A smile pulled at the corner of her lips. “Your mother’s a little like that,” she said.
“My mother is completely like that. And it’s not bad to look ahead, but sometimes it’s frustrating because what if something happened tomorrow? For twenty years, she’s been dreaming of going to Rome, and my father’s tried to get her to several times, but she always finds an excuse to put it off because, from her point of view, traveling is never a priority; it’s always a lark. What she should do is dip into her savings, go, and live that experience now, this very month.”
“You’re right,” Leah said.
“Then there’s the people who live in the past. People who have suffered, who’ve been harmed, who’ve been scarred by something. People stuck in a reality that no longer exists, and I think that’s the saddest thing of all. Knowing that one moment, all the things that are gone because of it, all the things that only exist in their memory, will always be with them.”
“That’s me, right?” she asked very softly.
“Yeah, that’s you. Life has taken its course and you’ve been left behind. I get that, Leah. I know that after what happened, it was impossible for you to gather your strength and get back up. Still more, you didn’t want to. I’ve been thinking this over these days, trying to understand how it must have been easier for you to give up than to face your pain, and then I guess you just made the decision. How did it happen?”
“I don’t know; it’s not like there was a concrete moment…”
“Are you sure? Not some kind of breaking point?”
I remembered those first days after the accident. Leah was in the hospital and had cried and shouted in my mother’s arms as she held her as tight as she could, trying to calm her down. All that had been…pain in its maximum expression. The kind you feel when you lose the people who matter most to you in the world. Nothing out of the ordinary. Not even during the funeral.
That’s how loss is. Mourning. Grief. And then, as time passes, you lick your wounds, you assimilate what’s happened, and the changes it brings in your life, what you’ve left behind, the implications of it.
That’s the step she never took.
She got stuck in the earlier phase, in mourning. She spent so long soaking in that grief that a part of her subconscious must have thought it was easier to build a fence and isolate herself, and instead find calm that way.
“I told you. There wasn’t a moment when things changed,” she answered, and I realized she was being sincere. She grabbed the surfboard when a stronger wave moved us. “You’re missing one, Axel. Talk to me about the third way of living.”
“The present. You can go on having memories; that’s not bad. It’s not bad to think about the future sometimes either, but most of the time, the mind shouldn’t be dealing with the past or something that might not happen, but instead on the here and now.”
“That’s you.” She smiled at me.
“I try. Look around, look at the sun, the colors of the sky, the sea. Is it not fucking incredible when you really stop to look at it all? When you feel it? Leah, the feeling of being in the water, the scent of the beach, the warm breeze…”
She closed her eyes and her face filled with peace, because she was next to me feeling the same thing I felt, fixed in that moment and not on anything else, like a tack in the wall that doesn’t move, that doesn’t go forward or backward, but just remains.
“Don’t open your eyes, Leah.”
“Why?”
“Because now I’m going to show you something important.”
She remained still. There was no sound. All we had around us was the sea and the sun up high. And in the middle of that calm, I started laughing, and before she could figure out what was happening, I pushed her off her board.
“Why’d you do that?!” she shouted.
“Why not? I was getting bored.”
“What’s your problem?”
She jumped at me and my head went under before I dragged her down with me to the bottom. We emerged a few seconds later. Leah was coughing. I was laughing. At that moment, just as the sun was about to fully rise, I realized how close we were, that I had an arm around her waist and that, for some reason, this was now as comfortable to me as it used to be, years ago when Leah would come and surf with Oliver and me, whatever the occasion.
I let her go, nervous. “We should go ahead and get out, or you’ll be late to school.”
“This from the guy who just shoved me off my surfboard like a little boy.”
“I almost forgot how much you like to talk back.”
Leah blew out a breath, unable to hide her smile.
34
_________
Axel
“Give me a fucking break.”
“Watch your mouth, son. Manners.”
My mother entered without warning, carrying enough bags of groceries to feed an army, followed by the twins, my brother, my sister-in-law, and my father. It was Saturday, so it took me a few minutes to grasp what was happening while they greeted me.
“What they hell are you doing here? Who’s watching the café?”
“Hell!” Max shouted, and his father covered his mouth like he’d just said son of a bitch or something worse.
“It’s a holiday, did you forget?”
“Evidently.”
“Where’s Leah?”
“Sleeping.”
At that moment, she opened the door to her room, still yawning, and the twins ran over to hug her. Maybe they were less aware that she wasn’t the same girl who used to dress them up and play with them. Leah hugged them and let my mother bother me for a while.
“Why are you here?” I asked.
“Always so happy to see us,” Justin said sarcastically.
“Dude, your mother thought we could spend the day together, and we tried to call you, but you had your phone off,” my father said.
My mother exhaled as she unpacked the groceries. “Don’t call your son dude.”
“He is one, isn’t he?” Dad looked at me.
I was going to say something when my mother pointed at me.
“Why do you have a phone if you don’t even use it?”
“I do use it. Sometimes. Now and again.”
“Leave him. He’s a hermit,” Justin said.
“Oliver is tired of telling you to have it charged and nearby. You live in an isolated area with a girl you’re supposed to be taking care of. What if something happens? If you trip and break a leg, or you’re in the water and a shark attacks you, or…”
“Fuck, Mom,” I shouted, unable to believe her.
“Fuck!” my nephew Connor shouted.
“Perfect,” Justin said.
Fortunately, Emily started laughing, and my brother shot her a look of reproach. He went out on the porch with the boys, followed by my father, who was smiling as usual. I stayed there, still a little out of it, watching my mother put five or six containers of prepared food into the fridge and a dozen soup packets in the cabinet. Leah made coffee while Emily talked with her, asking how school was that year.
“I brought you vitamins.” My mother shook a bottle of them in front of my nose.