to stop her, but he couldn’t. The weight of the photograph—and his own guilt—held him back. He leaned heavily against the wall and let his head drop back against the smooth, worn brick.
Twenty
Water lilies undulated in the
Dropping anchor a few miles from shore, he’d set the rods and spun out the lines, then sat under a cloudless sky and waited for the fish to bite. After a couple of hours, the ice bins were lined with spotted bass, crappie and bream, all gutted and cleaned and waiting for the frying pan or the freezer. After he put away the rods, he’d cranked up the engines and made a run down to Vermillion Bay. The afternoon had been hot and sunny, the water as calm as a mirror, but by the time he headed back, clouds were already gathering in the west and he could smell the rain.
Tossing a line to Marsilius, Dave took the other and slipped the loop over a metal cleat bolted into the wooden dock. He was shirtless and he could feel the prickle of sunburn along his back and shoulders as he bent to his work.
“Someone’s waiting up at the house to see you,” Marsilius told him once they had the boat secured.
Dave jumped up on the dock. “Who is it, a client?”
“It’s Claire.”
Even after seeing her the other night, Dave found the sound of her name came as a shock. He turned and stared at the water, his heart pounding.
On the other side of the bayou, an old black man sat under a willow tree, fishing off the bank with a cane pole. Two little boys threw rocks and shells into the water nearby, scaring off the bream that had come to the surface to feed near the water lilies. The old man didn’t seem to mind. He sat puffing on a pipe, his eyes glued to the cork bobber floating among the lily pads.
“Dave, did you hear me?”
“I heard you, old man. What does she want?”
Marsilius shrugged, but his eyes were curious beneath the brim of his straw hat. “She didn’t say, I didn’t ask.”
“She must have told you something.”
He took off the hat and fanned his face. “All I know is she came into the bait shop looking for you. I told her you took the boat out, but I expected you back directly. She asked if I thought it would be okay for her to wait at your place. I said sure, didn’t see no harm in that.”
“Did you let her in?”
“I offered to, but she said she’d just as soon wait outside. But she must be getting pretty hot up there on that porch, Dave. You better go on up there and see what she wants.”
Dave resisted the urge to glance over his shoulder at the house. It was a strange feeling knowing that Claire was up there waiting for him. He had a picture in his mind of her in a yellow dress, sitting in the swing on her grandmother’s front porch. “There you are,” she’d say breathlessly as he slowly climbed the porch steps. “I was beginning to worry you weren’t coming.”
“You weren’t worried. You’re not the kind of girl who gets stood up.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because a guy’d have to be crazy to leave you sitting out here all alone. Especially in that yellow dress.”
She’d cock her head, smile in that way she had. “And you’re not crazy, are you, Dave?”
“Nope. What I am,” he’d say softly, bending to brush his lips against hers, “is just about the luckiest son of a bitch in the whole wide world.”
Dave turned off the conversation in his head as he glanced at Marsilius. “I’ll go up in a minute. I need to clean out the ice chests first and hose off the boat.”
“I’ll take care of that. You go on now, don’t keep her waiting any longer.”
But when Dave turned toward the house, Marsilius called him back, frowning. “Look here, son. I don’t know what she’s got on her mind, but I could tell something was bothering her. You go easy on her, hear?”
“What do you think I’m going to do? Throw her off my porch?”
“You’ve always been bad to hold a grudge, Dave, don’t claim you ain’t. She married somebody else and that didn’t sit well with you. I reckon you made that plain enough. But something’s going on with that girl and there’s no sense in you going up there making her feel any worse about it.”
Dave just shook his head. “You don’t give me much credit for anything, do you?”
“I speak my mind, if that’s what you mean.”
Dave left without another word and walked up to the house through the oak and pecan trees that ringed his property. The breeze picked up, scattering leaves across the path in front of him, and the sky took on a greenish tint.
He paused at the edge of the yard to slip on his shirt before striding down the dirt pathway to his house. A moment later, he drew back the screen door and stepped up on the porch.
Even when she turned, when he saw her full on, she didn’t seem real to him. It was like he’d awakened from a deep sleep, a dream still hovering at the edges of his consciousness, and in that fleeting moment he couldn’t tell if what he saw and heard and felt was real or only a vision.
The screen door snapped shut behind him, and as their eyes met, a smile died on her lips. Her gaze moved over his face, taking inventory of the bruises and the stitch marks near his scalp. “What happened to you?”
“Let’s just say I had a difference of opinion with someone, and leave it at that.”
Their eyes met again and she looked away. “You never change, do you, Dave? You always did have a talent for trouble.”
“According to Marsilius, it’s one of the few things I was ever any good at.”
She didn’t return his smile, but instead glanced around. “I like your place. It’s nice here. Peaceful with all the trees.”
He accepted the compliment with a shrug. “It’s not much to look at, but it’s home.”
“Home,” she said softly, turning to stare out at the yard, making a point not to look at him.
Dave watched her standing there, and a lump rose in his throat. She wore a white cotton skirt and sandals, with a blue camisole that matched the turquoise of her eyes. Her hair was clipped up in back so that he could see the fine, glistening hairs at her nape.
He swallowed, tore his gaze away. “Marsilius said you wanted to see me about something.”
She turned, and what she saw in his eyes seemed to take her aback for a moment. Her hand fluttered to her throat, covering the pattern of freckles on her chest that he had once traced with his fingertip.
“I’ve come to see you about a professional matter. If you have the time,” she added hesitantly.
“Sure. Just give me a minute to get cleaned up. I’ve been out on the water all afternoon.” His hands trembled as he took the key out of the flowerpot and unlocked the front door, but he managed to say evenly, “You want to come inside where it’s cooler?”
She glanced at the door, then shook her head.
“Suit yourself. How about something cold to drink?”
“I’m fine. Don’t worry about me.”
“Okay. I’ll be back in a minute.”
Dave closed the door between them and stood for a moment, eyes closed, the sound of his heartbeat loud and uneven in his ears. Someone had once told him that the past, more than DNA or fingerprints, was what made each human being unique. A person was shaped by the places he’d been and the things he’d done and seen. For Dave, it was what he had lost.
He didn’t know why Claire had come to see him, but he told himself it didn’t matter. He couldn’t let himself get drawn back into her orbit. He couldn’t let himself wish for something that was never going to be, because there
