Tides of the Heart (30 page)

“Do you want me to carry you into the cafeteria?” Melanie asked.

“I’m too big to be carried,” the little girl replied. “I’m five, you know.” She placed her crutches under her arms and limped toward the building, her mother guiding her with one gentle hand placed on her back.

He was having an invigorating run this morning to clear the fog from his brain and help him plan his strategy for Jess. The man at the front desk of the Tisbury Inn had suggested he head toward West Chop where the hills weren’t as “challenging,” and where he could see the water from time to time through the trees.

As he passed a place called Owen Park, Phillip, indeed, could see the water off to the right, down a steep hill, to a harbor filled with boats whose masts looked like match-sticks lined up with precision against the blue, cloudless sky. It was so tranquil it had almost taken his mind off Nicole. It was so peaceful it had almost reminded him that there were other women in the world besides selfish, intense law students. Women like Lisa Andrews, as if she’d ever look at him twice.

He turned his head back to the road and picked up his pace, wondering what his mother would think of Lisa, and if Lisa would be comfortable at Jeanine Archambault’s dining room table. Then he thought about Joseph—was Lisa the type of woman his brother would consider “sensible” for a Manhattan attorney who had recently moved uptown?

Uptown
, he mused with a groan. Where the days were
filled with meetings and dinners and racquetball games, all for the sake of a career. Inhaling the cool salt air, Phillip wondered why every day couldn’t be more like today, and why life couldn’t be as simple as it was here on the island.

Not that it was simple for Jess. Not that it could have been simple for a family that had changed their name and fled here, a family with a secret.

He kept his stride even as he jogged past the small library and continued along Main Street, away from the center of town, away from the houses that were set too close together with little space left for yards. As he ran, he began to rehearse what to say to Mr. Bradley.

He thought he would begin, “I am an attorney retained by Mrs. Randall,” since the word “attorney” could still evoke a hint of intimidation in some men and most women. “I am investigating the criminal misconduct of a Dr. William Larribee, and I have reason to believe you are involved.”

He wiped the sweat from his brow and smiled. “Criminal” was another intimidation-inducing word.

While Bradley was squirming, Phillip would pounce. “My client has knowledge of a certain sum of two hundred thousand dollars paid to you by her father in 1968,” he would say, careful not to mention the note for the fifty thousand in Miss Taylor’s things or the menacing letter and call Jess had received. Those, after all, could be tied to the Bradleys only through mere speculation, and it was too early for Phillip to reveal all the cards in his very screwed-up deck. “We believe there is a connection with Dr. Larribee’s misconduct,” he would continue, “and we believe you were involved.”

Brilliant
, he thought, as he kept running.
Worthy of a standing ovation at the Brief Room
, the beer-scented pub where he’d spent too many hours as an eager law student.

He rehearsed his lines, deciding which gestures to use, how he could come across firm and believable, authoritative and … well, yes, intimidating. His brother would be
better at this, but Joseph wasn’t here. Thank God, Joseph wasn’t here to see what he was doing away from the firm.

He wondered if he would ever tell his mother about meeting the woman who had given birth to him. He envied Lisa her relationship with Ginny. She still had both her mothers, and they even conversed from opposite coasts. Maybe if P.J. had lived, he would have told Jeanine about her and they might have met. But P.J. had died, and there hadn’t been any reason to tell Jeanine.

A few moments later, Phillip passed a small cemetery with centuries-old markers bearing names that were faded and worn. He felt a brief tug at his now-empty heart, a tug for P.J., the woman who had given him life.

Sweat trickled down his face—or was it tears? Phillip shook his head and again stepped up his pace.

The houses were getting bigger now. Off to the left was a thickly wooded area, with a crudely made sign reading,
West Chop Woods.
It looked like a fun place to explore, a place he might have brought Nicole if only she had come. He wondered if they would have made love in the woods, or if she would have preferred the dunes or the beach … then he wondered why he was thinking of her. She was out of his life. “They come, they go,” he had said to Jess, though he’d hated it that it was so true.

He straightened his back and kept running, trying to force his thoughts back to Mr. Bradley, to the Perry Mason moment Phillip was going to orchestrate as soon as Jess gave him the go-ahead, as soon as Jess was ready to find out the truth, no matter what the cost.

He was heading into an area dense with tall pines, where huge homes stood off to the right—houses with magnificent vantage points overlooking the water, picture-postcard scenes to send to loved ones back home, if the loved ones knew you were there and you had nothing to hide. As he rounded the bend, Phillip spotted a tall flagpole and two park benches. Just as he was about to run by, he looked down onto the beach and saw a woman, the woman from
last night. This time she padded along the sand in bare feet, a lonely-looking woman draped in a long skirt. Richard’s sister. Karin.

I think she knows why we’re here
, Jess had said.
I think she’s the one who summoned me.

Phillip hesitated a moment, then thought,
What the hell.
It was a free country and it was a free beach.

He saw an opening in the dunes and jogged down a path toward the water.

“Good morning,” he called out to the woman named Karin. “Beautiful morning.”

She dropped something she had held in her hand. She looked up at him quickly and shielded her face against the sun.

“Brit?” she asked.

“No,” Phillip replied, walking now, approaching her. “I’m Phillip.”

He reached her and she stared at him. A veil of distance crossed over her eyes. “You’re not Brit.”

“No. My name is Phillip.”

She turned her back and sifted sand through her toes. “Go away.”

“Hey,” he said, trying to sound gentle, “I’m sorry I’m not Brit. But it’s still a beautiful morning, isn’t it?”

Her back went rigid. Suddenly she snapped around. “Why don’t you just do it and get it over with?” she hissed.

The venom in her eyes made him back off. He turned and walked away. So much for the brilliant, intimidating attorney and his standing ovation.

