The Key to Anchor Lake ✓

45 : Blaire

"When it's quiet, and my head's too loud, I wonder the same," she murmurs. "I used to think we were being punished, forced to live stunted lives or endure decades of pain, and I was convinced that my time was limited. That fate had a plan in store for me and I could do nothing to change it. But that ... that was depression talking, and anxiety, and PTSD. It isn't true. Okay?" She squeezes me tighter, her arm an anchor. "It isn't true."

As she talks, I can feel the weight on my shoulders lightening and my lungs feel freer. Like they have been constricted this whole time, and now I can breathe.

"It's so easy to focus on Fee, and Alison, and your mother, and Temperance. People gone too soon. But look at Alice and Louise; George and Sophie. They lived such long lives. They outlived their peers." Her head rests against mine, her cheek warm. "Your mother died far too young. So did mine; so did hers. But you and me? We're survivors, Blaire."

"You really think that?"

"I know it," she says. "This world has had so many chances to strike me down. When I was thirteen, an entire hospital of doctors told my sister that I wouldn't survive a week. Then a month. Then they thought I would maybe live another year. That was almost five decades ago." She strokes my hair and kisses my temple. "I'm not going anywhere, Blaire. Neither are you."

I won't cry I won't cry I will not cry anymore today.

"This is my peace," she says. "Being here. Did it help you?"

I nod, my hair rubbing against hers.

"I'm glad."

"Elizabeth?"

"Mmm?"

"How do I keep going?"

"One day at a time," she says, her voice a lullaby. "And let me tell you, those days start adding up so fast. I never thought I would survive without Fee, but here I am. And look at you – it's already been six weeks since Anna died, and you're still here."

I'm still here. I'm still here, and I want to stay. I'm staying. My pulse starts to settle, falling into the rhythm of still-here, still-here, still-here.

"We just keep swimming," Elizabeth says. "Even when the seabed turns to quicksand and the ocean turns to syrup. We just keep swimming."

We sit with the sentiment for a long time, watching the sky change and the leaves flutter in the breeze. We sit until the sun dips behind a cloud that stretches across the horizon, and we know it won't come back any time soon, and the shade is cold.

"Are you ready to come home?" Elizabeth asks, stroking her thumb over my arm.

"Yes, please. Let's go home."

*

I see her before we turn into the drive. Sukie's at the house, sitting on Elizabeth's doorstep, her hands buried in the front pocket of her hoodie. The wind has picked up again – Elizabeth's house seems to be nestled in the windiest crook of the valley, tunnelling up this road and over the mountain – and Sukie's hair is whipping around her face, no matter how many times she tucks it behind her ears.

The moment Elizabeth stops the car, I throw myself out and Sukie leaps to her feet, and we meet in the middle like long lost lovers, as though we didn't see each other a few hours ago.

But it feels like more than a few hours. I've listened to her grief; I've taken a look at my own; I've sat with Elizabeth's.

"I'm sorry," I whisper as she hugs me.

"God, I thought something awful had happened. After everything you said, and then when Elizabeth said you didn't come home. Fuck, Blaire, I thought the worst."