Fixing Perfect

by Therese M. Travis

  “Pretty curtains.” Sam pointed to the waterfall of beads covering her window, which faced the street.

  Great. Such an obvious ruse to change the subject.

  She bit anyway. “My dad helped me make them.”

  “Your dad?” His eyebrows headed for his hairline.

  “Yeah. The only time I ever saw him. I mean, I probably did when I was tiny, but I don’t remember. When I was about three, he had an accident, and he stopped talking. Lots of brain damage. He’s been in this home on the mainland since then.” It was an old story to Robin, one that hurt and reassured her at the same time.

  “But he made curtains for you?”

  She nodded and sat up. The pain had eased when he finished bandaging it, and now, the heat that had flooded her chest had cooled. “He got to come here for a month one summer. He brought all these beads with him, all colors of blue and green, colors of the sea. And we spent hours every day stringing beads. Gram said it was his therapy, but for me—”

  “It was a connection.”

  “Yes.” She looked up at Sam, at his kind, sweet face, and for half a minute was almost glad she’d let him know how she felt about him. Because love unexpressed was such a waste. “It was our thing. He did it because he loved me, even if he couldn’t say the words.”

  Sam smiled and let the strands trickle through his curled hand. “What a beautiful legacy.” When the last string clattered against the baseboard, he turned. “I promised Bricker I’d go with him on another search. We’re looking around the foothills. They’ve covered the whole area between Avalon and Wrigley, but there’s acres and acres we haven’t touched. Miles.” He bent his head. “The two scouts could be anywhere.”

  “And Becca.”

  “Right. I hope—”

  “You hope she’s still alive.”

  “You got it, yeah. All of them.”

  “I’ll be praying.”

  “Thanks.” He headed for the door, turned back, and dropped a kiss on her cheek.

  Only after the front door closed behind him did Robin realize she still had her hand cradled against her face.

  

  Sam went with Kerry to meet Robin at the park. He’d left her on a bench and hiked up to Kerry’s house to save her the walk. It probably would have been better to take her golf cart. Next time he’d suggest it, no matter what kind of a glare she gave him. Fully able locals used the carts to get around. Why couldn’t she?

  And it would be better for Kerry, too. He didn’t need to wear himself out walking so far.

  As the two men got closer, Sam saw what Robin was doing. Three baseballs were lined up on a flat stretch of grass, and she smacked each one with her crutch, as though it were a golf club. She wasn’t bad, either.

  “Hey, Robin. You should play golf,” Kerry yelled. He stumbled forward, and Sam moved close behind him, a hand out in case Kerry lost his balance.

  Robin looked up, grinning. “I can drive a mean golf cart, too.”

  Sam laughed. “You should drive it more often.”

  She shrugged and handed Kerry one of the balls. “Did you bring your mitt?”

  “Sam has it.”

  Sam produced it from his back pocket, pulled his own out of the other, and grabbed the aluminum bat from the bench where he’d piled everything. “Are we all ready?”

  “Sure. You want to go first, Kerry?”

  Kerry grabbed the bat and hunkered over the patch of spiky grass that Robin explained was their make-believe home base. “I’m gonna hit it outta the park!”

  “You bet.” Sam retrieved all three of the baseballs and waited for Robin to move out of swing distance before he pitched a gentle ball toward Kerry. After a string of hits and even more misses, he took the bat and told Kerry to sit down and drink some water. “You get worn out and your mom won’t let you come back.” That was enough to make Kerry cooperate, if he had a mind not to.

  “Where’s the picture guy?” Kerry wiped his drippy mouth on the inside of his shirt. “Why isn’t he taking pictures?”

  “I think he only comes to the official games.” Sam watched Robin as he said it. After her comment to her grandmother a few days before, Sam had gone back and forth about telling the older woman about Donovan. Warning her that the other man wasn’t the type she could allow into Robin’s room unattended. Not that Robin would forgive him for saying anything like that, but sometimes his need to protect her overrode his need to give her dignity. So far, he hadn’t said anything. Let Donovan make one comment, let Robin let on she had changed her mind back to liking the guy, or believing he needed defending, and he would.

