Jimmy dropped me off at the terminal. He left me with a look that made me wish I was staying—and glad I was leaving.
As I stood in line for the security check I noticed a blonde toddler hugging her mommy’s legs. Her eyes were gray like Summer’s, and it hit me like a wave. Mona was right. Summer’s baby was without her mother because of what I’d done. When I’d signed my name on the consent paper, I signed away her life.
Hands shaking, I dragged myself out of line and slumped on a nearby bench. The small girl giggled and looked up at her mom’s cooing voice. Her little arms went up. The mother picked her up and snuggled a kiss into the child’s golden hair. My throat ached shut, and then I couldn’t stop the tears. I buried my face in my hands and tried to control my sobs, but they just tore out of my chest in loud heaving cries.
I looked up as a flight attendant stepped over to me with a worried look on her face. “Are you OK, honey? Can I call someone for you?”
I looked up, embarrassed, and wiped my eyes with my coat sleeve.
“I’m so sorry. I just…a very good friend of mine just passed away.”
Her eyes registered relief. She was probably happy that I wasn’t having some sort of fear-of-flying breakdown. “That’s just terrible. Is there anyone I can call for you?”
I shook my head and stood, gathering my things.
“No, thank you.” I hesitated. I didn’t want to get on that plane. “Is there a car rental place?”
She nodded and directed me toward the counter. “You know, we can get you on another flight if you need a little time.”
“No, thank you, but no. I think I need to do some driving. You know, clear my head, listen to some really bad talk radio.”
I forced a smile, and she did the same.
“OK. If you’re sure.” She was already backing away to the emotional safety of her counter.
I rented an SUV because there were no other cars available. The kid at the counter handed over a map, and while still parked in the car rental parking lot, I plotted what I was going to do. I never did anything spontaneous like this. I always planned and analyzed and prepared. This was…I don’t know what this was.
I left the car in a pay lot outside of Pike Place Market and walked the three levels of shops and cafés and restaurants. I watched the fish throwers put on a show for the tourists and wandered through the dusty book shop on the bottom floor. Outside on the street level, a kid wearing an eye searing lime-green hoodie plucked out a Spanish-sounding ballad on his battered guitar. I dropped a twenty dollar bill in his open guitar case. Mine was the only money in it. He didn’t seem worried though. His eyes were closed, his face turned up to the setting sun. Another teenager, this one with a harmonica sat down next to the guitar player and the two of them floated into a spontaneous duet. Soft and slow, the tune wove itself between the laughing and chatting of the passing crowd. I looked up and gazed at the rows of daffodils growing on the roof of the building. This was Summer’s favorite place.
In high school, we’d spent entire days here. Fruits and vegetables were fresh and cheap. It was a place where both of us could buy our own lunch, or coffee. I didn’t feel poor here. She didn’t seem wealthy here. We were just two friends. Two kids at the start of our lives. I reached back to that time—the time before Parker, and tried to remember what her laugh had been like when it was full of promise.
But I couldn’t quite remember her that way anymore. She’d met and married Parker while I was away at college with Jimmy. Mona had called frantic one day, screaming about how Summer was missing. Jimmy and I had driven home from the University of Washington. We’d broken land speed records but still weren’t in time to make Summer’s spur-of-the-moment wedding at the courthouse. I was crushed. When had she fallen in love? Why didn’t I know this? How had she gotten so far away?
I walked to the pier and caught the ferry to Bainbridge. It was cold. Colder than usual, and the sky roiled with dark clouds overhead. I stood on the deck and let the wind whip hair against my face while I stared at the far off strip of land. The rain started as I disembarked, and I walked hunched over toward the middle of the little village. Wild lavender bushes swayed with the coming storm and the smell reminded me of my first date with Jimmy. Our senior year, right after his father died, we had dinner at the little fish restaurant near the marina. The marina.
I found myself heading toward the boat. Jimmy’s family kept their boat at this marina. Maybe that was the reason I came all the way out here. I walked up and down the dock searching for their slip. Maybe they didn’t even have it anymore. I spied the Corbeau name on the dock railing and it all came rushing back.
A beautiful Concordia Yawl rose gracefully from the water. My father, a boat mechanic, had worked on many of these yachts. As a child, I was warned never to touch or to board the beautiful vessels. I might dirty it, or mar it in some way.
Anger flared in my gut. My throat and eyes burned with frustration. Summer had resources at her disposal that I could only dream about. And yet she’d not lifted a finger to save herself. Instead, she sucked me and Jimmy into a cycle of worry, frustration, and anger along with her.
I don’t remember climbing onto the boat. I don’t remember prying open the hatch and entering the sleeping quarters. I only remember yelling. Yelling and crying and sweeping things off of shelves. I beat on the polished counter with my fists. I screamed my anger to the mast. I crumbled on the armchair and sobbed into a silk pillow. She could have come to me. She should have taken the help I offered. I would have moved mountains for her.
And yet, Summer’s final act toward me was not friendship. Instead, she’d tied me to her tragic fate. She left me with guilt, and doubt, and the inescapable knowledge that I was who she chose to bear the burden of letting her die. And then I remembered her broken body. Worse, her broken will. Then my anger waned and I was back where I’d started.
Outside, the storm hit. I huddled on the couch and rode it out, each tilt and pitch of the hull a mirror to my own internal squall.
By morning, I was spent. Exhausted and cried out, I awoke to the bleeping of my dying cell phone battery. I’d put it on airplane mode at the airport. When I switched it back to normal mode, eleven messages popped up on the screen.
Jimmy. Salem. Jimmy. Salem. They’d left frantic messages wanting to know where I was. Had I missed my flight? Was I OK?
I looked at the destruction I’d levied on the craft and smiled bitterly. It was a poor substitute for her family.
The phone, now out of batteries, was useless. I climbed off the boat and found there weren’t any payphones on the island. I took the ferry back, went to find the rented SUV, and plugged the phone into the car charger. I sat and stared out the windshield. Two minutes into the charge, the phone rang. It was Jimmy. My voice sounded hoarse, probably from yelling at the empty boat.
“Hey, Jimmy.”
“Rain!” He sounded relieved and frustrated at the same time. “Where…what happened? Salem said you missed your flight.”
“I didn’t miss it. I decided to stay here another night.”
“You’re still here, in Seattle?” He sounded guarded.
“I went to Pike Place Market and wandered around.”
I tried to sound casual, as if I’d had inconsequential errands to run. Well, you know, Jimmy, I took a ferry ride, destroyed your family’s yacht, screamed up a storm. The usual touristy things.
Jimmy didn’t ask.
“I’m sorry I didn’t call. I’m sorry I made you worry.”
“Rain, if you needed to be alone, then that’s what you needed. No harm in that.”
I stared out the windshield listening to him breathe and waiting for him to ask me what I’d done all night. He didn’t. Instead, he blew a breath and cleared his throat.
“I’m flying back this morning.”
“OK.”
“OK,” I repeated. “I’ll call you.”
“OK,” he said again.
Jimmy got monosyllabic when he was upset. I’d hurt him. I’d worried him. We were back to our same old dance.