Mom sat down. “Your father is a good man, Sophie. I know you’ve had your differences, but he does love you.”
I scoffed. “You really think so?”
Then I recalled our last telephone conversation when he had surprised me with his compassion. It was the first time he had ever spoken to me like that.
But then he didn’t call again. Nor did I call him.
“If he’s such a good man,” I said, “why aren’t you still married to him? Why did you leave us and never come back?”
Her blue eyes flashed with concern, and she hesitated before replying. “That couldn’t be helped. Try to understand that. It’s important that you do.”
“Well, I’m sorry, but I don’t.”
The color drained from her face. “I should pour you that cup of tea now.” She stood up and crossed to the stove. “Because we might be here a while.”
I sat back in my chair and prepared myself, for it was long past time I knew where I came from. I needed to know the real story about my father.
And by that, I don’t mean the man who raised me.
Cora’s Story
Chapter Twenty-five
“Sophie, I remember every precious moment your father and I spent together as if it happened only yesterday. I’m not sure where to begin. There’s so much to say.
“I suppose I’ll start with the summer of 1960, shortly after I turned twelve, because that’s when things slowly began to change...”
Chapter Twenty-six
It was the last day of summer vacation, and the first day I remember feeling differently about your father.
I finished my supper and rose from the table. “Thanks, Mom,” I said. “I’m going next door.”
Ignoring the sound of dishes clattering in the sink, I grabbed my sweater and dashed outside.
The sun was low in the sky, the air cool on my cheeks.
I hurried up Peter’s steps and knocked on the door. His mother came to answer. “Oh, hello, Cora.”
“Can Peter come out?”
She turned and shouted up the stairs. “Peter! Cora’s here!”
He immediately came bounding down the stairs, grabbed his jacket from the coat tree and pushed open the screen door. It squeaked before snapping shut behind him.
“What’d you have for supper?” he asked, shrugging into his jacket.
“Pork roast. What’d you have?”
“Fried chicken.”
“Lucky.”
We both glanced down the street toward Matt’s house. I wondered if he was still eating his dinner. His dad always made him do the dishes before he could play outside.
“Want to go out back?” Peter asked.
“Sure.”
We ran around the side of the house, racing to the tire swing that hung from the big oak tree.
“You can swing first,” Peter said. “I’ll push you.”
I climbed in and wrapped my arms around the tire. The old rope creaked along the tree bark on the overhead branch as he spun me in dizzying circles.
“Stop! Stop!” I cried, laughing and screeching, knowing I was going to be nauseous and dizzy as a goose the minute I hopped off.
Peter grabbed hold of my knees. “There. See? You’re stopped.” He grinned at me.
“It’s about time.”
I struggled to focus on his face. My head was spinning, but I could still see the yellow flecks in his brown eyes. His hands were warm on my knees.
I always felt so comfortable with Peter.
Just then, something caught my eye and my gaze darted to the side of the house.
“It’s Matt,” Peter said. There was a hint of disappointment in his voice.
My belly, however, was whirling with excitement – or maybe it was the after-effects of spinning in the tire swing. I wasn’t sure. All I knew was that Matt had arrived and things were about to get exciting.
He sprinted toward us, flying like an airplane through the air, whistling like a torpedo.
Peter stepped out of the way.
“I’m hit! I’m going down!” Matt covered his heart with a hand and dove to the grass. He rolled a few times then came to a crashing halt, flat on his back, arms spread wide, directly under my feet. He lay very still, eyes closed.
Peter chuckled softly and shook his head, while I gazed down at Matt and laughed myself silly. “You’re insane.”
He opened his eyes and smiled up at me. His eyes were different from Peter’s. They were a deep, cobalt blue – the color of an October sky.
“I will be by the end of tomorrow,” he said, “because Mr. Hubert’s gonna have it in for me, I know it.”
Peter offered a hand and pulled Matt to his feet. “Well, don’t do anything to get him riled. Just do what he tells you to do.”
“You know I’m no good at that.” Matt wiped the grass off the shoulders of his jean jacket.
Feeling energetic all of a sudden, I stretched my legs out and leaned back to start swinging again. Matt gave me a firm push, then another and another until I was swinging high and spiraling in great sweeping circles.
“Higher!” I shouted.
Matt pushed harder. The rope creaked along the thick branch. The leaves trembled and quivered. “I bet I can get you high enough to touch the top!”
Peter’s gaze traveled up the length of the rope. “You better slow down,” he said. “That branch is going to break.”
“No, it won’t,” Matt replied.
“Yes, it will.”
Matt grabbed hold of the tire and slowed me down.
“Let’s go to the lake then,” he said, then glanced down and noticed a grass stain on his knee. “Shit, my dad’s gonna kill me.”
“Want me to get a washcloth?” Peter offered.
“Nah. It doesn’t matter. So what do you say? Want to go?”
Peter replied for both of us. “We’re not supposed to go to the lake after supper.”
It was a ten-minute walk through the woods, and our parents had a strict rule about that. Only in the afternoons.
