Saratoga Woods 02 The Edge of the Water (27 page)

Bruce brought the sheets, pillows, and blankets. Petey and Andy each held a can of Campbell’s tomato and rice soup. They trooped across the property and into the trailer. The moment all of them had assembled expectantly just inside the door, Annie and Cilla came out of the bathroom. A collective gasp ensued. Then there was silence.

The clothes Jenn had scouted for hadn’t been needed, for Annie Taylor had dressed the girl in some yoga clothes. But it wasn’t the clothes that garnered the gasp and the silence. It was Cilla herself.

She was beautiful. She had the palest skin Jenn had ever seen, like someone who’d never spent even five minutes in the sun. She also had the darkest eyes, and her hair was so black it was almost blue. Annie’s clothes were actually too big for Cilla because she looked like someone who hadn’t had a square meal in weeks. But even with clothes hanging on her like a refugee, she would have stopped traffic if she’d walked down the street.

“Well,” Bruce McDaniels said.

“Glory be to God,” Kate McDaniels agreed.

No one had anything to add to this, but it didn’t matter, because someone knocked on the trailer’s door at that point, and Annie opened it to Dave Mathieson. The under sheriff of Island County had a clipboard in his hand and a digital camera in his pocket.

“Rhonda tells me you’ve had some excitement over here,” he said by way of introduction. “I take it this is the young lady in question.”

Heart’s Desire

D
erric sat in his bedroom in the new leather chair his mom had bought him, the one to replace the ancient beanbag. He threw balled-up pieces of paper into the new wastebasket beneath his new desk, and he tried to feel grateful. His mom had done every single thing right: from making every possible effort to prepare him for adulthood to changing his room from boy’s to man’s when his spirits were low.

Yet he’d been treating her badly since she’d gotten rid of that chair. He’d been sullen and uncommunicative. Once those letters to Rejoice had been tossed out, it was like he’d become a different person. He didn’t want to be the way he was toward her now, but he didn’t know how to get back to the other Derric he had been.

He stirred in the chair. He reached for one of his notebooks and he opened it to a blank piece of paper. He wrote
Dear Rejoice
at the top of this, as he’d done so many times for the last eight years. Then he just stared at his sister’s name and asked himself what the heck he was doing.

Who did he think he was kidding? Who had he ever thought he was kidding? His sister had never read a single one of his letters and she never would. And
if
he’d ever mailed them off to her, would she have been
able
to read them then?
Could
she read? Had she been taught? He didn’t even know where she was, for God’s sake. She could have been adopted like him, and he would have no way of knowing. For all he knew, she could even be dead.

He tore the paper from the notebook. He balled it up and threw it to join the other papers he’d been tossing in the wastebasket.

Someone knocked on his bedroom door. His dad’s voice said, “Derric? C’n I come in?”

Derric said sure, and his father entered. He was still in his uniform from the sheriff’s department. He had his hat in one hand and a plastic shopping bag dangling from the other. He must have just got home from work, Derric thought. He looked at the clock on his bedside table. It was nearly time for dinner.

Dave Mathieson said, “I think these are yours,” and he opened the plastic bag he was carrying. He brought out two rubber-banded stacks.

Derric saw what they were. From head to toe he felt encased in ice.
Rejoice
was written at the top of the stack, as it would be written on all of the envelopes that were held by each of the rubber bands.

Derric waited for the worst to come next. For what does a father say to the adopted son who’d abandoned his only sister in Uganda and then spent eight years writing phony letters to her?

“I didn’t read them,” Dave Mathieson said. He placed the letters into Derric’s lap and sat on the edge of the brand-new bed. “But they
are
yours, aren’t they?”

“How’d you get them?” Derric managed to say.

“An artist in Coupeville brought them by the office this morning. He scored that old beanbag chair the minute it showed up in the trash. Turns out he’s a regular at the holding spot where things get dumped. He makes his art with found objects.”

“A beanbag chair?” It hardly seemed credible.

Dave Mathieson smiled. “That’s what I thought. But he wanted the chair for its stuffing. Took him a while to open it up because he didn’t need it till he was ready to ship something. He found the letters inside, read a couple, saw Uganda mentioned, and saw your name. He put it together.”

“Just from
Uganda
and
Derric
?”

