January 28
Have you ever had a painting or relationship that was snatched away before its time? What do you do with the agony left in its wake? I don’t want to waste my suffering. Or worse, distill it down to bitterness.
Aly at www.The-Art-Of-My-Life.blogspot.com
Cal had run out of Dr. Pepper this afternoon and now it was midnight. Aly’s two-day-old coffee sloshed in his stomach. He’d fought the Gulf Stream current for twenty-four hours and crashed somewhere around Jupiter, only to wake up panicked that the Coast Guard had found him.
He’d slapped white paint over the Escape’s name on the transom, and started off again.
He could have shot straight to the Bahamas from New Smyrna Beach, but thirty-four blue water hours one-manned was more than he’d wanted to handle. He’d made the right decision hugging the coast to West Palm Beach.
Exhaustion draped him like a cast net weighed down with a hundred sinkers. He shifted into machine mode to knock out the last three hours to West Palm Beach.
The baggie of stems and pieces he’d scavenged from Leaf’s food truck, duct-taped to the inside of the keel, taunted him like it had since he left New Smyrna Beach. His mind replayed Aly’s belief he could stay sober. She thought he gave in to despair too easily. Well, who wouldn’t give up—facing a life without Aly, without Fish and his family?
He didn’t want to remember, but he’d nearly lost Aly by smoking while sailing. He’d made it this far without lighting up. He could make it the rest of the way.
His eyes panned a three-sixty around the horizon and land surrounding the boat. Every light intensified, turning into a Coast Guard cutter. He was channeling Leaf’s paranoia along with his inability to make it in society. For the first time he resented his grandfather.
Mom had beat the genetics she’d been dealt. He sat there, a hand on the wheel, his mind as blank as the night channel, asleep and awake at the same time.
Then, thoughts sluggishly moved through his head. Mom had married Dad and normalcy. She’d started a business. Cared—too much—what people thought. But there was something else, something bedrock. God. She must have thrown her arms around God in a headlock at some point. That explained why she crammed religion down him with his Flintstone vitamins.
He had to have some of Dad’s laid back, relational genes, too. But he sure got Mom’s intensity, artistic bent. Life came hard for both of them.
Mom had been different lately, almost like she was trying to accept him the way he was. In a searing moment of truth, he saw that his deeper connection was with his mother, not his father. In the next breath, he felt the loss of never seeing her again. Or Dad, Missy, Jesse and Kallie. Jillian and Chase’s small faces crawled through his mind. He’d never see the kids grow up. He’d miss the day Fish decided to forgive him.
Wind whistled through him, whipping their faces, and a lifetime of memories away.
He dashed below for a sketchpad and pencil. But when he pressed the pencil to the paper, pain paralyzed him. He fired the pad and pencil through the open hatch.
He tied his sweatshirt hood tighter and tried to think about nothing for long stretches. After so many hours under sail the wind seemed to wear away his skin, snake into him through the pores on his face. The drone hummed in his ears till he wondered if it could drive him insane. Mental health wasn’t a strong suit in his family.
Aly. He’d resisted thinking about her for twenty-nine and a half hours, but his mind and body were too tired to push her away one more time. He’d thought it was just the Gulf Stream fighting against him, but everything in him clawed to get back to Aly. If he turned around he wouldn’t be going back to Aly. He’d be going to jail.
Razor-wire topped fences, cement block walls, metal bunks, every day the same as the last. For five years. No way.
Then Aly was in his arms. He breathed her. Made love to her. Held on and never let go. His chest quaked. Again. The numbers on the GPS blurred. A knot formed in his chest. His shoulders shook.
He wiped the wetness out of his eyes with the arm of his sweatshirt and stared at the GPS. West Palm.
His body on autopilot, he dropped sail, anchored, and fell onto his bunk more tired than he’d been in his life.
Tomorrow he’d sail the last ten hours to Grand Bahama—his future loomed colorless and empty as a rusted fifty-gallon drum. His last conscious thought—a plea, a prayer.
