Moonglass

body and head were completely irrelevant now, and I stood up over him. “I saw her do it, Dad, and you said it was an accident, and so I went along with it, but I knew. And I was so scared that I knew, because I thought that if you found out, you would think it was all my fault.” I took a breath and looked down, and when I spoke next, my voice was softer. “Because I was there. And she was upset with me.” I didn’t want to cry about it. It was so long ago.
    He just sat there and looked at me. It was one of those moments when he probably should have pulled me in and hugged me, but it was there again, the space between us, and neither of us moved.
    Finally he took a deep breath. “It wasn’t your fault.”
    The same words I had said with such conviction to Jillian and to John Carter, but now they seemed hollow, and I knew better, because I remembered how it had been after she’d died. I spoke softly, knowing the strength of what I was about to say.
    “But I thought it was. And you thought it was. That’s why you couldn’t even look at me for the longest time. I remember that, too.” The words went right where I knew they would, and my dad sat, stricken, but I couldn’t stop. “You wouldn’t even look at me.” Despite my valiant effort, I was crying.
    He spoke slowly, in his voice that was reserved for grave matters.
    “Anna. I couldn’t look at you because every time I did, I was petrified—I couldn’t imagine how I was going to do it alone.” He looked down. “And because I thought, over and over, how she could have just as easily taken you out there with her. It killed me every time I let myself think it.” By the look on his face, it still did. He shook his head. “No. I never, never blamed you. It took me a long time to stop blaming myself.” We were quiet then, and I turned the word over, again and again. “Blame.” I had worn it around my neck for years. John Carter crawled under the weight of his. Jillian only set hers down when she ran. And nobody had ever told any of us we were to blame; we had just decided we were guilty. I sunk into my chair and looked over at my dad, who waited for me to say something, then I pulled the blanket tight around me and used the corner to wipe my eyes.
    “How did you stop?” I sniffed. “Blaming yourself?”
    Again he straightened up and took a deep breath, preparing. He looked at his hands briefly, then back at me. “Your mom was il , Anna. I guess when I really accepted that, I stopped. I’m sure now they would call her depressed, or bipolar, or something else, but we didn’t know then. We were young and stupid, and when we met, it was just beginning, I think.” He smiled vaguely. “She was this wild, brave, brilliant girl who would do anything, and I fell for her the first time I saw her.” I thought of him, a crazy-ass kid, kissing her in the moonlight, and I felt myself look at him with softer eyes. Of course he would want to remember her here, like that, and as he spoke, I did too.
    “We spent two summers sneaking around here, hiding from her folks, and dreaming of running off together. Your grandparents were overprotective of her, and, looking back, they must have known she wasn’t all right. There were times when she’d want to be alone, and I’d see her walking the beach, or she’d hole herself up and paint, but I never questioned it, because she’d always come back to me and we’d go right back to being happy and together. She was starting to fight it then, I think, but she hid it well .” He scanned the water beyond the window, then looked back to me.
    “You were born here, Anna, and she called you her little rescuer—” He stopped short, but then the thought came out in spite of his reluctance. “Said you’d saved her from the dark.”
    I said nothing. I barely breathed. A whole world I hadn’t known about opened up in front of me, and I tried to make sense of my own history that changed and shifted as he spoke. I pictured her walking the beach with me, and John Carter and his kids watching from their porch in the warm afternoon sun. I pictured her telling me stories of mermaids and sea glass, and the magic of the water. And it was there, a connection between me and her, and this place. It was real.
    “Why did we leave?”
    My dad cleared his throat. “We left because I got hired on full -time right after you were born. I had to transfer to take the position, and that was hard on her.
    We got up there, and she