Elder Quincy stands up and puts his hands on his hips. “You call him then and set the date. We’re not leaving until you do.”
Elder Kitchen stands, too. “We want a wedding invitation, okay?”
Leesie releases my left hand, pulls her phone out of her pocket, taps “home” on her favorites. “Hey, mom. Is dad around? Michael wants to ask him something important.” She listens to her mom’s reply and hands me the phone.
I walk over to the far side of the porch, wait for Leesie’s dad to pick up, keep my back to Leesie and the elders. What am I doing? A voice that’s been gnawing at me for a week takes over my brain. I’m not religious. Never have been. Like my parents. We believe in diving. That’s it. Maybe this is all crazy Mormon voodoo. And that accident. I’ve waited and waited. Leesie’s still holding back. That fight. I shudder like I do whenever I think about it. I need to know about that fight. But I don’t want to know. If it was an innocent nothing, she would have told me every detail.
“Hello? Michael?”
The sound of her dad’s voice brings me back to my purpose. “Hello, Brother Hunt.”
“What did you want to ask me?” He doesn’t sound happy. There’s strain and sadness in his voice. Grief. How long did I sound like that? I still do sometimes. Maybe I always will. He probably thinks I’m calling to ask if I can marry Leesie. Does that make him sadder?
I close my eyes and rest my forehead against the porch post. “Would you baptize me?” My throat is dry. I croak the words.
“What?”
“When Leesie and I are back in August—will you baptize me?”
His reply shuts that gnawing voice up. “I’d be honored, son. Of course, I will.”
Chapter 34
CECILIA
LEESIE’S MOST PRIVATE CHAPBOOK
POEM #101, THE BRAC
A tiny plane,
a bumpy landing,
a crescent shaped skiff
of sand with nothing but
bat-filled caves, half-dozen
dive operations, one dirt road
that stretches from end to end,
diving my first wreck,
MV Capt. Keith Tibbits,
a Russian relic renamed
for us tourists,
snuggling on the beach
with Michael while he,
Gabriel, and Alex toss pros and cons,
ups and downs, hows and how-nots
into the inky sky dotted with pinpricks
morphs overnight into
Rain.
Winds.
Warnings.
Boats called in.
Airport shut down.
Hotel evacuation to the island’s
built-in shelter—deep caves
that won’t wash away in the onslaught
that’s only hours away.
The bats lining the ceiling don’t seem
to mind sharing their subterranean palace
with fifty human bodies wrapped in hotel
blankets and foil-lined emergency heat sheets
that crinkle when we move
and make me sweat.
I huddle with Michael in the mass
and sip bottled water.
“Are you scared?” He shakes
his arm that’s gone to sleep
holding me.
“No. You’re here.” I try to imagine
the last hurricane he faced. “Are you?”
He bites off a hangnail. “Terrified.”
“Did you hear this one’s name?”
“Cecilia.” His eyebrows draw
close together.
I touch his face. “Will she
haunt us like your Isadore?”
He wraps his arms back around me.
“We’re safe. Don’t worry. Cecilia can’t touch us.”
I cuddle in close and hand him my water.
The sound of the wind shifts to a new key.
His arms tighten. “Here it comes.”
I brace myself for storm surge waves,
sheets of rain, vicious winds
to swamp our dry hide-out,
peel back the roots and dirt
and smash the coral skeleton
that encases us in it’s embrace.
Nothing happens.
The sound mounts, echoes, screams,
but we are protected—barely even soggy.
Cramped, tired, trapped,
but safe. Michael prods
me to my feet and stretches.
We wander with refugees, careful
not to step on sleepers, meet up
with Gabriel and Alex, who’ve
decided not to spend his trust fund here.
“Did you hear if it’s hitting the big island?”
I’m worried about Jaz and Junior.
Alex shakes her head. “I don’t know.”
We hang out with them, laughing
and talking like this is any another night
after a long day diving.
Hours roll by. A lady from the resort
comes along with a big basket of cereal bars.
Michael turns his nose up, but takes a handful
“Guess we won’t starve.” He offers them to us.
I eat one, two, three. Finish off Michael’s water.
When the wind dies, I’m not sure if it’s day or night.
Michael and Gabriel venture to the cave’s mouth,
return to report. “Definitely the eye, mi cielo.”
