“I feel like I don’t know you,” I said, staring at the stranger in my boat. “You encouraged Sara to help Laurel. You practically forced them to be friends. Your wife and your…mistress. How many times have you had your wife and your mistress in your house at the same time?”
“Shut up, Marcus.”
He was getting angry with me and I was loving it. Damn. I hated his self-control. His calmness.
“And your bastard kid,” I said. “Do you expect him and Maggie and Andy to be playmates? All one big happy family, except without Laurel?”
“Look in the fucking mirror, Marcus.” Jamie crushed the empty cup in his hand and tossed it over the side of the boat. “You screwed my wife.”
I must have shaken my head, because he leaned toward me.
“Don’t try to deny it! You think I was born yesterday? You screwed her and you got her pregnant and hooked on booze. Andy is the way he is because of you.”
I dove for him. Punched him hard on the side of his jaw. His head whipped to one side, but he recovered quickly, grabbing my arm and wrestling me to the bottom of the boat. I fought him with strength I didn’t know I had. I bent my legs, put my bare feet on his chest, and sent him flying across the boat. He grunted as he crashed into the back of one of the seats.
I was dizzy in the bottom of the boat. The sky twirled above me. Scrambling to my knees, I felt like I was rising into the air. Jamie started toward me, but then he felt it, too. The shifting of the boat.
“What the—” He tried to steady himself, his legs wide apart, arms out at his sides.
I looked around for a boat that might have created a freak wave. Then I saw it—the huge tail over the gunwale. Before I could grab hold of one of the seats, I flew into the air.
Jamie shouted as we were tossed from the boat. He flew upside down, and I heard a thud as his head hit the bow. Then I was deep under water, unsure which way was up, unsure if the dark shadow above me was my boat or the whale.
I found the surface of the water. Gulped air. My eyes stung from the salt. The boat was already yards away from me, and my anger at Jamie turned into a fight to survive. I swam to the boat, grabbing onto the short ladder at the stern as I scanned the water for my brother.
“Jamie!” I shouted, listening hard for his voice. A few seagulls cawed from the air overhead, but that was the only sound. I climbed into the boat for a better view of the water.
“Jamie!” I shouted again and again. The sound of that thud replayed in my head. I dove into the water once more, opening my eyes in the murk as I searched for him. I swam underwater until my muscles gave out, and still I stayed in the water, crying hard, gagging on each watery intake of breath.
Climbing into the boat again, I scanned the water once more from that height. He couldn’t be gone. He couldn’t be. I expected him to rise out of the water any minute. Laughing. Getting me back for being asshole enough to try to fight him. I couldn’t leave. Leaving would mean giving up on him.
“Jamie!” I called, until finally, I was only whispering the word. I wanted my brother.
Even as I sailed back through the inlet, crying openly, I thought he might greet me at the pier. He’d say I deserved his cruel hoax and chew me out for being such a hypocrite.
But of course, he wasn’t there, and my real nightmare began when I told the police what happened: a whale lifted the boat and tossed us out. In June, when the humpbacks should be somewhere north of New England. Ludicrous. Sometimes I wondered if I’d imagined the great thwacking tail. I told no one about our fight, no one about our conversation, but I had scratches on my shoulder. Bruises on my neck. Was it any wonder I failed the polygraph I’d stupidly agreed to take?
People who’d known our family for many years remembered the old rivalry between Jamie and myself. Did we fight on the boat, they wanted to know? They remembered my drinking. Had I been drinking out there? In the end, they had no evidence against me and had to let me go. The firefighters, whose love and admiration for me was nearly as strong as it had been for Jamie, stuck by me, but Laurel didn’t believe a word I said. And she was the only one who mattered.
Chapter Forty-Three
Maggie
“YOU’RE REALLY BRAVE TO VISIT KEITH,” AMBER said. She was slumped in the passenger seat of my car with her bare feet flat against the dashboard. I’d warned her that if we crashed and the air bag burst open she’d end up with two broken legs and her knees would smash her nose, but she told me I worried too much. I did worry too much. I couldn’t help it. The fire showed me how quickly things could go wrong. You think you have control over your life, and then bam! Major wake-up call.