Aly.
Aly stared into her morning coffee, wondering if she had slept at all. Whenever she closed her eyes she saw Vic Franco and his shotgun or Cal saying there was a warrant out for his arrest.
Somehow she and Fish had given the Coast Guard their statements without telling any outright lies. When they docked the Escape, her mother, Kallie—minus Jesse who had taken the kids home to bed—Cal’s folks, and Henna cheered. Every one of them hugged her and Fish. Even Starr, who actually said she wanted to be closer to Aly in the future.
Missy had gone home to crash, and no one knew where Cal was, least of all her.
And she still didn’t. She’d been glued to her phone for the thirty-six hours since she’d last seen him. She slept curled around it, hoping Cal would call—somehow erase the hurt that he hadn’t told her about the arrest warrant; tell her he’d worked things out with his probation officer—but he hadn’t.
She’d been an idiot to think he wouldn’t ignore texts and disappear for days at a time now that he’d told her he loved her.
She stared at the phone willing it to come to life. It vibrated and shimmied. She stared at the pink metal in shock, then lunged across the counter. Cal?
Fish.
Her heart sunk. “What’s up?”
“Cal took off on the Escape the night of the boat-jacking. Left me a note saying he wanted to get his head together for a couple of days, not to call the Coast Guard. I didn’t think too much about it till the police showed up this morning looking for him.”
Fear tasted like she’d run her tongue across a window screen. “Did you tell his family?” “Just you. I don’t know what to do. I’ve got a charter that leaves in ten minutes, and I won’t be back till four thirty.”
“I’ll handle it. Thanks for calling.” She shut her phone and dropped her head onto her folded arms. “Oh, God.”
If Cal had wanted her to know where he’d gone, he would have called, stopped by. He was in some kind of trouble. He’d run, that much was obvious. He’d told her he’d never go back to jail. His family would be frantic.
She swallowed the metallic taste. Where would Cal run?
There was only one place she could think of to look. She downed her coffee, grabbed her keys and purse, and jumped into her car. She had to try.
Starr gripped the bar and stared unseeingly at Jackson’s silhouette. Behind him, morning sun burned through the glass wall.
Cal, violating probation, gone. Aly didn’t know where.
Starr sank to the floor and clenched her arms around her knees. He’d run. A shudder passed through her body. She’d thought Cal was staying away from weed. And Henna had gotten rid of his supply. He’d been out of jail six months. Starr had almost started to breathe regularly.
How could Cal, who had always had family to back him up, live on the run? He would progress to harder drugs, die with a needle in his arm. Alone.
She vaguely sensed Jackson lifting her, cajoling her to stand and come with him.
How could they find Cal? Where would he go? Did he have friends she didn’t know about? He’d barely been out of New Smyrna Beach.
Jackson walked her across the drive, into the house, and released her beside their bed. She lay back and stared at the glow-in-the-dark stars she’d whimsically stuck to the ceiling, her version of camping out.
Always before she could dull feeling with activity—prune the lemon tree, clean out the pantry, teach a class, dance. But now, she lay still on the bed, a hundred-pound ingot of fear and hurt planted on her chest. If you could divorce your child and cease loving him, she would.
Jackson sat there for a long time stroking her hair absently and she didn’t have the will to bat his hand away. There was no comfort. His shoulders that had always been so powerful, slumped with helplessness. He, who had comforted so many, had no words for himself, for her.
Their pain rose in the room like dirty water in a car that had gone over a bridge. Her body lay paralyzed. Not even an eyelid blinked. But her mind dragged her back to the first time she entered the jail to visit Cal. Would Cal be found and sent back?
She’d walked across the thin, worn carpet of the visitor’s room, scanning the prisoners’ faces projected onto computer screens separated by study carrels. She’d passed visitors parked on mismatched chairs—a black woman balancing a toddler and an infant on her lap, an old man in grease-stained jeans. Dirty, poor, amoral by association. Now she was one of them.
