“It might be from the boy’s trunks,” I said.
“Oh,” he said. “No. His trunks are plaid, not solid.”He looked distracted as he handed the cloth back to me. “But thanks for trying and for keeping your eyes open.” He started toward the parking lot at a run, and Isabel walked up to me, frowning.
“Don’t bug him, Jules,” she said. Lifting her hair off her neck, she slipped a rubber band around it to form a sloppy ponytail. “This is an emergency. There’s no time to fool around.”
“I know it’s an emergency,” I said, and I walked away from her, annoyed.
“Come on, Julie,” my mother called again. She was folding the blanket and I walked over to help her.
“I want to stay, Mom,” I said, taking the hem of the blanket in my hands.
“You’ll only get in the way.”
“I won’t,” I said. “I promise.”
My mother took the folded blanket into her arms and looked around us. People were still huddled together in small groups, talking. Some of the adults were racing this way and that, searching for the boy, I guessed, although the beach was so small you could nearly see all of it from where we were standing. The only areas hidden from view were the patches of tall beach grass at either end of the sandy crescent, and I watched a couple of women disappear into them, calling, “Donnnnneeeee! Donnnnneeeee!”
I heard sirens in the distance and looked toward the road. Ned and Isabel and a few other people stood in the parking lot, and Ned waved at the ambulance and the police car as they came into view.
“Please, Mommy.” Lucy grabbed our mother’s arm. “I want to go home.”
Lucy hated the sound of sirens. They must have reminded her of riding in the ambulance after the long-ago accident she’d been in with our mother.
“All right,” Mom said. “Pick up the thermos and we’ll leave. Julie, you can stay, but be sure you let the police do their job.”
“I will.”
“And be home by three. Not a second later, all right?”
A couple of men walked past us, one of them saying to the other that the bay might need to be dragged.
“What does that mean?” Lucy asked.
“Never mind,” my mother said. She picked up her beach bag and I saw tears in her eyes. She probably thought the boy was dead.
My mother and Lucy headed for the parking lot and I looked around me, trying to figure out what to do. My gaze lit on the pier. No one was out there, and I wondered if I could get a better look at the water from the end of it. I started running in that direction as a second police car pulled into the parking lot.
By the time I reached the end of the pier, there were no children at all in the water. Adults waded in the shallow section, eyes downcast as they looked for the little boy’s body. I studied the water below the pier, thinking that if the boy had made it onto the pier and then fallen in, I might see him under the water’s surface. But the water was too dark and, after a while, my eyes hurt from trying to pierce it.
I walked back down the pier toward the beach, and when I reached the area where the wood of the pier met the sand, I saw small footprints. They headed away from the beach toward the parking lot and they were the only set of footprints going in that direction. I followed them to where they disappeared into the crushed shells of the parking lot. Even when I got down on my knees and looked very closely, I could see how the bleached white bits of shell had been disturbed by tiny feet. I followed the footprints across the entire width of the parking lot, heading toward the clubhouse which was a nice, woody-smelling building where the kids in the area could play bingo and other games on rainy days. I picked the footprints up again in the sand at the other end of the parking lot. It was almost too easy. The footprints led directly to the rear of the clubhouse and stopped short at the lattice that enclosed the building’s crawl space. I tugged at one of the seams in the lattice and it pulled away easily. Kneeling down, I crawled inside, and there I found little Donnie Jakes, sound asleep on the cool, shaded sand.
I got a ride home a little after three from a policeman named Officer Davis, to whom I’d turned over the boy after I found him. Officer Davis walked me to my front door and told my mother that I had found Donnie Jakes, alive and well. Mom burst into tears, and it took me a while to realize it was not my role in finding him that made her cry, but rather that the child, even though he was a stranger to her, was safe.
“We’d have found him eventually,” Officer Davis said to her, once she’d mopped the tears from her face with a tissue, “but Julie here saved us a lot of work.” He told her I was an excellent sleuth. He told her I was a hero.
The next day, the Ocean County Leader ran the following headline on its front page: Boy Found Unharmed. The first sentence of the article was something like, Twelve-year-old Julie Bauer, aka the Nancy Drew of Bay Head Shores, helped police locate three-year old Donald P. Jakes, who had wandered off from his parents’ blanket on the BHS beach.
Within twenty-four hours, everyone knew my name. The mayor called to thank me, telling me once again that I was a hero, and Daddy came to the bungalow a day early to take us all out to dinner to celebrate. I was full of pride and self-importance, and I started thinking of myself as charmed, as though I could do no wrong. If only that had been the case.
CHAPTER 25
Julie
“I told him.” Ethan’s voice was a soft monotone on my speaker phone.
I was sitting at my desk, once again attempting to work on Chapter Four, and I quickly picked up the receiver.
“What did he say?” I asked. “And how are you?” I’d been waiting for his call, knowing he planned to talk to his father this morning. I had not yet gotten up the courage to call my mother.
“I’m fine,” he said, “but I won’t pretend it was easy.”
“Did you go to his house?” I knew that had been his plan.