“What’s so brave about it?” I asked.
“I’ve heard burn units are beyond gross.” Amber had always been a wimp. When we took the elementary schoolkids’ handmade cards to New Hanover Hospital, she stayed in the lobby while I went to the patients’ rooms. Most of them were there for smoke inhalation and minor burns, so it wasn’t that bad. It seemed like my duty, taking the cards to those kids. I was one hundred percent healthy. It was the least I could do. I even got out of school legitimately today, since my counselor said a visit to Keith counted as “community service,” just like planning the makeover event. I’d been working my butt off on that thing, but no way was I talking to Dawn about it again. I’d send her a big fat check when the event was over. I was never talking to Dawn again about anything.
“I feel bad that I haven’t gone before now,” I said to Amber. “I’ve been carrying the cards for him around for a week.”
Amber had interviews in the business department at UNC in Chapel Hill, where she’d be going in the fall. I’d said I’d drive her there, and her parents would pick her up later in the week. I wanted to see Keith, and not just to give him the cards. Keith was the one person who swore he saw Andy walking around outside just before the fire. No way did that make sense. I wanted to know exactly what Keith was telling the police so I could figure out how to poke his story full of holes. Mom had found the world’s lamest lawyer, so it was up to me to get Andy out of this mess. While I was in Chapel Hill, Mom would go to Raleigh to talk to a neurologist who specialized in FASD. The probable cause hearing was tomorrow, and although Mom said everything would turn out fine, I could tell she was nervous about the whole thing.
“Travis’s parents had a meltdown when they found out I’d be going to Carolina,” Amber said with a laugh. Travis’s parents thought he and Amber were getting too serious too soon.
“Not much they can do about it,” I said. “Travis is a big boy.”
“Exactly.”
I didn’t care about the ongoing saga of Amber and Travis, but there I was, stuck for two-and-a-half hours listening to every stupid detail about their relationship from the girl who used to be my best friend, while I couldn’t tell her a single thing about Ben. She’d never understand. She’d probably write about it on her Facebook page. Amber had no idea what it was like to have real problems.
God, I was so jealous that Amber got to be with Travis, out in the open, hanging all over each other. It was so unfair. I missed Ben! We talked on the phone, but I wanted to be with him. We planned to meet Friday night on the beach at the very north end of the Island, where what was left of Daddy’s old chapel stood. I hoped it didn’t rain, but even if it did, I was going. Every time I thought about being with him again, my heart sped up.
Amber hugged herself through her UNC sweatshirt. “I’m glad I’ll be inland tonight,” she said as we got on the Beltline.
“Why?”
“Where’ve you been?” She brushed a speck of something off her pink toenail. “There’s like a major nor’easter coming. Supposed to blow hard on the coast. I mean, I guess I’ll see some of it at UNC, but not like you’ll get on the island.”
Was that why it seemed so dark? I took off my sunglasses and saw that the clouds looked like clumps of ashes. Maybe the storm could screw up the hearing tomorrow. A really good storm might make them close the courth
ouse for the day. Maybe the hearing would have to be postponed and we could find a better lawyer or something.
I dropped Amber off on the UNC campus, and then spent forty-five minutes trying to find the hospital and parking lot for the burn center. I forgot the blue gift bag of cards on the backseat of my car and was almost to the elevator when I remembered. It was already starting to rain a little when I went to my car for them. I didn’t want to have to drive in a nor’easter, thank you. I’d have to rush.
I found the burn center. There was a big desk with a bunch of nurses, and I asked them for directions to Keith’s room.
One of the nurses—overweight, blond and about Mom’s age—looked up from a computer keyboard. “It’s not visiting hours, sugar,” she said.
I cringed at the word sugar. I didn’t need any reminders of Dawn.
