by Nancy Star
“So she’s not out dog-sitting.”
“We don’t know that for sure,” Mimi said. “Maybe someone called and begged.”
A knock at the door put an end to their discussion. “Hello? Hello? Krissy here.”
As Mimi walked by to let in the realtor, Ginger got a glimpse of her face. This was a first: Mimi was worried too.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
The fringe of coin-shaped medallions at the end of the realtor’s orange scarf caught the morning light, and the clutch of tiny silver bracelets on her wrist jangled as she held out the plain white box to Ginger. “Chilmark Chocolates. Has Callie taken you yet?” Ginger shook her head. “She will. I see her there all the time. She’s a chocolate fiend like me. This chocolate”—she nodded toward the box—“amazing. Plus the kids they hire . . . you can’t imagine. You might think they have disabilities, but no matter how long that line gets, no matter how annoying the customers are—and by August, trust me, they are all annoying—those kids never lose their cool. They close at the end of August.” She tapped her ample stomach. “So I make up for it in July. Chocolate for breakfast. My guilty pleasure. May I?” Ginger nodded and Krissy picked out an apricot half-dipped in dark. She proceeded with the usual questions: “You the older sister? You the middle?” Her last question was about Callie. “She here?”
“No,” Mimi said with fake cheer. “She’s out and about.”
“We don’t know where she is,” Ginger clarified. “I was with her at the Tabernacle last night, but we left in separate cars. I came home and she didn’t. I’m actually worried that—”
“She always worries,” Mimi cut in.
“Visiting a dog,” Krissy said. “That’s my bet. Your sister does not love every dog owner, but she loves every dog. And the dogs are crazy for her. Someone was just telling me how they were walking their dog last week and the dog took off. Bolted. Turns out he smelled Callie driving by in her car. Amazing.” She directed the next to Ginger. “Don’t worry. She’s got a lot of people looking out for her.”
“See?” Mimi said. “Everything’s fine. Shall I take you through the house?”
“I’m ready.” Krissy helped herself to another chocolate. “I’ve never been upstairs.”
“Good a place to start as any.” Mimi gave the realtor a double-dimple smile.
Ginger bowed out. “You don’t need both of us to show you around. I’ll go get started on cleaning out the shed.”
“She means guesthouse,” Mimi told Krissy. “The boys are going to go crazy when they see it. I’m renting a couple of bunk beds for when they come. Guarantee they won’t want to leave. You know you should try to find a buyer who’s an artist. I’m a quilter, and what I wouldn’t give to have a space like that for my studio. Guesthouse or studio, or both.”
Krissy scribbled notes on her pad. “Did Callie happen to mention if she wants to stay up island or is she open to moving down island if we can find the right place?”
“Neither,” Mimi told her. “Callie’s moving near us.”
“That’s what we’re hoping,” Ginger added. “We don’t know if she will.”
“I wouldn’t count on it,” Krissy said. “Callie’s a real island girl.”
“Time will tell.” Mimi was not going to get bogged down on this now. “Let’s walk through the house, and then look at the pond. I know it’s in the woods back behind the guesthouse. I’m sure we can find it.”
Krissy made another note. “Ponds can be good or bad. Depends. But I need to see it. Nothing’s worse than listing a house with a pond and finding out it’s degraded into a puddle.”
Ginger immediately started thinking of all the things worse than a pond degrading into a puddle, but instead of sharing them, she excused herself to change into cleaning gear. An old shed was an ideal environment for rodents.
Krissy followed Mimi into the upstairs hall bathroom where she proceeded to run through her home-inspection checklist: “Let’s flush the toilet. Can you turn on the shower?”
Ginger went into her room to change. To protect her ankles from any ticks that might have found their way into the old shed, she tucked her pant legs into her socks. To protect her neck, she popped up her shirt collar. She found a pair of rubber dishwashing gloves under the sink and put them on. Then she collected buckets and cleaning supplies from the laundry room. She was balancing a broom, a mop, a bucket with cleaners and bleach in it, and another with sponges and rags when she met up with Krissy and Mimi in the front hall.
