Barefoot Girls (52 page)

The full moon again. “What are you talking about?”

Keeley looked back up at her, and color started to come back into her face. “The full moon. It makes people crazy.”

Pam had to laugh. “That’s some old myth.”

Keeley shook her head. “No, it’s true,” she said in a wondering voice. “Too true.” She looked off at the water.

“Are you going to tell me what happened? Where did Hannah just go?”

Keeley continued to stare out at the water, the wind blowing her blond hair in her face. For a minute, Pam started to wonder if she was going to answer at all. Then Keeley said, “She went to the Barefooter house. She needs some alone-time.”

Pam barked out a little puff of air and disbelief. “She’s just been alone for a month. Or almost. Three weeks. That’s a hell of a lot of alone-time.”

Keeley looked back at her. She seemed to have regained herself. “No, she needs it. Some of the stuff she just said was…unbelievable. All I can say is that tomorrow morning Zo and I will go talk to her. She’ll be fine for one night there at our house. There are plenty of blankets, she won’t freeze. That little girl
needs
a time-out, actually.”

“Oh, come on. She’s a little old for that. She’s twenty two.”

“She’s not acting like it,” Keeley said. “Honestly, I don’t know what’s going on with her.”

Pam looked past Keeley down the boardwalk, but Hannah was out of sight. “Shouldn’t one of us go to talk to her? Straighten this out?”

“No. Zo and I do need to sit down with her, but not while she’s like this. Let her cool off. I need to cool off. In fact, I need a drink. You do, too. We all do. Hannah told me we should have fun, among all that BS she was spouting, and that was the only thing she said that made any sense. Come on, Pamster, let’s go play some Kamikaze.” Keeley tilted her head at the house and made a let’s-go gesture with her hand.

Pam felt discombobulated. She didn’t want a drink. What she wanted was a cup of coffee. Her head was spinning. “You’re not going to tell me what happened?”

“How can I? I don’t know either!” Keeley said with a wry laugh as she started past Pam, touching her arm as she passed. “Come on, let’s go play. Enough drama.”

Pam turned around and followed Keeley back into the house feeling as confused as ever, getting the coffee perking on the stove before sitting down to play cards. She wondered if she should have insisted on hearing the whole thing, but at the same time she knew Keeley wouldn’t budge. That was just how she dealt with anything negative: she killed it with sunshine and movement.

This time, though, no matter how bright and cheerful Keeley was, the afternoon’s mood had grown dark and the game never took on its usual ramped-up competitiveness and hilarity.  Instead Amy looked worried, Zo looked angry and would barely speak while they played, and Pam never felt fully “there”, even after three cups of coffee. Only Keeley was twittering along like a bird, not a care in the world, while Hannah stewed in their little house at the tip of the island, alone.

Chapter 52

Hannah paced back and forth between the kitchen and the living area of the Barefooter house. It was such a small space, it only took nine strides of her long legs to complete the u-shaped path from the back of the kitchen, through the door that connected the two rooms, and the short length of the living-slash-sleeping space. The house had seemed larger when she was little, just right for her and her mother when they were spending all their summers there. Now she saw what a tiny shack it really was. It was amazing how many people could fit in it when the Barefooters held their parties.

The blistering dangerous anger that had gripped her only thirty minutes ago was gone, and in its place was the open raw wound of what she had said, one infected with both grief and guilt. It was out. Keeley’s shocked face wouldn’t leave her mind’s eye. Intellectually, she had known that her mother didn’t remember her periodic disappearances all those years ago, leaving her child alone in their house in Fairfield. But her heart didn’t believe it. There had to be some glimmer of recognition, some understanding of her crime as a parent.

Hannah flung herself down on the couch and lay there. The tears had receded. She hurt drily, pain without outlet.

