A Letter for Annie (9 page)

Half an hour later he put the lid on the can of stain and carried his materials into the hallway, where he set them down, pausing there to watch the rise and fall of Geneva Greer’s labored breathing and wishing he’d gotten to know her sooner. Lost in his thoughts, he
didn’t hear Annie come down the stairs. When she brushed past him bent on checking on Geneva, his gut clenched. Soon, too soon, Annie would be alone in the world. How had this happened? Why wasn’t Pete here to soften the blow? Could anyone ever fill the void Geneva would leave? Could he?

He watched Annie adjust the blanket around Geneva’s legs, then stand back, silent, as if willing her great-aunt to keep breathing. When she turned back toward him, eyes filled with tears, she seemed surprised he was still there. When he held out his arms, she swiped away the tears and shook her head, whispering fiercely, “No, Kyle.”

He should have obeyed her, should have left the room. But a force beyond his control took over. “Annie, love, please.” He drew her into his arms, holding her tight, running his hand over her head. “I know, I know,” he murmured.

She stilled within his embrace, then laid her head against his chest, all the fight drained out of her. “It’s so hard,” she finally managed, her voice thick with pent-up tears.

He didn’t know how long they stood like that—connected by a grief too great to bear…and by something more. Feelings that were too strong for either of them to deny. It was only when the grandfather clock struck three that she pulled away. They stood mute, for there were no words for such a moment.

Then, clearing his throat, Kyle picked up his tools and started for the truck, knowing that something momentous had just happened.

G
ENEVA WAS FRUSTRATED
. She’d been home three days now and was still weak as a kitten. She let her fingers play over the satin border of the cashmere blanket she’d had for so many years. She needed to rest, but her mind wouldn’t stop working. She kept thinking about Kyle and the pride he took in his craftsmanship. In these days and times, it was difficult to find a worker with high standards and a good work ethic.

It was even more difficult to find a good man. Rousing from her sleep earlier in the week, she had watched as Kyle tenderly embraced Annie, comforting her without words. When he had left the house, she had observed Annie move to the window, watching the man until she finally turned away, a stray tear dampening her cheek. But it was the expression on Annie’s face that moved Geneva so deeply. Love, pure and simple.

Annie was on her usual Friday run to the grocery store. Geneva seized the opportunity and invited Kyle to join her by the bay window. She gazed out at the sea, puzzling how to gain the information she needed. He sat quietly, hands clasped between his knees. She liked that—a man who didn’t need to fill the silence with unnecessary talk.

“You knew Annie in high school?” she began abruptly.

“Yes.”

“Well?”

“Pete, her boyfriend, was my best friend. We hung out together quite a bit.”

“Is she the same now as you remember her?”

She scrutinized him as he obviously struggled for
words. He rubbed his hands over the faded surface of his jeans, his eyes averted. She waited.

“No,” he finally said.

“What’s different?” She, of course, knew the myriad ways Annie had changed, but she wanted to hear what he’d noticed.

“I assume you have a reason for asking.”

“Yes, I do. More about that later.” She waited, the
tapeta, tapeta
of her oxygen marking the seconds that passed.

“Okay. I’m not a poetic kind of guy, as you might guess. But Annie back then, well, she was like a sunbeam. Wherever she went, people warmed to her. She wouldn’t have been voted Homecoming Queen if she hadn’t been well liked. You rarely saw her without a smile. She and Pete were the golden couple, the kind everybody just knew would walk off into the sunset and still be as much in love at the fiftieth high school reunion as they ever were.” He winced, and a pained look replaced the thoughtful one.

“Enviable.”

“Oh, yeah.”

Geneva could see the toll this interrogation was taking on the young man, but she persevered. “And now? How does she seem to you?”

“Closed up. Private.” His eyes sought Geneva’s. “And needy.” His obvious discomfort confirmed her hope that Kyle Becker had more than a passing interest in Annie.

She nodded in agreement. “I’m worried about her. Worried about what she’ll do when I’m gone.”

“She’s pretty fragile.”

“I think she’s been that way since she left Eden Bay so suddenly.” She hesitated, then forged on. “Do you have any idea what happened to make her run away like that?”

“You mean you don’t know?”

