Before the Storm (27 page)

Plus, with Steve gone so much, Jamie comes in handy when

the sink clogs up and the front door falls off its hinges and the

toilet turns into Old Faithful.”

I laughed, primarily with relief that my husband and child

would not be coming home except for one week in May.“That

all actually happened?” I asked.

“Last week,” she said. “It was bizarre. Plus I’d miss Mags.

She’s such a delight.”

I sidestepped a clump of seaweed. It jolted me, hearing her

call Maggie “Mags,” the way Jamie did. And it saddened me that

Maggie was a delight around Sara and an uncomfortable little

girl around me. How bonded had my daughter become to

her? I didn’t deserve any of the jealousy I felt.

“What happened, Laurel?” Sara asked.“I mean, you changed

so much after Maggie was born, and here I am pregnant and

I wonder if it could possibly happen to me.”

I was glad of my sunglasses so she didn’t see the way my eyes

filled with tears.

“You’ll be fine,” I said. “I’m a freak of nature.”

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233

“Oh, no, Laurel. I think the baby blues got you and didn’t

let go.”

“Well,” I said, “I’m getting better.” And I knew I would feel

much,
much
better once I was back in The Sea Tender, a wine

cooler in my hand.

I BARELY SLEPT AT ALL THE NIGHT AFTER MARCUS told me

that Andy was under suspicion for the arson. The words that

kept running through my mind were
How absurd!
I wrote little

speeches of indignation in my mind and nearly called Marcus

in the wee hours of the morning because I needed to say the

words out loud.
He is not capable of planning a crime,and he’s certainly not capable of covering one up.

I thought of the time he stole a candy bar while we stood in

line at the grocery store when he was about five years old. I discovered it when I went to check his seat belt. I did what all good

parents are supposed to do: I marched him back into the store

and made him apologize to the manager, and I told him in no

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235

uncertain terms he was
never
to steal candy again. It was against

the law.

A week later, though, I discovered he was carrying a toy

water pistol when we got in the car after a trip to the pharmacy. He didn’t even try to hide it.

“Where did you get that?” I asked him.

“In the store.”

“I told you just last week it’s against the law to steal!” I

shouted.

“You said not to steal candy!” he shouted back at me.

Of course, he was no longer five years old. As frustrating

as that experience had been, there was a cuteness about the

story when I told it to friends. As he got older, his misunderstandings of the way the world worked were no longer quite

so cute, as I’d discovered in the airport the week before. And

people were not as quick to understand and forgive as the

manager of the grocery store.

As soon as Maggie and Andy left for school, I went upstairs

to Andy’s room and stood in the doorway, trying to look at it

through the eyes of a detective. On the surface, it looked quite

neat. I’d drilled “everything in its place” into his head from the

time he was little; otherwise his room would have been utter

chaos. Even his bed was made. That was number one on his
Get

Ready in the Morning
chart. It smelled a little stuffy, though. I

opened the window that faced the sound and let in a tepid

breeze.

I’d gotten him to pin some of the greeting cards and letters

he’d received after the fire to his corkboard wall instead of

strewing them around the room. There were about thirty on

the board, and a large wicker basket on his dresser held the rest.

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diane chamberlain

I went to his computer first. I had long ago installed parental

monitoring software on both his and Maggie’s computer, with

their knowledge. I took the software off Maggie’s a couple of

years ago, at her reasonable request, deciding she was mature

enough not to have her mother snooping through her life. She

had a right to her privacy and was hardly the type to be taken

in by a stranger in a chat room. It would probably be a long

time before I could set Andy’s computer free, though. I didn’t

like looking through his e-mail or instant messages, because

they were always a reminder of his immaturity and lack of

friends. His e-mails were usually about swim team practice and

meets, or from Marcus or Emily. I didn’t read the e-mails

from Marcus and only a couple from Emily, whose spelling was

so atrocious I wondered how Andy made sense of them. He

had instant messages, the majority of which were from Maggie

about little things—
Have an awesome day tomorrow!
I knew her

motivation behind sending them, because I shared it. She

wanted him to receive some IMs, the way his classmates did.

I steeled myself for a few nasty ones from kids, because I knew

they would be there. Andy would occasionally IM some

random kid from school, someone he considered one of his

many “friends.” The nicer kids would IM him back with a noncommittal response. But every once in a while, Andy would

pick the wrong target. I read through them quickly with my

new detective eyes.

Andy had received an IM from someone with the screen

name
Purrpetual:
Thank U 4 saving my life! he or she had

written.

Andy’s response: Ur welcome. If I wasn’t there U might

of burned up.

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237

I cringed. I’d forgotten to tell him to be modest in his

e-mails and IMs. What would the police make of his self-

aggrandizing?

There was an IM from BTrippett sent the day after the last

swim meet: Andy, you rock!

Andy’s reply, an appropriate: Thank U!!!!!

He’d sent an e-mail to someone named
MuzikRuuls:
Do U

want to skate Satrday?

MuzicRuuls
replied: Not w U, loser.

That was enough. I didn’t want to read any more.

I went through his desk drawers one by one, but found

nothing out of the ordinary. I opened his top dresser drawer,

bracing myself for the disorder I knew was inside. I allowed

him one drawer he could keep however he liked. He tended

toward disorder, and keeping things neat and folded was so

hard for him. Letting him have one drawer where he could

simply throw things was my way of giving him some release.