Dave shook his head. “He saw the story in the
Record
when you fell last autumn, so he knew who you were.” Dave slapped his thighs and began to get up. “He brought them by the station for you. How about that, huh? Pretty nice of him, you ask me, when you think he could’ve just as easily tossed ’em. I got his name and address if you want to say thanks.” He looked at Derric more earnestly, it seemed. “Do you?” he asked him. “Want to say thanks, I mean.”

Derric nodded. He picked up the letters that his father had placed in his lap. He wanted to press them to his chest, but he knew exactly how odd that would look. Just about as odd as hiding a bunch of letters inside a beanbag chair. Explanations were hanging there in the air, waiting to be snatched at and spoken by him. But he didn’t know how to grab them or how to speak them or what would happen if he ever did.

Dave headed for the door. But there he paused. He hit the jamb lightly with his fist. He said, “Son, I’m not about to pry. I know something’s going on with you. This breakup with Becca. Then Courtney. And now this Rejoice . . .” He nodded at the letters when he said her name.

“Dad,” Derric said, his voice low and a warning.

“I know, I know. Your business is your business. But I remember sixteen. How it was, I mean. The kinds of things I did and the feelings I had. I c’n see you’ve spent a hell of a lot of time writing to someone back in Uganda and I’m wondering . . . I know that life was tough for you there. Before the orphanage and in the orphanage. But you know you can talk to me, don’t you? Is there anything at all you want to tell me?”

Derric thought about
want
because want was exactly the word. He did want to tell his father. He wanted to tell him the story from start to finish. But
can’t
stood in the way of
want
. He looked at his dad and saw the worry on his face. He also saw the love in his eyes. But worry and love were not enough.

He said, “I’m okay, Dad,” and he offered a wry and specious smile. He hoisted the letters and said, “Girls, you know,” in one of those just-us-boys kind of ways.

Dave looked at him and said, “Okay, then,” but he didn’t sound convinced at all by Derric’s act of good cheer.

B
ecca waited for Jenn to give her the sign that she’d arranged to borrow Annie Taylor’s scuba equipment. She figured there was no point in asking Ivar to help them out with his boat until Jenn was ready, and considering how little enthusiasm the other girl had for diving, she knew she might have to put some effort into convincing Jenn all over again that a dive down to Eddie Beddoe’s boat was the only way to go. But when she said to her, “So? D’you get the equipment?” before class the next day, her response was, “Crap. Damn. I forgot.”

Jenn’s whisper of
once we found Cilla I totally
suggested that she was neither lying nor stalling. But Becca could hardly say, “Who the heck is Cilla?” in reply to a whisper so instead she said, “Gosh, you for
got
? What happened?” and hoped for more information.

It came in the form of “Someone’s staying with Annie. She’s sick. We all got roped into helping take care of her, and Mom and I took her to Langley Clinic. Then everything got all . . . all involved with my family and Annie and . . . I forgot.” She made a face and slapped the heel of her hand on her forehead, saying, “Squat wanted me to find out something, too. I didn’t do that, either. I blew it.”

“Squat?”

“Yeah.” But she was cagey about what it was that she was supposed to do, just that it was information and it was probably nothing but she’d told him she’d try and now he was going to be pissed because if she didn’t, then he couldn’t and
maybe that’s why I didn’t like his tongue but maybe . . . hers no way.

Becca blinked. His tongue? Hers? No way? What the heck? She said, “Okay, but we can’t . . . Jenn, this is important. You know that, don’t you?”

Jenn bristled and said she most certainly did but Becca needed to chill for God’s sake because she had a lot going on at the moment
and
she had to get back to soccer since the tryouts were . . . God they were in a week and she was majorly blowing it and—

“Okay, okay,” Becca said. But she felt confused.

After school, Becca went into town. While things weren’t moving forward on the diving-to-Eddie’s-boat front, there were other things hanging in the air for her and one of them was where the heck she was going to live. The charms of the tree house had long ago faded, after only a month of having to use the showers in the girls’ locker room at school, and with the weather improving, how long could she reasonably expect Seth’s grandfather
not
to be taking walks in his own forest? If nothing else, he’d come out to maintain his trails. He’d also want to see how the tree house had held up over the winter, wouldn’t he? And if he did that, he was sure to find her. So she took the bus into Langley and got out near the Cliff Motel.

