The Darkest Joy Read online

  “Damn . . . smell that air!” I say loudly.

  Evan grins. Then my memory hits on something. Deep eyes, exotic girl. Newbie . . . definitely not homegrown.

  My eyes narrow on Evan. Not that I have room for chicks. A fisherman’s life is no place for relationships, let alone family. When men do it they always lose it.

  But . . . that face floats up in my brain, burning like an imprint.

  “Who’s the girl, Ev?” I ask.

  He tries for coy and misses it by a hundred miles. We begin walking toward my car, a souped-up hot rod, impractical . . . gas-guzzling.

  Perfect. Love those stock Hemis in the old ’Cudas. I chuck my lightweight gear into the low-riding backseat then carefully slide in the precious cargo. I shut the door, not bothering to lock up. No one steals in Homer. Unless we’re talking beach rats.

  My eyes shift through the gray of a twilight that won’t come, the sun a melting ball of pink at the lowest point it will sink in the horizon. It flirts with night, but this close to summer solstice, it never quite takes. The haphazardly erected two-man tents lean and flow with the wind that comes off the waves, hollowing out the sides as it bites. Not a light on anywhere.

  It’s 2 a.m., not much is stirring. Good.

  “What girl?” Evan asks, a laugh caught in his throat.

  “For fuck’s sake, Ev . . . the hot girl. The one with hair like ink and those eyes . . . and that body. Y’know,” I say, my hands miming an hourglass.

  “Oh, yeah, That Girl,” he shrugs, throwing his beer into a trash can. Not a greenie, I think. Of course, I can’t bitch too much. I use salmon heads for bait when the Coast Guard isn’t near.

  Smelly ones.

  Whatever it takes to trawl, capturing what I can for the age-old commerce.

  The hateful part of the job. The frighteningly practical part.

  “Fine,” I say, scrubbing a hand over my shorn hair, my day-old stubble more than a shadow on my chin. Shit, I am going to have to clean up hard. I have an appointment tomorrow to meet my newest deckhand.

  “Don’t tell me . . . but you know I’ll find out.”

  Evan makes a mock gun with his fingers and shoots me. “Of that, I have no doubt.”

  “Besides, don’t you always say not to get tight with the ladies?”

  I do.

  I nod. “Yeah, counts double for you.”

  “No-oh. I like this girl . . .” Evan says, his face growing thoughtful with some memory I’m not privy to.

  “What?” I ask, stepping forward.

  Evan shakes his head, gazing at the sky for a moment. I follow his eyes, catching Venus hanging like a low glittering gem in the mixed velvet of a sunset that lingers for hours this far north.

  “She seems”—Evan rakes a hand through his hair—“sad.”

  I put my hands on my hips. “How is that attractive?”

  Evan shakes his head. “I don’t know, but it gets me,” he says, placing his hand on his sternum. “Right here. I feel like I need to help her or something.”

  Bullshit. That’s a chick playing the emotional bullshit card.

  I scoff. “Sounds like she’s playing you.”

  Evan stares at me. “Well, if that’s true, she’s Academy Award material.”

  I shrug, looking around me.

  I decide to walk it off. The day. Sometimes after a hard night playing, and an even harder day fishing, a walk along the pier will bring clarity. Or whatever.

  “You walking?” Ev asks, intuiting my mood as always. He’s cool that way.

  I nod. “Yeah.”

  “See ya tomorrow,” Evan says and gives a strange smile. I wonder at it.

  “Yeah . . .” I reply, watching him as he jogs to his car and hops in. I stare until his brake lights become twin red dots as they travel back down the spit. Then I move, one foot after the other, walking the same path they have since I began playing at the Dawg.

  They take me to where I’ve always gone. But something about tonight already feels different.

  FOUR

  Brooke

  I sway, my swan arms balancing me perfectly at the slick edge of the pier. No ferry to block my dive. No well-meaning rescuers to halt what I’ve been moving toward since their deaths.

  I’ve already drowned emotionally.

