“No. Of course not. Nothing is crazy. Nate lives in Wellfleet?”
She nodded.
“And this Pollen character, he lives nearby?”
“Not in Canaan but maybe nearby in Shelburne Falls or Ashfield. At the reading, they called him a local author.”
“Do you know his real name?”
“I forget. Hold on.” She pulled out her smartphone and Googled the honeybee book. “Here it is. Richard Lightcraft.”
“Let me make some calls. Then I’ll go pay your Detective Jacobs a visit. May I take this notebook with?”
“Of course.” She put pieces of paper as bookmarks at the Sapsucker and Cowbird notations. “Thank you so much.”
Tuck finished his breakfast and said, “I better get going.” He walked to the front door. “I’ll see you soon and call if I learn anything.”
She held up her finger. “Wait one minute. I’ll be right back.” She dashed back up to Sophie’s room and took down one of Sophie’s bird nests from the shelf. A perfect little cup made with twigs and grasses, it was lined with soft white cattail down. So delicate. Sophie had labeled it: American Goldfinch. A small, pale-blue egg sat in the middle. Jesse found an empty shoebox in the closet and placed the nest in the box.
Next, she went downstairs and retrieved the Bixby book from her purse. She let the book fall open to Chapter One. She touched the pages, closed the book, and placed it in the box, underneath the nest. She put the lid on then brought the box up to her lips, kissed it, and whispered, “I love you, Sophie.”
She went back to Tuck, who was waiting for her at the front door. She held the shoebox out to him. “I want you to be my soul bundle keeper.”
Tuck tilted his head. “Are you sure?”
She nodded. “I’m very sure.”
“I’d be honored.” He took the box from her and brought it to his heart.
“You’re my holy man, Tuck.”
He smiled. “You said my name!” He gave her a kiss on the lips then tapped the box gently. “I’ll keep it safe until you’re ready for it.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Over six months had passed since Jesse’s trip to Wellfleet with Star. Six months since Tuck had met with Detective Jacobs and since the FBI reignited Sophie’s case. When the authorities exhumed Gregory’s body, they found nothing suspicious. Next, they’d scoured Nate’s home and found nothing there, either, but the old man had admitted to finding Sophie’s lens caps on the beach after her family had already gone home. He was the one who’d buried them near his friend’s grave. He knew Sophie and Greg talked about birds, so in his mind, he was just doing a good deed, thinking the caps being buried near Gregory’s grave would somehow be a comfort to his old friend.
Meanwhile, back in Canaan, the local police descended on Richard Lightcraft’s home and had more luck. Photos of Sophie and Jesse were pinned to a bulletin board. Handwritten notes of a very disturbed man who seemed to have concocted a fantasy about himself and the Bird Girl. Photos of the outside of Jesse and Cooper’s house and Sophie’s elementary school. The written rants of an obsessed, brilliant, but crazed man. Sophie’s fingerprints and DNA in a dark, dirty attic. A cot chained to an old radiator. Splotches of dried blood on the floor, the wall, and the sheet on the cot.
Had Lightcraft killed Sophie when she tried to escape? Had a fight ensued? He’d needed to silence her? Lightcraft wouldn’t speak to the police, so they had begun building the case against him based on evidence at the scene. Finally, the police had made the brutal discovery of a child’s bones buried in Lightcraft’s backyard behind his shed. Sophie’s remains and her binoculars.
Lightcraft was charged with kidnapping and first-degree murder. He sat in prison without bail while both sides prepared for the trial. He was quickly labeled online with both the monikers Professor Pollen and Sapsucker after news of Sophie’s birding notebook spread. Jesse and the whole community felt a collective sense of relief, yet an unpleasant pall lingered over Canaan after the gruesome details emerged. Jesse allowed herself to finally grieve. She took lots of walks with Saint Anthony and cried until there were no more tears. At least she could stop looking.
Another surge of the media descended on Canaan with the discovery of Sophie’s remains, but it lasted for only a brief spell. Life in the sleepy town slowly returned to the way it had been before that day, at least for most people.
