B000FC1MHI EBOK (17 page)

“Chaperoning,” Julia repeated quizzically.

“Making sure you’re all right,” Molly stated and turned to Noah with something that, to Julia, looked suspiciously like a challenge. “I’m Molly.” She stretched forward, extending her hand. “And you’re Noah.”

Noah started to put out his hand, pulled it back and wiped it on his jeans, started to extend it again, then paused. “This hand’s been working all day. You don’t want to shake it.”

“But I do,” Molly insisted and waited until the handshake was done. “Thank you for saving my mother’s life.”

“I didn’t do that.”

“She believes you did, and that’s all that counts.” Dismissing him, she turned to Julia. “I have to go back and shower. I’m starting tonight.” She took Julia’s arm.

Julia stood her ground. She pulled the keys from her pocket. “You go on up. When you get back here, I’ll take the car myself.”

“You’re staying?” Molly asked, less pleased now. “Here? On the dock?”

“I want to play with my camera,” Julia said.

Molly darted Noah an uneasy glance. “What about Zoe? She’s expecting you for dinner.”

“It’s too early for dinner. I’ll be there in an hour. Please tell her.”

Whispering now, Molly said, “That’s not very polite. She’s your hostess.”

Bemused, Julia whispered back, “Who was the one who insisted we leave Zoe for the entire day today? Who insisted I buy this camera? Who’ll be deserting Zoe tonight and every other night to work at the Grill?”

“But she was counting on
you,
” Molly argued. “You were the one who planned to vacation here with her.”

“That’s right,” Julia said, still quietly but with conviction, “and it’s my vacation. I want to spend another hour here. End of discussion.”

Molly looked startled. Julia was vaguely startled, herself. She wasn’t usually so forceful. But it felt good. She really did want to stay here— not for long, just for a bit—maybe even just to make a statement, rather than to be swept docilely along.

Recovering her tongue, Molly said, “Fine,” in an annoyed tone, and walked off.

Julia watched her for a minute, then gave Noah an apologetic smile. “I really do want to play. Could I photograph you?”

“No. Want to do the boat, be my guest. Me, I need a shower and food.” He went back to the wheelhouse, ducked inside the cabin and came up with a logbook, his thermos, a sweatshirt, and a cooler. Whistling for the dog, he used the rail as a step. His other foot had barely touched the pier when Lucas bounded past. Lifting a hand to Julia, he followed the dog.

By the time Noah let himself into the house, he was feeling disgruntled. Given his druthers, he’d have stayed awhile on the boat. That was where he felt most calm. Here in the house, there were ghosts. It didn’t help that the place was dark, but he didn’t see the point in raising the shades, when he was gone so much of the time. Besides, if he let light in, he’d see the emptiness. It was a trade-off, emptiness for ghosts.

He strode through the house to the laundry room, where he stripped down and put every item of clothing he’d worn into the washer. Naked, he went into the bathroom, turned on the shower, and stepped into the stall. The water was cold at first, but he didn’t mind. Physical discomfort was a welcome diversion, so he focused on it until the water heated, then he took the soap and scrubbed himself, first with his hands, then with a brush. When he was done, he stood for a while, head bowed, under the spray, and he enjoyed it, until the itching returned.

Turning the water off, he reached for a towel and did a cursory job of drying off.
Unfinished
…
unfinished
…
unfinished
. With each swipe of the towel, he heard the word again. He would have had to be an idiot not to know what it meant. The accident had left a gaping wound in his life, and it wasn’t only Hutch’s place there that left its emptiness.

Wrapping the towel around his waist, he went to the kitchen, picked up the phone, and punched out Sandi’s number. It had barely started to ring when he felt the old anger rising up, accusations hurled his way, endless analysis of every word he breathed, making him feel less than little—and she was probably right. He could tell himself that a million times to Sunday, and it wouldn’t change things, at least not with Sandi. The sound of her voice brought it back.

“Hello?” she said.

“It’s me,” he said, struggling to sound kind. “Ian never called.”

There was a pause, then a resigned, “I know. He and I had a big fight about it. I think it really bothered him that Hutch died, and he didn’t know how to deal with it. I tried to talk with him, but he refused. I told him to call you, but the thought of doing that was even worse. He’s going through a hostile stretch. Right now, that hostility is directed toward you.”

“What have I done?”

“Nothing,” Sandi said with pleasant factuality. “Absolutely nothing for the last ten years. You’re there, Ian’s here. Yes, you call every week, but if he’s not home, you talk with me and that’s it. Talk? Well, I talk. I tell you what’s going on in his life, and you ask just enough to keep it going. I know you love him, but you’re so damned silent about it, how’s he supposed to know? As far as he’s concerned, you loved him until he turned seven, then you moved out and everything changed.”

Noah pinched the bridge of his nose with a forefinger and thumb. “I’ve seen him.”

“In New York, twice a year. Not down here, and this is where he lives. When I said he should go up for the funeral, he argued about all the important things in
his
life that
you’ve
missed. He didn’t understand why he should go up there to be with you.”

“Not me. His grandfather.”

“I told him that. And I told him you wanted him there, but let’s face it, Noah. You didn’t call. You didn’t talk with him directly. You didn’t ask him yourself. You could have tried the number. You could have left a message. You could have pestered a little. Sometimes that’s the only way you get things done with kids this age. But no. You just let it ride. You sat and waited for him to call. Well, that’s not how it happens. Maybe when he’s a bona fide adult, you can sit back and wait for him to take the initiative, but at seventeen? Forget it. And it’s not just Ian. I see this all the time, well-meaning parents who want to be good guys and reason everything out with their kids, but for certain kinds of kids and certain kinds of things, issuing orders is all that works.”

