The next morning Eli left his
apartment early. He had it all planed out. Get coffee at that café Isabel
liked; pastries at the bakery. He was carrying all the ingredients he needed inside
a backpack which hung from the back of his chair, and he waited for a neighbor
to leave the building so he could get in unannounced. He had intentionally not
texted or called Isabel that morning as he did everyday lately. He wanted to
surprise her. The elevator took him to the second floor and he rolled towards
the apartment. He knocked on Isabel’s door and waited.
The quiet moment that followed was
enough for him to second guess himself. Maybe he shouldn’t have done this. What
if she wasn’t even home? What if Isabel hated for him to show up unannounced?
But then she opened the door, still on her pj’s and all his fear dissipated
because her eyes seemed to genuinely light up at the sight of him. Her lips
curled up into a candid smile and the tone of her voice sounded cheerful as she
spoke his name into the morning air.
“Eli,” she greeted him and he smiled
back relieved.
“Hey,” he caught his breath after
the momentary panic. “I hope you don’t mind me showing up like this,” he
ventured. “I… have a surprise for you,” he added feeling embarrassed all of a
sudden.
“A surprise? Really?” she said leaning
over him, her hair falling loose, grazing his arm as she lower down until their
lips met. It was a short, fleshy kiss, half sweet and half sexy, as if she had
restrained her passion at the last minute, leaving Eli craving for more. He opened
his eyes to find Isabel’s retreating face as she pulled back with her eyelids
still closed. She bit her lower lip grinning. “No better surprise than to see
you here.”
“I brought breakfast,” he felt his
cheeks turn red. He lifted the two coffees on his lap to draw attention away
from his face. Isabel picked them up and backed off to let him pass. Eli wheeled
across the threshold.
Her place looked pretty much the
same as the last time he had been there, mostly empty and yet a bit messy, with
books and pictures piled up on the floor. Isabel set the coffees down at the
small table that apparently served both as a dining room and as a desk, because
her laptop was over it along with some papers. She took a chair away to free
the spot for Eli and set it by the window; then she put the things from the
table over it.
“May I use your kitchen?” Eli asked.
“You want to cook?” Isabel sounded
surprised.
“Yeah, I brought all the
ingredients.”
“Uhm… I don’t think you can cook
here.” Her brows curled up in worry as she said the words.
Eli frowned but held her gaze. He
felt insulted; patronized by Isabel for the first time. She had covered it up
pretty well up to now but there it was, finally, pity in her eyes. She didn´t
think he could cook in a normal kitchen, one that wasn’t modified to suit his
needs. So she did see him as a cripple after all.
“What were you planning on making?”
Isabel asked him disregarding his expression; the look on her own face clouded
with concern.
He didn’t answer. Honestly, he felt
like walking away all of a sudden. Damn her present, damn his surprise, damn
her, damn himself.
“Eli?” she called him back to
reality.
“It doesn’t matter,” Eli turned his
chair around to scape her blue pitiful eyes.
“I’m sorry, Eli, but I don’t own a
single pan or pot. Hell, I don’t even know if the stove works.” She explained. Eli
used his left hand to move one wheel in order to turn back around while she
continued. “And I don’t have so much as salt, let alone cooking oil or any
utensils.”
Was she for real? Did she really not
have a single pan or was she trying to mend things because she had realized
what Eli was thinking. Isabel stared at him silently for a few seconds. Eli
guessed she was expecting him to say something, but before he could figure out
what to say she spoke again.
“We can go back to your place,” she
suggested. “Or to a restaurant. Whatever you want. Just let me get changed.”
“No,” Eli shook his head. “We have
to stay here. I’m expecting a delivery.”
“A delivery?” Isabel asked
intrigued.
“Yeah… It’s your Christmas present,”
he almost whispered feeling embarrassment warm his cheeks. He didn’t understand
why he felt so embarrassed to be giving her a present.
