Live (The Burnside Series): The Burnside Series (29 page)

“He’s from a place there right by the sea.”

“You know, Marvin took us on vacation to the ocean once.”

“Oh yeah?” Des reached over and moved Betty’s braid back into place where it had gotten smooshed from their hug.

“He did a big job for a used-car dealership, updating their stock when the smog regulation came through. He used his check to rent us a place at Hilton Head—it was the off-season, or even with the extra money, we couldn’t have afforded it. It was the first time either one of us had seen the ocean. When we got to the place, it was the middle of the night, but we still took off our shoes and rolled up our pants and waded out into the ocean. Laughed like kids.” Betty reached up and swiped a hand over her face.

“I’m sorry, Betty. I’m so sorry.”

“We thought we had all the time in the world, Marvin and I. He found out about his kidney disease not long after that trip. We only had three more years, then. If we’d known, well. We were always putting things off. Things we wanted to do together. Other trips. Simple things, too, like going to one of those fancy steakhouses for dinner and dancing.”

Betty looked at Des, her light blue eyes full of tears. “You’ve had your fair share of loss for someone so young. So you know. You’ve had the benefit of understanding just how short life is. There isn’t any such thing as some divide between life and death. It’s all wide open, as far as I can tell. It’s all living, somehow. One moment you’re wading in the ocean and the next you’ve lost hold of the love of your life. Your best friend. It’s just all mixed together. Sometimes, I’ll think of something I did and wonder, ‘Now, what did Marvin think of that?’ And then I remember he was already gone when that happened, or that I hadn’t even met him yet. My heart just knows
Marvin
, not the when of him. Not the where of him. Just how I loved him. Love him still.”

Hefin parted into the panel with his sharp carving tool, watching out for the tight bit of grain that would make these first passes tricky. He had his earbuds in, listening to a band an old friend had started several years ago, and to everyone’s surprise, was doing quite well.

The music leaned heavily on angry guitars and anguished yelling. Perfect, really.

It was soothing, too, the feel of the oak parting under his tool.

It had even been soothing to come in early this morning and see the precise state of a project half-managed, which is never an encouraging-looking spot for a project to be. This is where he could always see the project best, though, when it was half–torn down and half-built-up. Too early in a project made completion seem impossible. Near the end made it seem like you could have done better.

Right here, this is what was best.

He hadn’t, precisely, been expecting Destiny to call him. Or come over. He’d left his big message in the form of the dome, the only thing he could stand doing after getting ejected from the hospital, away from where he could help her. Breaking sticks, fastening them together, that was manageable.

His first messages for Destiny he’d left with Lacey, who was sympathetic but distracted.

His next messages had been with Mrs. Lynch, who fed him dense and sugary brownies, the only food he’d felt like he’d eaten in ages. He’d eaten one brownie right after the other, trying to explain to her what had happened at the hospital. Then trying to explain what he was to Destiny.

Mrs. Lynch had taken pity on him and explained about Destiny’s family. Her father, the limousine driver, her mother, who had given up so much to be with him.

He hadn’t wanted to think there was a warning in that; he wasn’t certain. But she stayed with him a long time, gathering twigs for him and breaking them into the right lengths, letting him eat all of her brownies, then, the most delicious minced meat loaf he’d ever eaten with mushy veg. He’d sat at her kitchen banquette and tried not to be too
rude, eating in large, wolfish bites, but she didn’t seem to mind and made him coffee, which he hated, normally, but somehow, in her kitchen, with plenty of sugar, was just fine.

His next messages were to her phone, which, he knew she wasn’t getting because it went right to voice mail and she couldn’t pick up her voice mail unless she had access to a computer because her phone was terrible.

Then he had driven aimlessly. He stopped by the library to make sure Carrie had received his message, and true to form, she was the picture of sympathy and helpfulness, which was almost too much; and then he spent an hour scrubbing rot and old glue from panels, then drove aimlessly some more and somehow found himself purchasing Destiny a phone.