“Ah, come on,” Matt said. “Cora’s parents and my dad know we’re both here, and you can tell your mom we’re all going to Cora’s yard. They’ll never know the difference.”
It was true. They probably wouldn’t, and I was tempted. There was no wind tonight. The water would be as shiny as a looking glass.
“It is the last day of vacation,” I cautiously mentioned.
Peter spoke firmly. “No. It wouldn’t be right. We’d get in trouble.”
“Not if they never found out,” Matt argued.
“But they might,” Peter replied.
Matt shrugged, then swung his legs up over a branch to hang upside down by his knees. The ends of his wavy hair brushed over the grass. “My dad wouldn’t care anyway.”
I thought the opposite. Peter and I might get a scolding, but Matt would get a serious beating.
It was something no one talked about because Matt’s father was a widower, raising his children alone. He’d been doing that since Matt was seven, after his mother fell down the stairs and broke her neck. The folks in town had whispered about it. They said her head turned around backwards.
My father was the town doctor, and he was the first to examine her when the ambulance brought her to the hospital, but he never spoke about it. For a long time afterward, I had nightmares because Matt’s mother had been so beautiful, with long, black hair and red lipstick, and enormous, long-lashed blue eyes that always smiled. The thought of her dying like that had made me fear for the loss of my own mother at any given moment.
“Are we going or not?” Matt asked, his hair still sweeping the grass.
“No,” Peter said. “We have school tomorrow.”
Matt flipped forward and dropped to his feet. “That’s a shame, because it sure is a nice night. I bet the lake is just like a mirror.”
So that was how we were together, Sophie. Matt and Peter were my two best friends.
I realize now that I was the lin
k that held our trio together. Without me, I doubt they would have been friends. They were two very different people.
About two years later, I was studying for a math test after supper, and after more than an hour of practice questions, I decided I was ready.
I closed my textbook and rubbed the sting from my eyes, then slid off the bed and crossed to the open window to inhale the fresh, salty scent of the sea air. Far in the distance, the sun dipped into the water and seemed to boil the waves on the horizon. I watched a sailboat cruise across the bay and wished I were out on my father’s boat instead of indoors.
A familiar splash of red on the beach below caught my eye. It was Matt in his autumn jacket and denims, sitting alone. Writing a story, no doubt.
I let out a sigh. He, more than anyone, should have been studying for the math test. It was his worst subject, the one he disliked most of all.
Turning from the window, I reached for my blue cashmere sweater and pulled it on while I descended the stairs. A moment later, I was crossing the beach and climbing up onto the rocks.
“What are you doing out here?” I asked, taking note of the small coiled notepad on his lap and the pen in his hand. “You should be studying.” I adjusted my skirt and sat down beside him.
“I did try,” he explained, “but after about fifteen minutes I thought my head was going to explode.”
“That bad?”
“Yeah.”
We gazed out at the water. “So you came here instead. I can hardly blame you.”
A soft breeze blew in off the bay. The waves were slow and lazy, foaming like soapsuds as they spread across the dark sand beach, then retreated.
I shut my eyes and inhaled deeply the familiar coastal smells that were such a part of my life – the salt and seaweed, the wet rocks and all the little washed up snails and jellyfish.
“You’re lucky everything comes so easily to you,” Matt said, draping a wrist across his knee. “You always do well in school, you get top marks. I wish I was smart like that. Maybe then my dad would be in a better mood.”
“You are smart, Matt, in ways that I’m not.”
“Like how?”
I glanced down at the notepad.
He stared at it, too, then flipped it closed.
“What’s this one about?” I asked.
He leaned back on his elbows. “A kid who gets really bad grades.”
I laughed. “I should have guessed. How does it end?”
“He drops out.”
“Oh, no!”
Matt chuckled. “But then he meets a gorgeous older woman who hires him as a night watchman in an abandoned warehouse, and he writes about the things that go on there.”
“Such as…?”
He grinned suggestively. “The woman drags a wooden crate into her office every night. She pulls it across the tiled floor from a room she keeps locked during the day.”
“What’s in the crate?” I asked, but he kept me in suspense for a few seconds.
“The bones of her dead husband.”
I sat forward. “Did she murder him?”
“No, he died of natural causes, years before, but she couldn’t accept it so she dug up his bones to keep them with her.”
“That’s gruesome, but I like it. Does she get caught?”
Matt squinted out at the water. “I haven’t gotten that far yet, but I don’t think so, and do you know why?”
I parted my lips, keen to hear the rest of the story.
“Because she’s dead, too,” he whispered.
“Dead?”
“Yes. Deceased, departed, gone to meet her maker – but she doesn’t know it. She’s been haunting the warehouse for years, looking for her husband who used to own the place.”
I drew in a deep breath. “What about the boy who’s the night watchman? Does he know his boss is a ghost? Is he scared? Does he tell anyone?”
Matt looked up at the darkening sky as he plotted the rest of the story in his head. By now, the sun had sunk below the horizon, though there was still a faint pink blush across the sky. It cast a dim glow upon Matt’s face.
At last he looked at me. “No, he has no idea she’s a ghost, but there’s a reason for that.”
