Drowning Is Inevitable (23 page)

Once they left, my legs began to itch, and just like that I was no longer comfortable where I was. I broke free from the ground holding me and stood up. I hoped Max or Maggie had hung around, but I didn't see them. They would've been a good excuse to put off what was coming next. My dad was there, though, and I wondered how he'd snuck back without me noticing. He was standing in the same spot as earlier, still watching me. I walked to Jamie's grave, and my dad moved parallel to me, staying on the sidewalk.

There was a slight lump in the ground. How long would it take to flatten over him? My stomach felt like it was holding rocks, and gravity took over, pulling me down. I heard my name. It was only a whisper, but it carried on the wind, making me look over at my dad again. He watched me, his lips still parted. His hand went out to touch a car parked next to the graveyard, like he needed it for balance. His knees buckled a little, like the image of me on my knees was pulling him to his. I thought about invisible strings, like the one that had connected me to Jamie.

I knew how hard it was for my dad to be even this close to the graveyard; the strength it had taken to do so showed on his face. With a sigh I realized that the places where I was most comfortable, he'd never go. I lay down next to the grassy lump, ignoring the death and dirt, and turned on my side to sleep.

It was a deep, dead sleep, the kind it's hard to open your eyes from. Much later I did, just for a time, and they slid open to the moonlight. The ground below me had grown cool, but I didn't care. I turned my head to the side to see my dad still there, sitting on the sidewalk now, leaning against the back tire of the parked car. His eyes were closed, and like Max he looked younger when he was sleeping. The sky was a dark blue, the color it turns right after the sun sets and right before it slips into blackness. This time of night only lasts a few minutes, and I watched my dad through the blades of grass until the sky turned black around him.

The stars were just beginning to show. They were winking at me through the branches. The heaviness was back in my body, and this time it pulled at my eyes, pulling my lids back down. I heard Jamie's voice whispering in my ear.

“What do you want to be when you grow up?”

He was asking me the question this time.

“A gravedigger,” I told him.

It was that special part of night when it's so dark outside that even the animals know to be still. The night had been going on for so long that I worried I'd slipped into a black hole and was now somewhere the sun would never rise. My dad was still out there on the sidewalk. I couldn't see him anymore, but I felt him.

I'd been awake for some time now, but I hadn't sat up, was just holding still, taking in the slight dips and grooves of the ground around me, feeling them out with my fingers. I'd decided I'd be in this spot indefinitely.

I saw something moving in the distance: a light, small and round. It took me longer than it should have to figure out that it was a flashlight. I watched as it bounced around the graveyard independently, whoever was holding it completely invisible in the black night. Only when it came closer to me did I realize it was two people. Max and Maggie were walking toward me. Max was carrying his sleeping bag in one hand and a bottle of whiskey in the other. Neither one said anything as they came near me and I sat up.

No one questioned what I was doing in the graveyard. They set about their business. Max laid out the sleeping bag, like he'd done on the bank of Lake Maurepas and on Steven's living room floor. Maggie sat down in the center and dropped the flashlight next to her. Without any prompting, I moved to her. My plan was to sit next to her, but my body had other ideas. As I got close to her, my head dropped to her lap, and without missing a beat she started stroking my hair and humming to me. Her fingers were so light in my hair as they worked their way down from root to end.

Max sat next to us and cradled the bottle in his lap. He didn't drink from it. He was back to just holding it. He was leaving for LSU in a week or so. Fall classes were starting soon. His major was now undecided. Mr. Barrow had worked it out so Max and Maggie could fulfill their community service hours in Baton Rouge and Manhattan respectively. They'd been assigned caseworkers and counselors to check in on them. In addition to completing our community service hours, we each had to meet with a psychiatrist so our mental health could be monitored after such a tragic experience. At least that's how they worded it for us. None of us were too excited about that, especially me, because I was pretty sure I was the only one of the three of us who was crazy, and I was alsopretty sure any professional would recognize it immediately.

