Before the Storm (12 page)

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once myself. I liked the time alone with Andy, anyway. He

needed a man in his life. Father figure.

My beautiful niece opened the door and gave me a kiss on

the cheek. I’d dated a woman a while back who turned out to

be too artsy-fartsy for my taste, but I did learn a few things

from her. We were standing in the National Gallery in Washington one time, in a room full of paintings of women. Most

of the women had thick wavy hair and big, heavy-lidded eyes.

They looked like they were made of air.You could lift any one

of them up with a finger.

“These paintings remind me of my niece,” I told my date.

“Really?” she asked. “She has a Pre-Raphaelite look to her?”

Whatever,
I thought.

“I’d like to meet her,” my date said.

We broke up before she could meet Maggie, but since then,

whenever I saw my niece, the term Pre-Raphaelite popped into

my mind even though I didn’t know what it meant. I would

have given my right arm—
both
my arms—for Jamie to have

the chance to see the long-haired, heavy-lidded beauty his

daughter had become.

“What are you up to today, Mags?” I asked.

“Studying at Amber’s,”she said.“I have some exams this week.”

I sat down on the stairs that led to the second story. “You

can see that ol’ light at the end of the tunnel now, huh?”

She nodded.“You better have my graduation on your calendar.”

“Can’t imagine you gone next year,” I said.

“I’ll only be in Wilmington.”

“It’s more than geography, kiddo,” I said.

She looked up the stairs, then lowered her voice. “How’s

Mom gonna manage Andy without me?” she asked.

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“Hey,” I said, “I’m not going anywhere. All your mom has

to do is say the word and I’m here.”

“I know.”

“You decide on a major yet?”

She shook her head. “Still between psych and business.”

I couldn’t see a Pre-Raphaelite woman in one of those stiff,

pin-striped business suits. Her choice, though. I’d keep my trap

shut.

“You’ve got plenty of time to decide,” I said.

Maggie swung her backpack over her shoulder. “Do they

know what caused the fire yet?” she asked.

I shrugged. “We’re still waiting on results from the lab.”

“You’re in charge, aren’t you?” she asked.

“On the local side, yeah. But once there are fatals…” I shook

my head. “The State Bureau of Investigation and ATF are

involved now.”

“Oh, right. That guy who talked to Andy at the hospital.”

“Right.” I got to my feet. “Your brother upstairs?”

“Yeah.” She smiled. “Wait till you see his room. It looks like

a Hallmark store. Oh, and Mom said don’t mention anything

about him writing a book. She hopes he’ll forget about it.”

“He’s still talking about that?”

“Every once in a while.” She clipped her iPod to her low-

rise jeans.

“Your mom home?”

“Went for a run.” She popped in the earbuds. “Later,” she

said, pulling open the door.

Maggie wasn’t kidding about the Hallmark store, I thought

as I walked into Andy’s room. Greeting cards were propped

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up on his desk and dresser and the windowsills. Tacked to the

cork wall he used as his bulletin board, clustered around the

charts Laurel had made to keep him organized.
What I Do Before

Going to Bed on a School Night: 1. Brush teeth 2.Wash face 3. Put

completed homework in backpack.4.Pick out clothes to wear to school.

And on and on and on. Laurel was a very patient woman.

Andy was at his computer and he swiveled his chair around

to face me.

“What’s with the cards?” I asked.

“They’re thank-yous.” He stood up and handed me one.

The front was a picture of an artificially elongated dachshund.

Inside it read,
I want to extend my thanks.
Then a handwritten

note:
Andy, you don’t know me, but I live in Rocky Mount and heard

about what you did at the fire and just want you to know I’d want you

around any time I needed help!

He handed me a few others.

“Some are from people I know,” he said as I glanced through

them.“And some are from people I don’t know. And some girls

sent me their pictures.” He grinned, handing me a photograph

he had propped up next to his computer. “Look at this one.”

I did.
Yowks.
She had to be at least twenty. Long blond hair

and wispy bangs that hung to her eyelashes. She wore a sultry

look and little else. Well, all right, she had on some kind of

skimpy top, but it didn’t cover much. I looked up at Andy and

caught the gleam in his eye. He scared me these days. He used

to see girls as friends, like his little skew-eyed pal, Emily. Now,

he was getting into
fights
over girls. When did that happen?

His voice was starting to change, too, jarring me every once

in a while with a sudden drop in pitch. Sometimes standing

next to him, I smelled the faint aroma of a man. I bought him

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a stick of deodorant, but he told me Laurel’d already gotten

him one. That was part of the problem. If Laurel would just

talk
to me about Andy, we wouldn’t be buying him two sticks

of deodorant. It had to scare her, too, the changes in him. The

temptations he could fall victim to because he wanted to be

one of the guys. By the time I was Andy’s age, I’d been having

sex for two years and drank booze nearly every day. I didn’t

have a disability and I still managed to screw myself up. What

chance did Andy have of surviving his teens?

“How about we fly your kite on the beach today?” I suggested.

“Cool!” Andy never turned me down.

Laurel suddenly appeared in the doorway. She had on her

running shorts and a
Save the Loggerheads
T-shirt. Her cheeks

were a bright pink. She leaned against the jamb, arms folded,

a white sheet of paper dangling from her hand.“What are y’all

going to do today?” she asked.

“We’re going to fly my kite,” Andy said.

“That’ll be fun,” she said. “Why don’t you go get it? It’s in

the garage on the workbench.”

“I can get it when we leave,” Andy said.

“Get it now, sweetie,” Laurel said. “We should check it and

make sure it’s all in one piece. It’s been a while since you flew

it.”

“Okay.” Andy walked past her and down the stairs.

