by White, Karen
“Thanks, Mason. You’re a good friend.” She wasn’t sure why she’d added that last part but wish she hadn’t as soon as she said it. She saw Mason clamp his lips together before turning and leaving the room.
Jillian fetched a reluctant Gracie and then they all ran out into the rain to Mason’s patrol car. It was a tight squeeze, but they all managed to fit in, with Jillian in the front seat and Janie and the children in the back.
Mason leaned forward, straining to see past the torrential rain that covered the windshield and tapped on the car’s roof like persistent fingers on a shoulder. Jillian saw his uniform shirt was stained dark, soaked through when he’d put Ford’s car seat into the patrol car.
He didn’t look at her, and Jillian kept her gaze focused out the windshield, but she was unable to see the road past the car’s hood. She heard Janie and Grace whispering unintelligibly in the backseat and was relieved to know at least Grace wasn’t afraid of the storm or the approaching dark.
Finally, Mason spoke. “How much do you know about this William Rising, Jillian?”
She squirmed uncomfortably in her seat, her wet legs sticking to the vinyl. “Enough, I suppose, to call him a friend.” He looked at her then, but she glanced away. “Why do you want to know?”
He was silent for a moment before he said, “Because I’ve been doing a little investigating. Seems there’s no record of a William Rising before six years ago. It’s like he just appeared out of nowhere and started up the business of Rising and Morrow. And his partner’s not talking, either.”
Jillian gripped the car handle and tried to keep her voice calm. “Why are you doing all this? Has he done something wrong that would warrant your investigation of him?”
Mason shrugged. “It’s my business to know who’s living on the island, that’s all. And I just think it’s a little interesting to find out that your new neighbor has no past.” He slid a glance at her, his eyes probing. “Thought you might find it interesting, too.”
She turned away from him and took a deep breath to cool her anger. “I don’t. He’s been a good friend to the children and me. That’s all I need to know.”
They rode in silence, listening to the patter of the rain against the metal roof of the car. Even Janie and Grace had fallen quiet, and Jillian resigned herself to the fact that Grace would hear every word of her conversation with Mason.
“Why were you looking for William?”
He didn’t answer right away, and Jillian felt rather than saw Grace lean forward so she wouldn’t miss anything.
“Nothing important. Just that there’s been practically swarms of gulls over by that pit, and I’m thinking his workmen must be dumping garbage in there. I need him to clean it up.”
Jillian relaxed against the seat, not sure why she felt so relieved. “Oh. Well, if I see him before you do, I’ll be sure to let him know.”
They pulled up in front of Janie’s house, and Mason shifted in his seat to face the back. “Stay there, Miss Janie, and I’ll come around and get you with my umbrella.”
Jillian felt the spray of rain as Mason opened the door, then sat and waited while Mason escorted Janie, Baby, and the turtle egg to her front door in the growing darkness. She’d almost forgotten Grace’s presence until she felt an icy cold hand on her arm. Jillian jerked and turned to find Grace’s face very close to her own.
Grace leaned closer to Jillian’s ear and whispered, “She can see the sky now.”
A chill that had nothing to do with the dampness on her skin rushed through her. Grace had said that the other day to Linc. And they had both brushed it off as being one of her conversations with an imaginary friend. But why would she repeat it?
“Who, Gracie? Who can see the sky?”
Grace lowered her eyes and stared at the back side of Jillian’s seat. She didn’t answer.
“Who, Gracie? Tell me. I promise I won’t tell anyone. And I won’t be mad.”
It was hard to hear her daughter’s voice above the sound of the rain, but Jillian somehow knew what she was going to say before the words were even formed on the child’s lips.
“Lauren,” she whispered.
Gracie slid back into her seat as Mason opened the door, letting in droplets of rain that did nothing to cool off Jillian’s suddenly feverish skin. She’s dead. The thought hit her so surely and so completely that she didn’t even try to revoke it. And then the second thought came, and it made her feel as if she might faint. Grace is talking with a dead person.
