Better Not Love Me (8 page)

Chapter 14

Several days later

Amelia sat on the edge of the dock watching Susanna snorkel around the pilings, participating in a compromise they'd come up with the day before.

Susanna had asked her mother to let her go snuba diving with a local dive shop downtown. They offered an hour-long shallow-depth tour where the participants were connected to the boat with a hose. She thought it was funny they called it snuba, not scuba, because the divers were connected to the surface by a hose, not a tank. It was a nice introduction to underwater activity before actually going scuba diving with a tank, Susanna claimed.

"Not a chance," Amelia said.

"But Mom, you can come too or Marcus can," she pleaded.

Amelia noticed Marcus' reaction. The color drained from his face. The mere idea of the water terrified him, but submerging in it? Going under? Not going to happen. 

"Sorry, Suzy," Amelia said.

Then Susanna went into mediator mode, asking for a mask, snorkel and fins to use in the cove. She made a good argument and Amelia had no good reason to say no. The way her daughter switched from a large outlandish request which was obviously going to be denied, to a moderate, even reasonable request was commendable. It was like she had planned it that way from the beginning. Little Suzy had played her like a fiddle. She made a mental note to think twice before starting negotiations with the talented little bait-and-switch artist. 

The agreement they made was that someone needed to be watching her from the dock or shore if she was going to use the snorkel in the cove, which is why Amelia was now sitting on the dock while her daughter splashed around beside it. There was no traffic in the cove, in fact Nate's boat and the short-term rental were the only ones that had entered it. Amelia wasn't worried about boats, just regular parental worry about kids in the water. Especially after what happened with Marcus and the water.

She glanced to her right. Chloe and Marcus were sitting on a large bolder at the edge of the lake just above the shore. The deck project was done, having been stained yesterday, and was now drying. This left Marcus more free time to spend with Chloe, which he was clearly pleased about. They did not sit close to each other. What Amelia first thought might be a romantic attraction between the teens didn't present itself. They got along well, that was easy to see, but even from this distance, they didn't seem to be "into" each other. Chloe climbed down from the bolder and stripped down to her swimsuit at the shore, slowly wading in. Marcus stayed on the rock, watching. He declined her requests to come into the water. It was playful and she soon stopped asking, but the interaction stuck with Amelia. When would Marcus get over his fear of the water? Was it really the water that he was afraid of?

"Mom, I think there's a boat sunk down there!" Susanna shouted between large gulps of air. She was floating on her back now, trying to catch her breath. "I can kind of see the outline. That’s so freaky!"

"What's it look like?" Amelia asked.

"It's all green, like it's been in there a while. I don't know. It's small, like a row boat. If I had some scuba gear I could see it better."

"Nice try counselor. Not gonna happen."

"Counselor?"

"It's what they call a lawyer when they are in court."

"Cool. Maybe I'll be a lawyer!" Susanna smiled and got a mouthful of water that she quickly spit out.

"I'd hire you."

"Thanks Mom."

* * *

The next morning Amelia entered Marcus' bedroom before the rest of the house was awake.

"Come on, wake up," Amelia whispered.

"What? Why?" he said, eyes half shut.

"There's something you and I need to do and we should have done it a long time ago. Get dressed and put on your hiking boots. We're going to Rocktop Lake."

The drive from the southern side of Lake Coeur d'Alene, up Interstate 95 north to Bonners Ferry took only about an hour, but it seemed like an eternity because Marcus refused to talk to her other than saying he didn't want to go to Rocktop Lake.

"There's something that you get when you push yourself to a place where you're not comfortable," Amelia explained to him. "When you go back in your history and pull out that defining thing and face it head on. It's called closure. It's not simple to do and I don't know if this is the thing for you, but I think we need to try."

Marcus did not reply.

Amelia had returned to Bonners Ferry several times since that Christmas day five years ago when Edwin died, but she'd avoided the area of town she was now headed toward.

