Echo Moon

by Laura Spinella

  “What is it? Did Oscar find you something?”

  “No. But Oscar . . . other patrons, they gave me the idea. I’ve decided this on my own.” In the bright sun, Cora’s eyes pinched narrow as her face and her ears seemed to offer a victorious wave.

  “Cora, what are you going to do?” Before she could reply, Oscar was giving Phin a slip of paper with the address and urging them on.

  “You can drive a wagon, can’t you?” The question from Oscar seemed reasonable as Phin looked leery sitting over Go and Fish and their formidable size.

  “I can manage. I only have to get them to Queens, right?”

  Oscar nodded at Phin’s question, but he was quiet, bowing his head into the noses of his dedicated team.

  “Your truck will be in capable hands.”

  They pulled away from Stillwell Avenue, and Esmerelda found herself turning hard to the right, where Oscar and the troupe stood. She nearly fell out, seeing Oscar dab at an eye. Phin grabbed her arm. But Esmerelda stayed in her twisted pose, rapt by the scene. Finally, the hodgepodge cluster faded from view as Go and Fish, she and Phin, clopped along, deeper into Brooklyn.

  ACT IV, SCENE II

  The transaction of exchanging the horses and wagon for Oscar’s new truck went smoothly. It seemed the war widow had gotten herself a new husband. He farmed potatoes farther out on Long Island and appeared glad to have such a fine team. It was only Esmerelda who cried, saying goodbye to Go and Fish, as Phin inspected the new truck, which was far larger than Esmerelda had imagined.

  “Don’t worry,” Phin said as they climbed inside the truck. “The farmer will see to the horses’ care. He needs them healthy and well fed.”

  “But who will love them?”

  Phin’s mouth gaped. “You’re a curious thinker, Esme. A thought I wouldn’t have considered before knowing you.” He fiddled with the foot pedals, and Esmerelda was amazed how a person could know which one to step on. Phin paused at the horses being led away. “Oscar was wise to make the deal. Practical. A truck, not steeds, will be a boon to his trade.”

  She was surprised to see him step on a small button, making the engine rumble. “Is that how it works?” She tipped her head at the floorboards. “Then what are all those pedals for?”

  “The two on the left are the gears. The one on the right’s the brake. And this here,” he said, squeezing a lever near the steering wheel, “is the accelerator.” With his foot on the right pedal, the engine roared in place. “Have you never been in a motorcar . . . truck?”

  “Yes. Last summer. Oscar has a friend out on Long Island. He runs a restaurant and wanted to add entertainment. It only lasted a few weeks. Country folks won’t pay for shows like Manhattan or Brooklyn crowds. But he did have a fancy car and he took us for rides in it.”

  “And what did you think?”

  “I thought it was remarkable, how fast a person could get somewhere. Oscar’s friend took us to a lovely beach.” Thoughts of the horses faded and Esmerelda smiled at the memory. “It wasn’t anything like Coney Island’s beach, so crowded.” She looked in the direction they’d come. “I’m sorry. We got so wrapped up in Oscar’s truck dilemma, I forgot about our plans.”

  “Maybe we can still make a shoreline trip out of the day. Tell me about this lovely beach and how to get there.”

  They motored east for a time, until Esmerelda recalled the small town; she even remembered the name of the restaurant—L’Azur. The French name had left Cora and the boys scratching their heads, unaccustomed to heavy sauces covering what Barney had called “an otherwise decent pork chop.”

  It was late afternoon when she and Phin arrived, and she thought he might ask if she wanted to have a meal there. This made her nervous, as she also recalled Oscar saying his friend overcharged for a lunch plate. She wasn’t sure what to think when Phin told her to wait while he went inside. Perhaps he wanted to see if he could afford two meals before inviting her to one. He returned carrying a sack. Climbing back into the truck, he said, “Now, do you remember the way to this beach?”

  Esmerelda pointed south, her heart fluttering like the wind. “That way. It’s just a block or two that way.”

  The beach was exactly as she recalled, gentle waves and soft sand, the tranquil bay. Seaweed. There was a good bit of brown seaweed, but she thought it only added texture to the scene and that Phin might like to paint it. Rickety huts lined the upper shore. Even though it was a warm September day, they appeared empty. Overturned canoes and old campfires dotted the beach. An impossibly long dock stretched out into the water, a gazebo denoting its point.

