Folly (59 page)

All in all, the evening was not as awkward as it might have been. Tamara even came out of herself to flirt mildly with Jerry, to the well-concealed amusement of Nikki Walls, and they all ate far too much. Rae and Nikki did the dishes while the shadows grew long and Jerry talked to Tamara and Petra, Caleb nestled into his lap. When Rae glanced over at the fire pit, she was amused to see Petra sitting with her Doc Martens outstretched, propped on the rock ring in a position identical to Jerry’s—although she lacked a sleeping child draped over her chest. Rae finished drying the dishes, tossed the towel over its branch to air, and crossed to the fire; before she could sit down, Jerry got to his feet and asked if he could have a word. Caleb stirred in sleepy protest as Jerry transferred him into his mother’s arms, where he settled instantly with small childish sleep-noises.

Rae walked with Jerry down to the beach, glowing still in the last rays of sunlight. Jerry scooped up a handful of flattish stones and proceeded to skip them over the smooth face of the cove waters.

“Escobar phoned to say one of the guys he’s charged is pleading guilty, and the other one will go to trial. You’ll have to go testify for that in a few months.”

“I thought I might.”

“Also, something else came up in questioning them. Apparently one
of the guys thinks the man who hired them may have been trying to drive you to suicide.”

That was a jolt. Jerry felt her go still, and his big hand sought out her shoulder, a gesture clearly visible to the three variously speculating women near the fire.

“I guess I was assuming he only wanted me to be crazy,” she told him in a small voice.

“Do you have that kind of an enemy?”

Rae turned slightly so that her back was to the campfire, as if Tamara might be able to read from her face what she was about to say. Jerry’s hand fell away, but he remained close, his upper arm brushing her shoulder. “I have that kind of a son-in-law,” she told him. “Or I thought so until today.”

“Son-in-law. You mean Tamara’s—”

“Don Collins. He’s greedy, he’s crooked, and he’s always in a tight place financially. But I just found out that they’ve been separated for nearly a month and that Tamara’s filed for divorce, so he surely can’t expect to inherit anything now. If it was him, I’m safe.”

“Did you tell Escobar about this? Has he talked to Collins?”

“I told him in a general sort of a way, at the time.” Although that had been in the weeks after the attack, when Rae as a witness had left much to be desired.

“I think I should make sure he’s seen the possibility.”

“Maybe … oh, hell. Have him get in touch with my lawyer. She knows my whole history with Don.”

“Will she give it out?”

“I’ll write her a letter, asking her to open her files. You could witness the letter—that ought to make it legal.”

“Do it tonight. If Collins had anything to do with hiring those two, he’d most likely have phone records, cash withdrawals, that kind of thing.”

The sun dropped behind the heights of Vancouver Island; Rae dry-washed her tired face. “This is going to be hard on Petra.”

“Harder on her if he’d managed to injure you. Though how he thought he could make you commit suicide, I can’t imagine. Sounds like a bad thriller.”

At that, Rae turned to stare at him, incredulous. “What are you talking about? He very nearly did.”

“Oh, Rae, come on. You had a breakdown. Hardly surprising, under the circ—”

She thrust her left arm under his nose, forcing him to look at the scars. She tapped at the highest one, the pinkest and freshest of the three. “
That
was serious, Jerry. Five more minutes to myself, and I wouldn’t be standing here.” She watched his face, seeing the realization and the fleeting twist of revulsion. When she was certain he had understood, she added, “Depression kills, Jerry. It doesn’t take much of a nudge.”

“I, um … I didn’t really think …”

“I know. I’ll go write that letter now.”

She went through the campsite and into the tent, where she took out her pad and a pen. On the canvas wall above the desk she had fastened Caleb’s drawing of Rae with the twenty-three crabs at her stick feet, the only piece of decoration in the place. The artist himself had wakened from his nap and was chattering with Petra, a bittersweet reminder of long overheard conversations between the girl and Bella. Rae listened for a minute to Caleb’s serious lecture on the life and habits of the hermit crab, then went back to the letter. When she had signed it, she called Jerry in to sign as well. He read the few lines, scribbled his name, and folded the document into a pocket.