Noah waited until she was done. Then quietly he said, “I’m issuing an order, then. He’s to come up here next week.”

There was a pause, then a disbelieving, “Where have you
been,
Noah? He starts
summer
school next week. I told you that way back!”

“You said there were two sessions. He can spend three weeks here with me, then go back for the second session.”

“We were going to look at colleges then.”

“Do it afterward.”

“Can’t. I have faculty orientation programs to run then. Besides, Ian doesn’t
want
to look at colleges.”

“Well, there’s your answer,” Noah said. “If I change his mind, either I’ll take him looking, or you can do it in the fall.”

Sandi was silent, before asking a suspicious, “Why do you want to do this? Ian’s going to want to know. Is it because Hutch is gone and Ian’s all you have left? Or because you really want to spend time in his company? Or because you need help with the boat and he’s free labor?”

Noah hadn’t thought out the details. He said the only thing he knew. “He’s my son. I want him here. Where is he now?”

“At Adam’s for the night. He’ll be back in the morning.”

“When?”

“Elevenish. He won’t be pleased, Noah. Three weeks away from his friends? Who’ll he hang with?”

“Me.”

Again, she was silent. Then came a guarded, “Are you sure you want to do this? Maybe you ought to think it over. Once you mention it to him, you can’t change your mind. You’ll have to be firm.”

“Do I sound firm?” Noah asked in his firmest voice. Sandi would call it cold, but that was because she had never spent enough time among Maine men to know the difference between cold and firm.

Then again, maybe she had wised up. Either that, or the prospect of being free of Ian and his teenage moodiness for three weeks was simply too appealing to resist. She relented with a quiet, “Yes. You sound firm. Do you want me to have him call you?”

“No,” Noah said. He wasn’t making the same mistake twice. “I’ll call him.”

Determined, he called Thursday morning at eleven, with the
Leila Sue
idling in the ocean swells and fresh traps on the rail waiting to be emptied. He called again at ten-minute intervals after that until finally, at noon, the boy was home and answered the phone. Strangely, what Noah got then wasn’t so much hostility as indifference. Ian didn’t show surprise. He didn’t argue. He didn’t ask any of the pointed questions his mother had asked. If he was pleased that Noah wanted him there, he didn’t let on. His tone was neutral to the point of being remote.

Belligerence might have been easier to handle. Noah had lined up his arguments and was prepared for a fight. Remoteness was something else. It said nothing about what Ian was thinking or feeling. It did say, however, that Noah had his work cut out for him.

At the same time that Noah was talking to Ian, Julia was driving to the southern tip of the head. Here, bordering the town beach, were streets of bungalows, all in a row. Some were owned by summer people, either used by them or put out for rent. Most had been opened for the season and had lawn chairs on the porch, grills on the lawn, even cars in the carport. A few remained boarded up.

Other houses were owned by locals. Kimmie Colella lived in one of these. Julia found her street and cruised slowly down it until she reached number forty-three. It had the same beachy feel as the others, with the same weathered shingles, the same battered shutters, the same rangy lawn. This one had a pink door, but it wasn’t a pastel pink. This pink was strong. Number forty-three was a house of women who made no bones about who they were.

The driveway was a bed of pebbles. A small red pickup and a vintage Mustang were parked there. Parking on the street, Julia followed a sandy path that time and feet had worn through the grass. There was no doorbell, so she knocked.

At first glance, the woman who answered didn’t seem much older than Julia, which made it hard for Julia to decide whether she was the mother or the grandmother. She had pale, strawberry blonde hair twisted up on the top of her head and a pair of sunglasses propped on top of that. She wore a blouse and jeans, and was barefoot. On closer look, her skin gave her away. The sun had toughened it to a leathery sheen. Same with the fingers curled high up around the edge of the door. They were slim, attractive fingers, but there was nothing soft to them. Nor was there softness in the brown eyes skewering Julia.

Julia forced a smile. “I’m Julia Bechtel—Zoe Ballard’s niece?”

The woman emitted a gravelly “Uh-huh” that raised Julia’s estimate of her age even more.

“I was in the boat—”

“What can I do for you?”

“I wondered how Kim is doing.”

“She’s doing fine.”

“She isn’t fine,” came another voice, and another woman appeared. The family resemblance was there—pale reddish hair, brown eyes, slim, attractive fingers, several of which were half-hidden in the front pockets of body-hugging jeans. But the face was less leathery, the voice less coarse, the eyes less hard. “I’m Kim’s mother, Nancy, and this is my mother, June. Kimmie still won’t talk.”

“She’s stubborn,” June said crossly.

“She needs help.”

“She needs time.”

“She’s had time,” Nancy insisted. “She’s gone more’n a week without saying a single word.”

“How do you know? Maybe she’s talking to other people.”

“Well, she’s not talking to the doctor, and she’s not talking to the Chief, and she’s not talking to any of her friends.”

“She came close to dying. So maybe she’s talking to
God
. Who else is up there on the bluff?”

Nancy looked at Julia. “She’s not talking to anyone. She just sits up there staring out at the water.”

“How do
you
know?” June asked.

“Because I went there,” Nancy argued. “Three times yesterday I went there. I brought food. I brought beer. When in your knowledge has that girl refused beer?” She returned to Julia. “She may be twenty-one, of age and all, but she has me worried sick.”

Julia could see it in her eyes. “Do you think she’s suicidal?”

June snapped, “She is
not
!”

Nancy didn’t look quite so sure. She raised her shoulders as much in a gesture of fear as of uncertainty. “She’s always been okay. But she’s never done anything like this before.”

“What did she do?” June argued. “
She
wasn’t driving that boat.”

“Oh, hush,” Nancy said without so much as a sidelong glance.