A Sea Change (39 page)

Journal En
try

October 18

Becky called me tonight. I was so relieved to hear she was staying with Nick – that Janet didn’t keep her from him – I didn’t feel the full impact until we hung up. It hit me very hard, knowing Nick was there; knowing he didn’t want to talk to me.

I’ve kind of staggered through the past two weeks. Nothing seems quite real. I get through a day then have to suffer through a night, only to wake up and do it all over again. The beach feels so different without him here. And I feel lonely and left behind.

All my boxes are still stacked around the house, shoved in corners. They’re reminders of what should have been.

Becky had me on the phone for a long time. She filled me in on school, her arm, what she’s going to be for Halloween. It happens to fall on Nick’s weekend, and she plans on raiding both neighborhoods. She wants to send me a photo of a pumpkin she and Nick carved. I told her I’d like that, but in reality I don’t want any more mementos. Too painful.

She asked me a million questions. There were easy ones like, “How’s Chloe?” and “Is it raining where you are?” And then there were the really tough ones. “When are you moving in?” “If you and Daddy had a fight, can’t you just say you’re sorry?”

I have to think Nick was out of the room at that point. I can’t imagine him standing there, listening to his daughter as she played mediator. And I
know
he was out of the room when she said, “Daddy won’t tell me about it because he says it’s an adult thing, but
I
think he misses kissing you. Don’t you miss kissing him?”

I told her the truth. Yes, I miss him. And I miss her. And I love them both.

What I couldn’t tell her was the reason we’re apart. If I’d interfered, and told her how Nick felt about Danny – if I tried to explain that I felt trapped between the two of them – it would’ve confused her, and probably made her wonder why adults are so incomprehensible. But more than that, it would’ve left Nick holding the bag. I’ve caused him enough trouble. I don’t need to make him look like the bad guy. Not when I’m beginning to think he was right about Danny all along.

I couldn’t face Danny tonight. Just like I couldn’t look at him last night. And the night before. There’s a frightening idea rolling around in my head. I can’t even put it to paper.

I wish I could go far away somewhere, where no one knows me. I need to think without memories getting in the way. I need some guidance; some vision.

October 19

Danny came over with a Charlie Chan movie tonight. He’d unearthed it in a box of junk someone had put next to the dumpster in the parking area. I couldn’t put him off anymore, so I opened a can of soup and we started to watch it. It was better than sitting across from him at the dinner table, trying to pretend nothing had changed.

It was weird seeing that old film after all this time. I discovered I still enjoyed the humor, although I was painfully aware that Sydney Toler was about as Chinese as I am. And Danny was enjoying it, too, but for different reasons. I could tell this was what he had in mind when he imagined the two of us together again, which made me sad to think how – really – nothing
had
changed for him.

Half-way through the movie Rita and Susan came by. They stood on the front deck – both with shit-eating grins on their faces – and Rita handed me a business card from the Pratt Gallery. I looked at it, looked at Rita, and then the words literally exploded from her mouth.

She’s friends with the owner, who happened to have dinner with them, who saw some of my prints, who – get this – wants to “show” me.

I’m still in a state of stunned disbelief…and I have so much work to do! I’m meeting with Wendy Pratt on Thursday, so it’d be nice to have something resembling a portfolio to take along.

I couldn’t sit still after Rita and Susan left. I dragged out my box of prints, and while Danny watched the rest of the movie, I started sorting through the photos of the beach. He kept trying to get my attention: “Remember this part?” He wanted me to look at the furniture, or the dress Phyllis Brooks was wearing. But I was impatient with it – with him.

Seeing my prints all together like that made me realize how much I’ve done in the past few months. I saw how really good they are. And I saw something else: how big a part Nick’s played in getting me back on track.

I’ve been asking myself why I’ve had to find someone like Nick, only to lose him. Maybe this is why. Maybe – after it’s all said and done – knowing him has shown me how to be myself again. Maybe that’s the best gift he could’ve given me.

