Anchored

“What mood is the sea?” My father would ask as we sat around the table in the early hours of the morning. On this particular day the steel blue waters of the Pacific Ocean surged outside our dining room window and rain drops raced down the glass as they did most days during the winter season. The charcoal gray clouds hid the sun and left no room for hope of seeing it any time soon. I sleepily held my head in one hand and spooned my sugary cereal in my mouth with the other as my 12 year old brain contemplated the question. “It seems fine.” I answered lazily in between chews. “Hm” he grunts and nods as he takes a sip of coffee and looks out with his eyes that seem as deep as the sea itself. His bushy beard made it hard to read his face, but most of the time he seemed pensive, always calculating his next move. As a sailor that was just part of the job. Always thinking about the next catch no matter the day’s haul. “She seems greedy.” He finally said. “All she will do is take. I think I’ll wait out the day.” A few white caps began to form and crash against the rocks below. “Yes, I’ll give the crew a call.” Only when he did he was convinced otherwise; the fishermen’s need for money outweighed my father’s risk assessment.  He read the ocean like tea leaves, and this day, much like the rest, he was right about. Three fishermen would lose their lives, including my fathers, and our small town would be rocked with grief. The gulls screeched as men and their families dressed in black stood on the edge of the shore, their tears falling into the frothy ocean that had betrayed them. After so many years of providing, it had finally taken something in return. My mother and sister cry softly hand in hand with the rest of the families while I sit alone, staring out into the vastness of the sea, my anger rising steadily like the evening tide.

From that day on I faced the question more seriously as I realized the consequences of being unable to read the signs, and as I grew and moved on with my life it became a kind of mantra I would say. “What mood is the sea?” Hard as I tried, I could never read anything the way my father could read the ocean and because of this inability I now sit at the table I grew up around, twenty years later, in his chair, sipping a hot coffee, waiting for whatever comes next. I can hear the sirens in the distance; It’s a long driveway so I should be able to finish my coffee before they arrive. “What mood is the sea?” I whisper to myself as the wails get louder.

“What did you say?” My sister snaps at me from across the table. She’s pointing a gun at my head. Her wiry muscles are strained from holding it up so she rests the butt of the gun on the table so that now it’s pointing at my chest.

“Just something dad used to say.” I say before taking another sip of coffee. It’s a little more bitter than usual; I wonder if I used the old grounds by accident. “What’s your plan here anyways?”

“Shut up!” She screams. “You always think you’re the smartest person in the whole god damn room.”

“Just because you’re holding the gun doesn’t make you smart little sister.” She was always known for having that quick flaring temper. I don’t really blame her in this situation though.

“How did you find out?” I ask.

The dark circles under her eyes tell me she hasn’t slept in days, but her pupils are small, alert, which means that she is coming down off a bender. She wants to be clear headed for this, even at the expense of managing withdrawal symptoms.

“My dealer does the same thing.” She snarls through cracked lips. “Spent the last few days at his place. Every morning he puts a little bit in his coffee and it keeps him feeling good and high. Enough that he doesn’t need to smoke the shit he gives me later.”

“Okay, I still don’t see how you connected the dots?” I say.

“He started describing how it felt. Like everything was clearer, how he’s more confident, and more focused. Like everything would be okay no matter how bad the situation. The exact same things I felt from the moment you got here. The things I started to feel when you began making tea for us in the morning. ‘How sweet,’ I thought to myself. I was ready to give you a chance. Thought that you were finally going to try and be the older brother I never had. But I should have known. Known you were here to just screw me over!”

Real estate prices have skyrocketed in the region over the past decade. Our 10 acres of land on the water was now worth millions. Our parents left me no choice really. Not when they decided to leave the entire estate to my drug addict sister who has done nothing with her pathetic life. With her incarcerated or dead everything will fall back to me and all will be as it should.

“I couldn’t let you destroy this place Tessa. It means too much.” I say.

“Oh bullshit. Don’t pretend like this isn’t just about the money. I bet you would sell it all the first chance you got.” She replies.

“Even if I did at least I wouldn’t be spending the money on getting high.” I say.

“I was clean! Before you came along it had been two years since I’ve had a drop or puff of anything!” Tessa says as tears begin to well up in her eyes. They are the same color as fathers; I want to look away but I can’t. The first tear falls as she speaks again, “I had plans…” Her bottom lip is trembling, “I was going to sell off just a portion of the land and use the money to buy a boat and run fishing charters.” She wipes away the tears with the dirty cuff of her sleeve. "Dad would have liked that."

