Beach Colors (17 page)

“Neither have I. Where did we get all this old junk?”

“When did a Sullivan throw anything away?”

“True. Well, today we turn over a new leaf. Quinn Palmer will be here with his truck at eleven. I just hope we’re finished by then.”

“Where should I start?”

“You don’t have to help.” Jude’s voice sounded hollow in the musty, dead air.

“I don’t mind. And don’t sell that dressmaker’s dummy. I may need it. Have you seen my easel or the drafting table?”

“The drafting table is probably over by that gable.”

Margaux squeezed through the forest of forgotten objects toward the window.

“Found it, but it’s buried under a bunch of stuff that looks like it should go to the flea market.” A white Victorian étagère with one curve of molding broken off, a steamer trunk with a missing strap, a stack of
Life
magazines from 1972, and two mismatched mahogany end tables nested together.

She hauled them out and piled them near the opening to the stairs.

It took both of them to pull an old trestle sewing machine across the wooden floor.

“Are you sure you want this to go?” asked Margaux. “Wasn’t it Grammy’s?”

Jude considered the machine. Margaux could see that she was torn between keeping the past and letting go. She felt a little like that herself.

“Or at least have an antiques dealer look at it?”

Jude let out her breath. “No. It might fetch a good price from a collector at the flea market. And it will go to a good cause.”

“What is it this year?” Each year the town put on a flea market and carnival to raise money for a special project. One year it had paid for refurbishing the historic village schoolhouse. One year they had sponsored three children to the Special Olympics.

“We’re donating the proceeds to help clean up the old boardwalk. It’s really gone to seed. The arcade went out of business last summer. The old dance hall has been boarded over since that big nor’easter years ago. Even Seamus McGuire had to stop running the carousel after his heart attack.”

“That’s too bad.”

“It’s a darn shame, letting a big chunk of history just fall away. But fortunately, a developer expressed interest in buying it to build an apartment complex or some such. Suddenly, after years of ignoring what they had, the townspeople were up in arms. Now there’s a move to Save the Boardwalk.”

“Sounds like it’ll cost a fortune.”

“It would if we wanted to gentrify it, put in chichi restaurants, and draw hordes of tourists. Good for the local economy maybe, but bad for our quality of life. As it is, we just want to make it a fun, viable place for families to enjoy. Like it used to be, only better. Okay enough chitchat. The sewing machine goes, unless you want it.”

“No thanks. Too slow for my needs, and since I don’t have anywhere to keep it—” She broke off.

“Now don’t you worry. This is your house for all intents and purposes. I always meant for you and Louis to have it. Now I thank my lucky stars that I didn’t sign it over to you.”

“God, I might have lost this, too.” Margaux’s knees went weak.

“Well, you didn’t, and there is no way that so-and-so can get his hands on it even if he tried. So don’t give it another thought. Let’s see if we can pull that little slipper chair out to where Quinn can get it.”

Margaux squeezed in behind the chair. She shoved it but it didn’t budge.

“It’s caught on something. Hang on.” Margaux wiggled the chair but it stayed put. “If you can move that big suitcase, I think I can slide it out.”

Jude lifted the suitcase out of the way. Something rolled across the floor. Jude dropped the suitcase. Margaux’s breath caught when she recognized the candy-apple red motorcycle helmet resting at her mother’s feet. Danny’s motorcycle helmet.

Neither of them moved, then slowly, Jude bent down, picked it up, and cradled it to her breast.

“Mom.”

Jude shook her head.

Margaux came out to where Jude stood motionless, just holding that helmet, and Margaux thought her heart would break.

They stood close but not touching.

Finally Jude said, “Not this.” And carefully placed the helmet back on the chair.

“Why don’t we go make some coffee and let Quinn help us with the rest?”

Jude shook herself like someone coming out of the water, or out of a dream. “I’m sorry, honey. You haven’t had a cup yet. That’s a good idea. Let’s go down.”

“You go ahead,” Margaux said. “I see my old easel in the corner. I’ll just get it and come right down.”

Jude stepped down onto the ladder. When her head disappeared, Margaux picked up the helmet and carefully placed it out of sight. Then she grabbed her easel and followed her mother downstairs.

