“Good night,” Michael said. He kept his beer in-hand as he walked toward the door. “Thanks again for the food. See you in the morning.”
Silence hung between Wayne and Cindy after that. Wayne cleared his throat, hunting for the right words to say.
“I always wondered what I would say to him when I saw him again,” Cindy breathed. “I thought I would smack him across the face for making me worry so much. I thought I would scream at him. I thought maybe I would fall on the ground sobbing. But instead, I just made him a sandwich as if nothing had happened. I probably sounded like the biggest idiot on the planet.” Her chin twitched. “I can’t help but think of what Tara might have done in the same situation.”
Wayne’s heart stopped beating.
“What would she have done?”
“She would have just wrapped her arms around him and held him close and asked him to tell her about each and every one of his adventures. She would have called them adventures, rather than... whatever it is I want to call them. And he would have opened up to her, you know? He would have told her every single bit of his journey, every weird nook and cranny along the way. And she would have laughed, and asked all the right questions, and drank alongside him. Maybe they would have stayed up till dawn, with so much to say to each other that they wouldn’t have bothered to sleep.”
Wayne felt an ache in his heart—one of regret.
“Come on, Wayne. You know it’s true,” Cindy blared. “You know that she’s the mother he always wanted. He loved her much more than he loved me.”
“No, Cindy. It’s not true,” Wayne stated, his words harsh. “You can blame his leaving on Tara, on me, on everything that happened, but in truth? He was always just a wayward kid. He always wanted to make his mark on the world. And I guess it’s up to us now to be patient. To wait for him to tell us what happened and what went wrong and how we can help. Just to be there for him. Don’t you think?”
Cindy bit hard on the inside of her cheek. She finally nodded, wordless.
Chapter Four
Wayne had always really liked and appreciated both of the Swartz girls.
Obviously, Cindy had always been the closer one in his life, but Tracey had always been in their midst—a boisterous laugher, the one who had resolved to never marry, the one who had gone off on her own to open her own boutique, rather than work alongside her brother, Alex, and her father, Dean.
Now, as Cindy scrubbed plates in the kitchen, Wayne called Tracey to ask if she could stay the night at Cindy’s since it seemed like Fred planned to tie one on.
“What did you just say to me?” Tracey demanded over the phone, her voice clearly glossy with whatever she’d drunk. “You said Michael’s home? Michael Clemmens?”
“The very same,” Wayne said.
“Shoot.”
Silence hung across the phone line. Finally, Tracey said, “I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
When Tracey appeared in the doorway of Cindy’s home, Cindy fell into her and burst into tears. Over the past years, Cindy and Tracey hadn’t been extraordinarily close—another element of Tracey’s decision to step away from the family.
Family needs one another.
Look at them.
It’s like no time has passed at all.
When Tracey managed to get into the foyer, she wrapped an arm around Cindy’s shoulder and said, “He’s back. He’s safe. I think that’s what you have to focus on right now. He’ll either tell you or he won’t when he’s ready.”
Cindy sniffled as the sisters walked toward the back porch and stationed themselves on the rocking chairs. Wayne sat across from them.
“I’m glad you came, Wayne,” Tracey told him. “You always made Michael a whole lot calmer. You remember when we found him on that sailboat?”
Wayne did remember. The stupid kid had stolen his very sailboat—the one he had named after his wife, Tara—and taken off the island with his high school sweetheart, Quinn. He had been maybe sixteen or seventeen at the time, with a very devil-may-care approach to life. Wayne and a buddy had taken a speedboat out in the middle of the night to track them down. He had found them both out of their minds, drunk and high, hardly able to manage the sailboat alone.
“I did it just the way you taught me, Uncle Wayne!” Michael had called to him, drunkenly over the waves.
Wayne had had to jump on, sail the boat back to the docks, while his buddy had driven the speedboat out behind them.
That now felt like a million years ago.
