Leap Of Faith

Chapter Nine

[photo by Arno Smit from Unsplash]

Topher

The home of the Nereids is much as I'd envisioned a fisherman's house might be: a rustic cottage with a tin roof, a front porch decorated with a selection of colorful buoys and a truncated piling wrapped in thick rope. What surprises me is that it's genuinely old, the only home on the street that's not been raised on stilts. How has it survived all these years of flooding?

The path to the front door has been rendered useless, overtaken by a variety of untamed flowering plants, much in the style of an English garden. The familiarity is comforting. Not enough to take away the edge of my uncertainty, though. I've had too much time to ponder the reason for this invitation. It would make perfect sense had I been the one to save Leni's life. Opening her home to me would be a fitting expression of gratitude. But this scenario is entirely at odds with the abrupt ending to our Thursday-evening walk on the beach. I left that day with the distinct impression she didn't want me to know where she lived. But apparently, something about our conversation changed her mind?

I still can't fathom how I managed to earn her trust. And perhaps that's the reason for my discomfort now. I'm not convinced I deserve it. I'm here because I'm desperate for answers—only now, I have even more questions: Why, after saving my life, did Leni have to decide whether or not she would stick around to meet me? And what is there to explain about her decision to stay?

"Proceed with caution," I mutter to myself as I knock on the front door. Then I take a step back and nearly stumble over something.

It's a homemade stepping stone. Concrete adorned with shells and pieces of colored glass. Its edges are caked with dirt, as if it has only recently been exhumed from the garden. I readjust my hold on the short stack of pastry boxes as I squat to examine the child-sized pair of handprints pressed into the center. The left one is larger, the fingers a bit longer. Possibly Leni's?

"Topher?"

She's in the driveway—in a turquoise sundress that highlights the considerable length of her legs. Her hair is loose, a halo of sunlit spirals, and her smile is inquisitive.

And it all feels incredibly normal for a moment. Boy meets girl, etcetera.

"The front door has a bad attitude," she says, apologetically.

And with an odd sincerity. "Right," I say standing. I walk toward her, but she doesn't wait. She leads me round the side of the house, to a door sheltered by a rudimentary carport.

Her hand closes on the oxidized metal doorknob. Then she lets go and turns to face me. "I feel like I should warn you."

"I feel like we haven't said a proper hello." I offer the pastry boxes. "The one on top is for Dee—for everyone really, but your message..."

Leni's text came through at 4:00 in the morning: dee says surprise her. It was typed in all lower case letters and without any attempt at punctuation—and evoked the ever-so-charming memory of her groaning and sighing at her phone. God help me.

"The bottom box is a do-over of sorts," I say. "I couldn't find crumpets, so I brought scones in a variety of flavors. The blueberry is my personal favorite."

She smiles. And seems to relax—infinitesimally.

"Hello, Leni. Thank you for inviting me."

"Hi. And you're welcome. But...you still have time to back out."

Ha. Wild bloody horses.

"I can't leave now," I say. "My mum would intuit the discourtesy and feel compelled to fly here and throttle me in person. And she has an intense aversion to airplanes."