Firefly Beach

by Meira Pentermann

  “Now hold on there a moment,” Kenny said as he stepped between Rod and Beth. “Watch your mouth. No one is going to kick Beth out of anywhere. You’re going to need to face reality, old man.”

  “Don’t you take that condescending tone with me. I want her the fuck out of my life!” Rod trembled, his face red and his temples pulsing.

  Kenny formed a fist. His heart raced and his blood pressure elevated until he could hear the pounding in his ears. He felt rage swell up within him. He wanted to strike the old man, strike him and watch him hit the pavement. He wanted to hear his skull crack as it hit the ground and listen to his pleas for mercy, this pathetic man deranged in denial of his daughter’s death. The man was nothing to him, a worn out piece of pottery waiting to be smashed into dust. No, he was worse. Rod represented a thousand nights of listening to his father yell and his mother cry. The old man’s face began to morph into the likeness of Mack McLeary.

  Kenny took a step forward. Rod glared at Kenny. Behind Rod’s eyes, Kenny saw a thick layer of indifference, a coating that formed like the skin on a pudding left out in the sun. It was a protective cover designed by the mind to deny the anguish it could not comprehend. Kenny recognized that indifference. It was the one that had clung to his soul since he was six years old. He backed down and unclenched his fist.

  Gritting his teeth, he addressed Rod sternly. “The lady is not going anywhere,” he said, quietly but with determination. “And if you try to kick her out, you’ll have to answer to me.”

  Rod sneered, turned, and walked away. He retreated to The Bottomless Blue and swiftly closed the hatch.

  As Kenny watched the lonely old man walk away, his clothing neat, his skull intact, a revelation overwhelmed him. At that moment Kenny knew for certain the answer to a question that had been haunting him for years.

  He was not his father. And he never could be.

  He put his hand on Beth’s shoulder and ushered her away from the scene, leaving the reporter unsettled and in shock.

  The young woman drove back to Bangor and was never seen in Virginia Point again.

  * * * *

  That evening, in the backyard, Beth got into a heated argument with the firefly. One side bellowed harsh comments while the other flitted in an erratic, agitated pattern.

  “I am not going to talk to him,” Beth said defiantly. “He’s a lunatic.”

  The firefly made a large sweeping circle. Then it dropped suddenly and came to a halt inches above the ground.

  “I don’t know what the hell that is supposed to mean, but I cannot talk to the man. No one can talk to him. He won’t accept it, Katherine, and I cannot make him.”

  Moving swiftly toward Beth’s bedroom window, the light creature traveled in a spiral and stopped when it reached the glass.

  Tears gathered at the edges of Beth’s eyes. “I don’t know if you realize what I’ve been through, but it has been an emotional nightmare. Phone calls, house calls, kicking through the forest. Have you ever tracked down the site of a person’s death? Or seen their remains scattered on the ground, callously decomposed by time and nature. Have you? Huh?

  “Let me tell you from personal experience, it is not a pretty picture.”

  The firefly drifted slowly from the window to the ground.

  “Yeah, that’s right. And guess who sent me on this roller coaster ride from hell? It was a little ball of light slightly bigger than a marble which has been invading my privacy and unsettling my dreams ever since I moved to Maine…I’m tired, Katherine. I’ve had about all I can handle.”

  Beth returned to the house. She crossed to the entryway and kicked off her shoes. On her way to the stairs, she caught a glimpse of the photo of Katherine and Susan out of the corner of her eye. She walked toward it. Her stomach turned over with an ache that had been hanging over her head ever since she discovered Katherine’s body.

  “Susan,” she whispered.

  She picked up the picture and touched the glass gently.

  “God damn it. How did I get myself into this mess?”

  Chapter 26

  Saying Goodbye

  It was fifty-three degrees and cloudy on the day of Katherine’s funeral, unusually cold for July. Several townsfolk and the Bennings gathered around the gravesite at the cemetery just outside of town. A stone with the words Katherine Marie Thompson, Feb 7, 1958 to Nov 13, 1977 rested next to a large, freshly dug hole. Beside it a matching grave marker read Lucille Elizabeth Thompson, Aug 3, 1935 to Oct 13, 1962, Beloved Wife and Mother.

