Chapter 10

TEN

M oriah Becker lives in a small brick townhouse wedged in between an old apartment complex and the fence containing the north Boston H-Mart parking lot. Her door is painted a chipping green courtesy of her absent-minded landlord and the plants in the beds outside are beginning to shrivel for the oncoming winter, but the mailbox with its dozen-odd apartment numbers is brand new and gleaming in the midday light.

Simon Abbott stands outside her door with a bottle of wine in one hand and a small basket wedged in his elbow containing a variety of Caerlloyd-provided goodies. Blueberries, some pressed flowers, fresh bread courtesy of Cricket–Bruce even tucked a knit hat in there with a small leather tag embossed with a logo of a fish and his initials, B.A.C.. Bruce Andrew Cadogan.

Simon lifts his hand to ring the bell, drops it, and lifts it again.

It's silly. He knows it's silly. Mo is his best friend–really, she's his only friend that knows him beyond a passing familiarity. He shouldn't be afraid to knock on her goddamn door when he's been here a thousand times before. Simon raises his hand again but stays frozen.

" Are you going to come up, or are you going to stand there all day? "

Mo's voice is garbled by the mechanical box by the door and Simon startles as a small, near-invisible camera turns towards him.

"Christ," he hisses into the fisheye lens. "Warn a guy."

" I'm buzzing you in ."

Simon climbs the creaky stairs and knocks solidly, without his previous hesitation, on Mo's apartment door. It's still got the small wooden mezuzah fixed to the doorframe, and the bristly mat outside still proclaims ‘WELCOME'. For a moment, it feels like nothing has changed at all.

Moriah opens the door. She looks much the same as she did when he left for Maine— dark hair pulled back into a pale yellow head wrap, gold Magen David around her throat, strong nose dotted in freckles and warm, all-seeing eyes—but the air between them feels different.

"You're back," she says.

"I'm back," Simon echoes. "I brought you some things, from Caerlloyd."

"You actually went out there?" Mo asks, but she accepts the basket and starts rifling through the things inside. "These blueberries are beautiful."

Simon flushes a little at the memory of the blueberry patch, but Mo pulls out the knit hat and examines it before he can get too lost. She smooths her thumb over the tag and Simon's stomach drops.

"Mo, I… I met someone. Up in Maine."

Moriah sets the basket down on her small kitchen counter and turns to face Simon. She puts her hands on her hips, smooth pale skin with gold rings on a few fingers contrasting sharply with her emerald green, ankle length skirt, and quirks an eyebrow at Simon. She's quiet for a moment, examining, and Simon has half a mind to cover the mark he knows Bruce left on his collarbone the night before.

"Tell me more," she requests.

"He was the caretaker for the lighthouse before I bought it," Simon explains. "He tried to get me to stop. He didn't want the lighthouse changed, or rented out."

"And you listened?"

"He asked for three days, and by the end of it—"

"You've been gone over a week," Mo interrupts, the first flicker of her tired anger flying off her tongue.

"By the end of it," Simon repeats, "I knew what I had to do. I knew what I wanted to do." He sets the bottle of wine down on the counter and takes a breath before continuing. "I was wrong. Before, when I said those things to you about my mental health, when I wouldn't listen—"

"You mean when I told you you needed therapy, not a project," Mo offers, this time her tone carefully concealed. "Mood stabilizers, not a quick fuck." Simon swallows hard.

"You were looking out for me and I was too manic to understand. Bruce, he was so… he's so quiet in his affection and honest in his words, and he didn't—he made me think about what we said to each other," Simon says. "He asked me if you said what I told him you said, or if I was just too in my head to actually listen. He took me out on his boat, and it cleared my head more than a drink ever has."

"And what's his problem?" Mo asks and crosses her arms over her chest. "Because as your best friend, I know for a fact that everyone close to you is just as fucked up as we are."

Simon snorts despite himself. "He understands," he offers. "That's what matters, I think."

"So what, you bought a lighthouse, went out to Maine for a week without telling me, and brought back blueberries and bread to appease me?" Mo asks, and it sounds silly when she phrases it like that.

"...Yeah, basically."

"You're a fool," Moriah says, her voice gentle and unreadable, "but so am I. I'm sorry for what I said, for snapping instead of helping. I— I've been a bad friend."

"I've been worse," Simon whispers, tears threatening the backs of his eyes. "When Ann broke up with you, I was no help at all. When your— I've been a bad friend too, Mo. I just want to be better now, for you and for myself."

Mo purses her lips for a moment before her face relaxes into a quiet, teary smile. "Alright, Simon," she says and spreads her arms, beckoning him in for a hug. "But if you're going to be commuting to Maine, you're going to need to go back on your medication, or talk to your doctor about trying something else. I don't want you to mess this up, not because of something you can't help."

Simon throws himself into her arms and buries his face in her neck. She smells like rose and candle wax, same as usual, but this time the familiar scent brings him home. He inhales deeply and hugs her around her waist before pulling back. He leaves wet spots on her fair skin but she doesn't seem to mind, holding his shoulders and looking deep into his eyes.

"You were right," he says before she can speak. "About the lighthouse, about my bathroom. About my—my bipolar, my mental health. I need to stop letting it control me, and find a way to live . I…" He searches for something to say, something to get across how Bruce made him feel, before finally: "I really think you'll like Bruce."

Mo smiles and reaches up to cup Simon's cheek in her smooth palm, smudging away a latent tear under his eye. "I'm sure if he's anything like you, we'll get along just fine."