Not What You Seem Read online

  Although, that wouldn’t be the worst thing to happen. Just letting him go. Watching him wander away. Memoryless. Directionless. Someone else’s problem. And then maybe I could have a conversation with a woman in a bakery without this dark cloud lingering over me.

  “Where’s Rosemary?” he asks, and I have to stop myself from shoving him away. I keep my grip tight on his sleeve. Because I’m not him, and I won’t let him turn me into something cruel.

  Besides, even if I did let him go, someone would find him and force him back on me. We’re bound by blood and sails until one of us dies.

  “I need to talk to”—he stumbles, and I pull him up—“the boys.”

  I shake my head. “There’s nothing to say anymore.”

  Two blocks later, I drag him up the steps to the care facility. Inside, the building has these low ceilings that induce claustrophobia. It’s more like walking into a cave than a home. Once through the reinforced-glass door and past video cameras, the place opens into a courtyard middle complete with a few trees surrounded by slick tiled hallways, but it still feels closed in.

  Maybe that’s why he wants to leave. Something else we have in common—the world doesn’t feel real unless there’s a wide sky overhead and wood shifting beneath your feet.

  I stop at the door to Paul’s office. He’s got a phone pressed to his ear.

  “I found him,” I say. Damn, my voice sounds cold, even to me.

  Paul sets down the phone and stands. “Thank goodness. I was just contacting you and the police.”

  “Yeah.” I let go of my father’s sleeve. “Look, this can’t happen. We talked about this when I first brought him in. My father can’t be wandering around by himself.”

  “Yes, Mr. Archer.” Paul nods toward the doorway, and an attendant appears. My father is ushered out, and the tension running across my shoulders releases. Somewhat.

  “Call me Dean,” I say. Like I have every single time we’ve talked. Archer isn’t a name I like owning.

  Paul gestures to the chair in front of his desk, and I take a seat. My knees press against his desk in the small office.

  Paul crosses his arms over his chest and leans back in a squeaky chair. “There are a few things we need to talk about. Not just your father’s tendency to… wander. Charles hasn’t eaten since yesterday.”

  I rake a hand through my hair. “Why not?”

  “He’s been asking about”—Paul checks a folder on his desk—“Rosemary. She’s…”

  “My mom,” I supply for him before he has to sort through the paperwork. I push up to my feet, not able to do this sitting thing anymore, and rest my hands on the back of the chair. The door’s a few feet behind me. Better, but still nothing like a wide, blue sky.

  “Your father’s also mentioned a few other people,” he continues. “A woman named Mira.”

  “Don’t know her.” It wouldn’t surprise me if my father had a girlfriend when he was still married to my mom. His relationship with her was never exactly loving. “What does all this have to do with not eating and wandering?”

  “He’s been asking for an explanation of why they aren’t here. We try to redirect him, but his focus has been rather intense.”

  I grip the hard wood of the chair back. “What has he done?” My voice is gruff as hell.

  “Done? Nothing. He keeps saying he has something to tell you and your brother.” Paul glances at the clock on his desk. “Look, Mr. Archer—”

  “Dean,” I cut, a little too hard.

  He pauses to write that on the folder. “These situations are complex. As I’m sure you can understand.”

  “Sure,” I say ambiguously. I’ve been back in my father’s life for exactly six months. All of this shit is new to me. It wasn’t until one of his friends stopped by the Neverland that I even knew half this stuff was going on. And now I’m right in the middle of it.

  My father was not a man I ever wanted to see again. I closed that door, and I never intended to reopen it. The only reason I’m here is the sailboat sitting in the harbor. My father’s name may currently be on the title, but it’s a legacy from my mom’s family. Not his.

  I push away from the chair. “He’ll eat when he gets hungry. And keep an eye on him. He’s unpredictable. And I don’t want him left alone. Not with anyone.”

  I’m halfway to the door when Paul stands. “Dean. There are some other things we need to talk about.”

