Sound of the Tide (5 page)

“Sounds awesome. I could really do with an evening off. I don’t know what’s going on, but my head has been killing me.”

Worried, I took a step back and ran my hand over the side of his temple. There was a deep line running down his forehead, and he looked a little pale. “You’re not feeling well?”

“No, no, I’m fine, I just have a splitting headache. I hope it’ll be a quiet night at the station so I can catch up on some sleep.”

“Maybe you should go and see a doctor or call in sick?” I suggested, even though I knew that Daniel wasn’t the type of guy to leave his work buddies hanging.

“No, it’ll be fine. And tomorrow we’ll take the night off, agreed?”

He massaged his temples and attempted a smile, but it looked crooked and unconvincing. I nodded.

“Sure?”

We were interrupted by someone honking their car horn.

“It’s Jenna,” I said, thrusting the tape dispenser into Daniel’s hands.

He kissed away my worries and tenderly patted my butt.

“Go, go, before she comes inside. With this headache I couldn’t stand her chattering today.”

I understood only too well. Jenna tended to talk without coming up for air, and she always seemed to be on the move. In all the years of our friendship I don’t think I’d ever seen her sit still for longer than two minutes at a time—well, unless we were having a movie marathon. That’s what we were planning tonight, dinner at her place and a movie marathon, during which I would probably fall asleep on her sofa. Which meant that I wouldn’t need to go back to Daniel’s apartment that night, and I could also make sure that Jenna would get up early and help me paint. I needed her in my corner because Daniel had flat-out refused to “deface the wall with that hideous red paint.”

In order to get rid of Jenna and me as quickly as possible, he started taping up the windowsill. I hesitated.

“Do you want me to stay? Then you could go home and get a little rest before your shift.”

More honking. Longer this time.

Daniel held his head.

“Go, get out of here. I’ll tape this real quick, and then I’ll be done, too.”

I bit my lip.

“Daniel? Do you think you could
. . .
”

“Huh?”

“
. . .
also wire the light fixture? If tomorrow is as cloudy as it is today, the light will be shitty when Jenna and I are painting.”

He moaned and looked up, where naked wire was peeking through the ceiling boards.

“Oh, babe!” He shook his head and winced at the same time.

“Please, Daniel,” I pleaded. I felt terrible, but I really wanted to have as easy a day tomorrow as possible.

“I will take a look, all right?”

“Great! You’re amazing!” I kissed him. “See you tomorrow—and take it easy tonight, you hear?”

“I promise. And now go.”

Another honk drowned out his voice, and I ran over to the door.

“All right, all right! I’m coming already!” I yelled, blowing Daniel a kiss good-bye.

It turned out to be our last good-bye. But I had no way of knowing that at the time. Daniel stayed late at the beach house—for me. He stayed and wired the light fixture. He stayed only because I had asked him to. Alone, without anyone to help him when a blood vessel in his brain hemorrhaged and he lost consciousness and fell off the ladder. Because of a light fixture he stayed—and died. By himself, without anyone by his side.

I dug my toes into the floor and grabbed Marcus’s arm in a desperate and futile attempt not to lose it. For the millionth time, I cursed myself for asking Daniel to stay longer at the house—all because of that stupid light that now I couldn’t even bring myself to switch on.

But I’d rather face that than Catherine.

“What do you think, Marcus? Will you help me move into the house?”

He patted the back of my hand.

“Piper, you are not well, that’s plain for everyone to see. Are you sure that’s what you want? If it’s because of Cat, then—”

“No, it’s not because of Cat. It’
s . . .
oh, hell, I have no idea. I just need to get away from this place. I need to find
me
in this new life without him. I don’t know how, bu
t . . .
”

“You’re not alone, you know. You have us—if you want—and you have the child.”

He smiled a sad smile.

“And don’t worry whether you’re going to love the child or not. It is your child, your baby, and you’re going to love it more than you could ever possibly imagine. Daniel will live on forever in that tiny creature, for you. He will always be with you. And when the two of you find happiness, then he’ll be happy, too, you can be sure of it.”

R
EBUILDING

November

O
nce I made the decision to move out of Daniel’s parents’ house, I actually surprised myself by taking things into my own hands.

I called a heating contractor, who said he would stop by and take a look the next day (although I doubted that this would fix the hot water), and I got Jenna to agree to painting the living room.

In return she demanded that I call my doctor right away and make a new appointment. I made a face but I called the doctor, and she gave me a pretty hard time on the phone for skipping my last few appointments. Which made my surge of motivation end real fast.

And so I crawled back under the covers right after the call. I picked up the remote and turned on the TV, then realized that I couldn’t start my favorite movie from the digital receiver’s hard drive. This had been Daniel’s area of expertise.

