by White, Karen
Whatever secrets there might be between them, there was a strange force that seemed to propel them toward each other, like the magnetic north on a compass forcing the arrow to point in its direction. Not for the first time, he wondered if it had always been that way between him and Jillian, but that with Lauren in the middle the way to true north had been blurred. He shook his head. He couldn’t allow himself to act on that attraction. There were secrets he needed to unbury, and there wasn’t a doubt in his mind that she would do anything she could to distract him.
After a frustrating swipe of his hand through his hair, he picked up his measuring tape and began determining the dimensions of the kitchen layout, jotting down numbers and ideas on his clipboard. He was so completely immersed in what he was doing that at first he didn’t notice that he had company. A movement to his left brought his head up, and he started at the sight of Grace’s cat, Spot, sitting on the kitchen counter in a confident stance that dared anyone to ask him to leave.
Their gazes met for a moment, and Linc had the strangest feeling that he wasn’t looking at a mere animal and that it would speak to him at any moment. He grinned to himself and bent back to his work, but stopped again when another movement from the cat made him look up.
The cat was still on the counter, but his head was turned slightly, eyeing something over Linc’s shoulder. Linc turned around, expecting to see Jillian or Gracie, but only saw an empty room. Dust motes. The cat must be looking at dust in the light from the window.
Slightly unnerved, he faced the cat again and watched as the animal continued to follow the progress of the dust motes move behind Linc toward the door. With a loud meow, the cat leapt off the counter, landing on the floor with a soft thud, and trotted out the doorway and into the foyer.
Realizing his mouth had gone dry, Linc moved to the cabinet and pulled out a glass. As he began filling it with water from the sink, he felt a tap on his back. The glass slid from his hand, shattering against the faucet, and spraying him with shards of glass as he spun around.
“Sorry, Linc.” Gracie smiled up at him, her hands clasped behind her back.
Linc felt his heart pound all the way up to his head. I’m going to have a heart attack. He tried to smile back while sucking on his finger where he’d been cut by the flying glass. “That’s all right. You startled me, that’s all.” In truth, he’d never been so scared in his life, but he’d be damned if he’d admit that to a seven-year-old. “Did you need anything?”
She shook her head but didn’t move away. Instead, she tilted her head as if listening to somebody standing beside her and speaking to her.
Swallowing thickly, he asked, “Are you talking to Lauren?”
Slowly, she nodded.
The hair on the back of his neck stood up, and he caught sight of Spot in the threshold again, his gaze staring at something against the wall behind Grace.
He grabbed Grace’s arm, her hand still held behind her back, and pulled her out of the kitchen in a desperate need to exit the room. Once in the foyer, he squatted down and looked the little girl in the face. “What does Lauren look like, Gracie?”
She looked down at her feet, clad in red sparkly shoes that seemed too small for her, avoiding his eyes.
More gently, he asked, “How old is she, and what does she sound like?”
Keeping her head down, she shrugged again.
He felt vaguely relieved. He could deal with a child’s vivid imagination. He doubted he could handle the alternative.
Gently squeezing her shoulders, he said, “She’s just your imaginary friend, isn’t she? You just heard your mother say her name once and that’s where you got the name Lauren from, didn’t you? You don’t need to be embarrassed. It’s a good thing to have such a great imagination.”
He stood, gently patting her on her head. “I need to find a Band-Aid. Could you send me in the right direction?”
She looked up at him with those beautiful brown eyes. “She told me to give you this.” She brought her hands around to her front, something bulky squeezed between her two flattened palms. Slowly, she lifted the hand on top.
Linc gripped the newel post, feeling foolishly like he was going to faint. In her hands lay the box he had made for Lauren so long ago, the Ls of their first names intertwined just as their lives had once been. He somehow found words to speak. “Who gave you that?”
“It’s Jilly-bean’s. She keeps it hidden because that’s what Lauren told her to do a long time ago. But Lauren thinks you should have it now. There’s something inside she wants you to see.”