  A small breeze rustled the leaves of a nearby maple tree. The reverend was a small, nervous, balding man who mumbled. His feeble presence annoyed Beth. She assumed he was used to the luxury of a pulpit and a microphone, but she still felt that one ought to have some skill in speaking before embarking on a career in the ministry. It seemed more than fair. She caught herself tapping her foot impatiently, and she looked away.

  Kenny stood next to Mary who was on Beth’s right. Mary looked mildly bored, Kenny appeared reflective, and Abigail, who stood next to the minister, seemed genuinely moved. Perhaps she can hear what the goofball is saying, Beth thought bitterly. The Bennings also stood by the minister across from Abigail. Linda cried openly, resting her head on Wyatt’s shoulder. Wyatt gazed far off in the distance, as if in another time or place.

  Beth did not notice the man ascending the hill twenty yards away, but Abigail’s eyes caught him the moment he reached the crest. Abigail watched him, waiting for him to join the small group of mourners, but he stood at the top of the hill and moved no farther. Abigail narrowed her eyes and stared at him for a minute. Then, with a stop gesture, she threw her hand in the air suddenly, just missing the minister’s face.

  “Hold it, Reverend,” she said sharply.

  The nervous man halted mid-sentence, his mouth gaping slightly.

  Abigail excused herself from the ceremony and marched up the knoll to greet the unexpected visitor. Those gathered at the gravesite watched her in stunned silence. They glanced around at one another with bewildered expressions, unsure of what to do. The reverend, having never encountered such a discourteous interruption, shook his head and murmured to himself.

  Abigail addressed the man on the hill. “Are you coming down to join us?”

  The man crossed his arms and scowled.

  “For Christ’s sake, Rod, we’re laying your daughter to rest. I would think that might give you some peace after all these years.”

  The man began to turn away.

  “Don’t turn your back on me, you stubborn old fool,” she shouted. “You need to come to your senses. She has been awaiting a proper burial for thirty-five years, and she deserves to have her father in attendance. Wouldn’t you agree?”

  Rod opened his mouth as if to say something, but no sound emerged.

  Abigail softened her voice and took on a more compassionate tone. “Don’t you see what this means? She didn’t stay away from you all these years. She didn’t refuse to come. She couldn’t come. But she would have. I know people, Rod, and I know in my heart that she would have come.”

  Beth felt the blood drain out of her face, for she realized that she, herself, not only knew in her heart that Katherine would have come back; she knew it for a fact. She knew that Katherine wanted more than anything in the world to mend the rift and see her father again. And yet Beth stood there and said nothing. As she looked up the hill, she no longer saw a stubborn, hateful man. She saw a human being – a human being who suffered a tragedy Beth could not fathom, a man turned cold by years of waiting, wondering, and self-admonishing, a man who had grieved long before the day Beth discovered Katherine’s remains.

  Abigail continued to try and reach him. She spoke gently. “You can’t undo what’s been done. No one blames you for what happened. I’m sure she knew you loved her. You can’t bring her back, Rod. But she was a vibrant, wonderful girl. What you can do is honor the life she lived so joyously. You owe that to her. You owe it to yourself.”

&n
bsp; The man looked past Abigail to the gravesite.

  “Are you really going to stand here and not say goodbye?”

  He looked down.

  Abigail marched up to the top of the hill and grabbed one of his arms. “Come on. I’m not going to let you make this mistake.” She pulled on him. Reluctantly, like a reprimanded child, he followed her. Several mourners near the end of the freshly dug pit moved aside to make a space for him. He stood there, arms folded. It was difficult to discern his emotional condition. He looked stubborn and sour, like a bust of Beethoven. He remained for the entire ceremony, even taking a moment to throw a handful of dirt on the coffin. The minister, a man of ambiguous faith, included this gesture, which was typically a Jewish custom. Beth presumed he liked to see himself as worldly and multi-cultural. Rod, having long since abandoned church services, complied obediently, his face steady and distant.

