ShadowsintheMist (3 page)

For once, I was grateful for his faultless practicality and
appreciated the arm he dropped around my waist, leaning into it for support.

There was no room for conversation after that. David relived
the episode for everyone’s benefit. Leo’s drinking wasn’t mentioned again and
eventually, an uncomfortable silence fell. There was nothing more to be said.
The light discourse that usually linked our separate lives no longer seemed
appropriate and no one was willing to touch on the personal emotions pulsing
just beneath the surface. Even Alicia was, for once, without words. It was
Grant who broke the spell.

“I think we could all use some sleep,” he said, placing his
empty glass wearily on the bar.

The others were quick to murmur assent, welcoming an excuse
to escape.

“Come on, Alicia,” Colin said, pulling her to her feet. “Let’s
pour you into bed.”

David gave me a squeeze. “I should be going too. Dad will
need me. I’ll come by to see you after you get some rest. Will you be all
right?”

“I think so,” I said and raised my cheek for his kiss. He
left on the heels of Colin and Alicia and I turned to follow, looking forward
to some privacy but Grant stopped me.

“We need to talk, Suzie.”

I stiffened. I suspected this would be another one of Grant’s
big-brotherly lectures. I waited. He was silent for so long, I became
impatient. He was standing at the window, his back to me. Beyond him, the sky
was becoming a little less black as the moon slumped low over Lake Michigan.

I went to stand next to him drawn by the beauty of the
star-studded sky and the moonlight rippling on the sliver of water just evident
beyond the rear gardens. In a few more hours, the sun would appear to paint the
horizon pink and lavender and tinge the rolling swells with gold.

Leo had rarely missed a sunrise. He said each one was a work
of art and not to be wasted. It suddenly occurred to me that he would never see
another and a choking sob caught in my throat.

Grant glanced down at me and his eyes softened. “For what it’s
worth, Suzie, I’m sorry.”

If he hadn’t said that, I probably would’ve been able to
ward off the tears but his sympathy amplified my own self-pity and before I
knew it, I was sobbing shamelessly, my face buried in his shirtfront.

How long I cried, I don’t know. I cried until there were no
tears left, too bereft to appreciate the irony of finding comfort in Grant’s
arms. I’d never thought him capable of tenderness. He seemed too unbending, too
ruthless—a carryover, I suspected, from his childhood amid the dockside slums
of Chicago.

Grant’s father disappeared when he was a baby leaving him
and his mother to fend for themselves. By the age of six, he’d learned a lot
about surviving on the streets. Stealing came naturally and was his only means
of putting food on the table.

It was probably his greatest luck that he happened to choose
Leopold Dirkston as a target one day. Leo caught the skinny lad’s wrist as he
attempted to make off with his wallet and dragged him kicking and screaming
across the wharf to his warehouse where he paddled him soundly. Afterward, he
gave Grant fifty dollars to buy himself some decent food and sent him on his
way.

After that, Grant became Leo’s shadow. When Leo appeared on
the docks to oversee the loading or unloading of cargo, Grant trailed a few
paces behind, watching and digesting everything that went on. Leo enjoyed the
boy’s curiosity. It must have reminded him of his own checkered youth.
Eventually, he put Grant to work unpacking crates and sent money secretly to
Grant’s mother, stipulating some of it be used for the boy’s education.

When Grant’s mother died six years later, Leo brought him to
live with us at Beacon. I remember him then as a scruffy urchin who had no
manners and carried a huge chip on his shoulder. As time went by, though and he
threw himself into his schooling, some of the rough edges disappeared and he
grew into a formidable asset to the firm.

Now, years later, having risen to the position of Senior
Corporate Attorney for Dirkston Enterprises, he still found time to visit the
docks once or twice a month to work alongside the crews and keep abreast of the
climate within the unions and among the laborers. This periodic link to his
roots was essential to him and seemed to revitalize him like a grounded sailor
in need of salt air and a rolling deck.

Colin tolerated Grant but there was no love lost between
them. In one sense, he was relieved Grant took on the onus of succession. He’d
never wanted to become involved in the business, much to Leo’s chagrin, so
Grant was a welcome replacement.

