Long-Lost Wife?

by Barbara Faith

  “What...what do you mean?” She backed away from him as though afraid, her face suddenly white. “What are you saying? That I know where the Cantamar is? That I was on the Distant Drum with those people because of the Cantamar?”

  “I’m only asking...”

  He said something else, something she didn’t quite hear, because suddenly all kinds of thoughts were tumbling around inside her brain. Thoughts... and voices... voices clamoring to be heard over his voice.

  “Let’s take the Drum over to Bimini,” Mark said. “Or down to the Keys. Just the two of us. Maybe to the Dry Tortugas.”

  The Drum. He called it the Drum. She looked out at the sea, looked into the setting sun until she was blinded by the brightness. And all the while the word, like the name, pounded in her head. Distant Drum. The Drum. The Drum.

  She closed her eyes, and as though in a dream, she saw herself in the bow of the boat next to Mark. They were laughing at something his father said. His father was drinking beer from a can. From below deck she could hear music, jazz, Fats Waller playing “Muskrat Ramble.” The woman with the short blond hair said something funny and they were laughing again.

  They were all laughing when it happened. The popping sounds. Like firecrackers or a car backfiring. Crack! Crack! Crack! And then they screamed.

  Bright spots wavered in front of Annabel’s eyes, turning black, turning everything black. The darkness closed in on her and she felt herself falling into nothingness.

  Somebody called out to her. Was it Mark? Mark with his funny, boyish grin, Mark who held her hand and made her laugh.

  “Annabel!”

  “Mark?” she said. Her eyes fluttered open. “Oh, Mark. Is it you?”

  “It’s Luis.” His voice was harsh, angry. “Luis.”

  She tried to focus. “Luis? What...what happened?”

  He helped her sit up. A wave of dizziness made everything around her spin. She closed her eyes and waited for it to pass. “What happened?” she asked again when she opened her eyes.

  “You fainted. I think you remembered what happened. Can you tell me, Annabel? About the boat?” The hands that had helped her to sit up tightened on her arms. “About Mark Croyden?”

  “Mark?” She shook her head as though not understanding.

  “Mark and his parents were with you the day of the accident. You saw his picture in the paper.”

  “Yes, I remember his picture, but...”

  Rob, whining and looking anxious, ducked under Luis’s arm and licked her face. She put her arms around him and hid her face against his furry neck so that she wouldn’t have to look at Luis, to see the suspicion in his eyes.

  When she let go of Rob she said, “I’m feeling a little shaky. I think I’d like to rest for a while.”

  “You’ve got to try, Annabel. Try to remember.”

  Tears filled her eyes. “I can’t,” she said. “Don’t you understand? I can’t!”

  He helped her up. “I’ll take you to your room.”

  “No. I... I’m all right.” She had to get away from him. “I can manage.”

  “Shall I send Ambrosia to help you?”

  “No, I don’t want anyone.” She paused. “No, thank you.”

  Get away. Be alone. That’s all she could think about. Get to her room and close the door.

  Rob went with her. He stood at the door of the bathroom while she splashed cold water on her face. And when she lay down, he stretched out on the floor beside the bed.

  “Yes,” she said, reaching down to pat his head. “Stay with me, Rob. Stay.”

  She closed her eyes and put an arm over her face to try to block out the image of Luis’s face, the suspicion in his eyes when he asked her if she had been helping the man named Flynn find the Cantamar.

  She had no remembrance of things past, but there was one thing she was sure of — she would never have betrayed a trust. How could Luis believe that of her after what they had shared? It hurt, oh God, it hurt so much to know that he did.

  Annabel spent the remainder of the day in her room. When, in the evening, Ambrosia came to tell her that dinner was ready, she said, “Tell Mr. Alarcon that I’m resting and that I’d like to have my dinner here in my room.”

  “Be you sick?”

  Annabel shook her head. “I’m a bit tired, that’s all.”

  “I’ll bring your dinner in.”

  “That would be nice.”

