The Language of Sand (39 page)

Denny was quiet. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe you shouldn’t have.”

“What?”

“If you don’t like it, you shouldn’t stay.”

“I didn’t say I didn’t like it.”

“Then why’d you say it was idiotic?”

Frustrated, Abigail pinched the bridge of her nose. “It’s not that simple.”

“Yes, it is. You want to be here or you don’t.”

“Denny, there are some things you can’t understand.”

Even in profile, eyes on the road, he looked wounded. “I might not be book smart the way some people are, but I’m smart enough to know that there are only two kinds of things in this world. Those you have a say in and those you don’t. Being smart means you can tell the difference.”

He pulled into the gravel drive and waited for Abigail to get out of the truck.

“Denny—”

“I gotta get home. Pop’s waiting on me.”

After Abigail gathered her bags from the flatbed, Denny drove off.

She watched his truck disappear around the bend. “Smooth move,
Abby
.”

In the dark, she could hear the ocean, though she couldn’t see it because of the plywood on the windows. The waves were bashing against the rocks, drawing attention to how close the lighthouse was to the water. Like a maidenhead on the prow of a ship, the lighthouse would have to bear the brunt of whatever came its way.

“This lighthouse has been here for ages. This isn’t the first hurricane it’s withstood.”

It was, however, Abigail’s first hurricane. She had to try to be as steadfast as the lighthouse.

With the windows boarded shut, the house was especially dark. She turned on all the lights and tuned her radio in to the latest weather update. Amelia was churning along the coast, wreaking havoc on Miami. The reporter described horizontal rain and palm trees fanning to and fro. Meanwhile, Abigail unpacked a miniarsenal
of flashlights, spare batteries, and bottled water onto the dining-room table.

“Ready or not.”

She switched off the radio. She’d heard enough. Abigail would pack her suitcase and depart on the morning ferry. The hurricane was one of those things she didn’t have a say in. That made her feel trapped.

Not as trapped as Nat Rhone must feel.

She tried to put him out of her mind. She wouldn’t have a say in what happened to Nat either.

Once she’d filled her duffel bag with a few days’ worth of clothes, Abigail found herself meandering aimlessly through the house. She paced the bedroom and wandered to the study, memorizing the rooms in case she didn’t see them again.

The romance novel she’d been reading was splayed open on the bookcase. Her pulse quickened. She hadn’t put it there.

Then Abigail recalled that Nat had set the book on the shelf as they were moving the furniture. She thought of him in his cell and the parable of his life. His parents had died, leaving him alone and adrift, and what befell him seemed to be a tragedy of his own creation. Abigail had been left too. What were Nat Rhone’s chances after such a start in life? What were hers?

She would be gone the next day and the lighthouse would weather the storm without her, yet she would always be weathering her own storm, the gales that her grief would bring, the tidal rushes of tears, the surge of memories, and the rain of everyday reality without her husband and son. It was a storm she would have to wait out no matter where she was. Where she wanted to be was Chapel Isle.

Abigail picked up the romance novel, sat at the desk, and let the book carry her away.

Fiction, as a form, was not that different from the dictionary. Every feeling and fact, even the etymology of emotion, could be found
between the letters of
A
and
Z
. Alphabetization acted as the plot, and each word was a character with its own personality. Despite the absence of rising action, a climax, or a denouement, the dictionary told an honest tale.

The same might not have been said about the romance novel Abigail was reading. She took pleasure in polishing it off nonetheless. The hero won his battle, the villain got his comeuppance, the star-crossed lovers had their stars uncrossed, and those who were intended to live happily ever after did. Though
happily ever after
wasn’t in the dictionary, Abigail chose to believe the concept wasn’t reserved solely for fiction.

“Congratulations, Heiress,” she said, pushing back from the new desk. “Same to you, Captain. Have fun sailing the high seas together.”

The house had grown so cold that Abigail could see her breath. She was starving but in no mood to start a fire. The bingo hall at the fire station would be warm, and Denny would be there. She needed to apologize to him.

“And they have hot dogs. Junk food is better than no food.”

With the keys in the front door, the phone flashed in her peripheral vision. Abigail had been meaning to call her parents. They were probably beside themselves with worry. She felt terrible for putting them through that. It was selfish. But she hated being grilled about how she was faring. She wanted to be normal again, and if that wasn’t going to happen, then she wanted to be left alone.

Her parents were relieved when she phoned them. They’d heard about the hurricane on the news and were concerned for her safety. Abigail spent the next half hour guaranteeing them that she wasn’t in danger and that she was being evacuated to a shelter to wait out the storm. What she omitted from the conversation was the state of the lighthouse and its former—or not so former—occupant. Instead, she waxed on about the pristine beaches and the charm of the town.

She could tell that her parents would have preferred to have her home. Her mother questioned if she was eating well. Abigail lied
and said she was. Her father made her promise to call more often. Abigail agreed, and that wasn’t a lie. After hanging up, she had to admit the anticipation of the phone call was far worse than the call itself. She crossed her fingers that the same would be true of the hurricane.

