Barefoot Summer

by Denise Hunter

  Layla grabbed his arm. “Stop it right now.”

  “What?”

  “You know what. You’re telling yourself you’re not good enough again, and I won’t have it.”

  “Let it go, Layla.”

  She shoved his arm. “You let it go.”

  She saw him through the rosy glasses of a little sister. He couldn’t blame her for that. He hoped she never took them off, but he knew better. He knew what he’d done, and so did Madison. Her whole family probably knew by now.

  “You’re a good man, Beck. You’ll make a great husband someday, a terrific father.”

  He gave a wry smile. “Because I had such a great example? Don’t you ever wonder how many of Dad’s genes we got? Even Mom’s. Let’s face it, we got gypped in the genetics department.”

  “We still have choices. We can choose to be the kind of people we want to be. You’ve always been there for me, Beckett. Even when we were kids. You’d show up at my volleyball games and track meets like you were my parent or something. You deserve someone special. If that’s Madison, don’t let her go.”

  He couldn’t deny how much he wanted to believe those words. But Layla didn’t know what he’d done. Didn’t know the secret that had eaten at him all these years. Didn’t know the pain he’d just caused the woman he loved.

  He stuck the menu in the holder. “I’m sorry. I’m not hungry. I can’t do this.”

  She grabbed his arm. “Beckett.”

  “I should get home. Make sure Dad doesn’t pass out on the bathroom floor.”

  “Talk to her, Beck. Couples fight, it’s a normal part of relationships. Don’t stew on it—that only makes it worse.”

  There was nothing normal about this. He forced a smile as he stood, dropping a twenty on the table. “Get yourself the Whole Shebang. You can take home the leftovers—if there are any.”

  She frowned at him. “You’re a stubborn man, Beckett.”

  “Only when I’m right.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  MADISON PULLED INTO HER PARENTS’ DRIVE, HER THOUGHTS heavy. She’d called her mom that afternoon and told her about the journaling, about her decision. Madison also told her she wanted to talk to Pastor Adams about being baptized soon. She’d heard the tears in her voice when Mom responded.

  The other piece of news had to be delivered in person though. If tears were shed tonight, they wouldn’t be happy ones. She had an hour before the final dress rehearsal, time enough, she hoped, to break the news and leave them to digest it.

  She wound her way up the winding gravel drive, taking the familiar turns without thought. It would be hard for her parents to hear how Michael had died. She hated to reopen old wounds, but they had a right to know.

  Beckett.

  Anger and hurt flooded through her in equal parts, followed by a trickle of sympathy. The look on his face, the quiver in his voice as he’d explained. She pushed back the memory and let the others rise high and fast. Anger was easier, more familiar, less vulnerable.

  She pulled up to the house and spotted her parents on the porch swing, enjoying the last days of summer.

  A moment later she climbed the wooden steps, searching for words to soften the blow. After they greeted each other, Madison sank into an Adirondack chair. The familiar squeak of the swing comforted her.

  “Beautiful evening, isn’t it?” Dad said.

  “It’s perfect. Corn looks real good, Daddy. Getting high.”

  “It’s been a prosperous year so far, thank the Lord. I love a good harvest.” He gave her a smile. “Speaking of harvest . . .”

  “Mom told you.”

  “I’m so happy for you, honey,” he said.

  “We both are.”

  “It was a long time coming.” She knew she still had work to do. But she had God and the love of a supportive family. She had a lot working in her favor.

  “I owe you an apology about Beckett,” Dad said. “I was watching him with you when you were here the other night. I guess I misjudged him.”

  Madison sighed. He was going to feel differently in a few minutes. “Thanks, Dad.”

  “You hungry?” Mom asked. “There’s pulled pork and sweet corn left over.”

  Her stomach turned at the mention of food. “Not hungry, but thanks.”

  Her parents, snuggled up on the swing, had obviously been enjoying a moment. They’d taken to the empty nest so naturally, Madison and her siblings had joked with them about being offended.

