Undertow (13 page)

“
Something
 . . . ?” I repeated, unsure of where he was going with his ambiguous statement.

“Here you go, kids. It's slim pickins in the kitchen today. With it being king crab season, I don't keep the place quite as stocked as I normally would.” Jimmy placed two big bowls of fish chowder down in front of us alongside two beers. “You need anything else?” he asked kindly before one of the town regulars started yelling at him from the far side of the bar.

“No, Jimmy. We're all set. Thanks. You should probably go shut that guy down before he breaks something.”

“He breaks something and I'll break him,” he mumbled as he walked away, making me giggle under my breath. I turned my attention back to Decker, who was watching me intently.

“So this something,” I prompted, hoping to take his attention off of me.

“Listen, I know you said you didn't need to know more about what I told Damon, but I feel like I have to at least explain the basics. For my own peace of mind. Please.”

I looked at him over the rim of my pint glass. There was a sudden sadness in his eyes that looked out of place, the expression seeming wrong on him. He had said he wasn't ashamed of his past, but he was clearly haunted by it somehow, or at least the stigma that went along with it. For whatever reason, I felt like he didn't want me to think less of him because of it. What I couldn't figure out was why.

“Go ahead,” I told him before taking another long drink of beer. The second I set my glass down he started his surprising story.

“I told you what I was convicted of, but not why I was convicted of it,” he started, worrying his beer between his hands. “I nearly beat a boy to death, Aesa. I'm sure that offends your sensibilities on a number of levels, given that he was sent to the ER because of me and saved by someone like you, but I had no choice.” His eyes dropped to the glass in his hands in an attempt to avoid my gaze. “My sister . . . she had self-esteem issues growing up. Still does now, I imagine. At any rate, she could really pick a winner. This particular asshole decided that her face was an outlet for his anger issues. I came home in the middle of it.” He still wouldn't look at me when he paused, likely reliving the moment when he witnessed someone beating up his sibling. I was an only child, but I could still imagine the fierce emotions he would have felt in that situation. His actions seemed completely rational given those circumstances.

“What happened?” I asked gently, trying to coax him back to the present.

“I pulled him off of her and he turned on me. We fought for a while, my sister screaming and begging me to stop the entire time. Eventually, he grabbed a brass lamp from the desk in the room and wound up to hit me in the head with it. I intercepted it and smashed it across his temple. He didn't move after that. Not until the ambulance came.”

I sat across from him, riveted and horrified by his story. His regret was palpable, and to me it was clear that he had no other choice at the time, but the picture he painted was gruesome nonetheless.

“And the police? Did they come?”

He nodded.

“I was arrested at the scene and taken to jail for arraignment. They interviewed my sister, without counsel present, even though she was a minor at the time. I got a second-rate defense attorney who wasn't able to get the DA to see that it was self-defense, so I accepted a plea of guilty to second-degree assault and did my time.”

“But your sister . . . she was there. She saw him attack you with what must have been deemed a deadly weapon. Why didn't you go to trial and have her testify?”

His eyes saddened even more when he finally brought them up to meet mine.

“Because she would have lied,” he said plainly, as if there were no question in his mind as to the veracity of his statement.

“But . . . but that makes no sense. He hit her. She must have had bruises. There would have been evidence.”

“There was, she couldn't lie about that, but she had no intention of painting me as the victim, Aesa. She loved that loser, and, like I said, she had low self-esteem. He knew how to play her like a finely tuned violin. One sad face and an 'I'm sorry, baby' from him and I knew I was sunk.”

“So you saved a teenage girl from being beaten to a pulp, defended yourself in the process, and you're the one that got sent to jail? That makes no sense to me at all,” I exclaimed, finishing off my beer.

“I'm okay with it now, Aesa. I forgave her. She was young and had issues. It's hard to hold that against her. Besides, it's like I said, those experiences have made me who I am, and I'm good with me. I know I'm not a common criminal. You'd be surprised how many of the guys in jail were all right,” he said, forcing a smile before taking a sip. “The ones that weren't . . . well, I learned how to blend in and lay low. I also learned a lot about how to read people, how the human mind works. It's amazing the kind of knowledge you can obtain when you have countless hours to just observe people. And read. I did a lot of reading too.”

I stared at him momentarily, unable to keep the astonishment out of my expression. How could someone be, for all intents and purposes, wrongly incarcerated and come out sounding so zen? It was nearly unfathomable to me. He had not only accepted his past, but he had bettered himself because of it. A tiny pang of guilt tugged at me when I thought of my father, who was at that moment making his way back to the docks after a near-death experience. A real life-changer. It made me wonder exactly what it would take for me to fully settle up with him and let the past be the past.

“Say something, Aesa. Please, you're just staring at me.”

“I'm sorry,” I replied, shaking my head slightly. “It's just . . . I don't know how you're so okay with it all.”

He shrugged ambivalently before settling back in his chair.

“I learned to forgive during those four years. It was surprisingly freeing.” His eyes narrowed in on me slightly, as if reading something in my expression that I wasn't aware was there. “You should keep that in mind.” His words trailed off, leaving me to dissect them without his aid while he got up to take our empty glasses back to Jimmy at the bar. Forgiveness was exactly what I wanted to give my father, but I could never quite get there. Maybe Decker, of all people, could show me how to accomplish what I never was able to on my own.

Just after we finished eating, Jimmy brought over some keys and placed them on the table in front of us.

“Here are my keys,” he said with a smile. “I'm parked behind the building.”

“But how will you get home?”

“One of the boys will take me; don't you worry about that,” he reassured me. “Go get some rest. You two have been through hell and back.”