Quinn and his friend showed up in a rusty black pickup while Jude and Margaux were in the kitchen having their coffee.

“Yo, Mrs. Sullivan. Hey there, Margaux,” he said.

“Hi, Quinn,” Margaux said, trying not to look shocked at the snake tattoo that curled out of his rolled-up sleeve. “I hardly recognized you. You’re so, um, tall.”

“Six-one. This is Darren.” Quinn gestured to the second boy, who slouched behind him.

“Hi, Darren.”

Darren, shorter and stockier, grunted. Margaux interpreted it as hello.

“So where’s the stuff?”

N
ick watched Connor on the other side of the glass window at Monroe Elementary School. He was sitting at a child-size table across from the child psychologist. Dr. McKinnon was a tall man, barrel-chested, and Nick wondered how the small wooden legs of the chair held beneath his weight. His knees were tucked up to either side, drawing his khaki trouser cuffs up and revealing the argyle pattern of his socks.

He seemed to be chatting amiably with Connor, who was building some kind of arch with blocks. It was strange, Nick thought, how Connor could be so jumpy at times, and yet docile at others. He didn’t cling when Mrs. Ames, the school psychologist, introduced him to McKinnon. He went happily enough when the doctor took him down the hall to the “puzzle” room to play.

It was Nick who wanted to draw him close, cling to him, beg them not to take him, to hurt him, to make him feel any more alien than he already felt.

Now, Nick sat in the padded chair, hands gripping the wooden arms. Wondering what they were looking for. Hoping that Connor didn’t make a mistake, even though Nick, a college-educated man, couldn’t figure out what they were doing.

His mother sat in the chair next to him, her hands folded demurely in her lap. She could have been at church or bingo night for all the emotion she showed. Nick felt his knee begin to jiggle and consciously stopped it. He didn’t want to appear nervous, but he was scared as hell that they would find something wrong.

He didn’t know how parents dealt with that kind of tragedy. He should probably talk to Deke and Peg O’Halloran. Their daughter, Ceci, had brain damage from lack of oxygen at birth. She was a sweet kid, but at ten she’d already outgrown her IQ.

At least Deke and Peg had each other. And faith. Nick had himself and he didn’t much believe in God these days. It wasn’t that he’d love Connor less if there was something not quite right, he just didn’t know how he’d be able to juggle all the things necessary to give him a decent quality of life.

Dr. McKinnon laughed. Connor was smiling, but Nick knew he wouldn’t be making any noise. Just those puffs of breath that posed as a laugh. It was like the cartoons Connor watched, the volume down so low that only the picture pulsed in the room.

Finally, the doctor stood. He shook Connor’s hand and the two of them went out the door to the hall. Best of buds.

Nick braced himself for the doctor’s opinion.

The door opened and the doctor came in. “I dropped Connor off in the playroom. There are other children there and Mrs. Delacorte and her aide are with them.”

Nick was halfway out of his chair, but his mother put her hand on his and he sat back down.

Mrs. Ames ushered them to the other side of the room where several chairs were placed in a semicircle.

She sat down beside Nick’s mother. Dr. McKinnon pulled a chair out so that he was facing them and sat down across from Nick.

“Connor is a very bright little boy.”

Nick let out the breath he’d probably been holding since they arrived, but he didn’t relax. He sensed the “but” that was to follow.

When the doctor didn’t continue, Nick blurted out, “So does this mean he can go to public school?”

Hell, he would home-school the kid if he had to. Except that he already had a full-time job even if it was only temporary until the next election. Plus he had a part-time job with Jake. When would he have time to teach Connor?

“I’m concerned about his social skills.”

“Jesus, the kid just lost both parents. He’s living with a grandmother he’d never seen until a few months ago, in a town he’d never heard of.” Nick stopped, took a breath, aware that he’d just lost his cool.

“I understand your frustration, Nick. But these things take time. And most children Connor’s age have already spent several years in preschool and kindergarten and other social environments.”

Nick felt his options sinking away. He wanted what was best for his nephew, but he just couldn’t believe that sending him to a special needs school was going to help him adapt to a normal life. “So what are you suggesting? There’s nothing wrong with his brain. Hell, the kid reads the newspaper.”

