The Edge of the Shadows

by Elizabeth George

  “Rhonda thinks Brooke has a bleeding ulcer. She’ll need some tests at the hospital and an appointment with a gastro . . . a gastro-whatever-it-is.”

  Hayley lowered herself to one of the kitchen chairs. She murmured more to herself than to her mom, “But why didn’t she . . . why wouldn’t she . . . No wonder.”

  “Yes. No wonder,” Julie Cartwright said.

  • • •

  RHONDA MATHIESON DROVE Brooke home. She brought her personally, rather than let Seth return her because Brooke was “making things a little tough for herself,” as Rhonda put it.

  Brooke ran up the stairs when she came into the house. Rhonda watched her go. Julie went to Rhonda. She took Rhonda’s arms above the elbow in a half-hug kind of gesture, and said, “I don’t know what to say.”

  Rhonda patted her hand. “Is there some place we can sit? Is Bill here, by the way? He might want to—”

  “I haven’t told him yet.” Julie Cartwright indicated the living room and its ancient sofa. “It’s all a bit difficult right now.”

  Hayley was watching all this from the doorway to the kitchen, and she found that she wanted to yell and punch the wall. A bit difficult? she wanted to shout at her mom. But instead she offered Rhonda Mathieson the only thing they had to offer anyone, which was a cup of tea or instant coffee or water. Rhonda smiled at her, said she wanted not a thing but thanks so much, and she went to the sofa. She sat and waited for Hayley’s mom to do the same. To make sure her mom did just that, Hayley went into the living room and planted herself in the rocking chair that her father could no longer use.

  Rhonda patted the sofa next to her, an indication of where she wanted Julie to sit. When Hayley’s mom had done this, Rhonda gave them the news. First of all, she said, Brooke was extremely upset about having Seth Darrow cart her to the clinic, so Rhonda hadn’t told her much because she didn’t want to increase the girl’s distress. Besides, at this point, only tests were going to be able to pinpoint the exact nature of the problem. But her symptoms suggested a bleeding ulcer, so this was a medical emergency.

  “It’s an ulcer that’s gone untreated,” Rhonda explained. “If it isn’t dealt with very soon, it can penetrate the lining of the stomach. That permits undigested food and stomach acids to enter the abdominal cavity.” Rhonda placed her hand on her own stomach as if in demonstration. “When that happens, the problem becomes acute.”

  Julie clutched her hands in her lap. “She’s been different for months. But I told myself it was her age. Thirteen and you know how difficult children get when they reach adolescence and I thought . . . She kept eating and eating.” Julie cleared her throat. Hayley knew very well that her mom didn’t want to cry in front of Rhonda Mathieson. After a moment, Julie said, “She never said a word. I’ve completely failed her.”

  Hastily Rhonda covered Julie’s clutched hands with her own. “Brooke didn’t want you to know. She herself doesn’t know the extent of the problem because I’m not entirely sure. As I said, only tests can tell us, but the eating indicates . . . It would actually have made her stomach feel better to have food in it.”

  “What kind of tests?” Hayley asked.

  “It’s called an endoscopy. This’ll show the surgeon—”

  “Surgery?” Julie’s voice wavered.

  Rhonda scooted over and put her arm around Julie’s shoulder. She waited a moment to explain further: a plastic tube down into Brooke’s stomach would contain a probe; the probe would show if there was a bleeding ulcer; the surgeon would use electricity or heat or clips to stop the bleeding, a medical glue would minimize the chance of an occurrence of more bleeding in the future. But there could also be the need for abdominal surgery if the bleeding couldn’t be stopped in this way.

  “But,” Rhonda added quickly when Julie’s expression showed horror, “this is at the absolute furthest extreme. The important point is that we need to be proactive. I’d like to set up an appointment for tomorrow. She could go to the emergency room in Coupeville right now, but I think we’re okay waiting till the morning.”

  “No frigging way!”

  They swung to where Brooke was standing. She’d come back down the stairs. She was completely white faced.

  “I won’t,” she announced.

