The Counting-Downers (14 page)

“I do.”

“I’m not even sure
I
do, but it’s the only way I can describe it. You think I’m insane, don’t you?”

“No, I don’t.” I try to reassure him, but he still doesn’t look convinced.

“Anyway, destiny and counting clocks aside, I just have a good sense for these things. Some people are good judges of character; I’m a good judge of timing. I can tell when something is about to happen.

“With us, I sensed something was supposed to happen,
just not yet
. Your dad had just died, and my grandfather was dying and needed me. The timing just wasn’t right. As I said earlier, maybe now it is.”

“Maybe,” I mumble, stunned at his confession and courage.

“God, you
do
think I’m insane don’t you? You’re going to revoke your offer for friendship aren’t you?”

His teasing is exactly what I need to break me out of my stupor and lighten the mood. “The terms and conditions still stand, but anymore talk of destiny and our contract will come under review,” I say, following it up with a smile so he knows I’m not being serious.

“I can live with that.”

“It truly does always come back to time, doesn’t it?” I ask, knowing the answer.

“It does.”

“I hate that word. It has too much power over people’s lives.”

“What word, time?”

“Yes, it’s my least favorite four-letter word. Maybe my least favorite word of all the ones in the dictionary.”

“Out of curiosity, what are some of the others?” he asks, amused.

“My least favorite four-letter words or least favorite words overall?”

“There’s more than one list? Is there a list for different numbered words? Like lists for your least favorite three and six-letter words?”

“I can neither confirm nor deny that accusation,” I tell him.

He laughs that infectious laugh I remember, causing me to chuckle too. That he’s laughing
with
me, not
at
me, makes all the difference.

“I want to hear these lists at some point; for now, just tell me a few of your other least favorite words of any length.”

“Okay, but you can’t laugh.”

“Scout’s honor.”

“Were you ever a scout?”

“No, but I’m channeling one right now.”

I chuckle as his posture straightens and he tries his best to school his expression into one of seriousness and responsibility.

“Convincing. Okay, some of my least favorite words include, but are not limited to: squelch, cringe, moist, phlegm, egg, cackle, and…oh yeah! Panini.”

“
Panini?”
He tries and fails to contain his laughter. It makes its successful bid for freedom and escapes out of his lips.

That sets me off and then we’re both laughing. Until our sides ache, our eyes water, and our lungs protest.

And then we laugh some more.

Eventually as the sky turns dusky and the sea windy, we calm.

“I like lists,” I say in my defense.

“Noted. Well, back to your original point, you shouldn’t hate the word time.”

“I shouldn’t?”

“No, not when it’s made up of the best four letters in the world.”

“What’s so special about T, I, M, and E?” I ask him, bemused.

“They’re the first letters of Tristan Isaacs and Matilda Evans.” That potent look is back in his eyes, all traces of humor gone.

And for the third time tonight, Tristan has said something that leaves my mouth open and causes the hair on the back of my neck to rise. I never learned his surname years ago, so I didn’t realize that it was Isaacs.

How eerie, how bizarre, how coincidental, that our initials should spell the word
TIME
? This chance fact seems greater than us, greater than this moment, greater than the seemingly random choices our parents made many years ago. Only Tristan, this virtual stranger who I feel I’ve known my whole life, could turn an ordinary word that I despise into something extraordinary. Just like him.

All of a sudden, a thought comes to me; and his words on the back of that sketch he’d done for me takes on a whole new meaning.
“It always comes back to T.I.M.E.,”
he’d written. At the time, I’d thought he’d capitalized and punctuated the letters of the last word to emphasize its importance, but now I’m not so sure.

What if it was a double entendre? What if the Tristan of two years ago was telling me it would always come back to Tristan Isaacs and Matilda Evans? That this moment would always come, the two of us destined to reunite no matter how much time separates us. He’d said he had a good sense of timing, but this is too spooky to be true. My dad never believed in coincidences, and neither do I.

“It always comes back to T.I.M.E.,” I whisper under my breath, still stunned by the revelation.

He wasn’t meant to hear it, but he does. He smiles in acknowledgement of the direction of my thoughts, confirming my suspicion that he knew the phrase we coined had a double meaning that was special to only us. “It always comes back to T.I.M.E.,” he repeats.

“Wow.”

“I know.”

As with everything in life, the universe has taken its time to reveal another piece of the puzzle known as life. As this particular piece falls into place, it’s clear to both of us that more pieces involving the two of us will one day reveal themselves before connecting to it in ways we can’t yet quite comprehend.

All in good time.

Though it has not always been, time is being good to us right now.

So with nothing else to say, my fated friend and I sit side by side in silent awe, watching the last of the sun sink into the sea.

TRISTAN AND I have been hanging out for two weeks, and we’ve become fast friends. I’ve spoken to or seen him almost every day now that college has ended for the summer. It’s funny how you can become closer to some people in days than to others you’ve known for years. We just connect on both a shallow and deeper level.

Over the years, I’ve realized it’s okay to have the superficial connections, the people you’d go for a drink or shopping with, or text on occasion but wouldn’t tell your secrets to.

