The Wave by Kristen Crusoe (smallest ebook reader txt) 📕

‘Clair, I found you.’

He sat next to her. His shoes were duct taped together. She laughed so hard, it hurt.

‘For God’s sake, Adam, what have you done?’

They sat together as darkness settled in and lights came up in the village.

‘Do you have a home here, Clair?’ he asked. ‘I could use a hot shower and, well, a good night’s sleep.’

* * *

The next morning, as Clair was getting ready to leave for work, she could feel Adam watching her from his place on the bed. They had lain together, close enough to feel each other’s heat, but not touching. She didn’t have a couch. The only other furniture was a single chair, a small table by the window looking out to sea, and a few large pillows scattered about on the floor. She had listened to his quiet snoring, more like snuffling, as a small creature might do rooting around in the dark. She found it oddly comforting.

‘You look wonderful, Clair. Where are you off to?’ he asked, rolling to his side, leaning on an elbow.

Her hair had grown out, curly and fine like a baby’s. Still dark brown but with streaks of gold and red, as though burnished in the Galician sun. Thin but fit, she felt stronger than she had in years. She didn’t think about the cancer. Finding a way to live with it instead of being at war, Clair felt she had made peace with it all. Looking at each day fresh and clear, she found joy in her students and music.

‘Work. I teach music at the primary school. Strings, you know.’

‘Yeah?’ he said, sitting up, the sheet falling to his waist. ‘Do you think they need a theater teacher?’

Clair looked at him, at his wiry frame, his face covered by a beard, mostly gray. This was a different Adam.

‘I’ll ask,’ she said, smiling. ‘Let’s see how it goes.’

Chapter 37

Clair and Adam

‘I need a long walk,’ Clair said, as they sat at the window, overlooking the beach at Langosteira. Warmer now, the new season’s sun bringing more and more people, both pilgrims and locals. ‘I have Semana Santa, or our spring break, free. What about you? Can you get away for a few days?’

Adam looked out at the mussel boats, thinking about his work now, farming and harvesting the shellfish. At first, he worried about their suffering, but then, talking with locals and his workmates, he was told that they were not able to escape pain so then, it stood to reason, that they couldn’t feel pain. He accepted this and found joy in the simple manual labor. There hadn’t been work for him at Clair’s school and, thinking back, he was thankful it had worked out this way. Being out on the water, spending time with these good people, bringing in a harvest that benefitted so many, felt right. His body was tired at night. His mind clear.

He and Clair would eat a simple meal, drink the local wine, walk down to the lighthouse, sit on the large, flat rocks and watch the waves move against currents and wind. It had taken them a while to feel at ease with each other. Wanting and needing, immediate. After that first awkward night together, they began to touch. At first, just a hand, finding the other’s in the dark, early hours before dawn. Hands touching became legs and feet entangling, until bodies turned to one another. Gently, his hands explored her chest, running tender fingers over the scars.

‘When did you have the port removed?’ he had asked one morning, as they lay together in the first light of day. He rubbed a hardened area over her right clavicle, where the chemotherapy infusion port had sat, creating a callous in her skin.

‘I found a clinic here that took it out. After about a week. I knew I wouldn’t go back on chemo, so why keep it in? It itched, and was a constant reminder. A foreign object that didn’t belong.’

‘And you’re OK? I mean, how do you know what the cancer is doing?’ he asked, rolling over onto his side, looking at her. A tattoo of Celtic knots chained together crossed her entire upper body, from one shoulder to the other. He could feel the scar tissue beneath but the wounds were no longer visible.

‘We have found a way to live together. I don’t try to kill it, and it doesn’t try to kill me,’ she said, throwing her long legs over the side of the bed. ‘I’m off to work.’

When Clair had returned home that day, Adam had the table spread with food, wine, and flowers.

‘I have a job,’ he had said, throwing his arms in the air.

Clair wasn’t sure how to react. She had loved her time alone now for the past two months. Did she want to share? Used to be, she would come home, drink her tea, eat whatever she had left over from lunch. Watch the horizon until dark. This was new. Required energy. Did she have it?

‘And so, what do you think this means?’ she asked, looking at the spread on her small table, which before held a single bud vase with whatever wild flower she found on her walk home from the music school.

‘I think it means that I’m staying for now. And it’s OK if you don’t want me staying with you, Clair. I understand. But I’ll be near. Close, you know.’

‘Why, Adam? Why would you do this? All of this? Walking the Camino? Being here? I don’t understand,’ Clair asked, sitting cross-legged on a pillow, under the window, looking out to sea. There was no room to pace.

‘Because I love you, Clair Mercer. And I want to be with you. Now, and for ever.’ He had sat clumsily down on the floor in front of her, taking her hands in his. ‘I’m not asking that you love me back. Or that you even want to be with me, spend time with me.