“Another,” Robin called.
She stood and walked over, the water cold for a moment, lines of rugged coast stretched far in either direction. She fixed Robin’s sun hat and felt his forearms, warm, they could not afford lotion. “Don’t burn.”
“I know.”
She helped him search, fished a perfect sand dollar from the clearest of water and watched him smile.
Robin saw Ricky Tallow and ran at him, the two greeting each other with hugs that made her smile.
“Hi, Duchess.” Leah Tallow. She was plain, the kind of even features that Duchess sometimes wished her own mother had. Just a mom, not a singer in a bar with her ass and tits out, not the kind of woman men stared at when they walked along the beach.
“We have to go soon.” Robin’s face fell but he didn’t say anything.
“We can run him back if you want to get on. Where is it you live?”
“Ivy Ranch Road.” Ricky’s father, head of grey hair long before he should’ve, the kind of bags beneath his eyes that seemed to get heavier every time Duchess saw the man.
Leah shot her husband a look.
He looked away, emptied out a bag full of beach toys and Robin eyed them, keeping his mouth straight. He wouldn’t ask her, she hated that, loved him for it but still hated that.
She weighed it a while. “You sure?”
“Of course. Ricky’s brother is joining us later. He can show the boys how to toss a ball.”
Robin looked up at Duchess, wide eyes.
“We’ll drop him back before dinner.”
Duchess took Robin aside, knelt in the sand and cupped his face tight. “You know to be good.”
“Yeah.” He glanced over his shoulder, where Ricky was beginning to dig out a channel. “Yes, I’ll be good. I swear.”
“Don’t leave them, don’t run off, be polite. Don’t say nothing about Mom.”
Robin nodded, his most serious face, and then she kissed his head, waved to Leah Tallow and crossed the hot sand to grab her bicycle.
She was sweating by the time she reached Sunset Road, got off and pushed the last fifty. Outside the King house she stopped.
On the porch Vincent sanded, his back bent as sweat dripped from his chin. She watched a while. He had muscles, low and tight on his arms, not the bulging kind she saw on the beach. She crossed the street and stood at the end of his driveway.
“You want to help?” Vincent had stopped, sitting now, a block and sandpaper in hand, he offered out another.
“Why the fuck would I want to do that?”
He went back to work. She propped her bike against the fence and moved nearer.
“You want a drink or something?”
“You’re a stranger.”
She noticed he had a tattoo that showed when he stretched, peeking from beneath the arm of his T-shirt. He worked on for another ten minutes.
She moved nearer still.
He stopped, sat again. “That man … the other night, you know him?”
“He looks at me like he knows me.”
“Does he stop by often?”
“More and more lately.” She wiped sweat from her head with the back of her arm.
“You want me to tell Walk?”
“I don’t want anything from you.”
“You got anyone else you can call?”
“I’m an outlaw, it says so in the records.”
“You want to call me, if it happens again?”
“Dallas Stoudenmire killed three men in five seconds. I think I can handle one.” She shifted her weight and leaned on one hip, then moved nearer and sat on the bottom step, five down from him.
He turned and bent and began to sand again, sweeping his hand, even, firm. She reached out, took the other block and got to work on her step.
“How come you don’t sell this shitty house?”
He knelt like he was praying before the old place.
“People say … I mean, I heard them in Rosie’s and they were saying you could get a million bucks or something crazy. And you want to stay here.”
He looked behind at the house, for so long it was like he could see something she could not. “My great-grandfather built this house. This town, Cape Haven, when Walk drove me in I was glad I still knew parts of it. It’s not just the vacationers that changed, it’s …” He paused like he did not know what to say. “I didn’t think I was all bad, back then. When I see it, when I look back that far I see someone that wasn’t all bad.”
“And now?”
“Prison has a way of turning the light out. And this house it’s … a small flame maybe, but it’s still burning. If I let it go, if I let that last light go, then it’s all dark, and I won’t be able to see it anymore.”
“See what?”
“You ever think people look at you but don’t really see you?”
She let that sit. Fussed with her bow, tucked her lace into her sneaker. “What happened to Sissy?”
He stopped again, this time sat back, one arm in the sun, eyes squint to her. “Your mother didn’t tell you?”
“I want you to tell me.”
“I took my brother’s car out.”
“Where was he?”
“He went to war. You know about Vietnam?”
“Yes.”
“I wanted to impress a girl so I took her out in the car.”
She knew who the girl was.
“After I dropped her home I drove Cabrillo—you know the bend by the town sign?”
“Yes.”
He spoke quiet. “I didn’t know I’d hit her. I didn’t even slow.”
“Why was she out?”
“She was looking for her sister. Your grandfather, he worked nights sometimes, that factory, Tallow Construction. That still there?”
She shrugged. “Just about.”
“So he slept the days off. Star was in charge of her.”
“But Star wasn’t there.”
“I called her. We had a couple beers. Us, and Walk and Martha May. You know her?”
“No.”
“I lost track of time. She’d left Sissy in front of the television set.” His voice had no depth. The rote recital that made her wonder what was left of him.
“How did they find you?”
“I think Walk was a cop even back then. He came to my place that
