Ex’s and Oh’s (5 page)

“Waaaa,” said the doll.

She tore the bed apart.

“There, there.” Caroline checked the nightstand. She looked under the bed and behind the dresser. She searched
the bathroom and kitchen counter and the dining-room table where her parenting books were all open. Where on earth was that blasted key?

She’d rocked the doll the last time it had woken up. Or had that been the time before? She searched the rocking chair anyway. From there, she went down on her knees, and with one hand felt beneath the sofa cushions.

“Waaaa.”

Gently placing the doll in the little carrier she’d come in, Caroline tore the cushions off the sofa. The key was the circumference of a quarter and was three times as thick. It couldn’t have disappeared into thin air.

She spied a tear in the slipcover. Delving in it with two fingers, she finally came up with the key.

She jumped to her feet and quickly plugged the key into the doll. After that, she tried everything else, from feeding to burping to changing to walking the floors.

The doll cried on.

Should she call Tori or Nell or Pattie or Elaine?

To help her with a doll? She couldn’t wake them for that. Could she?

Fleetingly, she thought about putting the doll outside. Instead, she placed the tiny, lifelike object to her shoulder and began to walk, swaying gently.

“Waaaa,” said the doll.

She’d graduated from college magna cum laude, but she couldn’t even take care of a realistic-looking inanimate object made of plastic and stuffing and Velcro. As the minutes ticked slowly by and the crying changed but never truly stopped, Caroline’s eyes filled, too.

Maybe she wasn’t cut out for motherhood at all.

Tori Young knocked on Caroline’s door. The morning birds were singing and a man’s voice carried from a boat on the channel, but no sounds came from inside the cottage.

“She must be in there,” Nell said, trying the doorbell for the fourth time.

Cupping her hands next to her eyes, Tori peered through the window. “Oh, my.” Sofa cushions were on the floor, drawers hung open, chairs were pulled out, and one end of the tablecloth hung to the floor.

The two old friends exchanged a look. “What do you think happened?” Nell asked.

“Nothing good.” If there had been signs of a forced entry, Tori would have been afraid the place had been ransacked.

“Do you know her cell-phone number?” Nell asked.

“No, but if she isn’t answering her doorbell, it isn’t likely she’d answer her phone.”

“Maybe she’s in the shower,” Nell suggested. “What are you doing?”

Tori lifted the welcome mat and moved a rock. “I thought she might have hidden a key out here. I’m going in.” Removing her credit card from her purse, she slid it along the edge of the door. It took a few tries, but the door finally opened. Together, the women slunk furtively inside.

“Caroline?” Familiar with the house’s layout, Tori checked the kitchen. Backing out again, she bumped into Nell, jumped and swore.

“Sorry,” Nell whispered.

Shoulder to shoulder, they started down the hall. The bathroom door was open, the shower dry and empty. They tried Caroline’s bedroom last.

They found her fast asleep on the bare mattress, one arm beneath her head, the other resting protectively over the doll. Being careful not to trip on the parenting books and bedding littering the floor, Tori approached the bed and very gently shook Caroline’s shoulder.

“Caroline?”

It took Caroline a few moments to pry her eyes open.

“Good morning,” Nell called.

“It’s really morning?”

“I’ve had some wild Saturday nights, but from the looks of your place, you win the prize,” Tori said.

Caroline sprang up and looked all around. “What time is it?”

“Eight-thirty,” Nell said. “How long have you been asleep?”

“Almost two hours this time.” She reached a hand to the doll. “She cried most of the night.”

“She?” Tori asked.

“Dolly.”

“Of course.” Tori bit back a grin. “Dolly.”

Caroline Moore probably had no idea how comical she looked. Pushing her mussed auburn hair out of her face, she adjusted her satin tank. “I’m pretty sure I flunked Life Skills 101.”

Gently lifting the doll, Nell inserted a master key and removed some sort of computer board. “I’ll know in a minute how you did.”

After Nell plugged it into the terminal in her laptop, Caroline’s score flashed across the screen, a line-by-line assessment following. Nell turned it off before Caroline had a chance to read it.

“I killed her, didn’t I?”

“It’s a doll,” Nell said. “It wasn’t alive in the first place.”

“But I flunked.”

“Nonsense.”

Tori could tell by Caroline’s expression that she knew Nell was lying. The poor woman looked ready to cry.

“Do you know what I think, Caroline?” Tori asked. “I think it doesn’t matter what the computer chip says. Computers aren’t people and that doll, Dolly, isn’t a real baby, but it she were, she would be just fine.”

Caroline was an educated woman. And she wasn’t taking Tori’s word for any of this.

