Summer Shadows

by Gayle Roper

  If I went back, I’d always be the one who hit and ran. He shuddered at the loss of face such a situation would mean. No, I won’t do that to myself. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in all my bootstrap pulling, it’s never admit you’re wrong.

  He thought of Johnny McCoy. He’d laugh himself silly before spitting a chaw of tobacco. “You’re no better than me, hotshot” he’d say when he could catch a breath. “Under them fancy suits and that fancy-dancy car and that superior education you got yourself, you’re still a no-good Piney. Always was and always will be, no matter how you try to forget. You can’t rewrite where you come from.”

  Yeah, well, he wasn’t willing to let family heritage control his destiny. The very thought chilled him all the way to the marrow, even in the heat of this sunny June day. There was no way on God’s green earth he was going to be like Pop, sleeping away his life, letting Mom earn what little money they had. On days he was feeling kind, he wondered if Pop had narcolepsy, he slept so much. On the 364 other days of the year, he hated Pop.

  Forget Pop. Forget McCoy. What are you going to do?

  He ran his hand over the steering wheel and fondled the tan leather seats. He loved this car; he really did. It was absolutely gorgeous and handled like a dream. Some psychiatrist could probably have a field day with his affection for a piece of metal and machinery, but it was a symbol of how far he’d come.

  He sighed. It had to go, of course. It was too damaged in too telltale a manner. He hadn’t come this far to throw everything away over his sloppy, sentimental attachment to a piece of metal. He scowled out the window, furious all over again at the bad hand life had dealt him.

  Stupid little girl!

  Okay, so the car had to go. But how? Where? That was the trouble with living inside the law these days. He wasn’t used to thinking like McCoy anymore.

  At the thought of McCoy, the answer—obvious and inevitable—leaped to his mind. The Pine Barrens, that 1.1 million acres that covered much of South Jersey. Deep. Secret. Impenetrable. If what they said was true and the Mafia got rid of all those bodies there, why couldn’t he get rid of a car?

  He’d laugh if he weren’t so upset. Here he thought he’d never find a plus to being raised in Atsion, in the Pines. Hard as it was to imagine, everything he’d hated as a kid was going to save him as an adult.

  Six

  ABBY WALKED TO Marsh’s car with hardly a wobble. She thought she was doing very well, considering. Apparently Marsh didn’t agree. When she veered just a smidgen to the right, he grabbed her elbow.

  “I’m fine.” She pulled her elbow free and proved herself a liar by lurching to the right again. If only she didn’t feel quite so woozy.

  “Yeah, you’re fine and I’m Santa Claus.”

  She closed her eyes for a minute. A sarcastic care-giver. Just what she needed. He made Helene, the sadistic PT, look gentle and loving. Why had she ever given the police his name?

  She grimaced. The answer to that one was easy: She didn’t know anyone else in Seaside except Nan Fulsom, her soon-to-be boss at the library. She had rejected calling Nan as soon as she thought of her. There was no way she was going to get to know Nan while lying flat on her back on a hospital gurney, all woozy from drugs. It was not the way to begin a strong professional relationship.

  Not that she actually knew Marsh, not like you know people you call in times of trouble. In fact, all she knew about him were his name and where he lived. And that he owned a monster dog named after a city.

  “Have you ever been to Fargo?” She put out a hand to steady herself on a red convertible.

  “What?”

  She nodded, feeling like he’d confirmed her original opinion of him. “I didn’t think so.” She lurched to the right another time.

  With a sigh that would have done her mother proud, he took her arm again. This time when she tried to free herself, he tightened his grip.

  She glared at him. “Please let me go.” A shallow acquaintance like theirs meant that she didn’t care a fig whether she fell flat on her face in front of him, irritating man that he was. Of course she’d prefer not to do so. Some modicum of dignity and decorum was always desired, especially after the way she’d sobbed all over him mere minutes ago.