“Oh really?” she said excited like a
child. “What is it?”
“It’s a surprise,” Eli replied not
quite over the fact that Isabel thought he wouldn’t be able to use her kitchen.
“But you’ve already surprised me,”
she countered with a pout.
“Do you really not own a frying
pan?” he said refusing to fall for her playful tone.
“I…”
Eli rolled to the kitchen. He
couldn’t help himself. He was going to start opening cabinets, but then he
stopped. If she was telling the truth she would think he was crazy and rude.
And if she was lying, if she thought he was too crippled to cook there… If he
opened a door and found a pan… That would be worse, so much worse…
He looked up at her. She was giving
him a strange look. Eli’s behavior had caught her off guard. Was she thinking
he was acting crazy? Was he acting
crazy?
She turned around and started
opening cabinet doors. Empty. Empty. Two dishes in one of them. Empty. She
moved to the ones over the counter, the ones he couldn’t reach. Two glasses,
two cups. Empty. A bottle of scotch in the last one. Eli looked up at her
again, afraid to find anger in her face.
“Sorry,” she said cheerfully, not
angry. “I told you I don’t cook.”
“Don’t you eat either?”
Isabel gave him a long look and
after a moment of silence she shook her head.
“Do you always go out?” he asked
trying not to sound rude this time.
Isabel shrugged. “Not really.”
Eli fixed his hazel eyes on hers,
questioning her silently.
“I… I don’t really eat when I’m not
with you,” she said finally. “I’m not an anorexic or anything. I just…”
“You don’t eat anything?”
“I…” she sighed.
Eli wheeled closer to her and
reached out for her hand.
“Don’t think I’m crazy, will you,”
she said and Eli felt she was almost pleading for his acceptance.
“I would never think that,” he
whispered squeezing her hand inside his. “I was wondering how you were so thin
eating as much as you do when you’re with me,” he joked to lighten the mood.
She gave him a sad smile in return.
“Let’s just drink the coffee. I
brought pastries from that place you like,” he said guiding her back to the
table.
About an hour later, the bell rang
and a delivery man showed up with a large box.
“Where do you want it?” the guy
asked.
Isabel stepped forward to look at
the box.
“It’s a TV,” Eli explained. “A smart
TV.”
Isabel smiled. “The bedroom, I
guess,” she pointed towards a door at the end of the hall. Then, as the
delivery guy carried the box in, she turned around and kissed Eli. “Wow,” she
said. “That’s a big present.”
“It was either that or furniture,”
Eli joked.
“Does that mean you don’t want me to
come over to your place to watch TV anymore?” she asked with a smirk.
“Not at all,” Eli replied. “But I
thought you should have one until you move in with me,” he replied only half
joking.
Isabel smiled broadly. “So it’s only
for a little while, right?” she responded in the same frisky tone.
They went into the bedroom where the
guy was already opening the box. It was the first time Eli had been inside
Isabel’s bedroom and he looked around in surprise. Unlike the rest of her
apartment, the bedroom didn’t look like she had just moved in and hadn’t
finished unpacking. It had a mahogany bedroom furniture set. There was a double
bed with purple sheets, it wasn’t made. Two night tables on the sides and a
dresser. The walls were covered with framed photographs. Eli stared bluntly at
them. A much younger Isabel was under the arm of a big guy, maybe a couple of
years older than her. There was a cold shore in the background. The same guy
and another one who looked like him were hugging her on another picture. An
older couple stood in winter clothes under some trees in the third one. And
then all of them together outside a stone house, Isabel at the center, maybe
sixteen or seventeen years old. The older man holding a large fish. The older
woman and one of the younger guys sitting on a couch, big smiles on both their
faces. Eli stopped.
Do you want it on top of the
dresser?” the guy asked them.
Eli looked at Isabel, she had sat
over the bed and was frowning, looking straight at Eli.
“Sure,” he replied because she
didn’t.
