The Beach Trees

by Karen White

  He stared at me for a long time before Johnny raced past us, and we had to hurry to catch up.

  As we approached the next house, I turned to Wes, eager to change the subject. “There’s something I’ve been wanting to ask you.”

  Wes looked up expectantly, the streetlamps reflected in his eyes.

  “I saw Xavier at Gary’s funeral.” Wes stiffened, but I went on. “He told me that he was in the bedroom when my mother was killed. He didn’t see anything, but he also told me that somebody thinks that he did, and that if I wanted to know more, I needed to ask your father about why he paid for Xavier to go to St. Martin’s. Does any of that make sense to you?”

  Instead of answering, he asked, “Have you mentioned this to my father?”

  I shook my head. “I didn’t want to bring up my mother’s death so soon after Gary. But with you, it’s easier.” I felt my cheeks heat and was glad it was dark.

  Wes took a deep breath. “Are you sure you want to hear this? It has nothing to do with your mother’s death. I don’t know why Xavier wants you to think that it might.”

  Wes shoved his hands into his pockets as we followed Johnny to the next house. “Xavier found out a long time ago that we share a father. That’s why he was sent to school.”

  I was sure my face registered my shock. “Your father and Ray Von . . . ?”

  “It’s one of the reasons my mother left with me and Gary all those years ago. I suppose she tried to live in denial for several years but in the end decided she couldn’t live with an unfaithful husband and his bastard. I didn’t know until recently, after my mother disappeared. My father told me—thought it was time for me to know. It makes sense, though. Why Xavier wants to be part of the family, to be your protector. That’s why we think he helped my mother get away with that artist—so that Ray Von might take her place.”

  “Are your father and Ray Von still involved?” I stifled an involuntary shudder.

  He shook his head. “Oh, no. There’s been nothing there for years. I don’t really know why she stays with us, especially now that Xavier isn’t around to remind my father of his obligation to her.”

  I stopped walking, and when I spoke my voice was hard. “He’s your half brother and he’s been living in your attic and on the streets and who knows where else. Don’t you have an obligation to him?”

  Johnny’s reappearance interrupted my questions, and we jogged to keep up with him, his fin shaking as he ran. As we paused at the next house, he said, “I’m not obligated to him because Xavier betrayed our trust. He was responsible for taking our mother from us—from Gary. You know what it’s like to lose a mother. If you found out somebody you knew was to blame for your mother’s absence, how forgiving would you be?”

  His eyes glittered with the reflection of the streetlight, his voice serious, as if he weren’t asking a hypothetical question. I thought of all the years without my mother, of my father’s grief and how I remembered her mostly by the scent of her perfume, the same scent that had lingered in her room and remained still in my memory. And of my fear of the dark and all things that lurked there.

  I met his eyes. “I wouldn’t be,” I said, uncomfortable with the hatred I felt for a person whose face I’d never seen.

  He looked at me with a hooded gaze. “Then you understand why I want you to stay away from Xavier. Have you told the lieutenant that you’ve seen Xavier?”

  “No. I can’t believe that Xavier is guilty of anything besides looking the way he does. He’s a gentle soul, Wes. I know it. I can’t believe he had anything to do with your mother’s disappearance.”

  “I think you’re wrong about him. Just the fact that he lurks around but doesn’t make his presence known tells me that he’s up to something, that he might even be dangerous. If he did help my mother leave, who knows what else he might do to force us to make him part of this family?” He paused. “But I’m glad you didn’t tell the police you’d seen him. I don’t want him talking to them.”

  My mind spun as I grabbed Johnny’s hand and brought him across the street. As he galloped up to the door, I turned to Wes again. “Why don’t you want him talking to the police?”

  He watched Johnny hold out his bag at the opened door. “Because I think this family has had enough scandal. His parentage would be fodder for months. Just let him be, and tell him that you don’t want to see him again if he shows up.”

  I didn’t want to argue, knowing that on the subject of Xavier we would never agree. But I still had questions about Ray Von. “What happened to his face? I thought his father did that to him.”