For a long time he didn’t say anything, just stared at the box in the little girl’s hand, his breathing slow and deep. Finally, he reached for it and plucked it up with his uninjured hand. The wood was as smooth and warm as a young girl’s skin, and he thought for a moment that he could smell Lauren’s sun-warmed hair. His fingers traced the two Ls on the lid, and he stared at the scar between the thumb and index finger of his right hand that he had gotten while carving the second letter. It had bled for a long time, almost as long as his heart had bled for the girl to whom he’d given the box.
He turned it over in his hand, listening for any sound to give him a clue as to what might be inside. He even put a hand over the lid, about to twist it off, but stopped. He looked back at Grace, who was staring at the closed box with anticipation. With a great deal of effort, he held it out to her. “I can’t open this without your mother’s permission. It wouldn’t be right.”
Grace’s brows knitted. “Why not? It belongs to Lauren, and she gave you permission.”
She tried to push the box back toward him, but he held firm. He felt the temptation grab at him like a wave at high tide. It would be so easy to open the lid and look inside without Jillian ever knowing anything about it.
Still, something held him back—and not just the wrongness of it. He admitted that part of him wanted Jillian to give it to him herself, to prove to him that she had nothing to hide. Another part of him was afraid to know. Know what? He held the box tightly for a long moment. There are some who always believed your innocence. Why was it so important to him that he believe this of her? She didn’t matter; only the truth did. So why didn’t he open the box?
Before he could argue himself out of it, he forced the box back into Grace’s hand. “Take this back and hide it where you found it. If your mother wants me to see it, she’ll show it to me.”
Grace frowned, her lower lip trembling slightly, and Linc quickly sat down on the stairs to look her in the eye. “Why don’t you tell me where to get a Band-Aid, and when I’m done, and if it’s okay with your mother, I’ll take you for ice cream.”
A bright smile lit her face, and Linc wondered for a moment if he’d been had. “The Band-Aid box is in the medicine cabinet in the hall bath upstairs.” Then she turned around, and with pigtails flopping, skipped into the front parlor.
He turned and headed up the stairs, trying to forget the smoothness of the wood against the bare skin of his hand.
When he reached the upstairs landing, he turned right, just the opposite of his own home, and began to cross the hall. He had almost made it to the bathroom when he made the mistake of looking into the open doorway of the third bedroom.
This bedroom was the smallest of the three, and the walls were still white, as he had left them. But someone had stenciled gold stars around the perimeter of the ceiling, and in the middle of the far wall, directly across from the door, was written a poem in glowing gold letters.
The Angels were all singing out of tune,
And hoarse with having little else to do,
Excepting to wind up the sun and moon
Or curb a runaway young star or two.
Linc felt a surge of warmth in his chest as he read the neatly stenciled words from Lord Byron’s poem, and remembered. The summer before Lauren’s disappearance, he’d kept up a steady employment of doing odd jobs on the island and a few in Charleston. He was known as being very handy with wood, a
nd word of mouth had been free advertising.
That summer, he was hired to put wainscoting in a baby’s nursery in one of Charleston’s old mansions on Meeting Street. It was probably that house that had started his love affair with old architecture, and he’d never forgotten it—nor the beautiful room designed for a child, not even born yet, but loved and cherished sight unseen. He had loved the poem painted on the wall above the canopied crib and had shared it with Jillian one night as they lay on the beach, counting stars. She had told him it reminded her of the two of them, two tetherless stars adrift in the universe, waiting for whatever sun or moon to pull them close.
He smiled at the memory and was about to turn away when a movement in the corner of the room caught his gaze. Jillian sat in a rocking chair, one he recognized from the front porch, cradling the baby. Her head was down, looking at Ford, and Linc could only see the bottom portion of her face. Her mouth was curved in a half-smile as she bent forward to kiss the top of the baby’s head and then leaned back against the rocking chair, her eyes closed.