“Before you say anything,” Tori said, “You should know that we saw you sleeping just now. Your arm was resting over the doll protectively. You named her Dolly, which suggests an emotional involvement.”

“Imagine how you’ll be with a real baby!” Nell insisted. “Tori’s right. You passed. In fact, you’re going to be a wonderful mother.”

Caroline dropped heavily onto the bed, the motion disrupting the doll’s sensor. The crying started.

“Oh dear,” Nell said, holding the computer chip. “It isn’t supposed to cry without this.”

“The doll must be defective,” Tori said, raising her voice in order to be heard over the noise. “No wonder it cried all night.”

Nell gathered the doll and everything that went with it. “Welcome to motherhood, Caroline.”

“We’ll call you later.”

“You really think I passed?” Caroline asked.

Nell and Tori both nodded.

“With flying colors,” Tori insisted. In the car, she said, “Let’s get this doll back to the high school. I have to give Caroline credit, if I’d been her and this doll did this all night, I’d have wanted to throw it in the channel.”

She blanched, and Nell, bless her heart, placed a hand over hers. “You’re too hard on yourself.”

Nell Downing was a kind soul, a defender of anyone and anything hurting. Despite the fact that she’d spent most of her life on a diet, she ate out of loneliness, which proved that life wasn’t fair. Not that Tori needed proof. She sighed. Although she appreciated Nell’s support, it didn’t alleviate Tori’s guilt. Computerized dolls weren’t the only ones with defects. And sometimes it was a parent’s fault. Caroline Moore had worried that she’d flunked Life Skills 101, but deep inside Tori feared she was the one failing at motherhood.

Shane
rolled over in his narrow bunk. Somewhere, a phone was ringing. Maybe it was Andy’s. He burrowed under his pillow. It muffled the sound, but it didn’t make the ringing stop. Giving up on sleeping in, he went up on one elbow. In the far bunk, his son rolled over without waking.

It wasn’t Andy’s phone. Of course it wasn’t. His friends had quit calling a long time ago.

The ringing stopped. When it started up again immediately, Shane got up. There was only one person that insistent. Pulling on a pair of tattered sweats, he grabbed his cell phone and went above deck.

“What’s up, Vic?”

“You’re the only person who still insists upon calling me that.” Even exasperated, his ex-wife’s voice was a purr in his ear.

“You’re the only person who insists upon calling me before eight on Sundays.”

The cabin cruiser rocked beneath his feet. As his legs automatically adjusted to the motion, he could practically hear Karl’s voice.
We’ve got our sea legs, aye, Shane? Lucky for us, there isn’t anything so bad that a day of fishing can’t help.
Too bad Shane couldn’t go fishing today.

“You’re scratching your chest, aren’t you?”

He almost stopped. “What do you want, Vickie?”

Her sigh came as no surprise. “Did Andy stay in last night?”

“What do you think?”

“The entire night?” she asked.

“I took him out for a burger.”

“Our kid spent Saturday night having a burger with his father? What I wouldn’t give to have to worry he was out raising hell, ya know?”

Yes, Shane knew.

The marina hadn’t quieted down until after two in the morning. He could have used another hour or two of shuteye. When was the last time he’d gotten what he needed? These days he just tried to stay afloat with what he had.

Andy had turned fifteen last month. He lived with Vickie during the week and spent most weekends with Shane. Although Shane kept a house on Elm Street, every summer Shane moved onto his twenty-foot boat, a boardwalk
away from work. He liked sleeping on the water. It beat sleeping in that house by himself.

“Did you suggest he call one of his friends from school?” she asked.

“What good would it have done?”

“You have to keep trying,” she sputtered. “He’s depressed. And your passiveness isn’t helping. He needs us.”

Us? “Maybe you should have thought of that before throwing in the towel on our marriage.”

“Not that again. It’s been four years,” she said.

As if he hadn’t been keeping track.

“Eleven-and-a-half years is a long time to stay in a loveless marriage, Shane.”

Not eleven years. Eleven and a half.
She made being married to him sound like Chinese water torture. Shane clenched his jaw harder.

Church bells rang in the distance, welcoming the Catholics to early Mass up on the hill. When Andy was little, they’d all attended services at the First Church of God across town. It had been another of Vickie’s self-improvement projects. It wasn’t that Shane had anything against the inside of a church. He enjoyed the organ music and he didn’t mind passing the collection plate. He’d just always had better luck talking to God out here. He tried to remember the last time God had listened.

Andy hadn’t wanted to go to church after Brian’s accident. Vickie insisted it was because it brought back too many painful memories of the funeral.

“I’ve made an appointment with Dr. Avery.”

“What are you having done now?” he asked automatically.

