At the Water's Edge (16 page)

“I’m so sorry, Ellie.” Her eyes are moist when she lets go of me and scans my face. “For leaving you behind. With them.”

“I’ll be right back.” I hurry into the bathroom to rinse my face. I steady myself against the sink and take a long hard look at myself in the mirror. My mother’s visit yesterday afternoon, my emotional date with Kay, what happened this morning, and now Nina. When Dr. Hakim told me about potential emotionally stressful moments—and how to cope with them—I doubt he had this in mind.
You have the luxury of time, Ella,
he said.
Spread the load.
 

I take a deep breath and look into my own eyes. They’re the same as Nina’s—a bright blue inheritance from our dad.

When I arrive back on the deck, I find two whiskey glasses with a finger of liquid in them on the table next to the breakfast food.

“It’s the middle of the night for me,” Nina says. “I need a pick-me-up.”

“You must be exhausted.” Grateful for the booze, albeit on an empty stomach, I sink into a chair next to her.

“It’s all relative, I guess.” She holds up her glass. “Here’s to you, Little Sister. And to the exciting family reunion in our very near future.”

The alcohol practically burns my throat as it goes down, but I welcome its numbing effects.

“Mom and Dad will be over the moon.”

“We’ll see about that.” Nina puts her glass down and picks up a piece of toast. “I know it’s a bit cramped, but can I stay here with you? I really can’t face staying at the house.”

“Of course.”

“I take it you’ll be spending your nights at Kay’s, anyway.” She winks at me the way Kay sometimes does. “She was always the serious type, even in high school. Like you, Ellie.” Nina slants her head. “How do you feel about the whole bisexual thing, though? I mean, I’ll be honest with you, I’ve dabbled, but it’s just not for me, you know?” Nina’s babbling. She must be wrecked with nerves about this whole situation as well. She probably booked her ticket on impulse, before she gave herself the chance to really think about why she was coming back in the first place.

“It’s early days.” As much as I’d like to spend the day talking about Kay, it feels unsavory. I don’t want what I have with Kay to be the subject of nervous chatter like this. “We’ll see. But I’m extremely fond of her.” A tiny bolt of lightning runs through me as I say the words.

“I can tell,” Nina says between munching toast, but how could she possibly be able to tell? She hasn’t seen me for years.
 

“How about you? Anyone special in your life?” The mere fact that I have to ask my own sister this question is reason enough to have another sip of whiskey.

“My men come and go.” Nina shrugs. “I’ve never been particularly good with commitment. I wonder why.” She gazes out over the lake. “This place does have charm.” She seems keen to change the subject. “But you should come visit me in New Zealand, Sis. Nature like you wouldn’t believe. Much too stunning to try to put into words.”

Maybe you should send us some pictures from time to time
, I think, but refuse to say out loud out of fear of sounding too much like Mom. It hits me that, since Nina arrived, I’ve been able to identify with almost every emotion—no matter how bitter—my mother has ever expressed about her oldest daughter’s departure. It’s moments like these that are the hardest to bear. The moments in which I realize that it wasn’t coming back to Northville that required a certain amount of courage, it’s all the conversations I’ve yet to have. The road to some form of forgiveness I need to find somewhere in my heart. No matter how far my sister and I both run, we can’t outrun the simple fact that we share DNA with the people who made and raised us. We are versions of them, with our own beliefs and unique traits, very different but, also, in many ways, the same. We’ve both tried, but we can’t outrun who we are.

“Perhaps I will.” I pin my eyes on my sister’s face. The fatigue is starting to break through. The vivid complexion of her skin is beginning to fade, as is that sparkle in her eye. “How do you keep busy up there?”

“You mean
down
there?” I sense sadness in Nina’s tone, but she shakes it off well. She inhales deeply before speaking again. “When I left Northville, I made one single promise to myself: to never become like
them
.” She doesn’t need to qualify who ‘them’ are. “I think I succeeded pretty well. I never bought into the marriage-with-two-point-four-kids myth. I’m so glad you haven’t either, Ellie. I knew from a young age that I didn’t want to impart my genes on an innocent baby. That I would never want a child of mine to feel the way I felt when I was growing up.” The way she says it makes it sound like a rehearsed speech. “And I know it’s tragic, this anger I still carry inside of me, like I never grew out of that parent-hating phase of adolescence. I’ve given up a lot for it, but never for one second have I felt as if I had any other choice.”