I wish I could thank him.

Chapt
er Forty-Six

“So, we’re looking at a February twenty-first opening…” Wendy Pratt’s half-glasses slid down her thin nose as she flipped pages in her day-planner. “With a six-week run.” She looked at Maddy over the black rims, one eyebrow raised. “You’ll be ready?”

Maddy tried to get air into her lungs. Tried to look professional. But her heart was pounding, and her palms had turned slick with sweat. All Maddy could manage was a nod.

The owner of the Pratt Gallery smiled. It stretched her angular face into a grinning mask that was saved by her caring, dark eyes.

“You’ve got nothing to worry about, Maddy. This is great stuff.”

Maddy breathed out. “Thanks.”

“I’ll be thanking you when these start flying out the door.” Wendy Pratt picked up the print of Becky and the mermaid. “God, I love this one,” she sighed and looked at Maddy again. “We’ll go over the final selection next month, but I’m thinking twenty-five framed pieces for the rich folks. And at least ten – mounted – of each one. I want to keep the print run low. Builds desirability. Makes people salivate for the next show.”

“So, these’ll be for sale?” Maddy asked, unsure she’d heard correctly.

“That’s the whole idea. I don’t do charity work. You make money – I make money. That’s the name of the game.”

Maddy – mesmerized – watched as Wendy Pratt pushed herself away from the desk.

“You’ll be sharing the space with Jeremy Kellor. He’ll bring in a good crowd.” Her head ducked out of sight as she searched through the bottom drawer.

Maddy’s brain was having a hard time processing the idea that someone was actually going to pay money for her photographs.

Wendy Pratt’s head surfaced again. “Here’s the pamphlet from his last show. I think you’ll be a good match.”

Maddy walked down Pacific Avenue unaware of the drops of rain just beginning to fall, her grin growing wider the closer she got to her car. People passed by and smiled, but she never really saw them. She was focused on the Volvo. Wanted to get inside.

Her scream of joy exploded the moment she slammed the door shut. With shaking hands, Maddy shoved the key in the ignition. As she pulled away from the curb, she said, “Wait until Nick hears this!”

And suddenly she was in tears.

Plastic-covered camera slung over her shoulder, Maddy stood in front of the mermaid. A particularly high tide had left her draped in seaweed. A good-sized clam shell nestled in her upturned tail.

The rain came down steadily. The mermaid’s knowing face took on a sad cast, as drops of water fell from her cheeks and nose. But Maddy’s tears had dried by the time she’d reached Salmon Beach.

Alone in Jaed’s house, she’d had an inexplicable urge to see the mermaid in the rain. To photograph her one more time, at the mercy of the elements.

Maddy watched her for a long moment, then whispered, “Tell me what to do now, Chloe. The sea change is rougher than I ever thought it would be.”

But no answer came from the cold, bronze lips.

Maddy brought her camera up and looked through the viewfinder. It was the first time she’d taken a photograph since Nick’s leaving. Her wet fingers turned the close-up lens and the mermaid’s face came into sharp focus. She moved even closer until all she saw was Chloe’s cheek and eye, and the rainwater rapidly trickling down her face. Maddy pulled the camera away from her eye and set the shutter speed.

She looked through the lens once more. Maddy held her breath, placed her finger on the shutter button, and pushed it. A sharp gust of wind hit Maddy, then moved through her like a heavy sigh, bringing with it an untarnished vision.

With a certainty borne on that gasp of air, Maddy turned to the path, and the knowledge of what needed to be done.

*****

When Danny found the Charlie Chan movie he was sure it was a sign. But it hadn’t worked. Nothing was working for him. Maddy became more distant as the days passed. And Danny couldn’t shake the old fears creeping up on him.

This time, it wasn’t Dad turning him away, though. This time he was losing Maddy all by himself. And this was a million times worse.

She left for her appointment without talking to him. He’d wanted to wish her luck. But she didn’t answer the phone. He could picture Maddy listening to his message – standing away from the machine, not even willing to get close to his voice while he told her how proud he was.

