B000FC1MHI EBOK (18 page)

“You’re the one who should hush,” June said, dropping her hand from the door and drawing herself up. “This person’s a stranger. Kimmie is no business of hers.” She held up a hand. “But you want to talk to her, go ahead. Kimmie’s your daughter. I’m just the one who raised her while you were out running around.”

Nancy glared at her mother then.

“Do what you want,” June muttered and disappeared into the house.

Julia felt awkward. “I’m sorry. I didn’t meant to make trouble.”

Nancy waved the apology aside. “The trouble was already there. She’s right. She did raise Kimmie. I was only seventeen when she was born.” She raised a brow. “Just like June was seventeen when she had me, only she had no one to help her, so she’s forever telling me how easy I had it. I did run around when Kimmie was little. That doesn’t mean I don’t love my daughter.”

“Has she been here at the house at all?”

“Only to sleep. Dawn to dusk,” she hitched her chin northward, “she’s up there on the bluff.”

“Would she talk to me, do you think? She doesn’t know me at all. Maybe that would help.”

Nancy raised her shoulders again. “It can’t hurt to try. You were there on the boat. You survived the accident, like she did. Maybe that’d mean something.”

Julia was hoping it would. If she and Noah were feeling similar things, she guessed Kim might be feeling them, too—at least, some of them. Of course, there was the issue of muteness. Neither she nor Noah had experienced that.

Thinking about it as she returned to her car, she had to smile. Noah was miserly with words from time to time, but being laconic was a far cry from being mute. He talked just fine once he got going.

That thought gave her added incentive to see Kimmie. Leaving the beach behind, she headed north. The bluff was a straight shot from there, up on the highest point at the back of the head. While the rest of the island was green with meadow and spruce, here was a mass of granite-gray cliffs, rearing high above the tumble of rock to the sea. A lighthouse stood watch; its light was automated, and the keeper’s house long since decayed, but there was an authenticity to it. Julia had visited the spot before. She had felt that authenticity, along with a certain wildness.

The bluff road was well marked, the pavement here broken, but her SUV handled it well. As she climbed, trees that had flanked the road thinned, then receded. Ahead were boulders, sky, and a rustic stone tower with a rotating eye at the top. The pounding of the surf, magnified by all that baldness, was strong enough to penetrate the walls of the car.

Pulling up beside the ruins of the keeper’s house, she parked behind a small blue Honda. The instant she opened her door, the roar of the waves came full force, and one step out, she was hit by a stiff breeze.

Leaning into it, she climbed over a short stretch of granite to the lighthouse, but it wasn’t until she was past it that she saw anyone there, and then she wondered if she had the wrong person. The one sitting out on the rocks facing the sea was a small, childlike bundle with her knees drawn up, arms cinching them to her chest. But it wasn’t the pose that was odd.

It was the hair. It was bright red—not at all odd in and of itself, given the hair color of Nancy and June.

What was odd was that Julia always noticed hair first. She noticed it when she was at the gym, when she was out to lunch, when she was at the theater. Monte said she simply wanted to know that other people worked as hard to maintain their natural color as she did. But the truth was she had always been attuned to hair, even way back when her color
was
her natural color, which was why she felt such an odd twist inside now.

She didn’t remember seeing anyone in the stern of the
Amelia Celeste
with red hair. She didn’t think she would have missed it, regardless of how harried and rushed she had been. If there had been a flash of hair that red in the stern of the ferry, she would have remembered. And if Kim had not been in the stern, there was only one other place she could have been.

H
ello!” Julia called loudly enough to be heard over the pounding of the surf.

Kimmie Colella looked around quickly. Her face was pale, her eyes blank. She showed no sign of recognition—and with good cause. If she had not been on the
Amelia Celeste,
she would not have seen Julia before, surely not in the crowd on the dock in the dark that night.

Julia could be wrong. She couldn’t swear under oath that Kim hadn’t been on the ferry. Her own memory might be faulty. Yes, she noticed hair, but she had been preoccupied with getting herself and her bags aboard. If Kim had been sitting behind someone, or if she’d been wearing a hat, Julia might have missed the hair.

That had to be it, Julia decided. A hat.

She stopped ten feet from the girl. Girl? Just as on the night of the accident, she couldn’t think of Kimmie as a woman, though she knew her to be twenty-one. Then, she had been a sopping figure swathed in a blanket, her hair color muted by water and night. She was no longer wet now—wore jeans, a sweatshirt, and sneakers—but she looked smaller and more forlorn. That vivid red hair was as straight as Julia’s, though longer. In the hands of the wind, it became a shifting veil.

“I’m Julia Bechtel,” Julia began gently. “I was on the
Amelia Celeste
.”

Kim’s eyes held hers for another minute. They fell to her clothes, studying, and went to her car. Then they returned to the sea.

Julia came closer. “I’ve been wondering how you are.” She squatted on a nearby rock. “There were three of us who survived—you, me, and Noah Prine. He and I talk every so often. We have this thing in common. It’s not often that people survive accidents that take so many other lives.”

