The Five Times I Met Myself (21 page)

“Morning, Brock.”

Brock spun toward the voice. It belonged to a robust woman who looked to be in her midsixties. She stood across the water on the deck of the boat that neighbored his. She had perfectly round wire-rimmed glasses too small for her plump face, and thick wavy hair that must have been blonde once upon a time. She held an oversized mug that gave off a healthy cloud of steam. She raised the cup to him in a toast.

Her eyes were on the nova side of bright, and her smile was the type that spoke of someone who had been through the valley and emerged from the other side with joy unstoppable. Brock liked her immediately.

“Good morning.” He took a step toward her.

“Love the new blend.” She raised her mug to her lips. “You need to let me pay you for it.”

As Brock studied the woman, he decided to forgo pretending he knew her. He was too tired to try figuring out where he’d landed this time.

“I . . . I need your help.”

“Is that so?”

Brock nodded and tried to figure out where—and how—to start.

“Finally my turn to help you, huh? Thought you’d never ask.” The woman strolled up to the railing that framed her deck and leaned her elbows on the maple-stained wood. “It’s been tough, I know.”

“That’s the problem. You might know, but I don’t.” Brock grasped his own railing with both hands and squeezed. “I need to warn you, I’m going to ask a few questions that will sound very, very strange.”

“After the questions I asked you all last year?” She took a quick sip of her coffee. “Don’t think you’re going to surprise this old dame with anything.”

“I might.”

“Not gonna happen, Spanky.” She took another sip. “But hey, I was wrong once, way back in my teens, so let the games begin.”

Across the channel from him, windows of other houseboats were turning gold from the rising sun. He glanced at them before turning back to the lady and giving her a weak smile. “What’s your name?”

Amusement flashed on the woman’s face, but for less than an instant, replaced by that grin that made everything all right. “You get smacked on the head?”

“When I woke up this morning, nothing was familiar.”

“What do you mean nothing?”

Brock swept his arm in a slow circle. “I don’t recognize any of this.”

“Amnesia?”

“Not really. I know who I am, I know I’m in Seattle, I know my past—at least some of it—but the present is a bit muddled. I don’t remember anything about where I’m standing right now.”

Her amusement turned to concern. “We need to get you checked out.”

“Don’t worry, I’m fine, and I promise you I don’t need to go to the hospital. Like I said, this is going to be strange, but I need you to help me down this path.”

“Okay. But if you start doing the chicken dance I’m making the call.”

“Agreed.”

“Elizabeth Martha Townsend.” She winked as if inviting him to play a game.

“But what do people call you?”

“Liz.” She raised an eyebrow. “Or Lizzie. That’s what my close friends call me.”

Something in her eyes told Brock he was in a different category. “What do I call you?”

“Beth. The only one who does.” She held out her cup of coffee to him, and even though he had no idea who this woman was, it felt natural for Brock to take it, as if they’d shared hundreds of mornings together, sharing their lives and sharing cups of coffee. “Only one who’s allowed to call me that. Or you call me Sis. Either one works. But never Big Sis. That doesn’t work. Don’t need to be reminded about my weight or my age.” She winked for a second time.

“We’re good friends.” He said it more as a statement than a question. “Really good friends.”

“I would say so.”

Brock nodded and plowed ahead with his next question. “How long have I lived here?”

“You were living here when I moved in three years ago.”

“I work for Black Fedora Coffee.”

“Work for them? Well yes, I suppose. You own the company, but you don’t spend a lot of time there these days.”

“Why not?”

“You’ve made it. Reached the top before your midfifties. Money. Loads of money. Great product. Respect. And employees who like you and are good at running the company.” She patted his hand. “They don’t need you much. Sorry, you worked your way out of a job.”

“If I have money, what am doing living in a houseboat on Lake Union?”

“These things aren’t that cheap, pal.”

“Yeah, probably true, but . . .”

“Too good for us, huh?” For a moment her smile lifted the dark fog that was encroaching on his mind.

“Hardly.”

“You’re here because you like it here. It’s smack dab in the middle of the city, but it can also feel like you’re in the middle of nowhere. When the wind blows hard, your home rocks you to sleep like your baby days, and it’s pretty sweet to watch the kayakers paddle along the channel like giant ducks.”

“Tell me more.”

Beth squinted at him as if she still wasn’t sure Brock was serious about all this. “Sheila got the house in the divorce. And you’re
still paying a hefty chunk of cash every month to Karissa. So you came here. Decided you liked not having to worry about a yard. And it’s close to the places you need to go frequently.”

“Where do I go frequently?”

“Downtown.”

Brock saw hesitation in Beth’s eyes. “Seattle? Black Fedora’s offices are now in Seattle? What happened to Bellevue?”

“You really don’t know, do you?” Beth’s eyes turned compassionate. “This isn’t a game.”

“No, it’s not.”

Beth started to speak, then let the words die on her lips. She hugged him with the look on her face and sighed. “I think we’ve had enough questions for one session, don’t you?”

Brock knew immediately what the look meant. “Tyson.”

Beth bit her lip and nodded.

Brock drew in a sharp breath. “Where is he?”

“I’m not the one to tell you this.”

“I need to know, Beth.”

“Yes, if you really truly don’t know, you do need to know.” Beth’s countenance grew serious. “Call Karissa.”

“Thanks, Beth. You’ll understand if I cut our conversation short.”

“Of course.”

Brock turned to head into his houseboat, find his cell phone, and call Karissa, but then he spun back to Beth.

“What about Ron?”

“Yes?”

“What’s our relationship like?”

Again, Brock saw pain on his new friend’s face.

“At the risk of repeating myself, you really don’t know any of this, do you?”