  “From what my father told me, Ray Von left after she found out she was pregnant and got married to a longshoreman. He was nice when he was sober, but a mean drunk, and he was drunk most of the time. He died in the house fire he set while Ray Von and Xavier were sleeping. Ray Von turned to my father for help, and she came back to live with us.” He shoved his hands deep in the pockets of his trousers. “I have no idea how my mother reconciled herself to the idea for as long as she did.”

  “I don’t think she really did. I overheard an argument between your parents. It was the night before the Comus Ball, when I was staying at your house.”

  A dog barked nearby, its sound shrill in the chilly autumn air. “Well, then. That could explain why she wanted to leave.” He let out a soft breath. “I wish Gary had known that. It might have made it easier for him, knowing there was a reason that had nothing to do with him.”

  We walked quietly to the next house, following a more subdued Johnny, whose heavy candy bag now dragged on the ground beside him. As we waited for him, I turned to Wes, the darkness making it somehow easier to put words to the black thoughts that wouldn’t rest. “Xavier told me that our mothers were arguing the night she died. Have you ever heard that they were at odds about something?”

  He shook his head. “No. According to my father and from what I remember, they were the best of friends—or more like mutual admirers, I should say. Your mother appreciated my mother’s sense of style and intellect. My mother, well, she liked everything about your mother that wasn’t her: her happy family life, her gardening, her voice—all those domestic things that my mother could never get ahold of. She pretended to feel nothing but disdain for women like that, but I think she was envious. It set her apart from the society she longed to belong to. But your mother was so kind to her, as if she really appreciated my mother’s uniqueness. I think that’s why they were such good friends, even though they were so completely different.”

  “The alligator brooch Caroline used to always wear—my mother gave that to her, you know. I’d like to think that they were real friends.” I walked on ahead to grab Johnny’s hand. “Are you ready to go home now? I think you’ve got enough candy to rot every single one of your teeth—even these long, sharp ones.” I jiggled the shark teeth of his costume.

  He giggled. “Can you carry me?”

  “Sure, bud.” I hoisted him up, and Wes took the candy and shark hood.

  A sleepy voice on my shoulder said, “Uncle Gary used to call me bud. I like it.”

  “Me, too,” I whispered back.

  When we reached the Guidrys’, I put Johnny down.

  Wes stretched, then casually leaned on the gate. “The evening’s early. Do you want to come in? We could help Johnny count his loot. He doesn’t know how to count past eighteen.”

  I wanted to say yes, thinking of the empty room waiting for me at my grandmother’s house, but held back. “I’d love to, but I can’t. I’d better go home.”

  His eyes were still and somber. “Home to what, Aimee?”

  I bristled at the truth in his words.

  “I’m sorry—I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. Please come in. Johnny and I would enjoy the company.”

  I turned away, not wanting him to see the panic in my eyes. “I can’t, Wes. I really can’t.”

  “All right. You win.” Handing Johnny the candy bag, Wes said, “You go on inside. I’m going to
walk your aunt Aimee home.”

  Johnny gave me a quick peck on the cheek, then ran to the house, his hand already busy digging into the candy.

  My voice sounded higher than normal. “That’s really not necessary. I can make it next door by myself.” I indicated the deserted sidewalk with my thumb.

  “Not when I know that Xavier has been following you. I’d feel a lot better seeing you home.”

  “Wes, I’ve told you before—I’m not afraid of Xavier. And I can walk home alone.” I forced a smile. “Good night.” I turned on the sidewalk, but he pulled me back.

  His face was only inches from mine. “Why do you avoid me, Aimee? Is it because of what Gary told you?”

  “No.” I pulled my arm free and turned away again.

  He caught me this time with both arms. “Then what is it? Don’t you know that I grieve for him, too?”

  I started to cry, ashamed at my tears, and wondering if it were possible to cry from sheer guilt.

  His hands brought me closer to him, his voice earnest. “Don’t you think it would be easier if we grieved together?”