  The woman gestured to Rob. “You come on outta here. Better you don’t be bothering Missus Annabel.”

  “He’s no bother.”

  “Mr. Alarcon told me to be bringing him out, ma’am. Said he might be disturbing you.”

  “But he’s not. I really...” But before she could finish, Ambrosia took hold of Rob’s collar and started toward the door with him.

  He hunkered down, nails skidding on the tile floor, whining and trying to get away. But Ambrosia wouldn’t let him go.

  “You gotta come ’long with me, dog,” she said, and pulled him out of the room.

  Annabel didn’t like it, but neither did she want to make an issue of it. She had little to say when Ambrosia returned with her dinner, only “Thank you,” and that, no, she did not want her dinner served on her balcony, she preferred to eat here in her room.

  An hour later Ambrosia came to freshen her bed and take the dinner tray away. “Mr. Alarcon tell me to ask if he could see you for a few minutes.”

  “Please tell him I’m tired and that I’m going to bed now. I’ll speak to him in the morning.”

  “But he say—”

  “Good night, Ambrosia.”

  The woman stood, hands on her hips, frowning and uncertain. Then with a shrug she went out and closed the door behind her.

  Annabel had half a mind to lock the door between her room and Luis’s, but even as she started toward it she hesitated. If Luis wanted to come in, a locked door wouldn’t stop him. She could only hope that he was gentleman enough to stay away from her tonight.

  She read for a while, and when at last she felt herself growing sleepy, she put the book down and turned off the light. The night was warm. Even with the overhead fan and the door to her balcony open a few inches, it was too hot in the room. She got up and opened the door wider and stood for a moment looking out toward the sea.

  Out there, somewhere beneath the water, the Cantamar waited to be found. By Luis? In spite of the heat she shivered. She had been along on the Distant Drum with Zachary Flynn. Had Flynn been looking for the Cantamar? Had she known where the ship had gone down?

  But surely she wouldn’t have betrayed Luis. He was her husband. How could she have betrayed him?

  And at last, exhausted by all the thoughts running round and round in her head, she went to bed and almost immediately to sleep.

  She dreamed of the sea. Not a frightening dream, at least not at first. She was swimming far from land. The sea was warm and clear. She looked beneath the surface into the turquoise green depths and watched the schools of tiny multicolored fish. Perhaps they were called schools of fish because they were like children, she thought, darting back and forth, first this way, then that way.

  She laughed, and because she wanted to see them better, she dived beneath the water, down, down to where the fish played. Like a mermaid she swam with them, laughing when they came closer, enjoying the feeling of lightness the water gave to her body.

  Suddenly, though, it became hard to breathe, and she knew she had to get to the surface. Now. Quickly. Couldn’t breathe. Frantic. She kicked her legs but they barely moved. She had no air left in her lungs. Had to breathe! Had to but couldn’t! She struggled, thrashing about with her arms, trying to kick with her legs. Smothering.

  She struck out and heard a sound, felt a strange softness over her face. Soft, but pressing down... pressing. Breath was going. Brain screaming. Help me. Oh God, help me!

  With the last of her strength she twisted her body to the side, gasped for air and screamed.

  As though from a distance
she heard the sound of barking. She screamed again and heard footsteps running across the tile floor of her room.

  “Missus!” Her door flew open. Rob ran toward the bed, Ambrosia close behind him. “Missus, what is it?”

  “Someone...” Hand to her throat, trying to breathe. “Someone was here.”

  Luis hurried into the room. “Annabel! What happened? Are you all right? I heard you scream. What is it?”

  Rob, growling low in his throat, ran to the door. He barked, then ran out into the night.

  “Pillow...” she tried to say. “Someone... someone held a pillow over my head.”

  Luis switched the light on. He picked the pillow up off the floor. “You had a bad dream,” he told her.

  Annabel shook her head. “No.” She was trembling with reaction now. “Someone...someone tried to kill me.” She looked up at Ambrosia. Ambrosia had come in first, not Luis. Yet Luis had the room next to hers.

