“Aura?”
“Yes,” I said, meeting his stare. “What made you come back here?”
No sooner had I asked the question than his eyes filled with moisture. “Winnie, of course.”
“You knew she had died?”
“I knew she was ill.”
“Did you see her before—?”
He shook his head. “I was a week too late.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Aye. So am I. For a lot of things.”
“Why did you leave, Alistair?”
“That’s a long story.”
“I like long stories.”
“Perhaps another time.”
Fair enough. Just so he didn’t mysteriously disappear again. I gave him a hug before leaving.
As I was walking away, two birds flew out from the branch of the maple tree, one settling on his shoulder. Yes, he and my Aunt Winnie would have liked knowing each other. They had liked knowing each other.
Chapter 16
The phone was ringing when I walked into the cottage.
“Hello, Charlie.”
“How did you know it was me? Never mind. Silly question. I’ve news about your Alistair fellow.”
“I know.”
“What do you know?”
“That he wasn’t the victim.”
“Aye, and he’s—”
“Alive and well and living on Anamcara Island.”
“Okay, so what do you need me for?”
“I’m sure there’s something.”
“Don’t be cheeky. Did you know that his full name is Alistair Nigel Duncan Jeffries?”
“Actually, I didn’t. You see, you come in handy for something.”
“Aye, glad to hear it. Well, if there’s anything else—”
“We’re back to square one, I think. So anything you come up with on those searches, would be good.”
“Any more Henry’s?”
“Not since the N’s. Did you turn up anything?”
“Not yet. I was focusing on Alistair. Lot of good that did me.”
I laughed. “You’re in an ornery mood.”
“I suppose I am. Don’t like this case I’m working on.”
“Don’t tell me about it.”
He laughed. “Don’t worry, I won’t try to lure you into working on this one.”
“Thanks, Charlie. I’ve got my hands full here, I think.”
After I hung up, I attended to what had become my daily routine. I built a fire and brewed myself a cup of tea. I wondered if my aunt had done the same after she finished painting for the day. The kettle’s whistle enticed me back to my childhood. Yes, Winnie had definitely brewed her share of tea. And the cottage was rarely without a fire dancing in the fireplace. If not there, she had a healthy blaze roaring in the woodstove in the kitchen. Sometimes both. And music. Jazz. Dixieland. Big Band. Old records whose static made their own kind of music. What I remembered most from my youth was that this cottage never lacked warmth.
I pulled my lavender and purple blanket over my legs as I curled up on the couch with my cup of hibiscus and mint tea. My eyes went directly to the urn on the mantle. A sadness pounded at my chest when I thought of Alistair and the love he and my aunt had shared for such a brief part of their lives, and I realized not only had I been waiting to know where to spread the ashes but with whom.
“Soon, Aunt Winnie, now that he’s come back to you—soon.” I wondered if he really would tell me why he had left. I hoped he would before leaving the island again, in order to create some closure for my aunt, if only vicariously. I also hoped he would help me with my organic garden! No wonder he and Frankie had become fast friends. They had their love of gardens in common.
I picked up an old photograph album and opened it. A photograph of Bryn and me sitting on the front porch swing. Another time lapse, as though it were now, this moment, not thirty years ago. I closed the book. Sometimes when nostalgia was so overpowering, it was too painful for me. The present became my sanctuary.
I finished my cup of tea and went for a walk. Nothing brought me back to the present more than fresh air. I walked over to the lighthouse and around the edge of the cove, searching for sea glass. I didn’t collect sea glass, but searching for it kept me in the moment. By the time I was heading back toward the lighthouse, I had collected six pieces. I would wash them and set them on the kitchen window sill for a while before returning them to the sea.
I buttoned my navy pea coat that I’d had the good sense to wear. It was nearing autumn now. We would have some gentle breezes, then winter would come hard and fast and stay as many months as it pleased. I was grateful it was still summer when I had moved here.
This time when I spotted a figure moving beneath the fog, toward the hollow of trees, I knew I was not hallucinating. It was definitely a human figure, upright, scurrying away from my vision.
Again I felt as though I had been thrust back in time. What was I picking up? Chills consumed me as my mind flashed ghostly neon lights. I didn’t believe in ghosts. Well, yes, actually I did. But was there one living on Aunt Winnie’s property? My property? Was it the ghost of the body from the rose garden? Was it trying to tell me something?
Against my better judgment, I ran toward the lighthouse and scrambled up the narrow staircase. I was shivering by the time I reached the top. It wasn’t from the cold because sweat beads were forming on my forehead. What was I doing here? I looked around the lighthouse and again I was struck with the realization that this had to be the cleanest lighthouse on the West Coast. It could not still be this clean from the last time my aunt had had the strength to walk up these stairs and dust away the cobwebs.
Someone was living in this lighthouse. No, that was an absurd concept. No one could live here. There was no furniture, no bed, no stove, no refrigerator. All that had been moved out long ago. I had seen historical photographs and knew it had once housed all those things so that the keeper could live in it. But everything had been moved out once the lighthouse was retired, before my aunt had bought the property.
