Chapter 1 (The Blackest Years)

It was the first time in a long time that I slept through the night. I still locked the door before I climbed into bed though, old habits die hard. I woke up slightly disoriented, not remembering where I was. It was the swooshing and crushing of the waves that reminded me. I got out of bed and stumbled over to the door that leads out to the deck. I moved the blinds aside and looked outside, taking in the view in the daylight. The house is situated on a huge steep hill overlooking the ocean. The house is two floors, the main living area upstairs and the bedrooms downstairs in a half basement. The house is carved into the hill so the front part of the house facing away from the ocean is half underground. The back half of the house facing towards the ocean is entirely above ground and supported on stilts carved in the hillside. Each level has its own deck. Down below past the expanse of shrubs and evergreens, at the very base of the hill, is the main road through Rockaway Beach, Oregon. Beyond that is an expanse of sand and then (slightly obscured by the morning fog) is ocean as far as the eye can see. Even when it was almost hidden from view you could still hear it. Even from all the way up here.

I turned away from the window to survey my new room. The only furniture in the white walled plain space is a small twin bed and a white dresser. My aunt was never really a decorator. Her spaces always had a clean, utilitarian way about them. I had only been to this house on a few other occasions, mostly holidays. I had certainly never stayed the night here. My backpack is in the corner sitting on top on the suitcase I also brought along. I dug out some clean clothes and my tooth brush. I opened the door, quietly, just a creak. I had heard pans clacking and water running upstairs but now that my door was open I could hear the talking too. It sounded like I was catching them mid conversation.

“Well what am I supposed to think, Ann? You call me at three in the morning, asking if I could take Melanie for a few months.” My aunt was saying.

“Jim was messing with her, Jean!” My mom said forcefully.

“The entire time we were together. It’s been happening right under my goddamn nose! Melanie only told me last night…” there was a pause.

I made a dash down the hall and into the bathroom, closing and locking the door behind me as quiet as possible. I didn’t need to listen to this. I was there. I lived it. For 7 whole years, I lived it.

I busied myself in finding a towel (under the sink) and cranking the shower to as hot as I could make it. I didn’t want to think about this. I lathered up my long dark hair trying to block out the memories.

Feeling reckless I shaved my legs for the first time in months.

When I got out of the shower I looked into my refection. My wet dark brown hair hung in tangles around my face. I normally couldn’t afford to take this much time showering. I haven’t really studied my reflection in months, not wanting to even meet my own gaze.  I stared into my green eyes. I wondered if I looked that sad to everyone else. I thought briefly about leaving my hair down for the first time in years before brushing it back into my old standby pony tail. I threw on my baggy t-shirt and jeans after brushing my teeth. I never bothered with make up like the other girls my age. I learned long ago to make myself as unassuming as possible in a vain attempt to direct attention elsewhere. It worked with almost everyone, especially if they were close to my age. It did not work on the one person I wished desperately it would work on.

Upstairs there is a wide expanse of windows on the back side of the house, the side that overlooked the ocean. The windows reached very nearly from floor to ceiling. It was hard to ignore the breathtaking beauty behind them. The upstairs is decorated in the same utilitarian manner the downstairs is done in. A dark brown leather sectional frames the TV in the living area. There is a book shelf along the opposite wall from the windows filled with works of fiction. My aunt loves to read. Beyond that is a dining area and the kitchen separated by a bar height expanse of cabinets and countertop. In front of the living area is a very small sitting area with a sun deck off of it. The whole place is open concept living, no walls. Although the house has decks there is no furniture out there. There’s always a constant cold breeze rolling in from the Pacific that is especially aggressive at this altitude. Even in the summers the temperature rarely goes above seventy five.

It’s part of the appeal of Oregon beaches. They’re always significantly cooler so there are never as many people. The water never gets very high above freezing and the sky is almost constantly overcast. Even in the height of summer the beaches here never get as crowed as the beaches south of us in California. In my mind the serenity here only adds to the beauty of the place.

My mom and aunt are seated at the table across from each other. They both looked up when I walked in, concern written all over their features.

“Good morning, sweatie! How did you sleep?” My mom asked.

Jean got up and walked into the kitchen.

“I’ll make you some food, Mel,” she told me while she did so.

“Good,” I answered. The nights were quiet here, much quieter then Portland.

“Well it took me a little bit to get used to the ocean sounds,” my Mom laughed.

I sat down at the head of the table. Jean brought over a plate and a glass of water. On the plate are scrambled eggs that look way better than any of my attempts, some perfectly cooked bacon, and a biscuit. Jean is an amazing cook. Clearly those genes never made it to my Mom or I.

As I eat my Mom and Jean talk about her house and the tiny town below us. Rockaway Beach is a 7 mile stretch of beach along the Oregon coastline known for its’ rock formation just offshore. There are two massively sized rocks not far from the beach that sit side by side. On the left is one that looks like an oddly shaped horseshoe that someone turned upside down and plopped into the ocean. The one on the right is a slightly bigger solid mound of rock. Rockaway is one of those towns that come alive during the summers and holiday weekends, making most it’s money off the tourism. Jean is one of the very few who actually live here year round. The town is tiny with a population at fourteen hundred. Jean owns and runs a store down on the main street. In order to adapt to the loss of business that happens in the off seasons she started doing a lot of selling online as well. She does pretty well for herself.

