The Summer of Lost Wishes

by Jessa Gabrielle

  Theme of this home? I mean, yeah, I get that Mom wants to be all coastal with sand dollars, seashells, and anchors. I get that she wants to decorate beach houses and local businesses to give it a coastal, vacation-like feel. I understand. It’s a career choice. But decorating our house like a show piece? C’mon. We have to live here. We have to eat and do laundry and shower – you know, normal people things that normal people do in their normal homes.

  “She’ll match the Iceberg Blue shutters,” I insist.

  “Piper, this isn’t up for discussion,” she says in her mom-voice. “No deer heads. No mason jars. The cowboy boots go in the closet, not in plain sight. And we’re repainting your vanity before we move it up here. That bright teal does not fit with the theme either.”

  She demands that I ‘put that silly thing away’ before the Carters get here. I would argue any other time, but seeing as I have on what’s left of yesterday’s makeup, I shove Delilah back into her box and grab my makeup bag.

  Thirty minutes later, the scent of Mom’s black coffee fills the house as I rip open more boxes looking for Oliver, just to spite her.

  Oliver was part of my fifteenth birthday celebration. He’s basically Delilah with antlers, but he’s lined with a blue and black flannel shirt that ‘says redneck worse than a beer gut does.’ I have to give Mom a little credit. As much as she detests him, she was specific in her instructions that he was to have a ten-point rack and be turned facing the opposite direction so he could look toward Delilah on the wall.

  I push another box aside and rip through more tape. Then someone laughs behind me.

  “Someone’s frantic this morning,” Rooks says, stepping through the doorway. “Are you afraid you left something behind?”

  I shake my head and push this box away from me. “It’s here,” I say. “I just don’t know where.”

  He stands there under the light fixture in an old faded T-shirt and paint-stained blue jeans. How can someone still be cute when dressed like a hobo?

  “It’s not important,” I say, forcing myself up from the floor. I’m not sure I’m ready to explain Oliver to him.

  “What in God’s name is that thing?” Rooks asks, pointing to Delilah sticking out of her box.

  Well, so much for that. I retrieve Delilah from the box, tell Rooks the story of how she came into my life, and explain how my mom wants her to cease to exist.

  “Wow. You’re a strange one,” he says.

  That wasn’t the reaction I was hoping for. Unique? Different? Country? Any of those would’ve been okay. But strange?

  He catches my expression. “I meant that in a totally non-offensive way,” he says quickly. “You’re just not a typical Florida girl. You’re more cowboy boots than flip-flops.”

  “Trust me. At the rate my mom is going, I’ll be doing home renovations in flip-flops and one of those huge sun hats,” I tell him, physically cringing at the thought. “Anyway, what’s today’s plan?”

  Rooks gets his dad upstairs to check for studs and framework before we beat the wall down. Even though I’m sure those safety goggles go against Mom’s professional dress code, I’m actually excited about putting a sledgehammer through the wall.

  While the Carters grab the tools from next door, I put on my tennis shoes. Mom leans against the doorframe, muttering about how this is a man’s job and I need to just come downstairs and help her pick out cabinets and countertops anyway.

  When I don’t respond, she clicks back down the stairs. She doesn’t understand that I need this. I need to break down these walls. I need to vandalize this house, even if it’s not technically vandalism. I need to destroy part of the Calloway Cottage. I need to release all of these bottled up feelings, and demolishing the wall of a landmark house is pretty much the best way to do that.

  “Alright,” Rooks says when he walks into the room. He hands me one of the hammers. “Do you want to take the first swing or shall I show you how it’s done?”

  I draw the hammer back and ready myself to slam it into the wall, along with my frustration and anger and sadness and fears. Rooks steps back to let me draw first blood. I position myself in front of where Mr. Carter told us to begin and bring the hammer down like a massive ax. The hammer slices into the wall, leaving a gaping hole.

  “No way,” Rooks says. “You didn’t just do that on your first try. It takes a few hits.”

  “Maybe I’m just good like that,” I say.

