The Man She Left Behind (2 page)

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Authors: Janice Carter

BOOK: The Man She Left Behind
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Blessing herself for having had the foresight to get the water and power reconnected, Leigh clicked to life all the lamps and overheads, exorcising all remaining shadows from the house.
But not from my heart.
She chided herself for the thought.
You knew it would be tough, kiddo, so don’t go soft after the first ten minutes.
Satisfied she had everything under control again, Leigh retrieved her two suitcases and headed upstairs to her old bedroom on the second floor. Nothing had changed much since she’d left it fifteen years ago. The cream counterpane with its faded antique roses still draped the twin bed in her room. The matching dust ruffle had done its duty well, too, over the years. No doubt neither had been laundered since her mother had left to be with Leigh in New York a year ago. Leigh stifled a sneeze and rushed to open the window.
The room was the smallest of the five bedrooms on the second floor, but it had the best view, looking out to the western ridge of sand dunes separating the two sides of the island. Invisible beyond the dunes was Pamlico Sound, the band of ocean separating Ocracoke from the North Carolina coast. But Ocraco ke Sound, the channel outside the harbor, was partially illuminated by the sweeping beam of the lighthouse on the edge of the village. Leigh drew away from the window and turned to survey the room some more.
The first eighteen years of her life had been spent in this narrow space, and it was still cluttered with mementos of that time, kept by her parents as if they’d hoped she’d renounce her life in New York and come home. But college, a postgraduate degree and a chance to start at the bottom of an up-and-coming Wall Street investment firm had gotten in the way of that return. Not that she believed her parents ever seriously expected her to come back to Ocracoke. Few islanders returned to stay once they’d left for bigger pastures.
And then there were those who’d never left at all.
She shook her head, surfacing from the unexpected dive into the past.
Enough already, Randall.
She didn’t think she was up to sleeping there her first night back, and besides, the room needed a good airing. Dust and memories could leave together.
Leigh poked around in her suitcase until she found what she needed for the night, grabbed a comforter from the linen closet in the hall, then headed for the door and the couch downstairs. She paused to look back, almost expecting to see her sixteen-year-old self sprawled on the bed, a novel in hand. She smiled, catching her reflection in the vanity-table mirror opposite the doorway.
You’re a long way from sixteen, Randall, and right now looking every second of it.
Then something else caught her eye. A photograph wedged into the upper right-hand corner of the mirror frame.
She moved toward it, watching herself in the glass as she did so, her face paling the closer she got. She reached out a hand that trembled slightly and plucked out the photo. It was small enough to have been overlooked all those years. Spencer McKay, with his lanky seventeen-year-old length pressed against her fifteen-year-old self. Six foot something even then, he had one arm draped across her shoulders while he looked down into her laughing black eyes.
Leigh crumpled the photograph and dropped it onto the vanity. Tomorrow, she told herself, everything would go out in the garbage. She switched off the light and closed her bedroom door.
 
NOTHING IN THE WORLD compared to awakening to the fragrance of freshly brewed coffee. Leigh stretched her legs, flexed her toes back and forth and enjoyed, for a few seconds more, the moment of waking up. Then her legs stiffened. Hundreds of sleepy cells sounded the alarm.
If I’ve been sleeping, who’s made the coffee?
The balls of her feet pushed against the end of the couch as she levered herself to a sitting position. The living room was in darkness, but splinters of sunlight cut through the gap in the heavy curtains. Leigh could make out the pile of clothes she’d left on the floor, as well as her Day-Timer, which was facedown on the novel she’d cracked open in the wee hours of morning. She swung off the couch, kicked aside the books and struggled to her feet, wrapping the comforter around her.
“Hello?” she called out, her voice a reedy whisper. She called out again, and this time her voice gained volume. There was still no answer, but she thought she heard someone in the kitchen. She padded across the hardwood floor, into the hall and along to the rear of the house.