“Well I have to be going,” my Mom says just as I’m cleaning off the last bits of food off my plate. I knew this part would be coming. It was all a part of our plan. The one we hastily threw together at two am after I decided enough was enough and told my unaware mother everything.

She turns toward me and folds her arms over on the table in front of us. She looks me in the eye when she says

“Mel I have to tie up some loose ends in Portland. Get a divorce, sell the house. I’m going to find us somewhere really nice to live and just as soon as I have everything set I’ll come back and get you, ok? We can start fresh, just you and me.” She doesn’t say but I know getting rid of Jim is somewhere on that list too.

 “You’ll have to start the first bit of senior year here, but they have a really good school here that I’m sure you’ll love,” she went on to say.

She stood up and came over to my chair to hug me. I hugged her back.

“I love you” she whispered in my ear.

I nod. I can feel tears welling in my eyes, but I won’t cry. I’m done crying.

“Jean, thank you so much,” she told my aunt after she let me go. “You have no idea how much this means to us.”

“It’s no problem at all,” Jean said as she got up to hug my Mom.

My Mom blew us both a kiss before leaving. The house suddenly felt a whole lot more empty without her.

“Well I guess it’s just us now” Jean said. She got up and took my plate and glass. “We’ll have to go into town to the store to get some food you’ll like. It’s just been me for so long so I only have the things I like. Then we can stop by the High School and get you registered,” she was saying over her shoulder.

I looked out of those huge windows down onto the ocean. The morning fog was burning off and even from all the way up here I could see the steady in and out of the waves.

----

The closest decently sized grocery store with more of a selection for food besides some loaves of bread, soda, and a random ice cream section is the Fred Meijer in Tillamook, twenty minutes south of Rockaway. We loaded up in Jean’s Tucson to take the journey.

The roads that go down the steep hill from where Jean’s house is to the town below make me nervous. They’re twisty, windy, and incredibly steep. We are, quite literally, perched on a cliff. We end up on the main street through town that can be seen from our house. There are a few shops down this main road, the pizza parlor, a convenience store, an outlandish gift shop painted bright green with plastic flamingos out front, and one gas station. Sprinkled throughout are some private homes. Most of these homes get rented out every summer and weekend to vacationers and some are lived in year round by the residents.  Add a pair of railroad tracks and a few hotels and you have Rockaway. Everything looks like it was built all at the same time as all the buildings are made out of the same materials. Most of them have that slated wood effect; the one that looks like a roof only it’s on the sides of buildings instead of the top. Even though she never points it out I can recognize Jean’s store we pass by it. “Seaside Jewels” it said in white letters about the door. The neon sign that says “open” was light up right below it. Jean glanced at the store as we passed by.

“I hired a girl your age to help me out. She’s a good kid, you may like her. I’ll introduce you guys later,” Jean said.

I raised my eyebrows. Normally Jean only has some of the retired ladies from town working in the store.

“How is business?” I asked her.

“It’s good, really good. We’ve been doing a lot of online orders lately, which is why I hired Sarah. She packs to orders and mails them for me. Sarah is the girl your age, by the way,” Jean told me.

I nodded.

The drive was quick. When we got to the store I didn’t really want to pick out anything. I didn’t want to make Jean feel like I was going to be a burden on her. I don’t need anything special, really. At her request and pushing I picked out some fruit, lunch meat, and various snacks. Jean also picked out a lot of baking and cooking ingredients that I would have no idea what to do with.

We went a slightly different way home with a detour to a medium sized plain gray building that looks newer then any of the other buildings.

“This is Jefferson High School, where you’ll be going,” she told me as she parked in front of the school.

“Come on, let’s go get you registered.”

This school is much, much smaller than the one I went to back home. I could tell even in the size of the building that not many students go here. You can hear the ocean from the school, though the view of it is obscured by evergreens.

“Just wait here” Jean motioned to a bench just inside the front doors that was to the left. The offices were to the right. I sat down. I could see Jean through the little window in the door talking to a lady behind the desk. Hopefully she wasn’t busy telling her my whole life story. There was a banner on the wall with what I guess is the school’s logo, a maroon J with a pirate standing next to it, his arm crossed.

“Welcome back, Pirates!” A banner underneath it read.

How charming.

The sound of a door opening and closing from around the corner pulled my attention away from the tacky poster.

“He’s just such a bad kid!” I craned my neck in the direction the talking was coming from, the same direction the door sounds came from.

“I don’t think he’s such a bad kid, he’s just a teenager. He thinks he knows best” another female voice said. Clearly this was not a conversation I wasn’t supposed to be hearing.

“Yes but did you hear how Mr. Madox’s truck went missing last weekend? Everyone is saying Ryan did it. The cops already took him in for questioning but they had no proof to charge him,” the first women’s voice said.

“That’s just speculation. We’re in a small town, people talk.” The ladies were moving down the hallway away from me, their voices fading into the distance.

“I don’t know. I think he’s bad news.”

They disappeared. I tried to hear more, but the ladies were gone. What was that about? Was Ryan a student here?

“Ready?” Jean was standing right in front of me, her eyebrows raised. Clearly she had been trying to get my attention.

“Oh, yea, sorry,” I told her as I got up to leave.

“They’re going to have everything ready for you on the first day of class on Monday. You just have to go into that office and tell them who you are. They’ll tell you where to go. School starts as 8:35. I can drop you off,” she was telling me.

We were back in her car, pulling away. I was still thinking about the conversation I overheard.

“Okay.”