So, what was the explanation? None my mind could create at that moment. Other than the ghost theory. Maybe the ghost of the rose garden was living in the lighthouse. I laughed at my thoughts.
I left the lighthouse and returned to my warm and comforting cottage. Maybe I would cook dinner tonight. Maybe I would call Seth and invite him for dinner. I opened the refrigerator door and there was actually enough food to throw together a lovely chicken and wine pasta and a salad.
But before I could dial Seth’s number, the telephone rang. “Meet me at the pub?”
I laughed. “Great minds think alike—almost. Why don’t you come here for dinner?”
“An offer I can’t refuse. I won’t even ask what we’re having.”
“Better not.”
“See you soon.”
I hung up and started cooking.
He liked my cooking, at least he claimed to.
We sat by the fire, sipping our Merlot which Seth had brought to accompany our dinner. I asked him how he knew to bring red wine instead of white. He answered because he’d had dinner with me enough times to know that I always ordered red wine. When I ate fish, I drank beer. I liked that he had noticed that. Of course, anyone with two eyes would have noticed after having eaten with me at the pub upward of twenty times. Still, I liked it.
But I wasn’t ready. Even sitting together on the floor, leaning back against the couch with his arm around me, the wine settling into my knees, the music seducing my heart, I knew it wasn’t time. I had been injured. I needed to let myself heal before being completely vulnerable again.
When he took my wine glass and set it on the table beside his, and slipped his hand beneath my hair at the nape of my neck, and kissed me ever so gently, then kissed me again, and again, I started to reconsider that.
But in a moment of sanity—or maybe insanity—I whispered, “It’s too soon.”
He pulled back. “I understand.” His voice was husky and disappointm
ent moved across his face. He laughed and scooted a few inches away from me. “Safer.”
I laughed too and the tension was broken. I grabbed a diary off the table and opened it. “Here, read.”
Seth looked down at the crinkled page of a fifty year old floral-covered diary. He read the entry aloud.
August, 1946
I saw the boy again today. Or is he a man? It is difficult to say for I only saw him at a distance. He walks onto my property. It is a timid walk. I do not fear him. I do not feel he is coming to see me or to observe me. He only crosses the land to the lighthouse where he sits and looks out at the water. I do not know who he is, but I think he will continue to come.
Chills stabbed at the small of my back and I had to force myself to breathe.
“What is it, Jenny?”
“I don’t know.” I ran my hand across the ink that had flowed from my aunt’s fountain pen. “It’s just— It’s so strange that there was a boy who went for walks on this property over fifty years ago and now—”
“What?”
“It’s happening again.” I told him about the figure I had seen walking in the mist near the lighthouse, twice now.
“Are you sure you’re not imagining it?”
“The first time I thought I was, but this time—definitely not. Oh, my God! You don’t think it’s the same person, do you?”
Seth looked at me in astonishment. Had I gone too far? Did he think I was over the edge? Only one way to find out.
“Or it could be a ghost.”
His astonishment was replaced by a laugh. He thought I was joking. Maybe I was.
I looked down at the words again. “It reminds me of the General,” I said.
“What does?”
“This. These words. You don’t think— Does he ever come to this island? Didn’t he used to live here when he worked for the newspaper? Do you think he knew my aunt?”
“I think you’re losing touch with reality here, Jenny.”
“Sorry. But it makes perfect sense. How old is the General? Maybe he was around when this body was buried under my aunt’s rose garden! Maybe he could tell me—”
“Jenny.” He pressed a finger against my lips.
“What?”
“Is that all you think about?” He said it softly but still it stung.
“I thought we were spending a pleasant evening with each other, not with a fifty-year-old murder.”
He had pushed himself up and was now standing over me. Suddenly I felt very small. I stood up beside him, partially so I wouldn’t feel so small, and partially because he was right. I was consumed with this murder, so consumed that I wouldn’t let myself enjoy a lovely evening with a man of whom I was becoming extremely fond.
“I’m sorry, Seth. You’re right.”
He sighed in exasperation and stepped back from me. “It’s just that—”
“I know. You’re tired of hearing about it.” The truth was, I was tired of thinking about it, but my mind had made a decision that it was not going to let me rest until this was resolved.
“I think I should go.”
“I’m sorry.”
He turned and looked at me, then stroked my face. “Jenny, I’m crazy about you, really I am, and I understand that you want to take things slowly, but—”
“You’d like to talk about something else.”
“I’d like us to get to know each other.”
“Why don’t we go sit on the porch swing.”
He laughed and cocked his head to the side. “Because it’s getting a bit cold out there?”
I grabbed a shawl and my lap blanket from the couch, a photograph album from the coffee table, took his hand, and pulled him outside onto my aunt’s grand porch. There was no place on this earth that was better for talking and getting to know each other.
The air smelled and sounded of evening—owls hooting, water splashing against the rocks in the distance, frogs croaking, and even an occasional twig breaking under the hooves of tip-toeing deer.