It was her fault she was miserable now. Her greedy heart’s fault. She could be back at Aunt Pam’s, laughing and watching the antics of her Barefooter mothers. They weren’t perfect people. Her mother had failed her all those years ago. Keeley probably didn’t love her as much as Hannah wanted her to. But if there was anything she had learned over the last three weeks on the island, surrounded by the evidence, it was that she
had
been loved.  Was loved. Why couldn’t that be enough? Why couldn’t she just forgive and be grateful? Now she couldn’t go back, not until tomorrow. Even then, how would it be?

The cold air was pushing through her sweater and jeans, her breath puffing in front of her face in little dissipating clouds. She hadn’t taken a jacket; she didn’t take anything with her in her flight. She got up, went to the trunk in the corner that held the blankets and the old cotton hammock they used to sleep on. She wrapped a blanket around herself and put the others on the end of the couch for that night.

At least she wasn’t hungry, wouldn’t be for hours. She sat back down on the couch, thinking of the four of them at Pam’s. Were they playing Uno? Did her godmothers know about the argument? About what she had said? Her mind returned to her mother’s reaction, the utter innocence of her shock and what it implied.

Chapter 53

Keeley stumbled a little stepping out of Pam’s back door and laughed, putting one hand out to touch the wall and gain some stability. Too much to drink. Again.

The world tilted as she headed across the back porch to the bathroom. She had to urinate badly, had been sitting on that Wild card forever it seemed before she drew two and was exposed as soon as she stood up to dance.  Amy had seen and shouted “Gotcha!” in victory, holding only one card and ready to win.

Keeley opened the door to the bathroom. At least it wasn’t completely dark yet and she could see her way to the toilet. The last thing she needed in her state was to be carrying a lit candle or burning hurricane lamp. After this, she was going to suggest they all call it a night. She needed to sober up and get some sleep. Back at her and Ben’s house there was generator-powered electricity and every comfort she could ask for, plus tons of bottled drinking water in their pantry she could use to flush out her system.

“Speaking of flush,” she said, slurring. She sat on the toilet and released her bladder. “Ah! Relief!”

For a minute, it just felt wonderful. Then she smelled the strong scent of her own urine and the memory hit her so hard, she jerked.

Hannah at, maybe, two? So young.

Little brown-haired girl with big blue eyes, her hair sticking out, messy, dirty and matted. Standing wearing only a diaper by the front door to their house and screaming up at her as Keeley walked in, her face red, her diaper so full it was drooping down past her knees. The powerful smell of Hannah’s urine as Keeley picked her up, her baby’s little body too hot in her arms. Did she have a fever? Keeley had only left her for a little while – hadn’t she? Just a drive up into the hills of New York. She had left early in the morning, she knew that. The sun hadn’t come up yet.

Keeley looked over Hannah’s head, the child’s screams rocketing around the small foyer. The wall clock said six-fifteen. Was it really that late? It had been just a little drive, just a breather so she wouldn’t hit Hannah. She’d promised herself she would never be like her mother, never hit her baby. And she hadn’t.

But this morning was too much. Hannah wouldn’t sleep, just kept crying and crying and crying, even after she had been fed and changed. Keeley had held her and rocked her and sang to her, but nothing worked. Then, holding her, exhausted and feeling desperate, she had wanted to just haul off and hit Hannah, feel the satisfying impact of her hand on Hannah’s head.

That was when she put Hannah down in her low wide wooden antique cradle with its heart-shaped cutouts, a gift from Zo, and walked down the stairs and out of the house. She had climbed in her car wearing only her cotton nightie and driven, letting her mind go blank, her ragged breaths of fear slowly abating.

“Oh, my God,” Keeley said, sitting on the toilet in the darkness. “Oh, my God.”

What Hannah had said. That pack of horrible lies. It was true. Keeley put her hands up to her face, pushing the skin of her cheeks back with her palms, her eyes staring.  How had she forgotten this? What else had she forgotten?

“Oh, my sweet baby. I’m so sorry. I’m so so sorry.”

She started to cry and stopped herself. She swallowed the sobs down. No, crying wouldn’t fix anything. Never had.  What she had to do was talk to Hannah. She had to make things right.

