The Long Way Home (28 page)

For the first time since the day her father had been led away in handcuffs, Ellie wished she could speak with him, if only to ask him what her mother might have told him about her childhood. Then again, there were still so many journals on the shelves. Surely Lilly, who wrote about everything, had written about the day her grandniece came to live with them.

The truck came to a stop and the engine was cut. Ellie opened her eyes and began to unfasten her seat belt when she looked out the window onto an unfamiliar scene.

“Where are we?”

“At my place. I thought I’d stop and change my
clothes if we’re going to try to paint out those kitchen walls.” Cam pulled the keys from the ignition.

“Are you sure you don’t want to change your mind? I really didn’t expect you to spend your Thanksgiving working in my house,” she told him.

“I spent the last two days taking down plaster walls. I’m looking forward to something sweet and easy.” He hopped out of the cab. “Want to come in while I change?”

“Sure, but really …”

He ignored her and went straight to the front door, which he unlocked and swung open. Ellie followed, her bag slung over her shoulder.

“This is so nice.” She stopped about ten feet from the front porch and took a good look at the bungalow that was sided in brown cedar shakes and trimmed with crisp white paint.

“Thanks. I’m almost done here,” he said as he held the door for her. “I only have the one big room on the second floor to finish painting and I’ll be ready to put it on the market.” He snapped on the hall light. “I just can’t decide whether I should put this one up for sale before your house or if I should wait until the sign goes on your front lawn.”

He grinned and led her into the living room. “I don’t want to be caught without a place to live if this place should sell before you’re ready.”

“I’m thinking I’ll be ready by May,” she told him.

“If you put your mind to it, you could be finished well before then.”

“No, May’s my target.” No reason for him to know she couldn’t sell it before then.

He tossed his jacket over the newel post.

“Can I get you anything? Something to drink, maybe …?”

“No, no. I’m fine, but thanks.”

“It won’t take me long to change. Make yourself at home,” Cameron said as he disappeared down a short hall.

Ellie heard a door close softly. She stood for a moment before walking to the bank of windows that stood along the far wall. She drew aside a curtain and looked out onto a pond where dried cattails bent at odd angles to one another. Between the pond and the house was the driveway, at the end of which was a garage that was sided in the same cedar as the house. She walked to the back door, opened it, and stepped onto a porch where two rocking chairs faced the backyard and a marsh beyond. She wondered who sat in the second chair to watch the sunset with Cameron, who shared quiet mornings over coffee watching the red-winged blackbirds land on the reeds.

“Here you are.” Cameron stood in the doorway in that well-worn plaid flannel shirt and the jeans with the hole in the back pocket. “For a moment I thought maybe you started home on foot.”

“I was just enjoying the scenery.” She leaned against the railing, which she noted was much more secure than the one on her back porch. “It’s pretty here.”

Cam nodded. “It’s a nice street and a quiet neighborhood. I think I’ll make out really well when I sell it.”

“Have you done a lot of work here?”

“A ton. All the mechanical systems replaced. New
windows. New kitchen, new baths. Everything’s been painted except for that one last room. So yeah, I’ve done a lot of work.”

“I’m surprised you want to sell it right away instead of staying and enjoying it. I’d think you’d be more attached to it after doing all that.”

“I bought it with the intention of fixing it up and selling it.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “Just like you’re doing.”

Ellie tried to think of a quick retort but couldn’t.

“Besides,” he went on, “this is what I do for a living. Buy, fix, sell.”

“But you have a contracting business, too, right?”

“I do. A couple of years ago, when business started to slow down, I had the opportunity to buy a run-down place out on River Road. I spent three months fixing it up while I lived there, then sold it for more than twice what I paid. I’ve been in the renovating business ever since.”

“That’s why you want my house? To buy, fix, sell?”

“I’d never sell that house.” He came out onto the porch. “That one’s for me.”

He put an arm around her. “Having second thoughts about selling?”

Ellie shook her head. “Not at all. And for the record, I’ll still give you the first shot at making an offer.”