A short plump woman was leaning over the kitchen sink washing dishes and singing softly. Leigh hesitated, then cleared her throat.
The woman jumped, letting something clatter into the sink. “Mercy!” she exclaimed, turning around to Leigh, standing in the doorway. Her round face flushed, then smoothed into a broad smile.
“Leigh Randall! I hope I didn’t wake you up.”
Leigh’s mind ran through its data bank for a name. “Yes, I mean, no. The coffee woke me up.”
The woman glanced behind her. “Heavens, it’s all ready, too. Come in and set yourself down.” She pulled out a chair for Leigh, who sank into it feeling totally disoriented.
The woman leaned against the counter and smiled. “You don’t recognize me, do you,” she said. Her tone was friendly.
“It’s been a while since I was last home,” Leigh explained, playing for time. Then it came to her. “Faye Mercer!”
The smile changed to a wide grin. “Close enough. People get me and Faye mixed up even more these days now that we’ve both passed forty. Faye’s my older sister. I’m Trish. Trish Butterfield now, not Mercer.”
“Didn’t you used to baby-sit me?”
“No, that was Faye. As I said she’s older than I am, though I must say forty is the great leveler, isn’t it? And how you’ve changed yourself! I don’t think I’d have recognized you if we’d met on the street.”
Trish’s smile suddenly vanished. She shook her head sympathetically. “I was very sorry to hear about your mother. And I’m especially sorry I couldn’t make it to New York for the funeral. I sent flowers and a card, but it’s hard to say what you want to on a card, isn’t it?” She paused briefly before asking, “Will you be burying your mother’s ashes with your dad’s? Ellen was such a lovely person. I’d taken to popping in to visit her before she went to New York.”
Too overwhelmed by the memory of her mother’s last few months, Leigh only nodded and whispered, “Yes. Later.” In her final days Ellen had asked to be cremated and had told Leigh to bury her ashes at a convenient time in the future—preferably next to her husband.
So like her mother, Leigh thought, to be considerate of her feelings even as she neared death. Ellen had known the emotional turmoil that a return to Ocracoke would cause her daughter.
Leigh’s smile felt strained. She was bewildered by the chitchat, and her caffeine addiction was clamoring for attention. She glanced at the coffeepot.
“Goodness! The coffee!” Trish swung behind her, opened exactly the right cupboard, pulled out two mugs and rummaged in a plastic grocery bag on the counter for milk and sugar. “You must be wondering how I knew you were here.”
“I didn’t let anyone know but the Jensens.”
Trish nodded. “That was it, you see. Mrs. Jensen got Sammy Fisher to turn on your water and electricity, seeing as how poor old Mr. Jensen couldn’t take care of it for you.”
“How is Mr. Jensen?”
Trish pursed her lips. “Not good, poor thing. The family’s looking for a nursing home on the mainland. He hasn’t recovered from his stroke at all.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
Trish waited a respectful moment before continuing. “Anyway, I was on my way to the ferry early this morning and saw your car in the drive. Didn’t recognize it as belonging to anyone from the island and then I noticed the New York plates. I figured you must have come in late yesterday.”
Another reminder how impossible it was to keep a secret on the island.
“Here’s your coffee. I even picked up some doughnuts. If I’d had more notice, I’d have baked muffins for you.”
“I’d planned to drive into the village for breakfast, but this is much nicer. Thank you.”
“You’re quite welcome. Least I can do for Ellen Randall’s daughter, not to mention a native islander come home. We don’t get many of those anymore!”
Leigh smiled and sipped her coffee. “Mmm, delicious. You said you were on your way to the ferry?”
“I work part-time up in Nag’s Head at one of those resorts. I just phoned my boss to say I’d be late. Things are slow yet. The tourist season will pick up soon, though.”
Leigh remembered how excited she used to get when guests began arriving at the manor in late June. “Have you worked there long?”
“About ten years. Since my hubby passed away.”
