Little Gale Gumbo (3 page)

“Little Gale,” Matthew corrected gently.

Claire blushed. “Oh. Sorry.”

“It's okay. Thanks.”

But even as he moved to the phone and picked it up, Matthew felt his skin growing cold with dread. When Matthew heard Jack Thurlow's voice on the other end, he knew, somehow he just knew, but he let Jack say it anyway.

After he hung up the phone, Matthew turned back to his student to excuse himself, but the riptide of anguish pulled him under too quickly. As his coffee slipped from his hand and splattered across his thighs, Matthew saw the whole of their lives together: Camille and the sisters, himself and Ben, and Charles: twenty-five years in a single, burning instant, just before he slid to the floor.

Three

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After stalling for as long as she could, Loretta Robinson got up from her reception desk in the brick entry of the Little Gale Island police station and took the short walk to the end of the corridor.

“Margery's here, Jack. She wants to report a parking violation.”

Little Gale Island's chief of police glanced over from his computer screen and gave his receptionist a weary look. “Who's she looking to burn at the stake now?”

Loretta crossed her arms. “One guess.”

Jack raked a hand through his dark hair and sighed.

“Should I tell her you're on a call?” Loretta asked.

“Too late.” Jack nodded behind Loretta to where Margery Dunham had appeared, her tidy white bob swinging just above her pink earlobes, wide-eyed and breathless with outrage. “Thanks, Loretta,” he said, rising. He forced a patient smile. “Come on in, Margery. Have a seat.”

“I can't possibly sit,” Margery huffed. “This is the third time this month. That woman has no regard for the laws, Jack. I have exactly two parking spaces allocated for my antique shop—may I remind you their café has
four
?—and still I come out to find that rusted truck of hers sitting in one of mine. It's outrageous.” Margery Dunham raised a plump finger. “She's a menace, Jack. An absolute menace.”

“
Menace
is a pretty strong word, Margery. . . .”

“Dahlia Bergeron has always been a loose cannon. If you hadn't been so foolish over her, you might have locked her up twenty years ago and thrown away the key. Well, I've had enough. The season isn't a week old and she's already costing me potential customers.”

“You know,” Jack began patiently, “I think today might not be the best day to bring this up. There's been an incident this morning and I think—”

“An incident?” Margery's small navy eyes rounded with greedy curiosity. “What sort of incident?”

“I'm afraid I can't discuss it.”

“I thought I heard sirens this morning! Oh, Lord, has something happened?”

“Look, why don't you go back to the front and ask Loretta if you can fill out a complaint form, and I'll see that it gets looked at as soon as possible, all right?”

“Another one?” Margery said. “What happened to my other two complaints?”

“I'm not sure, but I think the law requires at least three before I can authorize any tarring and feathering.”

“Tarring and fea . . . ?” Margery's eyes slitted. “Are you making fun of me, Jack Thurlow?”

“God, no, I wouldn't dream of it,” he said, steering the shopkeeper toward the door.

“Fine,” Margery said tightly, shaking off his lead. “But you are the law and I won't feel safe until I know this has been taken care of. I barely made it past them in the waiting room just now. The younger one practically put a Voodoo curse on me with her eyes. They can do that, you know.”

Jack looked down the hall, seeing a flash of Josie's pumpkin hair through the doorway.

 

Josie tugged a fresh tissue out of her purse and wiped at her red nose. Behind her Dahlia paced in front of the waiting room's curtained window.

“I feel like a bird trapped in someone's goddamned basement,” she muttered, rubbing her arms.

“So sit down then,” Josie said, honking into her tissue. “No one's making you do laps, you know.”

“I bet you a hundred bucks I know why that old witch was here,” Dahlia said, pointing to the hall.

“Oh, Dahl, for God's sake . . .”

“Didn't you see how she glared at us?”

“Margery Dunham glares at everybody.”

“Well, if she files another complaint I'm going to put slug-worms in her fucking window boxes.”

Josie pulled her cell phone from her purse, looked at the screen, and sighed. “I wish Matty would call back.”

“He's probably in the air,” Dahlia said, her gaze drifting anxiously to the doorway, knowing Jack would appear at any moment. She didn't know what she would say to her ex-boyfriend. Any more than she knew why, all the years after their breakup, seeing him still left her shaky and undone.

Josie twisted her tissue around her thumb. “Do you think he blames us?”

“Jack?”

“Matty.”

Dahlia didn't answer right away. It hadn't occurred to her that Matthew might blame them for their father's violence. Maybe it should have.

“I don't think he blames us, Joze,” Dahlia decided at last.

“I wonder if she'll come with him.”

“I don't know. He said ‘I' on his message, not ‘we.'”

“How could she not? She'd have to.”

“She didn't come for Momma's funeral.”

“That was different,” Josie said.

“How was it different?” demanded Dahlia.

“She didn't know Momma.”

“So what? She knew Matty, didn't she? And why do you always defend her?”

“I'm not defending her.” Josie shrugged contritely. “I just think you can be too hard on people, that's all.”

“And you, baby sister, always think everyone's a saint.”

At the sound of Jack's voice, Dahlia turned to find him leaning in the doorway, dressed in khakis and a dark blue shirt.