It’s as though Nina has reached into my brain, scooped out the words, and laid them on her own tongue. Still, in this moment of sudden sisterly camaraderie and understanding, because of what my mother told me yesterday afternoon, I feel the need to defend our parents.

“Do you know about Mom’s, uh, condition?”

An awkward chuckle makes its way out of Nina’s throat. Shaking her head, she brings the glass she’s been cradling in her hands to her mouth and takes a sip. “I do.” She drinks again, emptying her glass. “But possibly only because Dad, in a desperate attempt to make me like him again after his sordid little affair came out, told me everything. How he’d been
forced
to take care of me while Mom was
away
. And how unusual that was for a man back then in the seventies. The last scrap of respect I still had for him went out of the window that day.” She blows some air through her nostrils. “He truly believed the things he said could make me change my mind about him.” With a bang, she deposits the glass on the table. “Oh the sacrifices he made by staying with Mom. He could have left her so easily, but he stayed, because she needed him. He was one of the good guys, did I not see that? The thing is, Ellie, that when someone needs to ask you to see the good in them, it hasn’t exactly been showing in the first place.”

I might be the professor, but it seems to me that Nina is much better at explaining difficult processes. I also realize that, perhaps, having her around could have made a big difference in my own life.

“And then,” Nina isn’t finished yet, ”when he had the chance to actually show me how much he cared, he fucked it all up.” Nina inhales sharply. She sneaks her hand over the table toward mine. “Except for leaving you behind, Ellie, I have no regrets. None.”

Hesitantly, I place my palm on her hand.

“For all I care, they don’t even need to know I’m here. I only came for you.” Nina’s eyes are watery when she looks at me, which leads me to believe she doesn’t mean what she’s saying. She’s come to heal as well.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

After Nina has succumbed to fatigue completely—aided by another glass of whiskey—I shower and make my way to the shop. I find Kay sorting through a delivery of breakfast bars and, instantly, my stomach starts rumbling. My insides tied in too many knots by Nina’s sudden appearance, I didn’t touch any of the food I laid out for breakfast. Now that I catch a glimpse of Kay, with her back to me, her behind already looking so familiar in a pair of shorts, the storm inside me settles somewhat, but only to make room for a different kind of restlessness in my blood. Kay. An hour of reminiscing with my sister hasn’t tempered my desire for Kay. All I want is to pick up where we left things before that knock on the door earlier this morning. And even more than that, I want her inside of me.

“Excellent way to lure in customers.” I lean against the counter and enjoy how my voice startles Kay.

A bunch of breakfast bars still in her hand, Kay turns toward me, an eager smile on her lips. “Here.” She tosses me one. “I seem to have ordered too many.”

I catch the protein bar with a reflexive movement of my hand. As much as I want to tear off the wrapper and put it in my mouth, I’d much rather peel away Kay’s clothes and press my lips to her skin. But she keeps on standing there, about two feet away, and something inside of me—the same old nagging feeling of doubt—keeps me from walking up to her.

“How’s your sister?” Kay cocks up an eyebrow.

“Out for the count.” Desire courses through me at the sight of Kay sinking her teeth into her bottom lip. “Long journey and she’s no spring chicken anymore.”

“Right.” Kay nods, her bottom lip half sucked into her mouth. “Just like me, you mean?”

“I don’t remember saying that.” It doesn’t matter what we say to each other, though. Just being near her is enough. Even standing a few feet away, I can feel the heat radiating off her body—I can feel that she hasn’t had enough of me, either. “You don’t still have a crush on her, do you?”

“Not sure, but either way, I guess I can make do with the little sister.” Kay drops the bars back into the box by her feet and takes a step in my direction. She might as well have pinched my nipple between her fingers, that’s how her closeness affects me. And I know, more than I’ve ever known anything in my life, that before I can face any more of my family members—before I take Nina home—I need Kay. I need her arms around me, her lips on my skin, her fingers between my legs.

Unable to hold back any longer, no matter the endless string of doubts in my mind, my legs lead me to her. One step is all it takes. I smell her soap, her familiar scent, before she wraps her arms around me and finds my ear with her lips. “Are you okay?” she asks. “Not too shaken by Nina’s sudden return?” But I don’t want to talk about Nina any more. I want to go back to that blissful state I was in moments before she arrived. Not to undo her arrival, but because for as long as I can possibly remember, I haven’t felt so safe with someone as I do with Kay. So understood. So accepted. So incredibly aroused.

