by Myra Johnson
“Julie, Julie, I’m sorry.” Micah pushed aside the mass of kinky hair falling around my face.
I sniffled and tried to pull myself together. “No, I’m the one who’s sorry. Here you are being so nice, after I went totally ballistic on you the other day at the resort.”
He gave an embarrassed chuckle. “Not that I didn’t deserve it.”
“Blame it on my concern for Brynna and the puppies, I suppose. I should know better, though. My grandpa’s always taught me to look for the good in people.”
“Yeah, I almost forgot. You’re such a—let me make sure to quote you correctly—an ‘upstanding, church-going, decent-as-the-day-is-long Christian.’”
Now it was my turn to cringe in embarrassment. “A ‘hysterical female,’ I think you called me. Guess I really was over the top that day. You just . . . made me so mad.”
“I think we’ve established that.” He folded his arms on the table. “I’m still trying to figure out what your grandfather could have against me. Unless . . .” His gaze clouded. “You suspect it has something to do with the resort?”
“I’m ninety-nine percent certain it does. Please, Micah, tell me what you know.”
“Wow.” He breathed out slowly. “That’s a long, complicated story.”
“I’m listening.”
CHAPTER 14
June, 25 years earlier
Hot Springs, Arkansas
“Come on, Micah, no one will find out you helped me.” Rennie Pearl tugged at his arm, her huge brown eyes shining in the beguiling way that never failed to twist him to her schemes.
Micah dangled his long, sun-browned feet off the edge of the boat dock. A leafy cottonwood shaded the upper half of his body, while the hot midday sun baked his bare legs beneath the hem of his swim trunks. “But where will you go?” he asked. “Somebody’s gonna find out and come after you. You know they will.”
“Once I get into town, I’ll call my aunt to come get us. She knows how crazy my mom’s gotten. She’ll understand.”
“Then why hasn’t she already done something?”
“Because.” Rennie sputtered and stared as if the question were completely ludicrous. “Because she knows my daddy wouldn’t ever let her take me and Jenny away. He can’t see what’s happening.” Desperation filled her eyes. “He won’t face the truth about Mama, how sick she is, what she’s doing to this family.”
Micah’s insides quivered. Since Jenny was born, he’d watched Rennie grow more and more desperate, and this summer it had peaked. All Rennie could talk about was getting away—getting Jenny away. She wanted Micah to take her and Jenny out on his parents’ boat, motor them to the other side of the lake, drop them at one of the busy public marinas, and then pretend to the world he knew nothing of their whereabouts.
Rennie’s plan sounded easy enough. Micah’s parents had left him at the resort for the day while they celebrated their anniversary at a fancy restaurant over in Little Rock. Two summers ago, George had taught Micah to drive the sleek white fishing boat. The keys were on the dresser in the cottage. The fact that he was only twelve and not of legal age to take the boat out alone didn’t seem to faze Rennie.
“Who’s gonna know? Besides,” she added with an a flirty giggle, “you’re so tall, dark, and handsome, you don’t look a day under fifteen.”
That clinched it. He’d given his heart to Rennie the day she befriended him six years ago. If it would make her smile, he’d risk anything. He shot nervous glances up and down the dock. “Okay. But we have to go soon, so I can put the boat up before my parents get back.”
Within twenty minutes Rennie met him under the green awning of the small private marina at the north end of the resort property. Struggling under the weight of an overstuffed backpack and balancing Jenny on one hip, she took Micah’s hand for support as she eased into the rocking boat. He handed her the smallest life jacket on board, but it still swallowed the toddler. He frowned his concern.
“Don’t worry.” Rennie shrugged off the backpack and stowed it under a seat. She slipped her arms into the jacket Micah’s mother usually wore. “You drive slow, and I’ll keep hold of her. We’ll be perfectly safe.”
“Go boat!” Jenny clapped her dimpled hands. The lake breeze lifted the golden wisps off her forehead beneath the gingham sailor cap she wore.
