Secrets She Left Behind (32 page)

Maggie

I
T WAS DOWNRIGHT HOT FOR AN AFTERNOON IN EARLY OCTOBER,
and Jen said to come over and we’d go for a swim. The front door of her cottage was unlocked, and I walked in when she didn’t answer my knock.

“Jen?”

“Hey!” she called from upstairs. “I’m in the bedroom. Come on up.”

I walked up the stairs. It was the first time I’d been to the house in the daytime and I was totally mesmerized by the view. At the turn in the stairs was a humongous window and it framed the beach and ocean like a photograph.

I walked into Jen’s big, citrusy-smelling bedroom with its king-size bed, and found her standing near more huge windows that looked out over the water. She wore a bikini—tiny triangles on top and a string bottom—with little pink stripes of sequins sewn to the fabric. Pure Victoria’s Secret, and the kind of bathing suit only a girl like her could get away with wearing. She had one foot up on the windowsill and was slathering lotion on her leg.

She lowered her leg when I walked in. “You’re smokin’ in that tankini, girlfriend!” she said, and I wondered how someone who looked as incredible as she did in her bikini could even notice how
another girl looked. I
did
think I looked pretty good in the green-and-white tankini, though, especially since I lost my belly fat in prison, but if there were guys on the beach, it was no contest which one of us they’d be looking at. Not that I cared.

Jen held out the tube of sunscreen. “Want some?” she asked.

“I’m good,” I said. I’d put some on before I left the house, though not her SPF 40, that was for sure. I was dying for some color.

“I’ve got towels for us downstairs,” she said, “but I have to use the loo, so I’ll be with you in a sec.”

She disappeared into the bathroom, and I stood at the window for a bit. There was no one on the beach—at least not behind the cottage. The waves were smooth and low and I felt suddenly relieved. I hadn’t realized until right that moment that, even though I’d agreed to Jen’s suggestion like I was totally happy about it, I’d actually dreaded going swimming. I hadn’t been in the ocean since the night of the storm, when Andy and I nearly drowned and the Sea Tender was destroyed. I used to love swimming in the ocean. I’d practically been raised in it. Now it seemed so…so
malicious
to me. Stupid.

I wandered into the attached sunroom and immediately noticed that something was different. The painting on the easel—the painting that had only sea and sky the last time I saw it—now had seagulls in the air. White froth on the waves. I lowered myself to the lounge chair and stared at it.

I heard the bathroom door open. “All set!” Jen called. “Where’d you go?”

“I’m in here,” I said.

She came to the wide arched entrance to the room. I pointed to the picture.

“The picture’s changed,” I said.

I could see the wheels turning in her head. She opened her mouth to speak, then bit her lower lip. “Busted,” she said.

“This is
yours?
”

She nodded.

“Why didn’t you
tell
me? You’re so good.”

She crossed the small room and reached between the arm of the sofa and the wall to pull out another canvas. It was the same size as the one on the easel, but this painting was complete. It showed a girl sitting alone on the beach. She was looking at the water, so you could only see her from the back, and she wore a green tankini not all that different from mine and a wide-brimmed straw hat. Her hair was long and blond down her back. There was a tiny little crack where her tankini bottom didn’t quite cover her butt. In the ocean, there were dolphins. In the sky, clouds were like cotton balls.

“Jen! I can’t believe how good you are.” I really couldn’t. I was shocked.

“I’m not great at people,” she said with a laugh. “Which is why I usually draw them from the back. Cheating, I know.”

I pointed to the painting on the easel. “You told me this was done by the owner of the house. I don’t get why you’d lie about something like that.”

“Just…modest, I guess.” Was she blushing? The light from the window was behind her and I couldn’t really tell. “I hate…I don’t know. The attention.”

“But this is crazy!” I said. “You were trying to figure out what to study in school when it’s totally obvious.”

“This is just a hobby,” she said. “I mean, how can you make any money as an artist?”

“Probably as easily as you can a fashion designer.”

She shrugged. “Well, I don’t have to figure it out right now,” she said. “And I’m hot, even in here with the AC on. Let’s swim, okay?”

The beach was very narrow behind the cottage, a scary sign of erosion I remembered from the Sea Tender. Or maybe it was just high tide and I was being paranoid. I saw a few people in the distance north of us, but behind Jen’s cottage, it was deserted. The air was thick and muggy and I knew my hair was turning to frizz. We dropped our towels and headed into the chilly ocean. Jen was way ahead of me as we ran through the shallow water. Or rather,
she
ran. I walked like the water was made of glue. I understood phobias all of a sudden. How people got them. How they could suck you down. But I would
not
let this totally calm water have that power over me.

Jen was in the deep water now, stroking like crazy, and I dived in and started toward her. I’d gone swimming nearly every day in the pool at the prison, and once I was able to shake off the heebie-jeebies about being in the ocean again, I felt good and strong. Jen kept swimming, though, farther out than I ordinarily would have. She was from Asheville. What did she know about swimming in the ocean? Rip currents and undertows and all that? I didn’t know why I felt such a need to keep up with her, but I did. I was relieved when she finally stopped stroking. She rolled into a sitting position, treading the water with her hands.