Long strands of silky red hair blew over Kim’s cheek. She tucked it back behind her ear.

Taking that as a sign she was listening, Julia began to chat. “The accident was the last thing I anticipated when I left New York Tuesday morning. An auto accident? Maybe. I always think about those when I’m on the highway. How not to? Drive long enough, and you pass some sort of mishap. I did on the drive up that Tuesday. It was a minor accident, I think—no ambulances, only police.”

She was talking, just talking, wanting to be pleasant and approachable. And maybe it was working, she decided. Kim wasn’t telling her to leave, and there were ways to do that without speaking. She could have thrown Julia dirty looks, turned her back, moved to a distant rock, even stood and left the bluff.

“I’m here to visit Zoe Ballard,” Julia went on. “She’s my aunt, but more like a friend, since we’re only twelve years apart. I’ve visited before. I’ve come up from time to time with my daughter. She’s twenty and wants to be a chef. The field is a big one now. There’s a whole art to food presentation. And then those celebrity chefs.”

You have a daughter?
Kim might have said.
Just about my age?

Instead, she put an elbow on her knee and braced her head with a hand.

“I was initially planning to stay for only two weeks, but I’ve extended that,” Julia said. “My parents think I’m crazy. They think that what with the accident and all, I should go right back home.”

Your parents think you’re crazy, too?
It was another opening, but ignored.

“Have you been on a boat since the accident?” Julia asked. When Kim didn’t react, she said, “I was dreading that. But my car was back on the mainland, and I needed clothes to replace the ones that went down with the boat. I also had to go because my daughter would have thought I was a total wuss if I didn’t.” No smile from Kim. “There was fog, like there was at the time of the accident. I kept waiting for the nose of a purple boat to break through. I wake up in the middle of the night with that image.”

She wanted to ask if Kim woke up with the same image. Only, if Kim hadn’t been on the
Amelia Celeste,
but rather on
The Beast,
the question would have been threatening, and that was the last thing Julia wanted to be. Kim might not be speaking, but she was listening. That was something.

Julia continued. “Taking the ferry back to Big Sawyer was better. The sun was out, so I could see things. I was also feeling like the ocean might have swallowed me up on Tuesday night and it didn’t, so maybe there was a kind of truce between it and me. I almost feel an affinity with it.” She paused. With genuine curiosity, even beseechfulness, she asked, “Do you feel anything like that?”

A wave spent its force against the rocks below, sending spray nearly up to the bluff. Julia waited for another. It came after several smaller ones, but she appreciated those, too. The power of the sea was raw, its effect hypnotic.

“I’ve always read that the ocean is as basic to our existence as amniotic fluid,” she mused. “So maybe any connection we feel with the sea is a primal thing?”

She looked at Kim, but the girl was somewhere far away. Her eyes were glazed. They suddenly widened. She jerked. Her eyes flew to Julia’s.

Oh, yes, she relived the crash. It was there, clear as day.

Gently, Julia said, “They say that fades with time.”

Kim blinked. She put her chin on her knees and looked out at the sea.

“Is it different for you, living on the water? You were born here, weren’t you?” Kim didn’t answer. “The accident was something else. All or nothing. You either died, or you were unscathed. I think about that a lot. I think about why I was spared, and what I want to do with my life now. Like I have a chance to be someone different, and I have to decide who that is.” She paused. Very quietly, she said, “Do you feel
any
of that?”

Kim met her eyes then, and there was something so bleak in them that Julia nearly reached for her. In that split second, she imagined the girl hurling herself over the edge of the cliff to her death on the rocks far below.

Urgent now, she said, “You and I share something, Kim. We’ve had an experience that not many people ever have. It’s been good for me having Noah to talk with, but Noah’s male. I’d like to talk with another woman. I’m an outsider—a
New Yorker,
of all things,” she drawled in self-derision, attempting to lighten the mood, “and I’m not sure any of my friends back there will be able to relate to what I’m feeling. My husband doesn’t. My parents don’t. Even Zoe can only understand to a point. The chief of police just wants the facts, and the pastor at the church will pray for me. But I need other things. Talking with you would be therapeutic for me. Maybe you’d get something out of it, too.”

Kim’s eyes grew accusatory, and Julia read them well.

“No one sent me here,” she assured her. “No one even knows I’m here, other than your mother and grandmother. I stopped at the house, hoping to find you there.”

Though the accusation eased, distrust remained.

“One of the reasons I like talking to Noah,” Julia went on, “is that he doesn’t know me or my friends, so if I say something awful or just plain stupid, it doesn’t go any further than him. I assume he feels the same about me, like I’m not about to turn around and tell any of his fishing buddies if he confesses to feeling weak or vulnerable or even
guilty
.”

The word hung in the wind, suspended between one explosive burst of water on rock and the next. If Kim had been with Artie Jones on
The Beast,
it gave credence to rumors that there was something between them, which, totally aside from who had survived and who had died, would be cause enough for Kim to feel guilt.

