Maternal Harbor (33 page)

Levi screamed.  Charlie and Jimmy echoed him.  Their shrill, incessant clamor startled her.  “Don’t you want to play with Derek?  Bad, selfish boys.  You’re fine.  I’m fine.  Mother said so!  So are you.”  She clasped her hands over her ears but couldn’t block their uproar.

Erica sucked inward and exhaled in a great rushing noise.  She grabbed the urn; the lid rattled like it agreed.  She nestled it on top of the boys, snatched the basket, pushed through a side door, and dashed to a steep winding beach path.

Her feet slipped in pea gravel.  She slid the basket to her left side and held it tight against her hip.  She raced downhill, grabbing the fence every few feet with her free hand.  Puget Sound broke into view.  The path grew steeper.  Erica lost her footing and reached for the fence.

The babies screamed.

She fell to her knees and struggled up, blood running from gravel burns.  She stutter-stepped downward as fast as she dared, feet drumming,
not far, not far, not far
.

Teagan crawled from the laurel thicket, still holding on to the revolver.  The ground rocked.  She steadied; her eyes focused.  “Bryan!”

He lay face down unmoving, Mauser just beyond his outstretched arm.

She rolled him over, holding his head up with her arm.  Blood oozed from his left shoulder.

“Get the babies,” he moaned.

Teagan shoved the Mauser into his good hand.  “Use it if you get the chance.”  Carrying the revolver low, she rushed the house and flattened against the outside wall beside the open door.  Crouching, she stepped inside, aiming the gun with both hands.  Nothing moved.  A side door gaped open.  She quickly crossed to a picture window and looked down on Puget Sound.  The bluff fell sharply away.  A hundred yards below was a narrow rocky beach.  Bushes and willows covered the hillside to the left.  She squinted.  A narrow opening in the hedge must be a path to the beach.  She traced the side of the hill, trying to track where the trail would curve.

A flash of color!

Teagan zeroed in on a small clearing.

Erica came into view, carrying a large wicker basket.

The babies!  Teagan bolted out the side door and sprinted across the backyard.  A chain-link fence bordered a path.  Wisteria vines choked both sides.  Unable to see anything but the trail ahead, she charged downhill too fast and skidded in the gravel.  She grabbed and shoved off the fence.  Arms flailing and short-stepping, she propelled downward through switchbacks.  Gravel crunched and rolled.  Down and down.  Wooden steps!  She tried to stop, but crashed against the railing, bounced off, and kept going.  At the top of wide stone steps, she halted, gasping for air.

Below, the pebbled beach stretched some twenty-five yards outward in a gradual decline to the shore of Puget Sound.  Sail boats anchored to the left along a long wooden pier.  To the right, a finger of land jutted out.  Straight ahead, Erica splashed knee deep in the water, carrying the basket, going deeper and deeper, farther from shore.

“
No!”  Teagan aimed the revolver, zeroing in on Erica’s back.  She took up the slack on the trigger.  Her finger froze.  It’s too far!  She barreled down the steps and out onto the gravel beach.  Feet slipping on the rocks, she ran to the edge of the water.  She dropped to her knees and aimed at Erica.  Can’t chance hitting the babies.  Holding her right hand steady with the left, she re-aimed low and squeezed the trigger, hands jerking from the recoil.

Erica stumbled.  The bullet grazed the flesh of her thigh.  She fought to her feet, balancing the basket above water.

“Don’t drop them!”  Teagan dashed across the beach, slipping on rocks.  Faster, faster.  She splashed into the water and ran hard.  Cold water pulled at her calves.  Then knees.  Mossy rocks turned under her boots, and she fell headlong.  Blowing water, she rose and strode into ever deeper water, propelled by strong thighs and swinging arms.  The Colt still clutched in her hand.

Five feet away, Erica struggled under the weight of the basket, blood coloring the water behind.

Teagan lunged for her.

Erica’s wounded leg buckled and she stumbled.  The basket dropped.  She grabbed for her gun.

Teagan back-lashed her right forearm, raked with the Colt, scraped the chest protector, gouged arm flesh.  She grasped the floating basket with her left hand.  The wicker crunched.  Unable to carry the basket of screaming boys with one hand, she quickly dropped her revolver inside.  It clunked against metal.  Oh God, an urn lay beside boys.