“I looked the hospital up on the Internet and it said visiting hours were from six to ten,” I insisted.
“The burn center has its own hours,” she said, but she stood up. “Who’re you here to see? Keith Weston, did you say?”
I nodded. “I drove all the way from Topsail Island.”
“Bless your heart,” she said. “Oh, you go ahead. His mama’s not here today and he can probably use the company.” She pointed down the hallway. “Second door on the right.”
I stood in Keith’s doorway, suddenly scared to walk inside. I could see him in the bed closest to the door, watching a TV suspended from the ceiling. I thought he had two long, thick tubes of white fabric lying at his sides until I realized they were his arms and hands, completely covered with bandages. This is what the fire did, I thought. This is only a tiny part of what the fire did. My knees went soft and I leaned against the door frame. Amber was wrong. I wasn’t brave. I wanted to run back down the hallway and out of the hospital.
But I had to do this. I made my mushy knees walk into the room.
“Hey, Keith,” I said. I’d known Keith his whole life. We had a picture of me when I was three holding him on my lap. For years, I thought it was Andy in that picture, until Mom told me Andy didn’t live with us until he was a year old. I was eleven when she told me about drinking too much while she was pregnant with him and that’s what made him the way he was. I was so angry with her that I tried to hit her when she told me. She caught my hand, and in typical Mom fashion told me she understood my anger, that she felt angry at herself for what she’d done, but she’d tried to forgive herself and she hoped I could, too. I still wasn’t sure I had.
Keith turned to look at me and I saw the bandages covering one whole side of his face. I felt like crying. He seemed sort of spaced out, staring at me like he didn’t know who I was.
“It’s Maggie.” I moved right up against his bed.
“I know who you are,” he said. “What are you doing here? Slumming?”
Slumming? What was he talking about? I held up the blue gift bag. “The kids at Douglas Elementary made a bunch of cards and pictures for you,” I said.
Obviously, he couldn’t reach for the bag. I looked at his arms and noticed skinny metal rods sticking out from the bandages around his left hand. I thought I might get sick. There was a chair next to his bed and I sat down.
“Would you like me to read the cards to you?” I asked.
“Does this ease your conscience or something?” he asked. “The rich girl visiting the poor boy in the hospital?”
His attitude shook me up. What was his problem? I knew he’d called Andy a rich kid or something at the lock-in and now he was doing the same thing to me.
“What are you talking about?” I asked. “Why are you suddenly calling Andy and me rich?”
“Because you are, aren’t you? Especially compared to me and my mom. Rich and lucky.”
I figured he meant that Andy had escaped from the fire with minor injuries, while he was lying there covered with bandages. “I know we’re lucky,” I said. I glanced at the TV and saw a weather map on the screen before looking at him again. “Keith, tell me what you told the investigators about seeing Andy outside before the fire.”
He either coughed or laughed, I wasn’t sure which. It took a minute for him to catch his breath. “So that’s it,” he said finally. “You’re not here to visit poor Keith. To bring poor Keith some crap made by second-graders. You’re here to convince him that your precious, lame-o baby brother is innocent.”
“Not true,” I said. “I just wanted to know what you think you saw.”
“I’ve got a news flash for you, Maggie,” he said. “He’s not just your brother.”
“What do you mean?”
“He’s my brother, too.”
Maybe the pain drugs were messing with his head. “Did you really see him outside the church, Keith?”
“Did you hear me?” He looked like he was trying to sit up but couldn’t manage it. I didn’t know if I should help him or not. “Andy’s my brother,” he said. “And you’re my sister.”
I stood up. “I’ll ask one of the nurses to come check on you,” I said.
“Why? You think I’m talking crazy? Full of shit?”
“I don’t know what you’re talk—”
“Your father fucked my mother,” he said.
“What?”
“You heard me. He fucked my mother and nine months later I was born. That makes me your half brother. The side of the family that lives in a trailer and eats ramen noodles while you and Andy-the-hero eat steak.”