The guy set the screen over the
dresser and got busy pulling cables out of the box.
“Thank you,” Isabel finally spoke
after the TV was installed and Eli had tipped the guy and led him outside. She
was still sitting on the bed, her eyes looking down. “I love it.” Her voice
sounded sad.
“Are you ok?” Eli replied.
“They’re my family,” she offered as
an explanation.
“You don’t have to… I should’ve
asked you first instead of coming in here unannounced. I didn’t know…”
“No, Eli…” she interrupted. “I know
I haven’t told you about them, but it’s not because I don’t trust you… It’s
just hard to talk about it.”
He pushed his rims and parked his
chair close to the bed. He put a fist over the mattress and swung his body to
transfer so he was sitting next to her on the foot of the bed. He had nothing
to rest his back against, so he had to keep one arm down to keep his balance,
but he used the other one to hug Isabel the best he could.
“That’s Liam,” she pointed towards
one of the pictures once Eli let her go. “And that’s Cullen. They’re my older
brothers. Cullen was two years older than me and Liam two years older than him.
I’m the little sister,” she smiled wryly. “Those are my parents. My dad was a fisherman.
That one was his boat,” she said pointing to one of the pictures that showed a
red and white fishing boat. “Cullen got involved with some bad people…” she stopped
and took a deep breath. Eli got the impression she was gathering up the courage
to speak. “The kind of people you don’t mess around with. Liam tried to get him
out, which just pissed them off. I’m not sure how things went down exactly; I
was actually oblivious of the whole thing, until one night my father told my
mother there was a hit on Liam and Cullen. The bloody IRA had ordered their
death. And this is Northern Ireland I’m talking about. My da’ knows there’s nothing
he can do against them, but he’s not about to let his sons die. So he packs us
up. Two bags, that’s it. All that can fit in the boat. Leaves everything else behind.
Me mom’s crying all the way to the piers about her house. ‘It’s just stones,
woman,’ my father kept saying. So he puts us all in the boat and sails off.”
Eli could hear her Irish accent for
the first time as she progressed with the story. She wasn’t looking at him but
at some random point on the wall in front of them, the lilt of her voice swaying
like the rhythmic rocking of the sea. He heard her swallow hard and brace
herself for what happened next.
“Me mother asks where we are going
to go, what we’re going to do, what’s going to happen if they find us. And Liam
and Cullen are all quiet. I can see they feel ashamed, guilty. I walk over to
Liam and put my arm around him, sitting on the deck as the sun goes down. We
stay there for a long time. Mother’s finally gone quiet. And it starts to rain.
Father comes out to get us off the deck. There’s thunders now and suddenly the
mother of all storms is falling over us. I’ve never been out in the sea at
night. The boat is rocking like crazy and I ask myself if this little thing is
meant to be out so far into the ocean.”
Isabel’s breath had quickened and
Eli wondered if she would be able to finish the story. He had already guessed
what happened next and he put his arm over her leg, debating whether to hug her
again, but he didn’t want to interrupt.
“The boat didn’t hold. I don’t know
what my father was thinking,” she continued but Eli could see every word
represented an effort. She took shallow breaths, and then she closed her eyes. “The
water was freezing. It was summer, but the water was so cold. And the waves
were strong. I struggled to keep my head above the water. Liam was trying to
reach me but I kept drifting away. Before long I couldn’t see any of them. I
yelled their names but thunders drowned my voice. Uh…”
Tears scaped her closed eyelids. “Uh…”
she attempted to speak again. “Uh…” she gasped for air as if she was drowning
all over again. Eli held her now, wanting her to stop. He didn’t want to hear
the rest of the story. He didn’t want her to remember it. He threw his arms
around her, forcing her to support his full weight, and she clenched his shirt tight
over his back and wept.
After a few minutes, she raised her
head from Eli’s chest where she had buried it and, without letting go of him,
she spoke over his shoulder.