Gabriel’s arm circles Alex. “You should
sleep in the stillness.” They slip away.
Michael and I find a quiet place to whisper.
I doze and wake to find him studying my face—
troubled. About our future together?
The giant stride he’ll take next week
into a brand new world with a soft woosh
of water in a baptismal font in Spokane?
Waiting a whole year to get married?
I kiss his cheek. “You know,
we can get married any weekend
if waiting gets too hard.”
He tries to wipe the trouble
off his face. “I’m not worried
about that. Are you?”
My face heats up, and he kisses me,
sucks ever so gently on the corner
of my lower lip.
I let him think he’s distracted
me, enjoy the kiss, initiate
another, then take his face
in my hands and try to fathom his eyes
in the waning glow of two electric lanterns
that struggle to light the cave.
“What does worry you then?”
“Nothing, babe.”
“Don’t lie to me. I see it.
Isadore’s back, isn’t she?”
“No, Leese.” He closes his eyes.
“It’s you.” He bows his head
so our foreheads touch.
“There’s something I need to know.”
His eyes open—I can’t breathe
while I wait for him to speak.
“You have one secret, babe. I
don’t want to get close to,
but I gotta know—
was it me?”
MICHAEL’S DIVE LOG – VOLUME 10
Dive Buddy: Leesie and Cecilia
Date: 08/06
Dive #: --
Location: Cayman Brac
Dive Site: the caves
Weather Condition: Category 3
Water Condition: sounds wild out there
Depth: somebody said the storm surge crested at 20’
Visibility: murky
Water Temp: feels cold
Bottom Time: lost track
Comments:
Leesie’s face, eerie in the cave’s flickering light, blanches white. She hides it against my shoulder.
I bend my head and speak into her ear. “That fight you had with Phil. You never told me what it was
about.”
She wraps her arms around me—too tight. I feel something damp soak through my T-shirt. Her reaction makes me want to take back the question.
I rub her back and stroke her head. I don’t want to know what she’s so carefully hidden—don’t want to stain the perfect picture we’ve painted—her dad baptizing me next week, a year engaged in Provo, a wedding next August at her temple in Spokane. I don’t know if I can survive what she’s going to say.
I want this joyful haze we’ve been walking around in to last forever. But as we sat here waiting out the storm, with hours to reflect, the last unanswered question cracked open. Now I feel like I’m dangling on the edge of a deep crevice hanging on by my fingertips.
She turns her head to speak, but keeps her cheek pressed against me. “It doesn’t change anything.”
“Freak, Leesie, it changes everything.”
She grabs a handful of my shirt. “Don’t go down that road Michael.” She sniffs and wipes her face. “You saw what it did to me.”
I can’t reply. I’m cold—inside and out. Turmoil tosses my heart against a wall, and it shatters into a million pieces.
Leesie tries to kiss me, but I pull back.
She retreats into my T-shirt. “It doesn’t change how much I love you.” Her arms tighten around me. “You are my soul, my forever. What happened in that pickup truck doesn’t matter.”
I can’t breathe. I try to break her grip, get up, get away. She won’t let me. I inhale and hold my breath, stop struggling.
She kisses my neck, squeezes her eyes tight a moment, then opens them up, starts to speak through her tears. “I love my brother”—she swallows hard—“but it’s not your fault he’s dead. It’s not my fault, either. I didn’t undo his seatbelt. I didn’t put ice on the road. I didn’t say vile things about you.”
“You’re blaming him now?” The wind starts to blow again outside. Cecilia’s back.
“I let him get to me.”
I bend my ear towards her mouth so I can hear better.
Leesie raises her voice. “He slept while I drove up through the forest and into the mountains. I tried to figure out how I felt about Jaron, and all I could think was you.” She touches my face. “Surrounded by all that beauty and stillness, the Spirit got through to me. I saw I’d misjudged you. Every mile closer to home brought me back to you. I was so happy.” She squeezes me again. “It was sacred. I should have kept it to myself. But I didn’t.” A sob stops her. She gets control and continues. “Phil drug all my sublime feelings into the gutter. I blew up. Lost control. You know the rest.”
I turn my face to the wall—trying to escape her voice.
She yells so I can hear over the roaring storm. “It’s Phil’s fault. It’s my fault. It’s ice on the road.”