She remembered that night like it was yesterday. The snow was deep and blowing sideways. The only thing moving through town were four-wheel drive vehicles. The snow started on Christmas morning and continued to fall all day long. Marcus and his cousin Max had gone missing in the early afternoon. Amy and Amelia thought they were playing in the snow in the backyard, but they weren't. Soon a furious search was on to find the boys. Josh, who was also in town to celebrate the holiday with his family, even teamed up with Edwin to search into the night.

But it was Edwin who thought to look at Rocktop Lake on top of Settler's Bluff. It was a long shot, but the boys had been given hockey gear for Christmas and the frozen lake on the bluff overlooking the town was the only place they could skate on. Edwin, an experienced equestrian rider borrowed a horse and climbed the steep trail, battling the blizzard for the chance that he'd find the boys.

When he did find them, Marcus had fallen through the water and had just been pulled out by Max. The boys were trapped on an island in the middle of the lake, hypothermic, and afraid to try to cross the frozen water again for fear of falling through. Edwin tied a rope to the shore and crossed the cracking ice. By holding the rope tight from the island, he helped Max cross to the shore, but Marcus was too wet and weak to walk by himself. Edwin tied the rope to Marcus and carried the boy, but the additional weight was too much for the thin ice and they both fell through. Max pulled Marcus to shore. He then pulled Edwin to shore too, but it was too late for him.

Edwin had a weak heart. The shock of the water and the physical exertion was simply too much for him. He told the boys to leave him.
"Don't wait for me,"
he had said because he knew his time was up.  

Had Edwin not risked his life to find the boys, it's likely they would not have been found until morning. Who knows if they would have been alive or not. Amelia owed Edwin for her son's life and she had never even seen the place where he rescued them. Until today.

Chapter 15

Rocktop Lake

Amelia parked the car on the street next to the fire station, which was adjacent to the trailhead to Rocktop Lake.

"I know you're not talking to me, but you're going to have to lead the way," Amelia told Marcus. "I've never been up here before."

"It's been a long time for me too, obviously," Marcus grunted, then slammed the car door and started walking to the trailhead.

Amelia grabbed her backpack and followed Marcus up the trail. Despite the early summer sun, she had no trouble remembering what it was like on that wintery December day when the snowdrifts were past her knees. She was sweating almost instantly from the climb.

"Can you slow down a little?" she asked, trying to catch her breath.

Marcus stopped at a fork of the trail. He looked both ways. A flat trail to the left and a steep embankment on the right. He climbed the embankment, then turned back and offered his mother his hand to climb up. She accepted and he hoisted her up next to him.

They were now on another trail that seemingly led in the other direction.

"Are you sure this is the way?" Amelia asked.

Marcus said nothing, just continued on the trail.

For 20 to 30 minutes they followed the path through several more twists and turns before finding a pathway through the trees to the isolated lake. Her legs were weak from the climb and she was glad to be on level ground.

Tall trees hugged the shoreline of the small lake. The path wound through thick grasses along the edge of the water. It was actually very pretty, she thought. Peaceful too. The sun was up enough to cast long shadows across the still water. A hawk flew overhead, watching them.

Marcus stopped walking and pointed to a mound of land in the water. It was the island he and Max had been trapped on.

"It looks bigger now," Marcus said. "I think the water is lower."

He sat down on the beach and rested his arms on his knees, then his chin on his arms, just surveying the water. Amelia sat down next to him.

"Do you think about this place much?" she asked.

She could see the tears already welling up in his eyes. His lower lip was trembling slightly. He turned his face away from her.

"Every day," he said, wiping away the tears with the back of his hands.

Amelia hadn’t seen Marcus show this sort of emotion about anything in a long time. She wanted him to let his feelings out, but she also didn’t want to press him.

"You know Edwin cared about you, right?"

He nodded.

"I guess," he said quietly.

"That's why he came up here looking for you and Max. He was worried about you and wanted you to be OK."

Marcus stood up, instantly angry. She hadn't expected the outburst, but understood. She climbed to her feet as well and followed Marcus as he paced.