“Thanks, Jimmy,” I replied, picking the keys up and turning them over in my hand.

Decker smiled and thanked Jimmy as well before turning his attention back to me.

“You ready to head out?” he asked.

“Yeah. Do you have a place around here? Where should I take you?”

“I'm just going to get a room at the motel across the way,” he informed me, indicating the disheveled building not far down the street.

“Are you sure?” I asked, knowing that it was a relatively sketchy place with a notorious reputation.

“Positive. Now, you should get home before you're too tired to drive. I'm still not certain you've rebounded from all those hours on deck and your swim in the Bering Sea, let alone that concussion of yours.” His tone was playful, trying to make light of our harrowing event. I appreciated the effort, but my skin still crawled when I thought about it.

“I'll drop you off just in case they don't have any rooms. I don't want to have you wandering around town all night.”

“Fair enough.”

With little else to discuss, we made our collective way outside and found Jimmy's truck. I drove the short distance to the motel and waited while he went in and procured a room for the night. He emerged from the office, waving a keychain in his hand as he walked up to the driver's side door of the truck.

“Last room,” he said with a smile. “Guess that makes me lucky.”

“You haven't seen it yet. I wouldn't count my blessings before you do,” I retorted. He laughed for a minute before his expression sobered slightly.

“You're okay to get home?”

“Yeah. I'm not that far away.”

“And you're okay to stay there alone?” he pressed, concern growing on his face. I knew what he was asking me: if I would manage the fallout of our near tragedy gracefully on my own. I wasn't sure the answer was yes, but that wasn't his problem to solve. He had done more than he should have for me already.

“Absolutely. I promise,” I said with a false confidence that he seemed to see right through, though he said nothing to contradict me. Instead, he gave me a half-smile and patted the truck's door before telling me goodnight and making his way to his motel room. I watched him walk away, his body disappearing into room fourteen without a backward glance. Taking that as my cue, I pulled out of the parking lot and headed home to an empty and still broken house.

The longer I drove, the more uneasy I felt, the stark surroundings along the way giving me a sense of dread I'd never had before. Flashbacks of drifting at sea converged upon me, memories of my body succumbing to the black abyss below as I bobbed helplessly in the water before passing out. Before Decker rescued me. My heart raced erratically as I tried to talk myself down from my burgeoning panic attack. I was fine. I knew I was fine. But that hardly seemed to matter. I was drowning in something far more dangerous than the Bering Sea.

Fear was overtaking me fast.

16

Minutes later, I found myself back in the motel parking lot outside the door to his room, uncertain of exactly how I’d gotten there. I had been on my way home, but, as my panic had risen, the thought of being alone weighed more heavily on me than I could have ever imagined. Over the years, I had grown to find comfort in solitude, but that night I wanted anything but.

I had instinctively returned to Decker.

Nervous, I looked around, hoping that no one would see me there. If they did, my father would eventually find out, and I didn't want that coming back on Decker. He idolized my dad and was an asset to the ship. I didn't want to endanger his career by getting him fired for something as selfish as just not wanting to spend the night by myself.

With a deep breath, I raised my hand and knocked on the door quietly. I knew he was probably asleep already; a pang of guilt surged through me at the realization. I knew he hadn't gotten nearly as much sleep as I had before arriving in town. Just as my resolve started to fade and I turned to walk away, I heard the chain on the door drag across it from the inside and the knob turn.

“Aesa,” he said curiously, looking like I'd woken him.

“I'm sorry. I woke you up.”

“It's fine. Is everything okay? Could you not get into the house?” he asked, his concern for my well-being seeming to pull him from his groggy state.

“I never tried,” I admitted shamefully. “I got halfway there and turned around.” Embarrassed, I averted my gaze. “I don't want to be alone . . . ”

“Come in,” he replied, ushering me in with an arm around my shoulders. I stepped into the seedy motel room to find two double beds, and my heart relaxed ever so slightly at the sight. I hadn't gone there to sleep with Decker or lead him on, but there was just something so soothing about his presence. I needed that comfort and could get it from a bed across from him with ease. “Do you need anything?”

“No, I think I'm all set.”

“There's an extra toothbrush in the bathroom if you need it. The guy at the desk gave me two,” he announced with a shrug. “Maybe when he saw you waiting in the car he thought you were staying with me.”

“The only women that do that sort of thing around here aren't known for their dental hygiene, but I appreciate his gesture.”

Catching the implication of my words, Decker laughed out loud, crashing down on the edge of the bed he'd already claimed.

“You are a bit too classy to be a hooker, Aesa, but men are men. They don't always think as clearly as they should.”

“I'm not offended,” I tossed over my shoulder as I entered the bathroom. “I'm not sure the boys around here could afford me anyway.”

Another bout of laughter erupted as I closed and locked the door behind me. I stared at myself in the mirror, dragging a hand through my disheveled hair while inspecting my face. I had dark circles under my eyes with rather large bags to accompany them. It was far from my finest moment. Sighing, I opened the cheap travel toothbrush and slathered toothpaste onto it. It felt like forever since I'd had the chance to brush my teeth.

I saw the shower behind me in the mirror and couldn't ignore its call. While brushing feverishly, I reached over and turned it on, wanting to wash the remnants of the sea off of me. As the room steamed up, I undressed, making sure the door was locked behind me, even though I knew it was. Stepping into the hot stream of water felt amazing, and I luxuriated in the sensation, despite the state of disrepair the surroundings were in. I closed my eyes to ignore the mold and mildew, focusing on the warmth that beat against my skin. I wanted to stay in there for hours.