I started treading myself, turning to face the beach. When I saw how far we were from shore, it reminded me in one frightening nanosecond of the day Andy and I had been pulled out to sea. I suddenly shivered with panic, so far from the beach with nothing to grab on to. Except Jen, I reminded myself. If I needed to, I could tell her I was panicking and I knew she’d let me hang on to her. But I didn’t want to be such a baby.

“I’ve been looking forward to this all day,” she said. “She twirled a couple of times in the water. The sun shone on her glossy dark hair.

“You’re a good swimmer.” My teeth were chattering even though I wasn’t cold. Just freaking out.

“You, too,” she said.

“Well, I grew up on the water. You grew up in Asheville.”

“I belonged to the Y, so I got to swim a lot.”

I looked toward the beach, wishing we were a dozen or so yards closer to it. I’d feel so much better. I thought of telling her about floating out to sea with Andy, but decided that would make me feel even more afraid. I needed to talk about something entirely neutral.

“How long have you been painting?” I asked.

“Oh—” she tipped her head back and looked at the sky “—forever. Since I was a kid.”

“And no one ever said you should pursue it seriously?”

She shrugged.

“Your parents had to know how good you were,” I said, knowing I was fishing a little for information on her family. “Didn’t they ever encourage you?”

She shot me a look that felt like bullets pinging off my cheek.

“Sorry,” I said. “I forgot you don’t like to talk about them.”

“Damn straight.” She did another twirl in the water again. “Sooo,” she said, dragging out the word, and I knew she was looking for a way to change the subject. “What have you decided about that doctor at the hospital?”

“What do you mean?”

“Are you going to hit on him?”

“Of course not,” I said. It bugged me that she thought I would. “He’s married. And anyway, I told you I’m not interested in him. Or anyone. I was just briefly attracted.”

“Oh. Right.” She laughed like she didn’t believe me.

I’d told Dr. Jakes about realizing that Ben reminded me of my father, and that Dr. Britten reminded me of Ben. Dr. Jakes thought that was “a major revelation.” I thought it was just a wake-up call for me to watch my step. It also gave me the creeps that I’d slept with a man who reminded me of my father. Yuck.

“Do you think he’s interested in you?” Jen asked.

“Jen!” I said.
“No!”

“How do you think he’d…I mean, not just him…How do you think everyone at the hospital would react if they knew about you and the fire?”

The thought of Taffy and Miss Helen and Mr. Jim and Dr. Britten and everyone knowing the truth about me was so depressing I thought I might cry. I would
never
let them find out. “You saw what happened at the library,” I said. “I think it would be all over for me.”

“But the woman who took your application knows, and she was okay with it,” Jen said. “Look how fast she gave you the job. And you said how much they respect you there now and everything. Couldn’t you tell them now? Wouldn’t it feel good not to have to worry all the time about being found out?”

I felt this slight pain in my calf. The beginning of a cramp? That was how people drowned, wasn’t it? Cramps in their legs?

“I just can’t tell people, Jen.” I was going to drown any second and she was making it worse.

“They could find out, though. Wouldn’t it be better if you told them yourself?”

She totally did not understand.
“Look,”
I said. “I’m not bugging you about your family, so please don’t bug me about this!”

She looked shocked by my outburst. I was a little shocked by it
myself, but she was pushing all the wrong buttons when I felt panicky enough to begin with.

“Sorry,” she said. “I’m just thinking of you. You were able to tell me and I didn’t freak.”

My teeth chattered so hard, I wondered if she could hear them. “You…you’re more accepting than most people,” I said. “I’m afraid to tell anyone else.”

She suddenly laughed. “I didn’t realize you were such a chicken.” She plowed her palm through the water to splash me.

“Hey!” I turned my head away.
“Stop.”

She splashed me again, still laughing like it was the funniest thing in the world. But when I looked at her face, there was something mean behind the laughter.

“Jen! Come
on.
” I outgrew splashing my friends when I was about ten. Next thing I knew, she’d start dunking me. I wasn’t hanging around for that. “I’m going back,” I said, and I started swimming toward shore.

She caught up to me, swimming close by my side. We matched each other stroke for stroke. For her, I guessed it was just a race. Some kind of competition. For me, my heart was pounding so hard, I felt like I was swimming for my life.

Sara
The Other Widow

A
NOR’EASTER SWEPT ACROSS TOPSAIL ISLAND THREE MONTHS
after Jamie’s death. It demolished a few of the trailers in the trailer park. It tore the roof and steeple from the chapel and broke every one of the windows. It was not the first time weather had destroyed part of the building. In the past, though, Jamie’d been quick to make repairs, as he did after Hurricane Fran. Now, I knew no one would bother.

For a few weeks after Jamie died, people came to the chapel on Sundays, and a couple of them tried to re-create the spell he’d cast over the place with his questions about experiencing God, but no one’s heart was in it. Or, as I thought, no one but Jamie had that sorcerer’s touch. So people stopped coming to the chapel, and now that the roof was gone and the windows were gaping holes in the concrete walls, I knew the building would disintegrate bit by bit until it was nothing more than a memory. Just like the man who created it.