At first, after the blowup with the Silvermans, Jesse hadn’t heard a word from them. When the news about Sophie hit, she did get condolence cards from Blue and Beth but then no further word. Jesse couldn’t bear the silence. She’d left them messages to no avail, hoping maybe they would get over it eventually.
Over several weeks, she’d thrown out printouts of the database she had created to log her finds. She’d flipped through a few and studied the chart. It’d looked almost foreign to her. A desperate attempt to make sense of the senseless. Tuck’s words had replayed in her head. “You’re not in control of the universe. Things happen. Bad things. It wasn’t your fault.” And he had reminded her of what she’d said, “Sometimes life is messy, and you have no control.” She kept repeating these words to herself.
Finally, she knew what had happened to Sophie, at least some of the horrific truth, but was the knowing better than the not knowing? It wasn’t closure. That would never really come, but one thread of the story had an end. It was time to move on.
She had tossed away pages and pages then picked up where she’d left off throwing out her finds. She’d set aside anything useable to donate to Goodwill and saved a box of interesting pieces for her artwork. The process was like weeding a garden, a task she used to find satisfying, one where she always saw progress. Once she began to think of her finds as weeds, she was able to pull them from the overgrown garden of her living room and see, once again, the floor, the couch, and the tabletops. She could breathe.
She thought back to her first sweet night with Tuck. They’d seen each other many times since then, plus calls at night, emails, and texts. She looked forward to seeing him and felt more clearheaded than she had in years. She had a good feeling about him. That hollow, empty sensation in her stomach was gone, and Jesse realized what was different. She had dared to let herself feel happy.
JESSE WOKE TO THE LOVELY sound of fee bee, fee bee, the clear two-note whistle of the black-capped chickadee. She got out of bed and looked out her bedroom window toward the back yard. The sun streamed in. Buds were on the trees. Crocuses poked through the dirt. And sure enough, a chickadee sat on one of the empty feeders, pecking at the hole. It had been a long winter, and as usual, Jesse hadn’t fed the birds.
“Soph, you’re right. I’ve been neglectful.” She threw on some clothes, took Saint Anthony, and headed in the truck over to the Canaan hardware store. She bought the largest bag of wild bird seed they had. Bert, the owner, seemed sincerely happy to see Jesse and even helped her put the bag into the bed of her truck.
Back home, she filled each of Sophie’s bird feeders then sat on the screened porch, waiting. Within minutes, a chickadee was back, followed by an aggressive blue jay and a cardinal, its deep red a wonderful surprise. They sang and chattered as they nibbled.
“Okay, Soph. I get it.”
During the purging, she’d decided it really was time to make a change. She’d called a realtor, one of Gary’s competitors, and finally placed the house on the market. It had taken some time, but she finally got a good offer. Cooper was thrilled. Just the other day the realtor called to tell her that the closing had been scheduled. It was really going to happen. Jesse had looked at some houses and apartments for herself. She’d considered renting a cute cottage in town, but something had stopped her. Tuck kept suggesting she move closer to him in New Jersey, but that didn’t feel right, either. She had no idea where she was going to go and no clue as to where she wanted to live, but Jesse was confident she would figure it out.
Saint Anthony behind her, Jesse roamed from room to room, looking at the house as if
she were the new homeowner. The old Formica countertop in the kitchen she’d always wanted to upgrade to soapstone. The wood floors that could use sanding and polishing. She looked out the window at the unstable barn and unkempt gardens. Selling the house of the Bird Girl hadn’t been easy, especially with the recent shocking revelations so fresh. But the truth was the house needed a new owner, someone to care for it as she and Cooper had when they’d first bought it. Someone to bring it back to life. The young couple who was buying it had a toddler and another child on the way. They reminded Jesse of herself and Cooper back when they’d first come to Canaan, so young and full of dreams.