"If I hadn't gone to Mr. Z's and took that doll for Susanna, he'd still be alive today," Marcus said, his voice straining with emotion at the reference to when he originally met Edwin. "We'd have never gone to that stupid hockey game. You would never have bought me ice skates for Christmas. Max and I wouldn’t have come up here. And it wouldn’t have mattered that Edwin cared about me. He never would have even known me and he'd still be around. Alive."

"Honey, you can't think like that."

"Why not?" Marcus spit the words out. "It's the truth isn't it? If not for me. Edwin would be alive today."

"Marcus, it's not fair to put that weight on yourself alone. You can 'what if' your entire life, but it's not going to change anything. What if we hadn't moved to Spokane for your dad's pre-apprentice classes? What if I hadn't decided to work for Edwin? What if your aunt hadn't broken her ankle and asked me to come up here and work? There are dozens of things that happen around us that we can't control."

"That doesn't make me feel any better," he said.

"I'm not asking you to feel better," she said. "You feel how you want to feel. But just know that what happened wasn't your fault."

"Then whose fault was it?"

"It's not that simple."

"It is!" he shouted. "It was my fault."

The tears he was trying to hold back, now came like a flood. Amelia pulled him close and he cried into her shoulder. She could feel the years of pain finally being let out. The fights at school or with kids in the park. The sour attitude. She had no doubt that those things occurred because Marcus was holding back his feelings. That certainly didn’t make them right. But she understood it. Edwin's death was her fault too. Survivor's guilt.

"I have those same feelings, honey," she said. "I miss Edwin, but I feel blessed to have known him. That man changed our lives in a hundred different ways. Nearly all of those ways are good. It's normal to feel sad because the world lost a good man."

"Then what am I?" Marcus asked. "If he was such a good man—and he was. Then what am I?"

"I don't understand what you're asking."

"I'm not him. I'm not the generous guy they talk about in those stories," he was speaking at a fast pace. "I've seen what people have said about him. I've read the stories. That he made the ultimate sacrifice just one day after giving his entire toy store to needy kids. All the inventory. I've heard that story so many times I could recite it word for word in my sleep. But I'm not him. I'm not that good guy."

"Neither of us are," she said. "That was him. Not us."

"Then why am I here and he's not? Why did God decide to save me and take him? I'll never be able to live up to that or make up for it. It's not fair."

Amelia didn't know what to say. She hadn't before considered what Marcus had just said. Then she remembered something a friend once told her.

"Pastor Isakson told me something once that I think might help us."

Marcus had turned his back to her. She touched his shoulders, but didn't force him to look at her. He would when he was ready. 

"He once told me that he believed there are no chance encounters in life, even little ones."

"I don't know what that means," Marcus said.

"I don't believe that I did either, until right now. It means that we might not understand why things happen, but it's our job to find that meaning and make the best of it. To learn from what has happened to us and make the world better because of it."

"That doesn’t sound very easy."

"No. No, it's not," Amelia said. "And maybe we haven't been doing such a good job on this. Maybe I haven't helped you the way that I should have. I'm sorry, Marcus. I'm sorry I've been away so much working."

"I know, Mom. But isn’t that why you were working so hard? To help Edwin's dream of a successful toy store come true?"

"Yes, I guess you're right."

Amelia opened her backpack and removed several items. A ball of twine, a hammer and two pieces of wood, painted white. One of the pieces was sharpened at the end like a spike.

Marcus knew what to do. He pounded the stake into the ground on the beach where Edwin took his last breath. It was just a few feet from the water, under the shade of the tall pines. Amelia hadn't been looking before but it seemed as though this spot was the only one where wild flowers grew. It was fitting. And beautiful. Blue and yellow flowers swayed gently around them.

She held the second piece of wood against the stake and Marcus tightly wrapped the twine around it, forming a simple white cross.

Mother and son stood back and admired their handiwork. Amelia slipped her arm around Marcus's back and she hugged him close. She hadn't felt this close to him in years. It was amazing.

It seemed somehow, things might be different now. Maybe Marcus could find some closure by facing this place again. Maybe all it took was for someone to listen.

The two of them spent a few hours hiking around the lake, talking and simply enjoying each other's company. Amelia couldn't have asked for more.