She didn’t go into the office at first. Instead she walked across the street where from beneath a newly leafing tree at the performing arts center, she could gaze at the place and its ten rooms, and she could think of what ten rooms meant to Debbie Grieder and her grandkids.

She
hated
to ask Debbie Grieder if she could have one of her rooms because she knew that Debbie would give her one at once. That was who she was. And while Becca badly wanted to take advantage of this, she hated to take advantage of Debbie. Sure, she would be working in exchange for the room: she could help clean the place and she could babysit Chloe and Josh when Debbie went to her AA meetings. But having someone help out at the motel in this way didn’t put money into Debbie’s pockets, and that was a sticking point for Becca. Everything, she thought morosely, always came down to money. And even if that hadn’t been the case, the one time Jeff Corrie had shown up in town, he’d chosen the Cliff Motel as a place to stay. If he showed up again . . . Becca couldn’t risk it.

She heard Josh’s shout, and she saw that he and Derric had come out from Debbie’s office/apartment and were setting up an archery target against one of the trees in the vacant lot next door. Josh was yelling, “Betcha I make the first bull’s-eye. Betcha betcha betcha,” while Derric called out, “No way, dude.”

Becca watched them for a moment, unseen. Her heart was heavy at the thought of Derric. She watched the two boys take up position and shoot rubber-tipped arrows at the target. It was a child’s play set of bows and arrows, and she could tell that Derric was taking care not to break his. His arrow went wildly wrong. Josh’s hit the target although not the bull’s-eye. Josh gave a war whoop and did a war dance. Derric laughed and rubbed the boy’s head. Then Josh saw Becca.

“Hi, Becca!” he cried. “We’re playing arrows! You want to play?”

She grimaced inwardly. She felt like an idiot spy. She called back, “Hi, Josh. Looks like fun,” and she started moving in the direction of town. But that was when Chloe bounded outside. She, too, saw Becca and she called out, “Becca! Becca! Grammer made oatmeal raisin cookies! They’re her special . . . her special . . . her specialness. I’m taking one to Josh ’n’ one to Derric.” She held up her hands, a wrapped cookie in each.

Becca didn’t have the heart to walk away from Chloe. She crossed the street and fondly cupped her head. She said, “Oatmeal raisin? Those’re definitely the best.”

“Then you better have one now ’cause me and Josh’re eating them all tonight!”

“I bet your grammer won’t like that,” Becca said.

“Shhh! Don’t tell her!” And Chloe skipped off.

Becca watched her go. Well, she thought, it seemed more or less meant. She went into the office and through the living room with its comfortable old maple furniture and its general Chloe-and-Josh clutter. She found Debbie Grieder in the kitchen, spooning batter onto a cookie sheet. A rack held at least two dozen cookies already baked. Becca’s mouth watered at the smell of them.

Debbie smiled at her. She had her graying hair pulled back from her face in a lopsided ponytail, and her scarred forehead had a Chloe-sized flour handprint on it. She wore an apron that was thoroughly messed up with cookie makings, and when she saw Becca glance at it, she whispered
face on that girl . . . look a sight I know . . .
and she laughed and said, “Cooking ain’t my thing, darlin. As you well know. But cookies, on the other hand . . . ? You better have a few. Milk’s in the fridge. Pour us both a glass.”

Becca went for the glasses, comfortable in the knowledge of where things were. She caught another whisper of
lost so much . . . pretty with the hair . . . but he said and I guess kids know when something’s right
, which Becca assumed had to do with Derric. She sighed.
Another
reason she couldn’t possibly return to this place. Derric would be here. And how would that seem? Like she was stalking him or something? Oh probably, she thought. Because the one thing she was definitely learning was no matter how bad things were, they could always get worse.

When Debbie had the next cookie sheet in the oven, she scored a cookie for herself and dropped onto a chair at the kitchen table. She pulled a copy of the local paper off the seat next to her and, biting into a cookie, said to Becca, “You see this, darlin? There’s another mysterious girl come to the island, just like you,” and she turned the paper in Becca’s direction.

On the front page a large picture of a girl was featured. Beneath it was the name
CILLA
. The headline asked
DO YOU RECOGNIZE THIS GIRL?
and the story that went with it gave the details.

Becca skimmed this story. The relevant bits fairly leaped out at her: Possession Point, Jenn McDaniels, a trailer, a suitcase with a note inside, a girl who couldn’t or wouldn’t talk, the Langley Clinic, and a thousand questions.

