Chapter Thirty-Six
The next morning promised a day of bright sunshine. I rolled over on my mattress, blinking at the sunlight streaming through the porthole window.
The incident on the beach the night before had left me too exhausted to put up much of a fight when Lake led me away toward home. I had slept well. No nightmares had woken me and I couldn’t even remember dreaming.
A knock sounded on the ladder to the loft just as I’d changed into jeans and a sweater. “Are you up?” Lake called.
“Yes, come on up,” I said.
I sat down on the mattress, cross-legged, as Lake’s head appeared at the top of the ladder. Seeing me there, he climbed the rest of the way up, a shoebox tucked under his left arm.
“You okay?” He stood at the end of the mattress, looking down at me. The silver chain around his neck glinted against his skin, the pendant hanging over the center of his chest.
“I’m fine,” I said, picking at a piece of lint on the comforter. Hadn’t that been the same thing I’d been saying for the past year? Was I really fine? “Well, actually...my shoulder is a little bruised, but I’ll be okay, I think.”
Lake sat down next to me, stretching his legs out across the floor and setting the box between us. “Last night,” he began in a quiet voice, “when I saw you there with Mr. Connors holding onto you, I realized that there were a lot of things I hadn’t yet told you. And I imagined what it would be like if I never did get that chance.” When he looked at me, all I could see were unshed tears in his eyes. “I’ve always loved you, Mara. And I’ve never once stopped thinking about you or your mom.”
For the first time ever, Lake had come to me. He could have let me slip away last night, as he had always done ever since Mom first left with me, but instead he found me. And he didn’t let go.
“Why were you there?” I asked. “How did you know where to find me?”
“I didn’t,” Lake said. “Not for sure. But Josh and Miss Gale came looking for you and he said you’d had an argument. And when I told them what had happened, Josh said that maybe letting you leave was the wrong choice. We were all looking for you. Then Claire found me and told me what happened.”
He reached over, running a hand tentatively over my head. “I know I haven’t been the kind of dad you want me to be.”
I lowered my head to blink away tears. “I really could have used you for the past year,” I said, a slight edge to my voice. Even if I forgave Lake and understood him better now, there would always still be that ache inside for all that we had missed. It would take more time to heal those wounds. “It was hard, watching Mom die alone.”
Lake pressed his lips together in a tight line and nodded. “I know. It was hard watching her die from so far away. But you have to understand now that I could never have come after you. I’m tied to this island. Even going to the mainland that day to meet you at the ferry dock was a struggle. Finfolk are bound to the water and it always calls us back. The farther inland we go, the more we drown in the air.”
“Why hasn’t it affected me before now?” I asked.
“It has, with your cravings for salt. But before now, you’d never been in the ocean. You’d never had a chance to be truly finfolk. It will be different for you now. You won’t be able to leave the ocean without feeling like you’re dying.”
I wasn’t sure that I liked the idea of not being able to leave the ocean whenever I wanted, but then the thought of going too far from it filled me with a panic that made it hard to breathe. I had lived my life away from the water, always feeling the cravings in the back of my mind. Now that I could change, the water had claimed me.
“I have something for you.” Lake tapped the box between us. “In this box are all the letters and emails your mom and I wrote to each other over the years.”
I eyed the box. “Mom wrote to you?”
“Not often, but yes, sometimes. I wrote to her more than she did to me. Before she died, she sent me all the letters she had saved for you. No matter how it may seem, I never stopped loving her, or you. I’ve always kept you two close.”
Lake unclasped the chain around his neck and handed it over to me, the silver pendant swaying back and forth. It was a locket, I could see that as I looked closely. Inside was a small grainy picture. It was Mom, a much younger, healthier woman, with a baby version of me pressed close to her. I couldn’t have been more than a couple of weeks old, so tiny and making a grumpy face at the camera. But Mom was smiling, big and full and like I’d never seen her smile before.
“Your mom left Swans Landing after Josh’s dad died,” Lake told me. “The accident caused a lot of problems for everyone. People didn’t trust finfolk anymore. Sometimes the confrontations got violent. Your mom didn’t want you to grow up in that environment. She tried to protect you.”
I closed the locket, rubbing my thumb over the etched surface. “Mr. Connors said he told Mom to get rid of me when I was born.”