  Not that he felt completely safe in her room himself. But he didn’t want to think about that, not with Robin watching his face, not with Kerry to attend to.

  “He takes pictures all the time. He took mine.”

  “At the game, right?”

  “No. After.” Kerry wriggled on the bench. “Can I bat again?”

  “In a minute. You need to rest some more.” Robin patted his shoulder.

  And Sam needed to ask more questions. “When did he take your picture? Was your mom there?”

  “Nope. I was walking.”

  “Was that when the creep tried to take you away?”

  “No. That was later. He took pictures when Mama let me walk to the store. On Monday. I got licorice.”

  “OK.” So Donovan was going around taking pictures of vulnerable people and that meant—what? Kerry was an adult, legally. “So, does he touch you?”

  Robin gaped at him, but Sam ignored her.

  “You mean bad touching, right? Nope. Donovan’s a good guy, Sam. He’s like you. He wouldn’t hurt me. He rescued me, remember?”

  “Right. I remember.”

  “When he took me home, he told me all about people who try to hurt other people. Bad people. He said I had to be real careful. He told Mama to watch out for me, and that’s why I can’t go for walks on my own anymore.” He frowned. “Now I can’t get licorice.”

  “OK, OK, I get it. Are you ready to practice some more?”

  “Yeah, I’m ready!” Kerry jumped up and grabbed the bat before he went back to the patch of grass Robin had pointed out. “Is this the right place, Robin?”

  She glanced over. “It sure is, Kerry. Good eye.” She held out her crutch to stop Sam from heading toward Kerry. “You’re a jerk.”

  “What? I just wanted to make sure.”

  “No, you wanted Kerry to say something so you could blame Donovan for everything.”

  She held out her hand for the ball and Sam handed it over. And she spent the next ten minutes pitching it at Kerry’s bat. If Sam had gotten in the way, he was pretty sure she wouldn’t have minded.

  8

  Every day, Becca would sit on her mattress and watch Jake tap around the floor and pound on the walls, trying to find a way out of Mr. Bird’s special room. Jake yelled a lot, too, when he thought Mr. Bird was gone.

  Once Mr. Bird heard him, though, and grabbed his ear and dragged him out the door.

  Jake didn’t yell for a long time after Mr. Bird brought him back.

  But Becca had seen the bruises on his face and arms. That scared her so bad. She didn’t want to ask if Mr. Bird hit Jake. If he told her yes, that meant she couldn’t like Mr. Bird anymore, and if Becca couldn’t like him, that meant she didn’t have anybody to like.

  “You aren’t gonna find anything,” Becca told him after Jake finished trying to rattle the door open.

  “What, you’d rather die?” Jake tried to twist the tops of the door hinges with his fingers. “I want to make him sorry he ever nabbed me and Simon.”

  “He took your tools.” Becca rubbed her eyes, remembering how Jake had howled about losing the things she thought were just Boy Scout toys. “There’s nothing you can do.”

  “That’s not true!” Jake looked like a mean dog with his lips pulled up and his teeth showing. “We’re gonna get out of here!”

  Becca shoved her thumb in her
mouth and slurped. Ever since this boy came, everything had been scary. He made Mr. Bird so mad, and that meant Mr. Bird wasn’t nice to Becca anymore. He wouldn’t read to her, or hold her. He wouldn’t tell her about his robin, his own little bird he loved so much that he would do anything for her. He wouldn’t listen when she asked him to tell her the robin story, the one she got to help with later. He brought food, same as always, but he didn’t tell stories while she ate. He never answered her when she asked about her mommy and daddy. He didn’t care when she cried, not even enough to get mad at her.

  She cried a lot now.

  It didn’t help.

  Jake walked around the room, his arms crossed like he wanted to hug himself. Every so often, he’d stop and look up at the ceiling, or at the concrete floor, or the walls that had no windows, or the light way above their heads, that never went out. And he’d shake his head.

