Sand and Water

"That's all of it," I told the movers as they loaded the last box onto the truck. I stood back as they slammed the doors shut, and I was pretty sure I heard a box burst open. I could only hope that it was one that had some of Renee's crap in it. "This should be delivered the week of the tenth, right?"

The driver, Tiny, who looked like he had just finished a long stint at the State Penitentiary, gave a faint nod and grunted at his partner, Zeke.

Zeke walked over to me as he thumbed through some rumpled papers on a shoddy clipboard. "When did they tell you it'd be delivered?" he asked, sounding more than a little exasperated.

"The week of August tenth." I hated repeating myself, and it showed.

Zeke shuffled some more papers, seemingly unable to find what he was looking for. "Well, if that's what they told you, that's when it'll be delivered," he said with a half-assed grin. Very comforting. "Sign here." He pointed at the bottom of the paper, covered in dirty fingerprints. I signed on the dotted line, and he handed me the carbon copy.

Tiny and Zeke hopped into the cab of the truck and backed out of the driveway, and I watched as they drove down the street. Peterson Moving Company: Moving Your Home Like Our Own Since 1946, was written on the side of the truck. Underneath it read, We Handle Your Precious Memories With Care.

Precious? I nearly laughed. There were twenty-seven years of memories in the back of that truck, and only fourteen of them were precious. The other thirteen years' worth could fall out of the back and scatter across the interstate for all I cared. I began to regret not slipping Tiny a hundred-dollar bill to have him set a few boxes on fire. He didn't look like he was a stranger to arson.

"Are you okay?" Jake asked, pulling me out of my thoughts.

"Yeah," I sighed, slipping my arm around his waist. "It's just harder than I thought it'd be, you know? I thought I'd be happy to finally be out of here, but I'm feeling kind of nostalgic and sad. I wish I had some kind of Men In Black-style neuralizer that could permanently erase half of the things that happened in this house from my memory and plant some good stuff in its place."

"You know I'd have to neuralize you into believing you were madly in love with me, Bells," Jake laughed.

"Well, a major mind overhaul is just about the only thing that would make that little dream a reality." I poked him in the ribs.

"Ouch," he said, clutching his heart. "You really know how to wound a man, Bella. Seriously."

"How many times do I need to turn you down before you'll leave it the hell alone? A frillion? Because I'm pretty sure we just hit that wonderful milestone."

"I think a frillion and one should do it," he said, his signature smile spreading across his face.

"Jake," I whispered as I turned to him, "I love you so much, you know that." And it was the truth. I did love him. He had been there for me ever since we were kids playing on the beach at La Push, back when I still spoke to Charlie, before I had destroyed so many lives. I wished I felt something more for him, but I didn't, and that made me a little bit sad. If there was anyone I could ever have a normal relationship with, it would be Jacob. But being in a relationship out of convenience wouldn't be fair to him, and he knew as well as I did that he only entertained the idea because we both knew each other's secrets, and being with each other would've been the easiest route to take. He deserved so much more than I could offer him.

"I do know that," he replied, taking my hand.

"But you're like my brother, and the thought of kissing you makes me want to douse my brain with battery acid."

"Wow, uh…message received, loud and clear," he laughed.

"Was it?" I asked, just to make sure. "I don't want to have to resort to hitting you over the head with a cast iron skillet, or dropping an anvil off a cliff to finally drive it home." I sneered, shaking my fist at him.

"A frillion and one it is." He ran his fingers along the railing before he turned toward the house. "I'm gonna take one last look around to make sure you didn't forget anything, 'kay?"

I nodded.

From the porch I surveyed the front yard of the only stable home I'd ever known as I breathed in the late summer Chicago air. Phil, Renee and I moved here shortly after they married, right after Phil signed his deal with the Cubs. I was five, and hadn't lived in one place for more than two months at a time before then. Standing on this porch in my yellow sundress when I was four years old was the first time I remembered being happy. It seemed like all of my happy memories were somehow wrapped up in Phil.

My first really clear memory of him was the day we moved in here. He had carried my mother over the threshold, and they giggled and laughed, kissed and hugged as they excitedly showed the movers where they wanted all the boxes to go. Once everything had been moved in, I came outside—to this very spot—to arrange our flowerpots along the wooden railing. It was the most I could do without getting in the way, since I was still so small and had the upper body strength of a kitten. Phil told me it was the most important job of the whole move, since people judge a home by the way it looks on the outside.