  The raw smell of the ocean tingles my nose, the breeze lifting my hair as I dangle. One foot in life, the other already in death.

  A single image replays in my mind.

  The crime scene tape billows even as it’s driven by the sleet into the sodden front yard.

  I stumble out of my car, the chime rings as I leave the car door open.

  Ding-ding-ding . . .

  I rush to the door and a cop bars my way. I hear my voice, coming from far away. “No . . . no! I just talked to my mom, she’s okay . . .”

  I can’t breathe, a weight bears down on my chest and he answers, “I’m sorry, miss, this is an ongoing police and federal investigation. I can’t have you inside.”

  My breath hisses its escape like a tea kettle that never boils.

  His speech is robotic, an indifferent monologue.

  But his eyes tell me about the horror and brutality that wait inside a home I’ve shared with people I love.

  Past tense: who loved me.

  We are flawed, we don’t always get along. But the love was there, the unconditional devotion.

  The cop has a sheen to his eyes when he looks into mine . . . maybe not so indifferent after all.

  I shake my head, backing away as the first body is rolled out on the gurney.

  The black bag hasn’t been zipped all the way and my eyes seek the small sliver of flesh that’s revealed.

  My mother’s hand, defensive wounds on the palm that is turned to the sky. Her wedding ring winks in the harsh fluorescent glare of the crime scene lights as her body is loaded inside an unmarked van.

  My knees buckle as they drive into the wet grass, the denim soaking through.

  I hear a voice. “What’s going on here?”

  “It’s the vic’s daughter . . .” the cop begins.

  “Jesus . . . could you have handled this a little bit more sensitively?”

  Disdain leaks like cold venom, edging in around my numbing grief.

  I hear nothing, see nothing: blind, deaf, and dumb.

  There’s a whisper of rustling, then strong hands bear down on my arms, ripping me off the soaked dirt and grass. I stand and look up into a tall man’s face, and those eyes, like two black marbles drill me with their intensity.

  Their compassion.

  “Miss Starr . . . come with me.” He shoots the cop a withering glare and gently hauls me over to a small covered area outside the loop of cop cars and unmarked vehicles.

  “I’m Marshal Clearwater . . .”

  I nod as I suck a deep burning breath into my lungs, then burst into tears, covering my face in shame.

  It feels like it’s happening to someone else. This night, these deaths. It can’t be happening to me.

  I’ve lost it in front of a stranger, while my dead family lies in black vinyl.

  Unseeing.

  Unfeeling.

  “How?” I ask in a hoarse whisper, a question posed in abject disbelief.

  Clearwater’s eyes tell me he doesn’t want to give me the details.

  I force him.

  When he finishes the morbid recounting, I’m shaking.

  Like I shake now at the memory.

  I never did see their bodies.

  Somehow, it’s worse that way. My imaginings are worse. This final choice is the only one.

  I look up at the sky, trying to focus through my alcohol haze. Night has finally arrived. The moon looks different here . . . more. The uncaring man in the moon looks down as he has for millennia.

  I am not significant. I won’t be missed. Because there’s no one left to miss me.

  My gaze slides to the churning water. Without sufficient light, it’s black. A void ready to engulf
me.

  I’m a strong swimmer, but I know what hypothermia is. And how long it will take.

  For the first time since their deaths, I feel a sense of peace. My decisiveness in this moment will be my first selfless act of atonement for living while my family doesn’t.

  No more grief from their absence, and the lesser void caused by the lack of music in my life . . . gone.

  Lacey will miss me, I think with an ache in my chest.

  I listen, hearing the call of the sea like a macabre melody.

  I answer.

  I leap gracefully, and behind me I hear a shout as if from another world, another time.

  The water slams into me like a wall of ice, stealing my breath.

  It’s so much easier than I thought it would be, I think as I close my eyes inside the watery grave I’ve chosen.

  The water drenches my clothing and I begin to sink, the clothes weighing me down.

  Then the chill seeps into my bones as if it has always belonged there.

