I’ll Become the Sea
Read I’ll Become the Sea Online
Authors: Rebecca Rogers Maher
I’ll Become the Sea
By Rebecca Rogers Maher
Jane Elliott has found peace. By all accounts, she’s a success story: a survivor of childhood abuse who has dedicated her life to teaching. She’s also engaged to marry Ben, an ambitious documentary filmmaker.
But hers is a false and fragile peace. Focusing on her students at an urban Jersey Shore school and maintaining a relationship with an absentee fiancé conveniently keep Jane from feeling much of anything at all.
This safe existence is threatened when she meets David, a musician who runs an afterschool program for at-risk kids. Because of her commitment to Ben, Jane can deny her attraction to David and convince herself they are just good friends.
But an accident, a death, a grim family obligation and her own intense desire force Jane to overcome the past, rethink the present—and take a genuine risk on love.
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Thanks to David R. Blumberg of the Maryland Parole Commission and Michael Morrissette for helping me make sense of Maryland’s manslaughter laws and parole system.
Thanks to Jeffery C. Johnson of Pryor Cashman LLP for excellent legal guidance.
Thanks to Marc Goldleaf at Second Thought, Inc for general web artistry and awesomeness.
Thanks to Susie Felber, whose generous support helped me find the door to the world of romance writing.
Thanks to Melissa Johnson, whose editorial insight made me a better writer and made this a much stronger story.
Thanks to Carina Press for giving a first shot to this unseasoned author.
Thanks to Carolyn Davis, Rachael Nachtwey and Amy Sitar for taking such good care of my children while I wrote this.
Thanks to Tammy Rogers, Kathy Rogers-Carroll and Heidi Goldleaf, the sisters I keep growing up with.
Thanks to Ursula Rogers for many years of great talks about books.
Thanks to Anne Kadet, Lisa Hinshaw and Leah Nelson for friendship and inspiration.
And finally, thanks to Kevin, who in addition to being a meticulous and perceptive reader, a loving partner and my best friend, continues to be the most compelling person I know.
Dedication
To Kevin
Voices rushed up the staircase, a shot of bubbles from deep under water.
“Tell me where you were.”
The door at the bottom of the stairs shook open. Jane’s clock glowed red on the nightstand.
“I have a right to know!”
Jane sat up in bed.
“You don’t have a right to shit.”
“Dennis!”
“Shut your mouth, Linda.”
His heavy work boots echoed across the kitchen floor. Jane pushed aside the blankets.
“I know you were with that whore.”
She ran down the stairs.
“I said shut your mouth!”
Jane stumbled out the door as his open hand shot out, cracking her mother across the face and knocking her down. He lunged forward and kicked her hard in the ribs. Curling into a ball, Linda shrank into the tile. Dennis sank his boot into her stomach, forcing the air out of her lungs.
“Dad!”
“Stay out of this, Jane.”
He kicked her mother’s face into the stove.
Jane grabbed his shirt, heaving against the bulk of his body, and he sprawled backward, shoving her into the wall. The plaster cracked where her head struck, crumbling and scattering on the floor.
Regaining his balance, he jabbed a blunt finger into her shoulder. “Don’t you lay a hand on me, little girl.” He breathed into her face and she tried not to recoil. He was sweating and the smell of him was nauseating.
She held up her hands. “Okay, Dad.”
He stopped to survey the scene before him—his wife on the floor, his daughter cringing—and nodded, satisfied. “Okay. Yeah. It’s her, you understand that? She doesn’t want to listen.” He used a forearm to wipe the sweat out of his eyes. “You go on back upstairs.”
She shook her head. “No. It’s all right. I’m awake now. Let’s sit down and we can talk about it.”
Her mother pushed herself upright against the stove. She held her head in one hand and with the other reached for a cigarette burning in an ashtray on the counter. “Yeah, sit down, Dennis. Sit down and tell your daughter where you’ve been for three days.”
