Tim spits on the sand in disgust, but the sour taste in his mouth remains. He turns and heads up the beach to retrieve his bike.
‘Look at that sunset.’
It’s the blonde lady, waltzing across the sand. She places a hand on his father’s shoulder as she leans over to adjust the strap on her sandal.
‘A photo, that’s what we need.’ He snaps his fingers. ‘To commemorate a stupendous evening, and this glorious gathering of friends.’
Tim has grabbed the handlebars of his ten-speed and is just about to hop on when his father shouts, ‘Hey, get back down here. I need you to take a picture.’
When he turns and squints, the sun is a huge ball, suspended above the horizon.
‘Come on, hop to it, or the light will go.’
He considers telling his dad to take a hike, but that’ll make things worse. Like a whipped dog, he scrambles down the rocks, scraping his hand on a patch of barnacles.
Without looking at him, his father hands over the Instamatic.
‘Come on, fellow revellers. This one’s for the history books.’
But two of the couples have wandered to the far side of the cove, taking their drinks with them. So, it’s just the blonde lady and her husband who get hustled in front of the fire pit. His father positions himself between them. ‘Dorrie, come on, get in the picture.’
She shakes her head. ‘Not with this.’ She points to the rash on her arms and chest.
‘No one will care.’ His face is flushed, and his eyes snap with impatience. He waits for his wife to join the group, though she keeps to the edge, standing as far from the blonde lady as she can get.
He turns to Tim, his face dark with sunburn. ‘Come on, come on! Take the picture. And make sure you get the sunset. Okay, gang, this is for posterity. Say cheese.’
Tim lifts the camera and squints through the viewfinder. The sun is going fast. If he doesn’t move quickly, it’ll be too late. One more thing he’ll have screwed up. But the skinny kid’s in the frame, crouching down to look at something on the sand. Move, jerk. But if he waits any longer, the sun will be gone. The four adults, burnished by sun and loopy with drink, flash their teeth.
His hand twitches, and he presses the shutter.
25
Norfolk, Rhode Island
April, Present Day
A woman with a halo of soft white hair peered through the gap in the doorway. Her skin was deeply lined, but her eyes, the colour of toffee, held a familiar spark. It was the warmth of her smile Erin remembered. Not to mention Ruth Davis’ canny ability to take your measure at a glance, before plucking a book from the library shelves to suit the mood.
She looked searchingly at Erin’s face before ushering her into the tidy flat. A large bay window, crowded with airy ferns and pink cyclamen, looked out onto a vast tract of marshland. The far wall was lined with books.
‘Thank you for taking the time to see me,’ Erin said, setting her bag on the floor. ‘You’ve got a lovely place here.’
‘Please make yourself at home.’ She motioned to a plush green armchair before heading into the kitchen. ‘And do call me Ruth. Otherwise,’ she smiled, ‘I’ll feel like an old lady.’ Within minutes, she returned with a tea tray. ‘Does it expose my ignorance to assume the English prefer tea? Years ago, a dear friend from Devon taught me how to make a proper pot of black tea, and I’ve been a devoted tea drinker ever since. I’ve got coffee, if you’d prefer, but afternoon tea is so much more civilised, don’t you think?’ She poured out the tea in delicate china cups with a spray of violets painted on the rim.
Erin added milk and took a sip. Perfectly brewed. ‘Proust would approve.’
‘Ah, Monsieur Marcel.’ Ruth’s eyes twinkled.
The enticing citrus odour of the freshly baked lemon cake was irresistible, and Erin helped herself to a slice.
‘So, you’re a journalist then, or a writer doing a story on Belle River?’ Ruth regarded her over the rim of her cup. ‘I didn’t quite catch what you said on the phone.’
Erin squirmed at having to lie to the woman who’d once saved her sanity, if not her life, when the Belle River library provided an island of calm in a sea of chaos. The memory of the much-thumbed pages of Anne of Green Gables and Little Women still lived in her fingertips. Even now, she had only to close her eyes to project herself into the March family’s cosy parlour, a twin to the feisty Jo, and cast an adoring eye on Marmee. On many a gloomy day, she hungered still for that fictional family’s love and the warmth of the firelight.
‘Actually, I’m a doctor,’ Erin said. ‘A psychiatrist.’ This time, the lies wouldn’t come. Some cake crumbs had lodged in her throat and she coughed. ‘I work at a private clinic for girls in upstate New York.’
‘How rewarding,’ Ruth said, dabbing her lips with a napkin. ‘Helping young girls in need.’
Their eyes met briefly over the teacups before Erin looked away. If she wasn’t careful, she would dissolve into floods of tears.
Ruth murmured something and crossed the room to open the balcony doors. A lively breeze carried the scent of the salt flats into the room.
‘As a side project, I’ve been working on a series of case studies,’ Erin said, when Ruth returned to her chair. ‘One concerns a former student of yours, and I was hoping you could help me fill in some gaps in his background.’ She returned the teacup to its saucer and straightened up. ‘His name is Tim Stern.’
Ruth’s face grew pale. ‘Oh my.’ She fiddled with the emerald ring on her left hand. ‘Tim Stern,’ she murmured. ‘That poor family. It was a terrible shock when we heard what happened. The tail end of the summer vacation, it was, and Don Hickey, he was