“Jack.” Josie rose and rushed to him, her eyes bright with yearning. “How's Ben? We tried calling the hospital but they wouldn't tell us anything.”

“It's like talking to the CIA, isn't it?” Jack met Dahlia's eyes across the room, not surprised that she hadn't greeted him with the same speed. He offered her a small smile, but she refused him one in return. He didn't know what he expected.

He looked back at Josie and gestured to the hall.

“Why don't we go to my office.”

 

It was a small room with off-white walls, tan carpeting, and a heavy oak desk that looked like it had been rescued from a one-room schoolhouse. Dahlia flopped into one of the blue molded chairs in front of the desk and glanced around, seeing a framed senior picture of Jack's teenage daughter, Jenny, on the far edge, perched beside a pitiful-looking African violet, its leaves spotted and limp. It was a miserable room, Dahlia thought. Colorless and low ceilinged. No wonder the poor plant looked like it wanted to die.

“I spoke to the nurse a few minutes ago,” Jack said, clearing off a pile of papers and sitting down. “Ben's condition hasn't changed.”

“Isn't there something you can do, Jack?” Josie pleaded. “It's killing us, not being able to see him.”

“I know it is,” he said gently, “and I'm sorry for that.”

“If you're so sorry then tell them to let us in,” said Dahlia. “You're the chief of police, Jack. Tell them you'll arrest them if they don't.”

“I can't tell people what to do just because I'm a cop, Dahlia. It doesn't work that way.”

She met his gaze and held it. “You would know, wouldn't you?”

“Don't mind her, Jack.” Josie glared at her sister. “She's been drinking cooking sherry since this morning.”

Dahlia turned in her seat. “And whose fault is that, dear sister?”

“Okay, okay . . .”

Jack leaned forward, his brown eyes tender. He wasn't surprised by Dahlia's reaction. He knew from experience what she was like in times of stress. No one had ever accused Dahlia Bergeron of being calm under pressure.

“I know how hard this is, okay?” he said, looking between them. “I love him too, you know.”

Josie smiled. “I know.”

Dahlia knew it too, but she refused to meet his eyes. She crossed her legs instead, plucking a loose thread from the hem of her shorts.

Jack sat back and folded his arms. “I called the prison this morning,” he said. “According to their records, Charles was granted parole four days ago. They also said they couldn't contact next of kin because they had no family request forms on record from either of you. Is that true?”

Josie nodded ruefully, her eyes filling at once. Jack handed her a box of tissues from behind his desk. She plucked out several, making a pile in her lap.

“What would have been the point?” she asked. “Daddy was supposed to be in there for eighteen years. That's practically a lifetime.”

He looked at Dahlia. “So when was the last time either of you had contact with him?”

Dahlia's foot bounced nervously, her plastic clog hanging loose and smacking against her heel. “I don't remember,” she said.

“Yes, you do, Dahl,” Josie said, sniffling. “Daddy called the café a few times after Momma died.”

Jack frowned. “So your father knew Camille had died?”

“Ben insisted on sending a letter to the prison,” Josie said. “We told him he didn't have to, but he said it was the right thing to do.” She smiled weakly. “You know Ben.”

“And who talked to Charles when he called the café those times?”

Josie shook her head. “Nobody. We never accepted the charges.” She shaped a tissue into a point and dabbed at the corners of her eyes. “I suppose we should have,” she said. “Even just once. Maybe then he wouldn't have been so mad when he got out; you think?”

She looked up at Jack with moist, yearning eyes. He gave her an absolving smile.

“I don't think a few phone calls would have made much difference, Jo,” he said gently.

She smiled, sniffling again. “You're probably right.”

In the silence, Dahlia stole a look at Jack, wondering suddenly whether he'd done the same.

Josie molded a new tissue around her nose and blew.

 

“You just couldn' t help yourself, could you?” Josie said, following Dahlia into the parking lot ten minutes later. “We're in there talking about Daddy almost killing Ben and you decide it's the perfect time to take a cheap shot at Jack.”

“He's the one with the grudge, not me.”

“God, you're a pill,” Josie said, seeing the Buick parked at the far end of the lot. “In case you've forgotten, Jack's divorced now. So maybe you might want to stop raking the poor man over the coals and just admit that you still have feelings for him.”

Dahlia released the knot of her curls, shaking them out. “We're not talking about this anymore.”

“Fine.”

They reached the station wagon and found Wayne waiting in the driver's seat, his eyes tired under the shadow of the car's peeling visor.

“That's done then,” Wayne said when they'd climbed in, Josie in the front, Dahlia in the back. The sisters didn't answer, and Wayne pulled them out into the street, steering them through the village and past the wharf.

Stopped at the blinking light at Main and Chestnut, they waited for Helen Ingersoll to push her newborn across the street in a pale pink stroller.

Dahlia looked away, dread skidding down her legs.

“It's strange,” Josie said softly. “I still wonder sometimes what it would be like if you hadn't lost the baby.”

Dahlia looked up to see Wayne's eyes in the rearview mirror, hard on hers, the familiar flash of panic she'd come to know so well in the years since their pact.

She turned to the window as the prickle of tears climbed her throat, and finally the light turned green.

Four