Little Gale Gumbo (29 page)

When they'd walked the short stretch of shore, back and forth, taking turns swigging from the bottle and watching the fingers of the foamy surf grasp at the pebbled sand, Matthew said, “So what's this about Jack taking a pound of flesh?”

Dahlia put out one bare foot and made an arc in the water with her toes. “You know Jack,” she said with a shrug. “He's always been jealous of us.”

With good reason, Matthew thought, guilt fluttering through him, shameful pride trailing not too far behind.

“He made some crack about how I always let you protect me,” Dahlia said. “It was stupid. He was just being mean and I told him to go to hell.”

Matthew studied her profile, a strange and sudden discontent rising in him. “What's so stupid about it?”

Dahlia's foot stopped its sweep. She turned and looked at him. “Only everything,” she said. “The idea that you, or anyone else for that matter, ever had to protect me is ludicrous. Let alone insulting.”

“Insulting?” Matthew turned from her, resuming their pace. “Jesus, you have some fucking nerve, Dee.”

“Me?” Dahlia rushed to catch up to him. “Why are you mad at
me
? I was only defending you!”

“Defending me?” Matthew stopped and spun around to face her. “What the hell do you think I was doing all those years? Of course I was protecting you—
all
of you! Jesus Christ, Dahlia, my father's on fucking life support because of all the years we protected you.”

“Don't you dare put that on me. We never asked you to protect us. Not once.”

“Bullshit! You pulled me all over the place. You never had to ask—you never went anywhere without me!”

“That's how
you
remember it,” she said. “I remember you wouldn't let us out of your sight. I remember you hovering over us all the time like a goddamned streetlamp!”

“A streetlamp? Jesus, you ungrateful bitch.”

They glared at each other, the speed and ferocity of their rage shocking them into silence. Matthew knew his earlier accusation had been unspeakably cruel, and yet he couldn't take it back. He wanted to watch Dahlia suffer its power, wanted to punish her awhile longer.

But Dahlia wouldn't let him. When she marched past him toward the top of the beach and ordered him not to follow her, Matthew didn't. He couldn't. Hurt and ashamed, he stood in the path of the tide, watching her storm up the crest of the dune and out of sight, ropes of seaweed threading between his toes, rubbery tethers that could have easily kept him bound there for hours.

 

Jack might never have noticed the blur of movement on Ben's wraparound porch if Joel Cunningham hadn't stalled his Cavalier coming out of the four-way stop, but when Jack turned his head in impatience, he saw something flash just behind the railing and pulled into the Queen Anne's driveway. When he reached the top of the ribbed gravel, he leaned across the seat, squinting to make out the front door, and was startled to find the police seal torn down the middle, one side blowing in the breeze. He yanked the cruiser into park, turned off the engine, and climbed out.

Reporters. That was his first thought as he mounted the four crooked steps to the porch, tabloid hounds not content with a straightforward self-defense case.

He tapped the cracked door open with his foot. The thick smell of burning leaves greeted him, earthy and sweet. Stepping inside, he found his intruder in the parlor, fanning the air with a small bundle of smoking sticks, her back to him.

He would have known that shiny bowl of red hair anywhere.

“Jo?”

Josie spun around, drawing the trail of smoke around her like a hula hoop.

“Jack!” She pressed her free hand flat against her chest as if she were making sure her heart was still beating. “Oh, my God, you gave me a fright.”

He saw the assortment on the floor behind her, the tall bottle, the dish of incense, a single white candle.

“Jo, sweetheart, this is a crime scene. You can't be here.”

“Oh, I know,” she said with absolute conviction, “and I swear to you, Jack, I didn't touch anything except with the very tips of my fingers—except for that tape thingie on the door.” She winced. “Sorry about that.”

Jack wanted to laugh. After the gravity of his talk with Dahlia, this moment was practically comical. He knew he should have been annoyed, even concerned, but instead he felt a curious relief.

“It's just that I wanted to do a cleansing ritual,” Josie explained. She looked down at the bundle in her hand, the smoke thinning. “See, Jack, this is all my fault.”

