Axis of Aaron (51 page)

You’re lucky you have Holly,
Aimee had sobbed.
Someone to talk to. Someone who loves you, and whose job it is to hug you and promise that everything will be all right.

Yes. Ebon had Holly. But while they had plenty of fun, Holly had never been that person for Ebon. He had explained that to Aimee — in chats he deleted afterward to avoid hurting Holly’s feelings if she ever uncovered them, which she was of course welcome to do — but Aimee never really believed him. She kept saying that Ebon was just being Ebon, and that if anyone knew Ebon, it was Aimee. She told him that relationships were complicated and not all the same, but that if he’d been with Holly for a decade and had decided to tie the knot, there was love there. Not just familiarity and laughter, but honest to God
love
. Ebon wondered if Holly knew the difference.
 

So Ebon had steered the conversation back to Aimee and her loss, away from his problems. He told Aimee that everything would be all right, over and over again.
 

Now, in his office, Ebon listened to a light strumming of guitar chords. A soft, accented voice, singing, “Maybe you’re gonna be the one that saves me.”

Maybe.
 

Ebon’s phone rang.
 

“Hello?”

He listened while a brusque yet somewhat tentative voice rattled off a string of nonsense words. The voice called him “Mr. Shale.” Ebon interrupted, in the middle of the nonsense, and corrected his caller, saying he preferred Ebon.
 

“Mr. Shale,” the voice asserted, its tone somehow apologetic, going out of its way to disobey Ebon’s familiarity, to irritate him, to be formal, to keep its distance. “Do you understand what I’ve just said?”
 

“So I should come down.” Ebon’s eyes strayed to the honeymoon photo. To the corkboard beside his desk, where there were three more photos of Holly. One showing her face close up, emerald eyes smiling, a painted turtle in her hands. Ebon remembered that day. They’d laughed and played. Afterward Holly had said she wanted to fuck him in a public aquarium’s bathroom. One photo was of them together — a selfie Ebon had taken by holding the camera (it had been a camera back then) at arm’s length. The Brooklyn Bridge’s arch was in the background. They’d laughed on their walk through New York, and Holly had dragged him back to the hotel room and drained him dry. The last was one of those ride photos taken at an amusement park by a mounted camera. You could see both of Ebon’s hands in the photo because they were up. You could only see Holly’s left hand because her other was down. Ebon remembered what it had been doing, and how hard Holly had been laughing.
 

“Mr. Shale … ”
 

He did love her. He really, really did. It was probably a bit dramatic to say she was the one who’d saved him, but she’d been the last in his string of admittedly stilted female interactions. She’d corrected so much of Julia’s damage. She may or may not have been his soul mate, but she might just have been his wonderwall.
 

“Yes, yes,” said Ebon. “I just need to finish what I’m doing. Maybe fifteen minutes.”
 

“You should come immediately, sir.”

Ebon blinked. His vision was blurring. His eyes were watering for some reason. The honeymoon photo. The aquarium photo. The Brooklyn Bridge selfie. The amusement park ride. All were difficult to see, as if disappearing behind a fog.
 

“Tell her I was stupid,” he said, the moment growing suddenly urgent, worth dredging up something ancient. “What she said that one night, when I told her about Julia. Tell her I take it back. That I’m sorry.”
 

“Mr. Shale … ”
 

“She’ll know what it means.”
 

The voice swallowed. “I’m afraid she’s already gone, sir.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

It's a Nice Place, Aaron

THE WAVES WERE LOW AND KIND, not so much breaking under the small fishing boat’s bow as sloughing out of the way to make room for its passage. The sky was overcast behind — not quite stormy, but certainly gloomy — yet seemed to be clearing ahead. As he stood at the wires strung through posts around the boat’s sides, clinging to the top one as if it were a proper railing, Ebon Shale stared out at the relatively sunnier coastline with the distinct impression that the small town of Aaron was beckoning him forward, and that the world behind was pushing him out.
 

“You okay there, buddy?”

