Stay (19 page)

“That is what a ghost would come back for, true? No, we are

the ones who haunt ourselves. I am sure of it.”

Sylvie Genovese let me go home early. When I was gathering

my things, she appeared again, this time with a large orange pot

with foil stretched over the top. “So he stays off of that leg,” she

said. The pot was warm. It smelled delicious.

“It’s not Kraft macaroni and cheese,” I said. Sylvie Genovese

laughed.

Twice in one day. It was a new record.

The orange pot sat on the seat beside me as I drove to the docks.

Obsession
seemed shut down and closed up. The Cove was open,

though. Finn’s sister was sitting inside, reading
Jane Eyre
as rain

dripped down from the awning. That seagull was out there, too,

the rain dripping off his wings. Cleo didn’t seem the
Jane Eyre

type. I’d have guessed something tougher, true crime, one of

Dad’s books, even.

“That Darby is a pansy,” she said. “The shit they make you

read for school. Online class at the community college. It’s a frilly

romance! You can’t tell me it’s not.” I was glad to know I wasn’t

always wrong about people.

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“You like mysteries? Bobby Oates?”

“Love.
Love
.
The Paring Knife
. Let’s talk classic.”

“He’s my dad,” I said.

“You’re fucking kidding me,” she said. “No way.” I realized

all at once how stupid it was, what I had just done. What was I

thinking? Bragging to get in good with Finn’s sister? As if some

twisted need to be special hadn’t gotten me into enough trouble?

I remembered too late what Finn had said about the cousin of

Kurt Cobain. How the whole town knew his every move. Stupid,

stupid. All we needed was one newspaper article on the web, and

he could find us.26*

“You won’t say anything to anyone? His privacy is important

to him.”

“No, no, of course. Sure. You bring him down sometime. I’ll

make him the best cheeseburger he’s had in his life.”

“I’ll tell him,” I said.

“You looking for Finn?” she said.

“Kind of,” I said. Yes.

She flipped her phone out of her pocket, punched a few but-

tons, and within seconds, I swear, the hatch opened on
Obsession

and Finn stuck his head out and called my name, waving.

“Thanks,” I said to Cleo.

“No problem.”

“I’ll let you get back to the pansy,” I said.

26 Which only shows how nervous I still was. Skittish. No one cares too much about

authors, unless you’re Stephen King or J. K. Rowling. My father had a lot of fans. Still,

an author is not a rock star, or even a rock star’s cousin.

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Deb Caletti

“Tell your dad he’s awesome.”

I smiled, headed down the dock to the boat. I was glad I had

my jacket. I stuck my hands deep into my pockets. Finn helped

me up on board, and then I followed him down the few stairs into

the boat’s cabin. It was as warm as I had imagined—teak wood

benches with cushioned seats and teak wood cabinets in a small

kitchen. Through a narrow doorway I could see a triangular berth

up front, and through another, a small bathroom. It was a little

messy down there, too, but in a comfortable way. A few jackets

piled up, a box of crackers on the sink, some mail. A life jacket,

some rigging. Two pieces of something metal being repaired on a

paper towel. Charts, and a radio. A book opened to keep its place.

A thick paperback with a picture of an iceberg on it. Finn read,

which was great. He read adventure, even better. Christian didn’t

approve of too many American books. Or much of anything

American, really.

I wondered when I would stop looking at everything in com-

parison to what Christian was or wasn’t or did or didn’t. It had

become a weird kind of map, a way of maneuvering.

“It’s nice down here,” I said.

“Shelter from the storm. No one’s going out today,” he said.

“Hot chocolate?”

“That’d be great.”

He put a pot on the stove, made it the old-fashioned way with

milk and chocolate. He poured us two steaming cups. My cup

said
Victoria to Maui race, 2004
, and his said
Pacific Cup, 1998.

“Did the boat do these races?” I pointed to the cups. I knew he

himself would have been pretty young during those.

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“Yep. My father and some other guys.”

I nodded. He told me a story about how his father took off

on his own boat when he was just twenty-two. How he met

Finn’s mom in Key West, at the gathering the town has every

night to celebrate the setting of the sun. We were sitting across

from each other, him on one bench and me on the other, our

feet propped on the opposite side across. He grabbed my foot

and gave it a little shake, and I did the same back. We were grin-

ning at each other. I liked it there in the warm bottom of that

boat. You could hear the water sloshing against the sides.

I was just having a nice rest in those sweet eyes when my

phone rang in my pocket. “That’s got to be my father, spoiling the

moment,” I said to Finn.

“Parents are so good at that.”

“I’m guessing he did something stupid, like go for a walk on

his bad ankle, and now he’s marooned on a driftwood log some-

where.”

“Parents can be such children,” Finn said. “We ought to raise

them better.”

I smiled, pulled the phone from my pocket, and looked at

the screen. I stopped smiling. I suddenly froze. The kind of

suddenly like screeching brakes, or when you all at once realize

you can’t breathe after falling on your back off the monkey bars.

I felt like gasping. Drowned sailors under water, deeper and

deeper, until that moment when your chest grips for a single

chance at air.

“Clara?” Finn leaned forward. I just looked at the phone.

I hadn’t seen that number in a while, not since I had changed

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Deb Caletti

mine and had only given the new one out to my closest friends.

It’s funny how a number can be as familiar as your own home,

as weighted with meaning as a memory. The number leaped out

and told me a hundred things. It zipped me right through our

history—the first time I saw it, the last time. It was a memory all

on its own.