“Wow,” Krissy said, taking in Ginger’s getup. “You look ready for some serious cleaning. You expecting mold?”
Ginger hadn’t thought about mold.
“There’s no mold,” Mimi assured the realtor. “This is how Gingie looks when she cleans. She tends to overdo. Right, Gingie?”
Ginger nodded and offered a weak smile. “There’s just a lot of junk inside, that’s all. Callie told me everything in there can go over to the dump, or—is there a place called the Dumptick?”
“The Dumptique,” Krissy said. “It’s a store across from the dump. A giveaway store. People bring all kinds of stuff there. The ladies who run it will take almost anything. I’ve seen chairs without seats. Torn coats. One person’s garbage is another person’s treasure. And everything’s free, so who can complain?”
“What a great idea,” Mimi said. “I’ll come with you, Gingie. Maybe I can find some more clothes for the quilt. I’m making a quilt in honor of my mother,” she told Krissy. “Now let’s go find that pond.” She led the realtor outside and they both disappeared into the woods.
The shed, nestled in a grove of mottled trees, seemed to be simultaneously growing out of the earth and swallowed up by the woods. Lichens and moss collaborated to make a perfect camouflage. Ginger wished she had a face mask. She had a full box of them in her supply cabinet. At work she wore them—to protect the kids—if she had a case of the sniffles. Here she was thinking more about rodents. Rodents carried so many diseases. Leptospirosis. Tularemia. Babesiosis.
She pushed open the shed door and a puff of dust blew into her face. Covering her mouth with her sleeve, she stepped inside. Dim light struggled to get through windowpanes painted with pollen. She flicked the switch, but the naked bulb hanging from the ceiling did little to improve things. She made her way around the perimeter of the room, opening windows as she went, for light and air.
Hulking objects, old and rusted, clattered against each other as she passed. The little sunlight that managed to come through the opened windows put a spotlight on the dangers. Pine walls dark with damp, wide-planked floor rotted at the edges. The air was perfumed with a mix of earthworms and, yes, mold. There was no visible evidence of rodents, no droppings she could see, but just in case, she switched to the kind of shallow breathing she taught anxious children who were scared of thunder. Julia used to be scared of thunder. Keep busy. Don’t think. Clean the shed.
She dragged out the big things first: a child’s wooden desk, the steel frame of a fold-up cot, a bent beach umbrella, an old Radio Flyer wagon. Smaller objects came next: water guns, a scuffed wooden box, a metal trap that smelled like skunk. By the time Mimi and Krissy returned with their report that they’d found the pond, and—good news—it was not a puddle, Ginger had removed almost everything from inside.
“Is Callie’s car back?” Ginger asked, and Mimi shook her head.
“You guys,” Krissy said, “you have nothing to worry about. Bet you anything Callie ended up dog-sitting last night. Probably out now taking a bunch of dogs for a run. She has a great business. Never takes on more than she can handle. Turns clients away all the time. Drives people crazy. She’s the go-to dog lady, not that Callie thinks about herself that way.”
Mimi beamed and her dimples deepened. “We’re very proud of her.”
Krissy promised to get a listing number together in a couple of days, and Ginger told her not to rush because they weren’t ready to sell.
“We are ready to sell,” Mimi co
rrected her as Krissy got in her car. She waved as the realtor drove off and then helped load boxes into her rental car for their run to the Dumptique. “We are going to get Callie to agree. She will move near us.” While Mimi harped on about the inevitability of the move, Ginger pictured her supply cabinet. Bactine next to Betadine. Cold packs next to eye rinse.
“Sand toys,” Mimi said.
Ginger swung around and saw that her sister had stopped loading the trunk and was now rifling through a box. “It’s just junk. Come on. Let’s finish up and go.”
“I remember this.” Mimi held up a plastic mold in the shape of a semicircle. “This was for making moats around sandcastles.” She lifted out a large rectangle. “What was this one for?”
Ginger recognized it. “That is what’s left of Uncle Milton’s Ant Farm.” She let out a rueful laugh. “Who would have thought the ant farm would outlive the ant farmer.”