  He’d been angry earlier, angry because she couldn’t remember, angry because of Mark, because he thought she had betrayed him. But was he angry enough to—

  No! Oh, please God, no.

  He went to the door that led out to her balcony. “Had you left it open?” he asked.

  “Yes. I... I like the fresh air.”

  He closed it. “Just in case,” he said. And to Ambrosia, “You can go now. I’ll stay with Mrs. Alarcon.”

  She didn’t want Ambrosia to go. She didn’t want to be alone with him.

  Ambrosia left. He locked the door. “Don’t be afraid,” he said to Annabel. “I’m here now.”

  And that’s exactly what she was afraid of.

  Chapter 10

  The morning following what Luis was sure had only been Annabel’s nightmare, he checked her balcony and the part of the beach leading away from it. He did so not because he thought there really had been someone in her room, but simply to appease her. However, a light rain had fallen that early morning, and if there had been any footprints, which he certainly doubted, they had been washed away.

  He questioned the men who worked for him, asking if they had seen or heard anything the night before. Moses and David, as well as Samuel, who had returned on the supply boat from Nassau, were men he trusted with his life. Like the others, they had grown up on San Sebastián and had been with him for years. He knew the other islanders, too. Some of them had sailed with him; most of them had worked for him. He couldn’t imagine any one of them sneaking into Annabel’s room in the dead of night to try to kill her.

  Unlike the other islanders, who lived on the opposite side of San Sebastián, Moses and David had small houses back from the beach and closer to the main house. Though he didn’t think it necessary, Luis asked Moses to move up to the house and had Ambrosia, who shared a room with Meadowlark, fix a room off the kitchen. If there was even the remotest possibility that someone on the island meant Annabel harm, it wouldn’t hurt to have Moses handy.

  She had been very quiet since the incident. She had. breakfast in her room, and though she said she didn’t want any lunch, Luis insisted she eat on the terrace with him. He almost wished he hadn’t, because they had so little to say to each other.

  When pressed, she told him of her dream of swimming beneath the sea among the schools of fish and that suddenly she couldn’t breathe.

  “It sounds like a panic attack,” he said. “You were upset by the article in the Miami Herald. I’m sure that even though you didn’t recognize them, seeing the pictures of the Croydens upset you. Especially the picture of Mark. It’s obvious that the photographs and the story upset you yesterday, Annabel. Upset you so badly you fainted.”

  He waited a moment, and when she didn’t say anything, he steeled himself to observe, “It’s possible that you and Mark Croyden were lovers.”

  “Lovers?” Annabel stared at him. “But you’re my husband. I wouldn’t have—”

  “Wives have been known to cheat on their husbands before,” he said with an ironic smile.

  “But I wouldn’t have done that,” she insisted. “Not to you, not to anyone.”

  He let it go, but because he’d said it, the gulf between them widened even more.

  She took long walks on the beach with Rob. At night the dog slept on the floor beside her bed. And Luis knew that if anyone came into Annabel’s room without her invitation, Rob would attack. That amused as well as angered him.

  For the next few days they had little to say to each other. Annabel still had breakfast in her room and spent as much of the day there as she could. One morning, three days after what she knew to have been an attack on her life, she asked Ambrosia to bring her the copy of the Miami Herald with the story of the accident at sea.

  First she reread the story about the Croydens and Zachary Flynn, then the recap about herself and the fact that there had been an explosion aboard the Distant Drum, probably caused by gasoline vapor in the engine compartment. But why, if the boat had blown up, did she, in her dreams, hear shots being fired? How did she know, somewhere in her subconscious mind, that the shots had come first, then the explosion?

  She studied the photograph of Louise Croyden. Louise...and suddenly she knew, but did not know how she knew, that Louise Croyden had been a dynamite lady, full of fun and laughter and the joyful absurdity of life.