  Chance

  The pale twilight fizzles to night, maybe an hour of true darkness bleeds through the ambient in-between stage of a night that struggles to chase out the last of a stubborn day. The moon takes over its temporary shift, casting washed-out bluish-white light at my feet, picking out the white stones that flow through the gray at the beach to my right.

  I don’t know what causes me to look up at this dead hour of the night; nothing is stirring but the vastness of the sea.

  But I do, and that’s when I see her, arms arced over her head, as if preparing to dive.

  What the fuck?

  I’m already in motion, my body responding before my mind can process what I’m seeing, running toward the female figure. If she survives the drop, the water will kill her.

  It’s a death wish.

  I kick off my shoes as I sprint, tearing off my hoodie. My blood rushes in response to the kick of adrenaline that bursts through my system in a single pulse of driving electric numbness.

  I watch her lift up on her toes, tense as she simultaneously bends at the knees, and then she’s just . . . gone.

  I thunder after her, arms pumping as my clothes trail me like birdseed, and rush off the dock. I never pause, my legs and arms piston like I’m still running in midair, the safety of the dock behind me. Then I scoop and lengthen, diving right after her.

  I know what the ocean feels like and brace myself, fighting the urge to curl my body in brutal anticipation. Instead I split the water with hands pressed together as if in prayer.

  The icy black water hits me like a slap as it punches my body. I’m plunged ten feet under before I know it.

  I swirl and instinctively churn upward, breaking the surface, snapping my head around as my eyes search the dim light from the moon that hits the sea, my breaths coming in short bursts.

  I never stop treading. I know better.

  Can’t see her! My mind roars as my heart races inside my chest. Droplets of salt water swing and splatter, hitting the surface just as a lone bubble breaks just five feet from my position. I go after it like a bull’s-eye in smooth crawl strokes, diving underneath the water where the subtle ripple appeared.

  I plow downward through the icy wetness and catch sight of her.

  Like an apparition, her image slams into me, pale skin like alabaster, black hair like a floating spiderweb moving around her body as she sinks.

  My lungs begin to burn as I move toward her. Gotcha, my mind says as I latch my forearm around her torso and wrap it underneath her armpits, hauling her against me even as I rise to the surface.

  She’s small against me, light . . . I feel something shift inside me at the unfamiliar feeling of having this fragile burden in my care.

  Because I don’t take care of anything but myself. And the sea takes care of me.

  The moonlight pierces the dark water, the need to breathe becomes a fireball inside my chest. The tingling in my extremities shouts at me that I’ve run out of time.

  I break the seal of the waves in an explosion of limbs . . . hers . . . mine. Our heads break out into the cool air, yet warmer than the blanket of the sea. I turn in one motion to my back as I do a one-armed backstroke for shore, a sucking gasp of oxygen hitting my needy lungs. I swim backward as a still woman lays on my chest.

  Not breathing.

  Dear Jesus don’t let her die, I think as I hit the sand and drag her onto the pebbled beach.

  I turn her on her side and water pours out of her mouth.

  She’s gonna die, I think as a slow numbing horror tries to assert itself and shake my natural calm.

  I roll her onto her back and begin giving mouth-to-mouth. The chill of her lips makes me shiver; I only want to feel the warmth of her flesh pressed to mine, evidence of life. I begin chest compressions. My palms fill her entire chest, she’s so small.

  I don’t want to break her. That thought doesn’t derail what I must do.

  I watch my hands, crosshatched over that delicate rib cage. They pump up and down, covered in a whitewash of the palest blue underneath an uncaring sky, laced together to prevent her death.

  Up.

  Down.

  As though from a distance I hear a clicking sound.

  It’s my teeth chattering.

  I pump.

  I kiss savagely icy lips again with breath . . . with hope.

  I repeat.

  Though it’s cold enough for me to flirt with hypothermia myself, my wet clothes clinging to me like a second skin, I break out in a sweat.

  A life in my hands.

  I own a moment I don’t want to.