Mason started the engine, and they rode the rest of the way in silence. Jillian’s teeth chattered, but she wasn’t cold. She kept turning around to look at Grace, and was met each time with solemn brown eyes that seemed much too old to be set in a child’s face.
Jillian allowed Mason to escort them to her front door, holding the large golf umbrella to keep them dry. Gracie ran on inside, calling for her cat, while Mason lingered, as if waiting for an invitation to come inside. Jillian noticed he’d shut off his car engine, and she thought of the Brunswick stew, but she said nothing.
Mason took a step back, glancing at the front windows. “Looks like you’re expecting company.”
For the first time, Jillian noticed that a light shone from every window visible from her vantage point on the porch. She knew without looking that the same would be true about the windows she couldn’t see, too. “I . . . I didn’t turn them on.” She paused, dread filling her. “Gracie’s in there.”
Mason dropped the umbrella and motioned her aside. “I’ll go get Gracie and send her out. Then I’ll check out the rest of the house, okay? I’m sure you just forgot about turning on the lights.”
She nodded, pressing her hand against Ford’s sleeping head, knowing that she hadn’t forgotten. Nor did she completely believe they had an intruder. Not the kind that Mason would expect to find, anyway.
Jillian let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding when Gracie came through the front door holding Spot.
“Why’d I have to come out? Spot’s hungry, and I was fixing his bowl.”
Jillian set her hand on the beautiful blond hair, feeling the precious curve of her daughter’s head. “Just to be safe, okay? Officer Weber and I both noticed all the lights were on, and I didn’t remember turning any on. He’s just checking to be sure.”
Gracie looked up at her with calm eyes and didn’t look away.
You’re an old soul, Gracie. Jillian didn’t put her thoughts into words any more than Grace had. The communication was mutual yet silent, and Jillian wondered briefly if that was a gift borne of the closeness they had shared since coming to the island. Or maybe it had always been there and Jillian simply hadn’t recognized it.
Mason came out several long minutes later, verifying that the house was empty. “I could stay for a while—if that would make you feel any better.”
Coming from any other man, except maybe for Linc, his words would have sounded suggestive. “No, but thank you. I must have forgotten I’d left the lights on. We’ll be fine.”
“Are you sure?”
She nodded vigorously to add solidity to her words. She wasn’t at all sure she wanted to be alone without adult companionship.
“Lock your doors.”
“Really, Mason—I don’t think that’s necessary.”
“Sorry, Jillian. It’s just that I don’t like that Rising fellow hanging around here when we have no idea who he is. Would you at least promise me that you’ll think twice before opening your door to him?”
Jillian forced back a smile as she remembered the night she’d let Linc inside her house—and a whole lot more, too. “Really, Mason. There’s no need to worry on my account, all right? And I promise to call you if there’s a problem.”
He hesitated for a moment before leaning down and picking up his discarded umbrella and placing his soggy hat on his head. “All right. But please be careful. And do call me. I don’t mind sleeping over, if that would make you feel better. Downstairs, of course,”
he hastily added.
She couldn’t see his blush in the dim light but knew that it was there. “Thanks, Mason. I’ll remember that.”
She held Ford close to her as she watched Mason drive away, then went inside the house, making sure she locked the door behind her.
It didn’t take Jillian long to get the children ready and put them to bed. She kept all the lights on, except those in the children’s rooms, and went down to the kitchen, where she poured herself a glass of wine. Her nerves were raw, and she desperately needed to talk to someone—someone who wouldn’t think she and her daughter were crazy. She can see the sky now. Jillian took a long gulp of her wine, trying to block out the words. But the more she tried, the more she felt the goose bumps rise on the back of her neck.
