“You know that Jamie doesn’t really want to be living with us, don’t you? That he’d rather be here with you? He still loves you. He only left because you wanted him to.”
“I know.”
“Do you still love him?”
I blew out my breath and tipped my head back to search the sky for an answer. “I don’t even love myself right now, Sara,” I said finally, although an image of Marcus flickered in my mind. The warm gratitude I felt toward him was the closest feeling I had to love these days.
“I’m not sure it’s the right thing for him not to live here. To separate you from your daughter.”
I could read the writing on the wall and hated the way my heart sank. “Does he have to get out right away?” I asked. “You must need his room for the nursery.”
“Actually, no,” she said. “Maggie’s in the third bedroom right now, but the baby will be in our room at least for a while, so it’s not a problem. For the first week that we have the baby home, my mother will be coming from Michigan, so we’ll need the room then, but other than that, Jamie and Maggie are welcome to stay as long as they want. Frankly, the rent helps. Plus, with Steve gone so much, Jamie comes in handy when the sink clogs up and the front door falls off its hinges and the toilet turns into Old Faithful.”
I laughed, primarily with relief that my husband and child would not be coming home except for one week in May. “That all actually happened?” I asked.
“Last week,” she said. “It was bizarre. Plus I’d miss Mags. She’s such a delight.”
I sidestepped a clump of seaweed. It jolted me, hearing her call Maggie “Mags,” the way Jamie did. And it saddened me that Maggie was a delight around Sara and an uncomfortable little girl around me. How bonded had my daughter become to her? I didn’t deserve any of the jealousy I felt.
“What happened, Laurel?” Sara asked. “I mean, you changed so much after Maggie was born, and here I am pregnant and I wonder if it could possibly happen to me.”
I was glad of my sunglasses so she didn’t see the way my eyes filled with tears.
“You’ll be fine,” I said. “I’m a freak of nature.”
“Oh, no, Laurel. I think the baby blues got you and didn’t let go.”
“Well,” I said, “I’m getting better.” And I knew I would feel much, much better once I was back in The Sea Tender, a wine cooler in my hand.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Laurel
I BARELY SLEPT AT ALL THE NIGHT AFTER MARCUS told me that Andy was under suspicion for the arson. The words that kept running through my mind were How absurd! I wrote little speeches of indignation in my mind and nearly called Marcus in the wee hours of the morning because I needed to say the words out loud. He is not capable of planning a crime, and he’s certainly not capable of covering one up.
I thought of the time he stole a candy bar while we stood in line at the grocery store when he was about five years old. I discovered it when I went to check his seat belt. I did what all good parents are supposed to do: I marched him back into the store and made him apologize to the manager, and I told him in no uncertain terms he was never to steal candy again. It was against the law.
A week later, though, I discovered he was carrying a toy water pistol when we got in the car after a trip to the pharmacy. He didn’t even try to hide it.
“Where did you get that?” I asked him.
“In the store.”
“I told you just last week it’s against the law to steal!” I shouted.
“You said not to steal candy!” he shouted back at me.
Of course, he was no longer five years old. As frustrating as that experience had been, there was a cuteness about the story when I told it to friends. As he got older, his misunderstandings of the way the world worked were no longer quite so cute, as I’d discovered in the airport the week before. And people were not as quick to understand and forgive as the manager of the grocery store.
As soon as Maggie and Andy left for school, I went upstairs to Andy’s room and stood in the doorway, trying to look at it through the eyes of a detective. On the surface, it looked quite neat. I’d drilled “everything in its place” into his head from the time he was little; otherwise his room would have been utter chaos. Even his bed was made. That was number one on his Get Ready in the Morning chart. It smelled a little stuffy, though. I opened the window that faced the sound and let in a tepid breeze.
I’d gotten him to pin some of the greeting cards and letters he’d received after the fire to his corkboard wall instead of strewing them around the room. There were about thirty on the board, and a large wicker basket on his dresser held the rest.