It’s also important to have people who you can turn to and lean on during your darkest days, but often those people aren’t always the ones we’d think to do the more surface things with.

Tristan and I can do both. We talk about everything and nothing. The frivolous and the philosophical. The dark and the light.

Over the past two weeks, we’ve been spending a lot of time at the beach and the bench, chatting about school and art, life and loss. Sometimes we’ll go for a swim or race each other down the beach, but oftentimes we’ll just sit in silence, him sketching, and me taking photographs. Sometimes I take secret photos of him sketching. It’s fascinating to see him lost in his own world even though he’s physically present. His tongue slips out of the corner of his mouth and his brow furrows in concentration. It’s adorable.

My dad always used to say, you could tell a lot about a person by how they handled silence. I never understood it until now. Whenever it falls soundless between us, the moment is always comfortable. We’re both so secure in ourselves and in our connection that neither of us needs to fill the silence with meaningless noise, or to speak just for the sake of speaking.

What I like about him is that he chooses his words with care. He thinks before he speaks, observes before he participates.

I’m much more impulsive and carefree. I say whatever is on my mind whereas you can tell that Tristan is thinking a lot more than he’s saying about any given situation. It can be frustrating and a bit unnerving, but I also admire his cautiousness. We’re more different than we are alike, but somehow it seems to work and we balance each other out well.

I’ve lost all track of time with the onset of summer. Today is a Sunday and Tristan has invited me over to his cabin for a change of scenery. Dressed in my high-rise black jeans, and yellow sunflower crop top, I make a spontaneous decision to make a daisy chain headband instead of my regular look of placing the fresh flowers into my braid. Variety is the spice of life, after all.

Satisfied my hair looks okay, I lace up my dirty, white Chucks and grab a cream cardigan in case the weather turns cold later, though, as we head into June and the temperatures near the eighties, I doubt it.

I head downstairs and into the family room, where my now six year-old brother is lying on his stomach, his little legs swinging out behind him as he watches Sunday morning cartoons on television. He turns his head at the sound of my approach and jumps to his feet, running up to give me a hug.

I love that he’s not yet too old and too cool for cuddles, though I know that time is fast approaching, which makes me sad. His shaggy platinum curls are falling in his eyes; I push them back with my fingers, a pointless pursuit as they only flop right back down. I make a note to take him to have it cut. My mom is doing great with him, but as a single parent now, some of the small things have to be sacrificed so that she can take care of the big things.

“Hey, bub, how are you today?”

“Good.”

“Have you been up long?”

“No.”

“Where’s Mom?”

“Kitchen.”

I know he’s not a morning person but sometimes I fear the monosyllabic male teen years have come extra early, stripping my previously loquacious brother of his communication skills.

“Have you eaten yet?”

“No, Mommy’s making pamcakes. They’re not as good as Daddy’s were, though,” he whispers the last part with a conspiring smile.

A strange part of me is glad he still remembers what my dad’s pancakes tasted like. Two years is a long time to a small child. Eating them for over a decade is the only reason they’re indelibly etched into my taste buds and sensory memory; otherwise, I would be in danger of forgetting too. I’d made sure I took down the recipe from my dad before he died but it just doesn’t taste the same. Nothing is the same.

“That’s not nice, Osky, she’s trying her hardest to cook you your favorite food. You should be grateful you’re having pancakes at all, okay?”

“Sowwy, Tilly,” he says, chastened.

“That’s okay, bubs, what are you watching?”

At this, he brightens and launches into a lengthy explanation about his favorite cartoon. The fact he’s even allowed to watch television is another example of how much progress my mom has made over the past two years.

She’s lightened up a lot and is much more relaxed about things that before would have made her panic and try to control everything. Case in point with the pancakes. She’s gone from complaining about their nutritional content, to making them every weekend and upholding the tradition.

I leave Oscar and head into the kitchen, walking up to my mother and embracing her from behind before resting my head on her shoulder. “Morning, Mamma.”

“Morning, darling. How are you? Did you sleep well?”

“I had a bit of a restless night, though I’m not sure why. You?”

“I got a few hours in.” That’s her tactfully truthful way of revealing she still doesn’t sleep well without my father next to her.

A few months ago, in a moment of heartbreaking honesty, she admitted that she often turns the pillow on my father’s ‘side’ lengthways and spritzes it with a little of his cologne so that she has something to cuddle at night. She said the emptiness in her arms reminded her of his absence in the space where he should have been. I guess your muscles remember as much as your mind.

I turn my head and kiss her cheek in understanding before changing the subject. “So what are you up to today?”

“Nothing much,” she says stacking a plate of fluffy golden pancakes and bringing it over to where I’m perched on the breakfast counter. “Osky wanted to go to the zoo, so I thought I’d take him for a while this afternoon. Do you want to come?”

I look up to see her wincing in horror as I drown my breakfast in fresh fruit and maple syrup.

Some things are still the same.

“I would love to, you know how excited I become at the zoo, but I agreed to spend the day with Tristan.”

“I see,” is all she says, with an all-knowing, motherly smile. As if she holds the secrets to the universe inside her mind and is amused at us clueless mortals. “Well, have a nice time.”