But Grant wasn’t an easy man to understand. I remembered one
of his court battles. A small fishing company sued Dirkston Enterprises for
some real or imagined breach of navigational courtesy. Like a vulture, Grant
had picked away at the meat of the testimony until everyone, including the
judge, squirmed uncomfortably. The case was thrown out and the fishermen
departed red-faced. I was appalled and embarrassed. I thought him cruel and
unfair. It would have cost Dirkston relatively nothing to have settled out of
court but Grant wanted to make an example of it and seemed not to care less
that the fishermen involved might lose their reputations as well as their
livelihoods.

This was the same man who now offered me compassion and
understanding where no one else did and I began to doubt my poor opinion of
him. I resolved to be more open-minded.

Once my tears were under control, he dropped his arms and
handed me his handkerchief.

“Feel better?” he asked.

I nodded, mopping my eyes.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I guess it’s supposed to be good
therapy to cry but I should’ve done it in private. Now, I’ve saturated your
shirt.” I dabbed futilely at his tear-stained pocket.

He turned away abruptly and I sensed he was irritated.

“There’s something we need to talk about,” he said, “but it
can wait until later. Go to bed now and get some sleep.”

I stared at his back, my hand still poised, shocked by the
terse dismissal. My jaw clenched. This was the Grant I knew—cool, remote and
unfeeling. I tossed the handkerchief onto a nearby chair and without another
word, stalked off before he could see the hurt in my eyes.

* * * * *

It was peaceful on High Dune. I named it when I was very
young when I came here with Mother—before her accident.

She would sit and write in her journal while I clambered up
and down the shifting mountain pretending to be a general in the French Foreign
Legion, or one of the Arabian Knights conquering an enemy stronghold. Sometimes
I would lie at the top and see how far down I could roll, careless of the warm
sand sifting through my hair and clothes. They were golden days.

After her accident, I avoided the place for many years until
the pain abated and I was able to put things into perspective. Now it seemed to
bring me closer to the past, as though a part of Anna still smiled from her
shaded spot beneath the birch, her pen poised, her eyes proud and possessive as
she watched me play.

I inhaled the fresh breeze whirling in off the lake. The air
tingled with clarity and the waters seemed to stretch forever. The waves
drifted onto the shore far below leaving huge dark arcs along a hard-packed,
opaline beach.

I could see the house far to my left, a fat toad squatting
atop a weathered bluff. It was truly an abomination of architecture jumbled
together in a chaos of arches, gables, columns and balustrades, with chimneys
sprouting everywhere, capped by a glassed octagonal belvedere, its foul-weather
shutters turned back.

Leo’s dreams were far from modest and Beacon was a testament
to that fact. It was obvious there was no real aesthetic theme to the design,
so, while the house was indisputably breathtaking, it was also decidedly
vulgar—an aberration in an otherwise harmonious landscape. But I respected Leo
for the audacity and courage it must have taken to wave the red flag of
nonconformity in the face of rigid midwest conservatism.

He’d worked hard to attain his position in the world and he
had every right to do as he pleased with his money and his house. But my father’s
tastes were very different from my own and I couldn’t help feeling he went
overboard when constructing a home for a family of four.

Below and to my right stood the ancient lighthouse. Perched
on a stony outcrop, its blind eye stared dully over the waves as it had for
nearly a hundred years. It would have been nice to refit the lamp and bring the
ponderous bulk to life but it was much too late for that. Its bleached stone
skirt was beginning to crumble and there were fissures in one side where mortar
had fallen from between the blocks. The continuous buffeting of wind and wave
had eroded the rocky shelf on which it stood, making the whole structure tip to
one side.

“I thought I might find you up here.”

David sat down, conspicuous in crisp white trousers and
turquoise shirt. I’d watched him approach from the direction of the house, not
really welcoming the company but too apathetic to avoid it. There was no point
in trying to evade him. He was as much a part of Dirkston as anyone, now that
he and Colin shared the partnership.

“How did you know I’d be here?” I asked.

