Kirsten sat on the bonnet of the car, hugging her knees. The hood was warm under her, the salty ocean breeze cool. Goosebumps rose on her skin, prickling the back of her neck. She could see a ship, almost beyond her sight. The light faintly blinking, making its way slowly across the horizon. She shivered, the hood cooling, the breeze turning to a wind that ruffled her hair and brought the smell of salt, brine ridden and heavy. She'd turned her phone off, knowing she shouldn't, knowing she was making Sandy crazy, taunting him with thoughts of what she might do. He'd been treating her like a china doll since rehab, a beautiful pristine object that could, with the slightest pressure, shatter. She'd tried to prove she was fine, tried to tell him she wasn't as fragile as he thought, but, being Sandy, he wouldn't listen. Kirsten smiled into the wind, feeling it magnify the feeling of her tears running down her cheeks, drying them into salty patterns on her skin. She loved him. She'd hated that he knew about the baby, about her biggest degradation. Hated that he'd think of her differently. Hated that she'd never told him. Hated that he had to find out the way he did, and that he was waiting with unanswered questions, questions that would bring her guilt to the surface like a rising tide. She knew she had to tell him everything. She couldn't stand that he'd hold it over her, need to know, have questions hovering too close to the surface all the time. She couldn't stand looking in his eyes to see the doubt she knew she'd find. Doubt about the truthfulness of other statements she'd made, other things she'd told him that he assumed to be factual.
Kirsten leant back against the windscreen, huddling, trying to keep herself warm. She could feel her teeth start to chatter, could no longer stem the involuntary shivers that wracked her. She could hear the ocean swell picking up, the eerie sound of waves she couldn't see pounding hard packed sand.
Kirsten looked for the ship she'd seen earlier; it had vanished in the mist that was beginning to roll in. The coolness of the swirling water vapour was intensified by the biting wind. Kirsten enjoyed the cool, revelled in the way it made her numb on the outside. Inside, she felt empty, as if the abortion had only occurred last week. It was a scar that had never properly healed from her body, denying she and Sandy any more children. It was a scar that had always been in her mind, mainly constrained to a dull ache but prone to being reopened. First by Theresa, wanting to prove Kirsten's life as perfect. Kirsten had told her she didn't regret it, hadn't been sure she'd been entirely truthful, hadn't wanted to fall apart in the middle of the restaurant. She regretted that it happened; that Jimmy had been so insistent, that she'd been so drunk they hadn't used a condom. She regretted being part of the most powerful and, on the surface perfect, family in Newport, knowing that this meant she was unsupported in anything that didn't meet Caleb's approval. She regretted wanting to hide it from the world and using a second rate abortion clinic that didn't quite do things by the book, but who also didn't ask too many questions or attach it to her medical records if she'd paid enough. She regretted the loss of a life that she'd helped create. She regretted the way she'd hidden it from Sandy.
Kirsten leant into her arms and sobbed quietly. Her hair swirled around her head in the breeze, random tendrils tickling her back. Her tears dried too quickly, and her nails turned blue in the cold. Finally, knowing this wasn't getting her anywhere, knowing she was worrying Sandy and only delaying what was inevitable, Kirsten got off the bonnet. She stood a moment beside the car, arms still encircling her wind numbed body. The mist had continued onwards, leaving the ocean clear again. On the horizon, the single light twinkled, brighter.
Kirsten took a last, deep breath of the chilled air before she got back in the car. She started the engine, turned the heater on, sat for a moment again. She had to go home and tell Sandy. Her time for drowning reality in endless amounts of vodka was over. She wasn't going to drink again, wasn't going to do anything that would take her away from her family again. Wasn't going to numb the pain.
Kirsten drove out of the small parking bay. She waited at the first traffic light, eyes firmly ahead, tears hidden behind tinted windows. While she was waiting, she turned her phone back on. Sixteen new messages greeted her, and Kirsten listened to all of them. First, Sandy, Sandy again. Ryan asked her to call him twice, and Seth wanted to know she was okay. The jaws of guilt firmly took hold. Their voices grew more frantic with each phone call, their worry intensifying.
It seemed like it took her an age to drive back up the familiar driveway. Sandy's car was gone, as she knew it would be. She felt the guilt gnawing at her. She knew he'd be frantic, be searching bars, be thinking the worst.
Kirsten walking into the empty, echoing house, dropping her keys at the front door and her bag in the kitchen. She grabbed the house phone, and called Ryan first. She knew he and Seth were together, knew, and held no blame to him, for being the catalyst for Sandy's new knowledge. She wanted to let him know that first. She knew he'd been hurt by one mother already today, she didn't want to be the second.
He answered on the first ring. "Ryan, it's me." There was a beat before he responded, questioning how she was.
"I'm fine. I'm home. I'm sorry." His apologies rang loud in her ear before she could stop him, as if her request for forgiveness suddenly opened a floodgate of his guilt.
"It's not your fault, you didn't know. I don't blame you. I've got to call Sandy." Kirsten cut the phone call short, knowing Sandy needed to be home with her. It was time for her to tell him a truth that had been living with her for over twenty years. She dialled his number with numbed fingers. He, too, picked up on the first ring, slightly breathless, considerably worried.
"It's me. I'm at home."
"I'll be there." He was the first to hang up on her, and she imagined him racing home through the windy night. Kirsten carefully put the phone back in its cradle and saw her hand shaking from the cold. She left the empty kitchen, backtracking her steps of the afternoon towards their room. Instead of using it as an escape route, she was intent of having a shower, dressing in something warm and firmly staying put, waiting for Sandy.
Ryan's phone rang in the car, and he checked the display. Sandy.
"Did you hear from Kirsten?" He answered with, receiving an affirmative reply.
"She sounds okay but…" Sandy's worry stretched over the line, reaching Ryan through radio waves.
"We can stay at Summer's for a while if you think you need to talk to her alone?" Ryan asked. A beat of silence ensued while Sandy considered it.
"I'll call you later tonight. Just tell Seth everything's fine, and his parents want some private time. That'll make him stop asking questions." Despite the residual worry he still felt, Ryan smiled.
"Okay, talk to you later." He flipped the phone shut, and Seth turned around.
"Guess we're staying at Summer's for a while, right?" He made no excuse for the fact that he'd been shamelessly eavesdropping.
"Your dad says Kirsten's fine. They need some private time. He'll call us later."
"Oh, great, the post-coital come-home call. Can they get any grosser." Disgusted, Seth stared ahead. Summer gave him a hit with the hand that wasn't steering.
"Cohen! Be happy they're making up. Besides, don't knock make-up sex." Seth looked towards her, smiled.
"You know, we haven't fought in a while, actually…"