Chapter 15 #2
Half an hour later, they were back on land, talking to three police officers about Maya. The story Mindy was telling was that they’d been out on the beach, and Maya had disappeared. Mindy had gone all over, searching for her, calling her name. But Maya was nowhere to be seen.
Lindsey was so sick to her stomach that she had to get up and puke three times during their conversation. She couldn’t understand what was happening. Was this real?
Three days after Maya’s disappearance, they found her body in the water. Lindsey was already in bed when Christopher came to tell her. The words felt foreign. “They’re saying she drowned,” Christopher said, his voice so small and meek and awful. Lindsey couldn’t look at him.
It was impossible not to blame Mindy for what had happened.
Lindsey created all kinds of stories in her head: that Mindy had been busy texting a boyfriend, that Mindy had had a friend come to the beach and been distracted, that Mindy had fallen asleep after a hard night out.
But there was nothing to be done about it.
It wasn’t like Lindsey could sue Mindy for an accident.
And then, even if she had sued Mindy, what good would that do? Maya wasn’t coming back.
Eventually, Lindsey stopped speaking altogether.
It was up to Christopher to keep the business going, which he did.
Lindsey couldn’t believe he could keep it together enough to do even that, although she guessed he liked the distraction.
All the tourists who came in didn’t know he was the guy who’d just lost his daughter.
Although Christopher asked her to, Lindsey couldn’t bring herself to go back into that water.
She couldn’t imagine swimming in the same ocean that had robbed her daughter of life.
Worse than that, Lindsey was starting to feel that she couldn’t stay in their house any longer.
It felt like a prison filled with memories.
Nearly a year after Maya drowned, she packed up two bags and took an apartment farther from the beach, where it was more populated and where fewer people knew who she was, telling Christopher that she needed to regroup.
”I want to feel like somebody else for a while,” she said. He begged her to stay home.
Lindsey was surprised at how simple her life was after that.
She took a job as a server. She went by “Linds,” and she interacted with people who didn’t know her and didn’t know Maya.
Sometimes, she felt something close to happiness, even if it wasn’t happiness itself.
Christopher still asked her when she was coming home, but she never knew how to answer.
She still loved him, she knew. But she didn’t know how to look him in the eye and say that.
When she learned that Christopher was dating Piper at the scuba diving company, Lindsey felt almost nothing.
The person who told her—an old friend named Kiki who came into the restaurant for some tacos and a margarita—explained that she’d thought Lindsey and Christopher were divorced.
Lindsey twisted her wedding band on her finger and said, “I guess we should be, huh!”
Kiki didn’t know what to do after that, and Lindsey didn’t blame her.
The following day, Lindsey went out to the beach where her house was.
Christopher sat on the porch, cleaning a pair of shoes, as though it were any other day.
Lindsey told herself to go up to him, kiss him, and tell him that she wanted to come back.
But as soon as she saw a pair of Maya’s little shoes, waiting by the door as though Maya herself would soon put them on and run outside, stones filled her stomach, and she knew she couldn’t.
Christopher looked at her for a long time, a rag raised over his shoes.
This is how my marriage ends, Lindsey thought. And she knew she would never be okay again.
In the airplane darting from east to west, toward Los Angeles, Taylor Charron reached over and took Lindsey’s hand. Her eyes welled with tears. Lindsey’s tongue felt fat, as though swollen after telling such a terrible story. Lindsey had never said it aloud before.
“My family doesn’t know,” Lindsey said. “I could never bring myself to call them and tell them about any of it, not about Maya, not about her death. I don’t think they know I was married. I don’t think they know I carry the weight of this story with me everywhere.
“But last year, while I was still at the Harbor House, a box came, addressed to me. I recognized the handwriting. It was Piper’s, Christopher’s new wife.
They actually got married. Can you believe that?
Anyway, I’m pretty sure I know what’s in the box.
They’re Maya’s things. Piper wanted them out of the house.
That’s clear to me. But she didn’t want to throw them out. ”
Taylor squeezed Lindsey’s hand harder. “You haven’t opened the box.”
“I can’t bring myself to,” Lindsey explained. “I’m terrified of what it will do to me.”
Taylor closed her eyes. Lindsey wondered how far over the continent they were by now. She felt she’d traversed so many years of her life. Didn’t that mean they must have passed by Los Angeles by now? Were they closing in on Japan, or China?
“You shouldn’t have to carry this alone,” Taylor said then.
Lindsey’s heart slowed. “But that’s why I’m coming with you to LA,” she said quietly. “Nobody should have to carry any of their horrors alone. Why do we do it to ourselves?”
“Maybe we think we’re stronger than we are,” Taylor offered.
“I don’t know,” Lindsey said. “We’re strong. That isn’t it. I think it’s more about not wanting to burden anyone else. We don’t want to make anyone uncomfortable with our pain.”
Taylor looked at her. “Your pain has not made me uncomfortable, Lindsey.”
“Neither has yours,” Lindsey said.
“Maybe we can learn from this,” Taylor offered. “Not that I’ve ever learned anything in my life.”
Lindsey laughed and brushed a tear from her cheek. Had she really told Taylor Charron her deepest and darkest secrets? Had she really spilled the story of her beloved Maya?
Oh, but the weight off her chest was a delicious thing. She filled her lungs with air and prepared her heart for what came next. Maybe, just maybe, she could tell that story to Jake, too. Maybe she could share with Candice, with Henry, with anyone who might have loved Maya.
Oh, they would have loved Maya. They would have loved her so much.