Before the Storm (21 page)

the outside of the church?”

She shook her head.

“When you got inside the church,what did you do?”Flip asked

“What do you mean?”

“Did you play games? Who did you hang around with?”

“Andy.” She looked at me as if remembering my connection to Andy.

“Were you with Andy the whole time?” I asked.

“Right.”

“Even when you left the youth building, was it Andy you

walked with to the church?” Flip asked.

“Right—”

“No, honey…” Robin interrupted.

“Oh, no!” Emily corrected herself. “Actually—” she pronounced every syllable of the word “—I walked over with my

mom.”

Robin nodded. “That’s right,” she said to Flip and me.

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I knew Robin thought she’d smelled gasoline as they walked

toward the church. She’d told that to the police the night of

the fire, but added that she couldn’t be sure it wasn’t from

someone filling a car or boat nearby. “It was just in the air,”

she’d said.

“Andy liked a girl at the lock-in,” Emily volunteered. “She

was dancing with a boy, Keith. Do you know Keith?”

She looked at me, but Flip and I both nodded. We knew

every detail of the fight between Andy and Keith. That was one

thing most of the people we’d interviewed remembered.

“Andy got in a fight with him,” Emily said. “I hate fights.”

Flip looked at his notepad.“Emily, did you happen to notice

anyone outside the church in the hour before the fire?”

“How could I?” she said. “I was inside the whole time.”

“Right.” Flip ran a hand over his brown buzz cut. “Did you

notice anyone leave the church during the lock-in?”

“You mean besides Andy?”

Huh?

Flip and I both hesitated.

“Did Andy leave the church during the lock-in?” Flip asked

after a moment.

Emily nodded.“I told him he wasn’t supposed to, but sometimes Andy don’t understand.”

“Are you talking about when Andy left
during
the fire?” I

asked. “You know, when he climbed out the bathroom

window?”

Emily glanced at her mother.

“Is that what you mean, honey?” Robin asked. “Is that when

Andy left the lock-in?”

“He left when people started dancing and I couldn’t find him.”

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I looked at Flip. “That must be when he initially went to the

men’s room and noticed the air-conditioning unit outside,” I

said.

“No,” Emily said. “That was a different time, because when

he went to the boys’ room, I went to the girls’ room. But then

he left again and I tried to find Mom to tell her but then he

come back so I just said don’t do that again.”

Could I possibly not know Andy as well as I thought I did?

Ridiculous. No way could Andy mix up a brew of gasoline and

diesel, cart it to the church and spread it around. Any kid who

would misinterpret a “do not carry lighters aboard the aircraft”

sign could not possibly plan and carry out arson.

“Did you ask him where he was?” Flip asked.

“No, I just yelled at him.”

“Emily,” I said, “did Andy disappear before or after the fight

with Keith?”

“I don’t remember.” She looked at her mother. “Do you

remember, Mom?”

Robin shook her head. “This is the first I heard that Andy

left the church at all,” she said. “If he did.” She nodded toward

her daughter as if to say
take what she says with a grain of salt.

“Don’t even think what you’re thinking,” I said, when Flip

and I got into my pickup after the interview.

“I don’t like that bit about Andy disappearing during the

lock-in,” Flip said.

“Consider the source.” I turned the key in the ignition. “No

one else has said anything about Andy disappearing.”

“It’s possible no one else was paying attention to him,” Flip

said. “At least not until the fight.”

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“Look, Flip, Andy can’t
plan
anything.” I pictured Laurel’s

step-by-step charts on the corkboard wall of Andy’s room.“He

lives in the here and now.”

“He figured out how to escape from the building when no

one else could,” Flip pointed out. “That took some planning,

didn’t it?”

I WALKED INTO THE LOBBY OF SARA’S CHAPEL Hill hotel and

was relieved to find it spacious and nicely decorated, huge

vases of flowers on every surface. I’d been worried about how

she’d afford to stay in a hotel for so long in such an expensive

area, but I guessed Keith’s hospital had an agreement with this

hotel and she’d been able to get a good rate. At least, I hoped

so.

I decided the day before that I
had
to see Sara face-to-face.

It had been nearly two weeks since the fire. Nearly two weeks

since I’d seen her. I needed to know she was all right, as well

as to lay to rest my new concern about her resentment over

our financial differences. When I called to tell her I was

planning to visit, she was quiet at first. I was relieved when she

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said she’d really like to see me. She asked if I could pick up

some clothes and a few other things from her house. I was

thrilled to be able to help her in some small way. I missed her

so much.

I was to meet her in the hotel’s coffee shop. I stood at the

entrance to the restaurant, trying to see inside in case she’d

gotten there ahead of me.

“Hi, stranger.”

I turned to see her behind me and had to mask my shock.

Sara was the type of woman who put on her makeup to run

out to the mailbox, but she didn’t have a speck of it on now.

She was pale, the color washed from her face, which looked

nearly skeletal. She’d lost a lot of weight in two weeks. Dark

roots formed a line along the part of her hair, which was in

need of a cut and, I feared, a shampoo.

I pulled her into my arms and hugged her hard.“I love you,”

I said, my tears surprising me. “I’ve missed you, and I’ve been

so worried about you.”

“I love you, too,” she said. “You’re so sweet to drive nearly

three hours just for lunch.”

I let go of her reluctantly.

She smiled at me. “I’m okay, Laurie,” she said, smoothing a

tear from my cheek. “I’m hanging in there.”

The hostess led us to a table in the back of the coffee shop,

as if sensing we needed the privacy.

Sara looked around as we sat down. “It’s such a relief to be

out of the burn center for a while,” she said. “It’s eighty-five

degrees in his room. I’m so glad you came.”