  The gazebo turned into their picnic area, Phin having found a cloth tarp the widow wife had forgotten. Esmerelda tried not to look amazed when Phin reached into the restaurant sack, producing roast duck, fancy potatoes, plates, and a bottle of wine. “I couldn’t get any cups. I hope you don’t mind sharing from the bottle.” He plucked the cork with his teeth and offered her the first taste.

  Esmerelda laughed before she had a chance to get drunk on the moment or wine. She took her swig and handed it back. “I think I’d share most anything with you, Phin.”

  After the duck and potatoes and most of the wine were gone, a couple of local fishermen arrived, saying the catches were best at sunset. Phin’s hand caught around Esmerelda’s as they left the pier and unwanted company. Halfway across the beach, with the truck in sight, she spoke. “It will be close to midnight before Oscar has a chance to look for us and his new truck. If it were Go and Fish, we would have needed to be on our way hours ago, if not yesterday.”

  “But with the truck,” he said, “we have hours to spare.”

  She took the canvas tarp from him and laid it out on the beach. Phin busied himself rekindling one of the fires. They talked until the sun dipped and the fishermen left. Phin had stretched out on the canvas, fingers laced behind his head, commenting on stars as they lit the private setting one by one. “It’s an interesting thing. This sky or a sky thousands of miles away. The sight is the same—a mirror moon to wherever you might be. Remember what I’m telling you, Esme.”

  The thought puzzled her, but she stayed quiet, admiring him. Lying stretched out that way, it was a simple thing for a man to do. For a girl, it would be a bold invitation—the way a proper girl shouldn’t behave. “A mirror moon. What does that mean?”

  “That one.” He pointed to it. “This one.” His hand lightly touched hers. “You’re my compass—you’ll both lead me home.”

  Home . . . She pictured it so clearly—anywhere Phin was, that’s what such a place would be. The enticement was too much, and Esmerelda lay alongside him. Phin didn’t appear shocked. But he did roll onto his side, moving his fingers through her wind-whipped tangles of hair. “I like the sound of that.”

  “Do you?” He shimmied closer, their noses almost touching. “We might steal Oscar’s truck, plant whatever they grow here, and call this place home. What do you think, Esme?”

  “I couldn’t steal Oscar’s truck.”

  “No.” He smiled, kissing her. “I don’t suppose you would. It means we’ll have to go back.”

  “I don’t want to go back.”

  “You don’t want to be a great singer with the world as her stage? That could happen.”

  “That’s what Oscar says . . . if I wanted it.”

  “And you don’t want that?”

  Esmerelda shook her head.

  “Good to know. Helps a fellow think things through.” Phin lightly gripped her chin, touching her cheek. He kissed her again.

  And like a potion, with the kiss came all the knowledge Esmerelda needed. She knew exactly what she wanted. They were all the things she suspected she couldn’t have.

  “I need to tell you something.” She put her hand to his chest. Phin didn’t move a muscle, and Esmerelda felt dizzy and breathless, though what she had to say was anvil heavy. “It, um . . . it has to do with this.” She moved her hand in the mere inches between them. “Why I can’t . . . why you won’
t want to . . .” Esmerelda squeezed her eyes closed. Speaking it aloud was more vile than she’d imagined. Of course, she’d never imagined confessing her past under these exact conditions.

  “Let me say it for you.”

  She opened her eyes, blinking into what looked like Phin’s angry expression.

  “You shouldn’t be here, can’t talk about a future, because you’ve promised—maybe even committed,” he said, using the word in a way that translated as only one thing, “yourself to Benjamin Hupp.”

  Benjamin couldn’t have been further from Esmerelda’s mind. She shook her head fervently. “No. This has nothing to do with Benjamin. I don’t care for him. I’ve told you that.”

  “Then what?”

  Tears began to drip. The ones she’d wondered about since the night she’d left her home. How such a horrid thing could have happened and Esmerelda had never cried a tear, not while her sister’s husband had ripped at her nightclothes. Not when Lowell had informed her how much and for how long he’d imagined the chance. Not afterward, when she’d thrown a doll and a dress into a bag and left.