Still, he hadn’t reprimanded Michael. It hadn’t been his place.
And besides. He’d had a hunch the whole acting-out, drinking-too-much stuff was related to his terrible relationship with his father, and the fact that his father was caught in a pretty intense affair.
Fred and Cindy had patched things up, but Michael had never forgiven his father. Not fully.
And the drinking, drugs, and everything else had only continued.
Wayne and Tara had decided to approach every incident with Michael with love, with friendship, and with companionship. Tara had thought that Michael was just a sensitive kid; that you couldn’t attack him the way his father did and expect anything but continued bad behavior.
Obviously, they all wanted the same thing.
And Michael had just always wanted to feel loved.
“That was quite a night,” Wayne affirmed, referring to the sailboat night.
“And we always sent you to the station to pick him up,” Tracey said, again with that boisterous laugh. “Oh, Dad never knew what to do about him. He said there’s a black sheep in every family, and he should know because he was that black sheep. Difficult to imagine, huh? Although...”
Here, her eyes grew all glittery and strange.
Wayne’s stomach clenched with sudden fear.
“Although what?” Cindy demanded, mopping her cheeks.
Tracey turned her eyes back toward Wayne. “Have you told her?”
“Told her what?” Wayne asked.
Isn’t it common knowledge that Cindy and I haven’t spoken for a number of years?
Isn’t it common knowledge that memory of Tara tore us apart?
“Oh, great. More secrets,” Cindy said, her nostrils flared.
“Well, this is something I don’t know very much about, to be honest with you,” Tracey said. “And you know how Alex gets a stick up his butt all the time.”
“I’ve witnessed it on multiple occasions, yes,” Cindy said.
Tracey again gave Wayne a big-eyed look. “You’re really going to make me tell her?”
Wayne shrugged. He had only the slightest inkling of where she was headed with this. His own mind buzzed with thoughts of Tara, of Michael, of a life he had once lived that he could no longer return to.
“There’s a tourist on the island who told a few people that she has reason to believe that Dad’s her father,” Tracey affirmed.
Cindy’s jaw dropped. All the color drained from her cheeks. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
Tracey shrugged again. “Wayne’s the one who knows her better than me.”
Wayne placed a hand on his forehead and rubbed it sadly. “I barely know her, really.”
“The entire island is buzzing about how much time you two have spent together over the past weeks,” Tracey said.
Cindy gave Wayne another of those looks. “Up to your old tricks with this one, too, then?”
Wayne flared his nostrils. You really would rather me be all alone? You really would rather that I remain miserable. That’s the best way to preserve Tara’s memory for you. Isn’t it?
“She seems really sweet, though,” Tracey said.
Cindy arched her eyebrow almost menacingly. “What are you talking about? Isn’t this just like that other woman? Or Alex’s ex? Or all the other people who are after Dad’s money? I mean, have you seen the man lately? He’s losing speed all the time, both mentally and physically. This would be a perfect time to attack him.”
T
racey bit hard on her lower lip.
“So, she already got to you?” Cindy demanded. “She must have targeted you.”
“You sound like Alex, now,” Tracey retorted. “And I really don’t think she’s after our money.”
“As if Dad would have ever cheated on Mom. You’re alluding to the idea that he was the black sheep, then? That he was the previous Michael?” Cindy’s voice rose.
Wayne and Tracey shared a look, one that seemed to say: She’s way too tired for this conversation.
“Maybe you’d feel differently if you met her,” Tracey said.
“I think we have enough family problems without dragging another one into this,” Cindy said. “And Wayne? I can’t believe you. This girl is obviously unhinged.”
“She’s not,” Wayne said, his voice booming.
Cindy placed her drink back on the coffee table and looked at him with wide eyes. Nobody spoke for a long time.
“In fact, I think you should meet her,” Wayne said suddenly, confidence ballooning against his heart.
“Are you kidding me? You want me to meet some girl you’re...” Cindy shook her head slowly. “Spreading lies about our family?”