I went to his computer first. I had long ago installed parental monitoring software on both his and Maggie’s computer, with their knowledge. I took the software off Maggie’s a couple of years ago, at her reasonable request, deciding she was mature enough not to have her mother snooping through her life. She had a right to her privacy and was hardly the type to be taken in by a stranger in a chat room. It would probably be a long time before I could set Andy’s computer free, though. I didn’t like looking through his e-mail or instant messages, because they were always a reminder of his immaturity and lack of friends. His e-mails were usually about swim team practice and meets, or from Marcus or Emily. I didn’t read the e-mails from Marcus and only a couple from Emily, whose spelling was so atrocious I wondered how Andy made sense of them. He had instant messages, the majority of which were from Maggie about little things—Have an awesome day tomorrow! I knew her motivation behind sending them, because I shared it. She wanted him to receive some IMs, the way his classmates did. I steeled myself for a few nasty ones from kids, because I knew they would be there. Andy would occasionally IM some random kid from school, someone he considered one of his many “friends.” The nicer kids would IM him back with a noncommittal response. But every once in a while, Andy would pick the wrong target. I read through them quickly with my new detective eyes.
Andy had received an IM from someone with the screen name Purrpetual: Thank U 4 saving my life! he or she had written.
Andy’s response: Ur welcome. If I wasn’t there U might of burned up.
I cringed. I’d forgotten to tell him to be modest in his e-mails and IMs. What would the police make of his self-aggrandizing?
There was an IM from BTrippett sent the day after the last swim meet: Andy, you rock!
Andy’s reply, an appropriate: Thank U!!!!!
He’d sent an e-mail to someone named MuzikRuuls: Do U want to skate Satrday?
MuzicRuuls replied: Not w U, loser.
That was enough. I didn’t want to read any more.
I went through his desk drawers one by one, but found nothing out of the ordinary. I opened his top dresser drawer, bracing myself for the disorder I knew was inside. I allowed him one drawer he could keep however he liked. He tended toward disorder, and keeping things neat and folded was so hard for him. Letting him have one drawer where he could simply throw things was my way of giving him some release.
I could barely pull the drawer open, it was so full. It smelled rank. I found dirty socks, a balled-up T-shirt that smelled like salt and fish, probably from the last time he and Marcus fished off the pier. I tossed the dirty clothes onto the floor. I found his old Nintendo and a slew of probably dead batteries. A couple of old matchbox cars I hadn’t seen since he was little. Acne cream, although he’d only had one or two pimples so far. A few empty and half-empty packages of gum and lots of crumpled tissues. In the very bottom of the drawer, I found a foil-wrapped condom and told myself not to overreact. It was a rite of passage for a teenaged boy to own a condom, wasn’t it? I thought of removing it from the drawer, but left it there. It would make Andy seem like a normal kid for once.
There was a note dated the year before from one of his teachers, apparently brought home for my signature but which I’d never seen, stating that Andy was repeatedly tardy to class. And finally, a new, unopened CD of th
e Beatles. I didn’t know he bought CDs, much less the Beatles, and I worried he might have stolen it. I felt the way I had when the lighter had been discovered in the airport. I didn’t know all there was to know about my son. A familiar niggling fear crept into my chest. How would I guide him through the next decade as he entered adulthood? Could he ever hold a job? Live on his own? I doubted it. Right now, though, I had more pressing things to worry about.
I opened the next drawer where his T-shirts were folded, not particularly well, but they were stacked three across in piles. I was about to close the drawer when I noticed something white jutting from beneath the middle stack. I reached for it and my hand closed around a fistful of balled-up paper. Receipts. I pulled them out, flattened them on his bed. I was relieved to see one for the CD. One for gum and a Snickers bar. One for the pocketknife he’d “always had,” that he’d traded for the lighter. One for cigarettes dated four months earlier. I lifted the stacks of shirts and found a crushed pack of Marlboros, three missing from it. I sniffed them. A little stale smelling, as if they’d been in his drawer for some time. My baby. Trying so hard to fit in.
I looked through his underwear drawer. Not very orderly, but nothing suspicious.
