On the Rocks Read online

  Two of the exterior walls were actually floor-to-ceiling windows, and there were three skylights overhead, although they were partially covered in leaves and pine needles. Despite that, despite the clouds in the sky and the rain pounding down, there was still what my mother called “good light.” I could see her being happy in here. I guessed my grandfather must be too. I knew that for a painter, this room would be as much their place as their bedroom. I backed out and closed the door on this room too. There was only one door left to check.

  I tried to open it. It didn’t budge. Was it locked? I put my shoulder against it and pushed, and it opened with some resistance. The bottom of the door was rubbing against the floor. Either the door had sagged or the floor had risen.

  I peeked inside. I couldn’t see much. The window in this room was even smaller than the one in the first bedroom. The interior was dark, and it had a musty smell. I wondered how long it had been since this door had been opened. I opened it wider and then fumbled along the wall, feeling for a light switch. I found it and flicked it, and a dim blue light came to life on the ceiling.

  Another bedroom. In one corner was a big bed with a brass headboard and footboard. It was covered in pillows, and a few stuffed animals had been tucked into bed. There were pictures on the walls. More paintings, but they weren’t my grandfather’s. I recognized the style. These were my mother’s. The ones she’d done at home had long been sold or traded. But these were definitely hers too. This had to be her bedroom from when she was little.

  I heard the front door open. I felt like I’d been caught doing something bad. I turned to leave, but there was no way I could get out of the room without being seen. My grandfather was standing there in his rain jacket, still holding the smaller crate, staring right at me. I had to say something.

  “I was looking for a place to change,” I explained. “I wasn’t snooping.”

  I turned the light off and with both hands pulled the door almost completely shut again.

  “That’s the room you’re going to be using.” He paused. “That was your mother’s room.”

  I nodded.

  “Your grandmother always kept it just the way your mother left it when she went off to art school.”

  That had to be twenty years ago.

  “And then when your grandmother passed…well…”

  She had died not long after my mother and I had last visited. I didn’t really remember her. I did have one fuzzy memory of her pushing me in a wheelbarrow. That was it, and I wasn’t even sure that was real.

  “I need to get changed,” I said. “Should I use the bathroom?”

  “Only if you want to get wetter.”

  “What?”

  “The outhouse is out the back and down the path. You’d best use your mother’s room.”

  “Sure…okay.”

  I took a step toward the room and remembered that I didn’t have my pack. My grandfather was standing right beside it. I walked toward him, and I could tell by his expression that he was thrown a bit.

  “My bag,” I said, pointing to it.

  “Oh, yeah.”

  I grabbed the pack, spun around and headed back toward the bedroom. I put my shoulder against the door and opened it again. I turned and muscled the door closed, throwing the room into darkness. I turned on the light.

  I took off my jacket. It was soaking wet. I looked around for a place to put it. I settled on one of the posts on the footboard. I opened up the pack. I wanted to get clothes out before I took clothes off. I could even put them away.

  I walked over to the dresser. On top of it sat a framed picture of my mother. She was younger—in her early teens. She was smiling. It seemed like a long time since I’d seen her smile, even before she’d gone away.

  I wondered how old she was in that picture. I wondered why she looked so happy. Maybe back then she had lots of reasons to be happy.

  I pulled open the bottom drawer. It was full of clothes. Underwear and stuff. I felt a rush of embarrassment. I pushed it closed. I opened up the next one. It had shirts and socks. And then the one above that. It held sweaters. Why was it full of clothes? Were these all my mother’s clothes? It didn’t matter. Either they were or they weren’t, and it wasn’t like I could pull them out and put my stuff in there instead.

  I tried to push the drawers closed, and the top one jammed. Then one of the handles snapped off in my hand. I put it on the top of the dresser. Somehow I’d broken it. I hadn’t really done anything, but I was sure I’d be blamed. I’d have to fix it before my grandfather noticed, but I couldn’t do it now.

  I noticed a closet door. Maybe I could hang up my shirts and this pair of pants in there. That would let the wet stuff dry. I pulled it open and saw that it was filled with clothes too. Stuffed full. Dresses and shirts and skirts and sweaters and lots and lots and lots of shoes. My mother loved shoes. I guess she always had. The floor was covered in shoes, and the clothes rod was so jammed that I didn’t see how I could hang up anything. Putting my clothes away wasn’t going to work now, but I still needed to change.

  I started to take off my shirt. It was stuck to my body, and I had to peel it off. I kicked off my shoes, and my socks squished against the floor. I went to pull off my pants. My phone! I pushed my hand into my pocket. The pocket was soaked, and so was my phone!

  I’d turned it off on the boat when we’d lost service, to save power, and then had put it in my pocket to protect it from the elements. Like that had worked. I turned it on. It slowly started to come to life.

  “Come on, come on,” I muttered.

  The screen had a bluish glow, and then all the icons appeared. It was working. I noticed there was no cell service. I couldn’t call or text or do anything that would tell me the phone was working for sure, but it did look like it was working. I just wished I had put it someplace waterproof. I really wished I still had my other phone—my good phone. The one my mother had pawned. I had a rush of anger just thinking about that.