“We all used to call this ‘Suzanna’s Spot’ not so long ago.
I figured you’d want to come here first. I hope you don’t mind me butting in?”

I sifted sand idly through my fingers. “No, I don’t mind. I
was just thinking about going back. It must be getting close to dinnertime.”

He leaned back on one elbow and squinted at the glittering
lake. The sun was a huge yellow balloon tethered to the horizon. “It’s
beautiful, isn’t it?”

I nodded, watching a white gull soar above the spume. It
dipped abruptly for some real or imagined tidbit, caught the edge of the
lapping waves with experienced precision, then resumed a lazy patrol.

“I suppose you’ll be going away again when this is all over,”
he commented.

I sighed. “No. I’ve decided to stay for a while. It wouldn’t
be fair to leave a lot of loose ends for Colin and Grant to tie up.”

“It’s mostly business. I’m sure they’ll have things well in
hand. After all, Grant is an attorney. He’s used to handling these things.”

I glanced at him, puzzled. He was treating my departure much
too casually. I thought he’d be pleased about my decision to stay. Now, I
wondered if he was the least bit affected by our breakup. Logically, I should
have been relieved he was taking it all so well but some primitive instinct in
me longed for him to collapse in desperation at my feet amid anguished pleas
for reconciliation. Or, at the very least, give some indication he wanted me
near.

I turned my gaze back to the house, trying to think of words
to explain my decision. I sighed. “I need to get rid of the ghosts,” I said.

He regarded me for a moment. “Yes. I think I understand.”

I doubted it.

We fell silent and when he spoke again, the gravity was gone
from his face. “Well, I can’t say I’m disappointed to have you back. I’ve
missed you.”

I smiled sourly. Well, here it was—no begging, no groveling,
merely a toe in the water to test the temperature. It was this very
practicality, this irksome, unemotional, unbending and never spontaneous nature
of his that always brought out my most obstinate and irrational qualities.

“David…”

“No.” He touched my hand. “I’m not trying to change your
mind about us. I love you, Suzanna, you know that. But I also think I
understand what you want and until you find your own niche in the world, I’d
only be a weight around your neck. I do want you to know, though, that when the
time comes, I’ll be here for you. Until then, I hope we can still be friends.
We’ve shared too much to pretend it never existed.”

It was a sad attempt on his part. I knew he was only saying
what he thought I wanted to hear but I couldn’t help responding to the tug of
old-fashioned romance. My own novel would have used his words as a cue for a
tearful reunion and a passionate and-everyone-lived-happily-ever-after finale.
But this wasn’t a novel and the complexities of our past problems couldn’t be
overlooked.

“Of course, we’ll always be friends,” I said. “How could we
not? If I refused, you’d probably put another dead fish in my bed!”

He laughed, remembering the incident and his mood lightened.

“Come on, let’s go back,” he said. He stood up, brushed the
sand from his trousers and offered me a hand. Together, we made our way down
the steep dune to the beach.

Chapter Two

In ancient shadows and twilights

Where childhood had strayed,

The world’s great sorrows were born

And its heroes were made.

In the lost boyhood of Judas,

Christ was betrayed.

George William Russell,
Enchantment And Other Poems
, “Germinal”

Dinner was ready when we arrived and I hurried upstairs to
change. I paused at the door to my father’s bedroom, toying with the urge to
open it and give myself over to the haunting presence within. But I overcame
the impulse. There were some things I just wasn’t ready for.

My room hadn’t changed much in the years since that lanky,
brown-limbed child had lived there. The pink canopied bed remained like an old
friend, quilted and draped with sweet girlish frills and lace. It was a perfect
example of how Leo misjudged me. Such frippery was as foreign to my nature as
feathers on a greyhound. But, as with everything else he’d thrust upon me, I
accepted it with quiet goodwill and soon absorbed it into that myriad
impressions that represented “home” to me.

An enormous collection of stuffed animals and dolls smiled
expectantly from their positions on the bed and shelves. I’d packed them away a
long time ago but someone—I suspected Martha, our housekeeper—had resurrected
them. Now I felt sorry for betraying them.