The Repeat Year (19 page)

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“I don’t know. That’s what Dad used to say about you. He said I was too fickle and that you didn’t know when to say when.”

“Dad said that? Give me an example.”

“I really don’t know what he meant. When to say that you’ve had enough? When to say you’ve made a mistake? Can you please help me paddle so we can get this over with?”

“No. I don’t want to go to the island anymore.”

“Fine. Then let’s turn around. Let’s just do something so we don’t drift out to sea.”

Olive dipped her paddle back into the water and, with just a few quick, flat strokes, had the kayak facing the shore. The resort and strip of white sand beach looked very far away, small enough to fit in her hand.

As much as she wanted to write off what Christopher had said as a misinterpretation of what her dad had meant, she couldn’t help remembering an instance when he had said something similar to her. Her first year of nursing school she had been so stressed out and unhappy that her dad had suggested it might not be the right career path for her after all.

“If I give up now, just because it’s hard, I’ll never know if it’s right for me,” she had said.

“You’re exactly right, Olive Oyl,” her dad had said. “But if you find out somewhere down the line that it’s not what you want, there’s no shame in changing your mind. Sometimes I think your brother’s flip-flopping made too much of an impression on you. I don’t want you to stick with something just to prove you can. I happen to know from experience that it will only make you miserable. Don’t be afraid to say, ‘You know what? I screwed up. I’m going to try this again.’”

At the time, his speech hadn’t made much of an impression on her because she had felt so sure about nursing. She had known all along that it was her calling, so to speak; she had never doubted that. Especially after his battle with leukemia, it had seemed only fitting to devote herself to caring for critically ill patients. But now she realized that it wasn’t just careers that he had been talking about; he had been referring to all of life’s major decisions.

Was he right? Was she someone who didn’t know when to say when? All of last year’s wrong turns and her inability to put on the brakes and turn around seemed to suggest it. Even though she had still loved Phil, she had stumbled blindly ahead without him, because it was far easier than admitting she had made a major mistake and fighting to win him back.

She and Christopher established a rhythm; the kayak slowly but steadily glided back to shore. Overhead the sun beat down on them. Drops of cool water speckled her face and arms with each circuit of the paddle.

A half-formed thought flashed through her mind. Did her dad have something to do with her repeat year? Knowing her flaws, was he somehow watching out for her? Had he given her this second chance as a gift? It was a comforting fancy, one that restored her and gave her a new sense of purpose.

She wiped at her sweaty brow with the back of her arm, and her paddle slid overboard. She started to laugh.

“What is it?” Christopher asked sullenly. When he turned around and saw her paddle, floating already quite some distance from the kayak, he cursed. He tried to turn them around, unsuccessfully, because of his position in the front. Then he tried to paddle in reverse, succeeding only in moving them a few inches back, while the current took the light, buoyant paddle a few feet farther away.

“Give me the paddle,” she said.

“No. I don’t want you to lose this one, too.”

“Oh, for Pete’s sake. I didn’t lose it on purpose. Well, at least switch places with me so you can turn us around.” She stood up. The kayak tilted dramatically to the right.

“No. We’ll tip over.”

“Fine. I’ll go get it.” She dove into the water. It felt lovely against her skin after exerting herself in the sun all morning, soothing like bathwater. She swam after the paddle, the life jacket making it hard as it kept tugging her back up to the surface. After an awkward, graceless swim, she managed to wrestle the paddle back to the kayak, where Christopher sat, shaking his head.

“You are a nut,” he said.

She felt a sudden rush of tenderness she hadn’t felt for him in a long time. He was, after all, a version of herself: a taller, more impulsive, male version with stronger convictions about the world. How could she not empathize with his stonewalling of Harry when she had done the very same thing last year? She understood, better than anyone, that it was a way of championing their father.

“Dad would’ve loved this,” she said. “You know he would’ve written about this in the Christmas letter.”

Christopher shook his head again, but she could tell he was laughing by the way his shoulders were shaking.

“This is what he would’ve wanted for us,” she continued. “For us to have fun. Be happy. All of us—Mom, too.”