  “No!” I said again, trying to pull away from his grasp.

  “Why?”

  I put my hands on his chest, pushing away. “Please. Don’t ask me to tell you.”

  He lifted my chin, his eyes hard and angry. “Gary’s dead, Aimee. There can’t be anything worse than that.”

  I jerked back, hitting him in the chest with the balls of my fists, making him stagger backward. “Yes, there can be.” I hit him again, almost blinded now by the dark and the tears. I shouted at him, wanting to share the pain with the only other person who could understand it. “I have to live with the fact that I never loved him like I love you. And I can’t forgive myself for that—I’ll never forgive myself.”

  We stared at each other in stunned silence, aware of the enormity of what I had just said. A leaf fell from an old tree, drifting slowly to the ground. I turned and ran down the deserted sidewalk, not stopping until I had reached the end and rounded the corner onto St. Charles Avenue. I didn’t need to look behind me to know he didn’t follow.

  And when I closed my eyes that night to sleep, I dreamed of the alligator pin with the ruby eyes, and smelled Shalimar perfume mixed with the coppery scent of blood.

  CHAPTER 28

  In the middle of the journey of our life I came to myself within a dark wood where the straight way was lost.

  —DANTE ALIGHIERI

  Julie

  I stared out of the rental car window as we passed through familiar streets of my old New England hometown: the grocery store, my elementary school, the stark white Presbyterian church with the steeple that leaned slightly from a storm nearly one hundred years before. Chelsea had said it was a good thing, as if God were showing us that He was accepting of our human imperfections. I had come to think of it as His avenging finger, bending closer to the earth.

  But this place of leaden skies and shell-less asphalt was alien to me now, and I found myself listening for the bark of skimmers and the relentless surf, and the soft accents and dropped consonants I’d begun to accept as familiar.

  I glanced at my watch. “We’ve got a little time. Take a right at the next street. I want to see our old house.”

  Trey nodded. “I was in my study late last night and heard you on the phone with Aimee. What were you talking about?”

  I told him what she’d told me about Gary’s death and funeral, Xavier being in the room when Aimee’s mother was killed, and what Wes had said about Xavier’s father.

  Trey shook his head. “So Xavier is my great-uncle. I can’t believe that he’s never told me. I guess we can ask him, or Ray Von, if Wes was telling the truth. Regardless, it’s not that hard to prove.” He shook his head again. “And he’s never said anything about him being a witness to a murder.”

  “It might have been in the police report, but I guess we’ll never know.”

  Trey strummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “I’ve been thinking about the picture of Monica with Caroline’s brooch.”

  “Me, too. I wanted to ask Aimee about it last night, but she seemed to only want to talk about Gary so I figured it could wait until later. But I admit I’m intrigued about that pin. It was assumed that Caroline had taken it with her, but what was Monica doing with it? In all of the years I knew her, I never saw it. And I didn’t find it when I went through her effects after she died. Unless she sold it at some point, which I doubt. But why would she have sold the pin and not the portrait?”

  Trey flipped on the blinker and turned. “What I want to know is, where is it now?”

  “I was just thinking the same thing.” I sat back in my seat and stared out the window again. “Pull over to the curb when we get to the next block. It’s the second house on the right.”

  Despite the chilly temperature, I lowered my window to get a better look at the nineteen sixties split-level I had called home for the first twelve years of my life. The small maple sapling my father had planted now dominated the side yard, and the shutters had been painted red instead of brown. An unfamiliar SUV sat in the asphalt driveway, and bikes lay scattered on the walk leading to the front door.

  I’d always imagined that when we found Chelsea we’d bring her back here. As I sat watching, a woman came out the front door of our house with a small child on her hip and walked to the SUV. My breath came out in white puffs of air, expelled like old dreams. This wasn’t our home anymore. Somebody else’s family lived here now, with their lives and little dramas played out much like, I imagined, ours had once.