“Are you okay? You’re, like . . . white.” Finn had put down his

cup. He swapped benches to sit beside me.

I shoved the phone in my pocket. I didn’t want him to see that

number and all it meant. If he saw that number, it would tell him

all the ways I was horrible and ugly and heartless.

“I guess it wasn’t your dad,” Finn tried again.

“No.”

It was as if Christian had come out from the place I’d

hidden him to slap me again with his presence. It wasn’t fair

for a person to shove himself at you again and again when

you wanted them gone. We should have the right to have

someone leave when we want, to only allow those in who

we want in. But the truth is, people can force their way into

your life whenever they choose. If they want to remind you

forevermore that they exist, they will. They can reappear in

a card or a call or a “chance” meeting, they can remember

your birthday or the day you met with some innocuous small

note. No matter how little they matter in your new life, they

can insist on being seen and recognized and remembered.

A restraining order, those pieces of paper we think could/

should protect us from such things, only we in this situation

understand the complexities of that. How that paper is an

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invitation for more contact, for more binding ties and com-

munications, even through other people.

And, of course, those weren’t the only ways a person could

be held hostage forever. Christian had inked his phone number

on my palm that night long ago, but his mark on me was per-

manent. What had happened—forgetting would be impossible. I

would never forget, and he would never be forgotten. Even if he

only resurfaced in a song or in my thoughts or in the orange of a

fall day or in a chunk of broken glass, what was between us was

forever. He’d made sure of that.

“Hmm,” Finn said. He looked at me gently. “You have

secrets.” It wasn’t an accusation, just a statement of fact. Finn

did not talk in layers—his words were fact just like wind was fact

and water was fact.

“Everyone has secrets,” I said. I was thinking about me, but

also about my father. Sylvie Genovese for sure. Annabelle Aurora

maybe. The mailman. The women who sold taffy. Butch, from

Butch’s Harbor Bar. Cleo. Finn, likely.

“Everyone? I don’t have secrets,” Finn said. “I’m all right

here. This is where I work and where I live. This is who I am.

Okay, one secret. My mother once showed us that old movie

To Catch a Thief
? Cary Grant and Grace Kelly? I had a crush on

Grace Kelly. That’s weird for a ten-year-old. I imagined we were

married. I thought about it all through the fourth grade.”

I smiled, but my heart felt sick and heavy. That phone

seemed hot in my pocket. I didn’t want to ever touch it again.

Christian had found my number, and it was as if he had located

me right there in Bishop Rock, right there in Finn’s boat with

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Deb Caletti

Finn beside me, holding my hand now. I was furious and anx-

ious. Christian didn’t know where I was, I told myself. He had

my number, that was all. A number could be anywhere. He

wasn’t in the room, looking at me, but that’s what it felt like.

He felt that near.

I told Finn about Christian. Or, at least, I told him that I’d bro-

ken it off and that Christian couldn’t let go. I told him that a police-

man friend of my father’s27* had been advising us. Don’t expect

some restraining order to protect you, he’d said. They often make

a bad situation a dangerous one. No contact, period. It wouldn’t be

a bad idea to leave town for a while. He’ll go away eventually if you

don’t reward him with a response. I told Finn that I couldn’t let

anyone know where I was. But I didn’t tell him everything. It’s a

simple truth that a secret is something you’re ashamed of.

Finn let out a long exhale after I told him. “Wow,” he said.

I waited for what might come next. Some distancing maneuver

on his part. I didn’t come without complications. I fought some

weird urge to apologize.

“I’m sorry this happened to you,” Finn said finally.

A lump started in my throat. I wanted to say something, but

I didn’t dare. I thought I might cry, the way you do when some-

one gives you some kindness when you most need it but when it

seems the most surprising thing.

27 Wayne Branson. The Captain Branson that is often thanked in the acknowledgment

page of my father’s books. A long-time resource of his, and also his old friend. My

father is the godparent to Wayne and Jody’s oldest girl. Bad choice. What my father

knows about religion could be held in the ashtray of his car, along with that one ciga-

rette he’s carried there since he quit smoking years ago.

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Finn’s eyes were intent. “I just want to say—if that guy comes

around here, Jack and I will take turns knocking some sense into

his fucking head.”

We’re supposed to hate violence, and we do hate violence.

An act of violence is the worst and most shocking thing a

human being does. And yet the truth is, the absolute hon-

est truth, is that words like Finn’s . . . When you feel small

and there is someone large and brave standing beside you,

baring his teeth, ready to protect . . . Even when you know

you wouldn’t want him to, and even though you know he’s

not even that type . . . Well, here’s what you do, then. You

squeeze his hands. You look into his eyes. You let yourself, for

a moment, anyway, feel safe.

I brought the orange pot from Sylvie Genovese inside the house.

I was surprised to find old Annabelle Aurora sitting at our table

with Dad, sharing a pot of green tea. There was a crab sitting

in newspaper in the kitchen sink. His laptop28* was open on the

table, meaning he’d been working. I was glad. Ever since his

ankle and Sylvie Genovese, he’d been too distracted to work.

He’d stare off and answered different questions than the one

you’d asked.

“You make us dinner on the drive home?” he joked.

“My boss thought she’d save you some hobbling around.”

I couldn’t believe what happened next. I just couldn’t. He

blushed. I’d never seen him blush in his entire life.

28 Dad’s, not the crab’s.

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Deb Caletti

“I’ve never seen you blush in your entire life,” Annabelle