He twisted away from Jane. The back of his hand was out before he’d even fully turned. He struck her mother hard across the face, sending her crashing into the kitchen table. She fell, the table overturning on top of her, a full glass of soda sliding off the edge and shattering next to her on the floor.
“Dad!”
“I said stay the fuck out of it.”
Wrapping his mottled hand around Linda’s throat, he dragged her out from under the table. Once she was clear, he straddled her, his whole weight bearing down on her, both hands around her neck. Linda’s arms flailed out, struggling to push him off, to wriggle out from under him. Her face began to darken, to purple.
This couldn’t be happening, and yet it was happening. Time felt at once hideously sped up and slowed down. For an instant, Jane was paralyzed, pinned against the wall.
From a great distance, she watched herself get down on her hands and knees. Crawling over the broken glass, she shoved her body between theirs, half falling on her mother. Bracing her knees against the floor, she arched her back, lifting up and outward, jabbing her elbow into the joint of Dennis’s arm and dislodging his fingers from her mother’s throat.
He fell backward and slipped on the spilled soda, landing scrambling on the floor.
“Goddamn it!”
Shaking, Jane rose as he grabbed the counter and hoisted himself up. She stood between him and her mother, holding her arms out in front of her.
“Dad.”
Linda’s breathing behind her was shallow, whimpering. Her cigarette lay drenched in the leak of soda on the floor beside her. He started to come toward them.
“Daddy, please. Leave her alone.”
He wasn’t a big man, or particularly strong. Sober, he read his paper in the morning, shut himself in his room and kept quiet. But when he drank, he became something else. Someone who didn’t know them, and didn’t want to.
“Please. Dad. Just leave.”
She’d washed his laundry just that morning. He’d taken her for her first driving lesson. Yet he looked at her now as if he’d never seen her before. His eyes flat and dilated. His face unrecognizable.
“Fuck you both then.” He stood and walked out, grabbing his keys off the peg by the back door.
Her mother tried to rise, to follow him. The screen door slammed in her face.
His car started up in the driveway.
“What did you do, Janie? What did you do?” Linda brought her hands to her face, wincing when she touched the place where he hit her. She slumped down on the floor.
“I’ll get some ice.” Jane put her hand on her mother’s shoulder, on her hair. “Stay right here.” She walked to the bathroom, hearing her mother start to cry, and found the bandages, the aspirin, the ice packs. She cleaned her mother up and helped her into bed.
In the kitchen, she swept up the glass on the floor. Listening through an open window to the trees swaying in the dark, she pulled a shard out of her hand, wiping the blood on her jeans.
She heard the phone a few hours later, almost before it rang.
“Hello.” The sound of her own voice startled her.
“Ma’am, hello.”
She gripped the receiver in her hand.
“This is Sergeant Curtis from the Worcester County Police Department. I need to speak to Mrs. Elliott.”
The light was out down the hall in her mother’s room. “This is she.”
“You’d better come on down to the station, ma’am. It’s your husband.”
“Is he okay?”
“He’s fine. He’s being detained for questioning.”
“Detained?”
“He was in a fight at a bar in Ocean City. The man he fought with is dead.”
Twelve years later
The steady drone of the alarm woke her first and then, minutes later, the sound of the shower running in the next room. Jane lay in darkness, listening to heat hissing through the floorboards, the wind singing against the windowpane. It was going to be a cold day. Cold and clear. A good day for flying. There would be no delays.
She pulled the blankets up over her bare arms and shifted to the far side of the mattress, turning her face into Ben’s pillow. It smelled of his shampoo, the bitter tang of his scalp. She’d gone to sleep before him, exhausted, and now again he was up before her, leaving her alone in the bed. The shower stopped running. From down the hall came the clatter of his hair dryer, his razor, the intervals of water in the sink.