There was no college waiting for me, so I'd be fulfilling my community service in St. Francisville. I wasn't upset about that. I felt better knowing my debt would be collected right here. The judge reminded me that once my time was up, I could go anywhere I wanted. I wanted to believe him.

I felt guilty for not spending enough time with Max or Maggie these last few days. But they were here now, and at least I had a few more days with them. They could come visit me here in the graveyard.

Maggie stopped her humming and her fingers stilled in my hair. “I'm leaving tomorrow,” she said.

I turned my head in her lap to look at her face.

She tilted her face down to me. “My dad wants to do some sightseeing in New York before I move into the dorms.”

Maggie's dad was pretty eager to get her out of here, to put distance between her and this town and the reminders of everything that had happened. I couldn't blame him. But still, it hurt, and I could tell from the stillness of Max's body that it was news to him, too. I sat up. We both stared at her.

“You'll come visit me, won't you?” She looked at me, and then her eyes flicked to Max. “Both of you?”

We nodded. The nods were slow but sure, and then there was this long pause. I reached out to touch her knee, like my body wanted to keep contact with hers for as long as possible. The magnitude of the physical space that would soon separate us made my heart hurt. A feeling like homesickness hit me. I nodded again; I'd come visit her.

My hands went to the tips of her hair as I saw in the dim glow from the flashlight that they were dyed hot pink, like she'd dipped them in something.

She smiled and said, “Just getting into character.”

“I like it,” I said. “It suits you.”

“I made you a present. I gave it to your dad.” Her hand went to my face, and she tucked my hair behind my ear. “He said he knew where to put it, so if you want to see it, you'll have to ask him.”

I knew that was Maggie's subtle way of getting me out of the graveyard and into a room with my dad. I didn't want to argue about the unlikelihood of either happening, so I just said, “Okay.”

Soon we were all lying next to one another, Max and Maggie on either side of me. We fit together so well, our bodies molding to each other like there'd been no time apart. Muscle memory: our bodies immediately remembered how to fit. One last night together.

Because there were only three of us on the sleeping bag, my mind slipped to that dark place, traveling down to where Jamie lay. My body tried to split itself in two. Max and Maggie must have felt the tearing, because they held on to me tightly, like they were trying to hold the pieces of me together.

We stayed like that for a long time underneath the black blanket of the sky, and then with his lips on my ear, Max whispered, “Happy birthday.”

Maggie squeezed my arm. Maybe the present she'd made had many purposes, one being my birthday. Since it was way past midnight by now, I guess it was technically true.

“Thank you,” I said.

We were quiet again. I was turning eighteen in the cemetery. Lillian was lying not too far from me. When I was little, I liked to imagine it wasn't her choice. That on the night of her eighteenth birthday, a switch flipped inside her, one she couldn't control. Her body moved to the water without her permission, sort of like she was a zombie or robot. Now I know that isn't what happened. When we were in New Orleans, I'd longed for the river to take me like it did her. The longing was less now, but I was grateful to have Max and Maggie's arms around me keeping me in my spot, just in case I couldn't stop myself from being like her.

As if she'd been reading my mind this whole time, Maggie whispered, “What if, no matter what, we grow up to be the people we came from?”

I knew she wasn't thinking about Lillian, that it was her own mom creeping into Maggie's mind, worrying her.

Her mom had disappeared that day in New Orleans. She never went to Louis's apartment.

“You won't be like her,” I said to her, and to myself.

“You really believe that?”

“I do, and you only need one person to believe it for it to be true.”

From behind me, Max said, “And you've got two.”

At first light I woke to the soft whisper kiss of Maggie's lips on my cheek and opened my eyes to see her sad smile. She didn't say goodbye, just stood and walked out of the graveyard, walking her Maggie walk right out of my life. I watched her for a time, observing her stride and steps, to see how you walk when you're leaving. She gave my dad a small wave—he was still sitting in that same spot, but he was awake now—and then turned right at the sidewalk.