“Uh-huh. I told him I’d bring over some pastries for breakfast and I think he knew something was up. So, we sat in his kitchen, and first I told him about Ned’s letter. He looked…God, he looked awful, Julie. Shocked. His face was all…it just crumpled in on itself. I told him I didn’t think it meant that Ned had done it, and he started yelling…well not yelling, exactly, but he said how he knew Ned didn’t do it better than anyone, because he’d been with Ned that night, just like he told the police. And then he said, ‘I hope you didn’t do anything with that letter. We should burn it.’”
I winced. “Oh, Ethan,” I said.
“I told him that I took it to the police and that they spoke with you and me and that they’ve reopened the case and will probably want to talk with him.” The words came out in that monotone again. He sounded tired.
“What did he say?”
Ethan sighed. “He got up and walked around the kitchen for a while. He limps. Man, it just about breaks my heart to see how fast he’s aged since my mother died. He said it seems unfair that Ned’s not here to defend himself. He kept asking me why I took it. ‘Why did you feel the need to take it?’ he kept saying. I told him I had to take it, that it was the only decent thing to do.”
“Of course,” I murmured, reassuring myself that it had been the right thing, even with the authorities looking in my direction for their suspect.
“I knew he’d finally see it that way,” Ethan said. “He’s always had this strong sense of justice. Of right and wrong. And finally he sat down again and said he wished I hadn’t, but that he understood. He had tears in his eyes and I asked him why and he said he was thinking about George Lewis and his family. He looked like he was going to…I don’t know. Fall apart, or something. I felt like I was killing him, Julie.”
The way he said my name made me feel close to him. I wished he were sitting next to me so I could wrap my arms around him.
“He finally said I did the right thing and that he’ll be glad to talk to the police because he’s the only voice Ned has now. He’s afraid the finger’s going to end up pointing at Ned anyhow, no matter
what he says.”
“I’m sorry it was so hard,” I said. “For both of you.”
“Thanks,” he said. “I feel relieved that he knows now. That he heard it from me and not the police. When do you plan to tell your mother?”
“Today,” I said, knowing I couldn’t put it off any longer. “I’ve got to get it over with.”
“Do you want me to come up there?” he asked. “I could be with you when you tell her.”
I smiled at his offer. It was tempting; I wanted to see him again. But I knew this was something I had to do alone.
“I’ll be okay, thanks,” I said. “I’ll let you know how it goes.”
I walked the two blocks to my mother’s house as soon as I got off the phone with Ethan. I found her in the backyard where she was clipping blue hydrangea blossoms to bring into the house, and she looked up in surprise when she spotted me. I didn’t often drop in unannounced.
“Julie!” she said, straightening her spine, the hydrangeas in her left hand a giant pom-pom of baby-blue. “What are you doing here?”
“I’d like to talk to you,” I said, “but how about I help you with the hydrangeas first?” I reached for the blooms in her hand, but she pulled them away from me.
“Something’s wrong,” she said, studying my face. I knew my sunglasses were not so dark that she couldn’t see my eyes, and she seemed able to read the concern in my expression. “Is it Shannon?” I thought she was holding her breath as she waited for my answer.
“No, she’s fine,” I reassured her. “Everyone’s okay.” I put my hand on her back and motioned toward the patio. “How about we sit down?” I suggested.
“Oh, it’s a ‘you’d better sit down’ kind of thing, eh?” she asked, walking with me toward the patio. Her pace seemed much slower than mine. Was that new? I wondered. Was she having problems with the hip that sometimes bothered her? I remembered Ethan’s comment about his father’s aging and understood how he felt.
She laid the bouquet of hydrangea blossoms carefully on the glass-topped table along with the pruning shears, and sat down, taking off her gardening gloves.
“Well?” She looked at me.
“Remember a couple of weeks ago when I had lunch with Ethan Chapman?”
She nodded. “Of course,” she said.
“And you know that his brother, Ned, died, right?” I wasn’t sure if Mr. Chapman had told my mother about that or not.
She nodded again, silent now.
“Well, when Ethan and his daughter cleaned out Ned’s house, they found a letter Ned had written—but never mailed—to the Point Pleasant Police.”
My mother frowned. “What did it say?”
Here we go, I thought. “It said that the wrong man went to prison for Isabel’s murder and that he—Ned—wanted to set the record straight.”
My mother looked frozen, as though she’d had an attack of paralysis. Her eyes bored into mine, and in the silent moment while she was absorbing my words, I remembered that she had slapped me—hard—the day Isabel died. It was the only time either of my parents had ever laid a hand on me. My cheek stung to remember it.
“Ned did it?” she asked finally. “But Ross said he was—”
“No one knows for sure who did it,” I said quickly. “Ned didn’t confess to anything in the letter.” I took off my sunglasses and rubbed my eyes. “I think it’s likely he did, Mom. I mean, that’s what makes the most sense, but Ethan can’t believe Ned could have done something like that and the police are looking at every possible suspect. They may want to talk to you. I hope not, but it’s possible.”
My mother looked toward the vegetable garden, where the tomatoes were ripening and the zucchini vines were quickly getting out of control. I knew she was not truly seeing the garden, though. Her mind was someplace far away.
