He jumped down from the Deere and carried Laura outside to fresher air still, then laid her on the ground. Conscious? CPR? Those were the questions that consumed him as he hovered over her, trying to assess the extent of poisoning.
She moaned. And then she threw up. He rolled her to one side, clearing her mouth, trying to keep her from further harm. Don't let this be too far, he prayed, well aware of the long-term damage of carbon-monoxide poisoning. For her sake, my sake, our children's sake ... please. Don't let this be too far.
So absorbed was Ken that he never heard the siren, never saw the strobe cutting the fog until the ambulance was almost upon them. When he finally looked up, he was himself disoriented: it seemed to him that he was with Laura on his boat in a life-and-death storm, and the flashing light was from a lighthouse, a beacon of reassurance in a world of threat. He felt a relief as profound as his previous fear had been deep.
Laura was safe.
****
"You saved my life," she kept repeating, but Ken seemed ridiculously nonchalant about his part in the affair.
She stared at him in continuing wonder. "Don't act as if you were just passing by and had nothing better to do than ram a tractor through a set of garage doors. Stop being so damned modest. You saved my life!"
"Shh," Ken said as the ER surgeon approached. "I'm in enough trouble with my insurance company as it is."
She laughed, giddy with joy despite her piercing headache. She was safe, Snack was innocent, inevitably Gabe would be run to ground. If it weren't for Corinne's hurt and disillusionment, Laura could honestly say that the Shores—the Shores!—were on a roll.
More good news. The physician said, "Your tests are fine. You're free to go. I'll write out something for that headache—"
"Oh, no, thanks, Dr. Brown. I doubt I'll need—"
"We'll take the prescription," Ken said, interrupting. "She may change her mind."
"So conservative; so like a banker," she teased.
Unperturbed, Ken said, "You'll thank me later."
They left the hospital and squeezed into the front seat of the nursery's rusty pickup alongside Corinne, who said with a tentative smile, "Where to?"
She was so sad. So thrilled for her siblings, but ... so desperately sad.
Ken said, "How do you feel about jail? We'll go spring Snack."
"Can we?" Corinne asked, her spirits picking up.
"Yep. I just got off the phone with the chief. He's decided not to press charges."
Corinne burst into tears. It was all too much.
"Why don't I drive?" said Ken softly. "C'mon, kiddo; out."
Nodding helplessly, Corinne climbed down from the driver's side and went around to the passenger side. Hunched over with lingering sorrow, she said to her sister, "Too bad Gabe took the watch from you; now he can claim the prints were from today."
"Corinne! That watch is just frosting on the cake. Gabe admitted to me that he killed Sylvia. His prints are not only all over the toolshed—but on that very high window. Not to mention, on the pen for my suicide note and the knife that gave me the cut on my neck. Plus, new fingerprints or old, there aren't any of Snack's on the watch, only yours and mine and Gabe's. The watch will be one more piece of evidence. Not the whole picture, but a piece of it."
"But you said he yanked out the strand of hair from it."
"A tiny bit is bound to be still in the band," Laura said confidently. "You know how those expandable types are."
Corinne sighed. "Will they find him, you think?"
"Yes. I'm sure of it. He's not the type to swing an escape to Venezuela."
"If they do catch him, how long do you think he'll be in jail?"
Laura said grimly, "Let's put it this way: Gabe won't be running for mayor anytime soon."
"No." Corinne sighed again and said, "He had such plans, such ambitions. When we sat on the porch . ..."
She bowed her head. "We were making plans, the two of us."
"I know, honey. I know."
"Why did he sleep with me?" she asked, anguished.
Because you were willing. For no other reason, damn him, than that.
All Gabe had wanted was an excuse for being able to poke around for the watch and to keep an eye on the compost pile. Courting Corinne gave him his excuse. Taking her to bed was a bonus.
Laura began to rub her sister's back again, aware that it would be a long time, if ever, before Corinne's happiness would match her own. She tried to pull her own joy down a notch, because it seemed somehow mean to feel so much of it when her sister was feeling so bereft.