  “I heard from Jade today,” Mom said.

  “You did?” Madison hadn’t spoken with her since the regatta.

  “She called the store. Sounded pretty good, I thought. It was so nice to hear her voice.”

  “Is she still working at the café?”

  “That’s what she said. I guess she’s making good tips.”

  Dad curled his arm around Mom’s shoulder. “I hope so, what with those city prices.”

  “She’s still sharing a place with her friend, and they finally got a phone.”

  Madison took out her cell and plugged in the number as Mom cited it. “Makes me feel better knowing I can reach her.”

  “I know what you mean,” Mom said. “She’ll be fine.”

  “I miss her. The house feels so empty.”

  The swing continued its rhythmic creak. The wind rustled the leaves and made a shushing sound as it swept through the distant cornfields. A sound so familiar she could hear it in her sleep.

  “Might as well spit it out, whatever it is,” Dad said.

  “Thomas.”

  “Well, something’s eating at her.”

  “He’s right, Mom.” Madison picked at a fleck of paint on the chair’s arm. “I just don’t know where to start.”

  “Take your time, honey. We’ve got all night.”

  Madison looked them over. Her mom’s small frame curled into her dad’s side. Was she going to shatter their peace? She didn’t want to hurt them. They’d been through so much.

  She just had to say it. They were strong. Stronger than she’d ever been. And they had God to depend on. A priceless comfort, she was beginning to realize.

  “I—I found out something recently that I have to tell you. It has to do with Michael. With his death.”

  Dad’s lips fell to a straight line. The crinkles at the corners of Mom’s eyes softened.

  “I was talking with Beckett, and he told me he was there that day. Swimming in the river. With Michael.”

  Mom looked at Dad, and he squeezed her shoulder.

  “I always wondered what made him jump. He wasn’t a risk taker, you know? But now . . . now it all makes sense.” She looked between them. “Beckett told me he dived from the cliff that day. He told me he—” This was the hardest part. “He told me he teased Michael because he wouldn’t jump. I don’t think in a mean way, just, you know . . .” Why was she making excuses for him? She snapped her mouth shut.

  “Oh, honey . . .”

  “Obviously I was very upset with him. I basically ended our relationship. I can’t believe he never told us. Never told me.”

  “Jo . . . ,” Dad said.

  “I hate thinking of it, Michael there, all alone trying to prove something to himself, and just the sheer pointlessness of it all. All that’s bad enough, but knowing Beckett knew, that he kept it from all of us, and kept it from me even when I was starting to . . .” Fall in love with him.

  Starting to, Madison?

  She closed her eyes, caught her breath. Okay. So she’d fallen. She was stumbling-downhill, head-over-heels in love with him. A hapless casualty of gravity. But none of that mattered anymore.

  “Jo,” her dad said, “we have to tell her.” Her parents looked at each other, held eye contact for a long moment.

  A thread of dread wiggled down Madison’s spine. “Dad? Tell me what?”

  Dad squeezed Mom’s hand. He opened his mouth, then closed it again.

  “Mom?” What could they possibly need to say? She could only imagine, and the d
read of it stilled everything inside her.

  The swing came to a halt. Mom leaned forward, set her hand on Madison’s arm. “Honey, there’s something you need to know. Something we didn’t tell you.”

  Mom looked at Dad. He pressed his lips together.

  “What? You’re scaring me.”

  Mom’s hand tightened on her arm. “Honey, Michael didn’t die from diving off that cliff.”

  Madison frowned, her mind trying to make sense of it. “He had a concussion. From hitting the water. He passed out and drowned. That’s what the autopsy said. That’s what you told me.”

  Something flickered in her mom’s eyes.

  Her dad planted his elbows on his knees. “He did have a concussion. Sometimes that does happen from hitting the water wrong. But that’s not what happened to Michael.”

  “I don’t understand. What are you saying?”

  “Honey, he had a condition.”

  “We didn’t know about it,” Dad said. “He’d never had any symptoms up till that day, but the autopsy found it. They said he died suddenly and hit his head on a rock when he fell.”