He grunted noncommittally and extended his arm to help her back into the kayak. It swayed dangerously to the left, but he held it steady long enough for her to climb in. They aimed the kayak toward the now-bustling Watersports Center. A motorboat trailing a water-skier careened across the inlet. Husbands and wives helped each other into life jackets and climbed aboard Jet-Skis and kayaks. A line had formed at the wooden counter.

“I’ll put on a happy face for Mom’s sake,” Christopher said, as he stabbed his paddle into the sand to propel the kayak forward, “but I don’t like him.”

At this point, she felt that was all they could really ask of him. She herself had done much worse last year. She remembered sitting on the patio of her mom and Harry’s honeymoon bungalow, calmly pinning a gardenia in her mom’s hair and accusing her of loving Harry more than she’d loved Olive’s dad. She remembered standing in the sand beside her mom at the ceremony, refusing to listen to the vows they’d written for each other. Instead she had cast her gaze out to sea, her head throbbing from all the piña coladas she had drunk. Then afterward, she had fallen asleep on a chaise longue on the beach, and Christopher had had to help her back to her room before the tide carried her away.

She wished she could convey these struggles to her brother.

They all reconvened for dinner, this time at the Italian restaurant that required reservations and for men to wear a tie. Harry had lent Phil one of his, a black-and-maroon-striped one that clashed with Phil’s cobalt blue shirt. They seemed to be best friends now, rehashing a play-by-play of their game for everyone’s benefit. Olive’s mom and Verona were more reserved, with the look of women who had just engaged in a serious heart-to-heart. Verona’s nails were painted pink, and Olive’s mom’s face looked taut and shiny. Olive felt excluded. She and Christopher were the only ones sunburned.

After dinner, she and Phil decided to take a walk along the beach to watch the sun set. He wanted to change first, so she said she’d meet him near the pier. The sky was mauve, the color of heart muscle. It was only two days until the wedding now.

She slipped her strappy, high-heeled sandals off and carried them over her shoulder. In all its vastness, the ocean felt like an appropriate metaphor for the cosmos.

“Here I am again,” she said. “Do you remember me?” She dug her fingernails into the claylike sand and came up with a fistful of shells, stones, and other muck. She flung it as far as she could into the ocean and heard it plop. “I don’t know what your plans are for me, but I sure as hell hope I’m following them.”

The ocean rushed up the shore, covering her ankles in muck, returning the tiny shells and stones she had just thrown.

“Ha. That’s funny. Very funny. I should’ve known. Back to square one.” She squatted down to wash off her feet and ankles in the shallow water. When she stood up, she could see Phil hurrying toward her.

“Fancy meeting you here,” he said.

She took his hand, and they fell into stride together. “You know I appreciate what you did today for Harry, but you don’t have to go overboard or anything. We all know that ‘Professor Matheson thinks Hoobastank was a city in the Byzantine Empire.’ He’s a dud! You don’t have to pretend to like him so much.”

Phil frowned. “I’m not pretending. I
do
like him. He’s a really kind, well-meaning guy. I feel like I got to know him a lot better today. I think that if you only gave him the chance, you’d like him, too.”

“You’re a terrible judge of character. You like everyone.” She sat down on a stray chaise longue and stretched out her legs.

“I’m an excellent judge of character. I chose you, didn’t I?” He sat at the edge of her chair and began tracing small circles on her bare thigh.

“You chose me? I thought fate brought us together. Fate, some apples, and a defective paper bag.”

“Maybe this sounds cliché, but today I could tell that Harry really loves your mom. The way he talks about her and the way every little thing reminds him of her. And he’s doing everything he can to get you and Christopher to like him. He asked me all about the ICU, what you do, and if you like it. He really cares, Olive. I think it hurts him that you guys are so indifferent to him.”

“Honestly, I don’t care.” She felt a twinge of meanness and fought to justify it. In her mind’s eye, she saw the Richmond library branch and her mom and Harry in the deserted Derleth Reading Room, leaning together much too close across a wooden lectern. “I’m doing all I can right now to support my mom. I don’t have the energy to get all buddy-buddy with Harry.”

The high tide lapped almost as far as the stone wall, gliding stealthily under the chaise longue. Phil lifted his feet and then moved to another chaise longue and faced her. “You act like those are different things. Supporting your mom and approving of Harry.”