Then it was time for the San Juan natives to leave—Jerry distracted, Nikki curious, Caleb alone lighthearted. Rae and Petra waved them off at the dock, and walked through the midsummer’s evening to join Tamara at the fire.

Tamara stayed only two nights. On the Friday, the three Newborn women ate blueberry pancakes and then went for a hike up Mount Desmond, diverting on the way back to dabble in the tepid spring-fed pool (where Petra discovered both salamanders and dragonflies). On the way downhill they picked a giant bouquet of paintbrush and brodiaea and a few late blossoms of Nootka rose. They went for a swim in the icy cove—even Tamara, who was trying hard—and in the evening Ed came to taxi them to Roche Harbor for dinner. They spotted a distant orca on the way over, ate a satisfying meal, watched the sundown ceremony in the boat harbor (complete with salute from the miniature cannon), went back to play a few surprisingly congenial hands of poker in front of the fire (Tamara really was trying), and went to their cots content.

Then on Saturday morning, Tamara abruptly announced that she had decided to leave, ostensibly to avoid the rush of Sunday traffic. Rae suspected that there were other, more important reasons, from the discomfort of the living quarters and the dearth of Tamara-style entertainment to Petra’s reflexive and unceasing prickliness around her mother, to say nothing of Tamara’s embarrassment over having broken down in front of Rae. Mostly, Rae thought, Tamara was feeling the need to draw back and recoup. She’d obviously faced as much as she could bear for the moment. Rae was satisfied—more than that, she was optimistic in a way she hadn’t been for a long, long time when it came to Tamara. Their relationship was by no means healed, and it remained to be seen just how far Tamara would be willing—or able—to allow it to change. But it was a first crack in the façade, and on the dock she met Rae’s embrace with a stiff hesitation followed by a long, tight hug and a quick turn away to the boat.

Whatever the reasons for her early departure, now that Tamara had been reassured as to her mother’s mental state and her daughter’s safety, she was ready to escape.

The trouble was, escape from Folly was no simple matter. Fortunately, Tamara had brought a cell phone for Petra’s use, or Rae would have been reduced to flagging down a passing sailboat to get Tamara a ride. It might actually have been easier to flag down a boat, since using the phone involved a hike even farther up Mount Desmond than the first time Rae had sought a signal. But in the end, Ed was summoned. He arrived two hours later looking not at all pleased at the prospect of being trapped on a boat with Tamara Collins, even for the short run to Friday Harbor. Rae thanked him, often and vigorously, until Ed relented with a rueful half-smile and said he’d see her Tuesday.

Rae and Petra stood shoulder to shoulder on the undulating boat dock. Tamara’s retreating spine was stiff again, but Rae thought it not quite as unyielding as it had been the last time Ed De la Torre had taken her away from the island, three months before on the eve of April Fools’. And this time Tamara turned before the boat reached the point, turned around and waved at them. The two generations on the shore waved back in farewell.

Then the
Orca Queen
was gone, and it seemed the most natural thing in the world for Rae to wrap her arms around Petra. They held each other as they had not while Tamara was there to look on, their only
motion the slow rise and dip of the boards beneath their feet. After a delicious interval, Rae spoke.

“I’m not going to be able to rest my chin on your head for much longer.”

“I’m the eighth-tallest person in my school, including the teachers.”

“I hope you don’t mind being tall.”

“No, I like it. I want to get to six feet.”

They separated then, to move along the dock and up the ridge of the promontory. Petra looked over her shoulder in the direction of San Juan.

“I hope she’ll be okay,” Petra said.

“She’ll be fine. You’ll be home in a week and a half.”

“It’s just that Mom really needs someone around to take care of.”

“She’ll have to make do with the horses and dogs.”

“And the cats.”

“And the cats, of course.” Rae saw the child glance again out to sea, and asked gently, “Do you want to talk about it?”

“Maybe later. It’s all kind of a relief, you know? Not that I want them to get a … a divorce or anything, but at least it’s all out in the open. I mean, man, for about three weeks it was like you can feel that there’s something about to hit you, and you wait and wait with your teeth all clenched and when it finally comes it’s a relief, that you’re still walking around and it didn’t hurt as bad as you thought it would. You know?”

“I know.”

“But, Gran, you’re really looking great.”

