The House in the Cerulean Sea(109)
“I get it,” he said.
She laughed, though without humor. “Do you? Because I wonder.”
“I don’t expect you to understand.”
She shook her head. “Good. Because I don’t.”
“I can’t just stay here. There are rules to follow. Regulations that must be—”
“To hell with your rules and regulations!”
He gaped at her. Then, he said the only thing he could, “Life, it—it doesn’t work that way.”
“Why doesn’t it?” she snapped. “Why can’t life work whatever way we want it to? What’s the point of living if you only do it how others want you to?”
“It’s the best we can do.”
She scoffed. “And this is your best? This?”
He said nothing as the whistle of a coming train came from down the tracks.
“Let me tell you something, Linus Baker,” she said, hands clenched on the top of the driver’s door. “There are moments in your life, moments when chances have to be taken. It’s scary because there is always the possibility of failure. I know that. I know that. Because once upon a time, I took a chance on a man that I had failed before. I was scared. I was terrified. I thought I might lose everything. But I wasn’t living, then. The life I had before wasn’t living. It was getting by. And I will never regret the chances I took. Because it brought me to them. To all of them. I made my choice. And you’re making yours.” She opened the door and got in the car. The engine turned over. She looked back at him just once when she said, “Don’t you wish things could be different?”
“Don’t you wish you were here?” he whispered, but she wouldn’t have heard him. By the time he finished speaking, she was away, sand kicking up from the tires.
* * *
He stared at the orange phone on the platform while he waited for the train, thinking how easy it would be if he picked it up and made a call. To tell whoever answered he wanted to come back home.
* * *
“Just you, then?” the attendant asked cheerily as he stepped off the train. “Don’t usually see people leaving this late in the season.”
“Going home,” Linus muttered as he handed over his ticket.
“Ah,” the attendant said. “No place like home, or so I’m told. Me, I like riding the rails. All the wondrous things I see, you know?” He glanced down at the ticket. “Back to the city! I hear there’s quite the storm there. Hasn’t stopped raining in a dog’s age!” He grinned as he handed back the ticket. “Help you with your luggage, sir?”
Linus blinked against the burn. “Yes. Fine. Thank you. I’ll take the crate. She doesn’t like most other people.”
The attendant peered down. “Ah, I see. Yes. I’ll take your luggage. The car you’re in is right this way, sir. And luckily for you, it’s empty. Not another soul in sight. Could get some sleep, if you need it.”
He whistled as he lifted the suitcase and carried it onto the train.
Linus looked down at the crate. “Ready to go home?”
Calliope turned around and presented him with her backside.
Linus sighed.
* * *
Two hours later, the first drops of rain began to fall.
EIGHTEEN
It was raining heavily back in the city when he stepped off the train.
He pulled his coat tightly around him, squinting up at the metal-gray sky.
Calliope hissed as water began to drip through the slats on the top of her crate.
He picked up his suitcase and walked toward the bus stop.
* * *
The bus was late.
Of course it was.
He took off his coat and put it on top of Calliope’s crate.
It did the job. For now.
He sneezed.
He hoped he wasn’t getting sick. That would be just his luck, wouldn’t it?
* * *
Twenty minutes later, the bus came, tires sluicing water.
The doors slid open.
Linus was soaked as he stepped onto the bus.
“Hello,” he said to the driver.
The driver grunted in response as Linus struggled to swipe his pass.
The bus was mostly empty. There was a man in the back, head pressed against the window, and a woman who eyed Linus suspiciously.
He took a seat away from them.
“Almost home,” he whispered to Calliope.
She didn’t respond.
He looked out the window as the bus pulled away from the train station.
A sign next to the train station caught his eye.
On it, a family was at a picnic in the park. The sun was shining. They sat on a checkered blanket, and the wicker basket sitting between them was open and overflowing with cheeses and grapes and sandwiches with the crusts cut off. The mother was laughing. The father was smiling. The boy and the girl were staring adoringly up at their parents.
Above them, the sign read: KEEP YOUR FAMILY SAFE! SEE SOMETHING, SAY SOMETHING!
Linus looked away.
* * *
He had to change buses once, and by the time he stepped off the second bus it was almost five in the afternoon. The wind had picked up, and it was cold and miserable. He was three blocks from home. He expected to feel relief at this moment.