  * * * *

  Beth arrived home, shaken and teary-eyed, but she bolted up the stairs with vigor and determination. “I should have done this the day I came home from Bangor,” she said, chastising herself. “Selfish, stupid Beth. Who gave you the right to decide who gets information and who does not?” She pulled the letters from her dresser drawer. “These do not belong to you. They belong to him. He deserves to know.”

  She went back downstairs and retrieved the photo from her mantel. She stared at it for a minute, trying to remember if anyone in town had a color copier. Finally, she resigned and copied the photo carefully on her black-and-white home copy machine. She meticulously cut the gray-toned photo to size and replaced it in the frame. It was not nearly as lovely, but it would suffice. She also copied the letters. For Susan, she told herself. If I ever find her.

  She wasn’t certain whether Rod would be home or at the marina. If he was on The Bottomless Blue, he would have the hatch locked. She did not wish to leave the letters on the deck. So she decided to go to Rod’s house and drop them through the mail slot where they would be safe and where he would eventually find them. She approached Rod’s house tentatively. “I’ll just toss these in the slot and be on my way,” she whispered. “No need to knock.”

  As the letters slipped from her hand to the floor of Rod’s home, Beth’s heart skipped a beat. They were gone, and she could no longer change her mind. Am I doing the right thing? The man did not believe his daughter was dead. The letters would settle the matter once and for all. Was she doing him any favors by forcing such information upon him? Then again, she was hardly helping him by enabling him in a lie.

  Besides, she realized, he knew. When he allowed the dirt to fall out of his hand and onto the coffin, he knew. He would not even have come if there were not something deep inside of him that had begun to acknowledge that Katherine was truly gone.

  Beth walked away, turning back once, wondering if he was already reading the letters.

  * * * *

  That night Beth cleaned up her studio and hung the portrait of the redheaded girl in the center of the windowless wall of the room. The firefly appeared, startling her.

  Beth smiled wearily. “Now that you’ve been laid to rest, aren’t you supposed to disappear, become one with the ether or something?”

  The firefly floated motionless in the middle of the room.

  “I gave him the letters.”

  Still no movement.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t do it sooner.”

  The firefly drifted slowly toward Beth.

  “Can you rest in peace now? Let me live a normal life again?”

  The light creature continued to drift.

  “You’re not going to let up until I find Susan, are you?”

  It made a small, swishing movement in the air.

  “You’re a royal pain in the ass, you know that?”

  The firefly danced in circles as if laughing at Beth.

  “How on God’s green earth am I going to find her with the information I have?”

  It drifted back toward the window.

  “And if I don’t find her, will you haunt me forever?”

  The firefly slipped through the glass.

  Beth sighed and retreated to her bedroom. She fished Susan’s authentic birth certificate out of the drawer, booted up her computer, and took a seat.

  She stayed up until 1:00 a.m. surfing the Internet – reading genealogy and adoptions sites, searching for an entry that matched or was similar to Susan’s. It seemed an impossible feat. Susan may not know her real birthday. She may not even know that she was adopted. If she wasn’t searching, how would Beth ever locate her? It would take an act of God to bring them together.

  Beth spent forty-five minutes trying to compose a paragraph she could post on a variety of sites. She started over several times. “How does one politely say ‘your parents had a birth certificate forged?’”

  Hello. I am searching for a girl born May 23, 1977. DOB on her birth certificate may be different but close to that date. Baby was born in Bangor, Maine to Katherine Thompson. Six pounds, seven ounces. Birth name, Susan Elizabeth. Name probably changed. Adopted by a couple from upstate New York.

  She added her first name and email address to the message, posted it wherever possible, and finally went to bed exhausted.

  Her nightmares had stopped, relieving her anxiety, yet ending her window to the past. She found herself longing to see images of Susan’s adoptive parents or their home. But she was on her own. She checked her email in the morning, after her shower, and again after breakfast.