“I’ll give you something to cry about.” The words her father had used to stop her tears decades ago clamped down on her. They cinched the pain inflating and deflating her lungs until she could barely suck oxygen from the air.
She sunk onto the visitor’s chair and curled her fingernails into the hard plastic seat. Her gaze welded to the video monitor, and through it, to her son’s hungry eyes, scanning her face as she consumed his.
If she pressed her palm against the cement block wall and Cal did the same, she could almost touch him—if he wasn’t squirreled away in some distant part of the jail.
Her parents had dug a saltwater spring of tears she should have cried. But in the past twenty-four hours Cal drilled even deeper and cracked a fault in her foundation. Ice water—fear, despair, loss—flowed in and chilled her core.
Cal’s gaze, mahogany with anger, hurt, skittered from the webcam. Sea-bleached hair her fingers once clutched kinked against the shoulders of his orange jumpsuit as though waiting to spring back around her knuckles.
She searched beneath the unnatural pallor of his tanned skin for the six-year-old who had taken Calvin of Calvin and Hobbes’ name. The irony of a preacher’s son called John Calvin Koomer caged in the Volusia County Correctional Facility fanned hysteria through her. But she stilled her body and concentrated on inhaling the smell of pencil eraser scrubbed across a piece of paper. She glanced down, expecting to see rubber shavings, but only her purse sat on the shelf.
The scratch of Cal rubbing the stubble on his chin came through the mic. He opened his mouth, then closed it, locking in whatever thoughts he might have voiced.
She knew what she needed to say. I love you. Nothing you do will ever make me stop loving you. The words had come to her in the half-sleep spanning the hours she’d lain in bed spooned to Jackson, long after his shoulders had ceased to quake with grief. Words she was certain God wanted her to say.
She cleared her throat, and Cal’s eyes darted to the monitor, pliable, needy. She hadn’t seen the soft Cal in such a long time, she hardly recognized him. A kernel of warmth burst open in her chest, and her arms ached to hold him.
Behind her an oscillating fan creaked and started its journey in the opposite direction.
She still loved him even though he’d just ruined a lifetime of salvaging her reputation—the one her parents started annihilating before her birth. It would take a miracle to keep this episode of Cal’s life out of the The Hometown News—one God was unlikely to give up.
I love you stalled on her tongue.
“I’m sorry, Mom.”
She wondered if he read the battle inside her. Of the three kids, Cal knew her the best.
She and Jackson had been too lenient, too strict, too stupid, too blind. They must have done something to deserve public humiliation. Only minorities and white trash landed in jail.
Cal hooded his eyes, shutting her out, and last night’s fear surged into her stomach. “Are you okay?”
“Just great.”
She flinched at his sarcasm.
Cal sighed, relenting. “The holding cell in New Smyrna Beach was the worst. The metal door clanged shut. I had all night to stare at the leftover ink on my fingers and think. Not knowing how long I’ll be locked up—”
“I mean, no one’s… hurt you?” Her voice quavered at the end. She wasn’t naïve. Cal had Jackson’s good looks. Surfing bulked his muscle mass, but perverts came in all sizes.
He blinked three times in rapid succession, reminding her of a tic he’d developed the first three months of preschool. “I can take care of myself. Just a bunch of druggies, DUIs, and a guy who got loaded and peed off a hotel balcony one too many times during spring break. Look, it’s Daytona Beach, not Miami. You’re worrying for nothing.”
His life had imploded, but he reassured her. She moistened her lips. “Dad talked to you about posting bail?”
Cal flicked his chin up, then down.
Starr would sleep in the house on Riverside Drive where she and Jackson had lived for thirty years, but her heart would be trapped here with Cal for the duration of his stay. The unfairness of her sentence churned bile into her throat. She should think about Cal’s pain, but right now her own was more than she could stomach. “Twenty-one grams of pot. What were you thinking?”