Twice she picked up the phone, ready to call Linc, but both times she’d placed it back in the cradle before the first ring. He had called her two times during the day—each time with an excuse about checking his doors to make sure they were locked or asking her to close his patio umbrella in case of strong wind. But they had remained on the line both times for almost an hour, talking of nothing and everything. Even now, in the dim light of her deserted kitchen, her skin ached, missing his touch. She moved away from the phone with a determined step—she’d call him first thing in the morning. Now she needed to convince herself that she was good enough company even when she was quite alone.
After refilling her glass, Jillian left the kitchen and moved toward the family room, where she would try to settle down in front of the television to calm herself before bed. As she crossed the foyer, a slight movement caught her eye through the sidelights next to the front door.
She froze, trying to decipher what it was she had seen. Slowly, she moved closer to the door, cautiously peering out of the small side windows and grabbing the doorknob to check that it was locked.
Jillian spotted something on the porch floor in front of the window—something that looked remarkably like Baby’s blanket.
Jillian set down her wineglass on the foyer table and slowly unlocked the door. She pulled it open carefully, prepared to shut it quickly if she needed to. The rain had slowed to a steady drizzle, the tapping of it against the wet sand and grass and wooden porch like that of a bored child waiting for attention.
She recognized the blanket immediately as the one Janie had wrapped the egg in. Jillian stepped out onto the deserted porch, then squatted and gingerly lifted the blanket, feeling the egg inside. “Janie?” she called out, not expecting an answer.
Stepping back inside the house, she shut and locked the door again. She wasn’t afraid, she realized. Just curious. She opened the sodden blanket and took the egg out, examining its flawless white smoothness. She looked out the side windows again to make sure the porch was empty, and she frowned. Why had Janie given her the egg? To return it to Gracie to bury instead of Mary Ellen? It didn’t make much sense—although it probably made as much sense as Janie’s silk flowers. Slowly, she took the egg to the kitchen to wrap it in a warm, dry towel to wait until tomorrow.
It wasn’t until later, when she was hanging up the blanket to dry, that she got a good, long look at it. Yes, she’d seen it before—always wrapped around Baby. But she’d never really taken a good look at it. She held the bottom right corner with the J. M. initials, and stared at it for a long time. She recalled another blanket, one she had found in a cedar chest she’d taken from her parents’ attic. It was identical to this one—the colors, the weave, the pattern and fringe. She had used it for Gracie and had put it away somewhere, she wasn’t sure where. She fingered the initials again, remembering the pulled threads on Grace’s blanket in the same spot where there had once maybe been a monogram.
She finished hanging up the blanket in the laundry room, securing the clothespins to the line she’d strung from one end of the room to the other.
She picked up her glass of wine again and made her way to the family room. But instead of turning on the television, she sat on the sofa, drinking her wine, playing with all the small pieces that didn’t yet quite know they were a part of a puzzle. She swirled her glass, watching the red liquid toss itself against the sides, and wished Linc were there.
After draining her glass, she finally let her head fall back on the edge of the sofa and closed her eyes, and dreamt of silk flowers the color of crimson, and turtle eggs that hatched human babies with yellow yarn hair.
CHAPTER 21
LAUREN SAT NEXT TO JILLIAN ON THE BLANKET, SO CLOSE THAT THEIR knees touched, Jillian’s unshaven legs prickly against Lauren’s skin. Lauren swore to herself, vowing to buy a damned razor for Jillian’s thirteenth birthday, regardless of what Jillian’s mother would say. It wasn’t right that any twelve-year-old could be so clueless just because her own parents never bothered to remember her existence.
Lauren took a sip from her can of Tab, which Jillian’s grandmother had put in the cooler for them, then put her arm around her friend and squeezed. “It’s all going to be all right, you know.”
Jillian stared out into the night sky over the ocean, and Lauren followed her gaze. The reflections of the bright stars on the water made them appear as if they were at the bottom of the ocean, staring up in wonder at themselves. “I know. Grandma Parrish tells me the same thing. I figure the two of you can’t be wrong. I just wish I knew when everything’s supposed to be all right.”