Amusement and relief slipped from his face, her admission returning him to earlier suspicions; it had never occurred to him that Josie might have known of Charles's arrival.

“What do you mean, it's your fault?” he asked carefully.

“It's my fault Daddy came back,” she said, so plainly that Jack thought for sure she must have been kidding. But he knew her well enough to know she didn't kid. That was Dahlia's forte. For Josie Bergeron, life was a desperately serious matter.

She looked up at him, her eyes swimming with tears. “I was just so busy with the café and the adoption application, I didn't—” She stopped to dab at her eyes with her fingertips. “I didn't make time for my spells. I didn't protect us. I didn't protect
Ben
.”

“Jo . . .” Jack reached out and touched her cheek. She closed her eyes, sending down a fresh stream of tears. “You don't really believe that, do you?” he asked tenderly.

“I don't know.” She looked around the room. “It's so hard being here. I didn't think it would be so hard.” She glanced up to find Jack staring toward the foyer, wondering if he were lost in his own memories. She moved to him. “She still misses you, Jack. We all do.” Jack smiled appreciatively. Josie, still trying to play matchmaker, the hope in her eyes no dimmer than it was that night on Ben's porch, when Jack had come to take Dahlia out for their anniversary dinner.

“It's complicated, Jo.”

“I know.” Josie sighed. “Dahl's pushed guys away her whole life, Jack. When we were kids she made this stupid vow that she'd never fall in love, that she'd never be like Momma, under the thumb of her own heart.” She shrugged. “That's the only reason she let Matthew get so close to her.”

Jack frowned, confused. “What reason is that?”

Josie smiled. “She was never in love with him.”

Jack turned back to the altar she'd made on the floor. Josie looked too.

“I'm almost finished,” she said. “I just have to sprinkle the room with Florida water.” She touched his sleeve. “Maybe you could help me?”

He put his hand over hers. “I'd like that.”

 

Wayne came inside the house to find Dahlia poised at the stove, her hair balanced on top of her head in a beehive knot, wearing a pair of men's reading glasses and peering into a cookbook.

“Tell anyone I use a recipe to make étouffée and I'll smother you in your sleep,” she warned, squinting. “God, does Joze know you're this blind?”

“Where is she?” Wayne asked, pulling a soda from the fridge.

“Don't ask me; I'm just the cook.” Dahlia gestured to the Post-it note on the counter. Wayne picked it up.
D, Make dinner, will you? I could be a while. Étouffée and bread pudding. Stock's in the fridge. xoxo, J.

Wayne frowned. “Maybe I should go look for her.”

“I wouldn't,” Dahlia said. “It must have been something pretty serious for her to leave me to make dinner.”

Wayne gave Dahlia a dubious look but he didn't push. He knew better. He had already stepped over the trail of redbrick dust on his way inside.

He moved to the deck door. “I have to finish the lawn before it rains.”

“She wants to tell Matty about the baby.”

Wayne stopped halfway through the slider. He came back inside, turning slowly to Dahlia.

She took off the reading glasses. “She thinks that's why he and Holly broke up. Because they couldn't have children. She thinks it would help him to know.”

“Oh, God.” Wayne blew out a long breath, leaning into the jamb. “What did you say?”

“That it was a terrible idea. But you know how she gets.”

“Well, even if she does tell him, it doesn't mean she has to know about the . . .”

“No,” Dahlia said quickly. “No, it doesn't.”

They looked at each other for a moment; then Wayne made his way outside.

 

Josie saw the dented silver belly of the boat as Jack turned the cruiser into their driveway, Charles's failed attempt at a lobster fortune propped up on the bulkhead, a web of ropes still dangling off the top of the Buick where Wayne had hauled it to the water that morning.

Jack parked behind Dahlia's pickup.

“Stay for dinner?” Josie asked.

“I can't,” he said. “I still have a few phone calls to make.”

“Then how about a beer?”

Jack glanced at the truck. “Sure, maybe a quick one.”

