Left Drowning

I want to delay going back to the house, so I persuade James to walk through busy downtown Bar Harbor. We get ice cream and browse in the bookstore. I buy him some clothes for school from one of the sporting goods stores, even though he insists it isn’t necessary. After we’ve exhausted the hilly streets and nearly every store, James stops me. “Blythe. I want to go back. I need to see Estelle. Make sure she’s okay.”

“Of course.” So I take us home.

I pull the car up to the house and put it in park, but James doesn’t move to get out. “She’s probably angry at me for telling.”

“No, she won’t be. You did exactly the right thing. Did it help to talk to Chris?”

“Yeah. I still don’t understand, but he made me feel better. Do you get it? Why she would … you know, want that?”

“I’m afraid I might, James.” I hand him the keys. “Take Estelle out for di

But I don’t have to find him because I know where he’ll be. And I’m right. I walk slowly across the upper lawn, down the wooden stairs to the lower yard, and then to the beach and the long dock that stretches into the ocean. Chris is sitting on the end, his feet hanging over the edge, and Sabin is lying down behind him holding a beer can with one hand and petting Jonah with the other. My dog seems to be on high alert, panting and thumping his tail as he looks around.

“C’mere, Jonah.” I clap my hands, and he races down the dock to greet me. I kneel down and scratch the scruff of his neck. “You watching over the boys? Huh? Yeah?” He bounds away and plants himself back next to Sabin.

I step over Sabin, who appears to be sleeping, take off my shoes, and sit next to Chris. He puts his arm around me and kisses me. “Hey.” He sounds as tired as he looks.

“Hey. How are you? And how’s Estelle?”

He sighs. “I don’t know how to answer you.”

“Blythe, Blythe, Blythe!” Sabin thumps the deck with his hand, and I turn around. He is drunk. Really drunk.

I glance at Chris. “I know,” he says. “I know.”

“Hi, Sabe.” I lean back and rest my head on his stomach.

“Where you been today? I missed you, B.”

“Out with James.”

“Oh. First I thought you and Chris were locked up in your room again. I mean, Jesus, you two are like rabbits. It’s never just you and me anymore. But then he came back, and you stayed away.”

“I’m sorry. We’ll do something tomorrow. Just the two of us.” I don’t want to have any kind of conversation with him. I can tell he’s way too drunk to make any sense, and if I say the wrong thing, he could get irritable. “Promise.”

“Okay, B.” He pats my head. “It’s just that I miss you, and you’re missing everything.”

“What am I missing?” I ask lazily. I love Sabin, I do, but I wish he’d go to his room and sleep this off. I want to talk to Chris alone.

“Like, did you even know that Zach and Eric broke up last night? Huh?”

I sit up. “Chris, did you know this?”

“No. Sabin, what the fuck are you talking about? They couldn’t have broken up.”

Sabin laughs. “Jesus, you two are so fucking out of it. You haven’t noticed anything wrong? The fighting? The snarky comments?”

Chris and I really have been in our own world.

“Zach’s been on the couch for two weeks. According to him,” Sabin starts as he heaves himself up and slouches forward, “they’ve never even slept together. Can you believe that shit? I mean, they sleep in the same bed, but that’s it.”

“What?” This surprises me. They are so affectionate and loving in public. “That’s why they broke up? That doesn’t sound like Zach.”

“No, dummy.” Sabin finishes his beer. “Eric broke up with him. He says that Zach wants too much of a commitment or whatever. But the good news is that now maybe I’ll have someone to hang out with. Someone who’s not all coupled up and shit.” He reaches for Jonah. “I do have this guy, though. Right, buddy?” He lets Jonah lick his face while he pats him.

Chris is frozen. Estelle is asking my brother to smack her around, Eric just broke up with his long-term boyfriend, and Sabin is, once again, incredibly drunk. Sabin babbles incoherently to Jonah while Chris stares out at the ocean.

“Everyone is crumbling,” he says softly so that Sabin can’t hear. “I can’t believe this. They’re crumbling, do you see it?” Chris gets up, walks around Sabin, and hops off the deck to the sand.

I watch him as he searches the beach. He’s looking for stones. It takes a while, but eventually his pockets are full, and he starts skipping them across the surface of the ocean. He works his way up and down the beach, and he wades through the water to stand in front of me. Chris looks incredibly sad today. I kiss him and then nudge him to turn around and sit in front of me so that I can rub his shoulders. The tension he carries is enormous.

Sabin is still playing with Jonah, stroking his fur. “Hey, Chris?” Sabin is slurring something fierce now. “Do you remember … ,” he starts. “Do you fucking remember those two dogs that our father used to have?”

Chris tenses noticeably. “Sabin …”

“I’d totally forgotten until now. Remember? He was such a fucking bastard. Do you remember? He had two dogs for a while, right? And I remember this one time … Christ, what a sick asshole … he put their food dishes on the floor and he hit ’em with something while they ate.” He closes his eyes and pulls Jonah in close. “I don’t get why they kept eating. I mean, there’s our father, hitting ’em with a … with a … what was it? A belt?”

“Sabin, stop.”

“No, c’mon, Chris. I’d forgotten about this until now. What was it? Must have been a belt.”

The man I love hangs his head. “No. No, it wasn’t a belt.” I stop rubbing his shoulders and quickly pull him in so that my arms are around him. He reaches for my hand. “It was a switch. He’d made it from the willow tree in the yard.”

“Right. That willow tree.” Sabin laughs, and it is one of the worst sounds I’ve ever heard. “A switch. Yeah, so he’s yelling about what fucked-up animals they are, and every once in a while, he’d let them have it. For nothing.” Sabin leans his head against Jonah. “No one’s go

Jonah curls up protectively next to him. “He’s okay, Jonah. He’s okay,” I try to reassure all of us.

“No, he’s not okay, and you know it.”

Chris takes a stone from his pocket and hurls it while I hold him. He throws another. “The thing is, Blythe? My father never had dogs.” He throws again. “He had me. And he had Sabin.”

Inside, I explode. I rage. I ca

For an entire hour, we don’t talk. The sky, however, speaks to us in distant rumbles of thunder. Chris shivers. I keep him as close to me as possible, and we just watch the tide come in. I let the tears cover my cheeks and fall to his shoulders because it would be impossible not to cry, but I don’t melt down in front of him. I can’t because he isn’t.

He slides off the dock and collects stones again. It’s a routine that will ground him, I know. “It wasn’t constant, and it wasn’t usually like … what Sabin just told you,” he says from the shore. “We went to school, played sports, had friends. But then that would change. We … or I, mostly … weren’t hurt all that often. Months at a time would go by where things were normal enough. Six, eight months of near total normalcy. Sometimes a whole year. But when it happened, it wasn’t usually about … direct hits. It was usually about stamina, endurance. Wearing me down. Sometimes wearing us down.” He is incredibly rational now, overly logical about this. It’s his protection.