Lauren pulled her knees up and rested her chin against them, smelling of coconut lotion and Charlie perfume. “I don’t have a crystal ball, but I know things sometimes. And I know that you’ll be okay—that you’ll grow up to be successful at whatever you choose to do. And you’ll have a great husband and a wonderful family, and all of what’s happened before just won’t matter anymore.”
They listened for a moment to the sounds of night crawlers and the slap of waves in the dark. “I don’t want kids.”
“I know, you say that all the time. But I think you’d make a great mother.”
Jillian turned her head and laid her cheek against her upraised knees. “Really?”
“Yeah—really. You remind me of Mama sometimes. You’re both truly kind people. Even with all the crap you have to put up with, you’ve never even talked back to your parents. God—instead you go bake them a cake or something when they’re mad at you. And you never take no for an answer—and not just from other people. But from yourself, too.” She grinned at her friend. “It sometimes makes you hard to live with, but it’s still a great quality. Speaking from a kid’s perspective, it makes me want to try harder.”
Jillian’s teeth glowed white under her smile, and Lauren watched silently as it faded and her face became serious again. “Will I always be afraid of the dark?”
Lauren studied her friend in the moonlight, at the way the yellow light bathed her face and made her eyes appear full of hope and faith. This was the way she always imagined Jillian when she thought about her during their long winter separations. She smiled. “Yeah—I’m positive.” She began brushing sand off her pink-painted toenails, wiggling them in the warm air, and feeling wise. “See, it’s not really the dark you’re afraid of. I think you’re afraid of all the unknown stuff in your future; it’s like the inside of a big black bag where you can’t see what’s in it. You think it’s full of all the things you don’t get now from your parents, and you’re afraid that that’s all there’s ever going to be. You hope it’s going to be different; I truly think you even believe it. But you’re afraid to stick your hand in that black bag and find out for yourself.”
Lauren sat back, propping herself on the heels of her hands, and smiled smugly to herself, feeling for once as if she knew all the answers. She sensed Jillian looking at her and turned to face her, waiting expectantly for gratitude at explaining the meaning of life.
“You’re full of shit, and you know it.”
Lauren looked at her in stunned silence for a moment, then threw back her head and started to laugh. Jillian joined her, and soon they were both lying back in t
he sand, struggling to breathe through their laughter. Slowly, they regained their composure but remained in the sand, staring up at the black canvas of painted stars, each one placed and named with a purpose by their creator.
Lauren heard the hint of desperation in Jillian’s voice. “Grandma Parrish told me they’re coming Thursday to take me back to Atlanta. I don’t think I’ll be able to stand it.”
“Yes, you can. You always have.” She got up on her elbow and looked down at Jillian. “Your dad’s not such a bad guy, you know. He’s been over several times to our house to apologize for things your mom has done or said to my parents and to me.” She blew out a puff of air. “No offense, but your mom has issues. Big issues. I kinda feel sorry for your dad—he has to put up with it. He must love her a lot.”
Jillian shrugged in the sand. “They’re always either fighting or making up—I don’t think they ever just sit and have a normal conversation. I don’t really pay attention anymore.”
“Well, I think if you appeal to just your dad when your mom’s not around, you might make things easier for yourself.”
Jillian didn’t answer, and Lauren continued. “And remember that no matter what, whether we’re together or not, I’ll always watch out for you. You don’t ever have to feel you’re all alone.”
Jillian wiped her hands over her eyes, then looked up at Lauren. “Do you pinky swear?” She held up her hand, her little finger rounded into a hook.
“I pinky swear,” Lauren said, and hooked her little finger with Jillian’s and squeezed. Then she fell back on the sand and looked up at the stars. “And to make it more binding, I’m going to tell you a secret I’ve never told anyone—not ever.”
Jillian lifted her head. “Really?”
Lauren nodded and took a deep breath. “I’m afraid of water. Always have been. Mama says as a baby I used to scream when it was time to take a bath.”
Jillian sat up completely. “But you’re a great water skier and swimmer. You can’t still be afraid of water if you can do that!”