I leaned forward again. “Tell me.”
“Because he’s a ghost, too.”
My eyebrows lifted, and I smiled. “Promise me you’ll let me read it when it’s done.”
“I always let you read what I write.”
“But make sure you don’t forget.”
“I won’t,” he promised, flipping the notepad open again. He read over the last few lines he’d written.
The evening chill touched my skin, so I hugged my legs to my chest. A seagull soared freely over the water and cried to another. A rogue wave splashed onto the rocks.
Matt shrugged out of his red jacket. “Here.” He slung it over my shoulders and put his arm around me.
I inched closer. “Thank you. It’s getting cold.”
We sat for a long time, looking out at the sea, watching the sailboat and marveling at the sunset. It was not the first time we sat together on the rocks, just the two of us, while Matt kept me warm. We had been doing it for years.
Peter knew nothing of it, of course, and it never occurred to either one of us to tell him. Maybe we knew that if he were with us, he would be bored unless we were up on our feet skipping stones. We would not be able to sit quietly, and to Matt and I it was pure bliss – to do nothing but stare out at the sea and listen to the waves, admire nature’s artistry. It was the one place where we could forget all the noise and activity in the world, and all of life’s hardships – which Matt knew so much more intimately than I did.
We had never questioned what our kinship meant. It simply existed. It never occurred to us that this closeness we felt – this inherent knowledge of each other – might lead to something more when we were older, because in those moments on the rocks, we lived only for the present.
Chapter Twenty-seven
Spring 1964
“I’m worried about Matt,” I said to Peter one day, as we stepped off the school bus and started walking up the hill.
“There’s nothing we can do about it,” he replied. “Matt knows what he has to do to get through this year. He just doesn’t want to do it.”
“But he might not grade, and if he doesn’t… Well, I don’t know what will happen. He’ll never go to summer school. He might not ever graduate.”
We walked slowly in silence, our shoes crunching over the gravel along the side of the road.
“I think he actually likes disappointing his father,” Peter said. “It’s his purpose in life.”
I turned around to walk backwards, facing Peter and hugging my books to my chest. “Where was he after school? He wasn’t even on the bus.”
“He probably skipped class, like he’s done every day this week. Doug Jones brought his dad’s pickup truck today, and I heard they’ve been getting drunk in the woods down by the creek.”
“That can’t be true.”
At that moment, the red pickup skidded around the corner at the bottom of the hill and sped toward us, leaving a cloud of dust in the air.
As they drove by, I saw Matt sitting in the middle between Doug and another boy I didn’t recognize. Matt was drinking beer and smoking a cigarette.
“He didn’t even wave,” I said. “It’s like he doesn’t know us.”
“He doesn’t,” Peter replied. “Not anymore. He has other friends and they’re all up to no good.”
I looked down at my brown leather shoes and hugged my books tighter. “But we used to be the three musketeers. Remember the time we took our bikes to the ridge? Or when we built the tree fort in the woods behind the old McKeown place?”
“Yeah.”
“And the time you told his dad he was with us at the lake, when he’d been drinking down at the river? That wasn’t all that long ago.”
“I saved him a beating that day.”
“He
knew it, too. That was when he used to think we were his best friends.”
All at once, I felt as if my heart was being ripped out of my chest.
Peter sighed. “People change I guess.”
“How? I’m the same person I always was, and so are you.”
“But he’s not the same. He’s gotten into some bad stuff.”
I shook my head. “I don’t believe that. He is still the same, and I feel like we should do something.”
“You always wanted to save the world,” Peter said. “But not everybody wants to be saved.”
“It’s not that.” Why did Peter always have to be such a brick wall? Why wouldn’t he listen? “If we could just let Matt know that we’re here for him, and that we want to help. He’s smart. He doesn’t have to fail math and biology. Maybe we could have a study group or something.”
Peter considered it, then shifted his leather book satchel from one hand to the other. “He doesn’t want to try, and we can’t force him. You know how headstrong he is. He doesn’t care about school like we do. He doesn’t care about anything. I reckon he’ll drop out before graduation anyway.”
Doug Jones dropped Matt off in front of his house, then skidded his tires as he backed up and drove back down the hill. Matt stood in his front yard, finishing his cigarette. He wore faded blue jeans and a black leather jacket, and he staggered sideways as he tipped his head back to blow a cloud of smoke into the air.
He didn’t have any books with him. What was he going to do when he got to class tomorrow without his homework done? If he even made it to class.
Eventually he turned and climbed his rickety front steps. The screen door snapped shut behind him. A dog barked down the street.
I felt Peter’s eyes closely scrutinizing my face.
“Feel like a swim?” I asked, struggling to sound more cheerful.
“Are you crazy? The water’s freezing. There was ice on it barely a month ago.”
I puckered my lips. “Yeah, well, it’s hot enough to fry an egg on your porch today. Come on, why don’t we? We’ll be the first ones in after the spring thaw.” I grabbed hold of his sleeve and dragged him the rest of the way up the street.
I knew I needed to forget about Matt.