Which was charged, and in his pocket, and received calls with her current number by some mystery of the phone people. He’d also paid a year of the contract which felt reasonable at the time, but now that her phone was burning a hole in his pocket felt tantamount to torturing her via expectations they had already decided neither one of them could fulfill.

Would he call her, ringing to this phone, from home? Call her sitting on some rock by the shore, looking out at the water, trying to imagine her in Ohio?

What would they talk about?

Would he tell her about what his mum made for dinner, playing rugby with old friends, helping his dad with stock for the tourist shops? Because that seemed awful.

What could he tell her that could be any kind of substitution for touching her? He thought of that morning he had called her, when she had told him that she would like him to draw her, how her voice had dropped and he had squeezed his cock.

Is that what they would do?

There was
here
, again.

Here to stay for a new reason.

He wanted to feel relieved considering the possibly of staying in Ohio. He wanted to share Destiny’s happiness in her newfound entrepreneurship, and he
was
happy for her, but he wanted to share it, like it was his own feelings. Like it was his own hope, but it didn’t feel like that at all.

It wasn’t enough.

Was it that Destiny wasn’t enough?

If she wasn’t, no one else would ever be. Yet his heart felt so full of her, like they were sideways, together, like the first time he was inside her, their limbs entwined, and just like that, the both of them had slipped into his heart, a physical weight, knotted and warm.

How could that be and her happiness not be enough?

How could he still have such a feeling of hope and lightness at the idea of his plane winging its way home?

He needed tea.

He made his way back to the conference room. Once he was sitting, soaked in the smells of tea and lumber, he got out his phone.

First he looked at the pictures he’d taken of Destiny’s dome.

Her dome made him smile. He’d started such structures before, on the beach, with driftwood or stones, particularly after watching the Goldsworthy documentary Destiny had loved, too, and he’d made wattle for his mother’s garden, small fences and a trellis.

This dome was another kind of thing, the kind of beautifully useless thing that his father would start and finish. It’s why he always thought his parents had fit so well—his mother was all function and purpose. Even her hobbies, Welsh history re-creation, were for the benefit of her heritage and her students.

His father, on the other hand, when his orders were light for the love spoons he carved, dabbled in painting and ceramics, toy making, even.

His father rambled through pursuits that gave him nothing but small amusements, and belied by his taciturn nature, was a romantic.

His father would like this dome. He’d like that practical Destiny had wanted to build it. He’d like it better that Hefin had built it for her, in secret.

He’d thought that Mrs. Lynch had liked that, too.

Over the meal she’d made for him, she told him that she was worried that Destiny had taken on too much. She’d said that somehow, somewhere along the way, Destiny had taken up a lot of the family’s work of
making it
, Mrs. Lynch had said. Making it together.

She said she remembered when she realized, and Destiny was about thirteen at the time, that Destiny was getting up in the morning at five, waking Paul up to practice, her father up to get ready and review his dispatch for the day. The morning she saw her
making lunches for everyone, including Sam, who lived in his own apartment, while she studied for an algebra exam with an open book on the counter, she’d had a talk with Paddy.

Nothing changed.

Hefin didn’t understand why Mrs. Lynch had told him, why she’d put her coffee down precisely on a folded paper napkin and had just
looked
at him.

She’s amazing
, is what Hefin had said, to break the silence, and it was the wrong thing because Mrs. Lynch had shook her head and said
her mother would have hated it
.

Then Hefin had understood—
her mother named her, that’s what Destiny told me
.

Mrs. Lynch had smiled.
Marie named all her kids. But she never wanted that girl to go by ‘Des.’ Mothers aren’t supposed to have hopes for their kids anymore, they’re just supposed to want their kids to ‘be happy’ or some such. I can’t understand all the worry over pushing your kids to be good, to be their best. Who else will? Marie wanted things for that girl. Big dreams. She wanted things for all her children, of course, but if Marie, as a mother, knew something about her own child that moved her to call her Destiny, I just don’t know why everyone else keeps getting in the way of it
.