“No.” Brock shook his head.

“You don’t talk much about your brother.”

“But we work together.”

“No. Not really.”

“Do I see him? Are we friends?”

“You told me everything changed after the accident.”

“What accident?”

Beth eased down her deck till she reached the little gate, then pushed through it and stepped onto Brock’s deck. She ambled toward him with her arms open wide, then took him in a long hug. When she released him, she took him by the shoulders. “I’m sorry to be a broken record, but you need to find that out for yourself.”

Brock staggered inside, found his cell phone, scrolled through his contacts. Yes. Karissa was there. So were Ron and Tyson. He got voice mail for Karissa and Ron, a disconnected number for his son. Brock then went to the computer in the small office and scoured the Internet for clues to what had happened to Tyson and to Ron. But he found nothing.

By midafternoon exhaustion fell over him and he lay down on the couch intending to close his eyes only for a few moments, but sleep stole over him. When the dream started Brock’s mind fought to wake up, because somehow he knew exactly who he’d be talking to—and he wasn’t up for another conversation. Wake up! But he couldn’t. This had all the properties of a lucid dream, except for the fact he wasn’t in control.

Once again his dad and he were in the backyard, the sun now straight overhead. Once again, his dad held the brown-wrapped
rectangular box in hand. Once again, Brock tried to shift things to no avail.

“What’s in the box, Dad?”

His dad stared at the rectangular box as if he didn’t realize he held it. He glanced at Brock and fixed his gaze on the box again. “Nothing.”

“Can I see it?” Brock held out his hand.

“No.” His dad tossed the box behind him and before it struck the ground it vanished. “So tell me, Brock. Are you finished screwing up your life? Or do you have more work to do?”

“Why are you doing this to me?”

Brock’s dad sat back as if stunned the question would be asked. “What about what you did to me?”

“I don’t under—”

“No, you never did.” His dad let out a disgusted sigh. “Never knew what you did to my heart.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You really want to know?” His dad narrowed his eyes and didn’t wait for an answer.

“When you quit playing basketball.”

“I had to.”

“Had to? You had to!” His father smacked his fist into his palm. “I wanted to teach you everything I knew about the game. You had the skill. The height and build for it. The brains. But poof! One day at the end of summer you just give it up without a shred of warning.”

His father jabbed his finger in Brock’s direction. “Yes, basketball was my thing, thought it could be our thing. But you dumped it all. Wouldn’t talk to me about it. Wouldn’t explain why to anyone.”

“You abused me! Why would I come to you? I was terrified of you.”

“You remember when you were fifteen? I score courtside tickets to go see the Sonics, get that pass to go to the locker room before the game to meet the players . . . you think I did that because I couldn’t stand you? And you turn me down.”

“Dad, I—”

“And now?” His dad rose from his chair and towered over Brock. “You’re making things worse. So much worse. You need to fix things. Fix things!”

Brock woke up breathing hard. That wasn’t his dad, it was just a dream. His dad had changed, his dad did love him, but the thought wasn’t enough to convince his heart it was true.

Chapter 31

I
have to talk to you, Karissa. Call me back. Doesn’t matter what hour of the day.” Brock hung up and paced back and forth across the carpet of his houseboat.

It was the sixth message he’d left during the past twelve hours. In their life before he’d fallen into this new life, Karissa was religious about returning phone calls within five minutes if she was available. So she either wasn’t available or was choosing not to call him back. Brock put his cash on the latter.

It was a few minutes after midnight. He’d have to wait till morning to try again. Brock lay down, but after thirty minutes he knew sleep would elude him till at least two. The dream with his dad had spooked him too much to easily fall asleep. He wandered out onto his deck and looked up. A light curtain of clouds moved across the sky, but the moon was strong enough to shine through them. When he was little he thought the moon burned through the clouds with its light. If only it could burn through the clouds he had created. But if Beth’s silence was any indication, they would grow significantly darker.

He rose off his wooden chair, stepped to his door, and started to turn the doorknob to go back inside when the squeal of Beth’s door stopped him. She stepped onto her deck wrapped in a tie-dye robe that made her look bigger than she was. Her gaze was fixed on the moon as his had been, but he had little doubt she saw him.

“You could use some WD-40 on that door.” Brock wandered to his railing, which separated his house from Beth’s by less than four feet.

“But then you might have sneaked back inside without me getting the chance to talk to you.”

“True.”

“You get ahold of Karissa?”

“Not yet. But you probably knew that.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because I think I tell you most of my stuff, and you probably tell me most of yours. And I think you know that Karissa avoids me like Ebola and she’s never going to return my calls.”

Beth settled into her jade-green camping chair, gripped her railing with both hands, and gazed up at the moon. “I just brewed up a fresh pot of coffee, you want some?”

“At this hour?”

“Coffee never keeps me awake.” She motioned back inside. “Was just finishing when I stepped out here. Let me grab you a cup.”

“I’m done drinking coffee for a long time. Black Fedora has screwed up my life so completely, I’m done. Until I get it fixed, no java on my lips.”

“Okay. Be right back.”

When Beth returned she set her
I think, Therefore I’m Beth
mug on the railing and said, “It’s going to be okay, you know.”

“What is?”

“Everything. Like you always say to me, God is the God of hope. And even though you’re going through a storm right now, the calm waters are coming. I believe it.”

Brock tried to believe it as well, even if for a moment, but he couldn’t. How could Beth know everything would be okay? That anything would be, for that matter.

“If I wanted to talk to her, if I had to talk to her, where would I go?”

Beth smiled and hesitated for only a moment before answering. “I’d probably go to choir practice.”

“She’s singing in a choir?” Brock leaned on the railing with both elbows.