A Sea Change (37 page)

“I really don’t know.”

He turned for the door, and she grabbed at his shirt, pleading with him.

“Nick, think about what you’re doing!”

“I
have
thought about it.” Nick kept moving. “I’ve had all fucking day to think about it.”

At the hospital, on the drive up to Janet’s, on the freeway going south along with thousands of M’s fans, he’d thought about it.

Getting back to Salmon Beach became his quest, because all he could think about was hurting Danny Phillips the way he’d hurt Becky. And if there was a way to destroy Danny Phillips’ life the way he’d destroyed his own, Nick would do that, too.

He strode down the path to Number 70. He knew Maddy was following him. He could hear her running footsteps as she tried to catch up to him. They stopped as he flung open the door, but the cabin was empty, and Nick quickly went past her and up the path, toward what used to be his home.

A familiar sound entered his subconscious as he passed the small beach that connected Jaed’s house with his. It took him less than a second to realize it was the fan in Maddy’s darkroom, and he ran the remaining few steps. The knob turned in his hand, the door moved a fraction, but the hook latch he’d installed from the inside held it closed. With one violent jerk wood separated from screw, and Nick wrenched open the door.

He didn’t give the man crouched against the far wall time to utter a sound. Nick’s fingers dug into the fabric of his shirt. It tore as he pulled him outside. He could see the look of terror on Danny’s face. He heard Maddy’s shout. But nothing distracted him from his mission. And as his fist smashed into Danny Phillips’ jaw, Nick felt nothing but a deep sense of satisfaction.

Nick let the shirt go and watched him fall backward. He saw a small, red bloom appear on Danny’s lower lip. He felt Maddy’s fingers tugging at his arm, and he shook her off.

“I don’t ever want to see your face again. Do you understand, Madvick?”

Danny’s eyes were on Maddy, enraging Nick even more.

“Look at me, you yellow piece of shit! You cost me my daughter today.”

“Nick – please!” Maddy grabbed Nick’s upper arm and tried to turn him toward her. “He didn’t do it on purpose.”

Ignoring her, Nick’s foot shot out and caught Danny in the thigh. “Why did you run? You left her laying there!”

Danny cowered on the ground, his voice barely audible. “I’m sorry…”

“You’re
sorry?
” Nick’s anger reached a new level, and he didn’t know where to take it.

“He was scared, Nick. Please stop!”

He spun around, incredulous. “
He
was scared? What about Becky?”

“Nick, you don’t understand how…”

“Are you defending him?! Christ, Maddy – take a good look at your brother! He’s a fucking coward.”

“I’m sorry for what happened, Nick. I’m
so
sorry!” Tears were streaming down her face. “But you can’t blame Danny. It was an accident.”

His eyes held hers. “It’s him or me, Maddy. Pick a side.”

“There are no sides, Nick. I love you both! Don’t do this to me.”

“Look what your brother did to me.”

“How can you ask me to choose between you or family? That’s not even possible. It’s not fair!”

Nick regarded her one last time, said, “I thought
we
were gonna be family,” then he looked back at Danny. “You got what you wanted. She’s all yours.” He brushed past Maddy.

Her sobs followed him up the path, up the stairway, and all the way up to Bellevue. He didn’t think he’d ever stop hearing them.

Journal Entry

Octo
ber 4

I’ve been trying to call him all night, but he won’t answer. I can’t stop crying. I’m so scared. God, he was so mad --- what am I going to do if he never comes back? What am I going to do without him?

I can’t forget the look on his face when he said, “I thought we were going to be family.”

I can’t see to write anymore.

October 5

I’ve slept all day. I know I got up to go to the bathroom and feed Chloe. But it’s 3 p.m. now, and I’ve been up for about an hour, and all I want to do is go back to bed.

Nick still isn’t answering his phone. Maybe I should drive up there. But if I go all the way up to Bellevue just to have him close the door in my face, I don’t think I’d be able to drive back.

I can’t keep my eyes open.

October 6

It’s 10:30 in the morning. Danny woke me up. I thought (hoped) it was Nick when the doorbell rang.

He asked me if I was okay and I yelled at him. “Do I look okay to you?!” After that, I realized I wasn’t crying – for the moment, anyway.

The swelling on his lip’s gone down. He seems fine. A completely different person from the one lying on the ground, so afraid. Nick hitting him, kicking him – that was so horrible.

I understand how upset he was, and that he was lashing out, trying to get even for what happened to Becky, but sticking me in the middle was wrong, and I’m angry. I thought he was different, but he’s just like Ted. He can’t accept Danny in my life, and he left me. Forcing me to choose between them was unfair. And I really didn’t choose. Nick just thinks I did.