  “You might as well leave it alone,” she mumbled to herself. “It could take weeks, months…even years, I suppose. For now, you need to start painting again, bring some new pieces to Bobby Downy, and get on with your life.”

  * * * *

  Beth decided to take a walk. After about a half of a mile, she picked a small bundle of wildflowers and headed toward the cemetery. When she got to the top of the hill, she stopped abruptly and backed away slowly. She hid behind a cluster of bushes.

  Upon Katherine’s grave, on his hands and knees, Rod Thompson was crying. Beth bit her lip. He did not look like the man she knew from the outrages or even from the funeral. The harshness was gone. His sobs resounded through the cemetery, pure and unconstrained. Beth sat behind the bushes, as tears of her own silently ran down her face. She remembered what it felt like that day in the forest when she was consumed with tears, when she finally grieved about events left unaddressed for decades. She understood what Rod was experiencing. She knew it was painful, yet cleansing. She knew it was necessary.

  Beth left the flowers by the bushes and quietly slipped away.

  Chapter 27

  Needle in a Haystack

  Weeks passed, July slipped into August, and Beth heard nothing. She faithfully checked her email and periodically scanned the adoption websites. In the meantime, she sat down with the young computer wiz recommended by Bobby Downy and started her website. She painted three paintings – two lighthouses and one coastal scene – all of which ended up at Kelp Corner. She thought about selling the portrait of the red-haired girl, but she simply could not part with it. Thus, it remained in her studio, the aura of a passionate young spirit inspiring Beth’s creative endeavors.

  Most of the time, the firefly left her alone. But Beth often found herself closing the curtains before sunset on days when she felt emotionally vulnerable.

  * * * *

  Before the end of July, Beth finally confessed her secret to Mary and Abigail, hoping they might have ideas or resources unavailable to Beth.

  “A baby?” Mary exclaimed, casting a reproachful glance in Beth’s direction. “I can’t believe you kept this from me.”

  Abigail beamed. “You are full of surprises, aren’t you, Beth?”

  Blushing, Beth replied, “I’m sorry, ladies. I was thinking that…I didn’t want the reporters to—”

  “It’s okay,” Abigail said. “You do not owe us an explanation.”

  Mary folded her arms and looked at her mother with an expression that said
she damn well does owe us an explanation, but Mary kept her mouth politely shut.

  “I was just hoping you might have some ideas about how I might find her,” Beth said.

  “You’re several steps ahead of me using the computer,” Abigail replied. “But I’ll check in with the retirement community, see if there is anyone from New York who might know something about something.” She winked.

  Mary sighed. “I’ll ask around.”

  But their efforts proved fruitless.

  * * * *

  On August third, Beth visited Kenny at his store.

  He looked up and smiled. Beth returned his smile, warmly, remembering the days when he merely looked at her with dead, unreadable eyes.

  “How have you been, Beth?”

  “Okay, I guess. I’ve been searching for Susan. No results. But I’ve done some painting,” she said, hoping to sound a little more cheerful. “I’m trying not to center my life around finding her.”

  Kenny frowned. “I think that’s wise. With a forged birth certificate, she may be impossible to track down.”

  “Yeah. It’s too bad I can’t rattle Eleanor Sharpe for more information.”

  “What about her son?”

  “Why didn’t I think of that?” Beth shook her head in disbelief. “Man, she even gave me his name. It was Craig or Greg. Gregory. It was Gregory.”

  “He’s not likely to talk. I mean, don’t feel stupid. It’s not as if you overlooked a gem of a source.”

  “At least I can try.”

  “Would you like my help?”

  “Yes, please. Where should we begin?”

  Kenny put his index finger over his mouth. “There must be an estate settlement going on in Bangor. We could check the house. Also, maybe the cemetery has contact information. Or we could just search for Gregory Sharpe in the listings.”

  Beth and Kenny sat down at his computer and ran a couple of searches. Several Gregory Sharpes resided in New England. Kenny called the one listed in Connecticut first. No luck. The other two did not answer. Kenny chose not to leave messages.