Before the Storm (52 page)

ONE MORE TIME, I WAS IN A HOSPITAL room, this one hotter

than blazes. I’d driven to Chapel Hill to tell Sara about Maggie’s

confession; it was the kind of thing I didn’t want to say on the

phone. I wasn’t sure about telling her with Keith there, but

decided he had a right to know. Maybe a bigger right than any

of us. I just didn’t want to be there when his rage hit. He’d been

pissed off enough when he thought it was Andy who started

the fire. When he found out it was Maggie, who had no mental

handicap to use as an excuse…well, I wanted to be any place

else.

But there I was, standing at the end of the bed while Sara

adjusted the bulky bandage on the left side of Keith’s face.

“Maggie was having a relationship with Ben Trippett,” I began.

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“No,”
Sara argued, as though I had no idea what I was talking

about. “Ben was with Dawn.”

“It looks like he was involved with both of them,” I said.

“Oh, no.” She sat down in the chair next to Keith’s bed.

“Poor Dawn.”

“Maggie didn’t realize he was still seeing Dawn, though.” I

came to my niece’s defense. I had the feeling I’d be doing a lot

of that in the coming days. “He told her they’d broken up.”

Sara frowned.“That’s horrible,” she said.“And I thought Ben

was so nice.”

“Why are we talking about Maggie’s pathetic love life?”

Keith muttered. His right eye was squinched shut and he

looked like he was in pain. Lines on his forehead. A deep

crease in the peeling red skin between his eyebrows.

I went on to tell them how Ben was getting ragged on by the

other firefighters for his claustrophobia. How Maggie had

wanted to help him and how she’d been afraid he’d leave town

if she didn’t. I said it all without emotion because my whole

body felt like it’d gotten a massive shot of Novocain. I was numb

all over. I couldn’t even get my lungs working right. It was hard

to pull air in and out. I
still
couldn’t wrap my mind around

Maggie doing it.

Neither could Sara, apparently. She wasn’t getting it.

“What does this have to do with the fire?” she asked.

I shifted from one numb foot to the other. Folded my arms

across my chest. “Ben thought he finally had the claustrophobia thing under control,” I said, “but he needed a fire to prove

himself. So—”

“You’re not saying
Maggie
set the fire?” Sara asked.

I nodded. “She confessed to it. But she didn’t mean for the

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kids to be there,” I added quickly. “Remember, the lock-in

wasn’t—”

“I just don’t believe it!” Sara interrupted me. “Maggie

wouldn’t do something like that. Could she be protecting Ben?

Maybe he set it and she’s taking the fall?”

“Maggie wanted to help him,” I repeated. “She was

so…hooked on him. So nuts about him. She wasn’t thinking

straight.”

Sara’s face went white. She clasped a hand over her mouth

like she was holding in a scream.

“She poured fuel around the church,” I said. “Andy helped

her because…it’s a long story, but he didn’t know what he was

doing. That’s how his prints got on the gas container.”

“Oh my God,” Sara nearly whispered. “I just can’t picture

it. Little Miss Perfect. How could she hurt so many people?”

I couldn’t picture it either, and yet everything about

Maggie’s story fit into place like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.

All except her denial that she didn’t light the fire. It was like

she looked up the law on the Internet and learned the charges

against her wouldn’t be as bad if she didn’t actually burn the

building down. I talked to her till I was blue in the face, trying

to get her to own up to it, but she wouldn’t. I believed her

because she was Maggie. And I didn’t believe her, because that

part of her story just plain didn’t hold together.

“I don’t think she meant to hurt anyone,” I said.

“How can you
say
that? She burned down the church!” Sara

had found her voice and, with it, her anger. The pallor in her

face was gone now. Her cheeks were splotched with red, and

I knew that, in a split second, she’d gone from loving Maggie

to despising her. “She
killed
people!” she shouted.

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“She swears she didn’t ignite the fuel,” I said. “She said once

she saw the lock-in was moved to the church, she gave up the

whole plan.”

“Oh, right,” Sara snapped. “Spontaneous combustion.”

“I know,” I said. “I don’t know what to make of it either.”

Keith had gone quiet in the last minute or so, and when I

glanced at him, I saw tears running down his unbandaged cheek.

“Oh, baby!” Sara leaned forward, mopping his face with a

tissue. “Oh, honey.”

“I thought it was all
my
fault.” Keith was just about sobbing.

“I thought
I
did it.”

“What do you mean?” Sara asked. “How on earth could it

have been your fault?”

It took a few seconds for him to catch his breath. “I was on

the back porch of the church, getting ready to have a smoke,”

he said. “I lit my cigarette, and when I threw the match on the

ground, flames shot up.
Massive
flames. They blocked the back

steps, so I ran back inside and then I was stuck in the fire, like

everybody else. I thought it was my fault.”

“Oh, Keith.” Sara tried to hug his quivering shoulders. With

the gigantic stiff bandages on his arms and hands, it must have

felt like holding a block of wood. She pressed her face against

his and I watched their tears mix together.“My poor baby,” she

said.“All this time you were thinking you did it? It wasn’t your

fault, honey. Not at all.”

I stood there watching, letting Keith’s words sink in. Sometimes relief feels like a trickle from a faucet. Other times, it’s

a tidal wave.
This
was a tidal wave. My eyes burned. I could

suddenly feel my arms. My legs. My lungs moved air in and

out. My heartbeat was rock steady.