  I stop, but the only thing I want to do is race out of here. Back to the dock, where I can focus on the rigging and a ticket hut that needs painting and problems I can solve.

  “Remember when we talked about the different levels of care?” Paul stares down at the folder. I wonder if he would even notice if I slipped out the door.

  “Your father registered as a category two. But it’s come to our attention that, with the recent incident, level two is not adequate to oversee his care. It’s going to require some additional monthly expenditures.”

  I stop, digesting what he’s telling me. “You lost him, and so you want me to pay more.”

  “Just to cover the personnel expenditures. If you want him under observation all the time, then it’ll require an extra investment.”

  “And if I can’t afford it?”

  Paul lets out this sigh that sounds mostly manufactured. “Well, there are options. You can provide an independent caregiver that comes in for part of the day. Or you could find another facility. You’re already paid until the end of the month, so you have time to figure it out.”

  “Yes, a few weeks. Clearly no rush.” I stand in the doorway. Far-off voices wind to me. A door slamming. A low buzz. Or maybe that’s my headache forming. “So your plan is to kick him out unless I come up with a solution.”

  “I’ll do what I can, but—”

  “I get it. You’re not running a charity.” I pause, my mind sorting through responses. My first instinct is to tell him where he can shove his additional monthly expenditures. But that won’t get me anywhere.

  I fight for another option. “The contract I signed, it doesn’t fix the price?”

  Paul shakes his head. “It calls for a re-evaluation after the first thirty days.”

  Of course.

  “You said a caregiver.” I pinch the bridge of my nose, the low headache compounding by the minute.

  “Yes.” He digs in his drawer and hands me a sheet of paper. “I’ve got a list of individuals we’ve worked with before. It would need to be daily. And set times.”

  I fold the paper into a square and shove it in my back pocket.

  “I know these things are hard,” Paul says with another one of those sighs. “But I’m sure we’ll get this worked out, and then your father can have a long, happy life here with us.”

  “A long, happy life. Here.” I dig my hands into my pockets. “That’s all I want.”

  My asshole of a father used to play “Eeny, meeny, miny, moe” with Sebastian and me. We’d hear him coming from topside, stumbling down the passageway, one hand banging on our door. It would whack open, and both of us would jump—staring down at the worn wood subdeck. We were too scared to look at each other. Maybe we just didn’t want to see the fear reflected.

  And then he would start. “Eeny, meeny, miny, moe.” Pointing between my brother and me. Just like he pointed at me in the bakery. Just like he pointed at her. The thought ratchets tension across my shoulders and down into my hands.

  He’d go through the whole rhyme. Drunkenly, like it was a game, his voice rough and uneven. He was always wearing slippers. Shoes were too much of a fucking effort.

  Apparently they’re still too much of an effort. After dropping him off at the facility, I walk across town, chewing on olive bread, heading toward the Heroine’s high masts. Dev has gone back for his exams, leaving Matty with me for a few days. I appreciate the company, and his tail thumping against the wood cuts into the quiet.

  Silence was easier on the Neverland. Comforting. Maybe because she didn’t come with so much weig
ht. She was sleek and fast, beautifully balanced as she heeled. She wanted to move—I felt it every time I took her out. She wanted to sail as far and as fast as she could. And that had been the plan. Down the east coast to the Keys, through the Windward Passage to the Caymans, and then to Panama. Follow the trade winds across the South Pacific and then the Indian Ocean. Around South Africa and back across the South Atlantic.

  All the way around.

  Then I heard about the Heroine and my father’s fistfight with a tourist that resulted in an out-of-court settlement.

  I walk up the ramp, and it moves in response to my weight. The sun’s nothing more than a spread-out line that colors the hills and casts a deep red across the water, which is about the color sunsets always are for me. Reds and pinks and grays. In the dark, the colors reflect off the metal fittings here and there, making them look like bits of fire.

