“Hello?” I call in the dark. A light flashing behind me. I turn around, but there’s no one there on the footpath. Just the cormorants perched along the cliff walls like bats. Just the water crashing against the rocks where Mother fell. A red glow on the waves tonight. A phosphorescence on the white foam. And then a voice. I hear it through the roar of water calling my name. Belle, Belle.
My heart thuds in my chest. Mother?
Belle, says the voice in the water.
And I’m running. Sliding down a steep dirt trail toward the roaring water in my red shoes. They wink at me from the mud while the voice calls, Belle, Belle.
I’m coming, Mother, I think. I can’t believe you survived. I quicken my pace, though I’m afraid.
When I reach the shore, just sharp black rock slick with seaweed. A swelling ocean, hissing spray. The red light on the water is flashing, flashing. Mother, where are you?
In here, says the voice in the water. Closer.
Now I’m on the tip of the black rock where the shimmering red waves crash. Mother’s in there somewhere. I’ll have to go into the water and look. Mother will carry me in the red wave, and in the wave, we’ll talk. I’ll ask her, Why did you leave me? I’ll tell her a lot of things seem to be leaving me, even myself. But I’m glowing, just like you did. Or at least I seem to be when I catch myself in the mirror. Now I close my eyes. Let the wave rise, taking me with it. The cold water shocks my body, freezing the air in my lungs. Her voice is all around me now. Belle, Belle, Belle. But there’s nothing down here. Just dark water. Do I know how to swim? Surely Mother taught me once. A picture in my mind’s eye as I thrash in the waves. A little girl and her mother on a beach long ago. The girl is on the shore and the mother is in the water, waving at her to come in, join, don’t be afraid. But the little girl is afraid. Doesn’t wade into her mother’s arms. Doesn’t trust, even though Mother’s hands say, It’s okay, trust. The little girl shakes her head from the shore. Don’t feel like it now, she lies. And Mother drops her extended arms. Giving up. Disappointed. Oh, a coldness then. A shame, too. Drowning in it. I’m drowning now.
I see Mother on the rocky shore. “Mother!” I cry, my mouth filling with water.
She doesn’t move. She’s watching me drown because I never went out into the waves to meet her long ago.
And then she’s gone.
I’m alone and sinking in the black. Is this where Mother went, the black? Is this where the roses are? Is this the way? My lungs fill with cold darkness.
A hand grips my arm.
Pulls me up out of the water.
I’m gasping, lying on the rocks, looking up.
A man framed by a night sky full of stars. He’s got a hat on. The brim is dripping water onto my face like cold rain.
“Caught you,” he says.
* * *
When I open my eyes, I’m no longer by the ocean, on the dark shore. No longer wet, though still cold. I’m dry and in a bed. A hotel room with pink walls. Is it morning or afternoon? Can’t tell by the light from the half-drawn curtains. THANK YOU FOR NOT SMOKING says a little sign on the cherrywood nightstand. Someone’s watching me lie here. I feel it in the prickling of my skin. The hairs on my neck are standing on end. I see a silhouette in the dark. Who are you? What am I doing here?
The silhouette turns on a soft light. The man in the hat from the beach. Sitting and watching me from the desk with his feet up, wearing a white shirt that opens to a white undershirt. Red suspenders. A silk tie around his neck in a loose noose. His hat’s not on his head, it’s on the desk. His hair is wet, slicked back into a dark wave.
“Good afternoon,” he says. So it’s afternoon, then.
“You caught me.”
He smiles. “And you wet my hat,” he says. “It may never dry.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I have other hats.”
I see he’s got a glass of Scotch in his hand. Looks luminous, like liquid gold. If I drank that, maybe I’d be warm again. Maybe I’d fill with light. As if he can read my mind, he walks to the edge of the bed and hands me the glass. As I sip, a fire sparks. All the way down to my toes. He stays on the bed’s edge, watching me. Face half in shadow. Quite pretty, really. If pretty had a shadow side, it would be this man’s sharply cut face. Telling me he can order room service if I’m hungry. I should probably eat something, he says. Fine for now, I tell him. Thank you, sir. Sir, I call him, which seems to amuse and disturb him. It amuses me, too, sort of. Because I know him, of course. I saw him at a bar once. I saw him once too through a red fish. And of course, I met him on a bridge only yesterday, though his name’s slipped my mind just now. What’s your name, sir? What am I doing in your bed, wearing a man’s silk robe the color of midnight?