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Maggie’d been telling the truth! There wasn’t much to celebrate about the whole damn mess, but just then, I felt like

shouting for joy.

I called Flip from my pickup and told him to get someone

up to Chapel Hill to take Keith’s statement. Then I stepped on

the gas. I wanted to get back to Cape Fear. To the hospital and

Laurel and Maggie. I wanted to see Andy. To see where we

went from here.

People asked me why I’d never settled down. Never started

a family. “Not my thing,” I’d say. Or “Just haven’t met the right

woman.” I’d dated a fair amount. Lots of one-night stands. A

few three-month-long relationships. Some six months. A

couple lasted a year. But there was one good reason why I’d

never settled down. Never started a family. I already had one.

Andy

I SIT ON THE BENCH AT THE POOL WAITING for my turn. I

don’t like swimming as much as I used to. I don’t win as much

now that my startling reflex is gone, but Mom says I have to

swim until Christmas. Then I can quit. Our new coach, KiKi,

is a girl. Ben went to live with his wife in Charlotte. I cried at

first because I missed him, but now I don’t remember what

he looked like. Mom said I got so upset because he left right

after Maggie did. It was like losing two people at once, she said.

I like a new girl on my swim team, so I watch her swim the

butterfly that she does better than anyone. Uncle Marcus says

I have to be extra careful about personal space now that I’m

getting older. He’s not careful about it at all, though. Right now

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he’s sitting on the bleachers with his arm around Mom. Sometimes they kiss. The first time I saw them kiss I said, “Yuck!

What are you
doing?
” Mom said I better get used to it, that

there would be a lot more kissing from now on. But she meant

her and Uncle Marcus. Not me. I’m not supposed to kiss

anybody that’s not family.

I get to see Maggie every month. I like seeing her but not at

the prison because the people are scary. Like the lady with the

spider tattoos on her neck. Maggie shouldn’t be with them.

She’s the best person and I won’t ever get why she has to be

there. At least, I don’t get why me and my friend Keith aren’t

there with her. Me and Maggie put the bug spray which was

really car gas around the church. Keith threw a match and

made it burn. If me and Maggie and Keith all had something

to do with the fire, I don’t know why only Maggie is in jail, but

that is what happened.

At night sometimes I think about how I can sneak her out. I

told her about that the last time I went there and she laughed.

“Oh, Panda, you’re a goofball!” She got real serious then and told

me she belongs where she is. “I’ll get a second chance at life,

but the three people who died in the fire only got one,” is what

she said.

I have a big calendar on my corkboard wall, and every day

I cross off is one day closer to having her home.

Then she can start her second chance.

Laurel

They took my daughter from me the week before her eighteenth

birthday.They convicted her of attempted arson and obstruction of

justice, and her lawyer was able to get involuntary manslaughter

charges dropped. She was incredibly brave.

She’d done something terrible. Insane. I thought she needed counseling instead of incarceration,but it was not my opinion that mattered.

I worry what she’ll be like at the end of twelve months in prison. How

will she be different? The only thing I’m sure of is that
I
will be a very

different sort of mother. I plan to smother her with love. She’ll be

nineteen,but she’ll still be my beautiful little girl.And once I have her

back in my arms, I’ll never, ever, let her go.

READER DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. Empathy is a theme that runs throughout the book.

Jamie’s mother talked about him having the “gift” of

extreme empathy, being able to feel what others were

feeling. Do you believe that some people have this gift

and, if so, do you believe that Jamie had it? Maggie? Why

or why not?

2. Discuss Maggie’s feeling that she could connect to her

father’s spirit. Do you think she believed he was coming

to her from “the other side”? How did her connection to

him influence her actions? How did it influence her relationships with Laurel, Ben and Marcus?

3. Even though Andy was clearly the favored child, Maggie

seemed to love him unconditionally and without resentment. Why do you think this was?

4. Maggie was an honors student with college plans and a

bright future. What in her upbringing and personality

allowed her to achieve so much? What in her upbringing

and personality contributed to her falling so far?

5. Speculate as to why Jamie and Marcus were treated differently by their parents and the impact that treatment had

on them and their relationship.

6. Were you able to remain sympathetic to Laurel during her

postpartum depression and alcoholism? What other

emotions did you feel toward her?

7. Do you think Laurel ever doubted Andy’s innocence? What

do you think played into her assumptions and emotions?

Could you relate to her desire to tamper with evidence to

protect him? What would you have done in her place? Did

you have doubts about his innocence yourself? Why or why

not?

8. After learning that Keith had called Andy a “little rich boy,”

Laurel worried that Sara might resent her wealth. Do you

think Sara was resentful of Laurel? Discuss the dynamics

in their friendship and how they changed—or didn’t

change—over the years.

9. Which characters garnered the most sympathy from you?

How did your feelings about Andy, Maggie, Laurel and

Marcus change throughout the story?

10. In your opinion, should Andy be told about his relationship to Keith? What are your feelings about family secrets?

®

ISBN: 978-1-4268-1765-6

BEFORE THE STORM

Copyright © 2008 by Diane Chamberlain.

All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or

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retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher,

MIRA Books, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are

either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and

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