“What happened to your marriage?”
His voice remained dry. “Know what kind of hours investment bankers keep?”
“I know they’re bad.”
“I was working nine in the morning to three the next, plus at least one weekend day. When I was home, I didn’t have much taste for anything but sleep.”
Julia could see it. Monte didn’t work quite those hours, but her friend Charlotte’s husband did. Charlotte had bought her boutique precisely to fill the void left by his absence.
“I’m sorry,” she said, feeling oddly responsible, as a New Yorker, for the kind of life that ate people alive.
“Don’t be. My marriage was never that strong. We fell in love with the idea of it, more than with each other. Sandi’s doing fine now. She has a portfolio that gives her lots of extra income. She can spend time with people she’s more compatible with than me and my friends. My only regret is Ian. I’m never quite sure what to say to him.”
“How long will he be here?”
“Three weeks.”
“Does he come every summer?”
“No. This is the first.”
“Could he not come for the funeral?”
“Didn’t want to.”
“Oh, dear.”
“My fault,” Noah said. “I should have called him directly and said I wanted him here. I guess I was anticipating a fight. I wasn’t up for it then.”
“Are you now?” Julia asked.
“No.”
“But he’s coming. Whose idea was it?”
“Mine.”
She admired his courage. Seventeen-year-olds wallowed in the fear of the future and anticipation of responsibility and stress. They often fought with their parents for no other reason than to feel better about leaving home. Seventeen had been difficult even with Molly, and she was a breeze to raise. Julia figured that if Noah had trouble communicating with his son under the best of conditions, they would be at the crisis stage now.
Not knowing how to help, she looked out her side window. Having left the uplands behind, they were on a flat road that skirted the far side of the harbor. The vegetation was more sparse here, the tended feel at the heart of the harbor replaced by Atlantic wear and tear. In the absence of shade trees, the road was bleached by the sun and worn by the salty air that blew now through the cab of the truck.
Small businesses stood in twos and threes as they had for decades— an auto body shop and a gas station, a convenience store, a store selling island furniture. Their signs varied from the faded canvas banner to ones carved in wood, but the late afternoon sun didn’t discriminate. Its glow fell on each, rendering this workingman’s turf in a softer hue.
Farther on, rising beyond a marshy stand of beach grass and the occasional abandoned hull, was the boat repair shop. Noah pointed at the large hangar out front. “Used to be only two rows high, now it’s four. Come winter, there are boats all the way up, waiting their turn for repair. Not much there now.”
The road curved as they passed, giving Julia a view of the water side with its rough pilings and piers. “There are plenty out there,” she remarked.
“Damage happens in season. Some of those may be in just for tune-ups.”
“Like a car?”
“Pretty much. You need an oil change every hundred and fifty hours. That’s every other week in summer. Most of us do it ourselves. Some don’t.”
He turned off the main road. The truck bumped along for a mile before coming to a stop in front of a stone shed. “Be right back,” he said and was out of the cab with Lucas on his heels. As the dog dashed into the tall grasses, Noah opened the tailgate, pulled out a fiberglass locker, and hauled it inside. By the time he returned, it looked significantly heavier.
He whistled for Lucas, who came on the run and leapt into the truck without missing a beat. Noah followed, closed the door, backed around, and returned to the road.
“Tell me about Kim,” Julia said quietly. She didn’t want to make an out-and-out accusation. Nor, though, could she forget what she had seen, or more precisely, not seen. The police were investigating the accident. Kim Colella could be a major piece of the puzzle.
“Did you see her?” he asked with what she thought was caution.
“This morning, up on the bluff. I wasn’t prepared for her hair.”
“All that red.”
“I don’t remember seeing it on the Amelia Celeste. Was she wearing a hat?”
Noah didn’t answer.
“If she wasn’t,” Julia said, “I’d have seen her. I always notice hair. I was thinking maybe she was inside the wheelhouse, but if she was there, she’d have died in the crash.” She paused. “Don’t you think?”
“Maybe not. Stranger things have happened. Did you ask her where she was?”
“I didn’t dare.”
“Did she say anything?”
“Not a word.”
He slid her a glance. “Is that what had you so sad back there?”
Julia didn’t have to struggle to think back. Heavyheartedness was a pot on the back burner, simmering right alongside the issue of bright red hair. “That. And the Walsh girls. Actually, though, mostly my mother.”
He slid her a second glance. “Is she sick?”
“Oh, no. She’s well—well and strong-willed as ever. I had been talking with her right before you drove up. Talking. That’s putting it nicely.”
“You argued.”
Julia felt a whisper of the sea on her face. As they neared the center of town, she could see the harbor filled with boats moored for the night. They rocked gently in water that was surprisingly calm. She took comfort in that.
Pushing her fingers into her hair, she piled it in a twist at the top of her head and held the twist with both hands. “Yes, we argued.”
“Is it chronic?”