Charlie, Jimmy and Levi cried at the top of their lungs.  Teagan thrashed for dry land.  “Almost safe.  You’re almost safe.”  Her foot hit a large rock and she stumbled sideways.  A bullet stung her side.  She doubled over.  Another bullet hit the water beside her.  She looked back.

Erica aimed the Glock at Teagan’s head.

Teagan ducked.

A rifle boomed!  Erica flew backward and sank below the surface.

Teagan searched wildly to see where the shot came from.  At the top of the ridge, Bryan steadied the Mauser across the wooden fence.

Teagan fought for the beach, straining, straining against the drag of the water.  “Let go.  Let go,” she gasp, the words breaking the pain.

Like a great beast rising, Erica burst to the surface, sucking for air.  Blood streamed from a hole pierced high on the left side of the chest protector.  Staying low, she cut through bloodied water.

Teagan strained harder against the water’s grip.  It suddenly broke.  She plopped the basket down in the froth, snatched out the Colt, and shoved the basket.  It rocked crazily, but floated to shore.  She rolled to the side and aimed at Erica.

Water streamed from Erica’s scalp and down her face.  She licked at a drop on her lip.

“Stop,” Teagan said coldly.

“
Never.”  Erica raised her gun out of the water.  Distant sirens whined above the bluff.  She glanced at the top of the hill.  Her eyes clouded in confused hurt.  “Daddy’s coming?”

Legs wide, Teagan stood between Erica and the basket of sobbing babies.  “You killed Doretta and Pai.  And wanted to drown three babies.”

“My mother is waiting with the kittens and Derek.  It was all her fault -- the kittens, me.  How can I love a mother like that?”

“
You need to be locked up.”

“
Can’t you understand?  Daddy wanted to hold mother under like the kittens.  I know he did.  She did it for him.”  Erica wobbled and foundered in the water.  With immense effort, she pulled upright.  “Derek only wants the boys to play in the Peaceful Place.”

Keeping the revolver steady and watching Erica closely, Teagan backtracked to the basket and reached inside.  “You want your boy.  Here he is.”  She tossed the urn.

It flew in a graceful arc, rattling delicately, lid held firm by small clamps.

Erica reached up with her right arm.  The gun fell from her hand into the water.  She stretched high and higher.  She nabbed the urn with her fingertips and pulled it to her chest.  A glimmer of triumph shown in her eyes.  She shoved away and slowly worked out into deep water.  With one last look at Teagan, she sank with Derek in her arms.  The water boiled above her, sending rings of voiceless, successive waves in ever widening circles.

The bubbling grew smaller, then smaller, and finally ceased.

Teagan watched the spot for what seemed an eternity.  Finally, she plopped down and lifted Charlie, then Levi, then Jimmy from the soaked basket and held them firmly to her.  “Hush, hush.  You’re safe now.”  Her trembling eased as their crying subsided to whimpering and hiccups.  Her side burned and her skin felt slimy with blood, but the babies were in her arms again.  Where was Bryan?  There.  He sprawled on the bottom steps with the Mauser aimed at the water, held steady on the spot where Erica disappeared.

Teagan smiled at him and he answered with a nod.

His focus returned to the water, and she followed his gaze.  Lapping waves showed no signs of disturbance.  The continuous rocking spoke only of tranquility – the Peaceful Place.

Bryan finally rose and staggered across the gravel, dragging the Mauser with one hand and holding his other arm tight to his blood-soaked side.  Pain etched around his eyes and mouth.  He dropped beside Teagan and wrapped his good arm around her.  Together, they swayed back and forth, rocking the babies.

The sirens shrilled on the hill above them and she buried her face against him.  “You took time to call the cops?”  She laughed gently.

“Phone in the cottage.  Damn hard to punch 911 with a hand holding a rifle.  But I couldn’t resist trying.”

She leaned tighter against him, sheltering in his embrace, trusting enough to accept his love.

Levi burped.

Jimmy slept.

Charlie nuzzled against her wet shirt, searching for nourishment.

A bay window was Teagan’s first anniversary present.  After she overcame the surprise when a contractor knocked on the front door of their home, the gift touched her in a vital way.  Bryan didn’t fully understand her compulsion to sit by a window, but he gave her the biggest one he could.