"If a home looks happy on the outside, Bell, it'll be happy on the inside," he'd said. I wanted to make our home look happy. I wanted our home to be happy.

Those flowerpots lined the porch until a few weeks ago, right before I put the house up for sale. The flowers hadn't bloomed in years. The pots were chipped and dirty, the soil dry and cracked. The house looked on the outside the way it was on the inside: cold and dead, haunted by the happiness of a former life. I painted the shutters and spruced up the yard before we listed it, but it was just a charade, a little coat of paint to cover up what was damaged underneath to make things look pretty for the public. Over the years I had become really good at doing that.

I turned around and went back inside. My heels echoed loudly as I walked across the glossy hardwood floors of the foyer, bending over to look at my reflection shining back up at me. I smiled, pleased with my handiwork. It had taken me weeks to refinish these floors to get the house ready for sale.

I walked over to the kitchen and gazed at the tile back splash. Jake and I installed that, too. I rubbed a small area of dried grout that I'd missed during cleanup, then looked up and admired the evenness of the crown molding that ran the entire perimeter of the main level. I learned how to use a miter saw to put it up, and I was pretty damned good at it. My unexpected home improvement skills would come in handy at my new place in Seattle.

"Did you hear what I said? We got everything." Jake put his hand on my shoulder, and I jumped.

"Jesus, Jake, you scared the shit out of me!" I yelled as my heart pounded against my ribs. I pushed his hands off me and turned around to face him. "Next time, whisper or something. Don't just pull me out of my happy place, okay?"

"Sorry," he chuckled, raising his hands up in mock surrender. "You've just been standing here for such a long time staring at nothing. I thought you'd gone all Awakenings on me."

"Don't be an asshole," I said sarcastically. "I know it's tough, but please try."

He laughed, but his face fell quickly, and he looked at me sadly. I had been getting that look a lot lately, and I didn't like it. It made me want to cry, and I hated crying.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, rubbing my arms with the palms of his hands. "I know this is really hard for you." He wrapped his arms around me and pulled me to his chest, and I just stood there and let him hold me, because Jake was the only one who could comfort me like this. He was the only one I knew who I trusted implicitly, and I was so grateful to know that I could.

"I'll give you a minute," he said quietly as he turned and walked out the door. I stayed there for a moment and closed my eyes. I still felt guilty for selling the house, but I was finally ready to move on. It hurt too much to be here. Renee couldn't do it, either. She'd taken off shortly after I'd bought it from her.

I walked through the foyer, opening the heavy oak door for the last time, and when I stepped out onto the porch I shut it behind me. Jake was out front leaning against the car, smiling. When he first offered to come and help me move, I told him I didn't think it was a good idea, but I was suddenly glad that he'd been such an unrelenting jackass.

I couldn't have done it by myself.

He walked over and lifted my bag from my shoulder and deposited it in the open trunk before climbing into the driver's side of the rental. As I opened my door, I took one last look around the property, saying goodbye to all the good memories it held. It hurt too much to think about the bad ones, so I didn't. I didn't want this last moment to be tainted with negativity, so I imagined Phil and Renee sitting on the porch watching the kids playing in the yard. The way life would've been if things had happened the way they should have; if I hadn't been stupid and ruined it all.

"Come on, Bells. We really should go." He patted the seat, and I turned around and climbed in. My chest tightened as we drove through the neighborhood that I both loved and hated, where I had spent the best and worst times of my life. Tears stung my eyes, and as if on cue, Jacob turned up the radio to full blast and started singing along to Material Girl. Nothing felt better than having a friend with an inexplicable Madonna fetish and a penchant for karaoke who would make a fool out of himself to cheer me up.

The breeze picked up as the car coasted down the winding roads of the cemetery. I clutched a book in my hands, its edges wilted and worn from its use during my visits here. I watched as smatterings of widows tended to their husband's graves, and looked out into the distance at the plots; colorful flowers popped out against the depressing gray of the marble headstones. I never brought flowers with me when I came to visit. Flowers wilted. Flowers died. Flowers put expiration on a sentiment that was limitless and eternal. I would never degrade their memory with flowers. They deserved better. They deserved life, but I couldn't give that back to them.

