The Language of Sand (41 page)

“How do you do it, Merle? All I can think about is before and all I’ve got is after. What do I do
after
after?”

“Want me to tell you the secret?” he asked as he rehitched the lines to the poles.

“There’s a secret? What secret?”

“You positive you want to hear?”

“Yes, of course. What is it?”

“It’s shoes.”

“Come again?”

“Shoes.”

“Your secret to getting over your ex-wife is shoes?”

“Scout’s honor.”

He sat down to explain, and the small boat rocked at the change in weight. “Every morning I would wake up and I’d hate knowing I was awake. I would stay in bed for hours trying to go back to sleep. Took weeks for me to get out of bed. Took even longer for me to be able to put my clothes on. For a while, I couldn’t do much else. I puttered around the house in my slippers. Couldn’t leave. ’Cept I knew if I could eventually put on my shoes, I’d make it. Didn’t happen right off the bat. I left them in the closet and wouldn’t open the door. Then one day I took out a pair of loafers and put them on and walked outside. Went to the end of my dock. That was it. That was the farthest I could go for a while. Over time, it got easier. Just kept putting on my shoes.”

“Merle, I have my shoes on. I don’t feel better.”

“Point is, Abby, you got ’em on.”

No more noise came from the cooler. It sat motionless. So, it seemed, did Abigail’s heart.

 
Xe
nod′o
chy′
, n. [Gr. ?.] Reception of strangers; hospitality. [R.]

Merle walked Abigail to her car. She wanted to tell him what Ruth had
confided about Hank Scokes, but she wasn’t supposed to have told Ruth about Nat Rhone in the first place. Merle and Hank had been friends, though they’d chosen different paths. Merle was still walking along his, his shoes laced tight.

“You moving away?” he asked, regarding the giant duffel bag in the backseat of the station wagon.

“Did I pack too much?”

“These storms usually blow over in a day or so. And they don’t have a dress code at the shelter. Won’t be serving high tea or nothin’.”

“I wasn’t certain how long I’d be gone.”

“Not long,” he assured her. “Better try to catch the next ferry. If you thought traffic here was congested, wait ’til you get to the mainland.”

“Thanks.”

“For advice about the ferry?”

“No, for taking me fishing.”

“My pleasure, Abby.”

At the main road, she merged in with what had become an exceedingly lengthy line of cars. Traffic crept across the island. Abigail’s speedometer topped out at ten miles per hour. Forty minutes later, the dock finally came into sight. A man in uniform was presiding over the procession, a patrol car parked nearby. It wasn’t Sheriff Larner, so it had to be his deputy.

Dozens of vehicles awaited a spot on the ferry, which hadn’t returned from the mainland. The trip back and forth to Chapel Isle took more than an hour. Since the ferry held a finite number of cars, Abigail calculated that she’d be waiting until late into the afternoon for her turn.

The minutes dripped by. While children played by the dock and adults decamped from their cars to stretch their legs, Abigail stared at the clock sullenly. Once the ferry arrived, the deputy waved the cars at the head of the line aboard, then the ship departed, making a small dent in the swarm of people waiting to get off the island.

Even after the ferry returned three more times, Abigail was nowhere near the front of the queue. With every passing second, she grew more irate with herself, because she realized she had left her books behind.

“What if the hurricane demolishes the lighthouse? What if your books are lost? You’ll have nothing.”

As she debated what to do, the cloud cover darkened and down came a steady drizzle. Parents who’d been chatting with one another hastened their kids to their cars. Abigail wasn’t at the end of the line, although she was nowhere near the middle. If she left, she’d lose her space. She didn’t care. She angled out of line and sped away.

“This’ll take fifteen minutes. Maybe ten. You’ll probably get back before the ferry does.”

Rain tapped on the roof of the station wagon, the wipers hurling water from the windshield. To save time, she took a side road, confident it crossed the lane closest to the lighthouse. Except she was wrong. Abigail couldn’t tell where she was, and the weather
was exacerbating matters. She tried another road, willing it to intersect with one she knew. It didn’t. In her haste, Abigail wound up in the tony enclave of large, modern homes Merle had sent her to inspect when she was handling his rounds for Lottie.