When the shed was empty and Mimi’s car was loaded with the last of the boxes, Ginger swept the floor and washed it twice—the second time with bleach. Then they set off for the Dumptique.
Mimi drove past Beetlebung trees and honor farms selling honey and sunflowers, and Ginger scanned the landscape, hoping, ridiculously, to see Callie and Echo running by or, even more ridiculously, Callie and Echo and Julia. She turned to her sister. “At what point do we call the police to report Callie as missing?”
“She’s an adult,” Mimi reminded her. “If she was a minor it would be—” She stopped herself.
Ginger assumed this was because Mimi was thinking of Julia. Julia had been a minor when she left, and because of that, Mimi thought Ginger should have called the police right away. She wasn’t the only one who expressed that view. Several people had suggested it: Call the police. She’s a minor. They’ll bring her home.
Of course, they didn’t think it through, didn’t consider what would happen next. If Ginger and Richard had dragged Julia home, two months later when she turned eighteen she’d be free to leave for good.
“What would you have done?” Ginger asked Mimi now. “If Wallace told you he was moving and that if you looked for him he’d disappear forever.” She braced herself for a harsh answer, because of course Mimi was sure that would never happen to her. She could practically hear her sister thinking it. Wallace would never do something like that.
But Mimi sounded neither harsh nor sure. “I don’t know, Gingie. I honestly have no idea.”
There were two signs ahead, one pointing to the dump, the other to the Dumptique. Mimi parked, and as they walked in silence, she took hold of Ginger’s hand.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
The Dumptique was crammed with a little bit of everything a person might need in a day. Ginger saw a drawer labeled “Wooden Spoons,” another that said, “Outlet Covers,” a third that said “Scissors and Shears.” There was an aisle just for dresses, one for blazers, one for towels. Small bins on tables held nail files, doorknobs, and buttons. Large bins held cereal bowls, alarm clocks, and coils of fabric belts. A wall of ripple-paged paperbacks faced shelves of hardcovers swollen by damp.
It was a place of purging and claiming. A young mother looked for a raincoat to fit her growing son. An old man wanted mugs for unexpected guests. A teenager in expensive sneakers was prowling for a vintage T-shirt. A college kid tried hard to convince his trailing mother that the blender he was scavenging for was for breakfast smoothies only.
Overseeing it all were two women: one who sat behind a folding table; the other circulating through the store directing people. “Socks are in the bin next to the scarves. For ladles, turn right at the flashlights.”
When Ginger asked the woman behind the table—name tag Dee—what they should do with their donations, Dee directed her to pull the car around the back and unload. Small items were to be placed on the folding table near the door, large items stacked beside the tree.
They had just unloaded the last of it when Dee joined them. Like a judge at a dog show, she walked past the offerings with a slow, appraising gait. She pointed and nodded, “Yes, yes, yes,” and shook her head, “No and no.” Mostly it was “Yes.”
“Moving in or out?” she asked, as she continued. “Yes” to the dented metal fan. “Yes” to the shadeless lamp. “No” to the clam rake, too rusty and missing half the teeth.
“Cleaning out,” Ginger said. “Our mother died.”
A quick breath in. “So sorry. What’s your name?”
“I’m Ginger. This is Mimi. Our mother is Glory Tangle. Was Glory Tangle.”
Dee looked up over her half glasses. “You’re the sisters. How’s Callie Claire doing?”
Ginger flashed Mimi a look. This is what she’d been trying to explain.
“You’re just cleaning out, right? You’re not selling. Your mother always said she couldn’t bear thinking about Callie having to live somewhere else. Although, now that Casper is . . . Oh dear.” She shook her head. “It’s all so sad.”
“Casper Diggans?” Ginger hadn’t thought of him for years.
“Ignore me,” Dee said. “I was talking to myself. Sometimes I do that. I don’t even know I’m saying things out loud. What else you got?” She surveyed the remains, a battered box the size of a large attaché case, a carton of soil-encrusted garden tools, a stack of old puzzles. “Yes” to the garden tools and the puzzles and “What’s this?” when she got to the battered box. “I think there’s something carved under all that dust.” She took a rag out of her back pocket and wiped away the pollen. “Well, look at that.”