“Arguing? No. I rarely give her cause. I’m usually the good daughter.” She released her hair. It slid down. “Not for the last month, though. She doesn’t want me here. She thinks I should be back in New York with my husband.”
“What does your husband say?”
“He says I should stay. But I’m staying for me. I came here for me, and I’m staying for me, and I want my mother’s support.” She looked at him. “Why does her opinion matter so much to me? I’m forty years old. Why do I care?”
Pulling up at the pier, he faced her. “Because you’re a caring person. It’s written all over you.”
“But I can’t always do what my mother wants. Where do you draw the line between the obligation you have to your family and the one you have to yourself?”
He thought for a minute, brow furrowed, dark eyes deep. Then he said a simple, “After the accident, you draw it here.”
That quickly, she was reassured. “Thank you,” she said quietly.
He smiled. “Any time.” He hitched his head toward the bed of the truck. “There are three traps back there. I’ll take the bait first and come back for two of the traps. Can you get the third?”
She certainly could. The traps were four-footers, not so much heavy as bulky in size, but she managed to carry one without any trouble. When everything had been stashed on the Leila Sue, they returned to the truck.
“Time for more?” he asked.
“Sure,” Julia said without so much as a glance at her watch. She guessed it was close to six, but Molly was working, Zoe was helping a friend assemble a floor loom, and Julia had no reason to run home. “What’s next?”
“Out back under the tarp? There’s wood to deliver and a leak to fix.”
“Where?”
“Hawks Hill.”
She fastened her seat belt and they were off, heading out of town in the opposite direction this time. Hawks Hill was the southernmost of the island’s hills. There were no meadows here; it was an ascent through pure forest. That meant the roads were heavily shaded this late in the day. Dark, Julia thought, and felt a chill. “So what about Kim?” she asked.
Noah drove on.
Noah took a breath. “That would mean she was likely the one who shot him.”
“Oh no, there could be—” Another explanation, she would have said if he hadn’t squelched the thought with a meaningful look. The road might have been dark and his face shadowed, but the weight of that look wasn’t lost. “So you think she did?”
His eyes returned to the road. “I don’t want to.”
“But you’re leaning that way.”
“It’s hard not to,” he said in a voice that held a touch of desperation, “but if they were involved, it couldn’t have gone anywhere good. That means she’d have motive.”
“Anger?”
“That, or disillusionment. If they were involved, he may have promised to divorce his wife. Married men do that all the time.”
Julia couldn’t argue. “Has she ever been in trouble before?”
“No.”
“Would she have access to a gun?”
“Probably.”
Letting that reality sink in, Julia watched the road. Paved, it reflected the forest green of the woods on each side, with the spill of lavender where bits of late-day light filtered through. Every few minutes, a gap in the trees marked a narrow drive on the left or the right. Some were marked by mailboxes, others by name signs. The occasional tree limb dipped low enough to brush the top of the truck, but Noah drove with confidence, as familiar with this road as he was the ones below.
“Who lives up here?” Julia asked, spotting another mailbox.
“Transplants.”
“Artists?”
“No. Most of them prefer Dobbs Hill. It has meadows and is more open and varied—flowers, wood, and stone. Here we have trees. Bringing up services is harder. It’s like most things, though. The harder the work, the greater the reward.”
Julia didn’t have long to wait to see what he meant. They hadn’t climbed much farther when he turned right onto a dirt road. There was neither a mailbox nor a sign with a name, and the road dipped and rose, but it was groomed with sand and was surprisingly smooth. What was at its end couldn’t rightly be called a clearing, because many trees remained, but where several might have stood once, there now stood a house.
It was an A-frame, small with clean lines. Roofed in dark slate, its siding was of cedar shakes that had weathered a natural silver. There were blinds on the windows, square light fixtures flanking the door, and a wraparound porch with an Adirondack chair here and there.
A carport, absent a car, was tucked under the trees, a depleted wood bin against its side. Noah backed up the truck to unload the supply under his tarp, but before starting the task, gestured her toward the house.
The air here was dry, lighter, more… happy. It was a minute before Julia connected the last with balsams in the woods, whose sweet smell conjured holiday images. They crossed a small patch of packed dirt and pine needles. He had a key out by the time they reached the door.
And suddenly it struck her. “Is this yours?” she asked with a curious smile. It wasn’t only the key. It was the feel of the place—appropriate for the setting, yet somehow different. Noah was that way—appropriate, yet different.
He opened the door and stood aside for her to enter. “I built it when I left New York. I figured a thirty-two-year-old guy with an ex-wife and a seven-year-old son couldn’t move back in with his parents. I lived here until my mother died. Then my dad needed tending. I never formally moved back in with him. I just seemed to end up there more than here.”
The house was as simple inside as Julia would imagine a man leaving the rat race would want. Living room, dining room, kitchen—there were no walls between them, just a comfortable collection of leather chairs, built-in appliances, and a round oak table with ladder-back chairs. A single large rug covered slatted wood floors; she guessed it to be Tibetan, knew it to be expensive. There were windows aplenty and a door leading to the back part of the wraparound porch. Above, on both side, were lofts. One had a pair of beds, the other a desk, replete with computer.