Leigh’s sympathetic murmur went unnoticed as Trish paused only long enough to refill their mugs. “Is it true you’re planning on selling the house?”
No secrets at all.
“I hope to. It’s pretty hard looking after property from a distance. The past year wasn’t so difficult, but now that Mr. Jensen is unable to do it...”
“Yes.” Trish sighed. “It’ll be hard for him to leave the island.”
“I suppose.”
There was a long silence. The bond of islandhood linked them momentarily. Leigh’s father used to say that islanders were a breed apart. They often had difficulty adjusting to life away from Ocracoke. Certainly Leigh had witnessed her mother’s spirit How out of her right along with her health, which had deteriorated rapidly once she’d left the island to be with Leigh in New York.
Leigh feigned interest in the box of doughnuts and waited for the knot in her throat to dissolve. She wished Trish Mercer, or whatever her name was now, would go.
It was an ungenerous thought, she realized. But the weight of the last year, her mother’s chemotherapy treatments and the many trips back and forth to the chronic-care hospice was suddenly and unexpectedly heavy.
She felt a hand press her right shoulder. “I’m sorry, Leigh. All this prattling and you still coping with it all. Forgive me. for rushing in, but you know how islanders stick together.”
Leigh looked at the woman’s kindly face and managed a weak smile. “I do appreciate it, Trish. And thank you for everything you did for my mother in those last few months before she came to New York.”
“Not at all. Like I said, your mother spent her whole life helping others here. It was her turn, was all.” Trish dropped her hand and went back to the sink.
Leigh watched her, thinking how she’d forgotten so many things about Ocracokers—their loyalty to one another and sense of pride in their unique lifestyle.
“There now,” Trish announced, wiping her hands on a towel. “I’ll leave you to finish the pot. And I’ve put the house key your mother gave me on the counter. I won’t be needing it anymore and you can always use a spare. Although I suppose you’re not planning to stay on?”
Leigh hated to erase the hope in Trish’s face, but now was as good a time as any to declare her intentions. “Only as long as it takes me to arrange the sale and pack up what I want to take back to New York.”
“Will you be going to the local real-estate office? My cousin runs it.”
“I’ve already been to a place in Nag’s Head.” Seeing the disappointment in Trish’s face, she added, “I thought it would simplify matters if I stopped in on my way down yesterday. I hope I get a chance to see you and Faye before I leave.”
“I’d like that very much, Leigh, but I’m afraid you’ll have to make do with just me. Faye left the island a long time ago to live on the mainland.”
“Well, the two of us, then.”
“It would be lovely to see you. You can fill me in on your exciting life these past few years. How long’s it been, anyway?”
“They weren’t very exciting years, believe me. And it’s been ten years since I was here for my father’s funeral, but fifteen since I left for college.”
“My, how time flies! I hadn’t realized it’d been that long.”
She was almost out the door when Leigh’s resistance crumpled. “Trish?”
The woman stopped, a question on her face.
“I... I was wondering if you could tell me about some of the old gang.”
“Of course, Leigh. Give me some names.”
“Chris Thompson?”
“He’s a lawyer now up in Nag’s Head.”
“And Jennifer Logan?”
“She’s been in Charlotte about four or five years. You heard she and Spencer McKay got a divorce?”
“Yes.”
Trish shook her head. “That was a nasty piece of business. I mean, the way Jen just up and took off with their little boy without a by-your-leave. Cleaned out Spencer’s bank account and not a word to her grandfather.” Indignation rang in her voice.
“I heard some of it from my mother, but we didn’t...she didn’t talk much about island life after I left.”
There was a meaningful silence. Then Trish said, “Yes, well, that I understand.”
After a long moment Leigh asked the one question that mattered. “And Spencer?”
“He went through such a rough time, poor man. As if he didn’t have enough problems in his life. But it’s all worked out for him now. He went in on a fishing-charter business with Bill Cowan about five years ago and has been very successful. We’re all quite proud of him.”

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