  She glanced at his shirt and saw a wet amoeba-shaped patch over his heart. It’d take some doing to recover her self-respect after the pathetic scene that had caused that watermark. She tilted her head to look at his face—he was one tall man—and saw the unfocused glaze in his eyes. Instantly she recognized boredom and preoccupation. Just when she was remembering how nice he’d been when she drenched him, he checked out. Still, she’d take his ennui over her parents’ smothering any day.

  She shuddered at the thought of their reaction to her hysterical amnesia. That’s what they’d called it in the hospital. Hysterical amnesia. Given what they had told her about her condition when they dragged her from her car, hysterical seemed a good if scary adjective. Should Mom and Dad hear of it, they’d probably sedate her, bundling her back to Scranton in an ambulance before she even blinked. Their cotton batting would suffocate her once again.

  Even the thought of it made her pull at the neckline of her T-shirt for a decent breath.

  “You can’t tell my parents,” she blurted.

  He stopped, blinked, and looked at her as if he were trying to figure out who she was. “I can’t tell your parents what?”

  “That I have hysterical amnesia.”

  He gave a nod. “It’d scare them.”

  “No. It’d imprison me.”

  The bored look disappeared, but the look he gave her wasn’t much better. Clearly he thought she was several cans short of a six-pack.

  “They would coddle me and love me and make me nuts. They have ever since the accident.”

  “They care.”

  She agreed. “While I appreciate it, they go about it in a way that’s killing me. That’s why I’m here, you know. In Seaside, I mean, not here at the hospital. I had to escape or die.”

  He looked at her, eyes narrowed in thought. “Parents.”

  That was all, just the one word, but the way he said it caused her to wonder about how he got along with his parents. Given his chirpy little personality, she wouldn’t blame them if they stayed as far from him as they could. It was probably a case of the more they stayed away, the more sarcastic he got, and the more sarcastic he got, the more they stayed away, ad infinitum. When he grasped her elbow again and began towing her along at a fast clip, she couldn’t decide whom she felt sorrier for: him or his parents.

  When Marsh pulled her to a stop beside a dark green Taurus, she put out a hand to steady herself. You’d think after all the medicines she’d taken over the last three years that she’d be better able to tolerate them, but no. She still got loopy so easily. She hated it.

  “Do you like your parents?” she asked.

  Marsh looked at her, eyebrow raised.

  She frowned. “I’m fine. Tipsy on Tylenol with codeine but fine.”

  He grunted his disbelief, opened the door, and held her arm while she slid onto the seat.

  “Buckle up,” he ordered and slammed the door.

  What a charmer.

  They drove home in silence, but she noticed that he didn’t drive down Central. He went down Bay until they reached Forty-third Street, then cut across to Central. Did he follow that route because he thought passing the accident scene would upset her or because it was quicker? She wouldn’t have thought him so perceptive, so sensitive, but maybe he was.

  As soon as they parked in the driveway, she climbed out of the car before he had a chance to come help her. Then she had to lean for a moment to get her balance. She looked past her steps to the beach, past the beach to the sea. She smiled. In spite of her recent ordeal and her present company, she wouldn’t trade being here for anything. She was surprised at how much this place already seemed like home, staircase, grumpy landlord, and all.

  She walked to the stairs without a s
ingle lurch in any direction. She took a deep breath and began the upward trek, her knuckles white from grasping the banister in a death grip. If the second floor had seemed a long distance before, it looked miles away now. Her bad leg was throbbing and her sedative hangover was still making her dizzy.

  If Madame Guyon could handle all the terrible things that happened to her and still believe God was in control, so can I. Abby pulled herself up another step. At least I don’t have a terrible husband and mother-in-law making me miserable. I also won’t be spending a good portion of the rest of my life in prison as she did.

  A strong hand gripped her elbow, making Abby jump in surprise. Marsh stood beside her, a look of patient martyrdom on his face. More than anything, she wanted to shake him off, but she knew that would be foolish. She needed his strength now, just as she’d needed his comfort back in the emergency room. Was there such a thing as independence?

