Low Country Dreams

by Lee Tobin McClain

  He kicked at the soil, defacing a couple of footprints. Rocky sidestepped away from him.

  Cash pulled up and tooted on the horn of his Lexus. Liam started toward the car and then stopped, turned back to Rocky. “We’re going fishing later,” he said. “Want to come? We can stop back and pick you up.”

  “Yasmin said we have to go shopping for school clothes today.” Rocky made a face.

  Liam considered. “That shouldn’t take long. I can stop by the mall and pick you up, if you let me know where you’re going to be. I’ll bet you’ll be allowed.” Even though Yasmin had moved on from him, with breathtaking speed, she probably still needed, or wanted, his help with Rocky.

  “Okay, I’ll tell her!” The boy’s face was sunny, and Liam was glad to have invited him.

  Rocky went inside and Liam got into the car. Cash called Sean, who’d been supposed to meet them for breakfast before going fishing but was running late. “I’m a newlywed, man!” he said. “I’ll meet you guys out there.”

  Cash started up the car and headed for the diner, giving Sean a hard time on the speakerphone. Liam tried to participate, but he couldn’t muster up any energy for it. Sean was happy, home in bed with his woman on a Saturday morning, and even more than last night, Liam was just plain jealous.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  WHENEVER YOU DIDN’T want to run into someone you knew, that was when you were guaranteed to have it happen. Rita knew this, so she actually had put on a little makeup and a decent-looking pair of jeans before heading to the outlet malls thirty minutes away from Safe Haven, up on the other side of Myrtle Beach.

  She wandered through stores, getting more and more blue. There was a shirt she would’ve liked to wear, her favorite shade of green, but the lower neckline just wouldn’t look good on a woman of her age. She said as much to a gray-haired woman who was rifling through clothes on the same sale table.

  “Honey, I don’t even bother to look for nice clothes for myself these days. I’m shopping for my granddaughter. Come on over here, Courtney, I want you to try this on.”

  As the woman and her granddaughter argued, Rita left the store in a hurry. She’d been running away from her own problems, but her problems were chasing her; everything she saw and heard made her think of the emptiness of her past.

  If what she suspected about the O’Dwyer boys was true, then she had grandchildren—not biological, not yet, but kids her son was fathering. But she didn’t know them. Could she ever be close enough to take them shopping, fuss at them about what was appropriate to wear? Or was that opportunity simply lost, lost forever because of whatever had happened in her shadowy past?

  She wandered into a store that carried a lot of jeans and pants she liked, but it was the same situation. She could hear a mother arguing with her son over the number of rips in the jeans he wanted to buy, and the appropriate tightness of them.

  “What do you care? You’re not my mother.”

  Oh. So she’d been idealizing; it wasn’t a mother-son duo. But the voices did sound familiar. She peeked around a rack of boys’ jeans, and there was Yasmin and that kid she seemed to be fostering, Rocky.

  It was back-to-school time. Lots of families shopping together, and Rita wondered if she had done that type of shopping for the three boys that Abel claimed she’d been with right before losing her memory. Had they gotten along well, or poorly? Had she been able to afford nice things for them?

  “Look,” Yasmin was saying with that quiet tone that meant she was deeply irritated, “you need a couple of pairs of jeans and at least five shirts. I know you’d rather shop with Liam, but since he’s not here right now, let’s get started picking things out.”

  Rocky slumped, staring miserably at the shelves of polo shirts. A fresh splotch of acne had sprouted on his cheek, and his hair stuck up in a way that Rita found adorable, but Rocky himself probably didn’t.

  They looked like they could use a little support. “Hey, Yasmin,” Rita said, coming out into the aisle of the store. “And you’re Rocky, right? Are you guys looking for school clothes?”

  “Trying to,” Yasmin said. “Apparently, I’m totally out of touch with what middle-schoolers wear around here.”

  Rita thought about kids who came into the diner. “I bet they don’t wear these dressed-up type of shirts,” she said. “I mean, these are nice, but I see a lot of kids wearing T-shirts.”

  “Thank you!” Rocky threw up his hands. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell her.”