“I have some ideas, but she won’t talk about it. It’s as if those memories are locked in a vault.”

“At the time, I was very angry with Annie. Pete never got over her.”

Geneva saw a glimmer of hope. “‘At the time…’? What about now?”

She detected a faint flush rising from the open collar of his shirt. “Ms. Greer, have we finally come to the point of this conversation?”

She mentally gave him a high score for perceptiveness. “I could go any day now. No, no—” she raised her hand to fend off his objections “—for myself I’m as ready as a person can be. Annie has a few friends in Bisbee, but I need to know that she has at least one here in Eden Bay.” She fixed her eyes on his, praying for the best. “Can I count on you, Kyle?”

He reached over and took her hand, but, as if he were processing her question, didn’t speak immediately. “To be honest, I have conflicting emotions about what happened after Annie’s graduation and about Annie herself.” He took a deep breath, squeezed her hand and then, his voice mellowing, said, “But yes. I will do my darnedest to be here for her.”

Geneva closed her eyes, tension draining out of her. She wouldn’t live long enough to know the outcome, but somehow she knew this young man would keep his
word. “Thank you,” she said, patting his hand. “Thank you so much.”

Then he had gone back to work. Now, longing for sleep, she wished she had more time, time to see how that gentle, conflicted, lovestruck young man would bring Annie back into the sunlight.

“B
UBBA, BUDDY
. We’re knocking off early today.” Kyle unhooked his tool belt and put it in the storage unit in the back of his truck. “Tonight your humble master is supposed to transform himself into Prince Charming and go to the ball.”

He opened the cab door and Bubba jumped into the passenger seat, but not before sending Kyle an inquisitive look that clearly communicated,
The hell you say.

“Yeah, I know.” Kyle started up the truck and headed for home. “Not my bag, these country club do’s. It’s not like I’m duding myself up for my best girl. Nope, pal, I’m going because I’m a damned coward.” On the steering wheel, he tapped out time to the song on the radio. “Yep, I had my opportunity the other morning. I should’ve told Rosemary to forget it.”

Why hadn’t he? Pure and simple, he hadn’t want to hurt Rosemary. She was so nice. If only he could find a reason to be miffed with her or to disapprove of her. But she was every bit as likable as all the Nemecs generally were. And he’d known her for practically her whole life. On paper, they were the perfect match.

It wasn’t only Rosemary’s expectations that he had to deal with. Bruce and Janet Nemec, Margaret, Rita,
his fellow employees, hell, they all assumed the two of them would end up together.

He’d tried, really. But you can’t create a spark with wet tinder. He didn’t know much about love. Certainly not from his bully of an old man or the mother who had deserted him. In fact, the Nemecs were his main role models for what a marriage ought to look like. And Pete and Annie for what young love should be. Thinking about the two examples, he couldn’t envision himself walking into the sunset with Rosemary. At no time had he felt the involuntary surge of passion for her that, despite his efforts to the contrary, he now did for Annie.

He hadn’t asked for these feelings. But they were there, and he was having no success getting rid of them. He could grit his teeth, look the other way, steer his thoughts in a different direction—none of it worked.

“Tonight’s the night, Bubba. I don’t know what this’ll do to my position with Bruce, but I have to be honest with Rosemary.”

As always, the dog sent him a look confirming his complete support of Kyle’s plan.

L
ATE THAT AFTERNOON
clouds gathered on the horizon and wind nipped at the beach, sending little sand devils skittering across the expanse. Then at about four-thirty, a curtain of rain wrapped the cottage in a gray cocoon. A perfect chowder evening, Annie thought, as she chopped potatoes and onion and opened a tin of clams. Geneva had spent most of the afternoon in bed, and the two times Annie had checked on her, she had been
sleeping peacefully. The kitchen radio, tuned to a classical station, provided the only sound other than that of rain pattering on the roof and slashing against window-panes. The darkening day could have been depressing; instead, it enhanced the coziness of their home. They were safe, a good dinner simmered on the stove and they had each other. Annie leaned against the counter, needing desperately to treasure this moment, the comfort and normalcy of it.