  I run my hand along the boom and tug on the line to make sure everything is secure. I stop, caught by something that doesn’t seem right. The light isn’t right along the gooseneck, the fitting between boom and mast. I bend down, trying to get a closer view. At the crack across the metal.

  Really?

  “Fucking really?” I mumble.

  The lines shift in quiet response.

  “That’s all you have to say?”

  Fuck. Now I’m the crazy dude talking to his boat. There’s one in every port.

  Used to be my father.

  The thought stops me cold. I dig my hands through my hair and turn toward the hatch. A damn gooseneck. At least it’s a problem I can solve. I’ll have to order one, but it can be here by the time Dev gets back.

  I find Matty relaxing in his bed on the floor next to mine. He struggles up and gives me big brown eyes telling me I left him for too long. Maybe I’ll leave him on deck next time—I don’t think he can get over the gunwale. At least then he’ll be topside and not locked down here.

  He sways down the ramp, and I keep a solid hold on his collar until we get to the small patch of grass that’s on the southern end of the Harborwalk.

  Below the Heroine sits quietly. We’d always lived on her. Spent more time over ocean than over land. When we were little, Sebastian and I ran barefoot across her deck, ducking under the boom and racing from stern to bow and back again. Our parents would take out the charter, and we’d spend long days seeing how far we could throw rocks off the dock and getting yelled at by our grandmother, who worked in the ticket hut and made sure we did our homework. We moved to Upper Bay shortly after she died. Sebastian and I must have been about seven then.

  It was after we moved that things became different. Our father was quiet. Always thinking, and then other changes started happening. He started drinking more—as soon as the Heroine was docked, he’d pop a beer and set this worn red deck chair on the dock.

  The first time he backhanded me, it came all of a sudden. One minute he was sitting in that deck chair, and the next he was standing over me, and this hot, numb feeling was crawling over the side of my face. Sebastian was standing next to me, his eyes wide. I thought it was a mistake.

  But then he laughed and stumbled back into his seat, telling Sebastian to fetch him another beer. “Eeny, meeny, miny, moe” started not long after that. He didn’t do it that often, though. And never when anyone else was around.

  Then Mom died. Just as suddenly as everything else had happened. Except a thousand times worse than those unexpected backhands. She hadn’t told us what was happening. I don’t know if she’d even told our father. And maybe we’d have noticed if he hadn’t started stumbling into our room with that stupid, fucking rhyme.

  Catch a tiger by the toe. His fat finger would shift between Sebastian and me, and he’d smile. A joke.

  When I was little, I wanted that dirty fingernail to land on Sebastian. Fuck, I hate admitting that now. But he rarely picked Sebastian. He’d stretch out the last syllables, planning where that finger would point, and most of the time it was on me. I don’t know what made him select me for the honor of sitting there while he doled out a handful of hits—moving to the shoulders and arms after a few questions from school.

  If he hollers, let him go. Sometimes he’d get so drunk he could hardly say it, and then he’d make us recite the lines for him.

  Matty finishes his business, and I bag it and toss it into a trash can. But I don’t head back down to the dock. I stand there, and a minute later, Matty walks over next to me and leans against my leg. I give him a few head pats, and we watch as the last of the sun slips down and disappears, leaving the water a dark gray that fades into black.

  When I moved my father’s shit out of the Heroine, I found that red folding chair. Wasn’t sure what to do with it, so I tossed it into the ticket hut along with some of his other stuff. It’s just a chair. Not like it impacts me.

  I glance back toward the Harborwalk and to the line of street lamps that are slowly clicking on. The bakery’s windows are dark, but farther down, some of the windows are lit. A bar and a restaurant, maybe. Getting ready to open for the season. But they are on the other side of the Harborwalk, toward the lighthouse. For a long, silent moment, it almost feels like Matty and I are the only breathing things in a twenty-mile radius. Like we’re unanchored and halfway out of the bay—looking back at the land. But when I tip back to my heels, the ground doesn’t move with me.