Cal shrugged.
“Forty-two joints. Did you plan to sell them?”
Cal’s eyes widened. “Since when do you know how many joints can be rolled from twenty-one grams?”
Starr glanced at the perfectly shaped half-moons of her nails. “Since my mother grew weed in the backyard.”
Cal’s brows shot up.
Her fingertips had grazed the scar at her temple before she realized and clenched them in her lap. She had to hold together the fissure Cal had cracked in her. No matter what. God only knew what would ooze out.
Jackson’s hand had stilled on her head.
Her eyes stared out the window at the palm fronds ruffling in the breeze. Cal in jail, as horrible as it had been for her, felt safer than Cal on the run. She couldn’t survive not knowing whether he was dead or alive.
She should pray for Cal. For his safety, that he’d come home. Her mind drifted to what Cal must be feeling and fishtailed away. She could only pray that God would make her pain stop. Jackson would have to pray for Cal.
Aly’s text ricocheted around Cal’s body, his sleep-furred mind. She was here in West Palm Beach. She wanted to see him. To talk him into coming home, no doubt. No way was he going back to jail. He wouldn’t answer. He checked the time. Noon. He’d been asleep nine hours.
In his mind he saw Aly driving up and down the coast until she spotted the Escape.
He should set course for Grand Bahama and take off. Not even Aly could make him change his mind.
But the ache to see her one last time intensified as sleep sloughed off. She deserved a goodbye. He squinted at the shoreline looking for Aly’s car.
His text alert chimed. Please, Cal. I know you’re here. Somewhere. Just talk to me. I love you.
Her words knocked the air from his lungs. Even knowing he was running, she loved him. Even after jail. Sinking the business. Wasting sixty-two grand of her money.
Twenty minutes later he rowed for shore where Aly would meet him, his heart lay like ballast in his chest. He glanced over his shoulder. There she was, standing on the beach. He devoured her with his eyes, the last time he’d see her. Ever.
The dinghy slid across the sand to a stop.
Smoky gray skin underlined her bloodshot eyes. “What’s going on?”
He stared at the sole of the dinghy where the paint chipped off and exposed bare wood. His shoulders slumped.
He could feel her gaze beating down on him.
He gave a dry laugh. “Isn’t it obvious? I’m running.” The words were monotone. He didn’t look up to see her reaction, didn’t want to see his mother’s disappointment in her eyes.
“Don’t.”
His head came up. “I’m not going back to jail.” He dared her to argue.
“How will you live?”
He shrugged. “I’ll eat fish. Lie low. Disappear in the Bahamas.”
The color drained from Aly’s face, and she reached out to steady herself on the edge of the boat.
“Maybe they’d revoke my plea bargain, reinstate the felony. I could be sent up for five years. I’m not taking that chance.”
Aly sunk to the sand as though she couldn’t support herself any longer.
He’d been a coward not to tell her to her face to begin with. And now he couldn’t stand to watch her reaction. “What do you want me to do?”
“Turn yourself in.”
“No.”
“They will go easy on you if you do the right thing.”
Cal stepped out of the boat to push it back into the water. “Believe that, and I’ll tell you another fairytale.”
Aly winced. “I’ll worry myself crazy.”
“Nothing is going to happen to me.”
Aly went up on her knees and clutched the edge of the dinghy. “Liar. You’ll be living under the law, Cal. Not safe. Do you think I’m that naïve?”
“There’s no choice to make. I’m not going back in there where they choose the color of your underwear, every day is like the last—TV, shitty food, everyone is existing, not really living, caged like animals.”
“But when you get out, you’re free to do anything you want.”
“Try getting a job with a record.”
“And hiding from the law for the rest of your life is better?” Aly grabbed the rim of the dinghy and stood. She closed the few feet between them. “Do this one thing for me. I’ll never ask you to do anything again.”