  “Sweetheart,” Rhonda said carefully. “There isn’t an option here. If we don’t—”

  “I said I won’t and I won’t.”

  Julie rose and went toward her. She said, “You needed to tell me. Brookie, this is dangerous, and I don’t understand why—”

  “It doesn’t matter!” Brooke shouted.

  Julie stopped in her tracks. “How on earth can you say—”

  “You can’t make me. I won’t,” she shrieked. She turned and fled, crying, “Just let me die!”

  Rhonda said nothing. Hayley felt tears coming. Thirteen years old, she thought. And then she said to herself that enough was enough.

  “Mrs. Mathieson.” Hayley didn’t know if she could but she knew she had to. Rhonda turned to her, and her face was perplexed but open and willing to listen. Hayley hoped she was also willing to do more. “My dad,” she began.

  “Don’t,” Julie said.

  Hayley went on. “My dad has ALS, Mrs. Mathieson. Lou Gehrig’s disease? ALS. He’s going to die. Our family doesn’t have medical insurance. And we need help.”

  • • •

  THERE WAS NO further discussion over what to do. The Cartwrights would do what had to be done. As to how to pay for it all in a situation in which the family was holding life together with glue and shoe laces and far too much pride . . . ? Rhonda said to them that there were ways. For goodness sakes, Rhonda said, even if the government rejected their obvious need—which was highly unlikely—this was South Whidbey, a place where people helped each other, where fund-raisers were a weekly occurrence, and where—“for God’s sake, Julie,” she said—there was an organization long established to help people with their medical bills. It was time for action for the Cartwright family and, like it or not, it was time to face facts.

  When the phone rang later in the day, Hayley assumed it would be her mother letting them all know what was happening with Brooke. But it turned out that the caller was Parker Natalia, who said when he heard Hayley’s voice, “Don’t hang up on me, Hayley. I’ve got a message for Becca, is all.”

  She wanted to ask him why he didn’t call Ralph Darrow’s house if he had a message for Becca. Better yet, why didn’t he just walk over to the house from the woods? But it turned out that he was in Canada, back in Nelson, where he’d been since two days after Isis Martin had fatally crashed her car. “The sheriff more or less invited me to leave,” he told her. “I shouldn’t have outstayed my visa.”

  Hayley didn’t know what to say to him. He’d phoned once, after Isis had been killed, but she hadn’t returned his call. She’d been drawn to him, true. Chances were she would still be drawn to him if she saw him. But she didn’t really want to be drawn to Parker Natalia right now. So she’d avoided him.

  Now, she couldn’t. So she said, “Sure. I’ll give her the message.”

  It was simple enough. He’d asked around: his friends, his relatives, his old band mates. No one knew Becca’s cousin. “Tell her that doesn’t mean she’s not up here,” he said. “Nelson’s small. But it’s a hell of a lot bigger than Langley. So I c’n keep asking around. I’ll do the ad in the paper for her, too. Could you tell her that, Hayley?”

  “I’ll tell her.”

  And then it seemed there was nothing more to say, but when she was about to wish him well, he said, “Look. I’ve talked to Seth. He let me know what’s going on with your family. Your dad, your sister. The whole thing. And listen, Hayley, I just want to say I’m sorry. I added to your mess, and I didn’t mean to do that. Maybe sometime you’ll be able to . . . I don’t know exactly. Maybe we can see each other again. Sometime. Not now, I know. But
sometime.”

  She said, “It’s okay. I think we both got used by Isis. It’s not your fault.”

  “Except for the lying, which was totally my fault. I should’ve been straight with you. I panicked thinking that if you knew that I’d hooked up with Isis first, it would wreck things between you and me.”

  Hayley understood. But she wasn’t really ready for what Parker Natalia had to offer. With him, it would only be a matter of time, and she didn’t really need to have her consciousness clouded at the moment. She said, “I’m applying to colleges. Well, universities, really.”

  “Good going,” he said and he sounded as if he meant it.

  “I’m hoping for a place with a good environmental science program.”

  “Excellent,” he said. “You go for it, Hayley.”

