The Starfish Sisters: A Novel(82)

I hang up.

I think of Nadine Truelove. Juno Gerhert.

I think of my father and the fact that the LNB failed to kill me. It comes to me that I’ve been looking at all this the wrong way. My father tried to break me and he failed. The LNB tried to kill me and they failed.

What will I do with that gift?

In a rush of emotion, I bend my head over the page. And begin.

I’m still here.

The only way through the morass of thoughts is writing. I’ve never lost the diary habit. I call it journaling now.

I pick up a blank Moleskine, connect my phone to Bluetooth, and settle at the banquette overlooking the ocean. I write the date at the top of the page and pause, wondering how to address it. I think about Joel, about the feeling of him against me, the way I felt when I saw him standing on the porch after such a long time, as if the world had righted itself at last. How he smells just the same. Below the enchantment lurks a darkness I am not ready to face, the things I told Phoebe I need to be here to finally let go of.

Another flash of Joel, eyes closed as he kissed me, plays across the screen of my eyelids. His hands on my body. His laughter in the middle of the night when we found ourselves exhausted and shaking.

How was that possible, that someone could not be part of your life and then suddenly they were so huge, right in the middle of it? But I can’t write about that right now.

Nor can I write about the LNB. I don’t even want to. My heart yearns toward the light, toward something bigger.

I write:

Edwina sent me a bunch of scripts and I am bored by all of them. The women are all the same—over fifty, struggling with families or lonely after being widowed or with husbands who are sick. Why don’t they move me? What am I looking for?

They have no agency, these women. They’re acted upon, not making their lives their own. Which might actually be true, that many women feel that way, but—

What I want are stories about women who are doing all the same things a woman does at every other stage of her life. Setting goals, having adventures, learning new things, having sex with a man (or woman) she finds hot, discovering new things about herself. Maybe I should write my own movie, write a part I’d like to play.

Huh.

What might that be?

I pause and tap my pen against my lips.

Maybe she would be an adventurer. Maybe a biography about Georgia O’Keeffe, striding through her life, living it her way until she died at 98. I’ve always thought she must have had an affair with the young guy who came into her life so late, and maybe that could be a good topic. Why not?

Because people might judge her as being ridiculous, allowing herself to have big feelings for somebody who clearly took advantage of her.

Or did he? Maybe they used each other.

But maybe a different angle. Maybe her decision to start traveling at age 60, going to India when she was in her 70s. What would that have been like back then?

Or maybe I could just make somebody up. An adventurer in the 1930s who went to North Africa, who had an adventure and a love affair at age 65. (Omar Sharif! Too bad he’s gone, but there must be a similar actor out there.)

That would be a fun part to play. And I’d want the sex on screen, no fading away. Normalize it.

When Joel returns, I’m still pouring my heart out on the page. Music plays on the speakers, and I don’t even realize hours have gone by until he knocks. I look up in surprise, and clouds have moved in heavily over the Starfish Sisters. My arm is very tired. I’ve filled many pages.

When I open the door, he has a fierce expression. “What is it?” I ask.

“Deer entrails in your driveway.” He points.

I shake my head. “Whoever is doing this is not LNB. They don’t give warnings.”

“Maybe,” he says. “But that doesn’t mean whoever this is isn’t dangerous.”

“Agreed. Let’s call the sheriff and get the alarm updated and go from there.”

“I think you should stay with Phoebe.”

I shake my head. “It’s going to get pretty awkward once she realizes we’ve been sleeping together.”

“First of all, why would she know?”

I raise my chin. “Because she knows us. Both of us.”

“And secondly, why would it matter?”

I sigh. “I’ve never told her the truth.”

For a long moment, he simply gapes at me. “You’re kidding me.”

I shake my head. “I know. But she had a terrible crush on you and I didn’t want to tell her that we were together, and then you were gone forever, and I was pretty sure I’d never see you again, so it didn’t seem like it was worth the drama to tell her the truth.”

He frowns. “Except that it was a really big part of your life. At least then.”

“It was.” And suddenly an entire bubble of repressed memory and emotion boils up and explodes in my chest. I make a sound, overcome by a kaleidoscope of memories—my father knocking me down, the feel of the razor against my head, the loneliness of the unwed mothers’ home. In a pained whisper, I ask, “Why didn’t you ever call me?”

His body goes still. Poised. “I didn’t know where you were. No one told me. I sent you a letter so that you could write to me, and when I never heard from you, I assumed you didn’t want to talk to me again.”