“I’m sorry, Mom,” I said. I wasn’t sure what I was apologizing for. Telling her about the letter. Isabel’s murder. Everything.
“George Lewis was innocent?” she asked me, as if I knew for sure.
“The letter makes it sound like it,” I said.
She stared at me for another moment and I wasn’t sure she’d understood what I said. Then she stood up slowly. “I’m going to take a nap,” she said, brushing a few small leaves from her overalls.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
She didn’t answer and I got to my feet as well and started walking toward her, but she held up her hand to stop me.
“I’m fine,” she said. “This all just makes me tired. It’s so…” She looked at me then. “You lose a child and they make you lose her all over again. Again and again and again…” Her voice trailed off as she walked away from me. I wasn’t sure what to do. Should I follow her into the house? Make sure she was all right? It was clear that she wanted time alone. I would give that to her, at least for the moment. I picked up the pruning shears and headed toward the hydrangeas.
CHAPTER 26
Maria
I couldn’t believe what was happening.
All of a sudden, a time I had tried to put to rest more than forty years ago was coming back in a most hideous way. My Isabel. I’d failed her so. If only I had been a better mother. If only I had known how to handle her rebellion.
Was there a day in the past forty-one years that I hadn’t imagined what her last moments had been like? This is what I’d been picturing for all those years: Isabel was at the bay, alone on the platform in the darkness, excited that Ned would soon be joining her there. Then the black boy, George Lewis, appeared on the beach and started to swim out to her. Next followed the part I could never understand. Isabel was an excellent swimmer. Why didn’t she jump into the water to try to escape him? Why didn’t she swim to the beach or the pier or…I don’t know. Or maybe she didn’t see him. Maybe he’d cut through the water so quietly that she’d been unaware of him until he climbed onto the platform with her. There had been bruises on her arms. Did he try to rape her? Did she jump into the water to escape him? Did she hit her head on the platform or did he knock her out with a weapon? I didn’t know. I couldn’t know. All I knew was that my baby had to have been terrified. My little girl had been trying to act so much like a woman, trying so hard to be grown up, to make decisions for herself, albeit poor ones. She thought she was so independent, on the road to freedom from me and my rules. I was certain that, at that moment on the platform, she was reduced to the little angel of a child I used to carry around on my hip. The little girl who called me Mommy, who thought the sun rose and set on me.
Whenever I thought of her final moments, I felt her fear, a wringing, wrenching terror, in the center of my chest. It made me want to scream and pound the walls. It once made me strike my little daughter, Julie. It was hard to admit to hating one of my children, but for a few days, I believe I did hate Julie for her part in Isabel’s death. It wasn’t until much later that I realized it was myself I loathed. But back then, Julie took the brunt of it all. She took the full weight of my grief.
Sometime in the last forty-one years, I’d been able to make a sort of peace with that night. Peace might have been the wrong word, but I’d at least been able to live with what happened and with my failings as a mother. I’d forgiven Charles for his permissiveness with Isabel, and I’d taken comfort in knowing that the man responsible for her death and for those last horrible minutes of her life was rotting in prison. I’d felt such hatred for George Lewis, and that hatred extended to every other black man I’d see, before my intellect would take over and I could remind myself that Lewis was one man who acted alone and was not representative of his entire race and gender. Now it seemed that all the hatred I’d expended on him might have been misdirected.
Had it been Ned himself then who murdered Isabel? That was certainly the implication of the letter he’d written to the police. What else could it mean? I believe he loved Isabel as best as an eighteen-year-old boy could love a seventeen-year-old girl, and therefore I had to assume it was an accident for which he never came forward
to take responsibility. In a way, that explanation was reassuring to me, because Izzy would have been with someone she loved and trusted, so fear might not have been the last thing in her heart. But if it had been Ned, Ross must have fabricated his alibi.
My mind spun as I tried to figure out what had truly happened. Julie said the police might want to talk to me again. How I would tolerate that, I didn’t know. I would tell them that I was a bad mother who didn’t know how to parent a teenage girl. I’d tell them that I was jealous of how my husband adored her and that maybe that got in the way of how I treated her. And I would long to ask them questions of my own, but I never would. Asking my questions could only invite more of theirs, and I had far too much to hide.
CHAPTER 27
Julie
I’d never felt more like a part of the sandwich generation than I did the day I told my mother about Ned’s letter. I was a middleaged woman caught between the concerns of her aging parent and the challenges of dealing with her child. I worried that I was going to fail both of them—or that I may already have done so long ago.
After bringing armloads of hydrangeas into my mother’s house and placing them in vases in the living room and kitchen, I knocked on her bedroom door.
“Mom?” I asked. “Are you all right?”
“I’m okay,” she said. “I’m just tired.”
I didn’t want to leave her alone but was not sure what else to do.
“Would you like me to stay here awhile?” I asked through the door. “I could make you something to eat or—
“There’s no need to stay, Julie,” she said. “I’m going to sleep. Don’t worry about me.”
“All right,” I said.
I made some tuna salad for her and left a note on the table telling her it was in the refrigerator. I didn’t know what else to do. I felt helpless.
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