I could barely pull the drawer open, it was so full. It smelled

rank. I found dirty socks, a balled-up T-shirt that smelled like

salt and fish, probably from the last time he and Marcus fished

off the pier. I tossed the dirty clothes onto the floor. I found

his old Nintendo and a slew of probably dead batteries. A

couple of old matchbox cars I hadn’t seen since he was little.

Acne cream, although he’d only had one or two pimples so far.

A few empty and half-empty packages of gum and lots of

crumpled tissues. In the very bottom of the drawer, I found a

foil-wrapped condom and told myself not to overreact. It was

a rite of passage for a teenaged boy to own a condom, wasn’t

it? I thought of removing it from the drawer, but left it there.

It would make Andy seem like a normal kid for once.

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diane chamberlain

There was a note dated the year before from one of his

teachers, apparently brought home for my signature but which

I’d never seen, stating that Andy was repeatedly tardy to class.

And finally, a new, unopened CD of the Beatles. I didn’t know

he bought CDs, much less the Beatles, and I worried he might

have stolen it. I felt the way I had when the lighter had been

discovered in the airport. I didn’t know all there was to know

about my son. A familiar niggling fear crept into my chest.

How would I guide him through the next decade as he entered

adulthood? Could he ever hold a job? Live on his own? I

doubted it. Right now, though, I had more pressing things to

worry about.

I opened the next drawer where his T-shirts were folded,

not particularly well, but they were stacked three across in

piles. I was about to close the drawer when I noticed something white jutting from beneath the middle stack. I reached

for it and my hand closed around a fistful of balled-up paper.

Receipts. I pulled them out, flattened them on his bed. I was

relieved to see one for the CD. One for gum and a Snickers

bar. One for the pocketknife he’d “always had,” that he’d traded

for the lighter. One for cigarettes dated four months earlier. I

lifted the stacks of shirts and found a crushed pack of Marlboros, three missing from it. I sniffed them. A little stale

smelling, as if they’d been in his drawer for some time. My

baby. Trying so hard to fit in.

I looked through his underwear drawer. Not very orderly,

but nothing suspicious.

I opened the folding louvered doors of his closet and spotted

the green-striped shirt and tan pants he’d worn the night of

the fire. I’d washed them twice trying to salvage them, sucbefore the storm

239

cessfully, I’d thought, but when I pressed my nose to them, I

could still smell the hint of smoke. Bending low, I picked out

the sneakers he’d had on that night. They were dark brown

with tan detailing, and we’d bought them the day before the

fire. I held them to my nose. The odor was faint. Maybe the

smell of the leather? I held them away from my face, took in

a breath of fresh air, then sniffed again. Not leather. Definitely

something with a chemical edge to it. The lighter in his sock!

He’d worn these same shoes to New York. Some of the lighter

fluid must have seeped onto his shoes. I’d have to explain to

the police about the lighter in his sock in case they, too, caught

a whiff of something they didn’t think should be there.

Everything will be okay, I told myself. There was nothing

here for the police to sink their teeth into.

And I was so, so certain I could explain away anything they

might find.

I LOADED MY KAYAK INTO THE BACK OF MY PICKUP after my

later-than-usual trip through the sound and climbed into the

cab. My shoulders ached in that good way they did after

paddling for an hour. Checked my cell for messages. There was

one.

“It’s Sara, Marcus.” Man, she sounded strung out. “Keith is

able to speak now and I need to talk to you. It’s important.

I’m back in Surf City and I’ll be at Jabeen’s today.”

Jabeen’s was my next stop anyway. I was off duty and

planned to nurse a coffee while I read the paper. I guessed Sara

wanted to tell me what I already knew: Keith had seen Andy

outside the night of the lock-in. Or maybe she was pissed I’d

been to the hospital and hadn’t tried to see her while I was

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241

there. Or maybe she was just annoyed I’d seen Keith and hadn’t

told her.

I was wrong on all counts.

She looked up as I walked into Jabeen’s, giving me a nod as

she made some fancy, steamy, overpriced drink for a woman

at the counter. I hadn’t seen Sara since before the fire. Only

two and a half weeks had passed, but they’d been a crappy two

and a half weeks and every minute of them showed on her face.

Sara was one of those women with a year-round tan. Today,

her face was actually pale. Pasty. Ever since I’d known her, she

wore her blond hair short with bangs. Now it was swept to the

side and tucked behind her ears, like she’d had no time to fix

it.

“Large, Marcus?” She handed the drink to the woman ahead

of me.

“That’ll do it,” I said.

“For here?” She had dark circles beneath her eyes.

I nodded. I really felt for her.

She ran the coffee from the machine into a white mug, her

back to me. Tan capris hung loose around her hips. Even too

skinny and too pale, she was a good-looking woman. A few

years ago, I’d toyed with the idea of starting something up

with her. But although she was pretty and smart and damn

nice, I wasn’t attracted to her the way I should have been. I

didn’t want to start something I was sure I couldn’t finish.

Living in a little town where we’d have to see each other all

the time, I was careful about things like that. Besides, she

wasn’t Laurel.

She handed me the mug.

“You wanted to talk?” I asked.

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diane chamberlain

An unfamiliar middle-aged man and woman walked into the

café and I glanced at them. Tourists.

“I’m alone here this morning,” Sara said. “Dawn’s at the

dentist, so I don’t have a lot of time—” she smiled at the

tourists “—but I
have
to tell you something.”

“I’m gonna be here a while.” I nodded toward my favorite

table by the window.

“Okay.”

I sat by the window and opened my paper while she waited

on the couple at the counter. Then she came over. Sat down

across from me.