  She was smiling sympathetically at Yasmin when Liam approached them. Her heart lurched a little.

  Oh, how she wanted to talk to him about the possibility that she was his mother. Her heart ached with the desire but fluttered with cowardice at the same time. If she told him the truth, would he reject her outright?

  “There you are!” Yasmin put her hands on her hips and smiled at Liam. “It’s about time. Rocky is pretty fed up with me. I think he needs a man to shop with.”

  “Sorry,” Liam said. There was no trace of a smile on his normally friendly face. “I was planning to take him fishing, but I can help him shop first.”

  “Oh.” Yasmin’s eyebrows drew together, the skin between them pleating. “Um, okay, as long as you keep an eye on him.”

  “Will do,” Liam said. “Come on, Rocky.”

  “Sure!” Rocky spun away from Yasmin, and Liam turned, then looked back.

  “Hey, Rita,” he said. Then he and Rocky walked off down the aisle.

  Yasmin stared after them, for a long time.

  “You okay?” Rita patted Yasmin’s shoulder. “Want to get a coffee or something?”

  “Do you know anything about mental illness?” Yasmin posed the question out of nowhere, not looking at Rita.

  “Not much,” Rita said. “Why?”

  Yasmin bit her lip. “I don’t know. My brother, Josiah, has some problems, and sometimes, I worry that I do, too.”

  “You could talk to Norma. She knows a lot about mental health, with her counseling background.” And as such, she had a lot of wisdom backing her up when she kept urging Rita to get out there and figure out her past and tell the truth to people. It wasn’t just Norma being pushy. It was the best path to psychological health.

  Too bad it was so hard to do.

  “Your having issues wouldn’t be the first thought that came to my mind about you,” Rita said. “I think you’re a pretty great person, taking on the care of a teenage boy. That can’t be easy.”

  Yasmin shrugged. “His mother bailed. I’m the only option he has right now.”

  Tension clawed at Rita’s stomach. How many people had said the exact same thing about her when she’d disappeared, leaving behind her children?

  She cast about for something to say. “Is his mom a friend of yours?”

  Yasmin tilted her head, her eyes squinting a little. “I wouldn’t call Lorraine a friend, exactly. But we’ve known each other awhile, and I’m glad to help out for Rocky’s sake. He’s a great kid.”

  Lorraine. She’d just met a Lorraine. She thought back and remembered that was the same name as the woman Buck had been with at the sunset party.

  When you were blue, the best way to feel better was to help someone else. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s at least get out of the men’s department. We should either shop, or eat, or get a glass of wine, don’t you think? I’d love to talk to you about the women’s center. Maybe I could do more to help you. I have a few ideas.”

  “That would be great,” Yasmin said. “Great to hear your ideas, and...and great to hang out some, today.”

  And Rita got the feeling that, in some ways, Yasmin was just as lonely as she was.

  * * *

  “I DON’T WANT to go stupid fishing!” Rocky’s arms crossed and his face twisted into a classic middle-school sneer.

  Liam narrowed his eyes at the kid. “
You wanted to go when we asked you this morning.”

  It was later the same afternoon, and they were standing at the little dock behind Ma Dixie’s place. Liam’s brother Sean was showing honeymoon pictures to Ma Dixie, and Cash was dumping ice into a cooler. Rio ran back and forth between all of them, barking madly.

  After a morning of shopping for school clothes with Rocky—and seeing Yasmin—Liam had to reach pretty deep for patience. “How come you don’t want to go now?”

  “I thought we could bring Rio with us!” Rocky’s stance was still defiant.

  Cash meandered down. “You done much fishing before, Rocky?” he asked.

  “No, because it’s stupid!”

  Cash nodded slowly. “I guess it is, kind of.”

  Rio chose that moment to knock over Pudge’s toolbox, so they all went back up to where the older man was sitting. Rocky ran ahead, probably as much to get away from Liam as to help Pudge.

  “He’s scared,” Cash said in a low voice, nodding at Rocky. “Can he swim?”

  That hadn’t even occurred to Liam, and he felt like an idiot for it. “Don’t know.”

