Half Past: A Novel

by Victoria Helen Stone

  The far-fetched theory about what had happened to the Smith family in 1972 didn’t seem so far-fetched anymore. And now Hannah had a real-life hippie commune to visit. Maybe this trip wouldn’t be all Sturm und Drang after all.

  CHAPTER 8

  Hippie communes weren’t quite what they used to be.

  Hannah shot a sullen glance at the driveway that dipped down toward the famous seaside commune, but she couldn’t even see the buildings from here, much less the people. Instead of being welcomed with warm, patchouli-scented arms, she’d been stopped at the gate by a security guard with a crew cut and a polyester uniform shirt.

  “I just want to take a look around,” she repeated.

  He regarded her with a bored stare that said he’d heard it a million times before. “Only residents and workshop attendees are allowed on the grounds.”

  “How am I supposed to know if I want to spend a week here if I’ve never even seen the place?”

  “Ma’am, please turn your car around.”

  “This is ridiculous. Is the leader of a small country vacationing here or something? I just want to walk around for a few minutes. I can leave my car here if you like.”

  “I’m afraid that’s not an option.” He was less friendly than guards she’d encountered at government buildings. She didn’t know what kind of peace and love they were selling inside, but it definitely wasn’t the counterculture kind.

  “So the only way to visit is to sign up for a workshop.”

  “Or you can schedule a massage.”

  Hannah brightened at that. “A massage! That would be great. I’ve been pretty damn tense. Can I go in and see if there’s a therapist available?”

  “You’ll have to call ahead, ma’am.”

  “But I don’t have cell service.”

  “There’s a pay phone at the state park down the road.”

  “Are you kidding me?” she snapped.

  His flat-mouthed glare answered the question.

  “Can’t you just get on your radio and ask if there are any openings?”

  A Mercedes-Benz SUV pulled up behind her, and the guard stepped away. “Please move your vehicle, ma’am.”

  Hannah nearly growled at him, but she threw the car into gear and twisted the wheel. “You should think about taking one of those workshops on positivity,” she muttered. “Learn to let a little kindness into your life. Asshole.”

  She made a careful three-point turn and sped back up the drive to the highway. Unbelievable. She just wanted to talk to some old hippies. Maybe she’d be better off hanging out at the nearest marijuana dispensary. Then again, she suspected people around here just grew their own.

  She didn’t have any change to use for a public phone, so she turned north and drove toward civilization. The view of aqua water and soaring cliffs helped calm some of her anger. How could it not?

  This place must have been magical when her parents had lived here. No cell phones. No European SUVs. No high-end spas masquerading as spiritual retreats. Just people looking for a peaceful spot to hide.

  Hannah rolled down her windows and let the wind whip her ponytail around her head. Even above the traffic, she could hear the waves crashing below and the seagulls screaming. She wanted to park and hike down to one of the isolated beaches she kept glimpsing below her as she turned into curves, but she wasn’t here for a vacation. She’d find no answers down there.

  So she drove toward Monterey and set her phone on the dash, hoping it would grab a signal better from there. She was nearly to Carmel before her phone beeped. And beeped. And beeped.

  She could see the flash of text messages coming through, but she didn’t dare try to read anything on this road. As soon as she spotted an overlook, she pulled onto the gravel and parked. A huge spit of land loomed up out of the sea in front of her. Far above the water, a lighthouse flashed toward the clouds that were rolling in from the Pacific.

  She let herself watch it for a moment, shivering a little at the ominous beauty of the sight. The spot reminded her of Alcatraz, and she wondered how many tragedies those stone block buildings had witnessed. Not that the buildings cared. They simply watched and waited for the pounding sea to eventually grind them into sand.

  “You’re not here for beauty,” she reminded herself. But the sad gorgeousness stayed with her as she reached for the phone.

  Five messages. Most were from Becky. None were from Rachel. But there was also the one name she’d dreaded seeing: Jeff.