Life was such a pile of shit! I was trying to pull myself together! I was honestly trying, even though it was really, really hard. I had managed to take a first step forward. But then my own goddamn receiver kicked me back down.

Stupid technology! I got up, grabbed the receiver, and pulled it out of the TV stand.

“Fuck you, you piece of crap!”

I yanked out the cables and jumped to my feet.

“This is bullshit! There, take that!”

I crammed the receiver into the trash can, in with the pasta Catherine had talked me into taking a few days ago, which I had chucked right away. I wrinkled my nose because the rotting spaghetti was now greedily devouring the demon device. Quickly, I closed the lid and dragged myself back into the living room, bawling my eyes out.

I pulled the comforter over my head, wondering briefly whether the mutant spaghetti might turn the receiver into an airborne attack device. But since I had slammed the lid down real hard, my guess was that I was safe for now.

Daniel would have laughed until he cried if he saw me this helpless and desperate on account of a stupid digital receiver. I could almost hear him.

When I drove out to the house with Jenna later that afternoon, she made no bones about doubting my decision-making abilities.

“Fuck me, Piper, I can’t believe you’re really going to move in. Seriously, I thought you’d put the place back on the market.”

She turned to me, and her bright-pink lips were pressed together tightly with skepticism.

“It’s our house, Jenna. Daniel and I, we wanted to spend our life living in it! If I don’t move in, then it’ll be like he died for no reason. Don’t you understand?”

Jenna shook her long, blonde hair and put her perfectly manicured hand on my knee.

“Sure, I get it, but shit, Piper, it’s where he died! I’m sorry for saying that, but aren’t you afraid of his ghost haunting the place or something?”

I hit the brakes and stopped the car. As always, the road leading up to Mellos Cove was completely empty.

“What? I realize you’re only worried about me. But seriously, Jenna, I don’t need that sort of crap from you right now. His ghost? Are you kidding me?”

I slammed my hand down on the steering wheel and glared at her. “If Daniel’s ghost was haunting the place, I would pray for it to come and visit me! I would lie awake every night, waiting for him to appear, just so I wouldn’t have to go on living without him! Cross my heart and hope to die!”

Jenna’s face had turned red. As if seeking external help, she followed with her eyes a silver car that was just passing us by. If the driver wondered why our car was stopped in the middle of the road, it certainly didn’t faze him.

“In the last few weeks of his life, Daniel did
everything
to turn that house into our home. Every room in it is full of his love for us!” Tenderly, I ran my hands over my belly. “That house and this baby are the only things left of him. And you want me to give the house up?”

Crap! Tears were welling up again, and I wondered when they would ever dry up, given how much I had been crying lately.

“It’s all right, Piper. Really, it’s all right.”

Jenna pressed herself against me, trying to comfort me, and her voluptuous breasts collided with my belly. This made us both giggle and I felt better, even though my throat was still tight from weeping.

“You are the boss, okay?” she said. “I support you in everything you do, sweetie. You know that, right?”

I nodded. “Sure.”

After another embrace I started the engine again and slowly drove the final section of the road, deep in thought.

In the rearview mirror, the November sun was low on the horizon and its rays reflected off the water to my left. When I saw my own reflection, I cringed. In contrast with Jenna’s perfectly drawn eyeliner and bright, full lips, I looked like a zombie, what with my matted mass of hair, a zit on my chin, and puffy eyes from constant crying.

Maybe it’s not just the house that needs a fresh coat of paint
, I thought.

“Holy moley, Piper, who the hell is
that
?” Jenna asked, straining her neck to see. I looked into the rearview mirror again and shrugged my shoulders. We had just passed the house next door to Daniel’s and mine, which used to be deserted. A man was unloading the trunk of the silver car in the driveway, bending down to some boxes on the ground in front of him.

“Don’t know him. Maybe a contractor?” I suggested. That house had recently been sold, too.

“Jesus, Piper, that’s the kind of guy you need to stay up-to-date on!”

She pushed her sunglasses up into her hair and turned around in her seat as I pulled into my own driveway. “Do you think he needs help?”

I shook my head. Jenna was unbelievable! “Lord, throw yourself at him, why don’t you?”

I got out and looked across the front yard at the stranger’s car.

He really didn’t seem to need help because he was carrying the last of his boxes into the house. He closed the door behind him with a thud.

Jenna jumped out of the car and sprinted over to my side.

“Quick, open the door before he can see me in this outfit.”

She grabbed the basket with our go-cups of coffee and pulled me behind her toward the house. Her “outfit” was a pair of perfectly normal blue jeans and a low-cut V-neck shirt in dusky pink. She looked terrific—especially compared to me.

“I wonder what Frank would say if he could hear you right now?” I asked and received a venomous glare in return.

She and Frank, the owner of Franky’s Little Bakery, had a thing going on, and it had been going on for a while. Only, what that thing was, nobody really knew for sure. Not even her. It was too insubstantial to call it an on-again, off-again relationship, but it wasn’t something you could ignore.

