, again reach past Eli, and hand the book back to Ruthie.
Eli puts the truck in drive, smiles, and shakes his head. “Okay, ladies, you have yourselves a good morning,” he says as we pull away.
I want to ask Eli who Grace is, but this is professional. This is a professional relationship. It’s not my business, so I follow his lead.
Eli has one hand on the wheel, and his elbow rests on the center console, his hand cupping his mouth.
“What are you thinking about?” I ask.
“What?”
“What are you thinking about? What do game wardens think about when they drive their trucks, hand on mouth?” I mimic the gesture. I’m trying to make light of the situation, trying to lighten the mood. “In other words, you look so serious.”
Eli laughs, low and slow. “Thinking.”
I pretend to scribble down in my notepad. “Warden Young thinks a lot while he drives.”
“Original.” He laughs again.
Admittedly, I could listen to this all day. No, no, I could watch him laugh without sound because it’s his expression that gives me a feeling in my stomach, just below my heart.
I like it when you smile, I want to say, but I don’t because this is me collecting my research, and that’s it.
I’ll go back to California and write the book, and he’ll stay here in Maine. It will be easier this way.
You’ll never be with someone in uniform again; you know this, Alex. You know your heart won’t fall again. It just can’t. It won’t handle another fall and another break.
This takes me back to a day with Kyle. The day something in him changed.
He’d come home from work, dirty and tired. The only thing I saw was his bright eyes and his white teeth, his face covered in black soot.
Unspeakable things happen. Awful things. Things good humans don’t talk about. Lifesavers, like Eli.
He never spoke about it, but I read it in the Belle’s Hollow Newspaper later.
A child had been killed that morning. Extensive rescuing measures had been made and were unsuccessful.
He took me against the wall that morning when he came home. His top coat still on, his pants at his ankles. Kyle pushed into me that morning with sadness and frustration. Not at me, but at the fact that he couldn’t save the child. I allowed him to console his heart with my body. We moved into the living room, and he bent me over the couch, quietly whispering in my ear about my tightness. He held me upright by my breasts and touched me in my middle until I came.
“What are you thinking about?”
“Kyle,” I say, staring out the window at another body of water, this time, much bigger than the last body of water. “What percentage of Maine is covered by water?”
“Want to talk about it?”
I stop and look back at Eli, his arm still resting on the steering wheel. The intent in his eyes is as if he wants to take every single worry off my heart.
“Kyle or the water?”
“Kyle.”
“Not yet.”
“Twelve-point-eight percent. Seems like a lot more, right?”
“Everywhere I look, there’s a stream, a pond, or a lake.”
There’s a long silence between us as I write this down.
Eli’s phone rings. “Young.” He listens. “On it.” He hangs up. “Car versus moose.”
Eli changes his demeanor, rubbing his thumb over the steering wheel, his hand still over his mouth, thinking. I quietly take a back seat as I watch him in action.
Through the beauty of the fall foliage, we travel, and after several minutes of driving down the highway, we pull up to the scene. A giant rack is sitting well above the road. An EMT is loading the victim into the ambulance. Ryan has a contraption that he’s using on a tripod.