So Laurel wanted to talk to me without Andy there. A

rarity. I tried to look behind the half smile on her face.

“You won’t believe the e-mail I got this morning,” she said.

“Try me.” I was stoked she wanted to share something with

me. Who cared what it was? She looked down at the paper

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105

instead of at me. With her head tipped low like that, I could

see that the line of her jaw was starting to lose its sharpness.

To me, she’d always be that pretty eighteen-year-old girl Jamie

brought home so long ago. The girl who played
Fur Elise
on

my electric piano and who took me seriously when I said I

wanted to play in a band. Who never made me feel second-

best.

“It’s from a woman at the
Today
show,” she said, handing me

the paper. “They want Andy and me to fly to New York to be

on the show.”

“You’re kidding.” I took the paper from her and read the

short e-mail. She was supposed to call the show Monday to

make arrangements. Would appearing on TV be good for

Andy or not? “Do you want to do it?” I asked.

“I think I’d like to,” she said.“It’s a chance to educate people.

Make them aware they can’t drink while they’re pregnant. And

that kids with FASD aren’t all bad and out of control and

violent and…you know.”

Once you got Laurel started on FASD, it was hard to reel

her in.

“Those bits they do are short.” I didn’t want her to get her

hopes up. “They might just want to hear about Andy and the

fire and not give you a chance to—”

“I’ll get my two cents in,” she said. “You know I will.”

“Yeah.” I smiled.“You will.” I looked around the room at the

cards. Swept my arm through the air. “It’s bound to generate

more of this stuff.” I picked up the photograph of the blond

from Andy’s desk. “Did you see this one?”

Her eyes widened. “Lord, no!” she said. “Ugh. I’ll keep a

better eye on his mail.”

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“His e-mail, too.”

“Marcus.” She gave me one of her disdainful looks. “I check

everything.
His e-mail, where he surfs, his MySpace page.You

know me.”

I heard Andy on the stairs and quickly plucked the picture

from her hand and set it back on his desk.

“It’s perfect!” Andy blew into the room, the box kite just

missing the doorjamb.

“Okay, you two,” Laurel said. “Don’t forget the sunscreen.

It’s in the drawer by the refrigerator.You’ll grab it, Marcus?”

“I’ll do that.” I put my hand on the back of Andy’s neck.

“Let’s go, And.”

I trotted down the stairs with him, feeling pretty good. It

was a step forward, Laurel telling me about the
Today
show,

although she was so psyched, she probably would have told the

plumber if he’d been the only person available. Still, it was

progress.

For a year or so after Jamie died, Laurel didn’t let me see

the kids at all. My parents were dead. My brother as well.

Laurel, Maggie and Andy were all the family I had left, and she

cut me out. I’d had some shitty periods in my life but that year

was my worst. I’m sure it was Sara who got her to let me back

in. It was slow going at first. I could only see the kids with

Laurel skulking someplace nearby. Then she finally gave me

freer rein. “Just not on the water,” she’d said.

I didn’t blame her for her caution. How could I? She had

good reason not to trust me.

After all, she believed I killed her husband.

1984-1987

JAMIE COULD INDEED KEEP HIS WEIGHT off me when we

made love. I discovered, though, that I didn’t want him to.

Blanketed beneath him, I took comfort in the protective mass

of him. Being with him, whether we were making love or

riding his bike or talking on the phone, made me feel loved

again, the way I’d felt as a young child. Loved and whole and

safe.

We dated my entire freshman year at UNC. When I went

home to Ohio for the summer, we kept in touch by phone and

mail and made plans for him to come visit for a week in July.

I told Aunt Pat and Uncle Guy about him as carefully as I

could. They didn’t like the fact that he was four years older

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than me. I could only imagine what they would say if I told

them that there were really five years between our ages. They

liked his religious studies degree, jumping to the conclusion

that he was a Presbyterian like they were—and like they

thought I still was. I’d been swayed by Jamie’s negativity about

organized religion and was gradually coming to understand his

own deep, personal and passionate tie to God. They didn’t

understand why he was a carpenter when he should be using

his degree in a “more productive manner.” I wanted to tell them

he was a carpenter because he liked being a carpenter and that

his family had more money than they could ever dream of

having. But I didn’t want them to like Jamie for his family’s

wealth. I wanted them to like him for himself.

On the evening Jamie was due to arrive, Aunt Pat and Uncle

Guy waited with me on the front porch of their Toledo home.

They sat in the big white rocking chairs sipping lemonade,

while I squirmed on the porch swing, my nerves as taut as the

chains holding the swing to the ceiling. I tried to see my aunt

and uncle through Jamie’s eyes. They were a handsome couple

in their late forties, and they looked as though they’d spent the

day playing golf at a country club, although neither was a

golfer and they couldn’t afford the country club.

Although it was July, Uncle Guy had on a light blue sweater

over a blue-and-white-striped shirt, and he didn’t appear to be

the least bit uncomfortable. He had chiseled good looks accentuated by the fact that he combed his graying hair straight back.

Aunt Pat wore a yellow skirt that fell just below her knees

as she rocked. She had on sturdy brown shoes and panty hose.

Her yellow floral blouse was neatly tailored, and her light

brown hair was chin length, curled under, and held in place

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109

with plenty of spray. I tried to see my gentle mother in her

face many times over the years, but I never could find her in

my aunt’s hard-edged features.

As dusk crept in from the west, I suddenly heard Jamie’s

motorcycle, still at least two blocks away. My heart pounded

with both trepidation and desire. It had been a month since I’d

seen him and I couldn’t wait to wrap my arms around him.

“What’s that ungodly sound!” Aunt Pat said.