A few days after the nor’easter, I pulled into the trailer park after dropping Keith off at school and saw Marcus’s pickup in front of my trailer. He was sitting behind the wheel, and he got out as I
parked next to him. I hadn’t really spoken to him since the service. I’d started working at a new coffee shop in Surf City, Jabeen’s Java, and he came in there often because it was close to the fire station, but he didn’t have much to say to me. So little, in fact, that I was certain Jamie must have told him about me before the accident happened on the boat.

I had nothing to say to him, either. There was some speculation that Marcus may have been involved in Jamie’s death. A humpback whale in June? The investigators didn’t think so. But they hadn’t been able to pin Jamie’s death on Marcus, and he’d walked. As for me, I didn’t know what to think. Who to blame. Did Marcus love Laurel, as Jamie had thought? Did he love her enough to want Jamie out of the way? Or was a whale the actual culprit? Either way, Jamie was gone.

“What are you doing here?” I asked as I got out of my car.

“Just wanted to talk to you for a minute,” he said. He was holding a large manila envelope in his hand. “I have something for you.”

I hesitated, then nodded toward the trailer. “Okay,” I said. “Come in.”

I opened the blinds in the living room and let in the morning light. Marcus looked uncomfortable as he handed me the envelope. “That’s for you,” he said, sitting down on the sofa. “Really, for Keith. I was going to just leave it, but then I thought I’d better wait and give it to you in person.”

I sat down and opened the envelope. Inside was a handwritten letter and a document.

“You don’t really need the letter,” he said. “Since I’m here, I can just explain it to you.”

I held up a hand to stop him as I read:

I read through the document quickly, but thoroughly enough to see that Keith now had a college fund worth forty thousand dollars. Forty thousand!

I looked at Marcus. “Where…” My throat felt tight. “Where did this money come from?” I asked.

“It’s mine,” he said. “It’s not a big sacrifice for me. I’m never going to need all the money I have. So, that’s invested now.” He motioned toward the document that shook in my hand. “It should be worth quite a bit more when Keith is ready for college.”

“Marcus…I don’t know what to say.” I didn’t want to cry. I was so, so tired of crying. “Thank you so much.”

He nodded awkwardly. “How are you doing? Financially, I mean? I don’t want to pry, but Jamie told me he was giving you a few hundred a month to help out.”

I nearly laughed. “That’s what he told you? A few hundred?”

Marcus nodded.

“It was quite a bit more than that,” I said. “It was enough so that I was able to save some every month.” I had a nest egg. It wouldn’t last Keith and me forever. But if I could somehow continue to live
rent-free in the trailer, plus earn a little extra at Jabeen’s, we’d be okay.

“Oh.” He looked surprised. “Well, I’m glad.”

“I…I guess that all his money—all the property he owned—went to Laurel,” I said.

“Yeah. That was pretty automatic. He had a living trust with everything he inherited from our parents in it, and Laurel was the beneficiary.”

Son of a bitch,
I thought. For the first time, I was truly, deeply angry with Jamie. “Well…I’m a little worried about one thing,” I said.

“What’s that?”

“This trailer. I know he owned this trailer park, and he let me live here without paying rent, which is how I could get by. But now, if Laurel owns the trailer park, I don’t know what to do. Should I move out?”

“Hmm.” He sat back on the sofa. “No. Don’t move. Here’s what I think. First of all, I’m sure Laurel would want you to stay here rent-free,” he said. “She doesn’t know anything about you and Jamie and she’s never going to know anything about it, okay? You and I—as far as I know—are the only people who know about it. Is that right?”

I thought of Steve, but he was long out of the picture. “Yes,” I said.

“I don’t think Laurel will even give a thought to you living here. The truth is, she now owns so damn much property on this island, that she may not even realize—or care—that she owns this trailer park. It’s a drop in her financial bucket.”

I tried my best to hide my resentment. He didn’t even seem to realize how hurtful his words were.

“Okay,” I said.

Marcus leaned forward and I noticed how golden his brown hair looked in the light from the window. He really
did
look like Andy. “I know you and Jamie had plans,” he said. “You know, plans for the future.”

I pressed my lips together.

“You must feel like a widow, too,” he said. “Only you’re not supposed to act like one.”

He understood. Tears welled up in my eyes. “Exactly,” I said.

“Let me know if I can help, Sara,” he said, getting to his feet. “I have to get back to the fire station.”

I stood up, too. “Why do you work when you really don’t need to?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Why did Jamie?” he asked.

“Because he loved it. He felt like he was doing something valuable.”

“There you go.” He pushed open the door and walked out onto the deck.

“Marcus?”

He turned back to look at me.

“Are you in love with Laurel?” I asked.

He raised his eyebrows, looking surprised. Then he smiled. “Only since I was sixteen,” he said. Then the smile faded. “But nothing’s going to happen there. She thinks I…She doesn’t believe there was a whale.”

I clutched the document in my hand. There’d been no need for Marcus to do this. No need for him to come here and offer his sympathy. I looked at him again.

“I believe there was a whale,” I said.