  Becca laid down on the bed and put her thumb back in her mouth. Her other hand went down between the mattress and the wall. The hole was bigger now, bigger than her whole hand even when she spread her fingers out. If Jake found it, he’d tell Mr. Bird. Or maybe not. But if it got too big, Mr. Bird would find out anyway.

  She didn’t want Mr. Bird to drag her out by her ear and do things to her. Spank her maybe.

  And she still couldn’t help digging into the crumbly white stuff. The feel of it under her nails, and the feel of her thumb in her mouth, made everything better, safe, and she dug until she fell asleep.

  

  “I feel guilty coming out here to have fun when those kids are still missing.” Robin adjusted her grip on her crutches. For their foray across the sand, she’d slipped x-cut tennis balls over the tips. Though they kept the crutches from sinking too far into the sand, they did nothing to protect her braces. Those, she knew, would fill with irritating particles and chafe her shins long before she got to where she could take them off. Still, time on the beach was more than worth the irritation.

  Sam reached for her elbow but moved back. “Not having fun won’t help them.”

  “But we could be doing something.”

  “We have been.” This time Sam grabbed her as she teetered but let go once she’d regained her balance. “I’ve been out with Bricker almost every day. You’re praying. You’re collecting funds at the co-op. You’re cooperating with the police. You’re doing everything you can. And we both deserve a break.” His gaze cut to her. “Robin, we’ve been over this. You’re not doing anything wrong.”

  She nodded, concentrating on dragging each foot after the other. The resistance as the sand piled up made her slower than ever. She glanced up at Sam.

  He looked across the water. His eyes squinted against the never-ending wind, but she didn’t get the impression of impatience from his posture. Instead, he had shoved his hands in his pockets and seemed content to take one long, leisurely step to every three of her shuffles.

  She stopped to catch her breath, and he nodded toward the beach. “You can see the mainland today.”

  She peered toward the horizon where a long, low smear of shadow bisected the sea and sky. “Pretty cool to see something that’s twenty-six miles away.”

  “And they can see us.”

  “You suppose anyone’s looking? Even here, there aren’t too many people on the beach.”

  His gaze made a lazy arc before it stopped on her. “It’s the end of October. Probably as cold there as it is here. But I’ll bet there’s someone out there as excited with the clear sky as we are.”

  Robin nodded and took another few shuffles. At this rate, she’d never reach the water. And when she did, she’d collapse from exhaustion.

  Again, Sam scanned the beachfront and turned to her, grinning. “Want a piggyback ride?”

  She pulled up short, wobbling until she plunked a ball-covered crutch tip deep into a sand valley. “What?”

  “You’ll get there faster.”

  “You want to rush down to the water, feel free.” She bent her head to hide her eyes, but the wind whipped her hair away and exposed her anger.

  “That’s not my point. You’re already breathing hard. Look, it doesn’t have to mean anything, Robin. It’ll be like I’m your runner. Just helping out where you need it.”

  That was it? He just wanted to help, and she could accept it on the baseball field but not here? Robin bit her lip and stared at her crutches. She could remember back to when she didn’t have them, when people, usually her grandmother, carried her everywhere she needed to go. She hadn’t started taking steps until she was almost five, after her fourth or fifth surgery.

  She could even remember back to when her mother carried her—here, to this island, to leave her once and for all, complaining about Robin’s weight and saying that she wasn’t even trying.

  Robin had been trying ever since, but now, maybe that meant trying Sam’s patience. He only wanted to help, and he never—almost never—invaded her space or forced his help on her. He asked, and he respected her decisions.

  Refusing just made it harder on both of them.

  “All right.”

  A wider grin transformed his face. Before, it had been pleading. Now, he was just happy. And rather than haul her to his back, he scooped her up, crutches and braces and all, and strode to the water’s edge. He let her down, bent, and untied one of her shoes. “Step up.” He didn’t look at her but remained in a squat, waiting.

  She lifted her foot high enough that he was able to slip the shoe off. He unlocked the brace, loosened all the straps, and let it fall.