It was then Linc realized the baby was nursing. Jillian’s blouse was unbuttoned all the way and rippling slightly in the breeze from the open window, her bra exposing one full pale breast. Ford’s head covered anything that Jillian might consider indecent, but the effect on Linc was the same as if she stood before him naked. He suddenly felt as if he’d stepped off a sandbar into water over his head.
He wanted to turn away or close his eyes, but found that he couldn’t. He was even more embarrassed to realize that it had less to do with her near nakedness than it did with the maternal tableau she had unwittingly set herself in. He watched as the baby reached up a small hand and grasped hold of a fistful of Jillian’s hair and tugged. She smiled, and it made her glow with maternal satisfaction, and made Linc choke on undisguised desire for this woman.
He must have made a sound, because Jillian’s eyes snapped open, her gaze meeting his. The baby mewled, slapping his fist against her bare chest. They stared at each other in the silence, only the baby’s nursing sounds filling the air between them.
Finally, Linc cleared his throat. “I’m taking Gracie for ice cream,” he said, feeling completely lost.
Jillian nodded, not saying anything, and just kept her expressive brown eyes settled on him. He turned away, forgetting the Band-Aids and everything else except getting as far away from Jillian as he could, and away from all the feelings she seemed to evoke in him.
Jillian grasped Grace’s hand and paused at the front entrance of the Low Country Day School as groups of recently dismissed children streamed by them. Hearing her name called, she turned and waved as she spotted Martha Weber coming toward her.
“Hello, Mrs. Weber. What are you doing at the school today?”
The older woman smiled down at Grace, patting her head and stealing a glance at Ford asleep in the front pouch Jillian wore. “Please, Jillian, call me Martha. Otherwise, you’ll make me feel older than I am.”
Jillian smiled. “Old habit. Sorry.”
They turned together and began walking toward the parking lot. “I work at the library every Friday afternoon. Lessie’s children go here, and they get such a kick out of seeing Grandma in the library.” She smiled, deep creases forming at the corner of her eyes. “You aren’t by any chance heading in my direction, are you? Lessie’s taking Mary Ellen to the dentist right after school, and if you’re heading right home, I’d love to hitch a ride with you instead. Besides, I have all those plates from the wonderful goodies you’ve been sending our way to give back to you. Joe and I have gained about five pounds apiece. But I say it’s a small price to pay to be able to be your official tasters.”
Jillian smiled. “I’d be happy to—but only if you’re not in a hurry. I was planning on taking a long walk before heading home.” She glanced down at the sleeping baby. “Ford only seems to like to nap in his little pouch. As soon as I take him out or lay him down, his eyes pop open for good and then he’s cranky because he hasn’t had enough sleep.”
Martha held out her hand to Grace, placing the little girl between the two women as they walked. “Well, then. We’ll walk slowly.” She winked at Jillian. After a few moments of silence, Martha said, “Have you forgiven Mason yet? That boy is beside himself with guilt. When the storm hit, he headed right over to your house, but got called to a bad accident involving a fallen tree over on Ocean Highway. He tried to call you, but your phone was dead. He even got Mr. Rising’s cell number from Lessie, but nobody answered.” She shook her head slowly. “He had two more emergencies he had to see about before he made it to your house—and that was at about the same time the ambulance showed up. It’s eating him alive knowing that it was his fault that you were alone during the storm and had that baby by yourself.”
Jillian paused and placed her hand on Martha’s arm. “I wasn’t alone, remember? And everything worked out. I haven’t blamed Mason for a minute—and I’ve told him that at least a hundred times. The change in the weather was a fluke of nature, something that not even the forecasters had predicted. No, I don’t blame Mason. He’s a dear friend, and I don’t want to be on his conscience.” She smiled secretively. “I’ll bake him something real good to get his mind off of it.”
Martha smiled back, relief evident on her face. “By the way, I’ve been meaning to ask you if your house sustained any damage during the storm. We had several roof tiles blown off. Nothing as serious as when Hugo blew through in 1989 and demolished all those houses on the south end of the island, but it was pretty scary for a while. Nobody saw the Gray Man, though, so I guess it wasn’t too serious.”