At last he came in, wearing a towel around his waist. He saw her lying awake in the bed. “Jane. Have you seen my watch? I can’t find it anywhere.”
Lifting the blanket, she smiled and shifted aside to let him back into his spot. “Come here.”
He let out a breath. “I’m running late.”
“Your watch is on the dresser. Come here.”
He found his watch where she’d said it was and laced it onto his wrist before sliding into the bed with her. “Just for a minute.” He turned into her arms, his skin still damp from the steam of the shower.
“How do you feel?” She ran a hand over his clean-shaven face.
“Nervous.”
“I can imagine. You’ve worked hard for this, though, Ben. You’re ready.”
“I think so. I think I am.”
“I’m proud of you. You should be proud too.”
“Thanks, Jane.”
She buried her face in the clean curve of his neck. “I love you.”
He let himself relax against her for a moment before pulling away. “I really have to move.”
He stood, removing his towel to dress in the clothes he’d laid out the night before. He pulled on his jeans, dropping to a chair by the door, bending to tie the laces of his sneakers.
He had a slight build, lean and wiry. His bare chest was smooth and muscled from a careful daily regimen at the gym. Light blond hair, cut short, bristled against the collar of his starched blue shirt as he shrugged it over his shoulders. He turned away from her, buttoning as he left the room and headed down the hallway. “Coffee?”
“Sure.” She tied a flannel robe around her waist and followed him to the kitchen. He grabbed two mugs from the cabinet and handed her one, pouring himself a cup and leaving the carafe on the counter for her.
“I sent in that application for Raymond yesterday,” she said. “For the afterschool program? Apparently it’s very competitive. Not too many spots, a lot of kids trying.”
“Oh?”
“But I think it would really help him. I think he needs more than the regular school day. And some more attention too. I mean, I have thirty-two kids. I wish I could give him my whole day, but I can’t.”
“Shit.” He stood by his open suitcase, rifling through a drawer in the desk, shoving its contents from side to side. “I can’t find the flash drive. I have to go.”
She walked over, plucked the drive out from behind a stack of books and handed it to him. “Do you think it’s the right thing? Sending him to more school? Maybe he should just go home and play.”
“What?”
He shoved the drive into a pocket and zipped the suitcase closed. “Listen, I have to call the taxi. Can we talk about this later?”
“Of course. Sorry.”
It was dark outside still, an hour before sunrise. He punched the numbers into his cell phone. “Yes, I need a cab in Point Pleasant, going to Newark Airport.”
From the bathroom she heard his last-minute rounds, checking to make sure he had everything he needed. Setting her toothbrush down on the sink, she caught her own eye in the mirror.
“Don’t.” She pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes and shook her head.
In the front room Ben stood waiting by the open door. He wore a light jacket. His suitcase and a carry-on lay at his feet.
“Won’t you be cold?”
“It’ll be hot there. I don’t want to carry the extra coat.”
“Right.”
She went to him, slipping her arm around his back and leaning into his chest. “I’m gonna miss you.”
He hugged her. “Me too.”
“Listen.” She pulled back to look into Ben’s face. “You earned this. You’re going to make an incredible film.”
“Thanks, Janie. I hope you’re right.” He stepped out of her arms to button his jacket. “And by the way, you’re gonna be okay. You know that, don’t you?”
Despite herself, she bristled. “I know that.”
“We’ll pick up on everything when I get back.”
“I know.”
Outside, a car horn sounded. Ben looked through the window at the taxi waiting under a street lamp. “Well.”
“I love you.”
He fumbled in his jacket, checking for his wallet. “I love you too. You’ll lock up?”
“Yes.”
“Make sure you double bolt the door.”
“I will.”
He squeezed her hand. “See you in the summer.”
The open door let in a gust of cold air.
“Good luck, Ben.”
He slung the smaller bag over his shoulder, lifting the heavy suitcase in his hand. “Bye.” He turned and hurried down the walkway.
