Just Past Oysterville: Shoalwater Book One (38 page)

"Please, call me Beth," she replied, “I’ve
had a panic attack a time or two myself," Elizabeth smiled,
"there's not a lot you can do about it. I'm just glad we didn't
find you in a heap at the bottom of the stairs!"

The older woman placed an arm protectively
around the young woman’s thin shoulders. Cassie could feel her
warmth and, shivering even harder, leaned into it gratefully. She
should have felt awkward, accepting such an embrace from a
stranger, but she didn't. Elizabeth's touch seemed, instead,
somehow familiar, and Cassie had a sudden overwhelming memory of
snuggling under her mother's arm as they sat together on the couch
in their little trailer. After a moment, she realized that this was
the first memory of her mother, since that terrible tinny knock on
the trailer door, that hadn't brought tears or grief. Instead, she
felt a warm regret, a sad longing for her mother that she supposed
she would carry always.

“
That’s the one
condolence that I can offer you now,"
Jack had said.
"Someday that hurt
is going to fade and all that will be left will be your memories of
the good times and just a little bit of sadness….”

Cassie let out a deep, wistful sigh and
felt, for the first time, that maybe he was right.

"Jack told me about your mother," Elizabeth
spoke into the darkness, "I'm very sorry, Cassie, she was a
wonderful, special woman."

"How did Jack know my mother, Beth?" Cassie
asked before she could stop herself, the words passing her lips in
a rush. She tensed slightly and felt the older woman's body do the
same.

"That's a long story, dear,"
the older woman replied, "and I don't think it's mine to tell, at
least not all of it, but I'll tell you what I can." She drew a deep
breath. "First though, I need to know that
you know
who Bill is, though
I'm pretty sure by your earlier reaction that you do.”

"Bill is my father." Cassie spoke the words
without emotion, just a jumble of syllables released from a small
iron box in her heart, her own voice sounding foreign to her.
"Isn't he?"

"Your father's name was William Beckman?" Beth
asked.

Cassie nodded.

"And your mother was Katherine
Belanger?"

Cassie nodded again.

"Then yes," Beth murmured, "Bill's your
father. Though I have to tell you, and I'm so sorry for it, but the
Bill you met tonight isn't really that man anymore." She sighed, "I
don't think he ever knew about you, I know that Jack didn't, but I
do know that he has no memory of your mother. It's taken years for
him to pull together even the haziest recollections of me."

There was a long pause and,
finally, Cassie clutched the edge of the rough blanket tightly in
her fist and asked, "Who are
you
, Beth?"

Cassie felt a hand gently lower her head to
the older woman's shoulder, and once more, she was over-swept with
that warm familiarity, as Elizabeth took a deep breath.

"My name is Elizabeth Marshall. Before I was
married, it was Elizabeth Beckman, I'm Billy's little sister. I
guess that makes me your Auntie Beth, Cassia Belanger."

Cassie squeezed her eyes shut, wrapping her
free arm around Elizabeth, and clutching her tightly. Something
swelled and swelled within her, after a dizzying moment, a dark,
suffocating weight was lifted from her soul, and she felt her heart
flood with warm relief. The two women held each other for a time,
rocking and weeping softly together as the chill wind sprinkled
sand about them.

Finally, they dried their eyes on the rough
wool and sat quietly, warm and safe beneath the heavy blanket.
Elizabeth told her niece all that she knew about the three lives
that had intertwined to bring them to this night.

“
So,” she finished, “when my
husband Robert died, I decided that I didn't want to spend the rest
of my years rambling around that big house, reminded of his death
every time I turned a corner. I called Jack and he helped me look
around for a house to buy. I ended up with The Morning Tide and
decided to refinish it and start a Bed and Breakfast, so that’s
what I did. That was eight years ago."

"I watch Bill fairly often," she said, "Jack
refused to let me take him after I moved back, but he's grateful
for my help from time to time, so he can find his books."

When Beth finished, Cassie told her about
growing up in Bowie, the Williams family, and of Katherine's death.
She gave a brief overview of her trip westward with Jack and then
fell silent.

