Before the Storm (38 page)

attempted murder. Do you understand these charges?”

Although I already knew the charges being brought against

Andy, hearing them spoken from the mouth of the judge gave

them an unbearable credibility. I thought I might faint, and I

was sitting down. I could only imagine what Andy was feeling.

Dennis whispered something to him.

“Yes, ma’am,” Andy said, though I wondered if he knew

what he was agreeing to.

“Your probable cause hearing will be scheduled within

fifteen days,” she said.“At that time, it will be decided if you’ll

be bound over to the superior court for trial.”

“Bound over?” I whispered to Marcus.

He didn’t look at me. He stared straight ahead but licked

his dry lips, and a muscle twitched in his jaw.

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335

“Adult court,” he whispered. “They’ll decide if they should

try him as an adult.”

Then, for the first time in my life, I actually did faint.

I had a long talk with Dennis on the phone later that afternoon. He explained that, “given the serious nature of the

charges,” a phrase I was quickly coming to hate, it was likely

Andy
would
be bound over to the adult system at the probable

cause hearing. He might—or might not—have a bond. I told

Dennis if he did have one, I would pay it; I didn’t care how

much it was.

“
If
he has one, it could be in the millions,” Dennis said. “But

you need to prepare yourself, Laurel. Given the serious

nature of the crime, they may see him as a danger to others

and not let him post bail.” He blathered on. “Murder committed in the perpetration of arson is considered murder in

the first degree. If he’s charged as an adult, he can enter a

plea of guilty to the burning and maybe get the murder

charges dropped.”

“But what if he’s
not
guilty of the burning?” I asked.

Dennis hesitated so long I wondered if we’d lost our connection. “We’ll have time to talk about all that.”

“Did you hear what I said, though, Dennis? I want you to

fight
this! You need to fight him being bound over.” If they tried

him as an adult and found him guilty, he was doomed. “What’s

the chance he can stay in the juvenile system?”

“I’d say there’s still a small chance of that,” he said. “They

don’t like to bind over juveniles. If no more evidence is found

and no more witnesses come forward with incriminating testimony, we’ve got a shot at it.”

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diane chamberlain

* * *

home that evening. We ignored the camera crews outside the

house, and I turned the ringers off on all the phones except

my cell. We had a pizza delivered and Marcus picked up an

ice-cream cake. We ate in the family room—although only

Andy seemed to have an appetite. I’d felt dizzy ever since my

fainting episode, and Maggie’d gone absolutely white when I

explained to her about the upcoming probable cause hearing.

“They could try him in
adult court?
” she asked, wide-eyed. We

were in my bedroom and she waved her arms around in outrage.

“He’s only fifteen!” she shouted.“This whole thing has ballooned

into something insane! Is his lawyer totally brain dead? I don’t

know how gasoline got on Andy’s pants,but he
could not have done

it!
”

“It won’t happen,” I said quickly, taken aback by her

outburst. “I’m sure his lawyer can make a good case to keep

him in the juvenile system, so please don’t worry about it.”

I regretted giving her so much information. Maggie was

suddenly more fragile than I’d ever guessed she could be. I’d

caught her crying a couple of times the last few days. When

I’d ask her what was wrong, I’d get the usual “nothing” in reply,

but I knew she was frantic about Andy, as we all were. I decided

right then to keep the gory details between myself and Marcus.

She didn’t need to know.

Sitting in the family room, nibbling on the edges of our pizza

slices, we talked about everything other than Andy’s experiences in detention or what had happened in court that morning

or what lay ahead of us. For the moment, I felt safe.

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Marcus’s cell phone rang as I started cutting the cake I knew

only one of us would be able to eat.He walked outside to answer

it.

“This is like my birthday,” Andy said as I handed him the

first slice.

“Right, Panda.” Maggie’s eyes were red again, and I wondered when she’d found a private moment to cry. She was

trying so hard to be upbeat for her brother, and it touched me.

“So now we don’t have to celebrate on your real birthday,” she

teased him.

“Yes, you still do,” Andy said.

Marcus appeared in the doorway and motioned me to join

him in the kitchen. I handed the cake knife to Maggie.

“What is it?” I asked once we were out of earshot of the kids.

“They found a couple of plastic gasoline containers in the

landfill this morning,” he said,“Might be the ones used to lay the

fire, because they each contain a bit of a gasoline and diesel

mixture.”

I drew in a breath.“Are there fingerprints on them?” I hoped

the real arsonist had been sloppy enough to leave his prints

behind.

“They’ve sent them for testing.” He nearly smiled. “Pretty

miraculous they found them. If there are some good prints on

them, Andy could be out of the woods.”

1996–1997

JAMIE HUNG UP THE PHONE, HIS SMILE bordering on incredulous. “He’s coming,” he said with relief. “He’s driving

down tomorrow.”

I put my arms around him. “Good,” I said, as though my

feelings about Marcus’s arrival weren’t mixed. Miss Emma had

died the day before after a long battle with cancer, and it was

right that he come, yet I hadn’t seen him or even spoken to

him in the four years since he moved to Asheville. We knew

little about his life there except that he had become a firefighter

and was supposedly sober. He e-mailed Jamie occasionally and

sent birthday cards and Christmas gifts to the kids, but other

than that, he’d cut himself off from his family and I’d been

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frankly glad of it. Jamie’d been afraid Marcus wouldn’t come

for the service. He thought his brother had stayed away all these

years because of his animosity toward his mother and possibly

toward Jamie himself. He never guessed it could have anything

to do with me.

