Rising Tides Read Online Free PDF Page A

ocean.”  I pushed the button for the elevator.
    “I could go with you.”  His voice softened and he swallowed sharply.  I could see his Adam’s apple move.
    I shook my head.  “You’ve never been excited about sitting in one place while I stroked colors across a canvas.  We both know that.  We’ve always known it.”  The bell chimed and the doors slid open.
    Gary dropped his arm.  “Why do you keep pushing me away?”  He raised his hand and rubbed the bridge of his nose.  “I’m doing the best I can.”
    Gary and I entered the elevator beside two other couples, and our conversation  died.  Once again, interlopers had founds us.  As the doors closed, I punched 15 and stepped away from the console.  In my peripheral vision I saw Gary leaning against the back of the elevator.  His fingers braided together, and he braced his shoulders sharply in the rigid posture of a piano player.
    My husband and I were the first two to arrive at our floor, and we stepped off the elevator in the same silence we’d left.  Gary walked ahead and pulled out the plastic card to unlock the door.  Once the two of us were together in the room, I  lay on the bed and curled up into a ball.  Gary turned off all the bright lights and left on the single lamp to illuminate his side of things.  He pulled out a John Grisham novel he’d half finished and opened it as I closed my eyes.
    In that darkness, his soft breath was magnified until my heart aligned its pace to Gary’s rhythm of breathing.  Angered by my own physical betrayal, I purposely held my breath until my heart thundered in my chest and the blood galloped through my veins.  I’m alive! I thought as my fingers curled into the thick comforter.  And I’m not yours anymore.
    The blackness thickened, sweeping toward the cliff of dreams, and I let that hypnotic blindness capture me in the only freedom I knew.
    * * *
    Morning sunlight bled around the thick cream curtains as I woke.  I rolled over slowly, feigning sleep just in case Gary still happened to be in bed.  Through half-opened eyes, I saw the rumpled sheets emptied of my husband, and I slowly stretched my fingers out on his side of the bed, touching the pillow where he had slept.  For some reason, the emptiness filled my eyes in the form of tears as I thought again about the man who came to my bed with shutters drawn tightly across his heart.
    The tears spilling across my face had little to do with betrayal anymore.  I had gotten quite used to that.  My own body had betrayed me with cancer.  What more damage could anyone do?  I moved my hand from his pillow and brushed it across my wild hair before slowly crawling out of bed and climbing into the shower.  As I styled my hair with the same mechanical motions I always used in my morning ritual, I only looked in the mirror when I had to, as though if I really didn’t pay attention, I wouldn’t see the obvious.
    I walked out of the bathroom and spied Tyler’s sweats where I’d neatly folded them on top of the dresser.  Without thinking, I touched them, stroking my palm against the fleeced softness.  I closed my eyes and savored the warmth of the fabric against my skin.
    I snatched my hand away and thought , This isn’t getting you anywhere.  You ought to just return them and forget about sailing.  Forget about him.
    I reached down and picked up my purse, along with the bag with paints and canvas, and shoved in the clothes.  “I won’t stay long,” I muttered.  “And I won’t even go sailing.  Not again.”
    I had already locked the door when I remembered the pills I had to keep with me.  My fingers inserted the plastic card and I darted back into the room to get them, shoving the smoke-colored bottle into my purse and resumed my journey toward the beach.
         The minute I stepped into the sand, I knew I had lied to myself about sailing, just as I had when I’d first felt the headaches and the lumps I’d reassured myself were