“I don’t believe you,” I said.
“Go ask your uncle,” he said. “He knows all about it.”
I took a step backward, my knees mush again. “You’re full of it,” I said. “My father would never do something like that.”
He croaked out that half laugh, half cough sound again. “Looks like you didn’t know him very well, big sister.”
“I knew him better than anyone!” I pictured myself as a little girl sitting next to Daddy on the deck, running my fingers over the tattoo on his arm. “You’re just trying to piss me off.”
“You don’t look pissed,” Keith said. “You look like someone just kicked you in the gut. What’s the matter? Don’t you want another brother?”
I stared at him and suddenly felt like I was looking in a mirror. The dark wavy hair. The enormous brown eye. Lashes thick and black. The room felt as long as a tunnel, its dark walls closing in on me. I took another step backward and my hand grasped the doorjamb.
“Go ask your uncle,” Keith said again. “He can fill you in on all the juicy, sicko details.”
I turned and flew out of the room, nearly tripping over my rubbery legs in my rush to escape, but his voice followed me all the way to the elevator:
“Bring me some of your money next time, sis!” he shouted, and I pushed the elevator button with my elbow, my hands pressed tightly over my ears.
Chapter Forty-Four
Maggie
I DIALED MY CELL WHILE DRIVING SEVENTY-FIVE miles an hour through the rain.
“That you, Mags?” Uncle Marcus answered.
“I need to talk to you.” I heard radio static in the background. “Are you at the station?”
“I am. You at school?”
“I’m driving back from Chapel Hill.” I had to slow down because the car in front of me was practically crawling. “I talked to Keith.”
Total silence.
“Oh my God!” I wailed. “Don’t tell me it’s true!”
“Listen, Maggie. Calm down. How close are you? When can I see you?”
“I’m like still two hours away! You need to tell me now.”
“Uh-uh. Not over the phone. It’s nearly two. Call me when you get closer and I’ll try to get away, okay?”
“Is Keith my half brother?”
“Maggie. I’m not talking about this now. Turn on your radio or a CD or whatever and put this out of your mind. Is it raining where you are?”
My wipers slapped back and forth. “Yes,” I said.
“Concentrate on your driving, babe,
all right? I love you. Call when you get closer.”
I tossed my phone onto the passenger seat. Then I screamed out loud. Just screamed until I was hoarse.
The turtle in front of me was actually slowing down even more. I had to pass it or I knew I’d snap. I checked my mirror. No cars behind me. As soon as I started to steer to the left, though, someone laid on his horn and I jerked back into my lane and saw a black Saab in my mirror. Where’d he come from? I pressed my brakes to slow down to the turtle’s speed. Adrenaline raced down my arms to the tips of my fingers. I had to be more careful. I could have died right there, and if I died, who would help my brother?
I picked up my cell again and tried to call Ben to tell him about the whole Keith thing, but I got his voice mail. “This is Ben Trippett. If that’s who you’re trying to call, please leave a message.” I didn’t know what to say that wouldn’t worry him, but I loved hearing his voice. I kept hitting redial over and over again to listen to it. I didn’t want to repeat what Keith had told me anyway without knowing the truth, but I knew there was something to it for Uncle Marcus to go quiet like that.
I passed the turtle when I was sure it was safe. I turned on the radio like Uncle Marcus suggested. I couldn’t get my regular station that far from Surf City, so I hit scan and listened to snippets of country music and Bible talk for the next hour, not even noticing that I was getting the stations only in ten-second bursts.
“Daddy,” I whispered to the only perfect person I’d ever known. “Please don’t let it be true.”
Uncle Marcus said he’d meet me at Sears Landing. I got there first and sat in the far corner of the restaurant. I wanted to be as far from the door and the kitchen as possible because I knew I was going to cry. I watched the rain beating down on Topsail Sound outside the window. It came down at an angle to the water, the wind already kicking up. The sky was so heavy and low, the clouds almost touched the water.