“The appointment is for Andy. Dr. Avery is a psychiatrist specializing in teen depression.”

Shane nearly bit through his cheek. “You’ve decided that, have you?”

“I—we have to do something. Do you have a better idea? Because I’m open to suggestions here.”

That was just it. He didn’t, but he didn’t see how a bona fide shrink would be more effective than the grief counselor they’d all seen after Brian drowned. “For starters,” Shane said, “You could stop grilling him about cute girls in skimpy bikinis.”

“He told you about that?”

Shane swore under his breath. Of course Andy hadn’t told him. “I just know you, that’s all.”

He watched a flock of seagulls fighting over something dead floating in the water. He shuddered, because that was how they’d found Brian.

Andy and Brian had been inseparable from the moment they’d met in kindergarten. Back then, the Kerrigans had lived down the street from the Gradys. Brian had three sisters,
and Andy was an only child. The two boys were closer than brothers. There wasn’t a photograph of either of them without the other. Until one day when two boys had gone sailing and only one had returned.

Afterward, Shane had felt guilty for dropping to his knees, heartsick yet thankful that he still had his son. Now he wondered which was more difficult, losing a child suddenly or the way he was losing Andy, one silent day at a time.

He could feel the futility and utter helplessness building. He needed to fight the current and the waves and find the perfect spot to drop anchor, to gaze around him and see nothing and no one except miles of open water. Sometimes life made sense in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by sun and sky and sea. In the midst of those elements, he was just a man, no more important than the fish or the gulls, and no less important, either. But he couldn’t take his boat out today. Andy was staying with him for the weekend, and the boy refused to leave the marina. He hadn’t gone back out on the lake since Brian had drowned.

“I think you should tell him about the appointment, Shane. He might listen to you.”

“He’s your son, Vic.”

“Meaning?” There wasn’t another woman alive who could go from semi-pleasant to snide faster than his ex-wife.

“If Andy doesn’t want to open up, it won’t matter how good the shrink is, any more than it mattered how good the marriage counselor we saw was.”

She told him to f-off a split second before she broke the connection. It was the way most of their conversations ended.

Shane was staring into the distance when he noticed the flicker of a shadow on the cabin wall, and he knew that Andy was up. Teenaged boys weren’t supposed to be so quiet and light on their feet. They were notoriously messy and noisy and hard on furniture and clothes. Andy was different.

“What’d Mom want?”

Facing the boy, Shane said, “How’d you know it was your mother?”

“The only two people who make you look like you just smelled something rotten are Mom and old man McKenna. And school’s out for the summer.”

Shane took a good look at his son. For years he and Vickie had been saying that one of these days Andy was going to grow into his feet. He finally had. He’d dressed and combed his hair. As tall as Shane now, he had his mother’s nose before her nose job. The rest of his features were practically identical to Shane’s at that age. But Shane hadn’t been nearly as smart or half as quiet. Andy never raised his voice. He was the most sullen, respectful, hard-working
teenager on the planet. Shane didn’t remember the last time Andy had smiled and meant it. He kept everything inside, the good and the bad. Maybe Vickie was right. Maybe it
was
eating Andy alive. What if talking about Brian’s death made it worse? What then?

“Your mother was wondering how you are. You’re up early.”

“I’ve gotta wax the Carmichaels’ cabin cruiser today. What did Mom really want?”

Shane didn’t know what to say, because deep inside, he knew that Vickie wanted to know that Shane believed Andy would get past Brian’s accident. It was what she’d wanted for two years now. She wanted a normal kid, one who acted tough with the guys and flirted with the girls, one who did all the ordinary things kids did. Instead, their son was polite and quiet and did whatever was asked of him. Andy could have won Teenager of the Year Award. Sometimes in the dead of night Shane woke in a cold sweat, because deep down he feared that that wasn’t the statistic Andy was going to claim.

Vickie was going to send him to a shrink. And she wanted Shane to tell him. He couldn’t bring himself to do that yet.

“She’s your mom and she loves you. She wanted to know if you slept okay.”

There was a moment of awkwardness between them, as if Andy wanted to say something but didn’t know where to begin. The moment passed, and the boy started up the dock.

“Hey, Andy?”

Andy’s thin shoulders tensed, his back straightened, as if he was preparing for something unpleasant.

“I bet I could get you out of work today,” Shane said. “You know, pull a few strings. Even though I’ve heard the boss is a real dickweed.”

“I’ve heard that, too.”

Shane was the boss, and there wasn’t anything he wouldn’t have given to see Andy’s smile reach his eyes.

“Thanks, but I might as well work today.”

It was summer. Andy lived in a resort town where the great outdoors beckoned. And he was winter-pale.

