Windfalls: A Novel (47 page)

Sometimes she thought of Ellen and Lucy waking in the morning, perplexed by her absence and by their parents’ uncertain explanations, and her heart tugged back. It’s when you let the hole be open, she remembered Lucy saying, and though she hated to think of Lucy having to practice that lesson quite so soon, in her heart she knew that Lucy could. Sometimes she thought of Anna and the friendship they had made and she hated that of all the women in the world, Anna was the one she had to hurt. But she hoped that in some final end, Anna would understand.

It was late the next morning when she finally glimpsed the ocean. She saw it first as she crested a high hill—a distant rim of gray glinting with light. For a long time she trudged toward it into the wind, and sometimes the wind pummeled her like a romping puppy, and sometimes it battered her like the waves themselves. Sometimes Cerise thought of Melody and the oceans on the tiny planet she had pricked into her cheek. She thought how big the real world was, how hard it could be to find someone who was lost in it, and she was grateful that Melody wore the earth on her face.

By the time she finally reached the sea, the sun was setting. The road ended on a bluff high above the ocean, abutting the narrow highway that ran along the Pacific, north to Arcata and Canada and south to Mexico. The highway gleamed like pewter in the paling light. Cerise crossed it in half a dozen steps, crossed a field of hissing, flattened grass, and stood at the edge of a precipice, looking down. Two hundred feet below her, the ocean looked dark, though far out its waters were still alight. Facing the full force of the wind, she carved out a home for her self inside it. Gazing at the fire blazing on the ocean’s distant edge, she stared until her eyes teared from wind and cold and light, and the sun popped below the rim of the sea.

She looked down at the water far below her, saw the shadowy white breakers stretching along the shore like an endless crocheted chain, and though she felt their pull like another law of physics, she ignored that invitation. Instead, turning so that the ocean was on her left, she began to trudge north up the darkening, shining road.

I would like to thank the following experts, whose information and insight were invaluable as I worked to shape this story:

They are not responsible for any of the errors that this book may contain.

I would also like to thank my Beloved Readers: Susan Gaines, Ray Holley, and Sean Swift, as well as Rosemary Ahern, Brenda Copeland, Kate Elton, Virginia Hegland, Bill Horvitz, Beverly Lewis, Kate Parkin, Patti Trimble, Elizabeth Wales, Susan Wasson, and Georgina Hawtrey Woore.

Finally, this novel and I owe a great deal to the clients, staff, volunteers, and director (Susan Lowry) of The Living Room in Santa Rosa, California.