A muscle in Lake’s jaw twitched. “Mr. Connors has always had a grudge against me. Oliver Canavan’s death only fueled that. He wanted to scare your mama away to hurt me. And he did.”
“Why?” I asked.
Lake shook his head. “It’s not important right now. The only thing that matters is that you’re safe and you’re where you’ve always belonged.”
“You should have told me the truth long ago,” I said. “Even if I still grew up in Tennessee, it would have been better if I had known this part about myself.”
Lake nodded sadly as he took the locket back. “I can’t make up for the last sixteen years, but I would like to try to make things better between us from this point on.”
I considered his words for a moment. Would it be possible to move on and salvage some kind of relationship after all those years of hurting?
“I can’t guarantee that we’ll ever be best friends or anything,” I said, “but like it or not, you’re it. The last family I have. We can at least see what happens.”
Lake looked relieved. He pushed the box of letters toward me. “These are for you,” he said. “They were always meant for you to read one day.”
“Thanks,” I said.
There was an awkward silence between us for a moment.
“So,” Lake said, “do you think we should hug or something? That’s what they always do in those cheesy sitcoms, right?”
“I thought you didn’t watch TV,” I said.
“I don’t own a TV,” he corrected me. “I have in fact watched it once or twice.”
“How about maybe getting a small flat screen so I’ll have something to watch and keep me entertained when I get suspended?” I asked.
Lake shot me a scowl. “How about you try not getting suspended anymore?”
I held my arms open in an invitation. “No promises,” I told him.
Lake leaned toward me, wrapping his arms around my back and pulling me close. He kissed the top of my head and I closed my eyes as I breathed in the comforting smell of salt on his skin. The hug wasn’t awkward at all, but tight and warm.
“I have one more question,” I said. “How did your seashell picture of Mom and me end up in Josh’s room?”
He raised his eyebrows in surprise. “I gave it to Mrs. Canavan as a gift long ago. I don’t know why. An attempt at a peace offering, I guess. But I think it only made her hate me.”
“It’s beautiful,” I said. “It’s a shame she can’t see that.”
He smiled. “Thanks.” Then his expression turned serious. “And now I have a question When and why exactly were you in Josh’s bedroom?”
* * *
Once I’d reassured Lake enough about my relationship with Josh, he climbed back down the ladder and left me alone in my loft with the box of letters. I ran my hand over the dusty cardboard surface. It was an old shoebox, nothing worth taking a second glance at. But inside, there could be the answers to all the questions I’d never had a chance to ask my mother. All of her thoughts, her words, waiting for me to read them.
My gaze fell on something else, hidden away in a corner of my room. Mom’s letter, crumpled and tossed into the shadows where I’d thrown it my first day in Swans Landing. In the time since then, when everything had become so confusing, I’d forgotten all about it.
I crawled over and retrieved it from the cobwebs and dust, then returned to the mattress. Laying back into my pillow, I smoothed out the paper, trailing my fingers over my mom’s shaky handwriting as the whisper of her voice filled my head.
My little Mara-bug,
The first thing I want to tell you is this: I love you. Please understand that everything I’ve ever done I did simply because I loved you.
The second thing is: It’s okay if you’re angry. I’m angry too. I wanted to always be there for you and I’m angry that I can’t do that. But now you’re where you belong, though you don’t know it yet. Your dad is a good man. Try not to be mad at him. He loves you and he’s only wanted what’s best for you.
There are so many things I wish I had time and courage to tell you. I’m afraid I have no real words of wisdom to guide you in your life, nothing that will make everything you will soon learn and endure easier.
But I have hopes and wishes to last you a thousand lifetimes. I want you to live the fullest life you possibly can. Laugh so much that your stomach hurts. Don’t ever give up dreaming. And never be afraid to push yourself beyond your limits.
But most of all, I want you to love.
No matter what happened between your father and me, despite how our story ended, you born out of love. My wish for you is that you know love like that and that you don’t make the same mistake I did. Love is hard, Mara, but it is worth it in the end. Don’t be afraid to open your heart, to let someone touch your soul, to live every moment to its fullest because of that love.
It turns out I do have some words of wisdom for you: Love deeply, wholly, and without fear.
Love always,
Mom
I sprang to my feet, letting Mom’s last words flutter to my mattress as I slid down the ladder from the loft.