The Water Keeper(87)
“She smiled. ‘Even better.’”
I tried not to look at Summer, whose jaw was hanging down in the water.
“So we concocted this plan to let my character continue to write his own stories. This weird twist on autobiographical fiction. Like if Indiana Jones had written his own books and published them under his own name. We used my name. David Bishop.” I shrugged. “My real name is David Bishop Murphy. ‘Murph’ or ‘Murphy’ was my nickname. ‘Shepherd’ we added. Or rather, Bones did.
“The publisher took my bag back to New York and broke those sixty-eight pads into four stories, which she published systematically every six months. By the time the second installment was slated to release, people were champing at the bit and news organizations had hired private investigators to determine my identity. The book stayed at number one for weeks before it ever hit the shelf. Numbers three and four set publishing records I knew nothing about. Seems women readers had a thing for a guy like David Bishop. So while I tended bar for tips, I made more money than I could spend in ten lifetimes.
“I called Colorado and told him I wanted to go back to work but I wanted to do it a little differently. I wanted to create a place where we could help folks once we found them—help them walk the road from broken to not. So we did. I bought a ghost town. A literal town that had been abandoned when the silver ran out, and we brought it back to life. Now we have a school, a hospital, all-female sports teams, and really good security. It’s a community of people all wrapping their arms around girls who thought they’d never hear the sound of their own laughter again. Whose lives have been a thousand times worse than anything I can imagine. We’ve built condos. Homes. If they don’t want to go to school, we train them in a skill or trade. We also partner, silently, with Fortune 500 companies, since many of them are run by the moms and dads of the children we’ve found. They ski on the weekends. Raft and mountain bike in the summer.
“Colorado, or Bones, runs our little secret town, while I find people who need finding.” I shrugged. “And at night, to remind myself that I once knew love, I write. Or at least I did.”
Summer whispered, “What do you mean?”
I pointed to Gone Fiction. At Fingers’ orange box. “I wrote the final installment, due out in a couple weeks.” I shook my head. “Thanks to readers like you, it, too, sits at number one. Has for over a month. In the story, Fingers dies. As does Marie. Writing just hurts too much. I had to kill them and the series because writing the life of David Bishop was killing me. So before I started out on this trip, I took all fourteen novels, burned them, collected their ashes in that orange box, and strapped it to my boat so that when I got here—to the end of the world—I could spread those words out across the water where I first heard them. So I could say goodbye to Fingers. And when I get home, I’ll say goodbye to Marie.”
Summer sat shaking her head. She spoke softly. “What about David?”
“You were right. I am wounded. Some days I write to remember. And some days I write to forget.”
Ellie was white as a sheet. Gunner lay unmoving with his head flat up the rock. “If by writing about my love for her, I’ve given Marie a life beyond her watery grave, then I’m glad. If that life has spoken to broken people and helped them walk from broken to not, then I don’t even know what to say. I’m beyond glad. I didn’t expect that. Somewhere around here, Bones convinced me that maybe I could write my way out of brokenness . . . but with every year and every book and every written word I open up and look inside, I find that the writing is breaking me. Because no matter what I say or how I say it, I can’t bring her back. Marie is gone, and no amount of writing will fix her or my shattered heart.”
I wiped my own tears. “One time, I loved. With all of me. Emptied myself unselfishly. And then she was gone, and I never got to tell her. Anything. I’ve published over a million words, spread my soul upon the page. I am known by millions and yet I am wholly unknown. And when I wake and walk about this earth, breathing in and breathing out, I try to give my love away . . . and I can’t. Can’t carry her anymore.”
We sat in silence as the breeze washed over us. Gunner stood and walked around me, finally coming to rest, just leaning against me. I spoke into the wind. Not really to them but loud enough for them to hear me. I was speaking to someone else, but she couldn’t hear me. “Every name on my back—” I shook my head once. “I wasn’t looking for them. I was looking for Marie. Trying to find the one girl I lost. And I have searched the world over.”
Summer sat sobbing. Ellie stared blankly, not knowing what to say. Nobody said anything for several moments. The water around us was only one to three feet deep.
I climbed down off the rock and waded out into the water. Gunner followed, swimming alongside. I walked out to Gone Fiction, unlashed the box, and kept walking. Several hundred yards from shore. The water pressing against me. I stood a long time, holding that orange box. The memories returned. The laughter. The fun. Mentor and friend. As I stood in that water, it all flooded back. I would miss him. I would miss the sound of his voice in my mind. But that’s all it was. It was just make-believe medication, and I couldn’t cope anymore. My drug, writing, had lost its efficacy. The pain in me was deeper than the writing could root out.
I opened the box, pulled out the bottle of wine, pulled the cork with my teeth, and stood there, wine in one hand, ashes in the other. Crumbling under the weight, I turned both upside down. The wine tinted the water while the ashes floated around me, encircling me. Amused, Gunner swam in circles. The wind lifted some of the ash and sent a cloud south. To parts unknown. Waves rippled across me, the incoming tide pulled at my feet, and within three minutes, the red cloud on the water had been washed out to sea. Somewhere out in the seam where the Gulf sews itself into the Atlantic. That tapestry we call an ocean. One man amid a mosaic we call the human heart.