“I appreciate it.” He turned slightly toward her and reached down to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. Tiny jolts of what felt like electricity trailed in the wake of his fingers. “Maybe you’ll come back and visit me there.”

“Maybe I will.”

He leaned down and kissed her, but this time she’d been waiting—hoping—for him to kiss her again. His lips were softly demanding, his arms pulling her closer until she was fully in his embrace.

A strong breeze blew through the marsh and she shivered in spite of the warmth that had started to spread through her.

“It’s getting chilly out here,” he said as he eased his lips from hers. “You’re not dressed for winter.”

He took her hand and led her inside.

“I think we need to get back to my place.” Ellie watched him lock the back door. “I think Dune will need some tending to.”

“Good point.” He lit the lamp that stood on a table inside the front door and picked up the tools he’d left near the door. On their way to the driveway, Cam pulled up short and pointed to the sky, where a long ragged string of Canada geese was passing. “You know winter is coming when the geese start moving in flocks that large.”

“Don’t they stay all year round?” she asked as she got into the truck.

“Some do. A lot still migrate from the northernmost states. The diaries of the early settlers talk about huge flocks of geese arriving right about this time every year.”

A light rain started to fall as they drove through several side streets to Bay View Road. Cam parked in Ellie’s driveway, close to the path leading to the front door.

“Someone’s having a lot of company.” Ellie gestured to the row of cars that lined the road.

“The Walshes have a big family thing over Thanksgiving weekend,” Cam told her as she unlocked her front door. “They have six kids and they’re all married and have kids and everyone comes back to St. Dennis for the long weekend.”

“You know the family?”

Cam nodded. “Jackie Walsh and I went to school together.”

“And you lived on this street at one time, you said?”

She slipped out of her jacket and hung it in the hall closet, then reached for his and hung it next to hers.

“Right.” He walked into the kitchen, carrying the tools he’d brought from his house.

Dune greeted them madly, running from one to the other in a happy dance of
Welcome home now feed me walk me pet me
. Cam offered to walk the dog while Ellie changed into work clothes. Ten minutes later, when Ellie came downstairs in her old sweats, she found Cam and the dog in the living room, seated together on the floor, in front of the bookcase, a stack of books by his side.

“Thanks, Cam, for taking her out. I appreciate …” She’d taken four steps into the room. “What are you doing?” she asked.

“Oh.” Cam seemed flustered. “I just remembered that this was here … I didn’t think you’d mind.”

She knelt next to him on the floor and leaned into the now-empty shelf. Along the back wall, a hole opened in the wall. “Is that, like, a secret panel?”

He nodded.

“How did you know it was there?” she asked.

“I spent some time here when I was young,” he said simply, as if that were explanation enough.

“You mean, visiting Lilly?”

Cam’s face was a study in uncertainty, of hesitation, of pain. Finally, he sighed, then stood and reached down to help her up.

“Come on.” He looked sadly resigned “Get our jackets. There’s something I need to show you.…”

C
AM
set a brisk pace down the driveway and across the street, leading Ellie by the hand, her steps hurried as she tried to keep up with him. What earlier had been rain was now mist that settled on the ground, and they pushed through it, all the way to the vacant lot in the middle of Bay View Road.

“My dad bought this lot and built a house for my mother. He didn’t want to marry her until he had a house for her.” Cam slowed partway up the driveway. “It was a pretty great house. Three bedrooms and two baths, a big kitchen and family room with a big brick fireplace. As soon as it was finished, he proposed. His family did everything they could to keep that wedding from happening.”

“They didn’t like her? Approve of her …?”

“They thought that something wasn’t quite right about her.”

“Any particular reason?”

“Yeah, she was an alcoholic. Before they were married, she did her best to hide it, but my grandparents saw through her from the first. My dad didn’t. He
loved her very much. In spite of everything that happened, he loved her until the day he died.”

“Cam, what happened to the house?” Ellie glanced at the trees and shrubs that grew in no particular pattern.

“It burned down years ago.”

He led her deeper onto the lot. In the wet ground up ahead she could see the outline of what had been the foundation of the house that no longer stood.

