No one keeps a secret so well as a child.I was on my second cup of tea, rocking slowly back and forth in the chair that Jacob kept on his back balcony, overlooking the sand below. I wasn't supposed to be here, the balcony is only accessible through the bedroom, but he said the rocker was left by the previous owner, and he found it the best vantage point from which to watch the water and talk. Later on he would tell me that I was the only person other than himself to go out there the entire time he lived in the beach house, thus admitting he really did spend as much time talking to himself as I always suspected.
~Victor Hugo
Maybe I should take you home.
Maybe I should just wait for a bit. This is really nice, Jake.
Mmm. He was non-committal. Something was on his mind and I was patient. I knew him well-enough by now to wait for him to say it, that he would eventually. Somehow we did better with brutal honestly, talking deeper, just knowing things would hurt or bring relief through the words. He's one of the few who really treat the words with the gravity and reverence they deserve.
Tell me about him, Bridget.
Him who?
Cole's brother.
***
Caleb showed up around ten last night. Schuyler met him at the front door and pointed out Henry and Ruth were long asleep, maybe he should wait until tomorrow. The warning came swiftly when he opened his mouth, slurring out a request to see me.
Schuyler went and let Ben know but Lochlan beat them both back to the front door, able to sense tension in the house, highly affected by it and unable to do anything much until it's resolved. He picked the wrong house to live in, clearly. He's a superhero without a plan. I don't know what he is aside from being classified as perpetually in the throes of a midlife crisis that's been going on since he was sixteen years old. I watch and wait, fascinated by his intensity toward what he loves and positively astounded by his careless attitudes toward everything else.
Caleb wasn't interested in Lochlan's misdirected apathy. He told him to go away, that he was here to see me.
Lochlan shook his head, not saying a word. He wasn't going to move. Ben appeared from downstairs and headed for the front door, unimpressed. The whole time I am standing in the alcove between the kitchen and the hallway asking them what's going on. I grabbed at Ben's hand as he walked past me, but instead he threw a command over his shoulder.
You stay put.
I crept to the far end of the front hall but I still couldn't hear anything so I went up to the staircase and cracked open one of the windows over the verandah instead. I peered down. Caleb is pacing on the brightly lit walkway below. As he turns to come back he overcorrects, weaving. This is an effort, this decorum. I don't even understand how he got here or why he's loaded out of the blue like this but I am severely unnerved. He rarely does this. Very, very rarely.
The roar came out of nowhere and I flinched.
BRIDGET!!!
I put my head down against the wall and closed my eyes. I could be anywhere right now, I can hide in plain sight inside my head just like I have always done with Caleb. But his voice keeps pulling me back to the task at hand. I can hear Ben's soft words but I can't make out what he's saying and Caleb keeps interrupting him anyway.
I can also feel the footfalls as Ben is joined on the verandah by the others, having made their way from different parts of the house. I know when they are all outside, the vibrations stop. Everything is still again and I know this army is ready, at the gate. This is what they do.
***
I am reluctant, mildly evasive, insolent. Jacob picks up on this immediately.
What happened to him?
He went away. Moved away. He lives in Toronto now, he's a CFO. Self-made millionaire asshole.
Does he contact you?
He hasn't for a long time.
Good.
Yes. It is. I get up and cross to the rail. I'm watching the icy teal saltwater break in waves onto the wet sand. Night has fallen on the shoreline and the beach is deserted. The wind is warm against my skin but I am chilled and unable to understand why I lied about something that was so long ago but it's been beaten into my head since forever that I am not allowed to tell people. If I tell anyone everything will change. I finish my wine in one gulp.
***
For the first time in my life I watch as Caleb makes a mistake.
She was mine. Did he tell you that? SHE. WAS. MINE. Did she tell you she ran away from him and came to me? She wanted to be with ME. Not with him. Not with anyone else. ME.
I have put my hands up over my ears now, squeezing my eyes shut tight but his voice infiltrates my senses and takes over. He is screaming my name now. I can hear footsteps on the steps and on the concrete. Struggling sounds. They're going to make him stop before the neighbors call the police. He is lying. Can they take him to jail for lying?
***
What in the hell went on between you two, Bridget?
Jake is pacing behind the kitchen chair where I sit, my hands wrapped around a glass of brandy that he poured for me after yet another series of presumptive invitations from Caleb to me were delivered in the mail. So formal, Caleb is. Engraved invitations to a party for two. He does not care that I have moved on. Cole's death was license for him to return in his truest form of evil. I thought this would be over but according to him it is just beginning. Nothing has been resolved. The past crowds into the present and threatens to smother the future.
Nothing could go on, Jacob. I was twelve years old. Jesus. The lies keep on coming. I learned from the best.
***
When I stop shaking and take my hands away from my ears the yelling is directly below me now. Inside the house. Listening very carefully I can pick out Ben, Lochlan, PJ, Christian, Andrew, Duncan. Lochlan is deflecting the questions they fire at him. No one's going to give us any leeway or any breathing space on this ever again.
Then I realize his resolve is holding. This is the only thing he cares about. Me. Us. Our memories. Maybe our secrets are safe after all.
I didn't think it would turn out like this. I never thought I would get this far from Caleb, almost home free. A child's dream, just like the one I had of living in a pink castle made entirely of cotton candy, complete with a midway at my disposal all day long, and a circus scrubbed and shining of her inevitable dark and seedy underpinnings. Light in dark places, with my knights at the ready.
Okay, so maybe that one last part came true.
***
What do you want from her? Jacob roars in Caleb's face. They are nose to nose, for Jacob has Caleb several inches off the ground and pinned to the wall. It hurts, I know it hurts, I can see it all over Caleb's face but only because I am the only one who knows what the devil looks like in pain.
I want her to tell the truth.
What truth?
I am shaking my head, horrified that they are doing this. Terrified that Caleb is going to ruin everything but he isn't that insane. If he takes Lochlan down then he goes down too. Nobody wins, he'll never get close to me again. He isn't going to risk that but I'm not so sure anymore.
That what Lochlan did was just as bad. And that I mean something to her.
Yeah, you do. You're her nightmare.
Jacob lets go and Caleb drops to the floor on his knees. Jacob storms across the room, grabbing me by the hand and we leave. I look over my shoulder but it's apparent that Caleb has given up, for now. He'll only go so far and somehow I realize that he's as stuck as I am, as Lochlan is, the three of us locked into a secret history that no one is willing to blow the lid off.
I am flooded with relief and I wonder how long it will hold. Jacob looks at me and my expression is vacant, lost in thought, overwhelmed. He thinks I have gone into shock and he panics. He pulls me roughly against his shoulder, tightly in his arm and takes out his phone. I forget who he called, I just remember eventually falling asleep in his arms while we waited. And I remember thinking nothing bad would ever happen again. I never expected the army to remain so close.
***
Ben finds me sitting on the second step from the top, arms wrapped around my knees, rocking like I did in the chair on Jacob's balcony before the past came back in a rush to destroy everything we have built since.
I looked up into his face, my eyes burning, tears eroding a path down each cheek. Unable to pull myself together, I bring my hands up to cover my face.
I'm so sorry, Benny. It was a whisper.
He put his arm around me, pulling me off the step and into his lap and he wrapped both arms around me, compressing me against his chest. Kissing my cheeks, ears, the top of my head.
I don't care, bee. I don't fucking care what happened, I don't care what's in the past, I don't care who you were with or what you felt or what you did. I love you. No matter what happens. I love you now.
That last part is still reverberating through my brain. I love you now.