“I should have come sooner,” I said. “How’s Keith?”

She let out a tired breath. “A little better, so they say. It’s

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hard for me to tell because they still have him in a drug-

induced coma, but his vital signs and everything are better.

They’re pretty sure now that he’s going to make it.”

I reached across the table to wrap my hand over her wrist.

“I’m so relieved.”

She nodded. “The right side of his face is perfect,” she said.

“The left side was pretty badly burned, though. He’ll have a

scar, but right now, I just want him to
live.
”

“Of course, sweetie,” I said.

The waitress brought us glasses of water and menus.

“I wish I could
talk
to him,” Sara said once the waitress left

our table. “I miss him, Laurie.”

“You
should
talk to him, Sara. He may be able to hear you.”

“Oh, I do! Constantly. I tell him I love him and miss him

and…I apologize for not doing such a great job with him.”

“Oh, Sara.You’re a terrific mom.”

“Then why does he get in so much trouble?”

“It hasn’t been all that much.” I longed to reassure her. The

truth was, you could be the best parent in the world and still

have your kids screw up.

“Well, you’re a single mother, too, Laurel,” she said. “And

look at Maggie. She’s just a year older than Keith and at least

five years more mature.”

“She’s a girl. And you and I both know it’s Jamie who made

her the way she is.”

She looked down at the menu. “Give yourself some credit,”

she said. “Jamie died when Maggie was eight.”

“Well, thanks,” I said. “I just don’t want you to doubt

yourself, that’s all.”

“I know.”

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“Have you been in touch with Steve?”

She looked surprised, then shook her head.

“Don’t you think he should know about Keith?” I asked.

“No. He’s…you know the kind of father he’s been.”

I did. Steve and Sara divorced when Keith was barely a year

old and Steve had never once been in touch with his son.

Sometimes it took a tragedy like this one to wake people up,

though. But it was Sara’s decision to make. I wasn’t sure what

I would have done in her position.

The waitress returned to our table. Sara ordered soup. I

ordered a green salad and a broiled, skinless chicken breast that

was not on the menu and that I had to talk the waitress into

writing on her little pad. Sara smiled. She understood why I

ate obsessively well, ran every day, kept up with mammograms and Pap smears and f lu shots. I was an orphan. My

children had already lost one parent. I wasn’t going to let

them lose another if I could do anything to prevent it.

“I have zero appetite,” she said after the waitress left.

“You’ve lost weight.”

She smiled ruefully. “Well, there’s the silver lining, huh?”

I’d been practicing my next words for days.

“Are things okay with you and me?” I asked.

“Of course. What do you mean?”

“Just…I guess it’s just that we usually talk nearly every day

and everything’s changed since the fire. I feel distant from

you.”

“I’m totally focused on Keith right now, Laurie,” she said.

“I’m sorry if I—”

“No.”
I interrupted her. “It’s me. I’m being paranoid. Maybe

you don’t even know this because you’ve been away, but

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Keith…at the dance, he called Andy a ‘little rich boy’ a few

times. It got me worried that you might resent that my kids

and I are so much more comfor—”

“Laurel.” Sara smiled. “That has never ever been an issue

between us, silly,” she said. “I can’t believe you’ve been

worrying about that.”

Right after lunch, Sara left the hotel to go to the hospital,

and I waited until she was gone to approach the check-in

counter. I hoped Sara was being straight with me about her lack

of resentment, because I intended to pay her hotel bill.

I handed the young man behind the counter my credit card.

“I’d like you to use this to cover all of Sara Weston’s hotel

charges,” I said. “She’s in room four thirty-two.”

He tapped his keyboard, eyes on the screen in front of him.

“They’ve already been taken care of,” he said.

“Well, you probably have her card number there,” I said,“but

I don’t want her to have to pay for her room. I’d like to.”

“It’s taken care of, ma’am,” he said with a smile.“Somebody

beat you to it.”

1990

THE FIRST YEAR OF MAGGIE’S LIFE PASSED BY me in a haze.

We had a birthday party for her at The Sea Tender in May. I

had forgotten the exact date of her birth, but Jamie had not.

I planned the festivities, inviting Sara and Steve, Marcus, who

now lived next door but who was around so much it was like

he’d never left, and Miss Emma. A few friends of Jamie’s from

his real estate job came, along with their spouses, and they all

seemed to know Maggie very well, since Jamie still carted her

with him most places. Daddy L had died during the winter of

a quick-moving pneumonia, and I recognized in Miss Emma

the mechanical movements of a grieving woman. She reminded me of myself. We both wore smiles that didn’t reach

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our eyes. The only difference was that she had a right to the

grief, while I did not. Behind my back, I knew she called me

lazy and I’m sure she thought I was doing exactly what she’d

pleaded with me not to do: take advantage of her son’s

generous nature.

I went through the motions of mothering a toddler as if I

were a robot, a spiritless machine that clunked along at half

speed, threatening to break down for good any moment.

Maggie was already walking, and I’d found the energy to baby-

proof every cupboard and drawer in the house, afraid that I

might turn my back and she would get into something that

would kill her. I had no confidence in my ability to protect her.

I’d shifted from occasionally wishing she would die to being

terrified I would somehow cause her death. If she was home

alone with me, which happened only when Jamie couldn’t take

her with him and Sara was tied up, I’d drag myself out of bed

and try to attend to the little dark-eyed stranger who was my

daughter. I followed her around the house like a shadow and

checked on her repeatedly when she napped. It was hard for

me to watch her for long, though; my own need for the escape

of sleep was so great. The weariness I’d felt in the weeks after