  “Remember how close to the shore they stuck the other night when we were here? There’s a reason for that.”

  Liam nodded. “Makes sense.”

  “Thank you kindly,” Pudge was saying as Rocky picked up the toolbox that Rio had knocked over and knelt to organize the tools that had spilled out. “Seems to me that dog needs some more training. If young Rocky, here, would stay and work on that with me, you three could get your fishing jones taken care of yourselves.”

  “Yeah!” Rocky pumped his arm in the air.

  Truthfully, that sounded like a relief to Liam. But he hated to seem to buck his responsibility. Rocky would report to Yasmin on his day, and she’d learn that Rocky hadn’t spent the time with Liam after all, but rather with Pudge.

  “Sounds like a win-win,” Sean said. “You get your dog trained, and a fishing trip with your bros. What’s not to like?”

  “I’m supposed to be taking care of him,” he tried to explain. “I asked Yasmin if he could come with us, so he’s my responsibility.”

  “Me,” Pudge said, “I was planning to have him take care of me, fetch and carry for me since Dustin and his sisters are off on a visit.”

  Rocky was kneeling now, burying his face in Rio’s side. “Can I stay here with Pudge?” he muttered in a voice Liam had to lean in to hear.

  Being here with him and Cash and Sean, doing something unfamiliar, must be just too much for Rocky. That was understandable. “Okay, sure,” he said. “We’ll be a couple of hours, max.”

  “Take your time,” Pudge said. “This dog needs a lot of training.”

  “Well...”

  Cash and Sean looked at each other. Then they each grabbed one of Liam’s arms and one of his legs and started carrying him down toward the water.

  Liam struggled madly, but a minute later he was in. Dunked. He sputtered to the surface, shaking bits of plants and algae out of his hair. He scrambled up through the mud to where his brothers stood laughing. Cash had been the ringleader—and he was smaller—so Liam ran at him first, caught his midsection like a charging bull and hurled him into the water.

  He and Sean both laughed as Cash emerged looking furious. He was the one who wore only expensive clothes. Cash started for Liam, but Liam held up a hand. “Only one of us not wet yet,” he said.

  Cash gave a quick nod, and they both took Sean together. Each grabbing one of his arms, they threw him into the water.

  Farther up on the grassy area, Pudge and Rocky were laughing. Rio ran down and started splashing around in the water, too, so Liam threw him a couple of sticks and he chased them, swimming back to shore like a crocodile. Ma Dixie came bustling down with towels, threw one to each of them, and scolded. “That water is full of snakes,” she said. “You’re setting a terrible example. Rocky, don’t go near that water, and don’t let the dog do it either.”

  Horsing around with his brothers, being scolded by Ma, Liam felt like a kid again.

  They all dried off and got in the boat. Liam’s clothes clung to him, wet and clammy, and the brackish water made him feel itchy. All the same, his mood had lifted. Hot August sun sparkled on the water. Off through the reeds, a couple of white egrets cried out, seeming to complain to each other. The rich, dank smell of the bayou filled his senses: neither pleasant nor unpleasant, exactly, just home.

  Once they were out near a favorite fishing hole, Sean turned off the motor. “Don’t know why you were so set on bringing the kid.”

  “I wanted to ask him about something I found,” Liam said. Though that hadn’t gone well; Rocky had denied having a pair of red Crocs. But Liam knew what he’d seen.

  “That shoe?” Cash had taken off his designer sneakers and was wringing out his socks.

  “Yeah.”

  “Any more information about that?” Cash asked.

  Liam’s face heated remembering how Buck had mocked him for bringing in that particular bit of evidence. “They weren’t interested,” he said, “or rather, Buck wasn’t, even though I explained that Rocky might’ve lost it that night.”

  “Aren’t you supposed to be interested in anything related to the case, if you’re a cop?” Sean dipped a hand into their minnow bucket and baited his hook.

  “Not if you’re Buck Mulligan.” Liam’s jaw clenched. The man was more concerned with cozying up to city council then with solving a murder.

  Murder anywhere was a horrible thing, but murder in Safe Haven felt ten times as bad, at least to Liam.