  Watching the woman strap the child into a car seat, I realized that I’d always pictured this house the same, with our furniture and bikes, with our minivan in the driveway. But time had relentlessly moved forward; the house had changed. We had changed. Yet still, I’d dreamed that it waited for us. For a family that no longer existed.

  Trey touched my cheek, and when I looked down at his finger I was surprised to find that it was wet.

  “Are you all right?”

  The woman started up her car and began to back out of the driveway. I looked at Trey, not sure how to answer. I was all right; I was sitting here, next to him, breathing and whole. But something had been shaken loose inside of me, and I felt too much pain to see through the settling dust. I managed a nod, then pressed my fists against my chest as if I could hold in all the grief I’ d kept there, hidden inside the dream of a house and family that I realized now had disappeared with Chelsea all those years ago.

  Ignoring my protests, Trey put the car in park and reached for me, enveloping me in an embrace of down jackets and comfort. He didn’t say anything, and I was glad, because I knew he understood the journey, knew that the road to find the missing was never smooth or well-defined, and had no clear destination.

  Eventually we pulled apart and he kissed me on the forehead. “Are you ready now?”

  I wiped my face with the sleeves of my jacket and nodded. I told him where to drive, then leaned back in my seat with my eyes closed, and found myself straining to hear the calls of the skimmers and brown pelicans.

  The police station sat on the edge of the town green in the old courthouse building. The courthouse, a midcentury monstrosity of modernism and tiny windows, sat across from its elegant past, its windows squinting at the police station as if to pick a fight. At least, that was what Chelsea had said, and I’d agreed even though I’d never told her.

  We parked in the lot behind the tall brick police station with the Gothic cornices. I was still staring at a broken pediment over the rear entrance when Trey opened my door.

  “Are you ready?”

  I nodded and climbed out of the car. Inside the building, nothing had changed. Old metal radiators still spewed hot air along the walls, creating pockets of warmth in the tall-ceilinged reception area. Vinyl-cushioned benches, ones that didn’t look like they’d been replaced since I’d first sat on them seventeen years ago, sat in the same L-shaped pattern on ligh
t blue and cream linoleum squares. A bulletin board filled with “most wanted” posters hung to the right of the two front double doors, a new generation of unsmiling faces staring out at me. An older woman with glasses on a chain around her neck looked up as we entered.

  “May I help you?” Her vowels held the flat twang of the Northeast, and I paused for a moment, as if translating from a foreign language.

  “We’re here to see Detective Kobylt.”

  “Just a moment.” She pushed a button. “You have visitors, Detective.”

  “I’ll be right there.” Even the sound of his voice calmed me. I knew that, having him and Trey with me, whatever the outcome of this visit, I was going to be okay.

  When he entered the room I at first didn’t know who he was. I’d always pictured him looking like Detective Johnson, the original detective on the case. He’d been old, gray, and bearded so I was surprised to find a trim and fit man in his late fifties with blond hair that barely showed any white.

  I almost held out my hand to shake his as I approached, but when he opened his arms I stepped into his embrace as if we were old friends. I introduced him to Trey and we made small talk for a moment, but the specter of the reason for my visit hovered close.

  Finally, the detective said, “I’ve got an interrogation room reserved for us, and the box of materials is already in there. If you’re ready, we can go look at it now.”

  I felt Trey’s hand on my shoulder. “I’m ready,” I said, surprised at how strong my voice sounded.

  We climbed wooden stairs painted the same mint green I remembered, and stepped into a large room filled with cubicles, the only difference being the larger number of desktop computers since the last time I’d been there. Detective Kobylt led us down a small hallway at the rear of the room, where three doors were lined up on the right-hand side. He stepped in front of us, then opened the third door before stepping back to allow us to enter.

  The room was sparse, with a square wood-veneer table in the center and two chairs pulled up on each side. A white cardboard box with a lid sat in the middle of the table, making me think of Monica’s stories of holy relics stored in church altars. I’d expected it to be larger—large enough to hold all of the years between then and now. But this was just a box used to hold reams of paper instead of what belongings remained of a girl left in a state park more than a decade before.