by Abby Drake
“Ray,” Ellie said, “get one of your boats. Meet us on the island. There’s apparently been an accident and Edward is there.” She would not yet let herself grasp any concept other than accident.
Ray straightened his hair, his T-shirt, and his pants and said, “I’ll take the pontoon. The motor’s small, but it’s faster than rowing.”
“Whatever,” she said. “Just get there. And please be quick.”
Ellie didn’t wait to see if Babe would go with him. Instead, she rushed to the end of the dock where Carleen already sat in the canoe. Ellie jumped in and they started to paddle. “One can only imagine what Babe is up to,” Ellie said to Carleen. “But I’m done trying to solve other people’s problems. Let them figure out their own lives for a change.” It was a statement to herself, as well as to Carleen.
“Ellie,” Carleen said, “I didn’t take any of your jewelry. I didn’t for one second intend to. I hope you believe me.”
“Look,” Ellie said, “can’t we just worry about Edward right now?”
“Amanda is going to tell you I did something to Edward. I was wading through the water, looking for his body, when she appeared out of nowhere, spotted the noose, and assumed I was to blame.”
Ellie quietly paddled and wondered if tomorrow would be too soon to return to New York. She could get a hotel room and stay overnight and go to the Met in the morning. She could use her honeymoon money for a studio apartment. Maybe she could volunteer at the museum until a position came up. She could find a part-time job until then. Waiting tables. Sweeping floors. Anything would be mentally healthier than spending one more day with this idiotic family. Panic attacks be damned.
“Ellie?” Carleen called. “Did you hear me?”
Ellie dug the paddle into the water and pulled it so hard that the canoe turned to the right. “I heard you.”
“I had nothing to do with Edward or the noose. Any more than I was stealing your jewelry. You can believe me or not. I suppose it really doesn’t matter.”
When they got to the island, Ellie saw Amanda sitting on the beach, holding binoculars that no doubt were Edward’s. Ellie landed the canoe, disembarked on the shore, and didn’t care that Carleen had to step out in the water.
“You haven’t found him?”
Amanda shook her head. “Perhaps someone tied cement shoes to his feet.” She threw a hard stare at Carleen.
Ellie left her sisters to deal with each other. She was halfway up the hill when they caught up, God forbid they should leave her alone.
Ducking inside the tent, she checked it out. “Damn you, Edward,” she whispered when she found nothing there.
Back outside, she kicked the burned campfire remnants, then picked up the knapsack and emptied the contents: two unopened cans of baked beans, an unopened bottle of wine, a folded piece of aluminum foil. She spread open the foil: there were several crumbs. She raised it to her nose: the scent of her rum cake wafted up.
“This was his,” she said, not that she needed to confirm it to her sisters.
But on further examination, Ellie realized the foil was small. Half her cake had been missing from the kitchen—too big a hunk to have been wrapped in such a meager piece. Where was the rest? If Edward had eaten half a cake, there would be more trash. Edward was fastidious about picking up trash, especially when he was outdoors.
Which left only one explanation.
“Edward isn’t dead,” Ellie announced. “I expect he hung up the noose because he thought it would be funny. He’s gone off somewhere and he’s taken what was left of the rum cake. God forbid he should leave it behind for the rest of the squirrels.”
Amanda stood rigid, hands on hips.
“But where can he be?” Carleen asked. “He didn’t have a boat.”
“I have no idea,” Ellie replied as she stood up, “but he must have had help.” She turned to Amanda. “Amanda-Belle, where are your boys?” Then Ellie remembered she’d seen the boys juggling the plastic champagne flutes, trying to emulate one of the carnival acts. She’d seen Wes and Jonathan, too, ambling around, surveying the terrain the way men sometimes did. And, of course, they hadn’t arrived at Kamp Kasteel until after Edward had disappeared.
Heather and her boyfriend were accounted for, too, having been more help than Ellie’s sisters combined.
Which left Henry.
“You might be wise to do a background check on Henry. You might learn this isn’t the first time one of his lovers has disappeared,” David Goldsmith had said.
