WHO: Ash and Brooke WHEN: Day two, after the tour WHERE: Brooke's room WHAT: Ash tells her about finding Max's knife WARNINGS: none
Ash knocked on Brooke’s door, first hesitantly and then once more, harder this time. When she had given him her room number yesterday in case he needed anything, he very much doubted that this was what she had in mind. He certainly never expected to be here, presenting a mother with something that had belonged to her dead son. It was the right thing to do, but still anxiety bubbled in the pit of his stomach. When the door opened, he smiled wide out of habit. “Hi, Mrs. Kingman, er, Clermont. How are you?”
Brooke wasn't expecting anybody and she was still feeling a little rattled from the old woman her group had encountered on the tour, but her smile warmed a little when she realized it was Ash. “Ash! Come on in!” She gestured and then put a hand on his shoulder to guide him inside. “I’m doing okay. Our tour didn't go quite like we expected. There was this woman…” Brooke shuddered a little and shook it off.
“Anyway, you're one of the few people I think who can appreciate just how big this place is. I mean, with the houses in Cherry Hill, you expect it. But I swear, this hotel room must have eaten three others. When I look for my cell phone under the couch, I keep expecting to find a full circus.” She let go of him and turned to the kitchen. “Thirsty? You want something to drink?”
He whistled appreciatively, temporarily distracted from the task at hand. The room- rooms, really- was enormous and beautiful, far grander than his comparatively tiny entry level room. “I think the living area alone is bigger than my apartment.” And her question, his throat was suddenly parched. “A water would be great if it’s not too much trouble, thanks.” The grateful smile he flashed felt like a he was setting a trap, leading her to a false sense of ease. It felt like lying, and acting like this was a normal visit left him uneasy but there was no other way; it seemed too cruel to suddenly spring Max’s knife on her.
“I think Grand Suite is just another term for apartment,” Brooke said while she reached into the fridge. She turned to look at him and mouthed ‘Don’t tell Adam.’ Returning from the kitchen area, she handed him a waterbottle. “I’m not sure what you’d cook around here, but if you ever want to use the kitchen, feel free.”
“Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind though I don’t know why anyone would need a kitchen when they feed us so well.” He untwisted the cap and took a deep gulp of water. “So uh.” He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, stalling. “I’ve got something to tell you. Show you. Do you want to sit down?” This seemed like something she should be sitting for. He slipped a hand into his pocket and grasped the Swiss Army knife lightly. He half hoped that it had been a bad dream, some sort of hallucination, and that his fingers would find nothing at all. However, it was still there, feeling like a lead weight in his pocket.
Brooke frownsmiled and raised a hand as if to say Ash made a good point, but the gesture was interrupted by the announcement. Brooke's head tilted, but she walked over to the couch, noticing the immediate shift in the air around them. Whatever this was, it was serious. “Okay,” she said, waiting for him to join her. “What is it?”
He followed her to the couch, hesitated, and then sat down beside her, turning to face her. “So I found something today. On the beach. It’s…” he couldn’t quite bear to say it aloud. He had practiced this in his head on the way over but now that he was here, sitting next to her as she looked at him expectantly, he found words failed him. He swallowed hard and reached into his pocket, pulling out the pocket knife and holding it out to her. “I uh. I thought you should have it.”
For a second, during the pause, Brooke half-expected the word ‘body.’ Maybe it was his expression, or maybe it was the experience with the old woman on the island where so many people had died. Her eyes widened as she braced, but when she saw what Ash was holding in his hand, her expression shifted into something more soft and sad. She recognized it immediately. “Max’s pocket knife.” Her small smile broke at the edges as she took it from Ash and turned it in her hand.
It had been Brooke’s father’s knife. She’d given it to Max when he was a kid. He’d inherited her father’s adventurous spirit. It had seemed right to give him the knife too. The memory felt like it was from another lifetime, but there was something bittersweet and warm about holding something that had been lost, even if it was sad too. “I never thought I’d see this again.” Brooke said, quiet. She looked up at Ash and then handed it back to him. “You should keep it. I think you found it for a reason. Maybe Max wanted you to have it. You never know, it could come in handy someday.” They were in a jungle.
Ash paused, unsure what to say. In many ways this has gone far better than he could have imagined. He had been so rattled to see it perched on top of a sandcastle, seemingly placed there by someone or something. It had felt like a cruel trick or an omen, and it left him unsettled and on edge. But she was so calm, so accepting, and he felt his own nerves calming. Still. “Are you sure?” His hands stayed in his lap and his gaze flitted down to the knife before returning to her face. It didn’t quite feel like something he could accept. “Maybe I was just supposed to be the messenger.” But maybe she did have a point. There did seem to be something eerily like fate at work here.
The knife was very clean and Brooke assumed that Ash was the one who had cleaned it off. “I’m sure,” Brooke said. “I think Max would like knowing it went to you.” If Brooke took it back, she didn’t see it getting much use in high-society Colorado. Ash and the knife delivery were a welcome distraction from Brooke rehashing what had happened with the woman in the Courtyard. “Where did you find it?”