I opened the folding louvered doors of his closet and spotted the green-striped shirt and tan pants he’d worn the night of the fire. I’d washed them twice trying to salvage them, successfully, I’d thought, but when I pressed my nose to them, I could still smell the hint of smoke. Bending low, I picked out the sneakers he’d had on that night. They were dark brown with tan detailing, and we’d bought them the day before the fire. I held them to my nose. The odor was faint. Maybe the smell of the leather? I held them away from my face, took in a breath of fresh air, then sniffed again. Not leather. Definitely something with a chemical edge to it. The lighter in his sock! He’d worn these same shoes to New York. Some of the lighter fluid must have seeped onto his shoes. I’d have to explain to the police about the lighter in his sock in case they, too, caught a whiff of something they didn’t think should be there.
Everything will be okay, I told myself. There was nothing here for the police to sink their teeth into.
And I was so, so certain I could explain away anything they might find.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Marcus
I LOADED MY KAYAK INTO THE BACK OF MY PICKUP after my later-than-usual trip through the sound and climbed into the cab. My shoulders ached in that good way they did after paddling for an hour. Checked my cell for messages. There was one.
“It’s Sara, Marcus.” Man, she sounded strung out. “Keith is able to speak now and I need to talk to you. It’s important. I’m back in Surf City and I’ll be at Jabeen’s today.”
Jabeen’s was my next stop anyway. I was off duty and planned to nurse a coffee while I read the paper. I guessed Sara wanted to tell me what I already knew: Keith had seen Andy outside the night of the lock-in. Or maybe she was pissed I’d been to the hospital and hadn’t tried to see her while I was there. Or maybe she was just annoyed I’d seen Keith and hadn’t told her.
I was wrong on all counts.
She looked up as I walked into Jabeen’s, giving me a nod as she made some fancy, steamy, overpriced drink for a woman at the counter. I hadn’t seen Sara since before the fire. Only two and a half weeks had passed, but they’d been a crappy two and a half weeks and every minute of them showed on her face. Sara was one of those women with a year-round tan. Today, her face was actually pale. Pasty. Ever since I’d known her, she wore her blond hair short with bangs. Now it was swept to the side and tucked behind her ears, like she’d had no time to fix it.
“Large, Marcus?” She handed the drink to the woman ahead of me.
“That’ll do it,” I said.
“For here?” She had dark circles beneath her eyes.
I nodded. I really felt for her.
She ran the coffee from the machine into a white mug, her back to me. Tan capris hung loose around her hips. Even too skinny and too pale, she was a good-looking woman. A few years ago, I’d toyed with the idea of starting something up with her. But although she was pretty and smart and damn nice, I wasn’t attracted to her the way I should have been. I didn’t want to start something I was sure I couldn’t finish. Living in a little town where we’d have to see each other all the time, I was careful about things like that. Besides, she wasn’t Laurel.
She handed me the mug.
“You wanted to talk?” I asked.
An unfamiliar middle-aged man and woman walked into the café and I glanced at them. Tourists.
“I’m alone here this morning,” Sara said. “Dawn’s at the dentist, so I don’t have a lot of time—” she smiled at the tourists “—but I have to tell you something.”
“I’m gonna be here a while.” I nodded toward my favorite table by the window.
“Okay.”
I sat by the window and opened my paper while she waited on the couple at the counter. Then she came over. Sat down across from me.
“Keith can speak now.” She didn’t look happy. “Did I say that in my message?”
“Yes. And I actually spoke with him myself yesterday. It’s great he’s doing better.”
Her eyes flew open. “You did? At the burn center? What did he say?”
“He told me he saw Andy outside the church.”
“Did he say anything else?” She was fishing for something.
“I wasn’t there long,” I said. “Sorry I didn’t get to see you. They told me you went back to the hotel.”
A couple of Realtors from the office down the block walked into the café.
“I’ll be right with you,” Sara said. Her hand shook as she brushed a wayward strand of hair off her forehead. She leaned toward me. “He found your old letter,” she whispered.