They climbed out. Josie gestured to the backyard, where they could hear the whir of the lawn mower.

“Go on in and help yourself,” she said. “I'll just let Wayne know we're here.”

 

“Shit!”

Jack heard Dahlia's exclamation from the door even before he'd arrived in the kitchen. When he did, he found Dahlia lunging for the stove, her knot of hair flopping over one eye as she reached for the bubbling pot on the front burner.

Jack darted for the dish towel hanging from the refrigerator door and swooped in, wrapping it around the handle and carrying the hissing pot of rice to the sink, where it toppled a mountain of dishes, sending a cascade of dirty dishwater over the side.

The pot sizzled and smoked.

“Now I see why they never actually let you
cook
at the café,” Jack said, tossing the towel onto the counter.

“That wasn't it,” Dahlia said. “They just didn't want to waste me in the kitchen when I had such a way with the customers.”

He grinned, thinking of a certain bowl of gumbo that had ended up in a rival's open pocketbook the summer after graduation. “Yeah, I remember.”

Dahlia pulled the lid off a shallow pan, the sweet scent of simmering shrimp floating toward him. “You know, Jack, if you've come by for round two . . .”

“No, that's not why,” he said. “I was just giving Josie a ride home.”

“Oh.” Dahlia looked at him, his dark eyes steady on her, warm again, open. Too open. She looked away. “I meant what I said on the pier.” She made wide strokes with her spoon through the étouffée. “I wish to hell I could have had the chance to stop Charles before he got to Ben, but I didn't. And if you don't believe me, there's nothing I can do about that.”

She drew out her spoon and laid it on the porcelain rest.

“It isn't just about what I believe, Dahlia. I have the department to think about. I just know how loose ends can unravel. Sometimes taking the whole sweater with them.”

“So let it unravel.” Dahlia leaned back against the counter, folding her arms. “It won't be the first time on this island a Bergeron woman has been blamed for something she didn't do.”

The reference to Rowena Parker's false pregnancy hung there a long while. Jack watched Dahlia resume her cooking, seeing the flush of an old wound spread across her face.

The apology poured out of him. “I'm sorry for what I said about Matt. I had no right.”

“Yes, you did,” Dahlia said gently, meeting his eyes. “You had every right.” She gestured to the open bottle of wine on the counter. “Want a glass?”

“Actually, Josie promised me a beer.”

“A beer it is.”

Jack wandered to the deck door while Dahlia pulled a bottle from the fridge. He looked out at the flower gardens beyond the steps. Dahlia's work, for sure. He suddenly wondered whether she modeled her landscaping after herself; it seemed her gardens were always lush and tall, slightly hectic, yet intoxicatingly colorful. He wondered why he'd never made the connection before now.

“Here you go.”

She held out the bottle and he crossed back to take it, their fingers touching briefly in the exchange. They each chose a side of the kitchen, forcing a stretch of linoleum between them.

“How's Jenny?” Dahlia asked.

“She's good. She's great, actually. She's heading to Brown this fall.”

“Brown's a good school.”

“Yeah, it is.” Jack smiled proudly. “She wants to be an astronomy major. How about that, huh?”

“Astronomy. Wow.” Dahlia took a sip of wine, studying him over the rim of her glass. “I heard you were seeing someone in Cumberland. A Realtor, was she?”

“She was. Still is, probably. I stopped seeing her a few months ago.”

“Oh.” Dahlia feigned nonchalance even as relief settled over her. “That's too bad.”

Jack shrugged. “It wasn't serious.”

Not like us
, Dahlia wanted him to say, but he didn't, just swigged his beer, lowering the bottle to his thigh and resting it there, his fingers curved around the neck. She'd always liked his hands.

She turned to the window, the sky a deep gray now. “Matty thinks Ben isn't going to pull through this.”

Jack looked at her, watching her profile. “Is that what he told you?”

“Not in so many words,” Dahlia said. “But I could see it in his face at the hospital.” She bit at her lip, pulling gingerly at a flap of chapped skin.