  And that Louise bad a thirst for Scotch. That she could drink ten strong men under the table while carrying on a lively and completely coherent discussion on world trade or the history of the ancient Mayas. Louise, who had been her friend.

  Tears stung Annabel’s eyes. She let herself weep then, weep for Louise and for Albert, overweight, lovable Albert, who delighted in telling off-color jokes. Albert, who thought Louise was the most beautiful, the most wonderful woman in the world. Both of them gone. Lost in the explosion.

  And Mark? She studied his picture. Had they been lovers? She couldn’t remember her life before she’d come to this island, nor did she have any recollection of the woman she had been. But if it was true that Luis was her husband, she did not think she had been an unfaithful wife, that she would have risked destroying their marriage with infidelity.

  But she remembered Mark, remembered how much he’d loved jazz. And Louis Armstrong. “Louis,” he always said. Not Louie.

  She wished there was someone she could talk to, Dr. Hunnicut or pretty Rebecca with her cocoa brown skin and sparkling eyes. She felt so isolated, so cut off from everything and everyone here on this island of San Sebastián.

  This copy of the Miami Herald was the first newspaper she’d seen since she’d been here. Luis had said there’d been calls on the shortwave radio from newspapers and magazines and television talk shows, but at the time he hadn’t told her. Why? Why was he keeping her hidden away like this, so far away, so out of touch with the world outside?

  Someone had tried to kill her, and nothing Luis said would convince her that what she had experienced had only been a dream. There was no one else on the island except for the two of them, the people who worked for Luis and their families. Yet someone had tried to kill her. But who?

  She watched him watching her, and each day the suspicion grew that it had been Luis who’d held the pillow over her head. But why? Why would he want to kill her? Because he suspected her of having had an affair with Mark Croyden? Or because he thought she’d been along on the Distant Drum to help Zachary Flynn find the Cantamar?

  The Cantamar. That was what she dreamed of now, of the ship, of Alejandro and Maria, and one day at lunch she said to Luis, “You told me you had letters that Alejandro and Maria had written to each other. Could I see them?”

  He looked at her, a little surprised, but said, “Yes, of course.” And that afternoon he brought her a small packet of letters tied with blue ribbon.

  “The writing is hard to decipher,” he told her. “And faded with time, of course. But I think you can make out my translation from the original Spanish. Alejandro’s letters are on top.”

  She took them with her out to her balcony to r
ead, and there in the sunshine she opened the first letter. It was dated April 6, 1714.

  Beloved Wife,

  I write these words from Hispaniola and will send the letter by clipper ship that is to embark from here on tomorrow’s tide, bound for the port of Lisboa and from there to Cádiz.

  I trust these lines will find you well. I pray, too, that both Alfonso and Luis Miguel are in good health. I miss them, and you, good wife, more than these simple words can convey.

  Since first I saw your lovely face at Sunday mass there has been no other save you in my heart. You are my love, my life and, yes, my lust. I long for you as a man too long without light longs for the sun. Each time we part it is as though I lose a part of myself, for you, Maria, are truly a part of me.

  I remain, as always, your devoted husband

  All of his letters were in the same vein, speaking of his love and how much he missed her and their two sons.

  With a sigh Annabel put his letters aside and began to read Maria’s letters to him.

  Like her husband’s, the young wife’s letters also spoke of the love they shared. In her last letter she had written:

  Dear Husband,

  I count the days until you return. If all goes as planned you will be with me soon, and only then will I be whole, for without you at my side I am incomplete.

  Our boys are well. Luis Miguel, who each day tells me he cannot wait until he is old enough to sail with you, excels in mathematics and reads Greek almost as well as his professor. Alfonso, too, does well in both Greek and Latin, but I fear not so well in mathematics. However, he excels in drawing and I encourage him in that.

  Luis Miguel will be ten next month and Alfonso will soon be eleven. They are growing fast and I have been thinking, dear husband, that I would like to accompany you on your next voyage. I have spoken to my mother and to sister Consuelo about this and they have agreed, with your permission of course, to care for the boys in my absence.