Marcus arrived at The Sea Tender the next afternoon. The

last four years had put muscle on his slender frame, chiseled

his face with maturity and brightened the blue of his eyes. I

knew instantly that the change in him was more than superficial. It was a confident man who drew Jamie into an embrace.

The brothers held on to each other for a full minute before

letting go, eyes glistening.

“I’ve missed you, bro,” Marcus said. Then his gaze fell on

me. Smiling, he reached for me and I hugged him, both of us

pulling away after only a few seconds. How different he

smelled! Shampoo and soap. Not a trace of booze or tobacco.

“I’ve missed y’all,” he said.

“We’ve missed you, too,” I said with stiff formality. I

couldn’t look him squarely in the eyes without feeling a tug I

hadn’t expected—and certainly hadn’t wanted—to feel.

Marcus leaned over until he was eye to eye with seven-yearold Maggie. “Do you remember me, Mags?” he asked.

“Uh-uh.” She shook her head.

Marcus laughed. “That’s good.” He straightened again. “I

wasn’t the best uncle when you were little. And where’s

Andy?” He looked at me. “I’ve never even
met
him.”

I was afraid to have Marcus meet Andy. To me, the resemblance was as strong as a positive DNA test.

“He’s napping,” I said, wrapping my arm around Jamie’s

waist to ground myself in him. In our marriage. I’d fought hard

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for the peace of the past four years. I didn’t want it disrupted

now.

My six months in rehab had profoundly changed me. I’d

cried my lifetime allotment of tears during those months,

tears of guilt and remorse, along with fierce tears of determination. When I got home, I embarked on the adventure of

getting to know my three-year-old daughter, the child I’d been

so unable to mother. Maggie clung to her daddy at first, cutting

her eyes shyly at me. I was a stranger to her. I looked different and I’m sure I smelled different from the woman she’d

known as Mommy. I imagined she connected the scent of

alcohol to me the way some children connected their mothers

with the scent of perfume.

The first night I was home, Jamie and I’d sat with her

between us on her bed as we read to her. She leaned against

Jamie, and I found my voice breaking when it was my turn to

read. I felt her curious gaze on me instead of on the pictures

in the book. Jamie rested his chin on the top of her head as I

read. Sometimes love is nearly palpable, and the love between

my husband and my daughter was like that—a presence I could

feel in the room. I was not a part of it, and although my relationship with Maggie grew over the years, I knew I would

never have the closeness to her that Jamie had earned.

Although I adored my little girl, my love for her so new and

rich, I was preparing for the return of my son. I learned all I

could about children with fetal alcohol syndrome. There was

precious little information available, but I searched it out. I

became an evangelist for healthy, alcohol-free pregnancies the

way reformed smokers became intolerant of cigarette smoke.

Sara coached me in what to expect from a year-old boy. She

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341

and Steve had recently divorced and she was raising Keith

alone. I felt sorry that she was losing her husband just as I was

getting mine back. We drew her into our fold, and I delighted

in discovering that I had enough energy and love inside me to

extend to her and Keith as well as to my own family.

Now that Marcus was back for Miss Emma’s funeral, I

couldn’t deny that I was attracted to him. But although that

attraction made me feel awkward around him, I wasn’t afraid

of my feelings. I’d grown up. In my four years of sobriety, I’d

learned how strong I could be. I had a husband spun from pure

gold—how many men would stick by the sick, self-destructive,

cold woman I’d been in the years after Maggie’s birth? I had

two amazing children I was devoted to. And every time I saw

Sara, now living in one of the many old mobile homes in Surf

City, I was reminded of how precious my marriage was and

how far I would go to hold it together.

Jamie couldn’t stop smiling in those first few days after

Marcus’s arrival. He lit up around his brother, and the kinship

between the two of them was fun to watch. Certainly he was

sad over his mother’s death, but his joy in rediscovering his now

sober, respectful and thriving brother tempered his sorrow

over the loss of Miss Emma.

Both children fell in love with Marcus. He played with them

on the beach, tossing a beach ball, letting them bury him up

to his chin in sand, roughhousing with Andy in a way that made

me nervous but that put a smile on Jamie’s face. Jamie wasn’t

the roughhousing sort, but I could see that he admired his

brother’s playful rapport with the children.

“He needs to have some kids,” Jamie said to me one night

in bed. “He’s great with them.”

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diane chamberlain

“He needs a wife first,” I said.

“Yeah,” Jamie said. “Sounds like he hasn’t had much luck in

that department. He told me he’s had a few relationships, but

nothing serious.”

“He’s only twenty-eight,” I said. “He’s got plenty of time.”

Jamie sighed. “I only wish Mom had gotten to see him this

way.”

“I know.” I thought of Miss Emma, how her love for her sons

had hinged on their achievements, with Marcus never able to

measure up to Jamie in her eyes. I kept the thought to myself;

it wasn’t the time to criticize Miss Emma.

“I’m going to try to persuade him to move back here,” Jamie

said.

I stiffened at the thought of watching Andy grow into

Marcus’s image right before our eyes. I wasn’t one hundred

percent certain that Marcus knew Andy was his, but how

could he not? How could anyone look at the two of them and

doubt their relationship?

“Do you think he would?” I asked. “Would it be okay for

him? I mean, this is where he got so screwed up drinking.”

“I don’t know. Topsail might make him remember some bad

times, but it’s obvious how much he’s changed. I can hardly

remember what he used to be like. It won’t hurt to ask him,

anyway. Wouldn’t it be great for the kids to have an uncle here?”

“Yes,” I said. It would be. And it would be great for Jamie

to have his brother back.

Jamie talked to Marcus the next night over dinner. We were

on the deck eating grilled catfish, macaroni salad and hush