Ellie felt a slow roll of her stomach. Good Lord, had Henry really done something to Edward? Had Henry been acting concerned, excited, erratic, in order to throw suspicion off himself? Why had she pooh-poohed David Goldsmith? What else did David know about the little man?
“I should have asked for details,” Ellie said out loud, and Carleen asked what she meant.
But just then, they heard a putt-putting motor. They turned and saw a silver pontoon head toward the shore. Ray’s son, Kevin, stood at the controls; Ray sat on a bench, waving to the women. Next to him sat Edward, the wandering man.
Chapter Thirty
Ellie was so angry that she couldn’t speak.
“Uncle Edward!” Amanda shouted, running toward the boat. “We thought you were dead! There’s a noose in the tree! We thought it was you!”
Ellie watched Edward chuckle and haul himself from the boat and onto the shore, looking the same as he had at breakfast yesterday.
“You missed your party, you silly man!” Amanda continued prattling. “And why are you with them?” She poked a finger in the air toward Ray Williams and his son.
“Don’t blame my captain here!” Edward said, nodding toward the boy. “I asked for his help—he’s our Times paperboy, you know. I can be pretty convincing when it comes to doling out good tips!”
Ray stood up. “I found him when I went back to the house. Apparently Kevin brought him to the island yesterday. Today Edward called Kevin on a walkie-talkie, asking to be rescued. He said he’d been found out and he had to get away.”
Of course, Ellie thought, Wes and Amanda’s boys had “found him out.” She wished she’d felt surprised that Wes McCall had lied.
Edward looked at Ellie with hangdog, please-forgive-me eyes. “I wanted you girls to get back together without me being in the way,” he said. “Life is so short! It was time for forgiveness!”
“What about your two hundred guests?” Ellie seethed. “What was the point of inviting all of them?”
His eyes twinkled. They twinkled! He was really enjoying this!
“I thought my guests could be a buffer if the four of you tried to strangle one another. But how was the party? Damn, I hate missing a party! Did the acrobats show up on time?”
If Ellie had been home, she would have retreated to her bedroom and locked the door. Instead, she turned her gaze up to Carleen. “Carleen, I’m sure someone will give you a lift back to the house. If all of you will excuse me, I am going to leave.” With that, she brushed past her uncle, who had started trundling up the hill.
“My dear girl, you came,” she heard Edward say to her red-haired sister. “It’s so nice to see you.”
Ellie didn’t wait to see if he kissed Carleen’s cheek, if he continued to act as if he’d done nothing wrong. She got into the canoe, picked up a paddle, and took a long, long breath.
I will leave this place now, she promised herself as she calmly began to stroke. I will leave Edward to his dysfunctional life and his untreated cancer and his questionable lover, and I will start my life again, all by myself.
Amanda watched Edward fuss over her long-lost sister. It was disappointing that Edward was still alive; it was annoying that she would not be able to pin his demise on Carleen. That would have been so sweet.
“You look wonderful,” Edward continued. “Was it a very long ride? Where is Belchertown, anyway?” He was acting as if they had all the time in the world and he hadn’t just played the ultimate mean stunt.
“Uncle Edward,” Amanda interrupted, “I am going to have Ray bring me back. Unless you want to row the boat I borrowed from the Donnellys, I suggest you come with us. Ray can tow the rowboat with the rope you fashioned into that ridiculous noose.”
Edward laughed. “Oh, all right. We’ll come with you. But only if you tell me what the dickens was going on with that helicopter. And if you promise all the guests have finally left. I really had no interest in seeing most of them. They always were bores. I expect that now they’re simply old bores.”
“Sort of like you?” Amanda asked.
“Amanda can be so unyielding,” he said to Carleen. “Sometimes she’s quite boring, too.”
“She was worried about you, Uncle Edward. We all were. It wasn’t very amusing, the way you disappeared.”
“Oh, tit. I send you away and you come back like the rest of them.” He put his arm around Carleen and gave her a fatherly hug that made Amanda want to puke, because what right did Carleen have to Edward’s stingy affection?