  Silently they labored up the steps. At least she labored. He never even took a deep breath. When they reached the porch, Abby forced herself to smile. “Thank you for your help. Thank you for coming to get me. You’ve been very kind. I’ll be all right now.”

  He raised that skeptical eyebrow again but said nothing except, “Um.” He turned and ran nimbly down to where Fargo sat waiting. Abby watched the reunion between man and beast with amazement.

  For Pete’s sake, dog, he’s only been gone an hour. Suddenly she wanted Puppy to greet her like she had been missed.

  “Hey,” she called to the cat who lay curled on the one porch chair in the full sun. “I’m home, slightly wounded but otherwise well.”

  Puppy twitched an ear but didn’t move.

  “Yeah, I’m glad to see you too.” She dropped onto the chaise and lay back with a groan. She closed her eyes. Sometime later she awoke with a jerk, her heart pounding wildly, though she couldn’t remember what had scared her. She sat up and looked around. Where was she?

  Recognition came quickly. Seaside. Her apartment. The hit-and-run accident.

  She shivered. Was the little girl really all right? They said she was, but was she? Maybe they just told Abby that so she wouldn’t have hysterics on them. She wished she had thought to see for herself before she left the hospital.

  She rose, walked to the railing, and looked out over the beach. The lowering sun cast long shadows of the houses across the sand. She glanced at her watch. 7:15. With the longest day of the year less than a week away, it’d still be light for quite some time. She loved the long days of summer.

  The water demanded her attention. She watched the waves roll in, breaking white with spume, mildly disgruntled to be reaching shore and the end of their journey across countless miles of open water. Their muted grumbling made her think of the man downstairs.

  She looked down over her porch rail. There he sat, leaning back in a red Adirondack chair, feet on the second rung of his railing, golden hair muted in the shade cast by her porch. He had a laptop computer in his lap, and he was typing like crazy.

  Not that it was any of her business, but what in the world was he writing? She realized with a start that she had no idea what he did for a living. She tried to imagine him as a salesman or an engineer or a CPA. Nothing seemed right. Maybe he was independently wealthy and played the stock market on-line all day. After all, the typical man couldn’t afford a place on the beach. The costs were prohibitive. Why, the hurricane insurance alone would more than break the bank of the average person.

  Then again, maybe he had a large family and got lots of e-mail which he was answering.

  Deciding that Marsh Winslow’s career path was not an issue worth wondering about, Abby went inside. She felt more alert, less dopey than when she’d come home, but still she stopped in the bathroom and splashed cool water on her face. It cleared the last of the cobwebs, though not her memory’s fog. In her bedroom she grabbed her cane with the four prongs at the base and pulled a fleece jacket over her T-shirt. The sand and surf were calling.

  It was wonderful to walk directly from the pavement that ran beside the house onto the sand. She ignored Marsh sitting on his porch, Fargo lying at his side, as she slowly made her way over the gentle dunes. The prongs at the end of her cane sank into the soft sand until the horizontal plate they were attached to rested flat on the ground. Her bad leg tended to drag as the sand pulled against it, and the uneven, shifting surface made the cane necessary for balance. She didn’t mind. Walking difficulties were simply part of her life.

  She kept her eyes fixed on the sea, on the constancy of the grumbling waves, the never-ending pattern of ebb and flow.

  “Mightier than the thunder of the great waters, mightier than the breakers of the sea—the LORD on high is mighty.”

  Remind me over and over of that truth from Your Word, Lord. Remind me!

  The soft grains of dry sand gave way to the packed sand that the tides kissed daily. The walking immediately eased, and she put her cane down. She stood at the very edge of the water, watching the waves throw themselves at the shore, their energy driving them forward until there was nothing left but the tiny wavelets that licked the tip of her shoe.

  But there were always more waves and then more still. They never gave up. Their strength was beyond comprehending, their quest to eat the shore unremitting. And they were winning. Ask anyone who knew anything about the ocean. If it weren’t for the unceasing efforts of man as he pumped sand from the ocean floor onto the beaches to replace the sand eaten by the relentless tides and the ferocious storms, barrier islands like Seaside would gradually diminish until nothing was left.

