“What
“How did you know about her?” Rebecca gasped.
Robby’s face broke into a grin. “Jimmy Phipps went home for lunch and his mother told him all about it. Did you really see her?”
For a split second Rebecca considered denying it But she and Glen had always been truthful with their children. Now, though it might cause her pain — indeed, it was sure to — she felt she had to discuss what had happened with Robby. “Yes,” she said slowly, “I did.”
Robby’s eyes widened. “Did she really crap her pants?” he demanded. Rebecca winced, but Glen had to suppress a grin.
“It’s something that happens to people when they die, dear,” Rebecca said gently.
“What did she look like? Jimmy Phipps said her face was all blue and her tongue was hanging out.”
Rebecca, remembering, had to fight to control a contracting stomach. “It doesn’t matter what she looked like, Robby,” she said almost desperately.
Robby’s mind worked at the problem, trying to decipher why the appearance of the body didn’t matter. It had certainly mattered to Jimmy Phipps. He turned to his father, as if the problem was one only a man could solve.
“What happened to her?” he asked gravely.
“She was very unhappy, Robby, and she just decided she didn’t want to live anymore. Can you understand that?”
Robby nodded gravely. “I feel like that sometimes, but then the storms come and I feel better.”
“Oh, Robby,” Rebecca cried. She knelt by her son and drew him closer to her. “You mustn’t ever feel that way. Not ever! Why, what would we do without you?”
A small frown knit Robby’s brow and he disentangled himself from his mother. “It hardly ever happens,” he said impatiently, “And anyway, it isn’t such a bad feeling. In a way it’s kind of exciting” Then, before his parents could pursue the subject any further, he posed another question. “Did Mrs. Shelling do a bad thing? I mean, if she didn’t want to live anymore, why should she have to?”
Rebecca and Glen exchanged a glance, and Glen knew it was going to be left up to him to answer his son’s question.
“It just isn’t the best thing to do,” he said carefully. “If you have a problem, it’s much better to try to find a way to solve it. Dying doesn’t do any good at all, for anyone.”
The answer seemed to satisfy the boy. He shrugged, then gazed up at his father. “Can I go look for Snooker?”
“No!” Rebecca snapped without thinking. Suddenly the idea of her son out on the beach, the beach on which Miriam Shelling had spent her last hours, terrified her. “It’s too late,” she said hurriedly, trying to take the sting out of her words as Robby recoiled. “You should both be in bed.”
“I’ll go out in a little while and have a look,” Glen promised his son. But for the first time since they had come in Missy spoke.
“You won’t find him,” she said. “He’s gone and we aren’t ever going to see him again.”
“You keep saying that,” Robby said. “But you don’t know.”
“I do too know,” Missy shot back, her voice rising.
Rebecca almost intervened, but suddenly a quarrel between her children seemed a welcome respite from the strain she had been feeling all day. “Why don’t you two take your fight into the bedroom?” she suggested.
The children stared at their mother, shocked into silence by her failure to try to mediate between them. A moment later, warming to their argument, they tumbled off to the tiny bedroom.
As soon as they were gone Rebecca turned to Glen, “And I don’t want you going out there either,” she said.
“I don’t see that there’s much choice now,” Glen said with a shrug. “I already promised Robby and I can’t realty back out of it. Besides, we’ve been walking on the beach at night for months. You know as well as I do that it’s perfectly safe.”
“That was before last night,” Rebecca said, shuddering. “It’s all different now.”
“It is not different, Rebecca,” Glen said, placing his hands on her shoulders and forcing her to look at him. “Miriam Shellings problems had nothing to do with us, and it has nothing to do with us that she killed herself out here.” He laughed, but there was no mirth in the sound. “Well, at least now we know what she was waiting for.” He began putting on his coat.
“Please?” Rebecca pleaded. “At least wait until I’ve calmed down.” Glen tossed his coat aside, sat down on the couch next to his wife, and drew her near him. In the bedroom, the argument subsided. For a while, the tiny cabin was quiet.
“Let’s go for a walk,” Brad suggested as he and Elaine stepped out of the dining room. “It’s gorgeous tonight — no storm and a full moon.” He grinned suggestively. “And we haven’t been romantic on a beach in years.”
Elaine started to protest but changed her mind before an expression of doubt even clouded her face. She had been silly enough for a while; it was time to start acting like an adult. “Best idea you’ve come up with since we got here,” she said with a wink. “I’ll go up and get our coats.”
A few minutes later they were on the beach, and as she watched the moonlight glisten on the water, Elaine was glad she’d put aside her trepidations. The steady rhythm of the surf, soft tonight in the stillness, soothed her. She took Brad’s hand.
“Let’s walk up to the house,” she said. “I’ll bet it’s beautiful in the moonlight.”
They walked slowly, enjoying the night-quiet. When they came to the rocky stretch just before Sod Beach, they moved with particular care, hoping for a glimpse of the otter family. But there was nothing except a sudden clattering sound from somewhere overhead. They looked up in time to see the silhouette of an owl as it left the branch of a tree, swooping low, then beating its way up to cruise over the beach.
“We won’t see the otters tonight,” Brad commented. “They’ll have packed the pups off somewhere.”
“He’s so big,” Elaine said as the owl disappeared. “His wingspan must be six feet.”
“Gives him lots of glide. That way his prey doesn’t have any warning before he dives.”
They rounded the point and Sod Beach suddenly lay before them, its vibrant colors flattened by the darkness to dramatic shades of black and white. The sand seemed to gleam with a fluorescence of its own in the silvered light, and the bank of driftwood lining the length of the beach glowed whitely. In the midst of the pale expanse of sand, the old house stood, dark-shadowed, aloof from the eerie moonlight that bathed its surroundings.
“It’s like a fantasy,” Elaine whispered. “I’ve never seen anything so beautiful.”
Brad said nothing but pulled his wife close to him. They stood for a long time, trying to comprehend the almost unearthly beauty of the place and listening to the soft music of the gentle surf. Finally they walked out onto the beach, leaving a double row of footprints neatly embedded in the otherwise unmarred smooth damp sand.
They circled the house, but widely, as if unwilling to come close enough to discover the flaws in the ancient structure. Neither of them suggested going in, certain that the tired remains of the last tenancy would pull them away from the magic of the night Instead, after completing their survey of their new home, they continued walking up the beach until, by mutual but unspoken consent, they settled themselves on the sand, leaning against one of the massive driftwood stumps.
“I take it all back,” Elaine said. “This place is paradise.”
Brad reached in his coat pocket and pulled a pipe and some tobacco from its depths. He stuffed the pipe, lit it, put the tobacco back in his pocket, and stared out to sea.
“I’ve been thinking,” he said. “I’m going to change the thrust of the book.”
Elaine stirred against him, then settled in closer. “What made you think of that?”
“Lots of things. This place. Robby Palmer.”
“Robby Palmer?” Elaine sat up, looking sharply at her husband. “That’s a hell of a change, from bio-rhythms to Robby Palmer!”
“Not necessarily. There’s something about this place, something that affects everybody here one way or another. Who knows? It might have something to do with bio-rhythms. And if I can find out, it would make a great book. Particularly if I can use Robby Palmer to tie it all together. Think of it: a place — this place — where