A crew followed the contractor and was finished within a few days, leaving her wood trim to paint.  With Levi, Jimmy, and Charlie watching every move, she gathered all the chairs in the house and tipped them on their sides, forming a half-moon barrier around the window.  She blocked the three doorways leading into the living room with the baby gates she’d purchased as soon as the boys learned to crawl.  She piled a stack of toys in the center, praying that they wouldn’t fight.  Sharing was not part of their nature, yet.  She did so want to paint now and not wait for this evening when Florene and Duffy picked up their boys after work.

 
Pudgy Levi grabbed a plastic truck.  Sturdy Charlie selected a pound-a-peg, and wiry Jimmy dropped to his bottom and scooped a popup toy into his lap.  Satisfied that they were occupied, Teagan high-stepped over the chairs and pried the lid off a gallon of white latex.  She loaded the brush and studied the window.  Was white too stark for the trim?  Nothing should detract from the graceful setting outside her wide window.  A red maple graced the corner of a sloping lawn that ran to the road.  From there, the hill dropped sharply, showing the rooftops of houses, the wharfs of Salmon bay, and then the water itself – all, the familiar scenes of her childhood.  

A toy banged the floor behind her and Jimmy squealed.  She glanced around as Levi snatched the popup.  He was the biggest of the three and got his way by grabbing −so much like his mother.  He was taking life by his big hands and squeezing it.  Jimmy let go of the toy, but his bottom lip stuck out − also like his mother; he suffered in quiet.

“Bad boy,” Teagan said to Levi.

Levi ignored her and toddled to a gate.  He leaned his fat belly against it and glared at her.  Charlie handed Jimmy his hammer and wobbled to the chairs and hung on, big blue eyes begging, red cowlick sticking up.  Jimmy smacked the hammer on a peg and thumped it again.  Levi charged at him, overbalanced, and plopped, screaming defiance.

Teagan sighed and wrapped the paintbrush in plastic.  She pounded the paint lid back in place and shoved a chair out of the way.  “Okay guys.  Come look out the window.  Bryan should be home soon.  We’ll watch for him.”

Charlie, Levi, Jimmy, and Teagan leaned against the window; eight palms on glass.  In the distance, the deep blue of Salmon Bay glistened under a rare sunny sky.  In the distance, sailboats plied the rippling water in graceful silent sweeps, their white sails full and taut.  Fishermen’s Terminal bustled with forklifts, looking like miniatures from her advantage point high on the hill.  She pointed at a fishing trawler cutting through the water, a wake frothing behind.  “I can’t tell but it might be
Bella
.”  The little boys riveted to where she pointed.  The trawler eased to mooring, and she hoped the catch had been a good one.

Teagan also hoped it had been a good day for the seventh graders Bryan taught.  He was having a hard time leaving the trials of the classroom inside the school.  Her hard choice had been turning the fish shop over to Mac and Pete until the boys were older.  The importance of running her own shop lessened like the boys first shaky steps – wobbly, then fear of falling disappeared, and they ran.  Her independence surrendered the same way.  Little by little, she’d leaned more on Bryan, trusting him to help heal her childhood scars.

Teagan glanced down at the little boys beside, and her heart softened like it always did.  They were thriving.  And so was she.  Her independent nature was put on hold for the boys, but it was secure.

Teagan had married Bryan beside Fiona’s bed at the nursing home.

“A marriage in a house of death − guess we showed ‘em,” Fiona said after the simple ceremony.  She insisted they leave her to die in peace and do something about TJ.

They spent their honeymoon in Oklahoma, and after some lengthy talks with a parole officer, TJ was released to Washington State.  He could stay with them as long as he worked and checked in once a month.  Teagan and Bryan included him into their lives, and slowly the story came out – one of a brother involved with warring drug gangs.  At least now, TJ was safe and beginning to develop an air of confidence.  Mac’s only comment had been, “I’ll never admit you were right about a helper.”

Levi smeared his tongue on the window, Charlie pressed his nose on it, and Jimmy held his head back.  “I’m going to need gallons of Windex,” she murmured, not minding a bit.

Like a magnet, the restless water of the sound drew her back.  The ever-moving ripples always did, even after Erica’s body washed ashore last spring.  Teagan had located Erica’s grave in a cemetery and visited once to place a sprig of perfect white lilies against the flat stark marker.  She couldn’t help thinking that Erica should’ve been cremated and her ashes spread on the water below her cottage.

The urn still sways in the gentle seaweed.