  When she let her bare foot touch the sand she remembered the feel of it—gritty and warm from the hidden sun, almost silky and yet full of sensuous texture.

  He started to work on her other foot before she realized it, and within seconds that shoe and brace were off as well. Sam stood. “Leave your crutches, too. Don’t worry. I won’t let you fall.” He gathered her in his arms, with the same clinical detachment he used as her runner, and carried her to the water.

  Oh, it was cold, freezing, delicious and foamy and full of the scent of fish and salt.

  She closed her eyes against the wind and immediately felt as though she were moving. The breeze rushed her body as did the waves. When the water changed direction, she had to open her eyes so as not to get dizzy.

  Sam let go of her legs, and she set her feet on the sand, let the waves pull at them, pull them out from under her. He had such a tight grip on her that she knew she wouldn’t collapse, would never float away from him.

  They played in the waves for half an hour before Sam turned her to look into her eyes. “You’re worn out. Let’s go back.”

  She nodded and let him carry her up through the encroaching tide and across the expanse of sand.

  He set her on a concrete wall and went back for her things. Before he slid the braces back on her legs, he dried her skin with the edge of his t-shirt and brushed away every speck of sand, both from her legs and the braces. Each time his fingers touched her, she shivered.

  “Won’t be too long,” he said. “Pretty soon we’ll get you home where it’s warm.”

  It was while he was putting her shoes back on, and tying the laces, that someone stopped next to them.

  Robin looked up.

  Donovan stood with his camera around his neck. He hadn’t seemed to notice Robin yet, but his expression as he looked down at Sam puzzled her.

  “Donovan,” she said.

  Sam straightened, though still on his knees in front of her, and looked at the other man.

  Donovan gave Robin only half a glance before he focused again on Sam. “Been playing?”

  “Yup. Isn’t that what the beach is for?”

  Donovan’s lips pinched, but he didn’t answer. “I was getting some shots of the mainland from up there”—he pointed toward the top of the cliffs—”when I saw you down here. I wasn’t quite sure who you were, Sam. I thought maybe Robin was in trouble, so I wanted to make sure she was all right.”

  “I’m
fine. I’m with Sam. Why wouldn’t I be all right?” But Robin heard the crack in her voice, and the two men must have heard it as well.

  Donovan finally looked at her. “It just seemed like an odd thing for you to do—go in the water when it’s so cold, and rough.” When she frowned, he went on, “I was worried. That’s all.”

  “Donovan—”

  Sam stood, though one hand still reached to Robin’s knee. “I can take care of her, you know. I wouldn’t let anyone hurt her.”

  “I’m right here, you know.”

  “Of course you are.” Sam smiled, his glinting gaze warming as he looked at her. “And I promised to get you home soon, so that’s where we’re going.” He handed her the crutches and nodded to Donovan.

  Robin fitted the cuffs to her hands and headed for the street leading to her house. More than ever she thanked God that Gram lived close enough to the bay that her street didn’t climb the hills.

  Sam carried his shoes over his shoulder as he paced beside her.

  “You want to stop and put those on?”

  “It’s fine.” He glanced behind him. “Is it just me, or did that guy creep you out, too?”

  “Sam.” She shot him a look full of reproach. “He was worried. You heard him. What’s wrong with that?”

  “I was with you!” After that, Sam was silent for half a block. Only when they reached the short walk leading to Gram’s front door, did he say, “I’m sorry. I guess I’m letting...things...things that shouldn’t bother me get to me.”

  “You think?”

  Sam’s gaze was steady and serious for the half second he met her eyes. Then he looked down.

  “Oh, Sam.” She let one crutch lean on her hip as she reached for him. His fingers met hers, and he finally let her see his face again. “He’s a nice guy. He’s good looking, all that. But he’s not—” She’d been about to say, he’s not you. She shook herself and gripped the crutch again. “He’s not anybody I’m interested in, OK?”

  Sam stared at her for a long minute, and started to shut the door. He stopped, pushed it open again, and leaned forward to kiss her mouth, hard, before he left.