  She closed her eyes for a minute, breathing deeply, savoring the sea air, feeling her spirit revive. The Lord was mightier than both the sea and the men who tried to circumvent it. Little girls got hurt, sometimes little girls even died, but God was mightier than any and all difficulties.

  She had to believe that, or there was nothing.

  She turned to walk along the water’s edge only to have her solitude broken by a pair of little boys who ran, shrieking for joy, across the beach and up to the edge of the water. The smaller one, a little tyke of four or five, was so excited to be on the beach that he ran in circles, waving his arms and yelling for the sheer bliss of it. His older brother looked at Abby.

  “We just got here,” he explained. “We’re staying for the whole summer.” He pronounced whole summer with an emphasis that Abby understood completely.

  “Me too.” She smiled. “Sounds like forever, doesn’t it?”

  He nodded. “We never stayed that long before.”

  “Me neither.”

  “Just a week, you know?”

  She nodded. “Two weeks tops.”

  “But Dad got rich. Now we can stay and stay and stay.”

  “Sounds wonderful to me.”

  “Is your dad rich too?”

  Understanding that he meant her husband, not her father, she shook her head. “I don’t have a husband anymore.”

  He nodded. “Neither does my mom.” His young face looked sad for an instant, then brightened. “But I still got a dad.”

  “I’m glad.” Divorce, Abby thought, fascinated by this little fount of information.

  “Me too,” he said, his floppy brown bangs hanging over his eyebrows. “Do you live near here?”

  “Right up there.” Abby pointed.

  “That’s where we live too,” the boy said excitedly. “We live in the white one with all the glass.”

  Abby nodded. She’d admired the remodeled house next door to Marsh’s with its wide decks and modern windows. “I live on the second floor of the house to the right of yours, the one with the awning.”

  The boy squinted. “The old green-and-white house?”

  She smiled. “The old green-and-white house.”

  The little guy came to stand by his brother. Sand covered his dimpled knees and a streak of grains ran down his left cheek. He pulled on his brother’s shirt.

  “Walker, we’re not supposed to talk to strangers,”
he stage-whispered.

  Walker looked down at him, condescension dripping. “Come on, Jordan. She’s not a stranger. She’s a neighbor.”

  Jordan peered at Abby from the safety of the far side of his brother. “If she’s not a stranger, then what’s her name?”

  “My name’s Mrs. Patterson,” Abby answered, delighted at the child’s logic. “Your mother gave you good advice about not talking to strangers.”

  “Told you.”

  “Shut up, Jordan. Go build a castle or something.”

  “Come with me.” He tugged on Walker’s shirt again. His eyes slid beyond Abby, and she could see his interest stir. He pointed down the beach. “Who’s he?”

  Abby turned to see a man with a white ponytail sticking through the opening at the back of a baseball cap. He was waving a metal detector back and forth. “He’s looking for things people have lost in the sand,” she explained. “His machine shows him where they are.”

  “Yeah?” Both Jordan and Walker were fascinated. “How’s it work?”

  “I don’t really know, but somehow it registers metals. I think he finds mostly money.” Abby smiled at the little boys.

  “I want to see,” Walker said.

  Jordan grabbed his brother’s Flyers T-shirt. “We can’t. He’s a stranger too.”

  Walker looked at his brother with exasperation. “You listen too good.” But he didn’t pursue the man.

  Abby sighed with relief. Strangers were always a risk.

  Walker pulled off his sneakers and socks, then walked cautiously into the shallows, letting the little waves roll over his feet. He didn’t seem to feel the pain that by rights should be shooting up his legs from the cold water. What was the temperature of the sea this early in the season? Low sixties? Abby shuddered at the thought.

  Jordan stared, bedazzled and bothered by his older brother’s daring. “Walker, Mom said no.”

  Walker looked toward the houses. “Mom’s not watching. She’ll never know unless some little twerp tattles.”

  “I’m not a twerp,” Jordan defended. “I don’t tattle.”