Micah’s shoulders drooped. He’d made a promise and now he had to keep it. He started the engine and headed the small craft toward open water. Traffic was thick and noisy on the lake that afternoon. Jet skis, ski boats, flat-bottomed party boats, fishing boats—watercraft of every description skimmed the surface, the wakes crisscrossing and stirring up whitecaps. Steering clear of the busiest areas, Micah kept a nervous hand on the wheel and a sharp eye out for the lake patrol.
A pair of jet skis roared past, too close for Micah’s comfort, and the boat pitched like a tidal wave had hit them. He sucked in his breath and waited for the rocking to subside before glancing back to make sure Rennie and Jenny were secure. Rennie’s face had paled. She sat with one hand gripping the side of the boat and the other arm locked firmly around Jenny’s waist. The laughing toddler bounced on Rennie’s lap, unmindful of any danger.
Off to the right, Micah recognized the island where the weirdoes camped. Near the tree-shaded shore, he noticed a break in the traffic. “I’ll head over that way,” he called over the rumbling motor. “It looks quieter.”
Rennie nodded mutely.
Micah aimed the prow toward a spit of land at the near end of the island. As he drew closer, he made out the scantily clothed forms of a man and woman sunbathing on the narrow strip of shoreline. Their dog—the same hairy yellow mutt he’d seen in years past—trotted out to chest depth and barked at the boat until the man sat up and yelled at him to stop.
Jenny laughed with delight. “Goggy! Go see big goggy!”
“No, sweet-pie, no doggy,” Rennie told her. “We’ll see Aunt Geneva’s parakeet soon, how about that? You like Buster. He talks to you.”
Rennie’s anxiety echoed in her high-pitched tone. Micah’s own worries poured out through sweaty palms gripping the slick chrome steering wheel. How much trouble would he find himself in if anyone discovered he’d helped with Rennie’s escape plan? Could they send a twelve-year-old to prison for kidnapping?
He slowed the boat and swiveled to face her. “Rennie, I—”
From out of nowhere a flash of metallic green roared past them. Startled, Micah leaned too hard on the throttle. The fishing boat scooted forward, pitching him off the seat. Still gripping the wheel, he yanked it to the left, and the boat flipped up and over. For endless, terrifying moments Micah’s stomach seemed higher than his head. Then something slammed against his temple and he sank underwater, struggling against the urge to inhale. Seconds later, his life vest carried him upward. When his face cleared the murky green surface, he sucked in several noisy breaths, then coughed violently, spitting out mossy-tasting lake water.
“Rennie! Rennie!” He paddled in circles, his vision clouded by a red haze. Finally he caught sight of the overturned boat, rough waves lapping at its sides. He tried to swim toward it, but the current thwarted him. His limbs felt limp and useless, his brain as mushy as cold oatmeal.
Fighting through his mental fog, he became aware of yelling, splashing, that noisy dog barking in the distance. Two boats arrived, their occupants shouting to him. “You all right, son? Anybody else with you?”
“My friend”—he coughed again and wiped blood and water out of his eyes—“and a little girl—can you see them?”
“Over here,” came a shout. “I found someone.”
“Rennie?” Micah kicked his rubbery legs and strained to see.
“Here, son, let me help you.” A pair of brawny arms reached over the side of a ski boat and hauled him in. He collapsed in a dripping heap. His face collided with yellow vinyl seat cushion before everything went black.
CHAPTER 15
Present Day
My breath quicke
ned as Micah described the boat accident and how he nearly drowned. All I could do was suck in quick, panicked gasps—like the water was closing over my own face and I was sinking down and down and down, into the suffocating green depths.
Micah abruptly broke off his story. “Julie? Are you okay?”
I pressed a hand to my chest and deliberately slowed my breathing. “It’s just—I’m terrified of drowning.”
He came around to my side of the table and straddled the bench. Absently he rubbed my back, as though his thoughts were still in the past.
“The baby. Jenny. She drowned, didn’t she?” I pictured once more the sad, lonely bedroom at the resort, those faded ducks and rabbits gazing on the emptiness.
He sighed, long and painfully. “I’ll never get over the guilt.”