Wayne’s hands clenched into fists. “She’s a good person. She has a decent amount of evidence that all this happened. And she’s not after your money.”
“I mean, it’s possible she’s the reason behind the fire at the Willow Grove,” Tracey said.
“So Alex has had a talking to you,” Wayne said, his nostrils flared.
“She was the only one staying there; she has issues with our family. It stands to reason that she had something to do with it.”
“That’s insane,” Wayne muttered. “She’s no arsonist. She’s just a person looking for answers. Like all of us.”
Cindy spread her hands across her knees. “Regardless of who she is, she’ll fade away. The thing that won’t go away, though, is this Michael situation. He’s back, and we need to make sure we figure out how to keep him. He’s my son. His leaving tore me apart.”
Wayne heaved a sigh. “I’ll take him out tomorrow.”
“I guess it’s true he won’t open up to me,” Cindy breathed.
Wayne stood on shaky knees. Cindy shook her head violently and said, “Don’t go yet, Wayne. I’m sorry. I know I’m difficult.” Her face grew long and shadowed. “Let me get you another drink. Just sit with me for a while. Make sure he doesn’t slip out the door and run back into the world.”
Wayne heard the fear behind her words. He returned to the chair as Cindy hustled up to grab a bottle of whiskey from the kitchen. In her absence, Tracey studied Wayne’s face for a long time.
“This girl is different for you, isn’t she?”
Wayne gave a lackluster shrug. “It’s true what Cindy says. Michael is our top priority.”
Tracey gave a light chuckle. “But I know better than most how hard it is to be alone. And here you’ve been, all on your own—without Tara, without Michael...”
Her eyes reflected the density of Wayne’s sadness as Cindy returned to the porch.
“Just give her a chance,” Wayne said under his breathe. “I don’t think you’ll regret it.”
Tracey and Cindy gave one another sisterly-looks, ones that Wayne couldn’t fully read. He tilted his glass, watching the ice cubes roll round and round.
“I just don’t know why we would welcome more chaos into the fold,” Cindy said softly.
“Don’t you think more love is never a bad thing?” Wayne returned. “And with all love comes a great deal of chaos.”
Chapter Five
When Elise awoke the following morning, she felt more resolute than ever. This world wasn’t her world. Midwest had nothing at all to do with her wild, coastal West. And whatever mistakes her mother had made back in the late seventies had been buried by countless other stories, other Mackinac Island resident mistakes, other births and deaths and marriages and divorces. Elise had to return to California. She had to find a purpose in the world she’d always had.
That was what a writer had to do, wasn’t it? A writer had to look at what was laid before her and make something of it. She’d always been imaginative. She owed it to herself to use that wild imagination and become something new.
I guess I could download a dating app?
I could sell that screenplay to Rex after all?
I could take a class in something? Pottery? Poetry?
Elise took a morning walk, breakfasted in the little nook at the Bloomingfeld, with a near-constant eye across the water. Rhonda, the woman who operated the front desk most mornings, greeted her, waving a gloved hand.
“I’m already cold to my bones,” Rhonda told her, referring to the glove. “Another Mackinac Island autumn. Brr! Is that coat you’re wearing these days warm enough for your long walks?”
“It does the trick,” Elise said. “Although I’ll have to donate it when I return to California.”
“You’re leaving us, then?” Rhonda sounded resigned. “I imagine Mackinac Island doesn’t look as beautiful to you these days, now that the sun is fading.”
“On the contrary, I think it’s more beautiful than ever,” Elise said truthfully, her heart full. “But a girl has to know when to move on, you know?”
Wayne abandoned me. My family wants nothing to do with me. I have reached the end of the road.
Elise headed back to her room and began to remove her dresses, skirts, jeans, and shirts from the little closet. She organized them slowly, folding them up as tidily as possible. She drew the suitcase she had recently purchased out from under her bed and splayed it wide open. It looked like a hungry mouth.
