Page 47 of The Sea-Mist Cottage Inn
“Did you ever get any dinner?” he asked as he brought two glasses of wine to the table. “I could throw a couple chops on the stovetop grill.”
I took a sip of my wine, a crisp chardonnay. “Please do not cook for me tonight, not after my display of bitchery. I’m fine.”
He smiled. “Well, I’m hungry, so I might as well cook up something for both of us. You’ll eat pork?”
It had not escaped my notice that the moment I’d finished explaining my property-tax crisis—which I’d done in some detail—Roman had leapt up and busied himself with completely unrelated tasks. I wasn’t looking for him to solve my problemsfor me, but it was a little disorienting to have him shunt the whole thing to the side with nary a word.
Still, not his problem—and anyway, I’d told him as an explanation for my mood when I’d arrived home, not for counsel or sympathy.
“I will happily eat pork, yes.” I stood. “What can I do to help?”
ROMAN GRILLED SOMEbutterfly chops with a zesty rub, and I foraged through his well-stocked fridge to put together a salad. Over a quiet John Coltrane soundtrack, we chatted about lighthearted things while we cooked, and Roman tossed suggestions my way that directed the salad toward Mexican. It was companionable and, in my mind, a bit intimate. Above all, I liked to see Roman’s one-of-a-kind smile while we cooked a meal we’d share.
His evident pleasure was contagious. Cooking this simple impromptu meal with Roman was the first time since Micah was alive that I felt relaxed and content.
By the time we had our plates loaded and our glasses refilled, and Roman suggested we sit out back to eat, I’d set my worries about taxes aside, and I’d just about forgotten the awkward beginning of my visit here. More to the point, I’d also just about forgotten my desire ... my intention ... myneedto move slowly with him toward wherever we were headed.
As we stepped onto his back porch, he hit a switch, and the forest filled with golden light. He had strands of mini-lights wrapped around the trunks of the trees and strung across the eave of the porch roof.
His back yard was quieter and cozier than my own—no cabins trailing off into the woods, and no paths leading to them—but it was similar, too. The brick barbecue and Adirondackchairs were similar, though his were in better repair. Instead of a grouping of standard picnic tables, he had a round metal and glass table with upholstered chairs.
The most familiar thing, of course, was the world itself. We shared this forest; for all we knew, the roots of the trees around my house and his stretched beneath our feet and reached each other.
“This is beautiful,” I mused, wrapped in contentment, like floating in a soap bubble.
As soon as we settled at the table, Roman picked up the thread of my troubles, and that gentle bubble I’d been floating in popped.
“Do you think you’ll sell?”
I sighed as I landed back in my overwhelming reality. “I don’t know. Wyatt loves it there. It’s still new, and once he gets established here he might not care about the place so much, but right now, he really wants to keep it, and I really don’t want to deal him any more losses.”
Roman chewed a bite of meat before he asked, “What doyouwant?”
I shrugged. “Well, the only thing I know for absolute certain is I would rather burn the Sea-Mist to the ground than let Darryl Manfred get his sweaty paws on it.” I used a sip of wine to give myself another moment to think, then continued, “I guess I want to keep it, too. Different reasons, and maybe not entirely rational ones, but I want to make the Sea-Mist better than it ever was when my mother ran it. I don’t have one single shred of an idea how I’ll manage to keep it, but I have this powerful feeling like it would be the perfect ‘fuck you’ to make it over in my image and just ... erase her entire presence from it.”
Roman studied me carefully, chewing his way to another thought. I was surprised when he asked, “When we broached this topic at dinner last week, you didn’t want to talk about it, sotell me to mind my business if I’m out of line, but ... I’d like to ask what she did to you.”
It shouldn’t have, but to me that question came from left field. Answering it would be the emotional equivalent of standing up at this table and stripping naked. But I didn’t want to shut Roman down, not after my behavior earlier.
So I asked him a question instead. “What is your idea about what she did to me?”
He took a long, slow breath in and focused on the trees as he considered his answer.
“I don’t know details, just things I observed in you and her, and stuff I heard around town. Like I told you, I noticed that you seemed to buy a lot of things yourself that weren’t the kind of things I thought teen girls bought for themselves. Basics instead of extras, I guess is what I mean. Things parents are supposed to buy. Carla first pointed that out to me one day, and then I guess I started noticing. You almost never spoke when you were with her, or even made eye contact, and I saw the way she looked at you—which was, honestly, not much different from how she looked at everybody. Your mother was not an easy woman.” With a contemplative shake of his head, Roman turned and focused on me again. “I thought she was probably too strict and probably didn’t show you the kind of love I thought a parent should show a child. I didn’t think she was abusing you. I ...”
“You never saw a mark on me,” I finished for him. He nodded.
I finished the rest of my wine in a gulp, then reached for the bottle and filled my glass, emptying the bottle as I did. Then I went ahead and stripped naked, psychically speaking. I told him what I’d never wanted anyone in Bluster to know.
“She mostly made a point not to make anything more than a bruise, and mostly where nobody would see. I think she believed if I didn’t bleed, she wasn’t crossing the line intoabuse. A plastic spatula was her favorite weapon, but really, she didn’t hit me that often, other than a quick slap across the face when she thought I’d been disrespectful. That happened a lot—especially once I started understanding that my life was wrong and stopped trying to be a daughter she might want.”
Roman’s dark eyes were round under his furrowed brow and fixed on mine. I had to look away again before I could continue. Now that I’d started, I wanted it all out.
“Her favorite punishment was to make me kneel on the furnace grate in the hallway. Sometimes for as long as an hour. My knees would ache for days after, and the grid of the grate would be bruised into my flesh for a lot longer than that. Once—it was the last time she did it, actually—I’d yelled back at her, called her a bitch, and I think she was angry enough to actually want to kill me. I was fifteen. She made me kneel on that grate for three solid hours, and she stood over me, hitting me every time I even tried to shift my weight. That time, when I was finally able to stand, blood ran freely. They’re faint now, but my knees are still scarred like a crossword puzzle.”
“Jesus Christ, honey.”
The wordhoneyslipped from his mouth and lightly brushed my ear, a gentle caress just at the moment I needed one. I sought out the voice in my head that reminded me I had to be careful, go slow, be wise. I couldn’t be seduced by the illusion of rescue.