“I know who you are,” she shouted after him.

Phillip stopped in the sand. He did not turn around.

“I know who you all are. But what’s taking so long? There’s no one left to protect, you know. No one at all.”

He stood numb for a moment, then slowly he turned. But her figure was disappearing down the beach, her loose skirt flowing after her from the breeze that wafted off the water.

•  •  •

By the time he got back to Vineyard Haven, Phillip was tired and his brain was worn out. All the way back he had tried to sort Karin’s words in his mind, tried to make sense of them, and tried to decide whether or not he should tell Jess. He also tried to figure out who the hell Brit was, but he had no idea.

Obviously, Jess had been right, and he had been wrong. Karin was the one who had sent the letter postmarked Vineyard Haven; the one who had made the call. That part was clear now. But he had no idea why. Other than she seemed a little bit crazy.

As he trotted down Main Street, he spotted Jess sitting on a bench on a grassy slope that rolled from the sidewalk down to the water. She was staring out at the boats that stood in the harbor.

“Jess,” he called, slowing his pace until he reached her.

She had a smile for him, but it looked disconnected. “I tried your hotel,” she said. “The man at the desk said you’d gone running.”

“Yeah,” Phillip replied, swiping his brow, “it’s my addiction. Not much time for it in Manhattan.”

“Or places to do it, I’d expect.”

He started to sit next to her, but he was so sweaty, he decided against it. “If you want to wait here, I’ll go grab a shower and we can get some lunch.”

“Maybe,” Jess said, “but I’m not terribly hungry.”

He leaned against the bench. “You weren’t hungry last night, either.”

She smiled. “I know.” That’s when he noticed the red lines in her eyes and the fact that her eyelids were pink and swollen, as if she’d been crying a very long time. She turned her face back to the water. “I saw her,” she said.

“Saw who?”

“Melanie. My daughter.”

He pulled up one knee and rested his foot on the bench. “Jess, we still aren’t sure …”

“She’s my daughter, all right. And I saw my granddaughter, too. Sarah.” Her words sounded like whispers as they floated in the air.

“Oh, God,” Phillip said and sat down. “What happened?”

She told him. Between brave tears, she told him of the school. Of Melanie. Of the little girl with her leg in a cast. Phillip wanted to put his arm around her, to comfort her. But he was so sweaty it didn’t seem right.

“I want to go home,” Jess said suddenly. “I know what I needed to know. And now I want to go home.”

“But we don’t know for sure …”

“I
know. In my heart, I know. That’s all that matters. I’ve been sitting here thinking for over an hour. And that’s what I’ve decided. I want to go home.”

He looked into her eyes, pale and tired. She looked like she must have looked when she was a child, a little girl herself, tiny and in need. “Jess, what about Melanie? What about her right to know the truth?”

Jess swung her feet under the bench. “She’s with her family,” Jess said. “That should be enough.”

“It wasn’t enough for me,” Phillip said. “I always wanted to know my real mother.” Then he stood up. “I’m going to go take my shower.”

Jess nodded. “And if you don’t mind, I’m going to pass on lunch. I want to go back to Mayfield House and check on the ferry availabilities. Thank you for all you’ve done for me, Phillip. But the sooner I get off this island, the better.”

“I’ll come up there when I’m done,” he said. “Promise you won’t go anywhere until then?”

She smiled again. “I promise.”

He couldn’t believe Jess wanted to leave. After thirty years of wondering, she had at last found her daughter. He
couldn’t believe she didn’t want to meet her, talk to her, find out if she was happy, and learn what had happened.

Not that they needed Sherlock Holmes to solve the island mystery.

He changed into a pair of jeans he had bought first thing this morning and a green Black Dog T-shirt. If he ran into Ginny, she could not make any more comments about his looking like a “suit.”

He stood before the mirror, combing his hair, taming his cowlick, just as the telephone rang.
Jess
, he thought and moved between the twin beds to answer it.

“Phillip?” the voice asked, a voice deeper that Jess’s, yet very much female.

“Yes?”

“It’s Lisa, Phillip.”

Lisa?
He ran his hand through his freshly combed hair. “Hi,” he said, stupidly.

“I left Ginny with Jess,” she said. “But I hate eating alone. Have you had lunch?”

Lunch? With Lisa Andrews?
“No. Not yet.”

“I’m downstairs. I can get us a table at the sidewalk café.”

“Sounds great,” he said. “I’ll be right down.” He hung up the phone and felt himself begin to sweat all over again. He walked back to the mirror and stared at his cowlick. “You are such a geek,” he said. “All she wants is someone to have lunch with. Nothing more.” But as he tucked his wallet in his jeans, he left the room smiling, happy that at least Lisa Andrews had remembered his name.

“She couldn’t get ferry reservations until tomorrow night,” Lisa explained once Phillip had settled on the white metal folding chair out on the sidewalk.

He toyed with the straw in his glass of iced tea. “I’m glad,” he said. “I’d like to see Jess give this a little more thought.”

The waiter arrived with a salad for Lisa, a roast beef sandwich for Phillip. After he had gone, Phillip looked at her, trying to discreetly study her creamy complexion, wishing that she would look at him with those gorgeous topaz eyes. “Before you met Ginny,” he asked, “did you ever wonder about her? Who she was? What she looked like?”

“Sure,” Lisa said, and her eyes met his.

He took a huge bite of his sandwich and forced himself not to blush.

“My parents are nice people,” Lisa continued. “Good people. But I always wondered where I came from, you know? I used to pretend I was a princess and that someday the queen would return for me and wisk me off to the castle where it was surrounded by green fields and big trees and horses and knights and didn’t look a thing like New Jersey.”

Phillip laughed so hard he nearly choked. “No wonder you’re an actress,” he said, regaining his composure.