“Take me inside,” I manage to whisper. “To your bedroom.”

“And close the shop at this hour of the day?” Although I can’t see Kay’s face, I hear the smile in her voice.

“Yes.” I nod, my chin bumping against her shoulder. “Please.”

“Anything for Nina Goodman’s sister.” She plants a kiss just below my ear, a kiss that is soft and hard at the same time. Soft and delicate with tenderness, but hard and clear in its intention.

Kay grabs my hand, shuts the door of the shop and displays the ‘Closed’ sign in the window. By the time we’ve reached the lodge, we’re both practically running. We head straight for Kay’s sparsely decorated bedroom, stopping only to catch our breath, before lunging for each other, hands frantic, skin on fire.

“Fuck me,” I breathe into Kay’s mouth when we kiss. “Please, fuck me.” It makes her pull back from our kiss.

“Is that what you want?” Her voice is all gravel.

“It’s all I want.”

A smirk slips along her lips. “I will.” Her eyebrows arch up when she says it, forcing a shudder of red-hot lust up my spine. “But let’s slow you down first.” With that, her lips are back on my neck, planting gentle pecks, kissing their way up, along my throat, to my chin, until they reach my mouth. With her lips parted, she hovers over my mouth for a long second, before allowing her tongue to slither out, finding mine, her lips now firmly planted on mine.

I tug at her t-shirt, hoisting it off her, my fingers on her skin, their tips sizzling with the connection of flesh on flesh. Her tongue is already claiming me and my pelvis involuntarily crashes into hers. Kay lends a hand, breaking our kiss, her eyes not leaving mine, to get rid of her t-shirt and toss it, rather theatrically, behind her on the floor. I take the occasion to disrobe of as many items of my own clothing as I can, yanking my t-shirt over my head, my hands already searching for the clasp of my bra.

“Easy.” Kay presses her full weight against me. “Let me do that.” She covers my hands with hers and, together, we unhook my bra. Slowly, with one finger, she brushes a strap off my shoulder, then the other. Her eyes are glued to my chest as my bra slides away, exposing my breasts to the air, which always feels different with her. More charged. More infused with the possibility of happiness.

Unexpectedly, Kay grabs my wrists with both hands and pins them above my head. She curls the fingers of one hand around both my wrists, while bringing her other hand behind her back. I could easily force my hands down, but it’s the last thing I want to do. I watch Kay unclasp her own bra with one hand. It doesn’t get treated with the same reverence as mine and it comes off quickly, revealing her dark, taut nipples. She lets go of my wrists for a fraction of a second to toss her bra to the floor. There’s that ripple of lust again, as her palm reconnects with my wrists, riding swiftly through my blood, making my heart beat faster.

Another new sensation: I can literally feel myself getting wet. Simply by looking at Kay, at the quick rise and fall of her breasts and the desire she expresses, I can feel my panties getting soaked in my own juices.

“I’ll fuck you.” Kay’s voice has transformed into a low growl. Her left hand keeps my wrists above my head, and the power in it arouses me as much as it surprises me. Her other hand approaches my cheek, and its gentleness stands in stark contrast to the pure want sizzling in my flesh—the immediacy of it, the wanting it here-and-now quality of my own desire. I can also clearly see that same desire in every move she makes. She traces a finger to my lips, lets it hover before pressing down, not hard, but unmistakable in its intention.

Without saying a word, Kay pushes two fingers into my mouth and I suck on them for dear life. I want to pull her into my mouth as deep as I want her fingers in my pussy later. My tongue twirls around them, eager to show her what I can do—what I will do—with it. It’s a way for me to make my intentions clear as well. My teeth bite gently on her fingers as she starts to retract them, her eyes still on me, peering equally as deep into my soul.

And if this is not saving me, then I don’t know what could. Not in the way Dr. Hakim warned me about, but in this beautiful, lust-riddled, loving, healing way Kay has with me. Perhaps I have no way of knowing. Maybe my brain suffered damage while I was unconscious in the hospital. Knowing isn’t even the right verb, because it can’t possibly capture the sensation that flows through me. This feeling—or knowledge—that with her, with Kay, I’m approaching a version of myself I actually want to be. Because, simply by being herself, she lets me be myself.