It tore him up.

He went straight to her place to wait. That’s what he told himself, anyway. But when he let himself in Danny went straight to her bedroom. He knew where she kept her journal.

Danny hadn’t read it in several weeks. He’d delighted in Maddy’s recollections. Was moved by her understanding. Revelled in her confessions – of how much she missed him; loved  him. The parts about Nick made Danny jealous, but as long as she still loved him he could tolerate them.

As he sat on the bed this morning, reading Maddy’s words, fear fluttered through his stomach. His hands shook so badly he finally had to put the book on the mattress in order to continue. Her cramped script dissolved before his tear-filled eyes.

She didn’t want him here anymore. She wouldn’t protect him.

*****

Maddy entered Danny’s cabin without knocking. He sat, cross-legged, on the bed. He didn’t seem surprised to see her, as if he’d been waiting for her.

Water from her slicker dripped onto the linoleum. It made a loud, pattering noise in the heavy silence.

When she finally spoke, it was in a strong, sure voice.

“Where did you run to get help?”

It wasn’t the question he expected.

“You don’t trust me anymore,” he answered.

“I don’t know you anymore, Danny. That’s the problem.” She paused. “Answer me.” He didn’t speak. “There were people all around – close by. I was only a shout away. Where did you run to get help?”

He went on the defensive out of instinct. “I got confused. I ran the wrong way.”

“Stop it. Stop lying.”

Danny looked away.

“I ran because I was afraid, Maddy. What if he’d called the police? I’d be in jail now. I can’t do that…”

“Don’t be absurd, Danny. You wouldn’t have been arrested for what happened.”

“But my name…there are warrants.”

Maddy’s hands clenched. She took a breath. “This isn’t working, Danny. I can’t save you anymore. You don’t know what a real relationship is, and I don’t think you ever will.”

His head hung over his lap. “What do you want me to do?”

“You’re thirty-eight years old. What Dad did was awful – it was cowardly. But it’s time for you to let it go. Understand what it’s done to you, but
let it go.
”

He lifted his face to beseech her. “It’s happening again, Maddy. You’re supposed to love me, and you’re turning your back on me.”

Maddy didn’t move from the small entry. “You can’t make me feel guilty, Danny. No one’s going to do that to me again. It’s taken me a long time to figure out why I wasted my life on Ted. I think it had a lot to do with Dad. He was never there for me – for any of us. Ted was just like him. Putting on a great show, but never letting me see the man behind the curtain. You’re like that, too.”

He brought his hand up to cover his face.

“Change is a hard thing. Seeing the truth, and accepting it, is even harder. The reality is very different from the dream, isn’t it, Danny.”

“I don’t want to leave you.”

“But I don’t think you can stay.”

“You’ll be alone.”

“I know. I’ll live.” Maddy finally took a step. Then another. She knelt by the bed. “I can’t help you, Danny. We both need to grow up.”

“I don’t want you to hate me.”

His tears drew her own. “I don’t. I love you. And I care about you.”

“Then why? I don’t understand…”

“That’s just it. You don’t understand.” Maddy took his hand. “I care about myself, too, Danny. If you loved yourself – and you were in my place – you’d do the same. I can’t have you in my life. Not like this. We’re not good for each other.”

“I thought we would be,” he said.

Maddy brought his hand to her lips and kissed it. “I know. So did I.”

Chapter F
orty-Seven

The man who calls himself Phil Madvick can’t envision a life other than the one he has lived up to this point in time. He doesn’t see how it can be any different; doesn’t have the ability to change it. Because change leaves him open to hurt. He’s tried transforming himself back into Danny Phillips, hoping the name would return the life he’s lost. And for a few precious moments, it did.

For a brief flash – because what else can a couple of months be to thirty-eight years – strangers accepted him, and his sister loved him.

