No response.
“Now, I know what you’re thinking, Jake. Who’s the poor sap who had to testthattheory? Am I right?”
Finally, I got a reaction. Jake glanced up at me for the briefest second before looking away. The bruises circling his eyes were all shades of the rainbow, and his lip was lined with black stitches, but still I sighed with relief. I had him now, and I wasn’t letting go.
Gently tracing the cool algae over his arm, Jake seemed fascinated by the slippery feel. After piling more seaweed onto his arm, I looked up to find him staring at me. Our eyes met, and even though no words passed between us, I understood what he wanted. When I was with him, there would be no sympathy – no tears. All that was required of me was to make him feel alive. That I could do.
And to reward him for the non-verbal deal we’d brokered, I hit him with another joke. “What does seaweed say when it’s stuck on the ocean floor?”
Jake cleared his throat and, in barely more than a scratchy whisper, he spoke his first words to me in six long and grueling weeks. “Kelp. Kelp.”
20
Samantha: The Story of the Stone
After parting ways with Keith, I knew there was one last thing I needed to do. Driving back to Shannon’s house, I sat down at her desk and began penning a letter for Keith on the only paper I could find, a notepad with the slogan,Warning! Don’t pet the redhead.
My fingers flew as the words transferred from my brain to the parchment with ease. I’d always done my best writing when it really counted, and this was one of those times. Originally, I’d just intended to quietly leave town, but seeing Keith again had changed my mind. If I had the chance to say goodbye properly, why wouldn’t I? Did Keith not deserve to know the truth about me – the girl he’d fallen in love with? I wished I’d had the courage to speak my truth while we were still together. Maybe if I’d been honest to him when it really counted, he might have reciprocated when it mattered most to him.
I started with the parts he knew, Sullivan’s death and my father’s abandonment, and then I moved onto the isolation I’d felt at school and how both he and Shannon had saved me in different ways. Then came the tough stuff, the part of my life I’d kept hidden from view – my mentally ill mother. Every nasty detail was described, all the way through to the horrible last day I’d spent with her. And when I was done, I was certain Keith would understand the reason I was leaving was not because of his abandonment but because I needed the chance to know what it felt like to be safe in my own home.
And finally I settled in for a story that needed to be told: the story of my agate stone necklace. It was more than just a pretty crutch hanging around my neck. It had special meaning; special protective powers. That’s not to say the stone hadn’t seen its fair share of failures, Sullivan being the biggest of all. Its healing powers hadn’t been enough to save my brother, but they had been enough to save me. Toying with the stone, I slid it along the leather cord as I remembered the moment it came into my life.
I was ten and trembling. Sullivan was beside me, fidgeting in place. My grandfather was dying, and we’d been summoned for our final goodbyes. I’d never known death at that stage of my life, and I was terrified he’d take his last breath in front of me.
“It’s time,” my father said, his chipper voice masking the pain. “He wants to see you kids. Sullivan, go first.”
I waited for maybe ten minutes before my brother emerged from the room shell-shocked and blurry-eyed. I tried to snag his attention, to ask what had happened, but he was in no mood to catch me up. In fact, he slunk off to use the bathroom, which had always been his go-to place for a good cry.
“Samantha?” Dad said, opening the door. I took a deep breath and stepped into my grandfather’s hospital room. He was lying in bed, eyes closed, looking peaceful.Please don’t die on me.As I stepped forward, he turned his head in my direction and smiled. I’d only met him a handful of times, but the one thing I remembered about him was his smile. I sometimes wished we’d skipped a generation and he’d been my father instead.
“Come, Samantha,” he said. “Don’t be afraid.”
I tiptoed closer.
“Honey.” His tired eyes were trained on me. “Can you reach around and unclasp my necklace?”
Doing as I was instructed, I removed the jewelry from his neck and laid it into his weathered palm.
“Sit.” His bottom lip trembled as some unseen memory passed through his mind. “I want to tell you about this stone.”
And then he began a remarkable tale of his time in Vietnam. While on a mission and hunkered down in a bunker, he found the necklace lying in the dirt. Thinking someone had dropped it accidentally, my grandfather affixed it around his neck for safe-keeping, fully intending to give it to the rightful owner as soon as he returned to base camp. But shortly after, he and his platoon came under attack, and my grandfather was one of only four survivors. The necklace, he’d said, was his lucky charm.
“And now it’s yours, Samantha. You’re special, and I know you’ll do right by this stone. Do you understand?”
I remembered nodding, but at the time, I didn’t really understand its significance or why my grandfather was giving it to me and not Sullivan. Maybe he knew life would test me and I’d need that extra bit of protection. Or possibly he just saw a fighting spirit in me and knew I’d keep going even when times got tough – just as he had done all those years ago. Whether the stone had magical powers or not wasn’t as important as the wearer believing it did. And I believed.
My grandfather passed on a couple days later. And even though they’d never been close, Sullivan took his death hard. I did all I could to calm him down, but my brother was inconsolable. That was when I knew what I had to do. Even though he’d given it to me, I removed Grandpa’s stone from around my neck and fastened it around my brother’s neck. And as I told him the story of the stone, I watched in wonder as it eased his pain.
* * *
My story told, I sealed the envelope and addressed it carefully. Then I flipped it over and printed on the back, “Be who you want to be – Love always, Samantha.”
And then I was out the door and in my car, determined to add closure to my departure. Pulling into the post office, I found a spot in the front and parked. As I walked to the mailbox, tears swamped my eyes, but I didn’t let them stop me from doing what needed to be done. Kissing the parched envelope, I dropped it in the mailbox, and as I walked back to my car, I traced my fingers along my collarbone where the agate necklace had once hung.
* * *
Bobbing in the water, my board at the ready, I spotted the unbroken wave and paddled like mad to catch it. The last few swells had fallen out before I could get lift, but this one… I just knew it would be epic. And then I was up, my hair blowing in the breeze, a smile centered on my face. The ride was everything I knew it would be.