  “Damn it, damn it, damn it.” She’d reached out in a moment of weakness, and her stupid phone had apparently found just enough of a signal to screw her over. His text message response did not convey warmth. Did you want to talk, or are you just fucking with me?

  God.

  They’d spoken fairly often right after the split, but recent communication had been through lawyers only . . . at her insistence. And now she’d been caught calling him.

  It had been pure weakness on her part. Jeff had been her best friend for years, and she needed a best friend right now. She couldn’t talk to her sisters. They’d taken a side, as if this were an argument instead of the worst moment of her life.

  Speaking of . . .

  She clicked back to Becky’s texts, and her eyes immediately filled with tears.

  Please call me and let me know how you are.

  Are you okay?

  What’s going on?

  Rachel’s sorry for what she said. We both love you. Please call.

  Hannah rolled her eyes even as a tear spilled over and tickled its way down her right cheek. If Rachel was sorry, she could get in touch herself. The rest of the messages, Hannah believed. She knew Becky loved her. She knew she was worried. But that didn’t mean Becky could begin to understand what Hannah was going through.

  And Rachel? Rachel didn’t even want to understand. She just wanted it all to go away. She liked to fix things. To keep them orderly. And there was no possibility of making this right.

  Hannah started to write back to Becky, then changed her mind and closed the box. She opened it again before she’d even moved to another screen. It wouldn’t be okay to let her sister worry. Becky’s ambivalence didn’t call for cruelty.

  Arrived safely and am looking into some promising leads. Phone service is pretty much nonexistent, so don’t worry if I don’t get in touch. I love you too.

  She left off the tell our big sister to kiss my selfish ass ending that scrolled through her mind. If her car went off a cliff, those shouldn’t be the last words she sent to her sisters. Even if she did mean them.

  Becky responded immediately. Are you somewhere you can call me? I’d like to know what’s going on.

  Hannah ignored it and clicked back to Jeff’s message.

  If he cared about her, he would have been nice. He would’ve said, Did you want to talk? instead of Are you just fucking with me? He could have even shown some concern and said, Hey, is everything okay?

  Thank God she hadn’t reached him and admitted vulnerability. Her face flushed at the thought.

  At first, when she’d been fantasizing about divorce, she’d imagined it would be amicable. Mature. One of those conscious uncouplings people did these days. After all, they didn’t hate each other. Hell, she still loved him. It wasn’t that she’d hated being married to him; she just couldn’t stand being married, period.

  It was too much for her. The constant awareness of another person’s needs. The worry that a spouse wasn’t happy and fulfilled. The bone-deep knowledge that she couldn’t be her true self with anyone. Not really. Her true self wasn’t lovable enough.

  She didn’t want to take every vacation with Jeff. She didn’t want to find another barbecue restaurant for him when she felt like sushi. She didn’t want to check in and see if he was okay with girls’ night on a Tuesday because Jasmine had been dumped by her boyfriend.

  Then he’d started making wistful comments about other people’s kids when he’d always denied wanting his own. His observations about child
ren and legacy and family had made Hannah feel as if she were sinking deeper and deeper into water, the pressure pushing at her lungs and ears and eyes.

  She’d read once that men were happier in marriage than women were. Funny, considering the stereotype of women always pushing for marriage. But once in it, men were happier because they were cared for. Looked after. But what happened when the woman wasn’t great at caring for people? Nothing good. Constantly trying to be better than she was had worn her down until she’d turned into a moody, unhappy beast.

  And still, she couldn’t understand how it had all gotten so ugly.

  Yes, she was a shitty wife, but she’d warned him about that up front. He’d said, Let’s just try. Let’s try. No pressure. Let’s give it a go.

  She’d tried, and it hadn’t worked, and now they couldn’t speak without screaming at each other.

  She just wanted to get back to being friends. She just wanted to call him. Instead, she deleted his message and looked up the phone number for scheduling a massage.