Later they ate dinner in the living room, the soft strains of Pachebel’s “Canon in D Major” playing in the background. Geneva wore her deep purple fleece robe with crimson slippers. Between sips of soup, Annie studied her and decided the nap had been beneficial. Her face had color and she seemed more animated than usual. Her breaths were labored but steady.

“I love the rain,” Geneva said as she set her soup bowl aside and stared out the window. “It’s as if God decides to cleanse his world.”

“One in dire need of it,” Annie commented, her thoughts flying to Afghanistan and Iraq where mortar fire and bombings made life so very tenuous.

“When I was tiny, I used to be afraid of storms. But then one summer night, my father came and woke me. ‘I have something to show you,’ he said. ‘Something miraculous.’ He wrapped me in a blanket and carried me out on the porch. A terrific thunder and lightning storm lashed the coast. ‘Isn’t God a splendid artist? Look there! And there!’ And so it went. From that evening on, I was a lover of storms. So exciting.” Geneva paused to cough into a tissue. “But this is equally thrilling in a dif
ferent way. Yes—” she nodded to herself “—cleansing. That’s what it is.”

Annie nested her bowl inside Geneva’s and carried the tray into the kitchen. She would do the dishes later, she decided, in order to take advantage of Geneva’s alertness.

In the living room she settled back in her chair. “Do you want to redeem yourself for your gin rummy loss last night?”

Geneva snorted. “Your victory was a fluke, and ordinarily I’d take you on. But I have something else in mind for tonight.”

“What?”

Geneva’s expression turned somber. “Cleansing.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, I think you do. I told you earlier we needed to have a serious talk. Tonight is the night.”

The room closed in on Annie.

“I am not going to ‘shuffle off this mortal coil,’ as Shakespeare put it, before we dig into the past.”

A ghostlike chill raised the hair on the back of Annie’s neck. She tried to speak, but her throat turned to dust.

“Child of my heart, you are not happy. You live like a spirit caught between this world and the next. The past is an anchor keeping you forever captive. This can’t go on.”

Finally Annie’s voice returned, along with an ache that went clear to the bone. “I can’t! Please!” She tried to stand, to escape, but Geneva’s firm grip on her hands rooted her to the spot. As if in slow motion, she sank back into the chair, her face a mask. If she didn’t listen, if she didn’t talk, none of this could hurt her. She folded her arms defensively. She would sit here in silence for as long as it took.

“I can outwait you,” Geneva said. “We’re going to do this if it takes all night and I exhaust my oxygen supply.”

The two stared at each other. Geneva’s eyes, so full of love, made it difficult for Annie to maintain her aloofness. Minutes passed. The clock struck seven. Geneva coughed again.
You don’t have to say anything. She can’t make you.
As if her stomach were an expanding balloon, Annie felt pressure in her chest. The nightmare would never be over. Auntie G. was wrong to think she could change that.

“Were you pregnant?”

Annie’s head jerked up. “Pregnant?”
My God, is that what people thought happened?
Her eyes filled with tears. That would have been vastly preferable to the reality. Pete’s baby? Fierce longing sent her to the edge of hysteria.

“No,” she said.

“Well, then, I didn’t think so. Nina would have told me. So…if you weren’t pregnant, there’s only one other explanation. You were afraid. A girl doesn’t just up and run away the morning after her high school graduation, leaving no trace of her whereabouts, unless she’s terrified of something.” Auntie G. massaged her chest, as if her next utterance caused her great pain. “Or someone.”

Annie clenched her fists, fingernails biting into the tender flesh of her palms.
Don’t let the words out. Don’t go back to that place.

“Annie.” Her great-aunt’s tone was peremptory. “I want the truth. Was it Pete?”

She thought she might suffocate, so sharp was the dagger of Geneva’s suspicion, her unthinkable suspi
cion. “Pete? Oh my God, Auntie G. Pete? He was the best thing that ever happened to me, and now, and now…” She couldn’t go on, doubled over with the paroxysms of grief racking her thin body.
Pete! Pete!
She didn’t know if she was calling for him aloud or in the void of her great need. All she knew was that he wasn’t coming to rescue her. Nobody was. Just as nobody had that night. Not even God.

She could taste bile rising up from her stomach and into her throat. She gagged on her tears.