Ash nodded slowly. “Well. I’ll take good care of it, then. And if you change your mind, it’s yours.” But he had to admit, the idea of having something that had been important to Max was appealing. He had been left with an apartment full of Teddy’s things, but nothing really of Max’s. His relationship with Max hadn’t been the same, of course, but he was still someone Ash cared about. “It was just lying on the beach, next to a sandcastle. The tide must have washed it up.” He wasn’t entirely convinced that was true. It seemed too unlikely a coincidence, but it didn’t seem right to voice his suspicions aloud when there was nothing to indicate that it was intentionally left for him other than gut instinct.
The tide washing it up made sense to Brooke. The timing was crazy, but Brooke did believe in fate enough that she could believe that maybe Max’s hand had guided his knife to the person that he would have wanted the knife to go to. Max had always really liked Asher. She mustered a smile. “Maybe Max is telling you that you need to go out there and have some adventures.”
Ash chuckled. “Maybe he is.” That seemed so very Max.
Brooke looked troubled then, sitting there, but it didn’t have anything to do with the knife. She was thinking about the old woman in the courtyard. “Do you…” Brooke started and then paused because she could feel her throat start to close up. She blinked the moisture from her eyes. “Do you ever think about the last things you said to them?”
He wasn’t entirely sure to respond to question or the sudden change in topic so he simply nodded mutely. He was grateful, at least, that his last words had been kind. There had been no fights, no drama with any of them. He had just wished them well and sent them on their way. He had asked Max about status reports on treasure hunting and made sure that Sally hadn’t eaten all the cookies and ensured that they were all having fun. It had been pleasant and routine, but that was better than the alternative. Those last few days before he found out what happened, the frantic texts he first only sent to Teddy and then all of them, still haunted him, but at least the final conversations had been positive. At least the last words he had ever exchanged with Teddy was ‘I love you.’
“Why?”
“The Wednesday before the storm, Max managed to get a phone call through,” Brooke said. The words were slow like it was a difficult thing for her to talk about. “He was freaked out because there was this old woman that grabbed him and said he and his friends were going to die if they didn’t leave the island.” There was a beat. “I think we ran into that same woman today. She saw me and another guest and freaked out. Started yelling about how she’d warned the boy.” Brooke shook her head at the memory, before she looked back at Ash.
“I mean, clearly the woman was crazy, right? She definitely has some kind of medical issue. But…” Brooke bit her lip as she paused. “It’s just hard not to think about what might have been, if I hadn’t reassured him then.” Max so rarely freaked out about anything. She’d been trying to help him. But if she hadn’t...Maybe he would have taken the next ferry home.
Ash didn’t know this. He didn’t want to know this. It was too much. There was a small selfish, angry part of him that wanted question why she had allowed them to stay, why she hadn’t trusted his fear, but a larger part of him knew that was cruel and unfair. They had the gift of hindsight now, and while it was easy to say that he would have acted differently and urged them to come home, he knew that he likely would have done the same. What reason did they have to believe an old woman screaming on the street? That uneasy feeling he felt on them beach crept back, and it was hard to shake the thought that something more was going but that didn’t make any sense. The woman was just crazy and by coincidence happened to be right and happened to run into Max’s mother. It wasn’t impossible, right?
“It’s not your fault. You couldn’t have known. She couldn’t have known. You’re his mother; it’s part of your job to reassure him that the monsters under his bed aren’t real. Telling him that everything was fine was the logical thing to do.” But he didn’t want to think about how much that guilt weighed on her.
“I think I talked to him after you did,” he added softly. “Teddy told me they were going camping, and I told Max to have fun. He seemed excited. Normal.” If he was still scared, he hid it well. Ash wasn’t sure if it counted for much but it was something.
In the moment, Ash’s words reassured Brooke, even if they didn’t totally assuage the nagging guilt. She wouldn’t have blamed Ash if he’d gotten angry at her then, but he hadn’t. In a way, it was just a relief to have confessed it to someone else. She nodded slow and swallowed, blinking back the tears. “Thank you.” How could anyone imagine that what would happen would happen?
She looked surprised at Ash’s confession. She hadn’t known that. Her smile and exhale was light. “That sounds just like him.” He was an enthusiastic kid. Brooke had always loved the way Max saw the world. She shook her head.
Brooke’s arms opened to hug Ash. She wouldn’t keep him. Sitting with a parent in one of the hotel rooms was hardly someone his age’s idea of a tropical vacation. “Don’t be a stranger, okay?”
Ash smiled back and returned her hug. He still wasn’t sure what to make of all of this, but Brooke was okay and he hoped that what little he had to offer her had helped. “I won’t. Let me know if you need anything.” It seemed like an odd thing to say to a friend’s mother but then again, this was hardly a normal vacation. Ash stood, sliding the knife back into his pocket. “I’ll see you at dinner, then.”