The pleading in her voice and the ache in her eyes contracted his chest. “You’re asking for five years of my life.”
Her hazel eyes—more brown than green in full sun—burned into his. “Yes, I am.” Her hand gripped his arm as though she’d never let go. Her eyes widened, and her fingertips dug into his arm. “You said you loved me when we were locked in the head.”
He stared into her eyes.
“Prove it.”
“You’re not the one who would have to rot in jail.”
“If you run, I’ll rot the rest of my life—never knowing if you’ve been swallowed by the drug culture. If you’re dead or alive—”
“I’ll send you birthday cards.”
She flung his arm down, and he could see the white imprint of where her fingers had clamped down on his skin. “Gee, thanks.” She spit disgust out with the words. “Even if you live, you’re killing your art future. Art is all about making a name for yourself. You know you can’t exist without producing art. How are you going to paint on the boat? And what’s the point of spending the rest of your life painting if no one will ever see your work?”
He glared back, not wanting her to know she was getting to him.
“And I thought the Escape was half mine. Is it half mine only if you don’t need it as a getaway vehicle?”
She was mad and fighting dirty now. He’d never seen her go to the wall against him for anything. And what she was doing to his gut wasn’t pretty. He gritted his teeth, waiting for her to wind down.
He should just leave now.
Aly sucked in a breath, then another, calming herself.
He couldn’t leave. He wanted to hear everything she had to say.
“When Vic pointed that sawed-off shotgun at me, you stepped between me and him. You would have taken a bullet for me.”
“I’d do it again.”
“Five years in jail is less a sacrifice than death.” She clutched his bicep. “You know what the worst thing about your running would be?”
“What?”
Tears sprang to her eyes. “I’d never see you again.”
Whether he ran or went to jail, he doubted he’d end up with Aly. But something clicked inside him. She loved him. She really loved him—like she’d said on the boat. Like she’d said two and a half years ago in Cody’s garage. It was true. “Fine. I’ll do it.” He yanked his arm out of her grasp, angry that she’d won.
Pictures of sun and fish and sailing swept out of his mind. In rushed a grainy visitation video of windows with bars, the stink of bleach, Maalox green walls, the social order that laid every man out on a grid according to race and attitude.
“I’m coming with you.”
“To prison?” He spit the words out.
“To turn yourself in.”
“You don’t trust me to do what I say?”
“So you don’t have to do it alone.”
He pushed the boat into the water.
She shot questions at him with her eyes.
“I’ll do it tomorrow.”
He saw the doubt run across her features, but he was too spent to fight her. “Get in.”
Morning sun warmed Aly’s eyelids, and for a hazy moment she was at peace. Then, water lapped against the hull. The boat rocked. Yesterday’s events sloshed in her stomach with last night’s canned chili. She was in West Palm Beach, not at the marina in New Smyrna.
Cal had barely spoken a word to her since she stood on the beach. He was angry, cold. But it didn’t matter. He would be safer in jail than on the run. She’d never wanted anything so badly in her life. Even if Cal never spoke to her again, it would be worth it to know he was safe. That he had a future.
She rubbed the sleep out of her eyes, filled her lungs with cold morning air, and dropped her legs over the side of the fore bunk.
She had lain in her bunk with terror’s adrenaline pin-balling through her body for what felt like hours—wondering if Cal would actually go through with it. When she’d asked him if he was suicidal, he’d barked out a harsh laugh and said he wished he had the balls to do it. Finally, Van Gogh whined to share the narrow bunk and exhaustion claimed her.
She looked around for the dog. How had he gotten out of bed without waking her? In the head she splashed cold water on the dregs of sleep and used the toothbrush she kept in the cupboard.
In minutes she’d find out whether Cal would send her home alone. Whether he was dead.
She reached for her brush from her purse on the table in the dining nook. She stared at the empty metal circle on one end where she’d clipped her car keys last night. A blade of panic whispered through her.