Hugh Howey - The Shell Collector

Holly whoops when she finds the doorknob. It’s a struggle to get it turned, but then the door flies inward, and we tumble along after it. The car cover finally claims us, tangling our feet, and I brace for impact, one arm around Holly and twisting her so she lands on top of me.

There’s an oomph and a grunt from both of us. The wind is knocked out of me, and we have to fight to dig our way out from the wet fabric. Rain courses down the folds in rivulets, getting all over the floor and soaking us as we scramble for the open door.

We slam it shut. Holly is panting and giggling. I fight with Ness’s robe to stay decent. The guest house is now a base camp, a temporary shelter against the storm, a small island at sea.

“I think we’re stuck here,” I tell Holly.

She pushes her hair off her face. We both got doused crawling out from under the car cover. She wipes her face and looks at her wet palms. “So close,” she says.

“I don’t think it qualifies as rain if it’s indoors,” I tell her. “Just tossing that out there.”

“I second the motion,” Holly says. And then: “Victory!” She dances around the room in her galoshes, leaving wet bootprints everywhere, while I gather the drenched cover and dump it in the bathtub.

After I change into dry clothes, and after Holly has explored the guest house— her house—I show her the book that was the subject of all our troubles.

“Read me a page,” she says.

And so we arrange ourselves on the big bed in the middle of the downstairs loft, a pile of cushions behind us, and I start to read the adventures of Long John Silver, a sea cook turned treasure hunter, and of pirates and sea chests and treasure maps. And I don’t stop reading aloud, even as Holly drifts off to sleep. I just lower my voice and keep reading, and the storm outside does not abate, but Holly mumbles something, snuggles closer, and I have to set the book aside for a moment. It strikes me that my daughter would be nine right now if I’d carried her to term, if my body hadn’t betrayed us both. She would be nine, and I would read to her like this.

I cover my mouth as the tears come hard and fast. The noise of the rain masks my sobs. Holly throws an arm across me and rests her head against my shoulder, and I fear she’ll wake up and ask me what’s the matter, and I’ll have to make something up. Something a bright girl like her will know is a lie.

But she mumbles these words instead, a soft admission: “I don’t really hate the rain,” she tells me.

And then she falls back asleep, there in my arms, and I wish for her to have happy dreams.

I drift in and out. Dreams mix with the wild scene outside—pirate ships plying the coast; men in slickers with treasure maps digging greedily at the wet sand; thunder transmuting into cannon-fire as my imagination melds the real and the unreal.

At one point, a man appears at the window in a yellow raincoat and yellow rain cap. He looks nothing like a pirate. He looks like Ness. It is much later that I realize it was him, that he came back home to find the note from his ex, the house empty, and checked on us here before deciding to leave us sleeping.

Even though I’m wide awake now, I let Holly doze with her head on my arm. I’m struck again by how quickly she took to me, and I hope it’s a healthy thing. It could be that she’s perfectly well adjusted, that she’s bright and courageous and comfortable in her own skin. Or it could be that she is desperately seeking something that’s missing from her life. I’m no expert in child psychology, so I have no way of knowing which is more likely.

And maybe I’m looking too far for the culprit. Maybe the one desperate to connect is me. I push this question aside, not caring to examine it. When Holly stirs, I wiggle my arm free and get up to use the bathroom. She’s outside the door when I get out, rubbing her eyes and yawning. We trade places without a word between us.

“I think your father is home,” I say when she emerges. “And we napped through lunch. Should we go up to the house?”

She nods, looks out at the rain, then back to me. “Maybe we should just run for it,” she says.

“Let’s do it.”

We squeal and laugh all the way to the house, getting soaked. We arrive at the living room to find folded towels set out for us and one on the floor just inside the door. Ness appears while we’re drying our hair. “I’m going to my room to change,” Holly announces. “Let me know when lunch is ready.” She drops her towel in a heap and marches toward the north breezeway.

“How about a hello?” Ness asks his daughter. “Maybe a hug?”

Holly makes an exaggerated turn, like a jetliner banking through the clouds, and steers toward her dad. She gives him a perfunctory hug, rolling her eyes at me, and then pads off for her room.

“I am so sorry,” Ness says. “Something came up, and I had no idea Holly would be—”

“It’s okay,” I tell him.

“—hate you had to babysit—”

“It was fine. We had a good time. The rain probably messed up whatever you were going to show me anyway.”

“Well, not really. It’s supposed to storm all day tomorrow as well, but it won’t affect us. In fact, we have a series of flights to take tonight.”

He glances at his watch. I’ve noticed that he does this constantly. It’s a trait I’ve seen in a lot in the people I’ve interviewed over the years. For some, it’s because they live by appointments: you’re lucky to get fifteen minutes of their time. For others, it’s ambition: they’re in a race to get all they want accomplished. Ness is a playboy without a schedule, so he fits neither of these easy molds. Perhaps he’s a third type: the schoolboy wondering when class will get out and he’ll have his freedom again. Maybe he only does this around people like me, obligations he’d rather not have.

“Where are we going?” I ask. Funny, I expected to travel someplace exotic when I first got here, and now I don’t want to leave.

“It’s a surprise,” Ness says. “Besides, if I told you the name of the place or where it was, you still wouldn’t have a clue about our final destination.”

“Will we be diving?”

Ness cocks his head. “In a way. Now stop asking questions—”

“I’m a reporter,” I remind him. “You stop picking up shells.”

“I just might,” he says. And before I can press him on this, he’s telling me what to pack. “One change of clothes, toothbrush, toiletries, no makeup, no perfume, no mask or fins, no wetsuit, no bathing suit.”

“That’s a list of what not to pack,” I say.

“Comfortable clothes. Shorts. T-shirt. Nothing too warm.”

I’m confused. Nothing warm, but no bathing suit?

Again, he glances at his watch. “We’ll leave in half an hour.”

“What about Holly?” I ask.

“Monique will watch her until her mother picks her up. Speaking of which, I got an earful from Vicky about who was in my bed this morning when she got here.” He lifts an eyebrow in a Care to explain that? sorta way.

“I wasn’t in your bed,” I say. “I was… I got drenched running up here after I found your note. I went in search of a towel, found your bathroom first—”

“And my robe.”

“And your robe, yes. My clothes are in the dryer. I was looking at pictures of Holly on your desk when your ex came in.”

“What did you think of her?”

“I’m sorry, what?” I try to transition from being defensive to having a chat about his ex-wife. “She was… nice, I guess. Of course, she seemed to think we were sleeping with each other. Hard to blame her, considering. Pretty embarrassing for me.”