How to Save a Life(87)

I thought immediately of Evan. I smiled. “I think so too.”

My eyes raised to the dream catchers. One had a fine net like a delicate spider web, three feathers hanging down from strings of bright blue beads. Such a familiar blue. I hadn’t planned on spending any money but I couldn’t leave the shop without the dream catcher. After work, I took it the houseboat and hung it over the bed. I lay looking up at it that night, rocked by the waters.

I’m here, I thought. I’m home. Waiting for you. Come back to me.

In that twilight place just before sleep, I imagined dream walkers in the skies above me, catching my words in their nets and walking them to Evan to guide him home.





Two weeks passed. I finalized the purchase of the houseboat and spent the remainder of the prize money filling it with everything a home needed: pots and pans, towels and sheets. I couldn’t do anything about the dated fixtures, but I could add as many personal touches as my little budget could afford. I set every placemat or dishtowel or soap dish in its place like they were plugs in a dam, guarding a reservoir of optimism against leaks. Still, as the days passed in Page, my hope began to crack. Streams of what if trickled down the stone structure.

What if Evan’s freedom came at the worst cost? What if I misunderstood his cryptic words? What if the river was too strong and didn’t let him go? That was the biggest what if of all.

On good nights, I lay in bed, feeling the boat sway beneath me and listening for footsteps on the dock outside. I imagined the phone ringing. Pretended the harbormaster told me I had a visitor at the marina. I remembered Evan’s promise to me and sent my silent call to the dream walkers until I fell asleep.

On bad nights, I called to Evan to come home with tears streaming down my cheeks, inching closer and closer to despair. The cold reality of that river was stronger than hope. The undertow had been too powerful. He’d been a fool to test nature. She always wins. I wept to sleep, then bolted from nightmares, a scream at the back of my throat and the feel of Evan’s hand pushing me through the black water. I clung to those square inches of skin on the back of my leg, where the last sense memory of Evan’s touch lived. I wondered if I’d ever feel his hands on me again.

By the end of the third week, the terrible nights outnumbered the hopeful ones. Fear was deteriorating into a panicked grief. The dam was sprouting more leaks than I had the will to fix. I spent my days off from work curled on my bed, crying until I turned inside–out, sometimes sick to my stomach from weeping. I had to force myself to shower and dress and eat. To keep up my end of the deal. Evan had never given up on me. I couldn’t give up on him. But it was hard. So f*cking hard.

One evening at twilight, I sat on the houseboat’s tiny deck, wrapped in Evan’s flannel shirt, sending my call into the skies. My eyes picked out all the blues of the lake, every orange and yellow in the desert stretching beyond. The sun slowly slipped away and I counted stars as they appeared.

I found Orion’s belt, and Gemini, the twins. My mother pointed them out when I was six years old, and the vibrant color of the memory reminded me that anything was possible.

Anything.

Even footsteps on the dock. At this hour. When all the rented boats were docked and asleep in the rocking cradle of the lake.

I turned in my chair. A man was walking out of the east, the last of the sun’s rays behind him, throwing his face into shadow.

Before my eyes could confirm it, my heart knew it was him. It stopped, then started again with a dizzying ferocity.

“Evan.” My voice was hardly more than a whisper around his name.

He stopped and let the bag in his hand fall to the planks. I scrambled down from the boat and jumped onto the deck as he began to run. Twenty feet separated us. I closed the distance in seconds and crashed into him. Threw my arms around his neck, my legs around his waist and held on with everything I had.

His face pressed against my neck, bearded and scratchy. His arms wrapped around me, squeezing the breath from my lungs. His body shuddered against mine and then we stood still. Not speaking. Waiting to believe it was real.

He set me down and we stared at one another with hands and eyes. He cupped my cheek, then ran his fingers through my chin-length hair, over my scar, around my lips before bending to brush his mouth over mine in a tentative kiss. As if he were still trying to sort out if we were really here.

I clung to him, my fingers tangled in his hair that touched the edge of his collar, and kissed him hard. When he groaned and opened his mouth to take me in, I nearly slipped out of his arms in watery relief.

“Evan,” I breathed. “You’re here. You came back to me.”’

“I came home.”

I led him inside. He stared in awe at our little houseboat, his eyes warm and full of questions.

But we needed each other first.

I pushed his jacket off his shoulders while his hands slipped under the worn flannel of his own shirt. My breasts curved into his hands. His palms were chafed with strange callouses and filled with the familiar greed for my skin. I could smell a journey on his skin: dirt and dust of the road, truck stops, cigarette smoke and burnt coffee. He broke our kiss, breathing hard.

“I need to wash it off,” he said, as if he’d plucked the imagery out of my mind.

The shower was just big enough for us both to stand in. I soaped up a washcloth and scrubbed dirt and sweat off him, cramming my eyes with muscles that were larger than I remembered, skin that was darker with sun. He turned around so I could wash his back. My soapy fist swept over a small, black tattoo on his right shoulder blade. Two lines in a scratchy script.