  She’s up there somewhere. What’s she’s doing right now? She probably has to be up early to get to the bakery. And her name… like a thought just out of reach. Maybe I’m crazy to keep thinking of her. But she’s been the one unexpectedly good thing that’s come along in a long while.

  If I didn’t screw it up by being an angry asshole.

  Just like he taught me to be.

  I clench my jaw hard, staring out into the last light stretching across the water. I’d been able to step away from it for a long time, but the longer I have to deal with him, the more that anger crawls across my shoulders and down into my hands.

  When I was younger, I started fighting with others. My father would pop me a few times at night, and then the next day at school, I’d find someone else to take it out on. The fights confused the hell out of my teachers. One of them, Ms. Talbert, hauled me to the side, asking me hundreds of questions I avoided. I’d gone from the easy-going kid to a fucking bully.

  Then there was this one kid named Evan—tall, but really thin. Played baseball and was friends with Sebastian. We were joking around one day—giving my brother shit, and I just turned around and punched the kid. No warning. Not even a feeling like I should. My hand just launched out, and then he was on the ground with the back of his hand pressed to his nose.

  That night, our father didn’t finish the rhyme. He got to “if he hollers,” and I stood up—an inch or two shorter than him, at least fifty pounds lighter—and those vacant, blue eyes narrowed on me for just a moment before his hand came up.

  The hit threw my head back, and the world shifted. I set my feet. Shoulder-width apart. I wiped the blood from my nose like Evan had done, and I looked at him.

  Scruffy brown hair and deep wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. He was just a man. Not a father anymore. Just this asshole of a guy we lived with.

  The second backhand came faster. “Sit down.”

  “No.” I wasn’t even that angry when I said it. It felt like a fact, not an argument. I just wasn’t going to sit down.

  The next hit came. Numbness spread over my jaw, bringing a familiar headache with it. But I was past caring what he did to me. A creak to my left as my brother stood up from his cot. Our father’s gaze flicked to him and back to me as Sebastian stepped forward. My brother’s hands curled into fists, his jaw rippling. Everything so stretched and tense that I wasn’t sure what he would do.

  “Fuck off.” Sebastian’s words were so low I almost couldn’t hear them. He smacked the beer from our father’s hand. Foam splattered across the wood paneling, and the bottom broke when it bounced on the floor. Glass reflected the light b
ehind us.

  He blinked at us, maybe just as startled as we were at the first hit.

  “You little asshole,” he finally said. “You dropped my beer.”

  And then he was gone. Down the passageway, leaving the door open behind him. We stood there for a long moment. Sebastian breathing hard. Hell, I probably was too.

  And then our father left for a while. Maybe he finally felt guilty for the shit he was doing to us. Sebastian and I sure as hell didn’t report it to anyone—we were glad to have him gone, and disappointed when he turned back up again with all these cuts all over his arms.

  He never came into our room after that.

  But he was still an asshole. He’d sing that rhyme. Never when we were alone. Always when tourists were there and one of us was out on deck, helping trim or whatever. I’d look off toward the water and pretend for the benefit of all the people around us that I didn’t hear it.

  But neither one of us took another hit. I think Sebastian might have snapped if our father tried again, and maybe our father saw that. My brother’s as laidback as anyone I’ve met—until you tell him what to do. And then the wall comes down. Fast and unforgiving. That’s how it changed him. Probably why he floats around so much, never letting himself attach to anything for too long.

  And I… I just don’t ever want to be around shit like that again. I glance back up toward the harbor. Maybe that’s why I’m drawn to her so much. She just seems like the type of person who could never hurt anyone.

  Who would never even think it.

  7

  Ella

  “So this is where you’ve been hiding.” The voice darts over my shoulder and makes me jump about three feet.

  I let out a breath and shift over to give my half-sister, Renee, room on the bench.

  She plops next to me wearing a pink polka-dot coat and an ever-present smile. She extends a latte that gives up a whiff of vanilla.