She pumped to flush even though that was against the island’s rules regarding water usage, and went to wash her hands. Thinking of what she would say, she glanced out the window as she moved the slippery soap between her wet fingers. Dusk had fallen, the last of the light fading away in shades of blue. In the deepening darkness, the brightness of the full moon was startling, a glowing ball hanging over the horizon.

“Oh, no. Damn it.”

She rinsed and dried her hands, shaking her head.

It would have to be tomorrow. Actually, it would be better then, anyway. They would all work this out together, her best friends and her daughter, as soon as this night was finally over.

Chapter 54

Holding the heavy plastic gas can with both hands was easier, but Rose found it hard to walk holding it that way, her knees knocking against it. She tried switching arms, but then she had to stop to rest frequently. For once, she wished she lived down-island and the walk was a shorter one. Of course, she could have taken the boat, but she didn’t want to risk any of those witches hearing the engine.

She had already passed Pam’s house, so she was getting close. When she passed, she had stopped and stood in the shadows of Pam’s front yard, twilight falling and making the interior of the house easier to see. The women were quieter than usual. Pam, who was truly fat now, and that little loudmouthed midget, Amy, were moving around in the sun room. It looked like they were cleaning up, pushing in chairs and putting a hurricane lamp in the center of the table. She couldn’t see Hannah, Zooey, or Keeley, which made her nervous. They could emerge from the house at any moment, see her, stop her. Rose scuttled over to her gas can where she’d left it on the boardwalk, grabbed it, and walked as fast as she could to get past the house and out of danger.

Her arms were really beginning to hurt. She stopped again to rest, putting down the gas can and rubbing her biceps through her fleece jacket by stretching out one arm and rubbing it with the other hand. It felt like her elbows were going to snap off. She looked down the boardwalk, but the little house wasn’t in sight yet.

Continuing to rub her arms, she looked off at the water and the causeway beyond. The streetlamps left tiny trails of light on the water, broken only by the relentless small waves of the bay. She sighed. Her home, her real home was here. She let her head fall down, chin touching her chest, relaxing for a moment.

Suddenly her head snapped up. “What?” she said to the air. She looked around. What had happened? She was just on the porch a minute ago. How did she get here?

On the boardwalk in front of her she spied their five-gallon gas can, the one they kept in the supply shed out back for emergencies. What was that doing here? She rubbed her arms. Pain was shooting through them, especially her elbows and biceps. She looked again at the gas can. Had she carried that here? Where was she exactly? She looked around. Pretty far down island, from what she could tell. Oh, yes, there was that little blue house with all the colorful glass bottles in the windows. She was almost at the southern tip of the island.

She stared at the gas can again. What was she doing? In a frenzy, she patted herself down. In the right front pocket of her khakis she found a pack of matches. Oh, my God. She had to get rid of them, fast, before-

Her head twisted violently, her face contorting. The hand holding the matches clenched tight and slammed against her chest. “Oh, no, you don’t!”

Panting, a satisfied smile appearing on her lips as her face relaxed, she slid the matches back in her pocket. Then she reached for the gas can again.

Just a little farther. Then, at last, it would be gone. She wouldn’t have to hate it anymore, never feel rejected again witnessing a Barefooter party in full throttle from a distance while passing in her boat, the laughter jeering at her, the music taunting her. The house stood empty, waiting for her to realize her dreams, the ones from long ago when Michael died. Dreams of fire and redemption.

Chapter 55

The sound of Keeley’s soft regular breathing from the other room aggravated Zooey. The fact that her friend could so easily fall asleep even now was grating on her anger-frayed nerves. What made it worse was that Keeley was sleeping so peacefully while their daughter was alone in the Barefooter house, probably freezing and hungry and miserable. At least Zo had confronted Keeley in the kitchen after their card game, insisting that she stay the night on Pam’s daybed so that they could go over to the Barefooter house at dawn and have their long-overdue talk with Hannah. She wasn’t about to let Keeley fall asleep in the comfort of her own bed, making dragging her from it early in the morning tomorrow nearly impossible. She was done sitting by, letting Keeley call the shots. She had long ago paid for her sins.