“Yes, but mental readiness is not the only factor in sending a child to school.”

And Connor started at loud noises, spoke only in whispers. Now he’d begun running away, looking for something or someone.

Nick rubbed a hand across his face. He was losing this battle. His mother was ready to do anything the doctor said. She was making rumblings about returning to work as a seamstress when Connor began school in September. So far he’d been able to talk her out of it, but if they had to pay for private school, he would need the extra income.

His mother had worked all her life, and Nick would be damned if he’d let her go back just when she should be enjoying retirement. He hated thinking about her having to work all day, then come home and have to take care of Connor. Connor got a government check. They’d just have to make things work.

“Your mother told me that he was taken out of pre-K.”

Nick’s mind—his whole body—was coiled tight. “The teacher said he didn’t participate and that she didn’t have the staff to accommodate a boy . . . that shy.” Those weren’t exactly her words. It was something more to the effect that Connor was antisocial and unapproachable.

But he wasn’t antisocial, he just didn’t know how to be social. And he hadn’t always been that way. What the hell had his mother been doing with him before she called to tell Nick she’d left him with a neighbor and gave him a Fort Bragg address where he could pick him up.

He’d gone personally to talk with the neighbors and anyone who knew the family, trying to get any information he could. All he learned was that Connor had gone from a bright, quiet, but friendly kid to something near comatose. They didn’t think he’d been abused. Later examinations had confirmed this. But something had happened, not just the death of his father. And it happened before his mother took off with “some man,” as her next-door neighbor described it.

He’d signed the necessary papers, packed up Connor’s clothes, and brought him to Crescent Cove. He thought things would get better, but they were hanging on a thread.

God, he hated that bitch and hoped she had a miserable life wherever she was.

“I asked Connor how he liked school.”

Nick waited for the big blow.

Dr. McKinnon smiled slightly. “He said it was fine.”

The same thing he’d told Nick after he was sent home. Nick looked at the school psychologist, who was looking, as always, calm and nonjudgmental. She gave him a reassuring smile.

Nick wanted to shake them both until they came up with what was wrong with the kid. “There are still three months before school.”

McKinnon nodded. “We can wait and see. He doesn’t display any of the usual indicators of post-traumatic stress or Asperger’s.”

Nick flinched at the doctor’s words. He didn’t want to hear about PTSD. He’d heard enough. Read enough. Learned enough after Ben’s death. He could have told them Connor didn’t have that or Asperger’s. He’d researched every possible cause for his behavior. There were some scary possibilities, but they weren’t what Connor had.

“That’s good. Right?” God, he hated the sound of his own voice. The need for reassurance.

“It isn’t bad.”

He hated how McKinnon refused to say anything outright. Nick wanted facts. He knew invasion and armistice dates. The reasons for the War of the Roses. The number of members of Parliament. Could quote the Declaration of Independence. He wanted to know what was wrong with Connor.

“One option is to send him for more testing. I have a colleague at Yale who is excellent with nonadaptive behavior.”

He’d been tested and tested, they hadn’t found anything physically or mentally wrong with him. That left emotional, and all the testing in the world couldn’t fix that.

“No more tests. You said yourself he’s bright, he doesn’t have classic symptoms, he just doesn’t talk loud. And he won’t get any better if we keep dragging him around like a lab rat.” Nick stopped, appalled at his outburst.

The doctor looked as unruffled as if Nick had agreed with him. “I was about to say pretty much the same thing. Try to involve him with other kids. We’ll give it some time. See if they can draw him out. And see if maybe he’ll open up about why he doesn’t talk out loud.”

Nick nodded. In spite of the air-conditioning, he felt sweat trickle down his temple. He wiped it away. No sense in trying to hide it from the doctor. McKinnon was pretty astute. He had to hand him that.

“I’m also concerned with how this is affecting you.”

Nick just looked at him.

“Nick?”

What was he supposed to say? Thank you for your concern? Shut the hell up, my mother is sitting right here? Jesus. He had to get out of there.

“It’s natural to feel a sense of frustration, helplessness, even resentment in these situations. It can take its toll on the family.”