  That was it. They parted, if not as friends exactly, then as a man and woman in better understanding of who each of them was.

  And that, Hayley decided, was pretty much all you could expect of life: understanding who you were and what made you tick and coming close to understanding others as well.

  FIFTY-SEVEN

  Becca told herself that, while it had been Laurel’s plan to go to Nelson, she could have found another place along the way that seemed equally safe to her. If that was the case, any day Laurel could return to Whidbey ready to whisk Becca into a brave new world that she’d created for them both. Only . . . Becca had to admit that that possibility didn’t make a lot of sense.

  Nelson had been her intended destination, and there had been a rock solid reason for Laurel’s choosing it. Laurel hadn’t revealed that reason, but she was there, all right. She just was no longer Laurel. And if she didn’t read the Nelson paper, how would she know that Becca was trying to reach her?

  Becca wasn’t sure what to do next aside from checking up on Jeff Corrie. She found that Connor West’s return had triggered all sorts of stories in the San Diego paper. Jeff was “cooperating fully” according to the paper, and this meant on the receiving end of his cooperation were the San Diego police, the IRS, the FBI, and anyone else who wanted to ask him questions about his investment firm. Before, he’d lawyered up because he believed that he was being railroaded with respect to Connor’s disappearance. Now that Connor had been found and returned to San Diego, the situation was different and “If you look at the lifestyles of these two men,” his lawyer intoned, “you can see who bears most of the responsibility for what occurred at Corrie West Investments. Mr. Corrie has, however, voluntarily put his house on the market and has done the same with his second home in Mammoth Mountain Resort. He’s sold his Porsche and he has placed all his stocks, bonds, and mutual funds in an escrow account. He is intent upon making financial amends in every way possible.”

  What Jeff was really doing, Becca thought with a cynical smile, was trying to keep himself out of prison. The one pleasant consideration in the midst of all that was happening was that Jeff Corrie was going to be very busy in San Diego for quite a while.

  As for Becca herself? She knew that she was back to waiting.

  • • •

  ONE STRETCH OF waiting came to an end once the case was closed on all the arsons. Derric told her that he was ready to see Rejoice. His whispers indicated that Isis’s death and her attempt to involve her brother in a string of arsons had shaken him deeply. Brothers and sisters were supposed to love each other, his whispers seemed to be saying. Becca only hoped that she was interpreting those whispers correctly this time.

  She said, “That’s great.”

  As if she sounded too enthusiastic, he held up his hands and said, “I only want to see her, though.”

  “Sure. See her.” She’d been carrying around the address and phone number of Broad Valley Growers since the day she’d got it. She dropped her backpack to the floor near her school locker, and she dumped it out and went through everything till she found it inside her geometry textbook. She handed it over and said, “Here you go,” and she pressed her lips together to keep herself from asking when, where, and how he was going to do whatever it was he was going to do.

  He glanced at it, folded it, and put it into his wallet. He engaged her eyes in that way he had and said, “I don’t need you to protect me or anything but I want you to be there when I see her.”

  Becca felt a rush of pleasure. “Sure thing,” she told him. “Just tell me when you want to go.”

  He said, to her surprise, “Saturday?”

  “I’ll make that work,” she told him.

  • • •

  “I MIGHT HURL,” was how Derric described his state as they approached Broad Valley Growers at two o’clock on Saturday. They’d not phoned in advance because Derric had said he didn’t have the nerve. He said that they would take their chances. If she was there, she was there. If not, they’d come back.

  The place was gussied up for Thanksgiving, less than a week away. When they parked the car and got out, it was to see the porch decked out in autumn finery, gourds of every shape and color tumbling down the steps. A large sign reading PIE ORDERS BEING TAKEN was out by the road. The scent of them was in the air, along with hot apple cider that seemed to be floating from the trees.

  As before, dogs shot out of the house. They were followed soon after by Darla Vickland. She remembered Becca by face but not by name. She said, “Hello, Whidbey Island girl. I saw you drive up.” She regarded Derric in a friendly fashion with her expression bright and curious.