"Poor sweet Kathy," Beth murmured, "Nothing
ever came easy to her, and she deserved so much more."

"Yes," Cassie said, "yes, she did. That's
what I came all the way out here to tell him. That she was dead,
and that he’d never see me again. I wasn't even going to tell him
how she died, I didn't want to give him even that much."

There was a pause and the only sound was the
sad whisper of the wind along the shoreline, and the muffled crash
of the surf.

"So much anger," Beth whispered, "so much
hate. That's an awful lot for a girl to carry around." She
sighed.

"I'm sorry Cassie, I'm sorry Bill did this
to you. I don't know what turned my brother into the man he became,
but I'm so sorry that you and Kathy had to pay for it."

Cassie nodded, unable to speak, staring
instead into the darkness and listening to the ceaseless pounding
of the waves.

"He really is gone you know," Elizabeth
said, breaking the long silence, "the Bill Beckman that was my
brother is as dead as if that bullet had killed him. There's no one
left to hate, you know that, right?"

"Yes," Cassie whispered, her cheeks burning
with shame and unspent anger, "I know."

"That doesn't make the feelings go away
though does it?" Elizabeth continued, "You can't just turn off that
kind of emotion because life throws a twist at you." She squeezed
the young woman’s hand in her own. "It's okay to still be angry,
Cassie, keep that in mind. It's going to take time to work it out,
and that's okay too."

Cassie nodded. Her eyes were puffy and dry,
her tear-soaked skin felt chapped and raw in the cold wind; she had
no more tears to cry. Elizabeth was right, the anger was still
there, pressing heavy on her heart, aimless with no target any
longer, but this, like the pain of her mother's death, would begin
to pass. Cassie had faith in that, clinging to it as she clung to
Elizabeth's hand.

Suddenly another question leaped to the front of her troubled
mind, slipping her from one train of thought to another with hardly
a bump between.

"Aunt Beth?" she asked, tentatively using
the title for the first time.

"Yes?" Elizabeth replied, and Cassie could
hear the smile in her voice, and felt a hand squeeze her shoulder.
Cassie hesitated, feeling awkward and more than a little
embarrassed.

"Did Jack call you from Gold Beach on Monday
night?"

Elizabeth paused a moment, thrown by the
change in course.

"Um…Yes, I think he did," she said, "wasn't
that Valentine’s Day?"

Cassie grinned in spite of herself, "Yes,
yes it was."

"What are you smiling about, young lady?"
Beth asked, elbowing her lightly in the ribs.

"Nothing," Cassie responded, giggling
helplessly.

"Cassie…?" Elizabeth intoned threateningly,
jabbing with her elbow again.

"Aunt Beth, are you in love with Jack?" The
words rushed out before Cassie could stop them, and she started in
shock at her own brazenness.

There was a long pause and, in the darkness,
Cassie could feel her Aunt tense and prepare to stand. She suddenly
had a terrible thought…what if Elizabeth didn't have feelings for
Jack, what if that was the reason that Jack seemed reluctant to
talk about it? What could she have possibly asked that would have
ruined the moment any more effectively?

Finally, Beth spoke.

"I don't think I'm ready to discuss that
with you here," the older woman said, her voice flat and
strained.

Cassie felt sick.
How could she be so stupid? When would she ever
learn to think before she opened her mouth?
The girl scolded herself silently, wishing that the sandy
beach would open and swallow her whole, as her mind struggled to
find a suitable apology.

"Beth, I'm --" she started.

"However," Elizabeth
interrupted, grinning as the first gray streaks of dawn touched the
far horizon, "if you want to come back to the apartment, we can
heat up that tea. I’ll break out some cookies, and tell you
all
about it
there!"

Cassie jumped to her feet, barely noticing
the twinge of her stiff, cold muscles, and helped her aunt fold the
blanket.

"It's a deal," she laughed.