  He shakes his head, takes a few steps back, and puts his shoe through the wall, just below my battle wound.

  “Maybe the wall is hollow,” he says. “That would explain your luck. It looks like someone already did some damage and tried to hide it.”

  Rooks takes his hammer and pounds it around the prior damage. I grab mine and help as best as I can. The wall crumbles before us, little by little, like it’s opening a gateway to another time. I wonder what happened in here. The Calloways don’t seem like the types who would’ve had a cheap plaster job done in their home. I imagine they would’ve had this house near perfection for Seth and Hanna.

  Rooks tears away at some pieces of wall while I step closer for further inspection. That’s when I see the brick on the floor.

  “Wait. Stop,” I say, forcing the plastic goggles up into my hair. They don’t glide nearly as easily as sunglasses.

  I drop to my knees and reach into the wall, between the framework. I retrieve a giant white bundle.

  “There’s a painted brick in the wall?” Rooks asks, pulling his safety goggles off.

  I clasp my hand around it, but it’s not heavy like a brick or rock. It’s wrapped in a dusty newspaper.

  “What is it?” Rooks asks, leaning over my shoulder.

  “You have no patience,” I tell him.

  Carefully, I unwrap the newspaper, doing my best not to tear it even though it’s worn. Rooks drops to the floor, right next to me, and watches as I unravel the newspaper from the stack of papers inside.

  “I bet it’s old mail,” he says. “Or bills. Someone probably hid them so they wouldn’t have to pay them.”

  I shoot him a glare, and I feel like my mom when I do it. I know that look she gets, the ‘what you’re saying is total BS’ look. I’ve never seen myself actually make that face in the mirror, but I’m certain that I’m a spitting image of her right now.

  “Why would someone put their bills in the wall of the Calloway Cottage? Why break down the wall and re-plaster it? You can’t avoid collection calls,” I say.

  Rooks laughs and shrugs, like he’s out of ideas and gave it his best shot. I shake my head at him and look back at the paper.

  “That can’t be,” I say, gently dusting off the headline to make sure I’m reading this properly.

  Five Teenagers Gone After Shark Island Storm. The date is May 17th, 1965. And under the headline, in big blue-inked letters are the handwritten words I’m Sorry.

  Chapter Five

  “What the hell?” Rooks asks, taking the words straight from my thoughts.

  Why would someone wrap a stack of papers in the newspaper that broadcasted these deaths? Who would even have a newspaper from 1965?

  “This thing is fifty years old,” I say. I lean over and lightly blow the dust away. I don’t want to damage it any further.

  “What are the papers? Junk mail?” he asks.

  Given the lack of envelopes, I doubt they’re any form of mail, but I decide against arguing that point. I unfold the top paper, but clicks echo down the hallway. I push the letters behind the closest box and quickly stand to block the newspaper.

  “I’m impressed,” Mom says, looking into the room. “Blake was right. That will definitely be a sufficient closet.”

  I nod. “Yeah, I think it’ll be just perfect,” I say, instantly realizing that I sound like some after-school special. That’s not suspicious at all.

  “You’ll have plenty of room to hide those god-awful deer heads,” Mom says before turning and disappearing back downstairs.

  I take
a deep breath. “That was close,” I tell Rooks. “Okay, can we just not tell them about the papers in the wall? That top one looked handwritten, so I don’t think it’s mail.”

  He walks across the room and looks down the hallway before walking back over to me.

  “Okay. I won’t tell them, but as soon as you read through it and see what it is, you have to tell me,” he says. “We were both here, so we’re equally involved, okay?”

  I’m not really sure what we’re involved in, but I’m totally down for being involved with this guy in any way I can be.

  “Deal,” I tell him. “But why do you even care? You’re a guy.”

  “What does that have to do with anything?” he asks. He folds his arms over his chest and stares at me like I’ve completely insulted him – which I’m pretty sure I have.

  I don’t even know why I said it, really. Finding old papers in the wall of an old house just doesn’t seem like something a dude would care about. It’s all secretive and mysterious and sounds like some chick movie.