“That sounds nice, Tessa, but you and I both know you would have relapsed eventually. I just sped up the process a bit. Gave you a little nudge is all.”

“So you admit it. You were micro-dosing me?” She asks.

I take another sip of coffee before answering, “Yes. I knew you had to get drug tested at work, and I knew that with drugs already in your system and getting fired it would be the perfect excuse for you to start using again.” I put the coffee cup back on the table and look at her. The hand holding the gun grips tighter, and her expression is no longer that of sadness, but blistering anger. A tinge of guilt runs through me but it’s gone in a moment.

“I don’t understand. You were just hoping I would overdose or something?” She asks.

“I knew it would only be a matter of time before you did something to either get yourself killed or locked up. And look, I was right. That’s why the cops are on their way isn’t it? What did you do anyways?”

Tessa looks away for a moment and stares out the window. The rain is coming down so hard it makes the outside world seem blurry, like static on a tv. Waves angrily slam against the rocks below and the sirens steadily approach. Still blankly looking out the window she says, “He was an anchor.”

“What?”  

She looks back at me and says “Anchors are meant to keep you safe, so you don’t drift off or go anywhere you don’t mean to. But sometimes anchors get stuck, and when you want to leave you can’t, and as long as he was alive, I wasn’t going anywhere.”

“You killed someone?” I ask.

She sighs and says, “My dealer, and I liked him more than you.” She repositions the gun so it’s pointing at my head again.

I laugh heartily and say “Wow Tessa, you’ve outdone yourself. I didn’t think you would go that far.” I say.

She ignores that and looks at me with glossy eyes, “Mom would be ashamed of you.” She says.

“Of me!?” I say, “You just got done telling me you shot someone and I’m the one she would be ashamed of?”

“I face my demons head on. You just ran from them. You abandoned us Trevor. Mom said so herself.” She said this calmly and with not even a trace of a lie.

I’m angry now, “I left to start my own life away from this nothing town. Everyone here works their asses off to go nowhere. This place and you all were my anchors, holding me back from a life worth living.” I slam my coffee cup on the table. “Mom’s idea of success was having us all struggle together and die poor. You had to be present to get any kind of praise or attention from her. I mean, look at you. Drug addict, alcoholic, and still the favorite.”

She just shakes her head and looks at me with those piercing blue eyes, Dad’s eyes. I cringe, not because of the glare but because a swift pain shoots through my bowels. Then we both abruptly turn and look towards the front doors.

The cop cars screech to a halt in the driveway. The red and blue lights flood through the windows. I can hear them slamming car doors, and people barking orders over the sound of the rain.  

I’m over this little reunion, “What’s the plan here sis.” I say, “You going to shoot me now?” I stand up knowing full well she wasn’t going to, but I quickly sit back down because the whole room starts to spin. I grip the table trying to steady myself, it feels like I’m on a merry go round.

“Something wrong, brother?” Tessa asks

I close my eyes and try to stop the spins, “Just a little light headed.”

“How’s the coffee?” She asks sweetly.

My eyes open wide. I look at my empty coffee mug and then I look at her. She’s smirking.

“I know you like your two cups in the afternoon. A nice pre-loaded pot for a little 3 o’clock pick me up. Probably just hit the button when you’re ready. Don’t even feel like you need to check the grounds, I mean, why would you?”

“What did you do?” It feels like I’m trying talk with a mouth full of peanut butter; my vision is blurry and my stomach is turning.

“Thought I would return the favor. Only, there’s nothing micro about what I gave you.” She says “I know what you said earlier by the way, ‘What mood is the sea?” Her voice sounds like we’re underwater. “I probably heard that more often than you, mom took to saying it when you left.”

I see my father. He’s standing at the table, looking out into the ocean. I mouth the words that come from his mouth.

“She seems greedy.” I say as I slide off the chair and onto the floor.

I see Tessa come around the table. I hear shouting from outside the door, but she ignores it and kneels down next to me.  The tips of her golden hair tickle my face as she leans down and whispers in my ear, “And all she’ll do is take.”

Before the world goes dark, I hear the distinct sound of a single gunshot.