Those halcyon days couldn’t last, though. Deep inside – and maybe all along – he knew he couldn’t keep the veneer from peeling away, the way it always had.

And something else had happened. Something he didn’t expect. The person he thought would be his savior and champion has undergone a transformation. She isn’t his alone. She has become part of the world he doesn’t understand. A world that left him behind eons ago because he couldn’t find a way to justify his place in it.

*****

Maddy was already in college. Living in the dorms.

Even though Danny was alone at home, at least he knew Maddy would be back – on weekends and during school breaks. He lived for those times.

In between he was – for the most part – ignored by his father. And although his mother tended to her small social circle as carefully as she tended the flowerbeds in their yard, she still found time to take some interest in Danny’s life. When she was home, that is. Home, and without the distraction of his father’s needs.

But the best parts of those days were when his father was at work and his mother was playing bridge. Then he could read his comic books. Better yet, he could take out the notebook he used for drawing, sit outside, and make up a fantasy world peopled with animals and superheroes, but never with real humans. His sketches were heavily-detailed cartoons back then. There was no training involved in his art. But Maddy liked them enough to frame three of her favorites. She’d hung them over her bed, one above the other, just next to the Ansel Adams poster of Half-Dome.

Why he only remembered Maddy’s approval of his work – and no one else’s – was a puzzle. There
had
been one other moment in his young life – before he’d become Phil Madvick – that should have stuck in his mind.

It was a Saturday evening. Maddy, studying for exams, had stayed up at U.W. His father had been planning the barbecue for weeks. Business associates and golf buddies, along with their wives, would descend on the Phillips’ house and yard. They’d drink too much, talk about football and golf handicaps while his father grilled steaks and his mother walked from guest to guest with a pasted-on smile. And Danny did what he always did under the circumstances: he made himself scarce.

His room was his haven during those parties, and behind the locked door he’d watch his tiny black-and-white television. His mother always brought up a TV tray, and he’d eat dinner accompanied by an old movie. And there was Charlie Chan Theatre, if the party went late enough.

That night it had.

As Danny cautiously poked his head out his bedroom door, and then headed for the bathroom, he heard voices coming from the designated coat-check – Maddy’s bedroom. Danny recognized his father’s voice – loud and boozy.

“Porter’s got his head up his ass. He won’t last.”

There was a chuckle, then another man said, “You’re probably right about that.”

Danny quietly began to move down the hallway, not wanting to cross paths with his father.

“This coat Sue’s?”

“Yeah.” The man – Danny realized it was Mr. Symonds – paused, then said, “Hey, what’re these?”

“Some junk my kid did.”

“I thought she was into photography.”

“Nah, that’s Danny’s stuff there.”

Hearing his name stopped Danny just outside the bathroom door.

“He did these?” Another pause. “Wow. They’re pretty good.”

No one, besides his sister, had ever praised much of anything he’d ever done. Danny was riveted, and didn’t anticipate the two men walking out of Maddy’s room quite so soon.

Ben Symonds saw Danny and he grinned. “Hey, kid. Those cartoons of yours are wild. You’ve got quite an imagination.”

Danny shyly smiled – said “thank you” – but his father’s face stopped him for saying anything more.

“Y’know, Bob, you oughta show those to Skip’s wife,” Symonds went on. “She’s got a brother works for some comic book company.”

“Yeah. Maybe.” Danny’s father looked away from his son with disinterest. “You wanna see the real talent in the family, come on down to the den.”

Ben Symonds smiled at Danny one last time, and said, “Remind your dad to take those into the office week after next. Skip ‘n’ Anne’ll be back from the Bahamas by then.”

Danny nodded then watched the two men move down the staircase. But he knew he’d never ask his father. And he knew his father would never volunteer.

Danny had gone into the bathroom, shut and locked the door, and let himself feel the unaccustomed wave of pride wash over him. It didn’t last long. His father’s words had taken care of that. But it was a good feeling, nonetheless, and as he looked in the mirror Danny saw a different person. Someone he would’ve liked to know, but he was too timid and scared to make the first move.