Ginger leaned in and made out a vague design, possibly a woman holding a flute. Possibly snakes coiled at her feet. “It’s a tree,” Mimi decided.
Dee tried to open the box but couldn’t.
“Look on the side,” Ginger advised her. “There might be a latch hidden on the side.” She had never seen this box before, but she recognized the style. It was a puzzle box, just like the ones her father got from his favorite distributor in Japan.
It took a moment, but Dee found the latch. When she moved it, they all heard the click of the lock releasing. She lifted up the lid and sighed. “Empty. I’m always hoping to find hidden treasure. I’m not picky, either. Gold coins, jewels—anything would be fine with me.” She peered inside. “Nice lining. See?” She passed the box so Ginger could see the soft scarlet velvet inside.
The box felt heavy in Ginger’s hands. She shook it and heard something shift. “There’s another compartment.” She used her finger to measure the depth. “See how shallow it is here?” She put her finger on the outside to show the difference. “There’s a false bottom.”
“Wow.” Dee was impressed. “How’d you figure that out?”
“My sister has two superpowers,” Mimi explained. “Worrying and opening puzzle boxes.”
It took less than a minute for Ginger to find it—a narrow slat camouflaged by the grain of the wood. When she slid it over, they heard another lock release. “Opens from the top and the bottom.”
“I have a good feeling about this,” Dee said. “Can you wait while I get Rita? Rita gets so mad when she misses out on the good stuff.”
It was too late. Ginger had already turned the box over and opened the bottom compartment. “Sorry.” She showed Dee and Mimi what was inside. “Just an old newspaper.”
But Dee was more thorough than that. “Maybe underneath?”
Ginger lifted up the paper. Underneath was more of the same. She flipped through the pile. All of it was the same, the same front page of the same edition of the local paper, pages yellowed, print faded but still readable.
“Hey, Dee?” Rita called over. “Can you come here and help me decide about this coat?”
Dee excused herself, leaving Ginger and Mimi to examine the newspaper alone. They didn’t need to look beyond the front page to know why it was there. They recognized the date at once: July 11, 1972. The story was above the fold, alongside a yellowed photograph of a large crowd on a wide beach.
Mimi picked up th
e top copy and read the article out loud. “Two boys were buried in a sand-hole collapse yesterday. Beachgoers, scooping out sand with hands and plastic shovels, finally pulled the boys out.”
“Two boys?” Ginger repeated, and they both read the rest.
“Why don’t they say the other boy’s name?” Mimi asked.
“They don’t say Charlie’s name, either.” Ginger thought about this. “Maybe they were rushing to get the story in before they went to press. Another boy. I had no idea. Did you?”
Mimi shook her head.
And then Dee was back. “I’ll take the box. You can bring the newspapers to the dump.”
“No.” Ginger grabbed the puzzle box and held it close. “We’re keeping it.”
“Up to you.”
As they drove across the field to the dump, Ginger tried to picture the beach children they’d met that long-ago summer, but she couldn’t conjure up a single face. “Who do you think it was?”
Mimi shrugged. “I have no idea.”
They threw the rejected junk into the appropriate receptacles and got back in the car.
“Do you think Mom knew who it was?” Ginger asked. “Do you think she knew the other mother? Do you think they stayed in touch?” Mimi shrugged again.
This was strange to think about, that all this time there’d been another family who’d gone through the same thing, had the same bad day, and then the same awful night. Suddenly, Ginger remembered Dee’s comment about Casper Diggans. “Do you think Casper Diggans is still alive?”
Mimi thought about it. “He’d be about a hundred by now, so no.”
But Ginger did the math in her head. “He’d probably be in his eighties.” She looked out the window. They passed a nondescript house. “He could be living anywhere. Do you think he’s here now? On the island?”
“Why do you care? You didn’t like him the first time around.”