“There’s more downstairs,” he said.
“There’s another floor?” she asked in surprise.
“It’s built into the hill. You can’t see it from the front.” He pointed to a spot behind two of the leather chairs. “The stairs are back there. Take a look while I get my tools.”
A burgundy runner cushioned the stairs. Holding a wide railing, she started down. Halfway there, the flight turned left, and there was suddenly more light than she would have expected. There was suddenly more room than she had expected. There was a bathroom here, and a walk-in closet. Primarily, though, this lower floor built into the hillside was a bedroom.
A large bed rested against a wall. Sitting on an even larger rug hooked in a myriad shades of blue, it had a simple white spread and, in lieu of a headboard, enough pillows to prop more than one person up for the view. And that view? No large-screen TV here, but a wall of French doors with a view of the world.
Immediately drawn there, she looked out on an expanse of sky and sea so seamlessly merged that, save the long lean shadow of the mainland far to the west, the horizon was lost. Like the rug underfoot, this view of the world held more shades of blue than she could name. Variations of blue spruce, blue sky, blue sea, blue land—one delineated the other. The only exception to blue was the spill of gold as sunset skimmed in over the waves from the west, and the weathered gray of the deck beyond the doors.
Her view had borders on three sides—trees left and right and, beneath, the spikes of spruce tips on the hillside—but the sky had no limit. There was possibility here.
She looked back at the bed, so neatly made, so clean. Quiet, confident, modest. And different. Yes, different. Like him.
Hearing footsteps above, she waited. When the sound stopped at a place far from the stairs, she went up herself. It was a minute before she spotted his bottom half protruding from under the sink.
She crouched down by his hips and peered into the dark cabinet. He had a wrench, but it wasn’t quite attached to anything.
“How can you see?” she asked.
“I can’t,” he remarked wryly and lifted his head to meet her gaze. “There’s a flashlight two cabinets down. Want to get it?”
She found it easily and trained it on the spot where he was working. “This is a fabulous place,” she remarked. “How often do you stay here?”
“Not often enough,” he said as he tightened the wrench around a section of pipe. “I drop by to use the computer.”
“Will you stay here more now that your dad’s gone?”
He grunted with the effort of pushing the wrench. “Not yet. I want Ian to know the other place. That’s his heritage, y’know?”
“Will he be your sternman?”
“If he can hack it.” He pushed himself out, holding a U-shaped piece of pipe, and spent a minute coating the threads with sealant. Then he was back inside, reconnecting the piece, adding putty to the outer edges of the fitting, before emerging for good.
Julia was on her haunches. “He could hack it more easily if I helped.”
Noah sat up. Eye to eye, they were barely an arm’s length apart. “He could. But he won’t.”
“Why not? I’m still available.”
“You’re still slim. And soft. Go lobstering, and you get hard. You don’t want that.”
She frowned. “Everyone seems to know what I want. Don’t I have a say?”
He gave her a smug smile. “Not about this. It’s my boat.” He pushed himself up and put his tools away.
Julia wanted to be annoyed. It was the kind of statement Monte would make, laced with sexism and superiority. Do this for me, like a good girl, or the more outrageously chauvinistic, Treat yourself to a new dres
s; I want you looking pretty for me.
Noah’s remark about her being slim and soft might have been chauvinistic, but he delivered it differently—as if it wasn’t a put-down at all, but rather his protecting her from what was clearly hard physical work.
And that was nice. She still wanted to go lobstering, but his protectiveness made the refusal more palatable.
Leaving the house, Julia perched on the running board of the truck. Lucas came out of the woods, approached only so near, and stopped. Wary, he stared at her. She held out a hand. He took one step, paused, took another step. Then he sat and looked at her, which left Julia with nothing to do but look back at him and think about hard physical work. She told herself that Noah was right, that it was his boat, and lobstering was rough. If she was looking for adventure, she could go whitewater rafting, parasailing, or bungee jumping. If she was looking to tempt fate, there were dangerous activities aplenty that wouldn’t require anyone’s permission.
But she wasn’t looking for danger, or even for adventure for adventure’s sake. She wanted to do something interesting. Looking back, she saw her life framed—like Noah’s bedroom window, only with no opening at all. Her horizons were defined and finite. In contrast to this island, where life followed weather and tides and the vista was open, that seemed stifling.
It struck her then that she had been singled out to make more of her life. It was an exciting thought; it was a terrifying thought. Where to head? What to do? Most people faced their life decisions on the cusp of adulthood, but she was well beyond that. Where to begin?
Noah emerged, went to the back of the truck, and tossed in his tools. Then he loaded his arms with wood, carried it to the bin, stacked it, and returned for more. As soon as he left with the second load, Julia went to the back of the truck and loaded up her own arms. This was a place to begin. It was simple, practical, helpful.
The Summer I Dared: A Novel Page 17