  “I just didn’t think you’d be interested,” I say, trying to shrug it off. “I mean, it’s just old papers in the wall of an old house. I figured you’d think it was lame or something.”

  Rooks shakes his head, but luckily, his stance relaxes and he seems less angry. “That’s where you’re wrong,” he says. “This is the freaking Calloway Cottage. I’ve been visiting my dad every summer since I was a kid. I’ve sat right next door and listened to stories about this tragedy my entire life. And now I’m actually standing in this house and you’re digging secrets out of the wall? Hell yeah, I’m interested.”

  He’s right. This place is historic. My new home is a local landmark, and it symbolizes a future that never happened. This is a pretty big deal.

  “Who do you think is sorry?” Rooks asks, nodding to the newspaper still sprawled across the floor. “Do you think someone knew something? Like what really happened that night?”

  The speculation in his voice is a little creepy. But he has a point. Why would five local teenagers get in a boat, take off in stormy weather, and head toward the one place they knew for a fact wasn’t safe?

  Mr. Carter calls up the stairs. Rooks and I exchange glances, but he tells me he’ll cover. He races down the hallway to meet his dad halfway. I hurry across the room and grab my cell phone. I’m not sure if this newspaper can weather another storm, so I snap pictures of the article – along with the handwritten apology – and wrap the newspaper back around the stack of folded papers. I search for the best place to hide the paper brick, somewhere that my mom would never look – with Delilah. I wedge the lump underneath her just as Rooks’ voice grows louder down the hallway, signaling me that he’s almost here with his dad in tow.

  “Ahhh, this is perfect,” Mr. Carter says, stepping into my room and examining the wall. “There’s plenty of room. You’ll be able to hide dead bodies in this closet.”

  He laughs at his own joke, and I force myself to smile, but he has no idea how right he is. I feel like they’re already hiding in there.

  Spending the afternoon ripping down walls suddenly becomes much less fun when there’s a package of secret documents waiting for you. My soon-to-be bedroom is a disaster now, and I refuse to sleep upstairs by myself, especially after our big discovery today. Of course, I can’t explain that to my mom.

  I force the air mattress into her office downstairs, where I’ll be sleeping until my bedroom is done. Thankfully she hasn’t bought office furniture yet, so the room is empty, aside from the lingering scent of new paint. Mom settled on a neutral tan-ish color called Sand Dollar. I’m not sure if she was truly sold on the actual color or the beach name of said paint.

  Once Mom settles into her bedroom, I sneak back upstairs for the package. I grab my beach bag, wrap the paper package in a towel, and stuff the evidence inside. Then I grab a few small things like nail polish and extra toothpaste so it’ll look like I came up here for a legit reason.

  Mom should be asleep soon. As exhausted as I am from today’s home improvement work out, I’m more anxious to see what’s written on these papers. This is worse than Christmas Eve.

  My phone buzzes. Dad is asleep. I’m watching some stupid CGI documentary on Big Foot. Please entertain me.

  I stifle a giggle as I imagine Rooks lounging on his couch in his living room focusing intently on the computerized hairy giant running through the woods. I wonder what he’s wearing – Rooks, not Big Foot. In my imagination, I see him shirtless in flannel pajama pants, but then I remember he’s not a Tennessee boy, and he’s probably in boxers with possibly a T-shirt.

  When he asked for my phone number today, my heart jumped with all kinds of excitement, but now that he’s actually in my phone’s inbox, I overthink every single word I text because I don’t want to sound dumb.

  I reply: Waiting for Mom to crash before I start rustling through these papers.

  Rustling? I internally cringe at my word choice and put my phone aside so I won’t have to see that I actually just sent that.

  There is one thing, though, that I can research, and it won’t require any noise. I pull up the images of the article and hope they’re legible. I wasn’t exactly checking behind myself this afternoon to make sure the photos were clear. I thumb through them, pleasantly surprised at how well they turned out in my shaky hurry. I backtrack through the images and start at the beginning.