She exchanged a look with Ken and saw a depth of sympathy for Corinne that matched her own.
And she thought, Here's a man just made for family. Her heart lifted at the thought that someday soon, Corinne was bound to come to the same conclusion and welcome her new relation to hearth and table.
"You know what I think?" Laura said softly to her grieving sister. "I think that Gabe recognized that you had something he didn't, something he lacked. I think that's why he slept with you, Rinnie. Because you're you."
"I'm nobody," Corinne moaned. "Not without him."
"Oh, honey, don't ever say that, because it will never be true. Gabe, even Gabe, would never have slept with you if you were a nobody. He saw your goodness; he knew that you would have forgiven him for Sylvia, and he was drawn to that."
"Then why did he do what he did today?" she said in a choked voice. "How could he do that?"
"He lost it, honey, that's all," Laura said in motherly tones. "He just lost it. He's always been wounded; we all knew that. It was just too big a wound to heal. Sometimes wounds heal, and ... sometimes they don't."
"It hurts so much," Corinne said between sobs, turning onto her sister's shoulder for comfort.
With aching tenderness, Laura continued rubbing soothing circles into her sister's back. "I know, honey," she whispered. "I know."
Corinne's pain was utterly wrenching for Laura to see. It would end, as all pain must; but it wouldn't be anytime soon.
"We'll work it out, Rin. All of us, together. You'll see. You'll be so much stronger after this," Laura gently insisted. "You'll see. And I'll be right there, telling you that I told you so."
She smiled and kissed her sister's hair. "You'll see."
Epilogue
"Married. I can't believe it ... married! I kept waiting for him to say, 'Let me go home and think about it.' "
Corinne's whisper was sweet and giddy; she was trying hard not to bawl. She managed to stop the worst of the sniffles by slapping her hands over her mouth and nose, but her eyes were streaming with tears.
Laura hugged her, cheek to wet cheek. "Married, married, married!" she said, because she so loved the sound of the word.
The two sisters stood up and furtively brushed the wrinkles from their linen dresses before stepping from their pew into the aisle to join the procession out of St. John's Church. Ahead of them walked their brother, straight as a soldier and easily as solemn, his arm linked through the arm of a tiny slip of a woman with dark eyes, a quick smile, and just the right mix of deference and sass to have the guy constantly spinning in circles.
Lucy in the sky with diamonds! Laura blessed the day that Lucy Souza dropped by and offered to set their nursery straight once and for all. Within weeks Lucy was telling them all what to do, and that's because she knew more than all of them combined about how to grow anything and everything.
Although it was Laura who'd hired Lucy, it was Snack who had worked with her day in and day out at the nursery for nearly three years. Snack may have thought he was teaching Lucy the ropes; but it was Lucy who'd actually held the reins the entire time, taming him into a calmer, infinitely more appealing version of his former self.
The church was full. Didn't that say something about the new and improved version of him?
Of course, a great many of the guests were from Lucy's extended Portuguese family in Fall River, including the sobbing woman walking directly in f
ront of them: Lucy's widowed mother. There was a time when Laura would have assumed the worst about those sobs; but today, she had no doubt that Mrs. Souza was simply expressing her joy.
"Beautiful flowers, beautiful, dear," said one of the seated women guests, reaching out to clasp Laura's hand as she stepped over the petal-strewn carpet. The Portuguese knew a thing or two about horticulture; Laura was deeply flattered.
"Thank you, Mrs. Ferreira," she said, squeezing the woman's hand. "Of course, our nursery is now bare."
"I'm sure it's not," the woman said, pooh-poohing the notion.
The chancel, the pulpit, the pews, even the church steps were adorned with an extravagance of white flowers, all of them accented with blossoms of blue. Corinne and Laura had worked like women possessed for two full days creating the charming arrangements; they'd stripped the nursery of lilies, roses, delphiniums, clematis, baby's breath, cranesbill, and whatever else they had in white or blue. Some of the effects were deliberate, some of them purely spontaneous, the inspired creations of two sleep-deprived but romantic horticulturalists who happened to be sisters to boot.