Julia smiled sadly. “I guess what I’m saying is that maybe I can help. You’re not talking to anyone, but I’m a stranger and an off-islander. If you ever want to talk with someone about the accident, I’m as safe a bet as any.” She pushed herself to her feet. Kim’s eyes followed her as she stood. “I’m staying at Zoe’s. You know where she lives, don’t you?” She took silence as an affirmation.

In that last moment, she fought an urge to physically drag Kim farther back from the edge of the cliff. But she didn’t delude herself. If Kim wanted to die, she would do it whether Julia tried to hold her or not. Leaving her alone was another matter. Part of Julia felt she was abdicating her responsibility as a sensible adult by returning to the car.

So she gave it a final shot. “Are you hungry? Want to go somewhere for lunch?”

Kim returned to the sea.

“How about Zoe’s barn?” Julia tried. “Working with her rabbits is peaceful. Want to help me there?” Kim said nothing. “I’d even go out on a boat with you. We’d have total privacy. You could say whatever you wanted and no one but me would hear. Of course, I don’t have a boat or even know how to drive one. You’d have to be in charge of that.”

Kim didn’t crack even the smallest of smiles.

Not knowing what to do other than momentarily cede defeat, Julia turned quietly and left.

Julia turned quietly and left.

Driving back down from the bluff, she grew annoyed with herself.
Julia turned quietly and left.
It was the refrain of her life. Julia didn’t make noise. She didn’t say things people didn’t want to hear. She didn’t rock the boat.

Wondering if she was simply an inveterate coward, she actually slowed the car and considered going back. Prudently, she did not. Kimmie Colella needed the help of a professional, and Julia was far from that. The last thing she wanted to do was make things worse for the girl.

That said, Julia knew she would go back for another visit. She shared something with Kim. The affinity grew murky when it came to the girl carrying on with Artie Jones, and grew even murkier with regard to who was or was not in the stern of the
Amelia Celeste
.

Still, there was a bond. Of a dozen people, only three survived. Kim was the youngest of the three, and the most vulnerable, and Julia was a born caretaker. It was only natural that she would want to help the girl.

Not knowing how best to do that, she returned to Zoe’s and began to bake. She made Congo Bars this time, following a recipe she could make in her sleep, she had used it so often over the years. A favorite, inherited from the mother of a childhood friend, it called for brown-sugar batter layered with chocolate and butterscotch bits, coconut flakes, marshmallows, and pecans. Her own mother had always balked at the name—
Why in the world are they called Congo Bars?
she asked whenever Julia baked them, and Julia made up any number of answers, though none really mattered. Janet didn’t want to know the meaning of the name, so much as simply to place the bars in a too-bizarre-for-myown-effort category. She was too busy to bake. But she did eat her share of the bars.

This day, Julia made them for the Walsh children. As soon as they had cooled enough to be cut into child-size bites and layered in foil, she drove them over. The children were in the front yard of the weathered farmhouse, playing in a plastic pool filled with sand. Their aunt sat on the grass nearby in a rumpled T-shirt and shorts, her tawny hair uncombed, her freckles stark in a pale face. She looked exhausted.

Julia knelt beside her. “I brought goodies for the kids. Are they allergic to anything?”

Ellen regarded her bleakly. “There’s another thing I don’t know. Jeannie never mentioned it. She was always here when I visited, so there was no need for me to know. She didn’t plan on this.”

“Is their pediatrician here on the island?”

“The only name I ever heard was Jake. If there are medical records to be picked up, I assume he has them. I’ll stop by his office before we leave.”

Julia imagined it was one more thing on an ever-growing list; all that, on top of the shock of losing her sister, brother-in-law, and niece. “How’s the packing going?”

“Slow.” Ellen’s voice fell to a whisper. “I’m trying to do most of it when the girls are asleep and leave just enough out and around so the place doesn’t look so bare. They know they’re going back to Akron with me, but they think Jeannie, Evan, and the baby are meeting us there. I try to explain that they’re in heaven, but I’m not getting through.”

“They’re so young. Heaven is only a word. They can’t grasp the meaning. It’ll take time.”

Vanessa, the dark-haired three-year-old, climbed out of the sandbox and, smacking her hands free of sand, made a beeline for Julia. She pointed a small finger at the foil pack and, in a barely baby voice, asked, “What’s there?”

“Little munchies.”

“I’m hungry.”

Julia unfolded the foil. Vanessa watched closely, leaning in with two little hands braced on her knees. “Oooo,” she said when the first of the bars came into sight. She looked up at Julia with pretty blue eyes. “Can I have one?”

“You can.” Julia separated one small bar from the rest. Vanessa took it from her, bit off a corner, chewed for a minute with a thoughtful look on her little face, then gave Julia a gooey grin. Pushing the rest of the piece into her mouth, she settled in against Julia’s thigh.

By this time, her sister, Annie, had joined them. “What’s Nessa eating?”

“It’s a Congo Bar,” said Julia and handed the five-year-old a piece. Then she held the foil pack out to their aunt.