‘You couldn’t wait ten lousy minutes?’ He flings his briefcase onto a chair. ‘I’m at the office all day busting my ass for this family, only to come home and… What the hell is this?’ He eyes the platter of barbecued meat.
‘We only just sat down,’ his mother says, looking anywhere but at her husband. ‘The food was getting cold.’ She stands from her chair, wobbling, to fix him a drink. ‘It was the kids’ idea, the barbecue. To celebrate the last day of school.’
His face is the colour of putty, and he sways on his feet.
‘Whatever.’ He drops into a chair. ‘Give me that,’ he snaps, grabbing the bottle of Scotch from Dorrie’s hand. ‘Christ, what a crappy day.’ His father pins his mother with a look. ‘He’s out, you know.’ He tosses back his drink and pours another. ‘Since last Friday.’
‘Who’s out? Oh.’ Her cheeks flush.
Tim wants to ask who they’re talking about, but the look on his father’s face could slay a dragon.
‘Well, we knew it was coming. What a weasel. How I rue the day I ever…’ His father pokes at one of the charred burgers in disgust. ‘But he won’t bother us.’ Ice cubes rattle in his glass as he knocks back another drink. ‘I can assure you of that.’
20
Belle River, Maine
April, Present Day
The scent of seaweed and brine drifted through the air. Out in the bay, brightly painted lobster boats in yellow, blue, and green bobbed on the water, and a raft of gulls rode the swell. As she drew close to the town line, time collapsed, and Erin was twelve again, dejected and afraid. Perched on a bluff, trying to work up the courage to plummet to the rocks below.
On the road since dawn, every time she passed a turn-off, it was a struggle not to wrench the car around and turn back. But as the miles scrolled past, and her courage grew, the one clear memory she had of her father flickered like a filmstrip in her head. Standing at the helm of a motorboat, wind-tossed and bouncing in the chop, his face pink with sunburn. When he’d turned to say something over the sound of the motor, his voice was snatched by the wind. Three months later, he’d skidded off the coast road on a rainy October night. The car had caught fire on impact, and his body was burned beyond recognition.
Her family had driven up to Belle River for the Columbus Day weekend, where they’d slept at a motel instead of Aunt Olivia’s house because she was having her kitchen painted, or some such excuse. That weekend, the rain fell non-stop, but her father went off with some friends to go duck hunting up the coast. When the news came of the car wreck, she was hustled off to bed with a glass of hot milk. No doubt spiked with something to make her sleep. If there was a funeral, she hadn’t gone to it. When she asked to see his grave, the answer was like a slap. No grave, no plaque. His ashes scattered offshore.
That none of his family had travelled from England to pay their respects was another mystery. Stranger still, no framed photos were ever displayed in honour of his memory. It was as though he’d never been. Floppy dark hair, kind brown eyes. Lime aftershave, and the sharp scent of gin during the cocktail hour. Though she wanted to believe it, with so little to go on, she couldn’t be sure the man in the photo at Stern’s was her father.
Welcome to Belle River, pop. 3,719.
At the first crossroads, she turned right to avoid the house on Gardiner Road. Prison and refuge in turns. This trip was fraught enough, and she wasn’t quite ready to travel down that particular memory lane. Seven years had passed since her aunt Olivia’s death, and for all Erin knew, Vivien had inherited the house. Perhaps, even now, not two miles away, she was holding court in the big front room with its view of the sea.
The weight of the past squeezed her chest. At the first stoplight, her heart thumped like a rabbit in a trap, and she considered turning back. If there was such a thing as a fool’s errand, this was it. What could she possibly hope to find here?
A stiff breeze blew the wind-tossed sea onto the rocks at Nelson’s cove. The tang of salt filled the air. Saturday morning, but the streets were nearly empty. Tourist season was still three months away. A woman with a head of pink curlers covered by a polka dot scarf wrestled a loaded trolley out of the Stop & Shop.
As Erin crested a rise, the bay came into view, glinting like a fistful of tossed coins in the morning light. Farther out, near the point, two fishing boats churned towards shore. In the town, patches of dirty snow crusted the pavement where the sun didn’t reach.
At first glance, little had changed in twenty years. The stone edifice of the First National Bank looked solid as ever. On the corner stood the newsagent where she’d once bought cherry Lifesavers and packs of bubblegum. But a closer look showed the face of change. Where the hardware store used to be was a coffee house called the Dream Bean Café. The bookstore had morphed into an antiques shop, its front window crammed with dark furniture and foxed mirrors. Always a little forlorn in the off season, the town would blossom in June, when the summer people brought a little gloss and glamour to the streets.
She fingered the quetzal pendant and reminded herself to breathe. Nothing to be afraid of. A model New England town, and despite the chill of early spring, it played the part well. Even the wind in the trees seemed to whisper: spend your holidays in bucolic
