You’ve got to be kidding! You’ve barely told me anything!
I want to know everything, everything that has led to this moment, everything that has made him the man he is today. Everything that turned a promising young boy into this hardened, bitter person. It would be cruel to dredge up memories of the day his mother was killed, though, so I spare him that in hopes that maybe one day he’ll tell me voluntarily. “Tell me about your years at sea. You did say you worked on a smuggling ship, right?”
“That’s right. What else is there? I was involved in a lot of highly illegal, extremely unethical shit. You don’t need to know anything more than that.”
I feel the sudden chill in his attitude. This is obviously a sensitive subject and he very definitely has no interest in telling me all about it. But I’m a lawyer; it’s not in me to back down from a line of questioning just because someone doesn’t want to give me answers.
“Surely there had to be some good days. Tell me about one of them.”
I don’t know why I’m so desperate to know him, to know some part of him he doesn’t want anyone to see. But I am. I know it’s dangerous, but it’s beyond me to stop.
Nash sighs again, looking toward the ceiling. He’s quiet and appears frustrated, and it seems as though he’s not going to answer me.
But he does.
Maybe eventually, too, I will learn to expect the unexpected with him.
“My first year on the ship was pure hell. I was homesick, I was heartbroken, and I despised the idea of being involved in anything criminal. But I knew I had to survive. For Dad. For Cash. I knew one day I might be able to save us all with what I’d seen. And that boat was the only way. At least for a while. Dad promised he’d send for me, and I held on to that hope for a long time. Until I learned that hate could keep me alive, too. That it could save my life.” He falls quiet for a few seconds, lost in some kind of hell I can only fathom. But then he clears his throat and visibly shakes off the darkness in favor of something pleasant. “Anyway, a few months in, they brought on a Somalian. He wanted safe passage for him and his family to America, and the Russians had agreed to sneak them onto U.S. soil in exchange for his help for two years.
“His name was Yusuf and he reminded me a lot of Dad. He was younger, but it was easy to see he’d do anything for his family, to get them to safety, even if it meant being away from them for two years. He took up with me right off the bat. He spoke pretty good English and Russian, so he taught me quite a bit of both his native Arabic and some Russian while he was with us.” Nash smiles as he remembers and talks of this Yusuf. “We played cards a lot at night. He had the shittiest poker face in the world.” His lips curve up into the closest thing I’ve seen to a genuinely tender smile. But then it’s gone. “Anyway, on one of our runs to Bajuni, the island where we made port when we had an . . . exchange, I caught him sneaking into one of the smaller boats one night. At first, he didn’t want to tell me what he was doing, but when I threatened to sound the alarm, he changed his mind.
“See, when Yusuf agreed to help the Russians, Alexandroff, our . . . captain, had promised him he could send money to his wife and see her occasionally when we were back in the area. Only they never allowed it. So he was sneaking off to see her, to take her some money so she and his daughter wouldn’t starve. I wouldn’t let him go without me, of course, so we paddled across to the Somali coast and put in at a little bay to travel to his village of Beernassi. We only got to spend a couple of hours there, but I got to meet his wife and his little girl. They got up like it wasn’t the middle of the night. His wife, Sharifa, made us something to eat, and his daughter wouldn’t let us out of her sight.” His smile is sad as he speaks of her. “Her name was Jamilla. It means ‘beautiful.’ And she was.”
He gets quiet again, so I prompt him, wanting to hear more of his story. “What happened next?”
Nash looks up at me. His eyes have gone cold, his voice even colder. “Alexandroff found us. He walked right in, put a gun to Yusuf’s head, and pulled the trigger. Killed him right in front of his family. Two of his men, two guys I hated from the second I got on board, held me, made me watch, and then beat me in the head with the butts of their guns until I passed out. I woke up on the ship two days later, stuck to my pillow in a pool of my own blood. I was gagged and tied to the bed.”
I’m speechless. And I’m heartbroken. I ache for what Nash must have felt, what he still must feel. And this was one of his happy memories, for God’s sake! My throat is thick with emotion and my eyes burn with unshed tears.
“Oh God, Nash. I’m so sorry.”
Why did you have to know, Marissa? Why? Why put him through this?
“Nothing good happened on that boat. Nothing. Ever. I learned a hard lesson that night. One I’ve never forgotten.”
I’m almost afraid to ask. “What’s that?”
“I learned to hate. To really hate.”
“I understand it, and I’m sure it’s natural to feel that way—for a while. But it’s not healthy to hang on to an emotion like that for long.”
“It is when the alternative is even more self-destructive. Then it’s healthy. It’s healthy to hang on to hate when letting it go could kill you.”
For one fraction of a second, the perpetually angry mask Nash wears lifts and I see the wounds behind the tough scar tissue. I see a small glimpse of the person he used to be, maybe could be again.
Without thinking, I reach up to touch his cheek with the tips of my fingers. “Maybe one day you can find something other than anger and hatred to live for,” I say softly, almost absently.
As if my touch woke him from a stupor, as if he knows he’s letting me in deeper than he’d like, Nash looks away. He reaches for his vodka, takes a long, slow sip, then sets the glass gently back onto the table. When his eyes return to mine, they’re curiously blank. There’s no hurt, no anger, no . . . nothing in them. Just a wall, an impenetrable barrier that’s been years in the making.
“You got your warm, fuzzy story. My turn. Tell me about Saturday night.”
My stomach curls up into a tight ball and my pulse picks up speed as I remember what happened after I parked the car. I was preoccupied, stewing about the breakup with “Nash.” Of course, I had no idea who I’d been dating. Or who was breaking up with me. That still blows my mind. And infuriates me sometimes. It makes me feel like an idiot if I think about it too long.