Page 105 of Ebbing Tides
God, it sounded almost too good to be true, but I wanted it. And I wanted Lucy and Grace to be there too. I wanted him to know them all and love them all, and if he didn’t, could I find it in me to still want him? I wasn’t sure. But I thought about that, too, and I thought and I thought and I thought, until …
I thought about Dad.
I thought about him most of all and how glad I was to have gotten the last nine months with him. They hadn’t been great, no—hell, I wasn’t sure they'd been at all good. But it was something. It had been ours. And while I knew I was never goingto pardon him for how he had treated me for most of my life, I was grateful for the opportunity to have cared for him. I was glad that he’d given that to me instead of turning his back and insisting on living out his days in a facility.
And I was glad that he had cared enough for me as an infant to keep me alive.
“Still not forgiving you though, you rotten fucking bastard,” I muttered, letting my eyes drift toward the horizon for a moment as I slowed to a stop at a red light.
The night was nearly pitch-black in this industrial, waterfront part of town, wherever the hell I was, but somewhere off in the distance, beyond the docks and the piers and the calm waters below, I spotted a beam of light. Blinking through the darkness and reassuring with every pass. Calling out, calling me home.
Home.
I’d hardly known the meaning of the word. Anytime I’d ever gotten accustomed to such a thing, I was once again thrown out into the frozen, frigid world to suffer, just as my first love had the night she died. It was what I’d always thought I deserved when she hadn’t deserved it at all, but …
Fuck that.
I had once said there wasn’t a reason good enough for Laura to not be here, and ten years later, I still stood by that.
But I’d also been right when I said there was a reason I still was.
And I had figured that out the moment Melanie stumbled out of the cold in the middle of the cemetery.
A blink in the distance told me to go to her, to stop lingering, to stop simply existing and finallylive, and as the traffic light turned green, I smiled.
Because that was exactly what I planned to do.
All I needed was for her to open the door and let me in.
***
My hands held to the wheel in a white-knuckled grip as I stared out the window at a house so unfamiliar yet it somehow felt every bit like hers.
There was her silver SUV in the driveway. A bright, wintry wreath hanging on the door. AWelcomesign beside it in the shape of a cheerful, smiling snowman. The big front window was covered in sheer sunshiny-yellow curtains, and it glowed with the flickering of a television inside.
It emitted a warmth I hadn’t known since my life with Laura and the girls. When I’d watch her sway in the kitchen as she cooked, cradling her growing belly and humming along to whatever song she was playing while Lizzie and Jane helped her in one way or another, and I’d just stand back in the doorway, proud to call something so beautiful and wonderful mine.
My life had been so gray and dull without them, and somehow, I hadn’t realized, until Melanie brought a rainbow of life and color.
“What if she doesn’t want me?” I thought aloud.
Lido moaned in reply, resting his chin on my shoulder. His tongue slithered from his mouth to give my neck a little lick.
“Well, I know you want me,” I grumbled, lifting my hand to ruffle his ear. “But you don’t have a choice. Who would feed you?”
He sighed, blowing a gust of breath toward my ear, and I answered with a sigh of my own.
Is that her watching TV?I wondered.What is she watching?
A driving force urged me to walk through that door and join her, to make myself at home without so much as an invitation. But that was crazy, and I was terrified, and I couldn’t get my fingers to unwrap themselves from this damn wheel.
Lido huffed again and slumped onto the seat. I could barely make out his form in the darkness, but I could feel him, and despite the heat emanating from his body, his fur was growing cold.
“Go,”I could hear Laura say.“I didn’t wait forever, and neither should you.”
“But you were young,”I replied silently, seeking the solace of Lido’s fur.
“And you’re alone,”she countered.“It’s okay. You know it is. For once in your life, Max, stop dragging your feet.”