*****

The life he has imagined for nearly twenty years will never be, and Phil Madvick puts his few belongings in the backpack that has become his only source of history. Slowly turning around the room, he shoulders the pack. It is lighter than when he came because he leaves behind his hopes.

The postcards – the figurine of a mermaid – they have been delivered, but they didn’t possess the magic he’d wished for. And neither did his sister.

The man who calls himself Phil Madvick leaves behind a third, and final, gift: an inexpensive sketchpad filled with the beauty and friendships that suddenly seem like a pleasant interlude. Something special he’d experienced for a very short time, destined to fade like the awakening memory of a dream.

And as he again walks away from his sister’s life – and Danny Phillips’ – he becomes, once and for all, Phil Madvick. A man who will always be alone.

He can see, now, it is the way his life was meant to be.

Journal En
try

October 26

Danny’s gone. He must’ve left in the middle of the night sometime, and I guess I can understand why he didn’t say goodbye. He’s out there, alone again.

Jaed called. She’d finally read my email about Nick, but that wasn’t what I wanted to talk about. I told her about Danny. Said I knew I’d done the right thing sending him away, but why did I feel so bad? And that I knew he just needed someone to understand him – to love him.

And Jaed said, “You did that, Miss Maddy. Did it help?”

She went on to say this whole thing made some kind of karmic sense, and it was probably my “path,” and his.

And in her New Age, dippy sort of way, I knew she was right. There really wasn’t anything more I could do for him.

I still love him. I hope to God he realizes that. At this point all I can do is wish him a better life. One in which he sees where his pain has come from, and a way to ease himself away from it. He’s so talented. I don’t know that he’ll ever be able to give himself to one person, but he has so much to give the world.

He left his sketchbook on the front porch. I’ve looked through it many times now, and I cried the first time. How does such a hurting soul make such beauty? I plan on giving everyone in it Danny’s view of them, but first I want to make copies for the Salmon Beach book. And if Wendy Pratt will consent, I’d like to display a few at my show. It would be the best way to remember Danny.

Jaed had her heart set on talking to Nick. Kept asking me for his new number. Said if she were here she’d “kick his firm ass all the way from Bellevue to the beach” for what he’d done to me.

I said, “You just told me this is my path. I learned a lot from Nick. I guess it’s time to learn something new.”

And I meant it.

Sure, a tiny part of me wanted her to say I was wrong. And in a way, she did. Her exact words were, “You’re right, Maddy. You probably need to learn one more lesson before your soul is ready to walk the path with Nick.”

I asked her, what if that never happens.

She didn’t even stop to think about it. She just said, “Then that’s the way it was meant to be.”

I didn’t tell her about Becky’s letter. It came last week. I let the envelope sit on the coffee table for days, and every time I’d see her little-girl handwriting a pain would shoot through me. When I finally opened it, I tried not to look at the photo; set it face-down while I read her note. But I couldn’t stand it.

Seeing a picture of Nick in his new life, without me, was pretty tough. But he looked happy enough. And it made me glad knowing Janet hasn’t kept Becky from him. And after all that’s happened, it’s the most important thing.

Mary had dinner with me tonight. We don’t talk about Nick. She surprised me by talking about Danny, though. I told her he’d gone and she seemed a bit sad. But when Mary said she felt he’d learned something important in his time here, and that it was a lesson he’d be able to carry with him always, I knew she was right. This place seems to have that power. I don’t know if it’s the isolation, or the people – who’ve gone through their own sea changes and so know the value of living life the best way
for them
, rather than trying to follow the dictates of others. Whatever it is, it’s wondrous for those of us who end up here.

As Mary was leaving, she hugged me. It was the strangest thing: I could smell sea salt in her hair. And even though it was damp and cold at the front door, a deep warmth entered my body.

“I told you you’d find what you’d lost,” she said. “And no matter how painful that was, Madeleine, it will eventually make you whole.”