I'm just as surprised by the loud outburst as Bowen is. His head snaps up to look at me, and my eyes blink several times in rapid secession.
“Delaney?” he asks, voice flat. “Delaney?” he says again, slower this time, like he's trying to get me to realize how absurd the question is.
I don't actually want to know.
John used to vacation with Marvin and his wife and their kids, Kit. Man up. You can hear about his relationship.
“Yes. Delaney.”
Bowen scrubs both hands over his face, then shakes his head and grabs the washer. He has to lean over slightly, but he manages to pull it along after him. I watch him go until he's halfway back to the big cabin before my feet start moving again.
“Well, aren't you going to answer me?”
Bowen is filling up the tank on the side where the water spigot is when I catch up. “Wasn't planning on it.”
“Why?”
Bowen sighs, turns off the water, and faces me. “Let's agree not to talk about Marvin, who may or may not have fingered you, and Delaney, okay?” He doesn't wait for me to answer, just starts rolling the power washer to the front of the cabin.
I nearly trip over a rock in my haste to follow.
“Bowen, Marvin was, like, fifty-seven years old.”
“Jesus, Kit.” Bowen finally looks over at me, and he looks disgusted.
“He was married!”
His response to that is taking a cigarette out, lighting it, and glaring at me while he pulled the smoke into his lungs. Then he fiddles with the power washer.
I felt dismissed.
All it takes is a couple nights in a space bigger than a closet, and suddenly, the van no longer looks like a hipster hideaway and more like a rusty tomb.
I've been avoiding looking at it too hard. It’s easier to pretend that the stale air and cluttered nooks and crannies were just part of the charm. Now I'm looking at it through fresh eyes.
Bowen came in here.
He saw the stain on the tan carpeted floor where I dropped a jar of marinara sauce and caught it too late. He saw the twinkle lights hanging on by Scotch tape and the duct-taped side paneling. He couldn't have missed my bed that Dad built up off the floor in the back. Sheets that haven't been washed in too long. Receipts I kept in a washed-out glass jar for places I liked.
Another glass jar filled with scrawled memories I couldn't forget but didn't want to think about. Dr. Martin once said sometimes you just need to give the thought a minute to breathe, to acknowledge its existence, and then it's easier to let it pass. Sometimes writing them out helped.
There are pictures of our life taped to every wall. Pictures of the life I spent two years mourning in here. I may have been breathing, but I've been living in a coffin.
Bowen came in here and saw all of it. He got inside; he gathered what he deemed important and took it to the cabin. I'm not sure if it's shame or embarrassment that rips the breath from my lungs. Or maybe it's the stomach drop and heart lurching into my throat when I see my beaten-up notebook splayed open on the floor next to the bed.
I get an image of Bowen, hunched over on the bed I spent endless nights crying over him, my bleeding heart in words held in his hands.
Bile rises in my throat, and I nail my shin on the edge of the door on my scramble to reach the notebook. I almost looked down to read what words he may have seen. Which entry was it? Was it a letter to his brother? Or a purge of all the thoughts and feelings with nowhere else for them to go?
I don't want to know.
I snap the notebook closed and push it under the bed with shaking hands.
I can't get back out of the van fast enough.
I kick off my shoes and peel off my socks while trying the breathing techniques I learned in rehab. Slow, in through the nose. Out through the mouth.
The grass is warm. The sky is blue. My shirt is soft against my skin. The breeze is cool on my sweaty face. The pressure washer behind me is on.
