The Water Trilogy Box Set

Chapter Three-2

They locked you away, and now I’m starting to get it. Now, I understand why you’re such a mess. I read your diagnosis, and everything is laid out so neatly, now—thanks to this little black box. You don’t feel things the way other people do, and the pieces that make you up are beginning to fit together in my mind. You’re a puzzle, Kate, and I haven’t told you how much I like your new name, but someday, I plan to.

Anyway, your father thought you and this guy were getting too close, so he moved you across town. But you’re a clever girl, and you feel things deeply. You hang on when the going gets tough. Of course, a little distance wouldn’t change that, and so you continued seeing him even if it wasn’t as often as before, and there’s something about your defiance that turns me on.

This kid, James, had plans to go away to art school in Colorado that fall, and you’d promised to go with him, and I love that you’re willing to follow your heart.

But you’re sensitive and naïve, Kate, and James didn’t love you the way you loved him. I’m sorry to ruin the story for you. I know this because you had no plans for yourself— unless you count working your a*s off to put him through school, banking on the fact that dear ol’ James had the talent and the wherewithal to make something of himself.

Not to spoil the ending for you—but most artists don’t. You thought it was okay that things would be hard in the beginning because you’d have each other. But what you don’t understand about love, Kate, is that the beginning is supposed to be the best part.

Still, it’s sweet the way you write about that summer—the summer after graduation, about how you spent every waking moment together and the way you tell it—it’s almost as good as a goddamned Nicolas Sparks novel. Not that I’ve ever read one—but I’d be willing to bet money that you have.

But you surprise me, too, by how you can go from Sparks to Stephen King in the matter of a few paragraphs when you write about your mother, and my god, after reading this, I’m impressed you seem as normal as you do.

You had big dreams, you did. Albeit a little misguided. You keep secrets, and your mother is weak, and you’re wrong—it was your father who was the sick one.

They didn’t care that you didn’t plan to go to college. And it’s wrong the way your father convinced you it was best you stick close to home to help with your mother. She was sick in the way that people get when they can’t leave the house. She rarely made you dinner and almost never did things normal mothers do, and the more I read, the more I realize we are the same, you and I.

There were weeks she didn’t leave the confines of her bedroom, and this made you anxious because no one aside from your father was allowed to enter, and you don’t say it in words, but you were practically an orphan, like one of those Russian babies forced to fend for themselves.

And not even just for yourself. It went further than that. You were like f*****g Cinderella. You cooked for her, you took her food and left it by the door. You’d knock once, knowing she couldn’t—or wouldn’t answer—and your father always told you what a waste she was, but he left out the part where it was his fault. Most of the time, you’d scrape her food and your hard work down the disposal all the while you wondered how long someone could survive on a mixture of coffee and vodka and cigarettes, and I can attest that given my own mother’s disappearance, it isn’t forever.

You didn’t know your mother, not the way I knew mine. She rarely spoke to you, but what could she possibly have had to say, living that way? Saying as much probably wouldn’t make you feel better, and someday, I will tell you that it’s okay—that it’s hard to really know a person anyway.

You have ambition, Kate and not fake aspirations like that guy you loved, either. You were determined to get out. So you stowed away cash you earned in tips, and this is what set the two of you apart. You were willing to work for what you wanted. But your mistake was handing over the money you earned from waitressing to your father. You were young and naïve—but you weren’t dumb—and so you saved a portion of your tips, hidden away. I appreciate your cleverness even if he didn’t.

And I know he didn’t because, when he found your stash, it set off a whole chain of events that made you the person you are today, and so maybe it’s okay. If not, it will be, just give me time. I’ll make it that way.

Speaking of time, it was just a mere five days before you and James were set to depart that things went south, and fast. You returned home excited, which was only elevated by the fact you found your mother sitting on the couch waiting for your return, the way a normal mother might, only you hadn’t seen yours in eighteen days. Freedom was within reach, and your mother was no longer locked away, and you felt hope for the first time in a long time. That is until your father called from the kitchen. You will never forget the way your heart swelled before you heard his voice, and the more I read, the more mine breaks for you.

It breaks at the part where your mother finally speaks to you, and when she does, it’s only to tell you that your room has bad things in it. But her heart doesn’t break because it doesn’t know love like mine. There’s bad energy in there, she tells you, and I’m not sure if you know it, but she’s the bad energy, and it’s your family who is crazy, not you.

Your father finds you in the living room. He finds you everywhere. He’s drying his hands when he tells you he ran into James’s mother in the grocery store, and you sink to your knees. You pray that the floor will swallow you up, but it won’t because it’s not quicksand you walk on in that house—it’s eggshells. He informs you that your mother found the money—but I’d be willing to bet it was him even though it doesn’t really matter because the outcome is the same. He doesn’t tell you they’ve destroyed your bedroom, your hopes, your dream. You just know.

You don’t go down easy, though—not without a fight. You know what comes next, and you won’t let him lock you in that room, not this time, not again. You won’t become a younger version of your mother, you tell him. But then, that’s what all girls say.

You thought you could run, but this was before you got good at it.

You thought they couldn’t stop you. But you were wrong. They could, and they did. And they drove you to the brink in the process. They knew what to say to put you where they wanted you to be. In your room, in your place. You grabbed carpet by the fistful before you moved to the hair on your head—anything— you said to avoid being punished—to avoid being locked in that room.

The thing is, your father understood what you didn’t, Kate. He understood the long game. He’d been playing it longer.

He told the police, and then the doctors, that you attacked him, and they bought into his lies, but not me. You didn’t have it in you—not then.

Unfortunately, no one knew this. Maybe they should’ve read your writing, but they didn’t, and so they locked you away for ten weeks. And, Kate—that boy you loved… all he did was send a note thanking you for the money your father sent. Money that was yours and all he had to say for himself was that he was sorry you were sick. But, like me, you’re a real romantic, one of the few left. This is why you wrote to him every day, often twice a day, bearing your heart, bleeding on the page.

All those letters you sent? They were a monument to your love, but he only ever returned one. He wrote that he missed you and that he was doing well. As a token, he offered a small drawing—of a mountain. It must have meant something to you because you’ve kept it, even after all this time. It’s crap if you ask me. He promised he’d take you there, to see this mountain. But unlike me, he isn’t the kind of guy who makes good on his promises. It’s hard to blame him, though, given that three weeks after that final letter was sent, you received the news that he was dead.

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