*

He staggers on and on, miles and years,
across the burning, featureless landscape. One blistered bare foot
falling wearily followed by the next, leaving faint bloodied
prints, which the desert sand sucks up greedily. Heat and pain and
thirst, his back screams in protest beneath his terrible burden.
Jack hears water sloshing in the heavy pack that grinds away at his
shoulders. He stops, the wasteland's desolate horizon shimmering
and spinning sickeningly beneath the baking sun. Jack slips the
pack to the ground. The skin of his hands is burned crimson and
peeling, his fingernails are cracked and caked with filth as he
struggles to loosen the knots of rope that hold the bag closed.

Again, he hears the tempting, teasing sound
of water, coming distinctly from the depths of the pack. Licking
his cracked and bleeding lips, Jack sees the buzzards have landed
around him. Slowly, they stalk forward though the sand, their
hideous naked heads stretching hungrily towards him.

Swallowing painfully, he tears open the top
of the pack.

Despite the blistering heat of the desert, a
frigid bolt of terror, like frozen lightening, rips through his
body. He shrieks, trying to lurch backwards and away, but his legs
are locked in horror as he stares into the pack…his own body
impossibly crushed within.

Bill's bullet wound bleeds from Jack's
ruined temple as he looks into his own blood-filled eyes.

He screams
again
…

…
and suddenly the heat and
light were gone.

Jack fumbled in sweaty terror with the
controls of the hospital bed, his trembling fingers cold and numb,
searching for the button that would light the shadowed corners of
his room.

He stared, eyes wide open, still unable to
pull themselves from the fading images of his nightmare, and of his
own face peering back at him.

Alone in his hospital room, Jack Leland
began to weep.

*

The storms that had lashed the shores of
Long Beach through the night blew themselves out by dawn. Damp,
glittering calm settled over the peninsula as the sun rose to wash
Main Street in sharp, golden light.

Cassie awoke with what was becoming a familiar moment of
disorientation. A week and more of strange beds had changed that
first blurry morning thought from
where
am I?
to
where am I now?

It took her several sleepy seconds to
recognize the library-like environs of Jack's apartment, from her
spot on the quilt-draped couch. Cassie's eyes felt sandy, and she
rubbed them as she succumbed to a jaw-cracking yawn. She and
Elizabeth hadn't stayed up too long after returning home, but
Cassie had found, once she was safely tucked in, that she couldn't
sleep. The welter of emotions and confusion left her wide-eyed and
reeling and she had sat up for a long while with her mother's Bible
in her lap, reading the comfortingly familiar words.

She had spent the rest of the night drifting
in and out of a thin, anxious doze.

She could hear
Elizabeth,
Aunt Beth
she reminded herself, enjoying again the warmth
that suffused her at the thought; she could hear her bustling
around the kitchen, preparing the promised French toast.

Beth carried on a murmuring conversation
with her brother, almost certainly about Cassie. The younger woman
lay, for a long moment, savoring the homey comfort of her borrowed
bed and the delicious aromas calling to her from beneath the
kitchen door.

Finally, she arose and, slipping on the
faded bathrobe draped over an arm of the couch, she took a deep
breath and walked into the kitchen.

"Well!" Elizabeth exclaimed without turning
from the stove, "It’s about time, sleepyhead. Billy and I were
about to start without you!"

Cassie smiled and mumbled an apology,
accepting a steaming cup of tea from her aunt and slipping into the
kitchen chair opposite the table from her father. Bill stared at
her owlishly with equal parts apprehension and curiosity, as he
sipped at his own mug. The silence grew uncomfortably long as
Elizabeth clattered pots and pans across the range top, and Cassie
realized the older woman was waiting for her to make the first move
with Bill. Cassie squared her shoulders and met Bill's eyes,
offering one hand across the table.

"Hi Bill," she said, "I'm Cassie."

Bill looked first to his sister, his eyes
growing even wider, then, as she nodded in affirmation, he
tentatively took Cassie's hand in his own and gave it a brief,
slightly limp shake.

"Hullo," he said shyly, his eyes returning
immediately to his study of the contents of the mug before him.
Silence filled the room once more.

Finally, Beth took pity on her niece and,
turning from the stove, sat herself at the third and final chair at
the table.