“What old letter?” As soon as the words left my mouth, I knew. “You kept it?”
“Shh.”
I lowered my voice. “Why the hell didn’t you throw it away?”
“I filed it with my banking stuff when Keith was little. I never thought about it again. He went snooping through my files and found it.”
What had I written, exactly? I couldn’t remember the words, but the gist of what I’d said would be enough.
“What did he say?”
“He was furious. And very hurt. I told him he could never tell anyone about it, that it would hurt too many people.”
“When did he find it?” I felt the impatient eyes of the Realtors on us. Or at least, on Sara.
“The day of the lock-in.” She got to her feet. “I left a message for you, but then the fire happened and…I was just worried whether Keith would live or die, not whether he’d tell anyone about the letter.” She tapped her hand on the table. “Later.” She walked behind the counter.
I vaguely remembered getting a message from her the afternoon before the fire, making a mental note to call her after I got off duty.
Maybe Keith started the fire, Laurel’d said. The letter gave him a motive—if being angry at the world counted as a motive. But, again, why would he set a fire and then get trapped by it?
Couldn’t answer that one. Suddenly, though, I got why Keith called Andy a little rich boy that night. Keith would go home to his double-wide after the lock-in. Andy’d go home to a two-story stunner on the water.
I’d always felt that was an injustice, myself.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Laurel
1991
TALOS HAD ONE THING THE SEA TENDER DID NOT: a hot tub. When winter finally hit with those winds that felt positively arctic at the northern end of the island, Marcus and I got in the habit of stripping down to our underwear and sitting in the hot tub in the evening—with our bottles of booze, of course. Leaning my head back on the edge of the tub, studying the crisp white stars against a background of black velvet, reminded me of those nights Jamie and I would bundle up on the beach in the winter and search for satellites. Only a couple of years had passed si
nce then, yet it seemed as though those nights had taken place in someone else’s life, not mine.
One night late in March, we must have stayed in the tub too long, or the water had been too hot, or we’d had too much to drink. When I got into the house and quickly threw on my terry-cloth robe to stop the shivers, I suddenly felt woozy.
“Uh-oh.” I closed my eyes as I leaned against the living room wall.
“You going to be sick?” Marcus asked as he threw a towel around his shoulders.
I opened my eyes. The room blurred but didn’t spin. “I think I’m okay,” I said.
“Want some coffee? Hot chocolate?”
“Ugh, no.” I took one tentative step forward, then another. “I’m going to crash in your guest room.”
“Party pooper,” he said. Then hollered after me, “Call if you need me!”
In his guest room, which now felt like my home away from home, I slipped out of the robe, peeled off my wet underwear and crawled under the covers.
I don’t know how long I slept. I only know that when I woke up, I was lying on my right side facing the wall and I slowly, very slowly, became aware that Marcus was lying behind me. I felt his arm around me, his finger lightly tracing the place where my breast met my rib cage, and the hard warmth of his erection pressed against my left buttock. I lay for minutes that way, neither asleep nor awake, sober nor drunk. Then I rolled over, and somewhere between facing the wall and facing him, I passed the point of no return.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Andy
MISS BETTS LEANED BACK AGAINST HER DESK like she does sometimes and asked, “What is some of the evidence of global warming?”
I raised my hand first out of everybody. She called on Brynn instead of me, even though I hadn’t raised my hand in probably ten minutes. I was only supposed to raise my hand every third time I knew the answer. I was good at things like “the evidence of global warming” because it was facts. I could memorize facts. That part of my brain was excellent. I wasn’t so good when we were supposed to debate things, like should we use the electric chair. Things like that. That part of my brain was weak. The electric chair killed people and it was wrong to kill people, so that was simple. But when we did the debate part, we weren’t supposed to think in black and white, as Miss Betts said. That was harder. Mom was the one who told me I should only raise my hand every third time I knew the answer. She said I drove the teachers crazy raising it all the time. So that’s what I tried to do, but sometimes I didn’t get called on anyway.