  “He didn’t drown? What condition? Why didn’t you tell us?”

  “It’s a metabolic disorder, but they said they’d never seen this particular kind before,” Dad said.

  “They identify new types regularly. But it was some type of what they call inborn errors of metabolism. And we didn’t tell you because—” Mom looked at Dad.

  “It’s genetic. And since they couldn’t identify the type, there was no way of testing for it.”

  “Honey, we didn’t want you kids living in fear that you might just . . . drop dead one day.”

  “I could have it, you mean? And Ryan and PJ and Jade too? You should’ve told us.” How could her parents have kept something so important from them?

  “It’s not likely that any of you have it, but there’s a higher likelihood among siblings. Yes, I think now we should’ve told you, but at the time . . .”

  “Everyone was already reeling,” Dad said. “We were a mess ourselves, and it was just easier not to talk about it.”

  “You were having trouble expressing your emotions,” Mom said. “And Ryan lost all that weight. PJ couldn’t stop crying, and Jade wouldn’t talk to anyone. We didn’t want to add to your burden. It was all we could do to keep breathing.”

  Madison remembered well. It amazed her sometimes that people got through that kind of pain and went on to lead normal lives. Still, she wished she’d known. Maybe it would’ve helped her settle Michael’s death, and maybe it wouldn’t have. Maybe it would’ve only made her worry about her own mortality.

  “And we can’t be tested for it?”

  Dad shook his head. “The pathologist hadn’t seen anything quite like it.”

  “I’m sorry, honey, if we made the wrong decision.”

  “We never even discussed it, really,” Dad said. “Just fell into the pattern of not saying anything. And by the time the grief had eased up, the why of his death didn’t seem to matter.”

  “Except poor Beckett,” Mom said. “He must’ve been carrying a world of guilt.”

  Beckett. Her conversation with him replayed in her head.

  Madison groaned, resting her forehead on her fingertips. “I was so hard on him. No, I was awful, I told him—” That Michael’s death was all his fault. That she wanted him to go away. She closed her eyes. She didn’t want to think about it.

  “We’ll tell him the truth,” Mom said. “It’s our fault you didn’t know, that no one knew.”

  Still, she could’ve given the guy a little grace. It’s not like he intentionally harmed Michael. In fact, he’d done nothing wrong at all. Madison should’ve taken a few deep breaths instead of reacting.

  But she hadn’t, she’d lashed out. She, who knew what it was to bear a load of guilt. Who knew the kind of havoc it could wreak in your life, the way it could mess with your mind, with your focus, with your ability to make sound decisions.

  Who was she to throw stones? She’d been so mean and unforgiving. Cruel.

  “Thanks, Mom, but I think I’d better tell him.”

  “Of course, whatever you want. Let us know if we can do anything.”

  She had so much to digest, but she had to get this straightened out right away for her own peace of mind. Was Beckett still at Bible study? She checked her watch, but wasn’t sure what time it ended. It didn’t matter anyway, because she had final dress rehearsal in fifteen minutes and she couldn’t miss that.

  She’d stop by his house afterward, no matter how late it was. The hours between now and then stretched out like a long, deserted highway even as a question frayed the dark corners of her mind: would Beckett even want her back?

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  MADISON’S MIND SPUN ALL THE WAY TO THE THEATER. Michael didn’t drown. He died of a disease—what had her parents called it? Some kind of metabolic disorder? And she and her siblings could have it too.

  What were the symptoms? Were there any changes she needed to make? And then it occurred to her. It had been ten years since his death. Ten years was a long time in medicine.

  When she arrived at the theater, she tracked down Drew backstage and pulled him aside.

  “I have a favor to ask.”

  He finished buttoning his costume. “Sure, what is it?”

  “If someone had an autopsy ten years ago, would those lab reports still be available?”

  His fingers stopped at the odd question. “Sure. Slides and tissues are usually kept for years. Why?”