1 p.m.

Why won’t he talk to me? His answering machine is on now, and I’ve left three messages.

3:20 p.m.

I went to see Mary. I think she’s as upset as I am about all this. She doesn’t look at all well, and I’m worried.

When I told her Nick turned out to be like Ted, she got mad. She said there’s one big difference between them: Nick loves me.

I’d hoped I was done crying, but I started again. One minute I’m mad at him, the next I miss him so much I feel like there’s a huge hole in my heart.

If he loves me so much, why is he doing this to me?

October 7

I’ve given up calling. I sent Nick a note this morning. I don’t know if it’ll do any good. He’ll get it tomorrow. It was short. All I said was, “I love you. You mean the world to me. Please don’t throw away what we have. If we talk, I know we can work this out.”

Yesterday I wasn’t ready to think about some of the things Mary said to me. Now, after spending the evening with Danny, I am.

I’m ashamed to say I got mad at her at the time. When she said Nick loves me, I said, “What about Danny? He loves me, too.” Mary told me I wasn’t seeing Danny as he really is, and I said, “Why does everyone keep saying that?”

“Because it’s true,” she said. “Sometimes others see the truth more clearly.” She said I’m too close to focus on the real Danny.

I raised my voice to her then. Said, “I’m the only one who knows who Danny really is.”

She asked me who that was, and I told her he’s a hurt, lonely man. Mary’s eyes got hard – I’ve never seen her like that – and she said, “He’s other things, too. But you’re not ready to see them.” She wouldn’t go on after that, and I left.

But when Danny came over for dinner tonight I tried to step back. Tried to get the big picture. I’m not sure what I saw was relevant. I mean, did he tell me not to think about Nick out of concern, or selfishness?

When I asked him why he ran away when Becky fell all he’d say was he really liked Becky and would never do anything to hurt her. I have to believe him. But I keep going back to his running away. Guilty people run, don’t they?

So I asked him again: if it had really been an accident, why run?

He started to get upset. He accused me of taking Nick’s side, which really pissed me off, and I said, “There are no sides. I’m just trying to get this straight in my mind since I wasn’t there when it happened.” His face changed when I said that. I could almost see his thought processes. Then he said, “I guess I wasn’t so much running away, as running to get help. Nick’s the one who keeps saying I ran away. He’s trying to make it look like I did something wrong.”

Why would he tell me such a bald-faced lie? Nick may not like Danny, and Nick has a lot of trouble with trust, but he wouldn’t make up something like this.

So I asked Danny to tell me, one more time, what happened from start to finish, and he told me to stop cross-examining him. He said, “I know you’re in love with this guy, but how much can he love you if he does something like this? He’s just trying to split us up.”

Something just occurred to me. I hate to even think this. But those last words of Danny’s…I can almost hear Nick saying them. “He’s trying to split us up.”

Of the two of them, who would I believe?

I’d have to say Nick.

I’m so tired I can’t think straight.

11:30 p.m.

I can’t sleep. It’s turned cool and there’s a steady rain falling. I guess it’s really fall now. This would’ve been our first night together in the house. We probably would’ve built a fire. I don’t want to think about what else we might have done.

Instead, we’re forty miles apart. It may as well be four thousand.  I’ve never felt this kind of pain before.

He didn’t respond to my note.

Is it really over? Am I never going to see him smile – see his beautiful eyes again? Hear his voice or listen to him tell me how much he wants me? I can’t imagine turning over in bed and not feeling him there ever again. Or comforting him when he’s had one of his nightmares.

October 8

I don’t know what time I finally went to sleep last night. I really had to force myself to get up – to do some work. Jaed had emailed a “happy cohabitation” message. I broke down when I read it. It was almost unthinkable, but I knew I’d have to tell her what was going on. Hitting the “send” button made it too real.

I went over to Danny’s cabin to talk to him some more. I’ve got to get this sorted out. I knocked, and when he didn’t answer I went in to leave him a note. Danny doesn’t have much in the way of personal possessions, so I’m pretty familiar with everything in his place, but there was something new in there. It’s a photo I took years ago, when I was still in college. I don’t know where he got it, but it wasn’t from me. He must’ve had it all this time, and waited until Nick was gone to put it out.

Y’know, it only took a few minutes to end our relationship, but the way those minutes come back to me – in bits and pieces – it seems like centuries. When I saw the photo I remembered something Nick said to Danny: “You have what you wanted. She’s all yours.”

I’m starting to think he was right.

5:45 p.m.