I opened Winnie’s photograph album and I took him on a tour of the days of my youth when Bryn and Cameron and I spent summer days on the island, before my mother decided it wasn’t healthy to be around her Aunt Winnie.
“The best days of my childhood,” I said.
“Because you were on the island with your aunt?”
“And my parents were still together.” That had slipped out unexpectedly. I had never realized that was important to me. I had always believed I was grateful for the divorce, grateful that my father had left before my mother could completely tear him down, before she could squeeze the joy out of him, and I was glad that he had created a safe haven for me and my siblings in his home.
“Even though I knew it was better that they split up, I guess some little part of that child in me has an idealized vision of what my childhood should have looked like.”
“I know what you mean.”
“Did your parents get divorced too?”
“Not quite. My mother died.”
“Oh, Seth, I’m sorry. How old were you?”
“Twelve.”
The same age I was when my parents separated. But I still had my mother whom I did not appreciate. Yes, I was justified in my memories and my feelings, but I should have been grateful that she was still alive. Should. Not a word I used often.
I took his hand and held it between both of mine. “I’m sorry, Seth.”
“I’m okay. I got over it . . . after a while.”
I looked up at him. He was staring off into the night. He was still not over the death of his mother—are we ever? Had he ever allowed himself to grieve and to mourn. He had been a twelve-year-old boy. How easy could it have been to sacrifice pride for emotion?
“Were you and your father close?”
His hand twitched beneath mine. “Very close. Especially after my mother’s death.”
“Is he still—?”
“He’s gone,” Seth said with a sense of finality that betrayed his deep sadness.
‘I’m sorry.”
He smiled. “You’re saying that a lot tonight.”
“I mean it.”
“I know. That’s one of the things I like about you.”
We sat together on the porch swing until the sun was far off in another land and the stars had settled in for the night. Then he kissed me goodnight. It was a sweet kiss, not a passionate one. A kiss that meant tonight was a success. We had gotten to know each other better—in a way that mattered.
After Seth left, I re-stoked the fire and sat on the couch alone. Never had I been so unclear about a relationship with a man. I was attracted to Seth, there was no doubt about that, but as successful as tonight was in bringing us closer, I felt a distance between us. I did not know what was causing it and that bothered me.
I thumbed through another photograph album, and another, not really seeing the pictures clearly. I was looking for something. It wasn’t until I closed the last album that I realized what it was. I still had not found a single photograph from my aunt’s youth, her early days on the island, the days of her gardener. Tomorrow I would search the attic for more albums.
Or maybe I wouldn’t. I was obsessing again. And as Seth had said before he left, wasn’t it time that I let the past go?
Was it time? I looked up at the urn on the mantel. I would speak with Alistair about spreading Aunt Winnie’s ashes with me. Maybe that would help me let go.
I tried to get up and go to bed, but my fingers had a mind of their own. They sneaked over to the table and snatched up the lavender and pink paisley diary, despite my efforts to stop them.
December 12, 1949
Oh, how I love this lighthouse. If it were not for this lovely lighthouse . . . How funny that something I hardly noticed before has become so important to me. If not for this lighthouse, I would not be able to see my love. But now, despite the rain, I can be with him. I am overjoyed, and so very much in love.
How odd. Why the lighthouse? Why didn’t
they meet in the cottage? And if it was the rain that kept him away, why would the lighthouse make a difference?
I had to stop reading these diaries. They were only frustrating me. What difference did it make now what had happened so many years ago. It was over. My aunt had passed on. This was not a crime I needed to solve. It really wasn’t.
So, why had I dug up a skeleton the very day I had moved to the island?
Chapter 17
I woke up to the sound of rain tapping on my window. I threw back my down comforter, jumped out of bed, ran down the stairs to turn on the furnace, ran back up the stairs, and jumped back under my snuggly warm comforter. One of life’s grand luxuries. I lay there for an hour, cherishing the warmth and the soothing sound of the rain.
By the time I got up, I had decided it was time to begin living on this island. I could continue to uncover any information I might find about a possible murder that had taken place more than fifty years ago, but I could also start living my own life. I had, after all, come here for a new start. Burying myself in the past, was only delaying that.
I went directly to the library. Roxie smiled when she looked up from her desk. I glanced around the room. Noting that we were alone, I pulled a chair over and sat down across from her.
“I’m fine, Jenny, really I am,” she said in answer to my question.
I did not respond. I simply looked at her.
“Okay, maybe I’m not great, but I can’t complain. I have a good life. I’ve never wanted for anything. I have friends and— family. I’ve plenty of money, a nice home of my own.” She paused as she gulped back her tears.
“And some unresolved issues.”
“I suppose.”
“A requirement in living life as a human.”
She laughed. “You mean I’m not the only one.”
“Not quite.”
A woman came into the library with two small children. She pulled off their caps and rain coats and hung them on the coat rack. I bet this was a popular place for mothers of pre-school age children on rainy days.
“I’m starting up my counseling practice here on the island,” I told Roxie. “The first session is free.”
“Thanks, Jenny. I’ll call you.”
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