She hadn’t texted Wayne back after last night. But she hadn’t heard from him yet, either.
If that dinner had actually been for someone else—an idea that still broke her heart into many pieces—she imagined they were still tied up together in bed.
As she packed, several ideas came to her. She brought her laptop out onto the desk and typed out a few scenes she wanted to remember for the screenplay. Although her stomach tied itself into knots and her head swam with anxiety and fear and she was generally sure that she would never find love again—at least she could write again. In some ways, Mackinac Island had made her creativity bloom again. Maybe that was all she’d wanted in the first place.
Her phone buzzed from the desk.
It was Penny.
“Mom!”
“Hey, honey.” As always, Elise felt an overwhelming level of love for her daughter’s voice, which she knew better than her own hand. “How is your morning?”
“Sleepy, I guess. I’m off to rehearsal.”
“And how’s that going?”
“Excellent! The director and I had a long chat last night about the character. Really getting to the root of it, you know?”
“Oh, I know,” Elise said. “Your grandmother used to sit me down to have long conversations about her characters. I was just a teenager, trying to talk to my mother about her abused character’s motivations.”
Penny laughed. “How’s it going over there on the island? Still loving it just as much as before?”
“Um...”
“I was telling the director about it, and he said he actually spent a whole spring and summer there once, writing his novel! Can you believe it?”
“Actually, I was thinking about...” Elise began to tell Penny her plans to leave, that her adventure had ended.
But Penny spoke over her.
“I know I was being unfair about wanting to have you back here. You’ve been through enough. Dad, Brad, and I get to be selfish all the time, but you? You’ve been there for all of us, every step of the way, and have even been cool with Dad’s new weird lifestyle choice.”
Elise rolled her eyes at her daughter's comment.
“And I just wanted to tell you that I support you in all things,” Penny continued. “And I can’t wait to read the script that comes out of this. The world is waiting for more br
illiant ideas from Elise Darby. Oh, Mom, I’m at rehearsal. I’d better run. Love you! Ciao!”
Elise blinked back down at her phone, and then her laptop. Before she could finalize any kind of thought, there was a loud knock at the door. There were only two other people staying at the bed and breakfast, and Rhonda didn’t ordinarily make appearances like this.
Elise opened the door to find Rhonda, apologetic; her hands clasped at her waist. “There are two people here to visit you downstairs,” she said.
“Huh.”
“I told them that you’re preparing to leave the island,” Rhonda said. “But they told me to tell you they’ll wait as long as you need.”
Elise heaved a sigh. “Okay.”
She followed Rhonda through the hallway and all the way to the foyer below. Wayne sat next to Tracey on the little bench. Wayne looked overly large for the bench. As Elise approached, she watched as Tracey studied her painted fingernails with fearful eyes.
“Here she is. Our California resident,” Rhonda said brightly.
Elise’s heart thudded hard in her chest.
Here sat the man she had thought she was falling for, and the woman that very well could have been her half-sister.
Elise couldn’t help it.
Her words sounded cold.
“Can I help either of you with something?”
Wayne stood. His eyes looked wounded, the irises a darker blue than normal. “Elise. Can I talk to you for a moment?”
Elise turned her eyes toward Tracey, who nodded and gave a slight smile. Elise might not have labeled the smile as a friendly one.
“Okay.”
Elise led Wayne out to the balcony that overlooked the water. Wayne sat and then stood again when he realized that Elise didn’t plan to join him. She remained by the railing; her hands stretched across the wood.
“I’m really sorry about last night,” Wayne said softly.
Elise gave a light shrug. “It’s okay. You obviously had your reasons for canceling last minute.”
Wayne’s lips opened wider. He looked conflicted about what to say. “It’s really difficult to explain. There are so, so many things I want to tell you.”
Lost Loves (Secrets of Mackinac Island Book 4) Page 3