"Love the flowers, Laura," whispered Rosie Nedworth from a pew. "You girls did very well."
"Why, thank you, Mrs. Nedworth."
Food was important, the gown really mattered; but as far as Laura was concerned, it was the flowers that had to come first.
That's how it had been at her own wedding, in the very same charming white-steepled church. It seemed at the time that all of Chepaquit had tried to get inside, and some of Chepaquit hadn't quite fit; but Laura and Ken had remained on the steps to receive everyone's good wishes until her feet throbbed and she had to kick off her heels. It was the last time she'd worn a pair of uncomfortable shoes.
For this wedding—despite the linen dress—she was wearing Birkenstock sandals. She had to: the baby inside her felt as if it were growing by a good five pounds a day. Laura glanced down self-consciously at her feet, but she couldn't see them anyway, so she shrugged and said happily over her shoulder to her husband, "Married! Snack! You believe it?"
"Believe it?" he said in her ear. "I was the first to predict it."
It was true. "Beginner's luck," Laura teased, lifting their awakening three-year-old gently from Ken's cocooning embrace. "Hey, you," she crooned softly. "Who fell asleep?"
"Not ... me-e-e," said Maggie, rubbing her eye with a fist. With a yawn, she turned her face back into her father's broad shoulder and snuggled deep.
"Well," Laura said, pretending offense. "I see who's the better mattress."
Ken was beaming, as he tended to do whenever Maggie showed an outright preference for him over her mother. "She's too much for you to carry, anyway, right now," he said kindly.
Also true. It was hard lately to find a place to tuck Maggie comfortably, now that all the available real estate had been claimed by the baby-to-be.
Laura licked a thumb and wiped away a smudge from their daughter's cheek. "A Shore to the core," she sighed. The child had the family affinity for mud and dirt.
The wedding guests were bunching up now, waiting to congratulate the happy couple. From somewhere, one of Snack's ushers took advantage of the cheery confusion to pounce on Corinne. As usual, she smiled politely at him and began sidling away, despite his effusive attempts to converse about a variety of topics, from her dress to the vows to the weather.
Ken leaned over to whisper in Laura's ear, "George is wearing her down. She doesn't run away crying anymore. I think he's got the inside track."
Laura smiled at her husband's fearless prediction, but she herself wasn't so sure. As steady and reliable as George was—Mister Fixer himself—he wasn't nearly as dashing as Gabe. Did that make a difference? Or was Corinne simply not willing to love anyone ever again?
Corinne, of all of them, had been the most deeply traumatized by the events of four years earlier. When the developer Joe Penchance came sniffing around her a year after Gabe went to jail, Corinne had sent him packing in no time flat. She wasn't ready to let anyone come courting, least of all the man who'd just bought the waterfront property below them that once had belonged to Shore Gardens. Talk about ulterior motives.
But George? He was so sweetly transparent. Laura elbowed her husband to take a closer look. George had his hands on his hips. And then he nodded. And then he scratched his balding head. And then, not knowing where exactly to put them, he planted his hands on his broad hips again.
"Good grief, he reminds me of me," said Ken, chuckling.
"Not at all. When you're nervous, you jingle your change in your pockets."
Ken started. "Woman! Is there anything about me you don't know?"
"Yes. I don't know how I let you talk me into this one," she said, laying her hands on her huge belly, "before that one got out of college."
"Uh-oh. Backache again?"
"Mm. Getting there. I think I'm going to have to jump this line."
"Oh, all right," they heard Corinne say rather sharply to George. But she ended it with a giggle, which left Laura confused.
"What was that all about?" she asked her sister as soon as George returned to join Billy for what was left of ushering duties.
"Oh, nothing. He just ... wanted the first dance."
"Did he now?"
"And the last."