“Think. You’ve been here before. Merle marked the houses on the map. Wait. The map.”

She pulled over and put the car in park. The map wasn’t in the seat pockets, under the seats, or behind the visor.

“It’s got to be at the house. With your books.”

The windows were opaque with condensation. Even if she could see through them, Abigail was lost.

“You got yourself into this mess. You’re going to have to get yourself out of it.”

She shifted gears, depressing the accelerator. The station wagon wouldn’t budge.

“Oh, no. Please don’t be stuck.”

When she gently upped the gas, the wheels whirred. Thinking a jolt might give the car momentum, she floored it. The tires hissed and buried themselves in sand.

“You’re definitely stuck.”

Donning the hood on her windbreaker, she ventured into the rain. Her rear tires were embedded in a rut, which the rain was rapidly turning into a sinkhole.

“So much for shortcuts.”

A blast of wind peeled away her hood, drenching her. She scrambled inside the car. There would no shortcuts for Abigail, not around the island or around her bereavement.

“You have two choices. Seems to be a running theme lately. Stay here or start walking.”

Walking won. In preparation, she changed out of her wet sweater and into another from her duffel bag. Her one essential, her glasses, she tucked in her pocket. Jacket zipped, hood pulled tight, Abigail faced the rain.

“Lovely day for a stroll.”

Trudging through the mud, she monitored for signs of life. This
area of the island was summer rentals exclusively. Despite the grand scale of the homes as well as their luxury and cost, Abigail was definitely in the wrong part of town. What had been a twenty-minute drive from the lighthouse during her route for Merle was about to translate into a punishing hike.

She hunched her shoulders and held her head low, humming in Latin as she went.

“Ambulo, ambulare, ambulavi, ambulatum.

Erro, Errare, erravi, erratum.”

At an intersection, Abigail had to choose which way to go next. She would have to rely on her sense of direction, and that hadn’t proved very reliable of late.

“This is a crapshoot. With the emphasis on
crap
.”

She had been caught in the rain, literally and figuratively. Yet this rain would stop. If Merle was right, her personal storm would too. She had her shoes on. She just had to walk.

The terms
day
and
night
ceased to have meaning. The rain was so hard, the clouds so thick, and the sky so dark, it could have been midnight. Abigail couldn’t see more than a few paces ahead. Her feet ached, her teeth were chattering uncontrollably, and her clothes were soaked through to her skin.

She kept trudging until she recognized the houses in the distance. She was on Timber Lane, the road where the most recent robbery had occurred.

“Thieves are less likely to commit crimes in inclement weather. I think I read that somewhere. Nobody wants to do heavy lifting in the rain.”

Timber Lane crossed a main route that Abigail could take to the lighthouse or straight into town. From where she was, both were equidistant. Finding someone to assist her with her car was a priority if she planned to leave the island. Except she was anxious to go to the caretaker’s cottage and get her books. Need swayed her judgment.

An hour later, she reached the lighthouse. In her front yard, where her Volvo normally would have been, was Sheriff Larner’s police cruiser.

He must have found your car.
Maybe he can radio to Denny so you’ll catch the ferry.

The cruiser was empty. The front door to the house was ajar. Because of the boards on the windows, she couldn’t tell if the lights were on.

Oh, God.
You were robbed.
The sheriff’s come to see what was stolen.

Abigail nudged open the door. The light in the upstairs hall was on, illuminating the staircase. Her CD player was piled on top of the hand-carved end table, which had been inverted and was resting on the mahogany desk chair from the study.

If you were robbed, why is everything still here?

Footsteps sounded from the second floor. She was about to shout to Larner. However, her voice wouldn’t cooperate.

What if that isn’t him?

She had to find somewhere to hide. The living room and kitchen were too open. The basement door would squeak. Abigail made a dash for the lighthouse, slipping inside as footfalls descended the stairs.