My eyes stayed on my dad. He looked tired in the new light. How long would he wait before giving up and going home? I opened my mouth to say something to him, but not knowing what that would be, I rolled back over and scooted closer to Max. Max smelled like home still, and even though we were back and home was all around me, I pressed my face into his neck.

Sometime later, we woke up. I moved off his sleeping bag and watched as he took his time rolling it up before tucking the bottle down into the middle of it. Every move he made was slow and deliberate. He was dragging this time out. He kept his head down as he worked, avoiding my face. When he was done and there was nowhere else to look but me, he finally brought his eyes to mine.

He looked tired, too. “Please,” he said.

It was the quiet way he said it that affected me most, and even though I didn't know what he was pleading for, I wanted to give it to him.

“Please let me take you home. I don't want to leave you here.”

I didn't know how to explain to him that it was okay to leave me, that I was already home. I thought about showing him the spot next to Jamie's grave. I wanted to show him where the grass had already laid down for me. But that would have upset him, so I shook my head.

“Will you at least keep the sleeping bag?” he asked.

“I don't want it.”

“Alright, Olivia.” He bent down and touched his lips to mine, then, deflated, walked away from me, promising to come back soon.

I watched him go as I had Maggie. He stopped and looked back at me once, like he was giving me time to change my mind. I knew he wanted me to make a different choice. He wanted me to leave Jamie and pick him. Part of me wanted that, too, but another part, the bigger part, knew I was right where I needed to be.

“I love you, Olivia,” he said, the wind carrying his voice to me.

“I love you, too,” I said. It didn't change anything, because Jamie was still dead and I still couldn't leave him. I could tell this made Max sad, but we both knew this wasn't the end of our love story.

After a time, he turned and walked to his truck. It was the same one we'd left in New Orleans, which had somehow remained untouched when it was abandoned and found its way back home like we had. With nowhere else to look, I turned my face to my dad again. His eyes were closed. He looked stiff and uncomfortable, and I wanted to yell out, to wake him and tell him to go home, because I'd found my comfortable spot. I even tried opening my mouth, but I'd grown too weak, my strength leaking out and soaking into the ground around me. There was nothing left to do but sink back down to the ground. It wasn't long before I went back to sleep, something I was getting very good at.

“You don't live here,” my dad said as he carried me out of the graveyard.

I opened my eyes and saw I was being carried farther and farther from my comfortable spot. I fought him. I begged him. “Please take me back. Leave me here. Please!” I fought until there was no more fight in me. He squeezed me tighter to him until I was boneless and limp in his arms. He opened the truck's passenger door and slid me onto the seat, pouring me in like I was liquid.

We rode down familiar streets, connecting in the way they always did. My dad was sweating, and occasionally he took his hand off the wheel to wipe his face, his body overexerted from crossed lines. I turned my head toward the passenger-side window and saw that we weren't headed to Fidelity Street, which made me look back at him.

“Where are we going?”

He didn't answer me, just kept right on driving in the same direction, past Bird Man's and the bed and breakfast. I guessed he was taking me to his apartment—a space that was only his. Being in it always reminded me that he didn't have room for me. But we passed the garage and his apartment, too. We crossed to the other side of town, far from the cemetery and the river.

“Where are we going?” I asked again.

“You'll see.” His voice was soft, and I leaned closer to him, hoping he'd repeat himself, because I didn't understand what he was saying.

“I don't understand.”

“You will.”

We were going farther and farther into the woods on a road that had never been named. It was the kind of road cars had to take turns using, because it was too narrow in parts for two lanes of traffic. It was strange that there was a road in St. Francisville I'd never been down, but here it was just the same.

We stopped at what looked like the road's end and faced a house. It was worn and in need of paint, with a tiny front porch barely big enough to hold the swing on it. He turned to look at me, but I kept facing forward.