She watched him hurl his bags into the trunk of the taxi and swing around to the side door. He waved, ducking into the backseat before she had time to wave back.
“Bye.” She stood in the doorway, in the cold, for a long time before she closed the door.
* * *
The morning train was hot and packed with commuters. She huddled into the window seat, headphones in her ears, a half-read novel lying open on her lap. Outside, the hulking shapes of abandoned trains stood in the rail yard. Gray clouds washed over the low city sky.
At the station, commuters and day travelers rose from the seats around her, swarming her, crushing her into the tide of bodies funneling up the stairs. Her eyes found Sarah hurrying toward the gate.
“Sarah!”
Jane reached out and pulled her best friend into a fierce hug, letting the crowd bustle past them. She brushed her hand over Sarah’s gold hair, taking in the scent of her light perfume.
“I’m so happy to see you.”
Sarah took Jane’s arm, gave it a firm squeeze and steered her toward the street. “Westway?”
“Sure.”
“Crowded on the train?”
“Not too bad.”
They exited into a fog of cigarette smoke at the door to Seventh Avenue. Gusts of wind blew plastic bags and paper in circles at their feet and over their heads. The air smelled of nuts roasting and hot coffee and garbage. They inched through Times Square, caught up in the gush of tourists jamming the sidewalk.
“Oh, my God,” Sarah said. “Can people please learn to walk when they visit here? I’m starving.”
“When’s the last time you ate?”
“I had breakfast when I woke up.”
“It’s ten o’clock in the morning.”
“So?”
“Are you a hobbit?”
“Yes. I am.”
Morning rush was over at the diner. They pushed through the heavy door and headed for their favorite vinyl booth.
Sarah picked up a menu. “I don’t know why we bother looking. We always get the same thing.”
The waitress brought their coffee, and Jane smiled her thanks.
Sarah watched her pour a stream of cream into her cup. “You okay?”
“Yes, I’m fine.”
“And how is Ben?”
“He’s good. Probably halfway to L.A. by now.”
“So he didn’t let you go with him to the airport.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know, Sarah. He needed to focus on what’s to come.”
“When are you going to visit?”
“I’m not. I mean, I don’t plan to. Not anytime soon.”
“You mean he doesn’t want you to.”
“No. He doesn’t want me to.”
The waitress came to take their orders. Eggs Benedict, a spinach omelet. She jotted them down on a pocket-sized pad, humming as she moved away toward the kitchen. Jane watched her go.
“Anyway, spring assessments are coming up at school. I need to be here. And there’s no reason why two people in a relationship can’t handle some time apart.”
“Is that you speaking or Ben?”
“Enough, Sarah. Tell me about your date last night.”
“Don’t change the subject.”
“I’m not changing the subject. I just don’t want to talk about it. We’re independent people. We don’t have to do things the traditional way.”
She took Sarah’s discarded sugar packet, flattened it out and started folding it into even compartments.
Sarah eyed her. “What about the wedding?”
“What about it?”
“Is it going to be here? In L.A.? This year? Next year?”
“I don’t know.”
“What’s going on?”
“Nothing’s going on. Not for a long time.”
“What does that mean?”
Jane sighed, smoothing the sugar packet out again, starting over, bending it back into neat accordion folds. “He wants to hold off on the wedding.”
“What?”
“Nothing. Just hold off. Not break up or anything, not cancel it, but just…delay it for a while. He says he needs time to focus on the film. He doesn’t want to have to keep putting me off when I bring it up, but he just can’t, I don’t know, deal with it right now. He asked for some time.”
“How much time?”
“I don’t know.”
“Are you okay with that?”
“Sure, why wouldn’t I be?”
Sarah took Jane’s hand across the table, running her thumb over the small diamond on her finger. “Mr. Frodo.”
“Oh, stop.”
“He’s an evil little troll.”
“He just needs to focus on his work. Is that so bad?”
“It kind of is, yes.”