Then Mrs. Lynch had told him that she’d never butted in much before, after Marie had died, but that she was thinking now that she should have.

Hefin had finished his coffee in silence, a surprisingly comfortable one, and asked Mrs. Lynch if she’d tell Destiny he’d been by.

She’d laughed and said,
I think she’ll notice
.

Talking to Mrs. Lynch had made Hefin realize he didn’t know what Destiny wanted. That he had never asked her, not how she’d asked him. He’d asked her if she was happy with what she was building from Carrie’s suggestion, if she liked the work. But he’d never asked her what she
wanted
.

I want you, Hefin
.

Right
. That, perhaps, would have been a good time to ask her if she wanted something other than a circuitously thinking Welshman.

Or if she wanted something alongside.

If wanting him meant
him
, or if it meant not wanting her terrible burdens here.

She had asked him, too. What he wanted.

He hadn’t even answered
you
, even though it was true. Even though that had been
the first opportunity he’d had to answer that question in years.

Maybe the time to ask that question was the moment you knew you wanted inside another person, wanted to hold them against your body. That very moment when you reached for another person, you should ask,
what do you want?

At first, the answer might simply be
you
, but other answers would follow, surely.

Especially since, as Destiny had pointed out, he was a goose person, the impulse to reach for another came around so rarely it must mean that the impulse was tangled with other wants, too.

He thumbed to his email on his phone and opened the one he had received last night.

It was from a man who’d been a colleague of his supervisor in Beijing.

He’d liked it. His portfolio, sent in advance of his return overseas, of their future connection at a conference after his summer in Wales.

The man’s simple statement of appreciation for his work buoyed Hefin so much he’d taken a deep breath like he hadn’t in years.

He’d liked that Hefin had directed the projects in Lakefield so
artistically
. That was the word the man had used. He’d told Hefin that he remembered that the idea to nudge the design direction of the solar panel arrays to suggest flowers had been Hefin’s idea, and that this direction had led not only to their functional success but also to their success on the market.

It had inspired other ideas since.

While he had been here, in Ohio, other teams had considered
his
idea around tables and drafting boards and computers, his own ghost, making headway into big ideas.

The email had cracked something inside him he didn’t know had been straining.

Made it clear that Hefin was to offer a presentation at an ecodesign conference in Beijing, in the fall, at a panel on integrative design, then the details of his new position with the team would be confirmed.

He reread the email, and the delicious sensation of taking a deep breath did not go away.

He thumbed back to his pictures of the dome and smiled again.

What do you want?

He wanted to sleep in his childhood bedroom with the window open and listen to the trapped seawater smack against the rocks in the jetty.

He wanted to go to Beijing; in September it would still be warm. The outdoor markets and cafes would be open. Old colleagues would, incredibly, be interested in what he had to say.

He wanted Destiny.

Not in any way that was noble. He wanted to take her away. He wanted to curl up with her under one of his mother’s quilts on the beach and feed her chocolate biscuits until they were covered in salt spray and sick to their stomachs and wild with kissing.

He wanted to watch her drink icy-cold beer in Beijing and slurp noodles sticky with black-bean paste and chili oil. He wanted to drag her to their hotel room after, both of them a little drunk, and come inside of her after endless humid and uncoordinated thrusting—the sounds of the street floating up from below.

He wanted to feast on her in every corner of the world until they both wore holes through their shoes and wanted nothing more than to go home.

When Mrs. Lynch had told him about Destiny’s mother, how she left her home and put away her faith and raised four children with the man she loved, she didn’t say if Destiny’s mother and father understood each other. If they looked into each other’s eyes at the end of those chaotic days and pulled the quilt over themselves and got lost in the understanding of that sacrifice. Even on the days it didn’t seem worth it. Especially the days that it didn’t seem worth it.