  “How can I get them looked at again? The cause of death was narrowed down to a metabolic disease, but they couldn’t identify the type at that time.”

  “Your brother?”

  Madison nodded.

  Drew rubbed his chin. “I’m not sure how that works.”

  “Can you find out?”

  “I worked with a pathologist in Chicago. Tell you what. I’ll give him a call and see what I can do.”

  She squeezed Drew’s arm. “Thanks, Drew. I owe you one.” She hurried into her costume. She had to put this aside for the next couple hours and focus on the play.

  They were rehearsing act 1, scene 3 when the alarm sounded. The intermittent signal blared through the theater.

  Madison covered her ears. “Is that the fire alarm?”

  “I think so,” Drew said.

  “Probably nothing,” someone added. “It’s an old building.”

  More of the cast filtered onstage in various stages of dress.

  “Should we leave?”

  “Should we call the fire department?”

  Madison pulled her costume, a bathrobe, tighter, sniffing the air. “Hey, guys, I smell smoke.”

  Everyone seemed to notice at the same time. They scrambled backstage, gathering their belongings and the rest of the cast on their way.

  Drew pulled out his cell phone. “I’m calling 911.”

  The smoke grew worse as they hurried through the backstage clutter. Ahead of them, Madison saw fire. An old mannequin went up in flames. She pulled her shirt over her nose. Despite that, the smoke burned her lungs. Sweat trickled between her shoulder blades as they skirted a burning stack of rugs.

  “Did we get everyone?” Madison asked Drew after he hung up. “Where’s Layla?”

  “I saw her up ahead.”

  Madison coughed. “What about Elliot?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “We have to go back!”

  “He probably went out the front.”

  They couldn’t take that chance. She thought back. “I saw him on a ladder before the alarm went off, adjusting the overhead rig.”

  She spun back the way they came.

  “Madison, no!”

  She ran down the hall. The heat got more intense with each turn. She heard Drew’s footsteps on her heels.

  “We have to hurry!” he said.

  They skirted burning props and a falling curtain before reaching the stage.
Madison spotted the ladder and saw a form huddled at the base.

  “There he is!”

  Elliot’s knees were pulled to his chest, his face buried in his arms.

  “Come on, Elliot, we have to go!” Madison tugged his arm. He resisted, burying his face further into his arms.

  “There’s no time!” Drew scooped Elliot into his arms. “Hurry up!”

  A wall of fire blocked the front of the theater. They’d have to go back the way they came. Madison coughed into her shirt as she scurried past the burning debris, checking behind her as she went. Elliot’s slight body bounced with each step.

  The air was filled with smoke now. Her lungs were on fire, and her eyes burned so much she could hardly keep them open. She could barely see a few feet ahead.

  She didn’t know how Drew was managing. She rounded the last corner and knew the exit had to be close.

  Finally she saw light, and the smoke cleared as she stepped out the door.

  “Oh, thank God!” Dottie said. “That’s everyone.”

  Madison dragged in a lungful of oxygen and gave another long hack. She staggered to where the others had gathered in the potholed parking lot behind the theater. She sank to her knees, heedless of the pebbles digging into her flesh.

  “Deep breaths . . . clear your lungs,” Drew said. “Ambulance on the way.”

  “I’m fine. Check Elliot.”

  The young man was hunched over and coughing hard.

  Some were making phone calls to loved ones. A few moments later the squeal of a siren split the night.

  “There’s the fire truck,” someone said. It pulled to the curb in front of the building. Smoke rose from the back, but no flames were visible. The group caught their breath, watching as the volunteer firefighters entered the building. Madison watched Ryan go in and breathed a prayer for his safety even as she coughed. Dottie had gone out front to assure them everyone was out.

  “What could’ve started it?” someone nearby asked.

  “I saw Wayne O’Reilly backstage about an hour ago. He was smoking.”

  Madison turned to see who’d spoken. Gary.

  “I was working on the curtain mechanism, and I smelled smoke. Turned around, and there he was. Drunker’n a skunk too. I told him to put the thing out.”