  I put the phone on the dresser and kicked off my pants. They were soaked, but at least my boxers were dry. I should have stuffed the phone in my shorts. Maybe it wouldn’t have gotten wet.

  I looked up and saw myself reflected in the mirror above the dresser. I studied my ref lection. My hair was wet and slicked back. It was too long. I needed a cut. I doubted that was going to happen over here, so I imagined it was going to get a lot longer.

  My ribs were visible. My mother had always said I was too skinny and that I needed to eat more. I’d have been happy to if there had been more food in our place. I also figured I looked thinner than I was because I was so tall. Tall like my mother. Tall like my father—at least, my mother had told me he was tall. And, I knew now, tall like my grandfather.

  I looked again at the picture of my mother on the dresser and then compared it to my reflection. I looked back and forth and then moved closer so I could see her image more clearly. I did look like her. My nose and eyes. The difference was around the mouth. She was smiling. She used to smile a lot, even when there really wasn’t a reason to smile. Me, I tended to scowl or smirk. In fact, smirking was the closest I could come to smiling most of the time.

  I suddenly became aware that I was standing in my boxers in my mother’s old bedroom. It didn’t matter, but I still felt exposed. I pulled some clothes out of my bag and put them on. It felt good to be dressed and dry.

  Now what? I could stand here or go out—to him. I didn’t really want to do that, but what choice did I have? I couldn’t just hide in here for the next six weeks.

  Chapter Three

  I finally worked up the nerve to leave the bedroom. My grandfather was sitting at the table. He didn’t seem to notice me. He had a pad and was sketching with a piece of charcoal. I looked over his shoulder at his drawing. It was a scene of an otter sliding down a muddy bank. It was very good—but why wouldn’t it be? He was a famous artist. He still hadn’t noticed me standing there. I figured I could ignore him too.

  I pulled out my ph
one—still no signal. I walked over to the window. There had to be a signal there. Nothing. I might have to get out of the house or higher up or closer to the shore to find a signal.

  “I’m going out,” I said.

  He didn’t answer. I didn’t think he had heard me. Fine.

  I noticed his rain jacket hanging on a peg by the door. There was a second one—bright red—right beside it. I grabbed that one.

  I pulled it on. It was a bit tight, but at least it would keep me dry.

  I looked back at my grandfather. He still had his head down, sketching. I thought of saying something, but that would defeat my plan to ignore him. I went out onto the porch and closed the door behind me.

  It was still raining but not as hard. As I stepped off the porch, I almost tumbled to the bottom. I’d forgotten about the missing board.

  I followed a path that ran along the side of the cabin and then up the slope. Going uphill might be better for cell service, but this was also the way to the outhouse. An outhouse! Had I traveled back in time?

  I saw a little building just up the path, but it looked too big to be the outhouse. The door wasn’t completely closed. I could see it had a busted hinge. I grabbed the door with both hands, lifted and opened it up. This was a toolshed. There were lots of tools—shovels, spades, saws and hammers. A stack of wood stood in the corner. I pushed the door closed again—at least, as closed as I could get it with the broken hinge.

  Through the trees I saw another little building. That had to be the toilet. I pulled out my phone as I walked, shielding it from the rain.

  “Come on, give me some bars.”

  There were none. No service.

  I decided I’d use the toilet and then go back inside and finish unpacking. And then I thought of something I could do first. I stopped by the toolshed on the way back to the cabin.

  I snugged the board into place. It fit perfectly. The nails and hammer I had grabbed from the shed had seen better days, but they would get the job done. I hammered the first nail in with two hits and then banged it two more times to make sure it was really down flat. I put a nail in the other end. Three hits this time. I pushed against it. It felt solid, but I was going to add two more at each end just to be safe.

  “What are you doing?”

  My grandfather was standing at the open door. He didn’t look happy.

  “I’m fixing the broken step.”

  “Oh…yeah…I was going to do that, but you know what they say. ‘There’s always time tomorrow.’”

  I almost gasped. “What?”

  “ ‘There’s always time tomorrow.’ My father used to say that,” he said.

  My mother always said it too.

  “Your grandmother used to trip on that step all the time.”

  “But she’s been…gone…for a long time.”

  “Nine years next month.”

  “This step has been broken for nine years?”

  “Closer to eleven. I guess sometimes there isn’t a tomorrow for steps.” He paused. “Or for people.”

  He looked like he was going to say something else, but he didn’t. Instead he turned and went back inside.

  I was going to hammer in the remaining nails, but it started to rain harder again. I stood up and tested the stair with my weight. There was a little give, but that was probably because the beams underneath were a little soft. A wooden porch in a rainforest was going to rot eventually no matter how well it was built.

  I went inside. My grandfather was back at the table, but he wasn’t working yet. I laid the tools down on the floor.

  “The jacket,” he said.

  “Yeah, it was by the door—I just put it on.”

  “I put it out there for you. I hoped it would fit. It belonged to your grandmother.”