Ebon nodded, not looking back. “Fine.”
 

“Because you looked a little green back there. When it was rough, a bit ago.”
 

Ebon looked down. His hands were large, and the thin, plastic-coated wire biting into his palms made them look larger. He wanted to fiddle with his wedding ring, but it was packed in his suitcase. Part of him didn’t want to think about that ring at all right now, even though another part felt he was duty-bound to think of nothing else. Holly was gone.
Forever
. It hurt to consider, but Ebon found himself wielding the simple fact of her death over and over when the world went thoughtful and still, whipping himself with it as some sort of penance.
 

“If you’re sick, you shouldn’t look down. Watch the horizon. Watch the shoreline, up yonder.”
 

“I’m fine.”
 

Behind Ebon, the boat’s pilot shuffled his feet as he guided the wheel and ignored the maxed-out throttle. He’d introduced himself as Captain Jack, like in the Billy Joel song. Maybe, like that Captain Jack, he could get Ebon high tonight. Ebon had never done any kind of illegal (or even illicit) drug before, but right now he felt willing to learn. It was ironic: Holly had been the adventurous one. She’d wanted to try ecstasy before making frantic, tripped-out love. When Ebon had demurred, she’d let it go as she always did when he felt strongly about something. As far as he knew, she’d never even tried it without him.
 

It was strange, the things Holly pulled from their relationship. She’d avoided the sex drug out of loyalty to Ebon’s wishes, but that hadn’t stopped her from screwing other men. Only he’d sort of given her tacit permission to do that, hadn’t he? He’d known what she was up to, and she’d almost certainly
known
he’d known. And yet he’d said nothing, using Holly’s infidelity as his own sort of neutered get-out-of-jail free card rather than speaking up and ending it. Strangely, he felt increasingly sure that she’d have stopped if he’d insisted. But that would be caging the bird, refusing to set it free in order to find out if it loved him back. And besides, if Holly had stopped cheating, that would have left
Ebon
as the only one with a secret to hide.

“Why would you hire a charter if you’re prone to get sick?” the captain asked.
 

Ebon turned. Captain Jack didn’t look much like the old sea dog his name seemed to imply. He wasn’t much older than Ebon, clean-shaven and wearing a threadbare long-sleeve shirt bearing the name and tour schedule of a band Ebon had never heard of. He had a prominent mole above one eyebrow and was squinting into the breeze, his skin weathered and tan. There was a beer in an insulating foam sleeve perched on the dash above the wheel — and somehow, miraculously, it hadn’t tipped despite the chop. Jack had been sipping from it the entire time. Ebon wondered if drinking while boating was against nautical law. He wasn’t sure. His father had taught him a lot about boats over the years, but how and when to drink properly while on them had been missing from the lessons.
 

“I’m really not seasick,” said Ebon, sitting.
 

“No shame on it, buddy.”

“Really. I don’t get seasick.”
 

“I was just wondering why you’d hire a charter if you knew it happened. Or didn’t you know?”
 

Ebon sighed, deciding to break the cycle with silence. Apparently Jack had decided Ebon was seasick. He couldn’t deny it, so he stayed mute, staring out at the horizon like a dutiful landlubber.
 

From out in the bay, the approaching island looked more or less unchanged from his youth. Ebon felt something inside him sigh. He’d asked Aimee about Aaron before he’d notified the office of his indefinite furlough (perhaps too impulsively and foolhardily responding to his boss’s concerns that Ebon was “slipping” and “embarrassing himself,” but there would be time to think about that later), but he hadn’t believed her when she’d said it was the same. Aimee had lived on Aaron all her life. Like a parent living with a growing child, the small, daily changes would be invisible to her, he’d assumed. And yet one day, that unchanging child would suddenly be an adult — and so too could Aaron have grown paved roads, shopping centers, and vacationers’ hotels without notice. But from the west shore at least, he was seeing something straight out of his memory. He wasn’t sure if that sameness would be a comfort for him in his current state, or a bittersweet crutch.