She shook her head then glanced at the kitchen chair where she’d draped her favorite black leather jacket, Cooper’s old jacket that she had taken over.
“C’mon, boy,” she said to Saint Anthony. “Let’s go for a ride.” She grabbed the jacket and her purse then headed outside to her truck.
About two and a half hours later, after driving east on Route 2, she was in seaside Newburyport, with its classic brick buildings and cobblestone streets. Jesse made a right onto an upscale residential side street.
“Fancy,” she said to Saint Anthony, who sat in the passenger seat.
Jesse let him stick his head out his window, and the fresh air rushed in. With his ears flying back in the breeze and his mouth open, he looked as though he were smiling.
“This is it,” she said as she noted the number on a mailbox near the curb and pulled into the driveway of a three-story gabled townhouse, so different from her country farmhouse.
She parked her truck behind an SUV.
“Hey, stranger,” someone called out.
She saw Cooper coming out the front door to greet her. Wearing jeans and a long-sleeved white cotton T-shirt, he didn’t fit in the picture. The city, although charming and vibrant, was certainly nothing like rural Canaan, where he used to say he wanted to live forever.
“Hey yourself.” She had called ahead, not wanting to drop in unannounced and have to hang out with Cindy if Cooper wasn’t home.
She hadn’t seen him since he’d stopped by her house months ago, pushing her to get rid of her finds and put the house on the market. With all that had transpired regarding Sophie’s case, there’d been many phone calls but no real reason to see each other. She’d run through the dialogue in her head a hundred times on the drive over, but seeing him in the flesh made her anxious.
Cooper walked up to her and gave her a big hug. “So good to see you. Come on in.”
“Oh, that’s okay.”
He stopped and looked back at her. “You don’t want to come in?”
“Actually, I came to...” She paused, unable to say what she really wanted to. She reached into the driver’s side window and took out his black leather jacket. “Return your jacket. I’ve been cleaning stuff out, and it surfaced.”
“All the way for that? I thought you loved this jacket,” he said with a furrowed brow. “I gave it to you.”
“Well, not exactly. It’s yours, so here you go.” She held it out to him.
He took it from her cautiously. “Oh. Okay. Thanks.” He saw Saint Anthony’s head sticking out the passenger window of the truck and walked over to pat him on the head. “Hi, boy.”
Jesse opened the door, and Saint Anthony came bounding out. He peed on a bush then proceeded to sniff around the yard. Jesse stuck her hands in the front pockets of her jeans. “So I guess I’ll be moving.”
“Have you found a place in town?”
“No. I mean moving... out of Canaan.” She didn’t know why she said it. She hadn’t known it to be true. It just came out.
“Really? Where are you moving to?”
When she opened her mouth again, the word “Taos” popped out. She just then realized that memories of her time at that artist colony there had been creeping into her thoughts lately. Taos was loaded with like-minded people. Artists and writers. Scenery to inspire forever. That wonderful light. Why didn’t I think of it sooner?
“Wow. That’s far away.”
She nodded. “It is.” New Mexico was about as far as she could go by car. She didn’t know a soul there—a prerequisite, she suddenly recognized, for a new home.
“It is beautiful,” he said. “I remember you loved it there. I think a change will be really good for you.”
“I think so, too. It may actually be a relief. Starting fresh. I can be myself instead of the mother of some tragedy. I probably should have left long ago.” Her new relationship with Tuck complicated things, but for now, she needed to do this for herself. It seemed imperative to get away from the house. From Canaan. From Cooper. From her past. She and Tuck would work it out somehow.
They stood in silence for a few moments. Then she said, “I want to apologize for my behavior... for calling you late at night all those times and being so out of it.”
“You don’t have to apologize.”
That was not what she’d wanted to say at all. Not what she’d practiced on the drive over.
He looked at the ground then at the house and back at Jesse. “I wish things could have been different.”
A little boy came out and ran up to Cooper, grabbing him around the legs and peeking at Jesse shyly. He resembled Cooper, with his lopsided smile and the same close-together eyes.
