Page 92 of Fierce

I thought about telling him that it wasn’t wise of me to share my dreams with him. But I hadn’t been wise from the beginning. Why start now?

“Maybe I had dreams once,” I said. “Maybe so.” I looked into the distance, at the waves breaking in a foam of white, curling toward the beach. Again and again, because they’d never stop. Reminding me how small my life was in the context of those waves that had carved this beach long before I was born, and would go on carving it long after I was gone. Of how little it mattered, in the end.

Life wasn’t about dreams. Life was what you did instead. It would only hurt to share those foolish dreams if I allowed it to.

“Not for a long time,” I said at last. “Dreams, I mean. To go away to college, I suppose. Once.”

“And you didn’t.”

“No.” I swallowed down the disappointment that, despite everything, insisted on being remembered. “No. I got a scholarship, a decent one. To Mount Holyoke, which is a women’s college that tends to fund girls like I was. Smart girls who do well in school but don’t have many...opportunities. With loans, a summer job, I could’ve done it, if I’d only had myself to think about. But of course, as it turned out, there was no question of that. I got a job instead, and an A.A. degree, too. Eventually.”

“And beyond college?”

I shrugged. “I couldn’t even tell you. It’s been so long since I gave it up, I never looked past that. I think I can do a job if I get the chance, even though I don’t have a degree. I think I could have ideas, and that I could make them work. In marketing, maybe, I guess. That’s why I was so excited about your job. I thought maybe I could go somewhere, maybe move up from the bottom. At the beginning.”

“Before...”

“Yeah.” That memory wasn’t so great, either. “Before I realized why I’d gotten it.”

“Could be you still can.”

“Could be. Someplace else, once I put in a year or two with Martine. Maybe you’ll give me a reference,” I said, trying to joke. “I’m not sure she will. And it’d be easier for me to work someplace else. A good job...that’d sure make it easier to send Karen to college. Although she’s going to get a scholarship, if there’s any way in the world we can swing it. One way or another, she’s going to go. I don’t care how.”

He was looking down at me now. “If you’re going to be that fierce about it? Reckon she is.”

I laughed a little. “Sorry. But I care about that.”

“Yeh,” he said. “I know you do.”

I looked out to sea again, breathed in that salt-sea tang that could never be anything else, let the hiss and roar of the waves fill my soul. Something else to remember, later. A memory to hold onto when this was gone.

“People leave,” I said. “We both know they do. Men leave. Fathers leave. And I guess women do, too. Even mothers can leave.” If that was too close for comfort, too bad, because I’d just said it. “But I won’t leave Karen. Everyone needs one person who loves them no matter what. One person who’ll be there for them, always. I’m that person for Karen. She’s never going to doubt that.”

My throat had closed over the words, and I was grateful for the wind that was bringing tears to my eyes. I didn’t let anyone see me cry. I wasn’t going to start with Hemi.

“She’s lucky,” he said. “And I’ve never thought of it that way, but my Koro’s that for me as well.”

“If you’ve got one,” I said, “you’re all right.”

“And you?” he asked. “Who do you have?”

“Karen,” I said. “I have Karen.”

You could have called it romantic, under other circumstances. It was hard enough not to call it romantic even now, not when Hemi had booked us into a big old Victorian bed and breakfast inn with a fireplace in the room, a huge four-poster bed heaped with pillows, and a clawfoot tub in the bathroom. But after that, it changed some, because after he took me for an early dinner in the dining room, he left me alone to take a bath and watch a movie in bed.

“As you’re feeling unwell,” he said, “I may as well get a bit of work done. I’ll do it downstairs so I don’t disturb you.”

So my movie didn’t disturb him, more likely, but it was polite of him to put it that way.

“I’d apologize,” I said, “but I don’t think you’d be excited by the alternative.”

“Excuse me?” He looked startled. Really? He’d never thought of this?

“That would be pregnancy,” I pointed out. “The normal alternative to having inconvenient periods.”

“Oh.” I could see that the idea truly hadn’t occurred to him. Must be nice to be a man. “I’ll just go do that work, then.”

“Fine.” I tried not to be disappointed that he didn’t want to lie on the bed with me and watch a romantic comedy. Of course he didn’t.

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