  “How’s the path to becoming chief going?” Sean asked.

  Liam shrugged a shoulder. “Not great.”

  “Why not? What happened?”

  “Don’t bug him about it,” Cash said. “Being chief isn’t the be-all and end-all.”

  Even Liam stared at Cash for that one.

  “What? It’s not. Money and power...they don’t solve your problems.”

  “It’s not the power or the money,” Liam said. “I don’t care about that stuff, but this town is important to me.”

  Both of his brothers concentrated on their fishing, but he could tell they were listening. Curious.

  “Look, I just don’t want what happened to our mom to happen to anyone else. Ever. I think I’m the person who can fight it, at least in this town. Mulligan isn’t.”

  Both of Sean’s eyebrows lifted, and then he gave a slow nod. “Makes sense.”

  All of a sudden Cash’s rod arced and line started running out. “Fish on,” he said, and whipped his arm back to give out line.

  “Nice job, man.” Sean leaned forward. “Oh, yeah. That a channel cat?”

  Cash was spinning and pulling, spinning and pulling. “Come on,” he crooned, “Come on in.”

  Liam lifted half up to watch the water. “I really don’t think he knows he’s hooked yet.”

  “Feels kinda like a flounder.” Cash tugged some more. “Like a real big flounder.”

  The fish was within sight now, and Liam recognized it. “Redfish!”

  “Yeah,” Sean said, “that’s a nice little redfish. Who’d have pegged Cash for the first catch? In the marsh, yet.”

  “Come on out here, baby.” Cash was netting the fish now, grinning, looking completely different from the high-powered businessman he was.

  “What do you think,” Liam asked, “eight, ten pounds?”

  “It’s not even the flood tide yet,” Sean crowed. “Redfish loves the tide and the freshwater. I’m going to catch me a bigger one.”

  It wasn’t long before Liam got a bite, hooked it and pulled in a fine mullet. Then Cash caught another one. Then they both had to give Sean a hard time, because they all knew he was the best fisherman among them, but he hadn’t had a nibble.

  Liam held a cold can
of soda to his forehead. The hot humid air, the sun filtered through the bayou’s thick leaves, the fishy smell of his hands and clothes, his brothers’ laughter... Liam wanted to open his hands and grasp it all and hold on.

  It was a moment like they’d had when they were teenagers. And Liam hoped they’d still be doing this when they were older than Pudge.

  Out here in the low country marsh, you knew that God was in His heaven. And you could at least pretend that all was right with the world.

  They fished and joked and talked for another hour or so before they turned the boat back toward Ma Dixie’s place. When they got close, Sean turned off the motor and they just drifted, looking toward the shore.

  Pudge still sat in his same chair, and Rocky ran back and forth, chasing Rio. It was good to hear the boy’s happy shouts. For once he sounded like a kid. And Rio was loving it, barking madly.

  “Grandfather figure,” Cash commented.

  Liam opened his mouth to argue that Pudge was more like a father than a grandfather. But then he watched as Pudge heaved himself out of his chair and hobbled down toward the dock.

  He was getting older. They all were.

  Out of nowhere, Liam flashed back to the day he graduated from college. To the surprise of everyone, including himself, he’d graduated from UNC with honors. He’d known he wouldn’t have anyone there at graduation, since his foster family had moved down to Florida by then. They’d been older and not in the best of health. Sean was overseas, and Cash was in New York. And it had stung a little to see all the other graduates with their families, but Liam was used to being different and he still felt good. He’d achieved more than anyone had ever expected.

  Then his name was called and he walked to the stage and there was crazy loud cheering, louder than for almost anyone else in the whole graduating class. It turned out that Sean took leave and Cash flew in from his hotshot job, and Ma Dixie and Pudge had driven up from Safe Haven. And yeah, Liam might’ve gotten something in his eye that caused it to water a little, but he got it under control. They’d all gone out for a big celebration dinner. During that, his brothers had presented him with a graduation present: a check for his police academy tuition. And Liam had known that even though his family was a little different, it was a family, and he’d felt surrounded by their love.