She supposed, however, she should give credit to her sister for not agreeing with Edward’s comment about her being unyielding.
Then Edward looked around. “Where is Babe? Didn’t she come to find me?”
Amanda stopped short of announcing that Babe had been screwing Ray Williams, or something close to that, and no doubt was freshening up. But that would have been crude, and Amanda wouldn’t lower herself to that, so instead she said, “I’m sure she’s with her husband,” loudly enough for Ray to hear. “She’s really devoted to him.” She couldn’t see Ray’s reaction.
“Then, let’s get a move on!” Edward said, as if, next to Carleen, Babe was the most important person in the world. He turned back to the boat and asked Ray and the boy to give him a hand with the tent and the rest of his crap.
Yes, Amanda thought again, it was very annoying that Edward wasn’t dead.
They chugged across Lake Kasteel like an overweight barge on the Erie Canal. Carleen wished she’d hitched a ride in the canoe with Ellie: between Amanda, who clearly was angry with Edward, and Ray, who didn’t seem to know quite what to say, and Edward, who could not stop firing questions like a five-year-old child about who had shown up at the party, had they been amused by the games, and had anyone brought him a gift, Carleen was ready to board the next bus home, if she could only find a ride to the station. The last twenty-four hours had been grueling, and they had certainly quashed any smidgen of hope that her sisters would forgive her, that they could reconnect, whether she told them about Mother’s love letters or not.
Ray Williams, she suspected, might be more than glad to accommodate her transportation needs, given the remarks Amanda kept making now about how handsome Babe’s husband was, and how terrific he’d been with her boys.
“So,” Edward continued, “do you think there are any leftovers? I’ve had nothing except rum cake and beans since yesterday morning.”
“Who’s fault is that?” Amanda snarled.
Edward answered with a chuckle, and Carleen turned away, her gaze roaming toward the rowboat that the men, indeed, had attached to the pontoon (thanks to the nasty noose rope) and now bobbed in the tiny wake. She wondered if Amanda and Edward always sniped at each other, and, if so, why Amanda let it continue. Didn’t she realize he was toying with her? Didn’t she realize he was merely doing it because she was such easy bait?
“Carleen,” Edward said, apparently having tired of teasing her sister, “I hope you brought your husband and children. For the family photograph I’m planning tomorrow.”
The invitation had noted to bring something white but had not specified that the whole family would be in the photo. Even if it had, she wouldn’t have brought Brian and the girls. Why would Edward think she would subject her husband and children to . . . them?
“I came alone,” she replied. She didn’t add that she had not intended to stay for the photo, anyway.
“Well, we can have their pictures taken later and Henry can Photoshop them in.” Edward chuckled again, his jolly old self.
Carleen kept her eyes pitched on the rowboat and the water.
Then Ray said, “You’re married, Carleen? You have kids?”
“Yes,” she replied, grateful that Ray’s son then bumped Edward’s dock and the others became more engaged in securing the boat than in listening to details of Carleen’s family life. She decided that when they disembarked, she might as well ask Ray for a ride to the bus station.
The four adults padded toward the boat’s small metal ramp.
Then, Edward moved close to Carleen. He tugged the ribbon on her ponytail, undid the bow, and held it in front of her. “I hope you haven’t worn this to taunt me,” he said quietly. “I’ve often wondered how much you knew.”
Without further comment, Edward returned the ribbon, tottered off the pontoon, and walked up the hill toward the house.
Babe tucked herself into the shadows of the big oak trees down by the boathouse. She hadn’t wanted to go with Ray to find Uncle Edward—she was too confused in the moment, too unsure what to say, how to act, what to tell and not tell. Her heart was too happy to let reality sneak in. Especially if reality meant they’d found Edward’s remains instead of him.
She sucked in a tiny breath, hoping that was not the case, hoping he had not died before she’d had a chance to see him one last time.