I shake my head, struggle to get free of her arms.
She still won’t let me go. “You had nothing to do with it.”
I look down at her. Freak, I stole her entire life—even her brother. “If you’d left me alone—”
“Suffering like that? How could I?”
“Phil would be packing his bags for BYU and making out with Krystal.” The weight of that reality smacks me hard. It unlocks the dark place where the guilt that swallowed me when I failed to save my mother when Isadore had us both in her clutches simmers and churns it into a rampage.
I break free of Leesie’s hold, get to my feet. She bows her head to the ground and sobs. Part of me longs to kneel down beside her, hold her, comfort her. But the other part needs to breath. I’m suffocating in this cave.
I trip over bodies and step on fingers as I race to the entrance and stare over the sand bag wall I helped build earlier. A Cecilia fueled wave breaks against it. The spray that hits my face beckons me.
I climb over the wall and into pure wildness. Rain and waves drench. Powerful winds drive me back. I fight them with each step forward I take. There used to be a road between the path that leads up to the caves and the exposed broken coral that creates the shoreline. Now all I see is water swirling white around my ankles as the wave recedes. The wind is full of sharp shards of shell and glass, tiny sand pellets, and bits of slime that used to be palm fronds. A piece of corrugated tin torn from a roof flies by me.
Inhale. Hold it. Exhale.
Repeat. Inhale. Fill my gut, my chest, my throat, my head. Hold it. Hold it. Hold it. Isadore didn’t get me. Maybe Cecilia’s interested. I struggle three steps forward. Cecilia blows me back.
“Michael?”
I close my eyes. I can’t Mom. I’m sorry. I tried. I can’t do this without you guys. I hurt everybody I love.
“Michael! Michael! Where are you?” My mom’s voice melds with Leesie. “Michael. Come back. Don’t leave me alone.”
The voice advances on me. I glance over my shoulder. She’s followed me. “Michael!” She screams frantic. She sees me, rushes forward. “Michael! Michael!”
Cecilia flings a mangled chunk of metal at Leesie.
“No, babe!” I scream as she goes down.
I let the storm blow me to her, grab her limp body from the swirling ebb before waves suck her out with them. A wave crashes behind us. I scramble to the cave’s mouth and over the wall before a monster attacks and drags us out with it.
I kneel by the wall, panting and praying. “Please, Heavenly Father, let her be all right.”
Her eyes don’t open.
She doesn’t touch my face and whisper, “I love you.”
I bury my face against her wet head.
She’s breathing.
I press my hand over her heart.
It beats.
Strangers discover us—try to take her from me.
“She hit her head.” I won’t let anyone touch her. “She’ll be all right.” I try to remember what the doctors said about her last concussion. Something ominous about further injury. “Please, save her. Please,” I pray.
No one asks what the hell we were doing out there. They seem afraid of me. Do I look that freaked?
I hold her close and cry. “Come on, babe. Please.” I rock her until I fall asleep.
When I wake my arms are empty.
I leap up. Cast my eyes around the cave. Where did they put her?
And there she is.
A few feet away from me.
Talking to Alex.
Chapter 35
DIZZY
LEESIE’S MOST PRIVATE CHAPBOOK
POEM #102, ONLY ONE THING
Michael drops to his knees
beside me. “Thank God!
You’re all right.”
My head throbs, but I
manage mustering a weak
smile. “Just dizzy.”
I turn to Alex. “He always
makes me feel like that.”
Alex decides she’s thirsty
and tactfully disappears.
I turn back to Michael,
stare at his knees
afraid of what his face
will tell me. “Are we
all right?”
He pulls me onto his lap
and kisses me until
I can’t breathe.
“So you’ll still have me?”
I murmur when he lets
me up for air.
He kisses my forehead
and whispers, “Are you sure?”
I press my mouth on his—
relief, love, gratitude
pouring out of me
and all over him.
He wipes tears from my face and his.
“Don’t cry, babe. I’ll
deal with this. If you don’t
blame me—maybe I can learn not to
blame myself.” He examines
the knot on my forehead.
“There’s only one thing
I can’t deal with.” His voice
throbs with emotion.
He clutches me close.
“I know,” I whisper. “Don’t
scare me like tha
t again.”
He will, for sure. I can’t
guarantee I won’t scare him.