“What about you, Dad? What’re you going to do today?”

“I think I’ll take the boat over to the lighthouse.”

Andy stared at his father for a long time. “You always told me not to dive and swim alone.”

His son knew him well.

“You could come along.”

For a second, Shane believed Andy might consider it. He didn’t realize how badly he wanted that until the moment passed and Andy said, “I’ve gotta get to work.”

“Okay. I’ll be careful, son. I promise.” And Shane would be. Andy wouldn’t survive that kind of tragedy twice.

Shane whisked his shirt over his head. By the time he’d shed his shoes and jeans, he could practically hear the elements calling him.

Fifty yards from shore, a rock formation rose up from the lakebed like an ancient monolith. At night as the sun was setting behind it, it looked like a pensive, humpbacked giant. During the day, it looked exactly like what it was: a misplaced cliff designed by nature, complete with natural steps for climbing. On top, the surface was flat. Twenty feet below was a deep and protected obstacle-free pool perfect for diving.

Leaving his clothes, towel and shoes on the beach, he waded into the lake. Damn, it was cold. He dove under then began swimming, his strokes strong, his mind focused on his surroundings and destination.

As soon as he reached the rocks, he hauled himself out of the water. The boulders were already warm from the sun. He started up as he had at least a hundred times, then stood statue still at the top while the wind and the sun dried his skin and hair.

He’d been a champion swimmer in high school. He’d competed for a while in college, too, but he’d given it up
in order to work. He’d given college up eventually, working two jobs in order to support a family.

Eleven and a half years is a long time to stay in a loveless marriage, Shane.

That was just it. It hadn’t been loveless on his end.

He walked to the edge. Knees bent, he pressed his toes into the rock’s hard surface, pushing off into a perfect arch, hurtling through the cool morning air. This was what he’d needed. To be airborne, to feel this adrenaline rush, to think of nothing but the color of the water rising up to meet him and the sound of the atmosphere rushing past him.

The shock of the cold water stunned him the way it always did. Cutting deeper and deeper, he was just a man, holding his breath, letting gravity and propulsion carry him. And then, in one simple, instinctive motion, he changed course and headed to the surface for air.

Caroline slowed to a crawl, her car creeping over the bumpy country lane. The road beyond the intersection she’d passed a mile back was no longer used. According to the locals, the lighthouse had been abandoned seventy years ago when a taller, more efficient structure had been built a mile up the shore. This was one of the few lighthouses in Michigan to be privately owned. And it belonged to Karl Peterson.

A weathered No Trespassing sign was nailed to the dilapidated gate. Judging from all the tracks in the dusty lane, she wasn’t the only one who ignored it. Beyond the gate was the lighthouse from her grandfather’s black-and-white photo.

Leaving her car near the door of the connecting cottage, she reached into her pocket for the skeleton key she’d found in her grandfather’s desk, and tried it in the lock. The door opened with a loud creak. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the dim interior. Dust and cobwebs hung from the rafters and simple furnishings. She tried to picture it the way it had been when her grandparents were young. Had they laughed and played here? Loved here? Although their histories were still sketchy, Caroline had learned that both Karl and Henry had lived in Harbor Woods as children. Anna’s family came from Racine, Wisconsin. Every summer, she and her parents had vacationed here.

Some people were drawn to lighthouses. Was the allure the lighthouse itself, or the idea of privacy and seclusion and a time gone by? Obviously, she wasn’t the only person who had come here, as evidenced by the writing on the walls. Jason + Jenny. Ben loves Amy. Sue & Chuck 4ever. Caroline had never written her name in such a manner, and lately she wondered what she’d missed.

She wanted to feel young. She wanted to feel everything,
and that wanting scared her, but not enough to try to stop it.

She should have been exhausted after her harrowing night with that doll. But the knowledge that she’d passed some unspoken, unwritten test made her feel as if she were on the brink of discovering something wonderful, something exciting, something wild and new.

Sunlight spilled from windows near the ceiling in the lighthouse tower. Weathered oars, old life preservers and rusted lanterns hung on the wall near the circular staircase. She tested the railing, and then she went up. Turning in a circle at the top, she was drawn to a bank of windows and the view of the lake. The water was blue-gray today, the sky a dozen shades lighter. She’d grown up on the same great lake, and yet it looked different back in Chicago. There, sailboats, steamers, tugboats and cargo ships were always moving across the horizon. Here, the horizon was empty of everything except water and sky and a lone rock formation fifty yards from shore.

If she hadn’t been looking, she wouldn’t have seen the man standing on top of it. She stepped closer to the window. He was wearing dark swim trunks, but it was the way the sun glinted off his dark hair and beard that captured her attention.