  I’ve never given a shit about anyone. I fish, I party . . . and I’m accountable to me. It’s always felt perfect . . . right.

  But suddenly, it all seems meaningless as I work to bring another human being to life.

  She shudders and pukes up more water.

  I turn her gently on her side. Then . . . like music to my ears, she draws her first shuddering breath.

  I watch her hack more of the sea onto the soft charcoal sand, black as night, the occasional white stones staring back at me like luminescent eyes.

  I fall back on my heels and shudder as I plant my hands on my soaked knees.

  That was so close, I think as that hot sweat begins to chill on my skin.

  We stay like that. She begins to breathe on her own, and suddenly I’m left wondering what I’ve gotten myself into, what to do next. I suddenly feel the weight of responsibility for something bigger than me, something I don’t understand.

  Like a girl who doesn’t want to live.

  Her eyes pop open and I give a weak smile, a tired smile full of relief.

  It turns to surprise when I recognize her.

  She’s the sad beauty who watched me play my set tonight. Her image burned into my skull, pinging around like a ball without a goal.

  Well fluke of fucking flukes . . .

  But a more important question hangs in the air between us.

  Hers is a different one from mine . . . or maybe not.

  Why?

  Brooke

  I open my eyes and notice my body is moving and I can’t stop it. I shake until I rattle, my teeth slamming into each other.

  I’m a Mexican jumping bean.

  A horribly, irrefutably, mortally embarrassed one. I take in the odd scene, the chattering of my teeth and the roar of the waves as they hit the shore the only backdrop of sound. The moon casts strange silver and blue light around me and for a moment, reality and fantasy blend like vision that doubles and I wonder if I’m in heaven, if my goal has been met. Then it hits me like the ocean slapping the beach: I’m alive. The moon, the waves, the cold . . . they bear silent witness to a life that stubbornly clings to me, regardless if I deserve it or not.

  Even with his hair slicked back and draped in drenched clothes that cling to his body, showing every rippling muscle fiber, I know he’s the one.

  The guy from the Salty Dawg, the inked-up guitarist.


  Fucking great.

  I can’t even die right.

  I close my eyes as I try to control my convulsions. But I can’t shake my horror that he’s been witness to the darkness inside me.

  Suddenly something scratchy but soft folds over me and I’m airborne.

  My eyes swim as I open them, double vision clouding my sight until I gradually focus on his face. This close I can feel the electric charge between us.

  If I think it’s been tangible when I caught sight of him inside the dimness of the saloon, it’s a suffocating inferno now.

  “I almost lost ya there,” he says in a soft voice, regret lacing his words.

  It’s not his fault, I think, my mind swimming with the disorientation of hypothermia and a chaser of shock. I’m nobody’s responsibility. Not anymore.

  I open my mouth to tell him that, but instead I croak, “Thank you,” my teeth back to chattering.

  He gazes down at me as he easily carries me to his car, contemplative and silent.

  The gloom recedes as the hour approaches for the sun’s return. It gathers at the edges, pale golden light timidly seeping in at the edges of the sky, teasing darkness with its early approach.

  He smooths a piece of hair out of my eyes and I see the stubble of his chin. Dark, hard, a shadow of black pepper that moves along the contours of the squareness of it, diving into the pronounced cleft at the center. His eyes are shadowed and sad.

  He knows, I think and I close my eyes against the knowledge I see in his.

  “Whatever it is . . . it’s not worth this. Never,” he says and my eyes open to the raw command in his voice.

  I want to believe that I can transcend this slow-boiling agony of guilt.

  Of bereavement.

  I don’t know that I can.

  “I can’t”—I pause to rattle and shake—“talk . . . about it,” I finish with a chilled lip clamp, my feelings in turmoil about his rescuing me.

  He looks into my eyes. “Promise me that if I take you home, you won’t . . . do this again.”

  We stare at each other. His heartbeat thuds against my cheek, the latent heat of his chest gifts me with vitality, warmth . . . and strangely, peace.