"Ah. Now that is a very wise man."
Corinne gave her sister a withering look. "I know you think so."
"Oh? Have I mentioned?"
Smiling, Corinne lifted one shoulder demurely and turned to take her place in the line.
Laura whipped around to give her husband a bug-eyed look of expectation. Suddenly her back seemed a lot less sore.
"Lucy, you look beautiful!" Corinne said to their brand-new sister-in-law.
Amid hugs and kisses all around, Laura said, "Welcome to the Shore clan, Lucy. I honestly don't know who's luckier, Snack or us."
"I'm the one who's lucked out," said the bride, and Snack all but fell at her feet on the spot. (He had proposed on his knees, they all knew, so it wouldn't be the first time.)
"And Snack, you be good to her," Laura said. "Or you'll answer to your big sister why not."
"You know what, big sister?" said her wicked brother. "In a few more years you're going to stop bragging about that age difference."
"Congratulations, Snack," Ken said simply. "You done good."
"Don't I know it," said Snack, taking his hand.
Ken threw his free arm around his brother-in-law and they hugged, and instantly Laura teared up: it was a moment to savor, a dream come true. Family who got along.
They moved on and exited the little town church. There were bystanders hanging around, of course; everyone loved to see a bride. The sun was shining, the breeze was warm, the flowers were holding up well.
"The rice!" cried Laura.
"Right here in my pocket," Ken said, shifting his daughter so that he could double-check.
"You think of everything," Laura said in wonder.
"I have the time," he answered with a smile. "Banker's hours, remember?"
Indeed she did. And every non-banking minute was spent with his wife and his child. Every once in a while, Laura thought of the life she had almost ended up living back in Portland, and the thought sent her virtually into a panic. She took Maggie from Ken just so that she could hold her child close and convince herself all over again that she wasn't dreaming.
"Hey, look who's finally here," Ken said in mild reproach.
His mother was rushing toward them. Laura was amazed to see that Camille Barclay looked ... hot. Sweaty. Close to disheveled. It was a first.
"I've missed it!" Camille wailed. "What a disappointment. A truck rolled over, spilling diesel all over the highway. Four and a half hours, I sat in traffic. Even for Boston, it was a nightmare."
Ken said, "And yet you coulda come down last night ..."
"Oh, stop being so smug," his mother chastised, and somehow she made him thirteen again. "Laura, you went wit
h the lavender dress for her, after all. I'm so glad. It's adorable!"
"You have a much better fashion sense than I," said Laura, without much hope that her belly was hiding her Birkenstocks from her mother-in-law's keen glance.
"Maggie, Maggie, don't you look pretty!"
Maggie went over to the next welcoming embrace, something she was used to doing. Camille held and hugged and cooed and did all of the wonderful things that grandmothers did when they held their youngest progeny in their arms.
It was Maggie who was the glue that held Laura and her mother-in-law together. Finally: something they had in common. The initial awkwardness in their relationship had begun disappearing immediately after Laura had announced that she was pregnant with Maggie. The women had grown steadily closer ever since, so much so that Laura felt comfortable just then in tucking an escaped strand of graying hair back into the artfully arranged bun on the back of her mother-in-law's head. And when Camille gave Laura a quick, grateful glance, Laura returned it with a warm one of her own.
The women had never discussed either Laura's purloined letter or Camille's forged response to it. And that was a tiny bit of an issue, still, with Laura. But she had hopes—she had no doubt, really—that someday, when they were sitting on a beach together watching Maggie and her sibling at play, they would talk about the letters, and laugh, and say how long ago it all seemed.
She watched as her husband dug deep in his pocket and came up with a scoop of rice for Maggie. Pouring the grains into their daughter's outstretched hand, he said, "Okay, now practice by throwing some at Mommy. Let's see how you do it."
Maggie giggled and heave-hoed the rice across the front of Laura's dress. She enjoyed the experience so much that she demanded another handful, this time to aim at Corinne.
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A Month at the Shore Page 30