  Becca and Derric had agreed that Becca would do the initial talking. So she said, “It’s Becca King? I was here with Seth Darrow and his dog?”

  “Gus,” Darla said. “That’s pretty bad. I remember the dog’s name but not yours.”

  Becca smiled. “It’s hard to forget Gus. Anyways, when we were here, I couldn’t help noticing that all your kids were . . .” She paused because she wasn’t sure how to put it.

  Darla did it for her. “A real mixed bag, huh? We go to church, we look like the United Nations. And I got a feeling I know where you’re heading.” She nodded at Derric and said to him, “What part of Africa?”

  “Uganda,” he told her, as well as his first name. “Kampala.”

  Her eyes widened. “You don’t say,” was her comment.

  Derric went on. “Becca told me there’s a girl here who’s from Africa too. You know, this sounds sort of strange I bet, but where I am out on Whidbey . . . the south part of the island . . . there’s not a heck of a lot of Africans.”

  “It’s mostly Wonder Bread,” was how Becca put it. “So when I saw your daughter . . .”

  “You’re talking about our girl Rejoice,” Darla said. “She’s from Kampala too. She came to us through a group at our church.”

  “I thought it’d be nice for Derric to meet her,” Becca said.

  Darla shot Derric a look. “She’s too young to date. My girls don’t step out with a young man before they’re sixteen. I’m old-fashioned that way, but I don’t believe in buying trouble.”

  Derric said hastily, “I don’t want to date her. Me and Becca? We’re . . . well, we’re together.”

  “For a year,” Becca added.

  Darla smiled at this. “I suppose I c’n let you look in on our Rejoice without worrying too much, then.”

  “Is she here?” Becca asked.

  “Just now, as it happens,” Darla said and nodded the way they had come. “Eye appointments this morning in La Conner for the whole crew of them. But they’re just back.”

  Derric and Becca swung around. A clunky old van was pulling into the farm yard. It stopped with a jerk, and while the engine was coughing, the door slid open.

  Becca felt Derric take her hand. She looked at him and squeezed his fingers. She turned back to the van. The kids had tumbled out, talking and laughing. Rejoice was there among them. She wore a scarf like a turban on her head. She also had on those strange plastic sun shield
s that eye doctors give their patients when they’ve had their pupils dilated. Her brothers and sisters were wearing them as well. So was their dad. This, it seemed, was the source of their joking.

  They came toward the house, but then Rejoice fell back. She paused for a moment, staring at Becca and Derric. Mostly at Derric, Becca decided. And Derric stared right back.

  Becca heard him murmur so that only she could hear. “I have a sister.”

  “You sure do.”

  • • •

  THEY STOPPED IN Coupeville on their way home. The little Victorian town was awash with lights, its colorful houses and commercial buildings like Christmas packages against a landscape that fell to the oblong shadow of Penn Cove, where oysters and mussels gave the town its reputation. No one was there at this time of day, aside from inside the restaurants. Like Langley, Coupeville rolled up its sidewalks just after five in the afternoon. What life remained in the town was behind closed doors in its B & Bs, its single old bar called Toby’s, and its eateries.

  The town’s pier stretched out into the cove, and near this pier Derric parked the Forester. They walked the pier’s length, moving from one pool of light to the next as birds settled for the night and a sharp breeze blew at them over the water, bringing the scent of brine. Across the cove, lights blinked from the houses. A fire had been lit somewhere, and its scent was sharp in the air.

  They were heading for the café at the pier’s end. Neither of them was ready to go home yet. Becca had left Ralph Darrow a meal to heat up in the microwave, and Derric’s mom and dad knew he had a date. They had hours before them and they wanted to talk about what had occurred at Broad Valley Growers.

  After pausing in surprise at the sight of someone who, like her, was clearly from Africa, Rejoice had smiled and had come toward them in something of a rush. She passed her siblings and strode up to Derric. “The saxophone boy!” she cried. “You were in the band. You had the biggest smile ever. We loved to climb all over you. ’Specially Kianga and I. And you let us. You never pushed us away. Only . . . I can’t remember your name.”