• • •

DEBBIE GRIEDER KNEW
nothing more than what was in the story. If Becca was curious, she pointed out, Rhonda Mathieson would know the details, since the girl had been taken to the Langley clinic and Rhonda would have seen to her. Fact was, Derric could probably fill her in on more information. He was just outside with Josh and if Becca asked him—

“Oh, it’s okay,” Becca said. The last thing she wanted was to have to ask Derric.

Debbie eyed her and said, “Sorta went south? You ’n’ Derric?”

Becca shrugged. “Guess so. I blew it. Maybe we both did. I dunno. Whatever.”

Kids
was Debbie Grieder’s whispered response to this. Becca couldn’t blame her for that inner tone of amusement and resignation. It was all pretty dumb and it would sound dumber if she told Debbie how lame she’d been. Debbie said, “True love never goes smooth, girl,” but Becca found that she couldn’t agree. If love was true, it was natural, she thought. Wasn’t that how it was supposed to be?

In any case, she couldn’t stay at the motel with Debbie, not even sleeping on her couch. It was bad enough seeing Derric at school. Seeing him out of school would be excruciating.

There was nothing for it but to go to work. At least she could earn a little money so when she found a place she would be able to pay her way. Soon after she’d consumed her oatmeal cookie, she took off for Heart’s Desire. Two bus rides deposited her where she’d left her bike hidden among some trees. Then a fast pedal along Double Bluff Road and a right at the stop sign put her on the final climb up the bluff to where the farm stood.

When she arrived, it was to the sound of dogs’ rapturous barking and to the sight of Diana Kinsale’s pickup truck. She saw four of Diana’s dogs bounding around the yard that surrounded the house while Oscar watched from the porch where he’d positioned himself near the mudroom door.

Becca went through the kitchen, where a pot of spaghetti sauce on the stove was filling the air with a heady fragrance. She lifted the pot’s lid for a better smell of it, and her mind went to thoughts of coming home after school to the scent of her mom’s baked beans. Her throat got tight for a second, and she cleared it mightily.

Nope, nope,
nope
, she told herself. She wouldn’t go there. Things were already tough enough.

She went into the mudroom for a quick hello and found Diana in the haircutting chair. Diana’s hair was wet and her shoulders were covered by a plastic cape. Sharla was standing behind her. They both were looking into the mirror, and they seemed to be considering what sort of haircut Diana needed. When Becca entered, Diana gazed long and hard at her face then held out her hand. Becca took it, and Diana’s careworn hand was warm to the touch. It moved quickly to grasp Becca’s arm, and the feeling was what it always had been: a soft heat and the sensation of being unburdened. She said to Becca, “You stay right where you are and supervise what Sharla’s intending to do to me. I think I need you here for courage. Okay with you, Sharla?”

“No problem,” Sharla said. “She’s next anyway, and don’t you protest, Miss Becca, ’cause I see you winding up to do so. You’re getting too shaggy, and there’s no way I intend to let a haircut by Sharla Mann end up looking like a dog groomer did it.”

Sharla set her hands on Diana’s shoulders and positioned the chair to its best height. When she did this, however, things altered in the mudroom. Becca felt a slight jolt from Diana’s hand, which was still on her arm, and her vision altered to gray and to black and for an instant she thought she was fainting.

Before she could exclaim in some way, though, a picture distinctly flashed into her mind. It was clear like a photograph, and then it altered to become like a film. But it was jerky, the way a film is when the moviemaker wants the finished product to seem like something seen through a person’s eyes.

Flowered curtains covering a window through which daylight showed. A couch with sagging cushions. A kitchen in which a chair bore a tall stack of blankets and a scarf tossed atop them. And then, just like someone’s family videos, the jerky image of a toddler unsteady on its feet but walking forward.

Becca took a breath that rasped loudly. Diana removed her hand from Becca’s arm, saying, “You all right, my dear?” and at her words Becca’s vision altered again and she was back in the mudroom. Diana was watching her closely, and Sharla was fingering Diana’s hair the way a stylist does just before using the scissors. Around them all, the mudroom was the mudroom, but Diana’s face told Becca that Diana
knew
.

Somehow she’d taken another step. She didn’t understand the journey, and she had no clue about the destination. But she was growing closer to it, whatever it was and whyever it existed.