Mary just left. She brought me some stew. It’s still sitting on the kitchen counter. I haven’t much felt like eating.

I’m ashamed of being so self-absorbed when Mary’s been going through as many changes and upheavals as I. I know she misses Nick. I also know her health is starting to fail. I need to get past all this, if not for myself, then for Mary.

She asked how I was doing and I told her the truth. That I’m scared. That I miss him. That I don’t know what I’m going to do without him.

She said, “What you did before.”

That really shocked me, and I asked her how she could say something like that.

Mary looked me right in the eye and calmly said, “There’s no permanence in this world. Even rocks eventually crumble. As a photographer, you should know that better than most.”

I started to cry. “But I need him.”

And she said, “You once thought you needed Ted.”

I’ve thought about it and, in a way, she’s right. I proved I can get along without Ted. But it’s different with Nick. I
do
need him. He completes me.

Maybe I didn’t do the same for him, though.

October 9

I’ve been incredibly slow-witted. And I just realized I’ve also been incredibly selfish. When Nick said “you cost me my daughter” to Danny, I didn’t understand the full meaning of his words.

Now I do, and I think it’s too late.

If knowing me has made Nick lose Becky, I’ll never forgive myself. And if Danny has done something this calculated, then he isn’t the person I thought he was.

How will I ever know the truth?

Chapt
er Forty-Four

Nick came awake slowly. As the wind intercepted the rain, it pattered against the living room window. A muted form of daylight crept into the room making it impossible to tell the time.

He pushed aside the blanket, but couldn’t quite bring himself to get up. It wasn’t because the couch was comfortable. It was because there didn’t seem to be much point in it these days.

Nick turned his head and squinted at the DVD player’s clock. Nine thirty-three. He closed his eyes again. He seemed to get up later every day.

There was no one to do anything for. Emily DeMille wasn’t calling him to rescue C.B. George was filing his daily reports with someone else. If Sparky started another fire, it was no longer Nick’s problem.

And who was Maddy urging to come see her latest print? To try the recipe Jaed had FAXed? To make love to her?

Mary Delfino was his only connection to the beach now. He talked to her regularly, but never about what had happened. Never about Maddy.

His eyes opened and he stared at the coffered ceiling, hoping this day wouldn’t be like the eight others that had passed. They’d been full of loneliness, dislocation, and thoughts of Maddy.

The phone rang four times. Nick waited for the answering machine to do its job. It was a hang-up. Even though the machine was in the kitchen, he could hear the dial tone, and instinctively knew who it was.

She’d called nearly every day. At first she’d left tearful messages. Her letter brought an end to those. Now she just called, and when he didn’t pick up, she’d hang up. One time the only sound on the tape was Chloe’s far-off meow.

He couldn’t – didn’t want – to talk to her. Not during the day, anyway. The nights were a different story. A weakness would come over him, and a couple of times he’d actually picked up the phone. But he’d see her brother’s face, and hear his insincere apology, and Nick’s anger would overshadow his need for her. She’d made a choice, and it had been the wrong one.

Nick looked at the clock again, and was shocked. Half an hour had gone by. His life was going on without any participation on his part. When he realized he wasn’t even sure if it was Thursday or Friday, Nick sighed and sat up. The morning paper gave him the date.

Standing in the middle of the kitchen, Nick mechanically made his way through a bowl of cereal. As he brought it to his mouth to finish off the milk, Nick glanced at the calendar. There was something scribbled in Friday’s square. Memory suddenly returned, he checked the clock on the microwave, and swore. Twenty minutes to shave, brush his teeth, change clothes – nope, no time for that-  and make the fifteen minute drive to Becky’s school.

The bowl cracked into perfect halves when he dropped it in the sink.

The third grade father-child pumpkin carving contest was just getting underway as Nick breathlessly entered the cafeteria wearing the clothes he’d slept in. The noise level required earplugs. He finally spotted Becky’s green arm cast saluting him from across the room.

“Hey, sweetie.” He leaned down for a kiss. “Sorry I’m late. How’s the arm?”

“Good. Look at all the autographs I got.” Becky proudly held it out for him to admire.

Nick smiled then noticed the pumpkin she’d picked out. “This thing must weigh thirty pounds, Becks. How the heck did you get it in here?”

She pointed to the red wagon parked under the table, then said, “I want to carve a witch wearing a catcher’s mask.”

“You, and what graphic designer?” he asked, as he picked up the serrated knife and began cutting into the top.

“Mommy made a drawing.”

As he stuck his hand into the vast depths of the huge pumpkin, Nick looked at the pattern, and in a voice filled with genuine surprise, said, “That’s pretty good.”