“I’m feeling well.”

“I mean it. You look—beautiful.”

Rae laughed. “Oh come on, Petra, you need your eyes examined.”

“You do. Not like an actress or anything, but like a … a statue maybe. Like, ‘I am woman. I am strong.’”

“You know that song?” Rae asked in surprise.

“That’s a song?”

“Once upon a time, when we were all burning our bras.”

Ancient history not being Petra’s immediate interest, the child let it go. “Anyway, I’m glad to see you looking so good. I was real worried when we left you here. You looked kind of sick.”

In more ways than one
, Rae commented internally. “I wasn’t in very good shape, you’re right. Of course, the rain that day didn’t help much. But this place has been good for me. A thousand times better than I
could have hoped. When I got here, it was still halfway winter, so I’ve been able to watch the island come to life around me. I guess the sap’s been rising in me, too.”

The analogy did not make a lot of sense to Petra. Rae diverted her with a question. “So, what do you want to do?”

“Don’t you have to get back to work?”

“I think I could afford to goof off another half-day.”

“Well, if you’re sure, could we go up to the spring again?”

This time, they wore swimsuits under their shorts. Rae plugged off the water inlet and she and Petra lay in the warmer waters of the upper pond, drifting into each other and the mossy banks and gazing up at the trees and the sky and the visiting life of the island. They saw the dragonfly again, to Petra’s joy, and discovered a number of slim, moist, earth-colored newts.

Rae assembled cheese sandwiches for their late lunch. When they had eaten, she turned to Petra and said, “Would you like to see Desmond’s secret cave?”

Rae’s two invisible doors earned her Petra’s ultimate encomium, “Cool!” but the cave itself rendered her granddaughter speechless, awestruck by the sheer romance of the thing. Rae said nothing yet about Desmond’s bones, not even when the girl crawled across the stains on the floor in the side cave, looking around. They continued on to the main cave, and Petra gave the moldering shelves the merest glance, preferring to stand silently before the rear wall and wait for the next drip to gather, appear, elongate, fatten, and finally tremble free from the rocky point to
plink
into the tiny pool on the floor.

“Can you drink that?” she wanted to know.

“I haven’t had it tested, but I should think it’s safe enough.”

After a minute Petra squatted down and swished her fingers in the water, then held them up to dab the drips onto her tongue.

“I wonder if there could be another cave underneath this one?” she asked in a dreamy voice. “I mean, the water must be going somewhere, or the cave would’ve filled up, even with that slow a drip. Don’t you think?”

“The water’s getting out somehow, that’s for sure. I just figured it was seeping back into the sandstone, but I suppose there could be another cave down there.”

The girl was obviously taken by the idea of caves atop caves, worlds within worlds.

“I want to be a writer,” she said abruptly, her back to Rae and her face in the lamp’s shadow.

“Do you?” Rae answered. “I think you’d be good at it. I remember all those stories you used to tell Bella.”

“Mom says I’ll starve to death.”

“What kind of writing?” Rae asked, stepping firmly around the question of Tamara’s judgment.

“Fantasy, science fiction, that kind of stuff. I really like the idea of caves for that. You know, like what if under here was a huge cave filled with diamonds and things, sparkling in the torchlight, and a whole city of people? They have a queen, and—” Petra stopped abruptly, becoming aware that she had an adult audience. Rae responded as if she had not noticed.

“I’ve never read much science fiction,” she told her granddaughter. “Never read much fiction at all, for that matter. My imagination seems to be wired into my senses too firmly, which may be why I’m a craftsman rather than a pure artist. Your way of imagining things isn’t tied down like mine. You’ll probably be a fine writer.”

Now the embarrassment was from educated praise instead of inadvertent revelation, and it drove Petra briskly to her feet. She took a last look around the cave as if to point out how cramped and musty and dull it really was, and then turned back toward the entrance, her mask of disdain firmly in place. It made her look like her mother, although their coloring was entirely different.

The mask slipped again when Rae stopped her to point out the petroglyph of the breaching orca, halfway up the wall. They had to put out one of the lights to get the shadows to fall right, and then it leapt into view, as clear as if the artist had rubbed pigment into it. Petra went soft again, and one hand came out, then hesitated.