“They are to me! I
can’t
like Harry. He represents too many bad things to me. He’s everything my dad wasn’t. Don’t you see that I’m doing the best I can?”

“I do. But what you don’t see is that Harry’s doing the best he can.” His tone was resentful.

“Why are you getting so mad at me? You’re supposed to be on my side.”

“I’m always on your side, Ollie. I guess I just . . . Maybe I’m just jealous. Your real dad was great, and now you have a potential stepdad who’s bending over backward to make you happy.”

Olive dangled her feet over the edge of her chair. “Well, although Charlie will never win the Father of the Year award, he’s trying, too, Phil.” She curled her toes into the wet sand.

There was a long silence. The sun had moved behind the island, so they couldn’t see it touch the horizon. The clouds left behind were orange and ragged.

Phil straightened up in his chair. “I haven’t heard from him since late March. I’ve tried calling him, and his number is disconnected. I called his sponsor, Maryanne, and she hasn’t heard from him in months, either. I even looked up the number for his trucking company, but they said he no longer works there. I think he’s fallen off the wagon again.”

“Oh Phil, I’m so sorry.” She reached out to squeeze his arm, but he had turned away from her, toward the sunset, and she couldn’t reach him. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

“I don’t know. You didn’t ask, and—”

“I’m so sorry. I should’ve.”

“That’s not what I meant. It just didn’t come up in conversation, and I didn’t want to make it out to be more important than it really is. He’s a drunk and always will be. What more did I expect?”

“Maybe you didn’t expect him to change, but you hoped,” Olive said.

Phil laughed bitterly. “I’m an idiot for letting him back into my life. What a waste of time.”

“No, you’re not. You’re a good person. A forgiving person.”

“A fool.”

“He has an illness, Phil.”

“I don’t want to hear it. I am so sick of all the excuses. It’s simple: If I were worth it to him, he’d get his act together. But if I wasn’t worth it to him at age eight, I’m certainly not worth it to him now.” He closed his eyes and pressed his thumbs into his eyelids.

“Of course you’re worth it. The first thing he did when he became sober was contact you. He loves you. He’s just a man with a serious addiction.”

“That’s not love, and I can’t put up with it anymore. I’m done with him now.” His voice was hard and uncompromising, the way he’d sounded last year when he’d told her good-bye. Olive involuntarily shuddered.

The cloud scraps reflected on the water, resembling large, golden fish.

He was in his own world now, and she wanted him back. “This reminds me of the docks,” she said. “How we used to watch the sun set together and you would quiz me on drugs. And almost every time, you would tell me that same story about your childhood. How you thought the sun set only in your backyard.”

The best part of the Russells’ old farmhouse was the backyard. It faced the west with miles of rolling green fields and red barns and silos as far as the eye could see. The sun would disappear neatly between the cradle of the hills as if it slept there every night. As a little boy, Phil had thought they were the only ones with a view of this spectacle, that the sun set only over their land. When he was six years old, he’d stayed overnight at a friend’s house and witnessed the same sun setting as he perched at the top of a jungle gym at the neighborhood playground. He’d been so distressed that he’d fallen off but was too embarrassed to explain the real reason for his fall. He said it was the first revelation that he’d ever had.

“I love that story,” Olive said. “I never really knew what you meant by ‘revelation,’ but I still love it.”

Phil clasped his hands over his knees. “Just what every kid learns at some point, I guess. That people and things don’t exist just for us. They exist for other people, too. They exist in their own right.”

Olive’s own similar revelation, she supposed, had come when she realized her parents had names, that their names were not simply Mom and Dad. She had overheard them talking in the kitchen one morning as they made pancakes. “It looks like we’re out of syrup, Kathy. I guess I’d better run to the store.” “Hang on, Greg! I have some frozen berries and cream we can use instead.” It had been like finding out her parents had secret identities.

It was hard not to think about Sherry’s claim that motherhood meant giving up your dreams, giving up a secret part of yourself. She tried to imagine this secret part of her mom. A dark corner of her that loved opera and had a passion for trying new foods. A shadowy space devoted to loving Harry. It saddened her to think there was any part of her mom to which she didn’t have access.