  Phin’s fingers were fast around her chin again. “You’ll tell me this moment, whatever it is. Because whatever it is can’t be worse than what’s going through my mind.”

  “Yes it can,” she whispered. And the story spilled out as if Esmerelda had been waiting to share it with him. It was a night that she still perceived as inconceivable. Phin listened as she retraced the wretched details. How, on a spring evening, Esmerelda had baked a cherry pie, and her sister, Hazel, had gone to stay with a sick friend. Her father was passed out, stone-cold drunk. Lowell had entered her bedroom and her body. Through weeping gasps, Esmerelda told Phin how he’d lorded over the act, describing his new home as communal, biting down on Esmerelda’s ear and telling her that everything in the house now belonged to him. How he looked forward to such fine property and sisterly options. That Esmerelda wouldn’t say a word because Hazel was an obedient wife who would never disbelieve her husband.

  “Hazel, she’s never had much of a backbone. She’s more like our father than our mother. Her husband was right. Hazel would never challenge his word. After Lowell left my room, I knew two things. It would happen again. And the only way to stop it was to not be there next time. So I left.”

  Phin’s eyes rivaled his great white moon. Everything was so still, as if only her heart moved, waiting for his reaction. She couldn’t stand it. “So you see,” she said, forcing her pragmatic side center. “If things were to progress, from now to a proper time . . . well, I thought I should save you the shock of not finding me in the expected state. To know you wouldn’t be the first to . . .”

  Phin sat up, his fingertips pressed to his forehead. Esmerelda sat too, prepared for what she’d been warned of if something like that happened to a girl, a man forcing himself on her. It was true. The girl must have done something to encourage the act. Although, in the two years since that night, Esmerelda could not think of a single thing she had done to embolden Lowell. She defaulted to the pie. It must have been the pie.

  “Expected state?” he said. She waited for more. The more turned out to be Phin lurching to his feet, trundling through sand toward the truck. Her heart shattered into something smaller than the grains of sand beneath her. Maybe the pieces would wash out to sea, sink to the bay’s bottom. He spun back around. In the moonlight, she could see every raw feature. “I don’t know the address. Tell me how to find him.”

  “Who?”

  “Your brother-in-law.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m going to skin the son of a bitch alive, then I’m going to kill him.”

  And while she was certain Phin meant it, she only needed to hear him say it. It no longer mattered what the world might think. Phin Seaborn believed, as Esmerelda had deep down, that what happened with Lowell was not her fault. She tore across the beach. Phin’s arms folded around her, and he held on so tight this act alone made them one inseparable person. “No. You won’t,” she said. “I’ll not further that memory by dragging you into it.”

  They stood that way for some time, until night air and confessions had them both shivering. But it was all fine as long as Phin was there. For so long, in spite of Oscar’s steadying presence, Esmerelda had stood on her own, kept the burden of that night from crushing her. The embrace hadn’t lessened, and Phin wove his hand through her hair.

  “So the rest is simple enough,” he said. “We’ll save it for a wedding night. We’ll make certain it’s the way I suspect you saw such a night in your mind.”

  And the embrace broke, Esmerelda stepping back. “Whose wedding night?”

  “Esme, for a smart girl, you can be as silly as Cora. Did you think for a moment, had we even considered . . . well, what it is married people do, on this beach, I wouldn’t be making a bride out of you? What sort of common lowlife do you take me for?”

  Certainly not the kind Phin’s troubled life, his harsh existence, should have produced. She didn’t reply with a yes or no, because somehow the question of marriage seemed asked and answered. Esmerelda just held on to him.

  On the way back into the city, they didn’t speak any more about Lowell or that night. Phin only insisted that, should she need it, he’d always be her ear. Esmerelda was quiet, never picturing the day unfolding as it had—an act and a confession she wore like an inner wound being healed from the outside in. The boy she loved proposing, indifferent to things she was sure any decent man would perceive as a ruined girl.

