Sometimes fell in too easily with the wrong crowd?
Lived under the shadow of my father’s expectations?
“…my older brother needed structure,” I finally say. “Consistency. Stability. More than Bastien or I did, I guess.”
The sea monster is perched on a concrete slab, out in the middle of the pond, and Caleb kneels in the boat, then grasps the edge of the slab and leans in, carefully, his head now in the monster’s mouth.
Even though I know the power to the monster is cut — even though I know that it’s not a real monster, that there are no real monsters — a shard of anxiety works its way into my chest at the sight.
"I lived in the same house from the time I was born until the time I went to college,” Caleb says. “My mom still lives there. I went to the same schools as all my brothers. Had most of the same teachers. Vivian Atwell is far from the first person to call me by the incorrect name.”
I laugh and he reaches out, runs his fingers along the fractured wood.
“It was a rural school in a rural county and I guess we do all look a little bit alike,” he says, then turns back to me. “I’m gonna see if I can’t rotate this head so I can crawl in there a little better, but you should hold on because it’s likely to rock the boat.”
I move my hands from the bench to the sides, knees still firmly together — half because I don’t want him to see my underwear, half in the hopes that it’ll quell the fire rising inside me.
“Is all more than two?”
Caleb pulls back, kneels on the bottom of the rowboat, takes the jaw in his outstretched hands, muscles bunching and knotting, light playing over them.
I press my knees together even harder.
“Brothers?” he asks, then shakes the head. The boat rocks.
“Yeah.”
“All with respect to brothers is four. All older.”
Rock, rock, rock. I hold on.
“You have four older brothers? How are you alive? I barely survived one,” I say.
Do they all look like you? Lord have mercy if they do.
“I’m very resilient,” he says easily, pulling and pushing and rocking one more time, the monster’s head slowly turning. “To their credit, they were never cruel on purpose. Only by accident. Mostly.”
“I had two and I sometimes thought they’d do me in,” I say, my eyes still glued to his arms, his hands, the power and gentleness he’s putting into this, all at once. “And only one was older. I could beat Bastien up until he hit puberty.”
The monster’s head is sideways, upper and lower jaws resting on the concrete, and Caleb lets it go, leans inside, his head briefly disappearing into the monster’s mouth.
Even in the low light I can see the muscles in his back, through his t-shirt.
God. God. God.
“I think I can cobble something together, especially since it’s only gotta last through tonight,” he says, then pulls his head out, sits back in the boat, and looks at me. “Won’t ruin the magic, will it?”
“The magic of a broken art piece?” I tease.
“The magic of believing in sea monsters,” he says, dimples sinking into his cheeks. “Say the word and I’ll leave it broken.”Chapter FiveCalebI’m saying it like a joke, to tease her, but only because I like to hear her laugh. If Thalia said the word I’d row this boat away right now and leave the sculpture dark and broken in the middle of this pond, Vivian’s unhappiness be damned.
“Most people think sea monsters were probably oarfish,” she says.
I select some wood, some nails, a hammer, and bungee cord, tossing them all onto the concrete in front of me.
“Most people?”
“Most people who are interested in figuring out what sailors in the seventeen hundreds were actually seeing when they reported sea monsters,” Thalia amends herself. “Which amounts to… several people.”
“So several people think that sea monsters were actually oarfish,” I say. “Hold on.”
Carefully, I pull myself onto the concrete pad in the middle of the pond, right into the monster’s mouth, its wooden teeth grazing my torso on either side.
Especially in the dark, it’s a little unsettling.
“Several well-respected people,” Thalia says. “Oarfish are these huge, snake-looking fish that get to be thirty feet long, and they mostly live down pretty deep so people never see them on the surface.”
For a moment, I look around and contemplate a thirty-foot snake-looking fish.
I think I might prefer the sea monster.
“I thought you wanted to believe,” I say, carefully opening the jaws wider around myself.
“I want to believe briefly and reasonably,” Thalia says.
Over the monster’s upper jaw I can see her shift in her seat, hands behind her now, leaning back. Her skirt rides up another half an inch and for a moment, just a moment, that half inch of soft bronze skin is all I can see.