"I'm not feeling all the feels." I busied myself with the beer flights, lifting and sniffing each glass before sipping. "This is your day to try on heinous dresses and have tiny panic attacks in them. This isn't about me and I'mnotfeeling the feels."
"I'll admit I had a tiny panic attack if you admit you're having deep, boggy feels."
I drained two different beers and shoved a slab of nachos in my mouth. "Fine," I said around the chips. "Feels."
"This is good. It's progress," Annette said, pointing at the empty glasses. "Drown them in beer and cheese." She nibbled a chip. "Was it the dresses or the wedding talk that did it?"
I shook my head. "Neither, I don't think. I don't know why I've had these—what did you call them?—boggy feels."
That was the truth. I didn't know where all these emotions came from or why they seemed to flood my waking moments, but I was lonely. Not alone, but lonely. Living with my father was like living with a ghost. In many ways, he was gone. He didn't recognize me, didn't call me by name, didn't remember his own name, couldn't care for himself. He hadn't experienced a good day in many, many days.
But he was very much alive. He was obsessed with banana cream pie andLaverne and Shirleyreruns. He played Monopoly with one of his home health aides for six hours straight last week and required help to bathe and use the toilet. He was a living, breathing person but my father was gone.
Annette snagged another chip from the nacho plate. "Getting derailed might help."
* * *
Just one more time,I promised myself as I headed toward the village that night.There's nothing wrong with it as long as it's just one more time.
When I reached the Galley, I stopped outside and stared up at the sign over the door. Scowled at it. I couldn't remember the last time I'd paid attention to the round logo with words arched over the top and a busty mermaid with a handful of wheat and berries—which made no sense whatsoever.
Aside from the logistical issues of a mermaid holding field crops, when did mermaids become things of admiration rather than animosity? The whole of history painted them as temptresses with fickle moods and violent methods. If they weren't seducing seamen into unchartered depths, they were gathering storms to toss those seamen and their ships into riptides and rocks.
It was never the sailors who encroached upon their sacred waters. Their warning songs and brutal storms were never acts of self-defense. The fishermen who reeled in mermaids and tortured them on ship decks weren't getting their due. Rather, it was the mermaid's fault for swimming too close to their nets.
She was asking for it.
And now, somehow, that mermaid represented beauty and whimsy and mystery, and that was splendid. But it didn't erase three thousand years of men blaming mermaids for their existence. And it didn't explain why this one was holding wheat and berries.
I found the tavern mostly empty when I pushed through the heavy door. Not surprising. This town marked its days by sunrises rather than sunsets, and anyone who worked on the water was tucked into bed by now.
Several familiar faces dotted the tavern, but the game playing on the television consumed their attention. Nate Fitzsimmons stood behind the bar, busy marking notes on a clipboard. No one noticed as I slipped into my usual seat on the far end.
I wasn't concerned about finding JJ. I'd put eyes on him when the time was right.
I checked my phone and then tucked it into my back pocket when I found no new messages. Jackson and Annette were watching a movie—rather, having sex while a movie played in the background—and my father was asleep. Barring any disasters, I'd have a couple hours before anyone noticed me missing.
Nate tapped his clipboard on the edge of the bar. He looked older than I'd remembered, with lines creasing his forehead, the edges of his eyes, his mouth. Tired too, but he'd bulked up since the last time I saw him. His shirt strained over his chest and his legs looked like tree trunks. "What can I get you?"
I hesitated. "What do you have for white wines tonight? Anything you'd find outside of this one-stoplight village where dreams go to die and conventional wisdom predates the Civil Rights movement?"
It took him a moment, but he chuckled. "Let me see what I can find. Are you looking for something dry or something sweet?"
The door to the storeroom burst open as JJ backed in with a keg in tow. "Nothing sweet about that one." To Nate, he said, "Put the empty out back with the others going to Allagash."
My chin propped on my palm, I watched while Nate removed one keg and JJ tapped another. He did it with an eye on the ball game and that was when I knew I really needed to have sex because there was nothing hot about him distractedly tapping a keg.
Still watching the game, he asked, "What brings you in here tonight, Bam Bam? Where's Annette?"
"It's just me," I said.
"Haven't seen you without your sidekick in months."
He had to call me on that. Had to make note of the fact I hadn't crossed the tavern's threshold without using my best friend as a human shield. Yes, I'd hidden behind Annette since leaving JJ on the sidewalk outside my father's housemonthsago. And it'd worked. She was a glowing bounty of goodness and light, and it wasn't unusual for her to shine like the center of the Cove's solar system.
As the moon to her sun, it was easier for me to fade into the background, especially now that she was engaged to the sheriff. The townspeople couldn't stop dousing her in well wishes and I was happy for her—and happy for the reprieve. While the endless familiarity often bothered the hell out of me, the folks around here were mostly kind and decent and they always asked after my father.
There was only one problem with those questions: no one knew about Dad's dementia. As far as this nosy, in-your-back-pocket town was concerned, Dad was involved in a single vehicle car accident a little more than two years ago which resulted in a badly broken leg and long-term mobility issues. They didn't know he'd emptied the contents of his refrigerator into the trunk before driving away, barefoot, and losing control of his car in the middle of nowhere, about eighty miles inland. They didn't know he'd been restrained and then sedated after punching a medical assistant in the mouth. And they didn't know I'd chartered a plane from New York City to get here as soon as possible, only for him to demand I keep his secret.