The fire station’s hall was full, the vibe festive, as if the next day were the Fourth of July, not a mandatory evacuation. Abigail saw Ruth sitting close to the bingo board. She had an entire folding table papered with cards.

“Couldn’t resist coming to bingo,” Abigail told her.

Ruth removed her purse from the chair beside her. “Who can? Had a hunch you’d show. I set aside some cards for you.”

The man with the suspenders Abigail had bumped into at Merle’s store that afternoon took his position at the microphone and ceremoniously welcomed everyone to the game.

“This here Hurricane Amelia might be bigger than us and faster than us, but she can’t out-bingo us,” he declared, rousing a cheer from the crowd.

“Keep those cards warm for me for a minute,” Abigail said to Ruth. “There’s something I have to do.”

Denny was standing with his father, waiting in line to order food.

“This is on me,” she told the girl behind the counter.

“That’s okay,” Denny said, still hurt. “I can get my own.”

“Denny, please. I apologize for what I said.”

“What’s going on, Denny?” his father asked gruffly.

“It’s no big deal, Pop.”

“If it’s no big deal, then pay the gal what you owe her and let’s get to our table. Game’s fixin’ to start.”

“Denny, I really am sorry. The least I can do is treat you to a hot dog. You too, Mr. Meloch.”

Denny’s father was so taken aback that he blushed.

“How about some sodas?”

“Whadaya say, Pop?”

“Hold on. What’s this about?” his father demanded.

“It’s about your son giving me the smartest piece of advice I’ve ever heard.”

It was Denny’s turn to blush. “You mean that, Abby?”

“Yes, I do. I’d pay close attention to that son of yours, Mr. Meloch. He could teach you a lot.” The perennially stern man was reduced to a perplexed silence that made Denny grin.

“Mustard and relish?” Abigail asked.

“Why not?” Mr. Meloch shrugged.

She left Denny and his father to eat their dinner while she took a hot dog of her own to Ruth’s table. Famished, she finished half of it before reaching her seat.

“Watch you don’t take off some of your fingers,” Ruth cautioned. “You’ll need ’em to mark these bingo cards.”

Between bites, Abigail said, “I haven’t eaten all day.”

“Me, I’ve been carbo-loading like this bingo game is a marathon. I’m primed for a win. I can tell the cards are hot. Tonight’s my night.”

Five minutes later a teenage boy shouted, “Bingo.”

“That’s it. I’m not talking about the cards anymore. I’m jinxing myself. No more bingo talk.”

The caller started the next game and Ruth went mum.

“How about another topic?” Abigail suggested.

“Be my guest.”

Though Sheriff Larner had sworn her to secrecy, she recounted the story of Hank Scokes’s death in Ruth’s ear, stunning her to the point that she stopped playing altogether.

“You can’t tell anyone, Ruth. Not a soul.”

“Hand to God, I won’t.”

“I only told you because I feel certain Nat had nothing to do with it. I don’t know how to make Larner see that he’s wrong about him.”

“I don’t think Nat did it either, but it’s not my place to say why.”

“I don’t understand.”

She signaled for Abigail to lower her voice. “Hank came to me in confidence. Told me private information. Very private.”

“Ruth, you’re not a priest or an attorney.”

“I’m not a doctor either. Doesn’t stop people from asking my advice. If I’m asked, I give it.”

“Ruth, please,” Abigail implored.

“All right, but don’t tell nobody else. Bad enough I’m telling you. Hank stopped by my house one night not long after his wife passed. He hadn’t been drinking. He was stone sober. I sat with him on my porch and he told me he was thinking of, well, doing himself harm. He was saying he wanted to be in heaven with his wife. That he didn’t have the patience for waiting.”

“Do you believe he’d kill himself?”

“He begged me not to breathe a word. Said he was ashamed for even mentioning it. He didn’t want anybody else to know. I told him I’d thought about it too when Jerome died. That seemed to make him feel better.”

It would have been untrue if Abigail said suicide wasn’t a tempting option for her as well. At least the pain would end, she’d reasoned in those first dark days, and then she would be with her husband and son. Logic wouldn’t let her go through with it. Paul had wanted her to live. That was why he’d saved her.

“Ruth, you didn’t answer my question.”

“Because the answer doesn’t sit right with me.”

“If Hank did this to himself, Nat would try to protect his honor. He’d take the rap for it.”

“That’s what’s making me worry. Have to trust Caleb will see this for what it is.”

“He doesn’t and he won’t. And now he’s trying to pin the robberies on Nat as well.”

At that, Ruth’s resolve hardened. “I’ll go and see Caleb tomorrow.”

“Thank you, Ruth. Thank you.” Abigail meant it more than she could say.

The caller was announcing the next number. “B-9. The number is B-9.”

Ruth’s eyes fell to her cards and she froze.

“Bingo,” she whispered. Soon she was repeating it louder and louder, “Bingo. Bingo. Bingo.” She sprang from her chair, waving the paper card.