Finally, the pontoon boat thumped against the dock. Babe’s heart skipped a beat when she saw who was at the controls: the boy looked so much like Ray had at that age. In a few years he, too, might steal the heart of a summer girl. Hopefully, their story would be happier.
From her place in the shadows, Babe watched Amanda and Carleen walk off the boat. Then came the white-haired man who looked vaguely like Uncle Edward, though he ambled more slowly and did not seem as tall as the fifty-something-year-old she’d left behind. Her eyes started to mist.
She supposed she should step out of the shadows and welcome him home. But since Ray had kissed her, had touched her again, Babe didn’t want to think of anything but him. But them.
So she waited until her sisters and her uncle had gone by, until she heard Ray tell his son to wait there, until Ray jumped off the boat and walked up the dock before she moved into view.
“One uncle delivered unscathed, so to speak,” he said.
“I noticed.”
He nodded toward the group ascending the hill. “You don’t want to see him?”
“Not yet.” Not while I’m still thinking about you. Not while I’m still feeling you pressed against me.
He looked into her eyes. “Babe, I don’t know what to do. This is crazy, you know that?”
“I do.”
“I mean, it’s absolutely nuts. What are we doing?”
“I can’t speak for you, but I’m following my heart.”
He looked at his watch. “We’ve seen each other all of three hours in the last twenty-five years. Why hasn’t my heart stopped hammering?”
“If you’re going into cardiac arrest, I must be, too.”
“Shit.”
“I know.”
He moved his gaze up to the house. “You have a husband up there. A famous, rich, incredibly handsome husband, according to Amanda.”
“She can have him.” There. She’d said it out loud. She didn’t want Wes anymore. Maybe she never had. He’d come into her life when it had been convenient and she’d been lonely, and that’s where it had ended.
And even though they’d never had real sex, Babe had never understood why he’d insisted on separate bedrooms when they were home, why he never tried to satisfy his wife, who had needs in that department. It was as if he wanted no reminders that he couldn’t complete the deed that came with man-and-wife roles.
Still, her issues with Wes weren’t solely about sex.
“I only want you, Ray. That’s never changed.”
“Maybe you only felt that way because you didn’t have me. Maybe because of the baby.”
Sh
e flinched a little—it was hard to hear him refer to “the baby” and know it had been his. “No. I’ve always loved you. From the first day I saw you.”
“By the water.”
“Yes.”
They stood in silence. He reached down, took her hand, held it to his cheek. “Shit,” he said again, closing his eyes.
“You don’t have to love me if you don’t want to,” Babe said, listening, at last, to her full heart. “But I’m going to tell my husband tonight. He will go back to the coast without me.”
“Whoa,” Ray said. “You’re going to tell him what?”
“That I don’t love him. I never really did.”
Ray hesitated. “And then what, Babe? Are you planning to move here, to Lake Kasteel? Are you planning to live happily ever after out here with a guy who works in his house in a T-shirt and jeans? Who types newsletters for the lake association on his ten-year-old laptop because he doesn’t want the land and the water to go to crap?”
“Yes,” she said. “If he’ll have me.”
He dropped her hand. He stood perfectly still. Then he wrapped his arms tightly around her and said, “I can’t believe you’re finally home.”
Chapter Thirty-one
Because Babe knew that few things were as easy as she might hope they were, she also knew that Ray had to leave, that she had to face her uncle, her sisters, and Wes alone.
She watched Ray get back onto the pontoon, watched the boat glide from the dock. Then she walked up to the house with long, determined strides: her head bent, her fists tight, her eyes riveted to the grass, which had been flattened by party footprints.
Was she being impulsive? Definitely. But she’d always pondered things over and over to exhausting death, so Babe couldn’t be sure what was insane and what was not.
When she reached the top of the hill, she raised her eyes, and there were her relations, aligned like bowling pins. Uncle Edward stood in front.
“Naomi,” he said, “I am so glad you’re here.” His old eyes filled with tears and he opened up his arms. Babe stepped into them as if she were a little girl again receiving Uncle Edward’s hug. She was, indeed, taller than him now, but his hug still seemed as soft and safe as she remembered.