17. Isaac
Chapter 17
Isaac
Her house is dark.
Once again, the house next door looks abandoned, and I am left wondering what’s going on in Brinn’s head. It’s been three days since the storm ended, and I haven’t heard a peep. Texts have gone unread. Calls have gone unanswered.
It’s hard to think that it might have been something I did. She was freaked out during the storm, which is understandable—hurricanes are scary. It was the first time out of her house for an extended period in more than two years. Maybe it’s leftover stress from that.
Pork Belly and I walk past her house, and PB looks expectantly at it, waiting for Brinn to join us. “Not today, Belly,” I tell her. The dog sighs, and so do I.
Things were going so well. I thought I was too intense our first night together, but she didn’t even flinch. Exploring this new layer of Brinn, sexy and bold in her needs, has only reaffirmed that I’m so in love with her.
But this sucks. Loving her is easy, but that doesn’t mean that everything she goes through is easy to deal with. Her cycle of shutting down is hard and confusing. I know it’s not her fault, though. I know she works hard. Most of all, I wish I could fix it all for her.
Pork Belly and I walk to the beach. I collect driftwood, still abundant on shore after the storm, as she splashes along the waterline.
I’m almost done with my new piece, but whittling the soft, spongy driftwood is harder than I thought it would be. My pile at home is nothing but wood shavings and half of an anatomically correct heart. The final sculpture will include native grasses from the shoreline for it to rest on—a meeting of terrestrial elements, still shaped and influenced by the sea.
Brinn was going to help me photograph the two finished pieces, but I don’t know if that’ll be happening now. I try to set aside the worry as I bundle the driftwood with some cord and call PB to go home.
After two more concerning days of nothing from Brinn, I knock on her door. There’s no answer, not even a stirring. I slip into the backyard and find the spare key and pray she’s not too mad at me for this.
The air and energy in the house are stagnant. “Brinn?” I call.
The house looks virtually untouched since its state after the storm. There are a couple bowls in the sink, but not enough for someone eating regularly, and there are no dishes in the drying rack. “Brinn!” I call again. Nothing.
An icy fear settles in my spine as I approach the stairs. What if something is seriously wrong? I should have checked in sooner. “Brinn, I’m coming up,” I call, wishing my voice sounded braver as I ascend the stairs.
“Isaac?” I hear her voice, small and rusty, from the cracked door of her darkened bedroom as I reach it.
I push open the door and see her ample frame shrunk into a small lump in her blankets. Her head pokes out of them, blurry-eyed. Her messy bun looks more like an abandoned nest. “Hey,” I say, kneeling next to the bed. “You weren’t answering your phone for a few days. I’m sorry for coming in this way, but I wanted to make sure you were alright.”
Her green eyes survey me before she sighs, and her voice, half muffled by the blankets and rusty from disuse, says, “I’m fine. “
“I don’t know if that’s true, sweetheart,” I say gently and reach to brush some errant hair out of her face. She flinches the second she sees my hand. “What’s wrong, Brinn?” I say, tucking my hand out of sight again.
“Nothing. Go away.”
I stifle the urge to sigh. She’s not a petulant child. She’s an adult grappling with something I cannot understand. Unfortunately, I also don’t understand how to help.
“Brinn,” I plead. “Talk to me, please. Was it the storm? Was it something I did?”
She closes her eyes. A forest descended into darkness. “Please go away, Isaac.” When I don’t move, she sighs again. “I can’t do this.”
“Can’t do what, love?”
“This. Us. You. Please. Just... go.”
My heart sinks like a stone. “What are you talking about? Can we talk about—”
“No.” Her voice is firm. “We’re not... I can’t, okay? Now please leave.”
When she doesn’t stir after several minutes, I peel myself off the floor where my sunken heart was anchoring me.
“I’m going to get you some water, and I’ll go,” I tell her softly, but she doesn’t react.
I can’t help the wave of memories that hit me when I reach for a glass in her cupboard, of the first time I came here and grabbed her water. I trudge back up the stairs with the glass and a couple of granola bars and leave them on her bedside table. I water her plants on my way out before locking up.
I don’t know how to help her or how to reach her, but I know I can wait for a break in the clouds.
“These are amazing, dude!” Ramón says to me as we move the backdrop to the other pedestal. “I know I keep saying that, but damn. You’re like a whole new artist.” My long-time friend grins at me.
“Thanks, man.”
“Seriously, Isaac. Don’t get me wrong, I love your previous work,” he says as he lines up his camera to take a shot of the porcelain rope. “But this is the Isaac I know in my heart. And the Calysto’s Cove I love.”
“Thank you. There is something special about this place, that’s for sure.”
“No problem. Thank you for letting us showcase these. They’re the perfect final touch to the new exhibit. Perfect timing, too. I knew something was missing, but I couldn’t find anything else before opening.”
As Ramón bends to line up a shot, I can’t help but picture Brinn in his place. It’s been almost a week of total silence since she sent me packing. At least her trash cans making it to the curb were a sign of life.
“Is there anything else you all need me to do?” I ask, feeling useless beyond emailing them my artist statements and bringing the sculptures here.
“Nah,” the professor says. “We have a memorial ceremony on Friday night that everyone is busy with, but we’ll get everything on the website the day after, and I should be able to get all the posters and whatnot printed by Monday.” We drag the backdrop to another artist’s piece.
“Who’s the memorial ceremony for?” I ask. Dread creeps across my skin, raising goosebumps in its wake.
“Ahh,” Ramón huffs. “You never met him, but we had a professor who worked with the environmental biology department on and off for years before accepting a position here. He was close with a lot of the staff—even liked to drop by the art department and say hi to us regularly. He died three years ago when his car went over the cliffs by the lighthouse.” Ramón shakes his head. “It was sad. He was a young guy, engaged. I think he actually lived next door to your uncle.”
“Josh,” I say.
His eyes widen a bit at the recognition. “Oh, did you know him?”
Friday—the anniversary of his death is in three days. The timing of her shutdown aligns in time and space with this new information. It hits me like ice water, freezing me solid. My mouth can barely form the words. “His fiancée is my neighbor.”
“Oh shit,” he says, sheepish. “I had no idea she was still in Calysto’s Cove. Should I invite her? We’ve been hosting little gatherings every year on the anniversary. This year, the department published a paper with his work, so we wanted to honor him in a bigger way and—”
Ramón is cut off by a shrill ring from my pocket. I apologize to him as I see my mother’s name flash on the screen and step away. My movements are sluggish and off-balance as I try to get my bearings again.
“Hey, Mom, is everything alright?” It’s unlike her to call me in the middle of the day when I might be working.
There’s a sniffle in place of a greeting. “It’s your sister,” she says. “There’s an infection—she’s headed into surgery in an hour. Isaac, I’m scared.”
My head spins. Sierra had been doing great in recovery. I talked to her yesterday. She was going to get discharged from the hospital soon. She’s been progressing so much in her physical therapy. “I’ll try to get a flight as soon as possible, okay? I’ll be there soon. Tell Sierra I love her.” I scrub my face as I hang up. “Ramón, are you still allergic to dogs?” I pray the answer has somehow changed since I had to go to New York last time.
“Yeah, why? Is everything okay?”
I am once again out of options, and there’s only one person I trust with PB.
“No.”