  When she asked if there were any appointments available today, she assumed the pause meant the woman was looking through the schedule. But apparently she was taking a moment to process her disbelief. “No,” she finally said, “I’m afraid we’re booked solid for the next nine days.”

  “Nine days?” What the hell was this place? The holy grail of seaside self-improvement? “I just . . .” She was getting the feeling that just wanting to ask a few questions wasn’t going to garner her any love and trust in this place. “I’m really interested in getting a glimpse of this experience before I book a workshop. Funds are tight, you know? Is there any way I could just come see the spa? Or maybe you have a manicure appointment available?”

  It sounded like the woman on the other end swallowed a gasp. “We don’t do manicures here, ma’am. This is a holistic wellness center.”

  “Right. Of course. I apologize.”

  “If you just want to set foot here, you could come during the public hot springs hours.”

  “That sounds perfect! Yes, absolutely. Thank you!”

  “Great. Wednesday nights from two a.m. to four a.m.”

  “What now?” Hannah pulled her phone from her ear to frown at it for a brief second. “Did you say two a.m.?”

  “That’s right. The rules are posted at the top of the trail and again at the hot springs entrance. You’ll need a flashlight for the walk.”

  Hannah hung up before she could say anything rude to the woman. She definitely wasn’t getting into this commune. Time to think of another option. She strained the muscles of her face, squeezing her eyes shut. Still, nothing ingenious popped into her mind.

  Defeated again, she headed back south on the highway. Solving this mystery was going to take some old-fashioned footwork, but that was why she’d flown to California, right? This wasn’t a defeat. This was the start. She was kicking ass.

  “No you’re not,” she grumbled, then decided to ignore that BS and put her nose to the grindstone, just the way she’d been raised. “You’re not a quitter,” she said aloud. And then she laughed. And laughed harder. Because she definitely was a quitter; she just hadn’t quit this yet.

  CHAPTER 9

  As soon as she got back to Riverfall, she stashed her purse in the cabin and grabbed a jacket. She kept expecting it to be pleasantly warm on the coast of California, but it wasn’t. In fact, the afternoon was downright chilly, and the sun she’d glimpsed earlier had vanished.

  Zipping up her jacket, she made her way to the river trail and followed it east toward the PRIVATE PROPERTY sign. Her hand dragged along a young redwood as she rounded a curve, and the softness of the needles surprised her. She’d expected they’d be hard like pine needles, but they were more like narrow leaves, pliant and yielding when she reached for them.

  Walking among the strange trees and the ferns that grew huge in all the ambient moisture, Hannah could imagine she’d stepped back in time. Maybe she had. It felt magical here. Primeval. Perhaps that was what had attracted so many lost souls decades before.

  Lost souls. Lost parents.

  Had her father loved this other woman? Had it been happy and meaningful and out in the open?

  Some people had lived like that then. No jealousy. No judgment. She couldn’t picture her Lutheran parents living life that way, but she couldn’t picture them here at all. What was one more detail added to the mix? Maybe they’d lived in this Garden of Eden and let the expectations of the outside world fall away.

  Or maybe the affair had been secret. A messy, needful passion in the forest. Late nights beneath the stars, always in the dark, until Hannah had come along to expose them.

  Whichever it had been, they must have created her in happiness. They’d needed each other, at least for a time. She’d inherited that restless intensity. She understood it. There was love and passion and travel in her bones, and her parents had come together to make it.

  She slowed to take in this place where she’d been born, this place where the earth was far more powerful than people. The ground beneath her feet felt light and hollow, and she imagined the thousands of years of redwood needles that had fallen to create the layers of this path. Just a few inches down, there were needles her own father had stepped on. And her mother. They’d walked here. They must have.

  A few minutes later, she reached the fence with the sign. The trail turned and disappeared into the shallow river, only to reappear on the other side. A few stones visible above the waterline offered a hopeful hint of passage, but she wasn’t looking to continue a hike.