  As the blur of city lights drew closer—an astounding sight when moving at such speed—Phin spoke. “And now,” he said, his voice just as serious as it’d been on the beach, “I have something I need to tell you.”

  CHAPTER

  SEVENTEEN

  Surrey, Massachusetts

  Present Day

  Flagler had only called to tell Pete the airspace over Reykjanes remained a volcanic no-fly zone. That and he had no other immediate assignments abroad. “It’s economics, St John. I should fly you in from the States when I have a pool right here? I have bosses too.”

  Pete paced his bedroom and thought about telling Flagler he’d fly back on his own dime. He realized how desperate it sounded, slightly unstable if his editor knew Pete’s underlying motivation. “You see, Austin, I’m more or less afraid to spend the night in my own bed.” The last thing anyone needed in a volatile region was a guy with a foot on the ledge.

  Pete rolled his eyes and plopped into a chair. He ended the call and hung his head. Flagler’s last words were about the upcoming One Direction assignment in New York. “Over my dead body . . .” He stood, muttering at his own threat, “Are we seeing a theme here?” Not existing. It was sarcasm, but it wasn’t the first time a thought like this had crossed Pete’s mind.

  He threw the phone onto the mattress. Lacing his fingers behind his head, Pete stared at a queen-size bed. All he could think about was getting the hell out of there. He’d barely touched months of accumulated vacation. He could drive north to Montreal or Toronto. He was a fan of both cities. But sightseeing had zero appeal, and he doubted his street photography or even painting would distract him. Too much—in both his lives—had shifted on this trip home. Leaving like that would only prove his parents and Zeke Dublin’s ghost right. He was running from his otherworldly problems, not solving them.

  A few hours later, dinner ended, and Levi did a poor job of hiding his surprise when Pete announced: “I’ll stay. I can’t remember having two bad nights in a row here.”

  Levi returned his car keys to the blond sideboard. In the kitchen, they could hear the clanking of pots, the running faucet. “I thought for sure I’d be making a trip to Logan this evening.”

  “Yeah. Me too. Well, Mom will be glad to hear it.” He leaned away from the dining room table, looking into the kitchen. “How about we make her totally giddy? You and I can do the dishes.”

  Levi laughed. “Okay. Sounds like a deal.”

  It was
Christmas in July; at least, that’s how Pete viewed his mother’s reaction to the news that he’d be staying another night. Aubrey said she’d pick out a movie they could all watch, as husband and son took over kitchen duty. A short while later, they settled into the living room. Pete had seen the comedy she’d chosen, on three different flights, but he kept silent and watched with feigned interest, doing some miscellaneous texting in between. It worked for a few hours: life as a normal family, sharing a bowl of popcorn, Pete laughing on cue, though his mind never really left his troubles.

  The house was quiet and home sort of felt like home. It helped Pete’s reservations about staying when his mother went to bed looking happy. He was surprised by his own sleepy state. As his head hit the pillow, Pete did not think about his mother’s close proximity or how her energy aggravated his burdens. He just thought of her as “down the hall.” After turning out the light, he stayed away from thoughts of Esme. Sleep came silently, like vapor under his door. The bells from Our Lady of the Redeemer chimed, a reminiscent drill.

  Conscious thoughts gave way, and Pete drifted, sensing a shift. On nights like this, his last purposeful thought always mirrored: When you died, did the world fall away? Did your mind, body, and soul surrender to something from which you couldn’t turn back? This was what Pete felt when his everyday life transformed. It was the divide he crossed, finding himself hapless and helpless, slipping into an ever-after murderous rampage.

  He gasped as if water filled his lungs, air not a sure thing—his whole body panicked, having no chance of escape. In the bedroom was a clothesline and a china-faced doll with heavy closed eyelids. He spied a cat; its tail flicked from beneath the bed. His gaze moved to a fireplace where embers smoldered, sparks crackled. Above the fireplace hung the hunting scene. As always, his point of view was limited. But the fire. Something was different. He knew the pattern of lapping flames, could anticipate the crackle of wood. It all came right before gunfire, which he had no prayer of stopping. The fire raged larger, angrier, as if fuel had been added. Flames sparked, and he swore he saw the image of a mermaid burning. Mostly, he saw Esme.