A quick one in which Eric and Rebecca are re-united after two decades.
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There are probably errors in the text despite the numerous re-reads, etc. If there are, forgive me.
I tried to push more romance and less gratuitous fucking into this piece so, again, I hope you enjoy this.
GA - Playa del Carmen, Mexico - 9th June 2012.
He stood on the jetty and watched the dinghy on the lake. A rippled scratch lay upon the mirrored surface of sheet glass between the watcher and the craft, its track marking the course of the oars steady dimpling in the water at intervals towards the island. There were two spots of colour in the boat, one white, sitting spine against the transom, while the other figure, in blue, rowed.
He reached into a side pocket of grey cargo pants and retrieved a packet of cigarettes and a lighter. He lit up and smoked with his eyes on the boat but with his thoughts almost a quarter of a century in the past.
The island smudged in the cuprous lake as a corona flared above the hills to the west and the day dawned proper.
Footsteps and a figure joined him on the dock.
The pair stood in silence for a minute and more until, eventually, the woman spoke. 'Is that them?' She raised a hand in a parody of a salute and shielded her eyes to the cuprous burnishing of the water.
Without looking at her he replied, 'Yep.'
'I didn't know Kenny could row.'
'It isn't Kenny rowing.'
'Melissa? Melissa's rowing?'
'It isn't difficult, Rebecca. I showed her how and then off they went.'
'My talented daughter,' Rebecca said, adding, 'looks like another beautiful day.' She sighed, expression wistful. 'I forgot how lovely it is up here, so quiet away from the hurly-burly.' Rebecca's quick survey of the solitude; the timeless cottage behind, the lake, the island, her brother and her memories. 'You're so lucky to live here.'
The man turned his head to regard his sister. His eyes flicked over her and he saw her as she'd been at nineteen.
Quietly he said, 'Do you remember when we rowed to the island?'
Rebecca flared. 'Of course I remember,' she snapped. 'How could I not? We'd only buried our parents the week before.'
The stub of his cigarette arced out across the lake. He sighed and turned his body to confront her face-on.
'You know what I mean,' he said gently with his hands buried deep in front pockets, tee-shirt bagging in the breeze that suddenly breathed ripples against the placid waters. His chin jutted sideways towards the silhouette on the lake. 'We were only a bit older than them.'
Avoiding her brother's eye she replied, 'Yes, but they,' she indicated vaguely along the dock with a flick of her head, 'are nothing like us. They haven't just lost their mother and father ...' She paused and looked beyond her brother directly towards the island.
He studied his sister's profile and saw the tiniest hairline creases like fine lines in fine bone china at the corner of her eye. He saw her changed, still melancholy yet paradoxically peaceful in repose, as though she'd accepted things and was no longer fighting. There were subtle differences in the way she spoke, her accent had altered and she was more assured and confident than she'd been back then, emphatic when speaking, without the demurring and lowering of her eyes as had once been her way. Physically, apart from the inevitable differences of two decades, she was much the same, albeit her hair was now a manufactured mahogany suffused with threads of an indeterminate red and which feathered to frame her face.
He looked at the woman his sister had become and lifted a hand to stroke her cheek. Quietly he said, 'In a way they have.'
At his touch she turned to face him again.
She left his hand on her cheek and reached hers up to it. 'It isn't the same as us though.' Her pale green eyes searched his.
'Nothing's the same as us.'
Rebecca broke away softly and left him there. He watched her tread up the gentle slope towards the cottage and heard her call distinctly on the flat, clear air of the morning, 'I'm making coffee ...'
He lifted his hand with a thumb raised and she turned to continue, moving easily away from him, as lithe and supple as she'd been at nineteen. He sighed. There were a lot of memories today – her being here again after more than twenty years, a brother and sister rowing on the lake, a near perfect spring morning, although their spring morning back had been overshadowed by bereavement.
That morning, a week after the funeral, he'd rowed and Rebecca had sat, quiet and withdrawn with her back against the transom, the bag with the picnic between her feet.
He lit another cigarette and considered the effect of that day. Ripples on the lake from sweeping oars left ripples on the water, while their actions, like those ripples, lapped at the shore of their present day.
***
The dinghy sniffed the land and pebbles grated against the keel.
He shipped the oars and unnecessarily announced, 'We're here.'
Rebecca looked at him, blinking as though just waking. She looked around vaguely and then reached for the bag as he jumped ashore. He held the boat steady and, after dropping the bag onto the shingle, offered a supporting hand to his sister.
'Good day for a picnic,' he offered blandly after securing the painter to the eye-bolt picket and the blanket had been spread and the picnic laid out a few yards from the water.
Rebecca shrugged and brushed her long fringe from her eyes. 'I suppose.'
'It'll do us both good to get out of the cottage.' He swept an arm across the lake. 'Besides, you like coming here.'
Rebecca muttered a reply. 'I do, I do like coming here. It's just ... different now.'