“Oh, Frank!” Jenna ran her fingers through her hair in a theatrical gesture. “He throws himself at every skirt that comes through his door—Italian style!”

“And so you’re giving him a taste of his own medicine?”

She gave a dismissive wave of her hand.

“No, of course not! But you have to admit, that guy back there was
hot
!”

“I didn’t really look at him, so let’s just say I believe you. Now, can we get to work?”

I let my eyes wander over the patchy walls. Daniel had spackled all the holes the previous owner had left behind and had sanded everything down. I touched the tape on the window, the last bit of tape he had applied—for me—on the last night of his life. As always when I was in this room, I tried to avoid looking at the spot where Jenna and I had found him.

There, underneath the ceiling fixture.

Suddenly my heart was pounding in my throat. What was I doing here? Were Marcus and Jenna right? Would I really be able to live here, given that I couldn’t even look at the spot where h
e . . .

I felt nauseated and broke out in a cold sweat.

“Be right back!” I called and hurried up the stairs and into the bathroom. With my arms and legs trembling, I slumped down in front of the toilet bowl and watched helplessly as the morning’s breakfast took its leave.

I was kidding myself if I thought that I was ready to face the hard facts of life again.

“Daniel Basset, this is all your fault!” I whispered, wiping my mouth.

I wanted to be back on my sofa under the covers—blocking out this god-awful reality. Maybe I could stay hidden under those covers for a few more months, keep the curtains drawn, wait until the hurt went away. And who would blame me for it?

As if in answer, a well-aimed blow to my bladder made me cry out in pain. I looked down at my belly. “Oh, shut up. What do you know?” I muttered, slowly scrambling to my feet. I smoothed back my hair and rinsed out my mouth with freezing cold water.

The heating and plumbing contractor was certainly long overdue.

Once I felt back in control, I climbed down the stairs and saw that Jenna had turned on the radio and was in the process of stirring the paint.

“Hey, what wall are we doing?” she asked, bent over the paint can.

A little bit of paint had splattered on the floor next to her.

It was gleaming crimson red, right where Danie
l . . .

I pressed my hand over my mouth and ran back upstairs.

One week later I pushed the sweat-soaked comforter off my body. The darkness in Daniel’s apartment perfectly matched my dark mood. I had survived Catherine’s occasional visits to bring me food only by pretending to be asleep. Ever since the red paint disaster, I had not answered my phone and I had not left the apartment either. I just wasn’t ready, all right? Dammit, I would probably never be ready!

Still, I needed to get up because the baby both of us had been looking forward to so much was pushing against my bladder.

I was wearing one of Daniel’s shirts and a pair of his boxers, because my own pants had become too tight for my pregnant belly.

What I really needed were maternity clothes, but in order to buy some I would have to leave the apartment. It was so much easier just to put on Daniel’s clothes. I had even thought about simply giving birth right here on the couch, which would mean I would never have to leave the apartment ever again. Except Catherine would probably want to help out during a home birth, and that thought made me more than reluctant about the whole thing. She would probably explain that I shouldn’t make a big fuss! She
definitely
would! Thanks, but no thanks! I preferred to face my demons instead.

“All right, Piper! Easy does it!” I gave myself a kick in the pants and trudged into the bathroom.

Oh God, that pathetic creature staring out at me from the mirror, was that really me? How could that be me?

I grimaced and shook my head in disbelief, but denying it did no good. Jesus, I looked worse than New Orleans after Katrina! Groaning, I ran my hands through my tangled hair and reached a decision: I had to start rebuilding my life.

Then I looked down at myself.

“Shit!”

Quickly I squeezed my eyes shut to spare myself from further embarrassment. My legs were hairier than Bigfoot’s, and I was apparently trying to grow a jungle in my armpit.

I turned on the shower and waited for the steam to heat the room a little. I really needed an industrial pressure washer to wash away the neglect I had inflicted upon myself these past few months, but a loofah and a razor would have to do in a pinch. I got in and actually enjoyed the feeling of hot water pelting down on the top of my head.

Twice I washed my hair with my Satin Sheen for Megacurls shampoo, and as the lovely-scented lather flowed down my shoulders and back, I felt shiny and new. The bath and body scrub also revived me, and I only climbed out of the shower once the razor had won the battle against my furry legs and my hair had clogged the shower drain. I wrapped myself in a large towel and pattered into the bedroom.

There had to be some clothes left I could still wear. I found a loose light-blue skirt with an elastic waistband, and a dark-blue top that I could wear underneath an unbuttoned blouse. Satisfied, I posed in front of the mirror: not bad for starters. Back in the bathroom I blow-dried my hair, applied a generous helping of day cream, and even used my eyeliner.