  I removed the jacket. “It’s a little tight, but it worked.” I hung it back up on the peg.

  I turned around. My grandfather was looking at me. I pulled out my cell phone so I could avoid a staring contest.

  “That won’t work,” my grandfather said.

  He was still looking directly at me.

  “You won’t be able to get a signal here.”

  “Yeah, I can’t seem to get a signal anywhere in the house.”

  “You won’t get a signal anywhere on this side of the island.”

  “What?”

  “There’s no reception on this side of the island.”

  “But…but…how is that possible?”

  “There are no cell-phone towers. I’m glad too. Those things are a blight on the landscape. There are some on the far side, where there are some year-round houses and cabins.”

  “So you don’t have a cell phone?” I really had gone back in time!

  He laughed. “I wouldn’t have one even if it did work out here.”

  “But you do have email, right?”

  He laughed. “Do you really think I have that internet thing out here?”

  “But how do you communicate?”

  “I have a shortwave radio. I call in to the harbor when I need groceries and supplies. It works.”

  I was going to say something more about cell phones, but then I thought of something else.

  “Do you have a TV?”

  “Nope. Same as the phones. No signal. Didn’t those people tell you any of this?”

  I shook my head. “They just told me I had a choice of coming here or, well, a foster home.”

  “I guess this is better than that then.”

  I almost said “Not much” or “At least they’d have a TV” but thought better of it.

  “Looks like we’re stuck with each other for a while, kid. Maybe we should have supper and talk about the elephant in the room,” he said.

  What elephant? “I don’t know what that means,” I said.

  “It means we should talk about why you’re here. About your mother and about your mother and me. Does that seem right?”

  I nodded. Finally I was going to get some answers.

  Chapter Four

  So far we’d done the eating part of the meal but not the talking part. I got the feeling that neither of us knew where to start. I was hungry, and the baked beans had tasted very good. I’d already gotten a second helping.

  “Not fancy,” my grandfather said. “I’m an artist, not a chef.”

  “It’s warm and there’s lots of it, so I’m good.”

  “I know your mother doesn’t have a very good impression of me.”

  I hadn’t expected him to be so blunt. I nodded.

  “You have to remember that there are two sides to every story.”

  I had a feeling I was about to hear his side.

  “And people with drinking problems, well, they can’t always be trusted to tell the truth,” he continued.

  I wanted to defend her, to yell at him, but I knew what he was saying was true.

  “She probably told you that I’m antisocial and that I don’t get along with people.”

  I nodded again.

  “Well, at least we agree on that. I am hard to live with. I’m stubborn to the point of stupid sometimes.”

  The bluntness continued.

  “But the troubles with your mom… well, they all started with that, with that…man,” he said with a sneer.

  Wait. The words were sinking in. “You mean my father?”

  “Yes. I told her not to get involved with him. We tried to warn her, but she never saw anything bad in anybody.”

  “And she told me that you never see anything but bad in people,” I blurted out.

  He smirked. “Do you know just how talented your mother was?”

  “She was good, sure.”

  “She could have been great! She could have been better than me, but she threw it all away,” he said. “In the end, your art is all that matters—that’s all that remains when you’re gone. And she betrayed it.”

  “The way you betrayed your daughter and your grandson?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “Do you
have any idea what my life has been like?” I asked. I felt the anger bubbling up.

  “Of course not. How could I?”

  “You would know if you hadn’t turned your back on us!” I yelled.

  “It wasn’t me who turned my back on you.”

  “Wasn’t it? I guess I didn’t notice you standing there offering to help when there wasn’t any food in our apartment or when we got evicted or when my mother practically drank herself into a coma!”

  “And if I was there, would it really have helped?” he asked.

  “Would it have hurt?” I asked. “Could it have been any worse?”

  “I can’t change the past, but I’m pretty good at reading the future. In the end, people disappoint you.”

  I’d had enough. I got up from the table. “Well, I’m sorry in advance for disappointing you.”

  “I didn’t mean that.”

  “I don’t care what you meant. I just want to know one thing. Why did you even agree to let me come here? Why did you even bother?”

  “The social workers contacted me. I didn’t know if I could do anything for you, but I had to try. You should show some gratitude.”

  “Yeah, thanks for everything you’ve done for me my entire life.”

  “It could be worse. You could be in a foster home right now.”

  “I could, but that doesn’t mean it could be worse. Maybe I should go find out.”

  “Maybe you should.” My grandfather looked hard at me and then started eating again. Clearly he was done talking.

  I stomped away from the table and straight toward my mother’s room. My room. I pushed the door shut. If the stupid door wasn’t so swollen, I would have slammed it.

  Chapter Five

  It had been five nights and five days of almost exactly the same thing. My grandfather stayed up late to work, and I got up early to eat and get out of the cabin. I’d spent as much time as I could wandering around the island. I had walked for about an hour along the beach, until I came up to some rocks forming a cliff that blocked my way. The next day I had walked twice as far in the other direction before I turned around. I figured if I stayed close to the shore, there was no way I could get lost.