“Things were always very volatile in our house. When my mother was sober, everything was fine. Normal. We were like any other family. My sister and I would come home from school and there’d be a snack waiting for us. We’d do our homework and Mom would help us if we needed it. The house would be clean and warm and there’d be dinner on the stove and stories at bedtime. My mother and my father would be happy and everything was like one of those families you’d see on TV.

“But when my mother was drinking …” He took a deep breath before continuing. “We’d know right away, as soon as we opened the front door. There’d be no Mom waiting for us and the house would be a mess. There’d be no snacks on the table and no dinner cooking on the stove. If my mother hadn’t already passed out, she’d be incoherent, often abusive and threatening, always angry and argumentative. She scared me but she terrified Wendy, my little sister. So we’d have to hide from her until our dad got home and could calm her down. Sometimes that took hours. Then he’d make dinner for us and we’d go to bed and pretend we weren’t afraid to go to sleep.”

His face was filled with so much pain that Ellie didn’t think she could bear it. She turned her body to his as if to block the memories from hurting him all over again.

“After a while, the uncertainty of it all, one day to the next, became the new normal. But my dad never stopped loving her, never stopped believing that one day she’d get herself straight and she’d be the girl he’d fallen in love with and we’d all live happily ever after.”

“Cam, you don’t have to …”

Ignoring her protest as if he hadn’t heard, he drew closer to the foundation. “One day it all just seemed to boil over. She was always angry when she drank, but this one day, she was beyond anger and beyond reason. And she had a handgun. I never did find out where she got it.”

Ellie wanted to slap her hands over her ears, didn’t want to hear the rest, hoped he’d stop there, that that would be the end of the story.

“She was sitting in the kitchen when we got home from school, a half-empty bottle and the gun on the table in front of her. She waved the gun at me and I knew something bad was going to happen. I panicked and grabbed Wendy and took her into my room and we hid in the back of my closet. When my father came through the back door about twenty minutes later, we thought we were saved. Wendy and I got up and I opened the closet door, and then we heard the bang. My mother shot him in the chest, point-blank range. And then she came looking for us.”

“Oh, my God, Cameron.” Ellie gasped at the horror of it, could almost picture the scene in her mind.

Cam’s voice was surprisingly calm, but there was immense sadness in his eyes.

“Wendy and I huddled in the back of the closet and I had my hand over my sister’s mouth to keep her from screaming. She’d gone stone still and quiet when we heard the gunshot but I was afraid that any second she’d understand what had happened, and she’d start screaming. I knew right away what my mother had done, and I knew that sooner or later, she was going to find us, and she was going to kill us, too.”

He paused for a moment, as if reliving that terrible night.

“And then, there was a miracle. The doorbell rang. Lilly Cavanaugh had heard the shots and she called the police, then she ran across the street and rang the doorbell. My mother didn’t answer it, but Lilly started talking to her through the door. As soon as I heard her voice, I knew we were going to be okay. A few seconds later, I heard the police sirens coming closer and closer. And then we heard one last gunshot.”

“Your mother …”

Cameron nodded. “When she realized she wasn’t going to get to Wendy and me, she shot herself.” Through the growing mist, Ellie could see Cam’s eyes starting to well. “Miss Lilly rang that doorbell knowing that my mother could just as easily turn that gun on her, but she didn’t care. She knew we were in there and that we were in danger, and she did what she had to do to create a distraction before the cops arrived. She said later she’d have found a way to knock the door down, if she’d had to.”

“She saved your lives.” Ellie stated the obvious. No
wonder he took such care of her house—Lilly’s house. No wonder he spoke of the woman with such love.

“Miss Lilly saved us in more ways than one. She took Wendy and me home with her and went through all the red tape so that we were allowed to stay with her and Mr. C. until my aunt—my dad’s sister—could find a place for us to live. She found a house here in St. Dennis, and the Cavanaughs helped her to get a mortgage, helped her to find a job. They were our lifeline. We wouldn’t have survived without them.”