Jillian tried to get Martha’s attention to switch the subject, but Grace had heard every word. The little girl turned to Martha. “Who’s the Gray Man?”
“Oh, you haven’t heard of him, have you? Nobody’s really sure who he was when he was alive—just that he was somebody who really loved Pawleys. His ghost appears before a hurricane or serious storm to warn people. Whoever sees him, if they’re smart enough, will leave the island, and their property will be spared. And if they don’t”—she leaned down toward Grace’s face with an ominous look—“then all is lost.”
Grace stared back matter-of-factly. “I haven’t met him yet. I wonder if he knows Lauren.”
Jillian had a litany of excuses prepared when Martha glanced over at her, but instead of seeing a confused expression on the older woman’s face, Jillian saw only understanding. Gracie broke free of their hands and ran ahead to look at something in the grass. Martha turned to face Jillian.
“I’ve known Janie Mulligan too long to try and think that the human mind is all the same. Some of us are gifted in ways others will never understand.” They both turned to look at Gracie before Martha continued. “Even Janie. There are some who say she’s slow and dull-witted, but I think she’s one of the smartest people I’ve ever met. She’s not like you and me—or anybody else I know, for that matter—but she sees the truth in everything and won’t be cowed into keeping it to herself.”
Gracie ran back to them, a broken conch shell in her outstretched hand. “Look, Jilly-bean! I’m going to keep it for my collection.” She dumped it inside Jillian’s backpack, along with the bottle tops, rocks, sticks and shells that Gracie had added to her collection on a walk the previous morning, and Jillian hadn’t had a chance to clean out yet.
Gracie ran on ahead of them again and the two women began walking, keeping a slow pace so Gracie could catch up to them. They passed under a huge old oak, its thick and ancient branches hovering low over the road, making them duck to be able to pass. Jillian squinted, wishing she had remembered to throw her sunglasses into the backpack. Eager to steer the conversation away from Grace, she said, “Who is Janie Mulligan? I mean, who’s her family, and how did it happen that you and my grandmother have always taken care of her?”
Martha looked down, her mouth set in a firm line. “Well, Barbara— that was Janie’s mother—was a good friend of mine and your grandmoth
er’s. We’d known each other since elementary school. Barbara and Annabelle were quite a few years older than me, but we lived close by and I walked to school with them every day from my first day at school. We were best friends since then on, even after we were married and had our own families.” She looked up at the sky as a plane buzzed in the far distance. “I guess that’s what happens when you grow up in a small place and never leave.”
A faraway smile lit her face. “It was so nice having children together—even though their ages were pretty spread out. Annabelle had your father first, so he was the oldest. I don’t think I had my first until your daddy was twelve or so.” She grinned, and she looked like a young girl again. “And then I had all of mine right in a row, and then I was drowning in diapers for a long time, so most of those years are a blur. But I do remember how we’d take all the kids to the beach and go oyster catching in the marsh, just like we’d done when we were children.”
They stopped for a moment, watching as Gracie sat down to plop off a red sparkly shoe and empty it of gravel before Martha continued. “And then Janie was the last to be born. Her mother only had Bill, her eldest, and a bunch of babies born and buried too soon. . . .” She paused, her brows folding together in her sun-browned face. “Well, we knew Janie was different right from the start. The doctors said it was because Barbara had her so late in life—she was almost forty-four when Janie was born, after all. She was real slow-like; never crawled until she up and walked one day when she was three. Wasn’t potty trained until she was in school full-time. But so beautiful, and what a sweetheart she was—still is.”
They walked in silence for a few moments, watching Gracie zigzag in the grass, picking up more treasures and stuffing them in the already bulging pockets of her shorts. Jillian lowered her face to brush the soft fuzz of Ford’s head, smelling his sweet baby scent. “So where’s her family now? Is there anybody left on the island?”