“A beacon of light guided me towards
the shore. But I was too weak to follow it. I lie down over the water, as if it
were a bed, and fell asleep, or unconscious, I don’t know. The coast guard
fished me out. When I woke up I begged them to go back. They did. But too much
time had passed. I saw the call from the lighthouse fade away with the morning
sun, as we returned to shore.”
She pushed backwards from him,
slowly, giving him time to put and arm down and regain his balance. Her
beautiful eyes were still wet, but she wasn’t crying anymore.
“They never found them. They looked, but
nothing…” She wiped her tears with the back of her hands. “It’s been twelve
years. I’ve never told anyone about it before,” she said now looking straight
at Eli, regaining her calm countenance. The Irish accent slowly fading from her
voice. “I used to be so angry. Both my brothers were strong swimmers. Stronger
than me. Better than me. It doesn’t make sense that I made it and they didn’t. My
father wasn’t that old, but he probably would’ve tried to save my mother. I can
understand how they would be more likely to drown, but not Liam and Cullen. I…
it makes no sense. It seems so unfair that I lived and they died. It took me
years to understand that there was no reason. That the world doesn’t work like
that. That life isn’t fair, and neither is death. At first I wanted to die too.
Sometimes I still do. But now I feel I owe it to them to live. So I try to
enjoy every moment as if it was the last one. It sounds like a cliché, I know.
But that’s how I fight the sadness away. I force my mind to be in the present.
I focus on what I feel, what I see, what I taste. And that keeps my mind from
going back to that moment, from drowning all over again. Still, even after all
these years it’s hard not to be sad,” she stopped and took a deep breath. “It’s
been easier since you’re around. When I’m with you, I don’t have to try so
hard.”
Eli didn’t know what to say. Usually
he was on the other side of a sob story. ‘I’m sorry’ was what people usually
said to him, about his parents’ death, about him being paralyzed. But he hated
that. He hated that phrase, and yet, it seemed to be the only thing he could
say. Isabel spoke again before he could open his mouth though.
“It was Fanad Head Lighthouse. The one
I saw when I was drowning. The one you have a picture of. I have often thought
of it as a sign of life, of hope. It seems so meaningful that you have that
picture. That you were there, that you took that photograph yourself. You’re my
lighthouse. You’re the beacon of light that guides me back to life.”
Eli felt incredibly flattered to
hear those words. He couldn’t have thought of a better metaphor to explain what
Isabel meant to him, how she saved him with her presence, how she turned him
back to life. He never would’ve guessed that the feeling was mutual, that he
represented that same thing to her. And although her story had suddenly sprang
light on Isabel, and knowing this explained so many things about her, he
suddenly realized how little he knew of this woman, how much of a mystery she
was to him.
How truly sad, I feared something like this, but not to such extent. That he is the first one she talked to about her family, really tough.. Thanks for the update, as usual, and I will wait for the turn of the story...
ReplyDeleteThank you for following the story. It means alot.
ReplyDeletePowerful, warm, sad and strong -- incredible!
ReplyDeleteI love the story!
ReplyDeleteThank you.
Pepper, I am absolutely grateful that you've followed the entire story and that you take the time to comment. Your comments are just like Isabel's compliments, as Eli says son chapter six, you have a talent for it, which leads me to think you're an amazing person. And I'm sure I'm not the only author here who thinks so.
ReplyDeleteOh, wow. As much as I wish it was longer (because I'm a selfish little bugger *smirks*), I think the short length actually added to the powerful impact of this chapter. Loved seeing the moments of doubt in Eli and Isabel's candidness. Thank you so much for sharing this story.
ReplyDeleteP.S. - Yes, Miss Pepper's comments always make me smile :)
:D I smile widely at your words. Thank you!!!
DeleteSuch a deep story! Just Wonderful.
ReplyDeleteWow, thank you so much for that.
DeleteSuch a great touching story. Love it
ReplyDelete