  Monday, May 17th, 1965. Five Teenagers Gone After ‘Shark Island’ Storm.

  A black and white photo sits below the headline. A lighthouse stands at the end of a long stretch of rocks while a few boats float nearby. Men stand on the banks, above the rocks, with fishing equipment. I zoom in on the caption below: Local fishermen and seafood restaurants have filed multiple complaints in recent months regarding shark sightings near Lighthouse Rock, nicknamed ‘Shark Island’ by Coral Sands locals.

  I wonder when they officially changed the name to Shark Island. Maybe they never did. Maybe it’s been Lighthouse Rock this entire time. As much as I hate the reason for the change (official or not), Shark Island just has a much creepier sound. Maybe if they’d named it that a long time ago, those kids wouldn’t have gone out there that night. No one is scared of Lighthouse Rock.

  Mounting concern has been voiced as of late regarding the shark sightings at Lighthouse Rock. A popular spot among fishermen, many of whom sell their catches to local seafood restaurants, Lighthouse Rock has been coined Shark Island. Though after numerous complaints about the sharks coming in to feed, local officials haven’t stepped in to take measures against the shark frenzy. With a terrible turn of events, officials are finally speaking out.

  Lighthouse Rock has been shut down by local authorities after a Saturday night boating accident resulted in the loss of five local teens. Warren Lancaster, Raymond Hartley, Eileen Baker, all eighteen, along with Hanna Calloway and Seth McIntosh, both seventeen, were involved in the fatal accident.

  The article goes on to tell about five futures that wouldn’t pan out. Warren Lancaster’s family owned a local seafood restaurant, and he was going to work with his uncle after graduation on his uncle’s fishing boat. He was destined to inherit the family business. Eileen Baker was set to go to beauty school in Georgia, the first in her family to have a chance to go to college.

  Raymond Hartley’s story was similar to Seth’s with a position lined up for him at the local factory just outside of Coral Sands. The only difference was that Seth McIntosh had wedding plans as well. Hanna Calloway was meant to be the perfect picture of life for a woman in the 1960s – married, staying home with the children, and letting her husband be the breadwinner. How typical of that time.

  I forward the photos to Rooks with a caption. Who do you think they really were?

  I’m not sure if he’ll even make sense of it, but I wonder if they even wanted the lives that had been put in place for them. Was working at the town factory and following in your parents’ footsteps really the dream back then?

&nb
sp; My phone buzzes. I think they were shark bait. LOL. Sorry. Bad joke. I’m exhausted.

  I tell him to get some sleep. I’ll catch him up tomorrow. After plugging my phone into the charger, I retrieve the paper brick. My hands tremble with nervous excitement. I unwrap the newspaper, grab the top paper, and open it.

  Seth’s Letter

  I probably shouldn’t be writing this. Actually, I know I shouldn’t be, but I don’t know of any other way to tell you what I need to say. Saturday night was amazing. It’s crazy when I think about how I was on my way out of there when I saw you. It felt like one of those ‘in the right place at the right time’ kind of moments.

  Maybe I’m just crazy, but I think it was meant to happen. Like maybe it’s all part of some bigger plan? Luck or fate or something of that sense? Things have always been the same for me. I’ve never stepped out of my comfort zone until you happened. I never thought that there could be so much more than what I knew.

  Now I just want to know it all. Everything. All the things I probably shouldn’t know. I’ve been going over it again and again in my head, ever since that night, and I desperately need to see you again. If we could just talk, for only a few minutes, maybe I could make sense of this. Maybe then I could understand this world and my own place a little better.

  Sunday, at sunset, I’ll be at the Crane Pavilion. Will you meet me?

  Chapter Six

  Mom hovers in the doorway of her office, waiting impatiently for me to get my stuff together for the day. I should’ve grabbed the stack of letters and crammed them into my beach bag earlier, but who knew she had the flooring guys coming in today? That was supposed to be next week.

  “Piper, please hurry,” she says with a groan in her voice. “I need to have a talk with you before the Carters get here.”