Jack was still looking at Ebon, waiting for a response.
 

“Have you ever taken the ferry to Aaron from the mainland, Jack?”
 

“Ayuh. Of course.”

“Well, you talk about seasickness? When that thing hits rough water, it’s like … ”
 

“Ayuh,” Captain Jack repeated. “You’re right. Someone like you, you’ll barf harder when a tub that big gets to swaying. I forget. Not that I go to the island often. But you’re gonna go broke hiring me to run over and get you whenever you want to make a run to Costco or something.”
 

“I can afford it,” said Ebon.
 

And he could. For a while anyway. He had a nice financial cushion. It would come in handy when his furlough turned officially into fired, but part of Ebon had already been working the numbers, wondering if he was as free as he suspected he might be. Aimee had been inviting him to Aaron for years, and he’d been seriously considering a trip for the last few months of Holly’s life. (It would probably be a solo trip. He could “allow” Holly to go off on one of her “weekend jobs” pretty easily, leaving him available. They’d nod at each other, both understanding what wasn’t said, and walk away guilty with their base impulses satisfied.) But now that Holly was gone? Well, it was a horrible thing to think, but with his furlough in effect and his rent more or less ignored, relocating to the island was actually a workable silver lining. Aaron had been a constant splinter in the back of Ebon’s mind ever since he’d been a teenager, and now there was no reason he couldn’t go. No reason he couldn’t accept Aimee’s leading invitation. No reason at all that he couldn’t, if it was cool with Aimee, stay for as long as he wanted, reclaiming should-have-beens.

“You been to Aaron before?” asked Jack.

Ebon nodded. “I used to stay with my grandparents when I was younger.”
 

“So you ain’t as sea-green as I thought. Just a queasy stomach is all. I got relations on the island myself. Where was their place?”
 

“East Shore. Dead opposite West Dock.”
 

“I know it.” He paused, then added, “Why’d you want to pull in at Pinky Slip? West Dock is easier, y’know. Closer too.”

But this was supposed to be a fresh start. Ebon had always come to Aaron on the ferry, and he’d always, therefore, approached his destination from the roadside. Now things were different. For a reason he couldn’t articulate, Ebon felt sure he had to arrive by the ocean. He had to see the cottage from the water first. Anything to erase the memory of his last time here.
 

“Yes, Pinky Slip.”
 

Jack shrugged. “When were you here last?”
 

“Sixteen years,” said Ebon. “I was fifteen.” The words left in a sigh, as if he hadn’t realized how long it had been until he’d said them. But really, the weight of those years wasn’t upon the island’s back. It was on his own. It was on Aimee’s. They’d been great friends back then, and were better friends now. It was difficult to admit, but Aimee had always been there for Ebon when Holly hadn’t. Holly had never truly got close to him, whereas Aimee had never strayed far. He’d tried with Holly. And Holly — well, he didn’t really want to consider what
she’d
tried, and how he’d responded. But wasn’t there only one harbor in a man’s heart?
 

Tell the truth, Ebon
, he thought.
That harbor was always reserved for Aimee
.
 

But no. No, he’d loved Holly — just in a different way. He hadn’t needed to let go of Aimee. He could have both. He could have a backup. He and Aimee had never crossed any inappropriate lines — even, come to think of it, when they’d been young and unattached and were
supposed
to cross lines. He could have returned to Aaron when he’d turned eighteen to see her again. He could have broken it off with Holly after Aimee’s divorce, after Aimee had become available. But he hadn’t, and those decisions proved what Ebon had always heartbreakingly known: that all things happened for a reason, and that he’d loved Holly most of all.
 

She’d been wrong here, not him. Now she was gone — and maybe that too had happened for a reason.
 

“It’s a nice place, Aaron,” said Jack, his eyes on the approaching dock. “People complain about the long boat ride, but that’s what keeps the island small. Ain’t no reason for developers to come over. Plenty of dirt roads left, but so what? That’s a small price to pay for quiet.”