  The fence of the adjoining property didn’t quite reach the river, so she picked her way carefully over tree roots and rocks until she was past the long wall of wood and found another dirt road to step onto. A hundred yards ahead, she reached a walkway of redwood chips that led to the door of a modest ranch house. Hoping they were long-term residents who might know something about previous neighbors, she approached.

  When she was ten feet from the door, she heard the high-pitched squeal of a child from inside. The good news was that someone was home. The bad news was a kid might answer her knock.

  It seemed unbelievable even to her, but talking to children made Hannah feel as if she were the inexperienced one in the interaction. The kid was always the calm one, watching her with big eyes, waiting for her to say the right thing, and all she could do was babble and squirm. Why was she so inept at talking to humans with a kindergarten vocabulary? Shouldn’t that be easy?

  She knocked and practiced saying, “Hello, is your mommy home?” over and over. A rush of wheels approached from the other side of the door, and she braced herself. But the loud rumble of plastic against the floor retreated again, and the house fell quiet.

  Hannah tried the doorbell, wincing at the way the chime echoed somewhere inside. This time, footsteps approached. Adult footsteps. Followed by more squealing.

  The door flew inward.

  “Hello!” she said thankfully at the sight of the woman, though it was the first time she’d ever felt thankful to see a woman with a baby on her hip and a toddler wobbling behind her to catch up. Another toddler peeked from around a corner. Hannah had stumbled onto a hive.

  The woman smiled brightly despite the sheen of sweat on her forehead and the black hair escaping her braid and dancing madly about her head. She waved a rag she held in her right hand. “Hi! You’re here about the opening?”

  “Opening?” Hannah asked.

  “For the baby,” the woman said, clearing up nothing.

  “I’m sorry, I . . .” Hannah glanced toward the farthest kid and watched him jerk back around the corner to hide. “I don’t know anything about babies. I wanted to ask you something about the property next door. But you seem busy?”

  Laughing, the woman waved the towel again. “Not busy at all. We just finished up snack time. Come on in.”

  “You’ve obviously got your hands full.” Hannah’s feet had already backed her up two steps.

  “Nonse
nse. I’m down one baby right now. Things are quiet.”

  Hannah felt her face twisting in some mixture of confusion and fear.

  The woman laughed. “This is a daycare. Well, it’s my home too, but a daycare during the day! Three babies, three preschoolers. That’s what I’m allowed. Right now I only have two of each.”

  “That . . . seems like a lot.”

  “It is. I’m only looking for one more right now, frankly. Babies take more work, but at least they can’t climb things.”

  Hannah laughed as if she understood.

  “I’m Jenny,” the woman said. She swiped at the baby’s cheek with the towel one more time, then let the child grab the rag so she could reach out to shake Hannah’s hand.

  “I’m Hannah. Hannah Smith.”

  “Come on in. I’m taking the kids out back.”

  Hannah stepped in and closed the door carefully behind her, lest any small people escape. The closest toddler stepped right up and grabbed the leg of Hannah’s jeans. When Jenny led the way down a hall, Hannah found herself following in a strange shuffle, half dragging that leg so she wouldn’t pull the toddler onto his face.

  Even counting the discovery that her parents had been orgiastic hippies, this was the last thing she’d expected to happen in California.

  Ahead of her, Jenny grabbed a baby monitor off a hallway table and opened a door to a fenced backyard, letting in a bright glow of green. The sun had emerged temporarily and it filtered through the giant trees of the yard to shine its mottled light on a little play set. The toddler attached to Hannah’s leg broke for the door and raced into the yard. Thank God.

  “The little one’s sleeping,” Jenny explained.

  Hannah marveled at her calmness, the same way she’d always marveled at her sisters’ calm in the face of so many children.

  She’d sometimes tried to convince herself she might grow that kind of peace along with a fetus if she decided to become a mom. But she knew from her own experience that Rachel and Becky had been born with it. Jenny looked like another girl who’d started babysitting at age eleven. And had been good at it. Hannah had tried it once at twelve, and she’d spent the entire three hours terrified she was going to screw up.