He went on to describe the aftermath of the accident—shivering with Rennie under scratchy lake patrol blankets, watching as divers searched the depths for any signs of the toddler. They found her empty life jacket floating a couple hundred yards away and figured she’d slipped right out of it, her slight form sinking like a stone in water close to forty feet deep.
Then the endless interrogations, the terrible moment Micah had to face his parents . . . and then Rennie’s. The MacDonohoes had packed up and left for home in Fort Worth as soon as the authorities gave them permission. At his mother’s insistence Micah went straight into counseling with a child psychologist, but even years later the nightmares persisted.
“Mom and George did their best to help me get over it.” Micah’s shoulders heaved. “But knowing you’re responsible for the death of a child is something you never forget. In one way or another, it’s affected every aspect of my life.”
I brushed away a tear. “Is that why you bought Pearls Along the Lake?”
He looked at me squarely, his jaw muscles bunching. “When I learned the place was up for sale a few years ago, all I could think about at first was buying the property and setting the whole thing on fire so I could watch it burn to the ground. I wanted to wipe out every last reminder of what happened there.”
I swung my legs around so that my back leaned against the hard edge of the table. “But you changed your mind?”
“I realized nothing I do can ever erase the past. The most I could hope for would be to redeem the place. Level it. Rebuild. Change the name. Make it possible for happier memories to be created there.”
I laid my hand on his solid forearm and wished I wasn’t such a babbler, that I could ease Micah’s pain and convince him to forgive himself, convince him that, in God’s view, no situation, no matter how tragic, was irredeemable.
Do you believe this for yourself, Julie Pearl Stiles?
My thoughts got all tangled up then—my grandpa’s deception, my nameless father. What could possibly be the link between a desperate teenage girl, an innocent child drowning, and the man next to me floundering in a lake of guilt? My head throbbed with the effort to figure it all out. I bent forward and pressed my hands to my temples.
“I’m sorry, Julie.” Micah rested a palm on the small of my back. “I don’t suppose I’ve helped much with your problems, just burdened you with my own.”
~~~
The next few days passed in an oppressive blur. The weather turned cloudy and humid, with thunderstorms rolling in each afternoon as the day heated up. The gloomy skies suited my mood. I kept to myself mostly, conducting my flea market duties with a pasted-on smile for the customers and reassuring Grandpa (without much conviction, I’m afraid) that I forgave him and would eventually get over my shock and disillusionment.
But I began to have nightmares of my own. I dreamed about drowning and woke up drenched in sweat, a silent scream in my throat. More than once, Brynna jumped up from her box, leaving the puppies whimpering and surprised, and planted her paws on the side of the mattress while she licked my face and gazed at me with worry in her sweet, soft eyes.
Her presence was such a comfort. I’d entwine my fingers in her curly black fur, press my nose into the warm spot behind her ear, and inhale the musky-orangey smells of dog fur and flea shampoo.
I didn’t hear from Micah again until Saturday afternoon. I was concentrating extra-hard on ringing up a customer’s sizable purchase and making sure to correctly record items from several different vendors, so it was Grandpa who answered the phone.
“Swap & Shop. . . . Yes, she’s here, Mr. Hobart, but . . .”
My fingers got all knotted, and I managed to ring up a $3.95 volume of Reader’s Digest Condensed Books at $395.95. “I’m so sorry,” I muttered to the frowning school teacher–type standing across the counter from me. It took three tries to void the entry, and all the while I strained one ear to catch Grandpa’s side of the conversation.
“No, I won’t,” Grandpa barked into the phone. “I don’t think—” He glanced over his shoulder at me and lowered his voice. “I don’t think it’s a good idea at all. Leave Julie Pearl alone. Please.” He slammed down the receiver and swung his broom with vicious strokes in the area behind the counter.
I couldn’t finish with my customer soon enough. “Thank you, come again,” I muttered as I shoved the cash drawer shut and dropped the receipt into one of her bags. The gray-haired lady glared from beneath raised brows and marched out, setting the brass bells clanging.
“What was that all about?” I stepped in front of Grandpa. “Aren’t I an adult? Can’t I decide for myself who I talk to?”