Jake pulled to a stop in front of the patch of land I had gotten to know so well over the past fourteen years, and my heart started thundering in my chest. I closed my eyes and took deep breaths as I attempted to calm myself down.

"Do you want me to come with you?" Jake asked, taking my hand.

"No." I whispered. It was all I could make myself say.

"I'll be right here."

I opened the car door and closed it quietly, and then began the short journey up the small hill. I sat on the edge of the bench that rested at the bottom of the four plots just like I always did, and once I was settled, I looked up at the headstones.

PHILLIP CHARLES DWYER
b. August 10, 1956
d. February 11, 1995

JAMES MICHAEL DWYER
b. December 12, 1991
d. February 11, 1995

VICTORIA ANNE DWYER
b. December 12, 1991
d. February 11, 1995

ADAM PHILLIP DWYER
b. September 3, 1994
d. February 15, 1995

Tears spilled down my face as I looked at them, and I felt disgusted at how impersonal they were. No loving words of remembrance, just names and dates; markers to show they had walked this earth, but nothing indicating the marks they left upon those who remained. Renee couldn't bear to have them inscribed after they died. She had planned to have something put on them eventually, but she never did. I didn't think she had ever come back here again after the funerals, but I came every week. I had never seen a trace of her.

I looked at the empty plot next to my family. Renee had bought five of them together so that she could be buried here one day, next to the people she loved the most. There wasn't a place for me. Why should there be, when I was the one who ripped them apart?

I followed the same routine I always did when I would visit, and spoke to Victoria and James first. I told Victoria about little things that happened during the week that made me think of her, and then I talked to James about dinosaurs and puppies, two of his favorite things. I read them a story, just like I had every night before they went to sleep. I used to rotate between the books that they loved when they were alive, but over the past few years whenever I saw something in a bookstore I thought they'd like, I added it to the mix. I knew that somehow they could hear me when I read to them, and I would give them variety if nothing else, and a good story told with conviction by someone who loved them dearly. I changed my voice for each character; they always loved it when I did that, just like Phil had done for me when I was little.

I told Phil about the latest Cubs transactions and how they were doing in their division, and gave him a play-by-play of some of the games I'd watched during the week. I talked to him about life, about my new job, about the move. I didn't talk much about Renee. I never did. Hearing about her would break his heart.

I spoke to Adam last, because his loss was the hardest for me to bear. I was supposed to be looking out for him and keeping him safe, but my stupid, immature decisions led him here. I didn't even feel worthy of talking to him, much less being near him. But I did talk to him, because I'd hate myself even more if I left him alone and in silence, even though all I could do was tell him that I loved him over and over again. I did love him, so much.

I filled my time with them with mindless chatter, just wanting to give them something, anything that would make it seem less desolate here. My time with them used to be filled with endless apologies, but how could I apologize for a mistake that took their lives? Mere words just seemed so…utterly fucking insignificant. I used to wish I had been thrown in jail and given some sort of concrete punishment for what I'd done, but I hadn't committed that sort of crime. I had made a mistake. A horrible, awful, irreversible mistake. The punishment I had received came in the form of a mother who barely talked to me for two years after the accident. A mother who still loathed me and looked at me with disgust, when she even bothered to look at me at all. If I could go back in time, I would. I'd listen, instead of thinking I had all the answers at the age of seventeen. If I had just listened, none of this would've happened.

I promised myself years ago that I would work to grant myself forgiveness. I hadn't quite gotten there yet; there were still days like these, where the weight of the guilt was so heavy that I thought it might crush me. But I had to do my best to move on and do good things with my life, because that's what they would've wanted for me. I had to keep my promise to make them proud, and I tried every single day to do just that, even though I wasn't always successful. I tried not to let it bog me down, because if there's one thing that I couldn't bear, it was the thought that they were somewhere watching me, disappointed in what I had become.

I wasn't sure how long I had been sitting at the grave site, but when I returned to the car, Jake was still there waiting for me. He got out as I came closer, and when I reached him he wrapped his arms around me and I cried against his chest. His fingers ran through my hair, and he whispered sweet words into my ear as he rocked me.

Aside from my mother, Jake was the only one who knew everything. He would always be the only one who knew.