“Hey, Caleb. Say hello to Jesse.” He caressed Caleb’s head, and Jesse felt a prick of sadness.
“Hello.”
“Hi,” she said and gave a wave. Saint Anthony trotted up to him and sniffed his legs.
Caleb laughed and patted him on the back. “Nice doggie.”
Cindy came out, holding an infant swaddled in a blanket. Jesse had heard that they’d had their baby. Cindy looked great. Sexy and happy. And already skinny. Probably back at the gym the day after giving birth.
Cindy stood next to Cooper, placing one hand around his waist proprietarily. “Hi, Jesse. How are you?” She turned back to Cooper and looked at him as if sharing a private joke.
Jesse felt a tiny “that’s my baby you’re holding” jab, but it quickly passed, then she felt a sense of calmness.
“This is Emily,” Cooper said, kissing the baby’s tiny fingers.
Jesse smiled. “Congratulations. She’s lovely.” Really, though, with her nearly bald head and scrunched-up face, she looked more like a wrinkly cabbage. The baby started to fuss then let out a loud wail.
“She’s got a great set of lungs,” Cooper said.
Cindy saw the leather jacket in his hand. “What’s that?”
“Jess returned my old jacket. I used to practically live in this.”
Cindy wrinkled her nose at it distastefully. “You don’t have to hang out here in the cold. Come on in. I could put some snacks out.” She rocked Emily, trying to quiet her down.
“Snacks. Yes,” Caleb shouted and pumped his fist in the air. He was cute. Looked like he would be a fun kid, someone for Cooper to play with, teach things to.
Jesse shook her head. “Thanks, but I have to be going. This was just a drive-by. A quick hello.”
“I’ve got to get Caleb ready for a playdate and put her down for a nap,” Cindy said. “Bye, Jesse. Nice to see you.”
Jesse lifted her hand in a little wave. She watched Caleb follow his mom back in the house then turned back to Cooper. “You have a nice family.” She paused. “Are you sorry we had Sophie?”
“Are you kidding me? As difficult as she was, I never regretted having her. I think of her every day. I’ve never known anyone with a spirit like hers.” He glanced to the house then back at Jesse, lowering his voice. “I do miss you, you know?”
Jesse opened her eyes wide. “Really? What do you miss about me?”
“I don’t know. We had a lot of fun together. I miss how I was with you. I feel like a piece of me is gone.”
To Jesse, it sounded like he missed himself, how he was then, not necessarily Jesse. “That was another lifetime ago. Our youth,” she said.
He nodded, gazing off
in the distance. “Yeah, I miss our youth. When you’re in it, you don’t realize how good it is. How easy.”
She wondered if he was having a mid-life crisis and if he would ever cheat on Cindy. She thought about their youth. She didn’t miss it now as she had before. Everything that had happened to her lately had shaken things up. Paul Bunyan, April, Saint Anthony, Tuck, her time with Star—it had all loosened up a space in her head and heart, making room for more than just Sophie’s memory. She did think about her early days with Cooper. She missed the laughter. But she also realized she’d romanticized their relationship. All the years after Sophie went missing, they’d never really told each other how they were feeling.
“Well, I guess I better be going. I just wanted to see you again. You know, in a normal, calm way. Hello, goodbye. Have a nice life. That kind of thing.”
He nodded. “Well, then. I’d say mission accomplished.”
Jesse pulled the keys out of her purse, opened the truck door, then stopped. She couldn’t leave yet. She turned back to him abruptly. “There’s something else.” She launched into her story. Her secrets. What she’d told Star and Tuck. What she’d been wanting to tell him for years. The missing minutes. The harsh words to Sophie. Blaming herself. She glanced nervously at him when she was done talking. “Well?”
“I don’t know what to say. I wish you’d told me sooner. But does it really matter anymore?”
And then she remembered what he’d said that day he’d stopped by unannounced. “You weren’t the only one affected by this tragedy. I was there. I was her father. I loved Sophie.”
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