He froze and looked up at me with sad, rheumy eyes. “Of course you can, Julie Pearl. I’m sorry. Sorry for you, sorry for poor Angie, sorry for . . .” His whole frame drooped. “Shoulda known I couldn’t hide the truth from you forever. Shoulda never let her convince me to try.”
Steeped in such emotional chaos all week, I’d been avoiding the one question Grandpa still hadn’t given me a satisfactory answer to—why he so vehemently opposed my spending time with Micah. And I was more convinced than ever that it had something to do with that little girl’s drowning.
Across the way, I spotted Katy Harcourt running a feather duster across a rack of her slower-moving merchandise. “Katy, can you watch the front for a bit?”
“Sure thing, sugar-pie.”
While she moseyed up to the counter, I took Grandpa by the hand and tugged him toward the workroom at the back of the shop. Amidst racks of cleaning supplies, soft drink cases, and giant cans of nacho cheese, I pried open a folding chair and sat Grandpa down in it.
“Okay, then.” I planted myself in front of him. “Tell me everything. Tell me exactly what you have against Micah, and what all this has to do with the Pearl family and the old resort and the drowning twenty-five years ago.”
He rubbed the side of his hand across his dry lips. “Ain’t nothing I know for certain, Julie Pearl. Just . . . suspicions. Suspicions I never, ever want to confirm, because . . . because I might lose you forever.” He stood and started for the door, then turned. His eyes sought mine, and they were filled with the worst kind of desperation. “So please, honey-girl, if you love me at all, stay away from that ol’ resort. Stay away from Renata Pearl Channing. And for the love of God Almighty, stay away from Micah Hobart.”
He marched out of the workroom, his words still ringing in my ears.
What was it he didn’t want me to know? Didn’t he realize the not knowing was sending my imagination down pathways I wished I’d never set foot on?
On the other hand, if knowing meant losing my Grandpa and everything I held dear . . .
All the rest of the afternoon, on through an even busier Sunday and a halfway decent Monday, it felt like something big and powerful had me by the scruff of the neck, the way Brynna grabbed hold of her pups to line them up in a neat little row for nursing or cleaning. And I needed a good cleaning, because the thoughts I’d been having had been anything but virtuous.
Like wishing Renata Pearl Channing had never set her designer-sandaled foot inside the Swap & Shop. Contriving ways I might persuade Sandy to quit her cushy new
job as the dubious Micah Hobart’s administrative assistant. I’d even thought about packing all my worldly goods into the back seat of my Beetle and heading off for parts unknown in search of the useless, no-good father who’d abandoned my mother and me—a man who I prayed with all my heart was not Micah Hobart’s stepfather.
Long about Tuesday morning, while I restocked the napkin dispensers on the snack bar tables, Grandpa came over and pulled out one of the filigreed chairs. He sat backwards on it and rested his wrinkly, spotted arms across the curved metal back. “Don’t you think you’ve moped around here long enough, Julie Pearl?”
“Long enough for what?” The words flew from my mouth with the force of a bazooka. I pressed my lips together in a hopeless attempt to stifle a sob. I’d been doing way too much crying lately, and that just wasn’t like me.
“Ain’t there no way I can have my own sweet Julie Pearl back?” Grandpa made a funny choking sound. “Oh, Lordy, what I wouldn’t give to turn back the hands of time and make you smile again.”
I sank into the chair opposite him and stared at the faded knees of my vintage Guess overalls. “I don’t even know who I am anymore, Grandpa. Ever since she showed up two weeks ago, nothing’s been the same. It’s like Renata Pearl Channing laid a curse on my soul, and now—”
Grandpa shuddered. “Don’t say such things, Julie Pearl.”
“But it’s true, isn’t it? Admit it. The day she walked into the shop is the day my life started falling apart.”
Grandpa removed his bifocals and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I been thinking, Julie Pearl. You need to get away, go find whatever it’ll take to bring you peace.”
I sat back, surprised to hear him suggest the very thing I’d been contemplating. The very thing I simply could not do. “Leave you by yourself? But you need me here, Grandpa. Who’ll man the cash register? What about the bookkeeping? Who’ll fix your supper and do the laundry and—”