Between Here and the Horizon

by Callie Hart

  “I wouldn’t be able to fly back to L.A. on the weekends?”

  Ronan shook his head. “Unfortunately that wouldn’t be practical. It would take more than a full day to travel in each direction, and I would like someone on hand in case of an emergency. You’re more than welcome to spend your free time as you want on the island, but I would prefer if you have your cell phone with you at all times, so Rose can reach you should she need to. I’m going to be writing a book, and so I won’t be available for much of the time. Once the six-month contract is at an end, I’m hoping I can arrange for another family member to take care of Connor and Amie in my absence.”

  “I see. This…isn’t really what I was expecting. Are the children okay with such a huge change of scenery?”

  Ronan’s expression grew cold, turning his perfect features to smooth, flawless marble. “Ever since their mother died this time last year, Connor and Amie are still…” He frowned, lips slightly parted as he seemed to search for the right word. “Adjusting to the loss. A change of scenery is exactly what they need.”

  Shit. I’d overstepped. I shouldn’t have suggested he didn’t know what was best for his kids. And the second he’d mentioned his wife’s death, something had altered in him. Ronan was a storm now. A perfectly dangerous storm. I could see the clouds forming over his head, twisting and turning as a darkness seemed to overtake him. “Yes, of course. I’m sorry.” My words were weightless, inconsequential, but they were all I could manage. What I could possibly say to rewind the past few minutes and reset the interview. Nothing fitting came to mind.

  “It’s of no consequence,” he said hurriedly. “If you’re offered the job, you will be given a file containing information you should know about Connor and Amie. Their personalities, their issues and their specific needs.”

  “I still...I don’t think I can move to a remote island for six months, Mr. Fletcher. I’m sorry. I just can’t.”

  “I told you, call me Ronan. And I’m aware a six-month contract such as this is a lot to ask, which is why the pay is so generous. I assume the agency told you what the salary was?”

  I shook my head. “Generally that’s discussed once the job’s been awarded.”

  “I’m offering a hundred-thousand-dollar payout upon completion of the six-month term. During the six months on the island, you would receive a stipend to cover any costs you might incur through your work with the children, or your own personal requirements. This monthly sum is outside of the final one-hundred-thousand-dollar payment. Perhaps you’d like to think about what your answer will be should you be offered the job, Ophelia.”

  A hundred thousand dollars? My salary at St. Augustus’s was only fifty-five thousand, and that was for an entire year. A hundred grand could solve a lot of problems at the restaurant. It could literally turn everything around for Mom and Dad. I just couldn’t envisage it, though. Another state? Another time zone? A tiny little island off the coast, in the middle of nowhere? God, it was all too much to take in.

  “I suppose you’re right,” I said. “I’d at least think about it if I were offered the job,” I said. “It’s a very tempting offer.”

  Ronan scratched his clean-shaven jaw, giving me a tight smile. “Excellent. Thank you, Ophelia. Then I suppose we shall be in touch soon to let you know one way or another.”

  “That’s it?” I’d barely been sitting in the chair for twenty minutes. They told us repeatedly at the agency that a good, successful interview generally lasted anywhere between thirty minutes and an hour. A paltry twenty-minute conversation definitely wasn’t going to impress them when I gave them telephone feedback tomorrow. Damn it. Who knew how many more people he was going to interview, or how many people he’d already seen? There was no way my bumbling explanation of my capabilities, followed by my hostile reaction to his line of questioning had made anything but a bad impression.

  “Yes, Ophelia. I’ve heard all I need to hear. Thank you for coming all this way to meet with me.” Ronan got to his feet, his composure well and truly regained now. “Please return your security pass to Davey, the security guard who showed you up here on your way out.”

  What the hell did he think I was going to try and do, break in here later and try to steal his confidential files or something? Ridiculous. I arranged my face into what I hoped looked like professional gratitude, but on the inside I was burning with disappointment, alongside a splash of anger. Getting to my feet, I hoped he didn’t notice the identical flushed, red spots coloring my cheeks.

  “Thank you, Ronan. I’ll make sure I do that.” I didn’t offer my hand out to shake his, even though I knew I should. It would be ill advised to leave the interview on an awkward or discordant note, and yet I couldn’t get myself to toe the line.

  I felt naked for a moment, then collected my purse that I’d sat at my feet. I felt foolish as I turned away from Ronan Fletcher and walked quickly to the same elevator I came out of only a short while ago.

  I almost expected the man behind me to call out to me, wish me a safe flight back to Los Angeles or something equally as polite and measured, but he didn’t. He didn’t speak another word. As the elevator doors closed, his figure was silhouetted against the bright afternoon sun blazing through the high windows behind him, and I couldn’t see his face. I would always remember it, though. I would never be able to forget.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Patience

  “The Causeway? That doesn’t sound in the least bit exotic at all. Sounds cold if you ask me.” No one had asked my mother, but that never seemed to matter to her. She’d always been one to voice her opinion, solicited or otherwise, and woe betide the poor bastard who ever disagreed with her. In light of this, I nodded sagely from the bussing station at the entrance to the kitchen while Mom shouted to me from the meat section, where she was cooking a pair of steaks. Dad was nowhere to be seen, as usual.

  “It’s a part of Maine, Mom. I don’t think it’s ever particularly warm there.”

  “And this Fletcher guy was rude to you?” I’d mentioned that Ronan hadn’t exactly been warm in welcoming me or making me feel at ease, and she hadn’t been able to let the matter drop. For three days I’d been telling her the same story over and over again, and her outrage hadn’t dissipated a single iota. “And after that ridiculously long flight, too. I tell you, these big business guys in big cities, they’re all the same. They must be the absolute worst in New York, though. The height of arrogance. Never mind, baby. You’ll find work closer to home. You’ll be able to come back to the South Bay in the evenings. And your father and I will be just fine, don’t worry about us.”

  I was worried, though. I’d been worrying non-stop for the past year and no amount of plotting and planning appeared to be helping the situation. I’d seen the stack of envelopes on the kitchen counter this morning, all marked with “Final Notice” or “Passed Due.” Mom had swept them deftly into the cutlery drawer when she noticed me helping myself to cereal, but she wasn’t that stealthy a woman. There had been at least four envelopes there.

  “I know, Mom. It’s not a big deal. I would never have cut it on a tiny island, anyway. I would have gone crazy, especially if I couldn’t even call you guys whenever I wanted to. The time difference would have been awful.” It was only three hours, but with their busy schedule and my own, I would have missed my opportunity to talk to them most of the time.

  “Ophelia?” Mom called. “While it’s quiet, would you mind running upstairs to the office and seeing if there’s any word from Waylan’s? We were supposed to get a delivery this morning and nothing’s shown up yet.”

  “Sure thing.” Aside from the couple sitting at the table by the window, the restaurant was empty and lunch service was over. I had a few minutes to leave the floor, so I did as she asked, jogging up the stairs to check the online bookings and listen to the messages on the answering machine. There were seven new messages waiting. I hit the play button, sitting myself down in front of the prehistoric computer my Dad refused to get ri
d of, and the entire time the machine clicked through the messages (a call center, wondering if we want to renew our home owner’s insurance; Aunt Simone, wanting Mom to call her back when she had a second; croaky, hoarse sounding old Mr. Robson, confirming the table for tomorrow night that he and his wife always reserved on a Sunday) I was holding my breath, waiting to hear that cool, calm voice with the strange lilt to it, telling me in no uncertain terms that I hadn’t gotten the job, and I needn’t bother googling Causeway Island anymore.

  The message never came, though. That was probably the most frustrating part. I knew I hadn’t gotten the job, but it would have been nice to be put out of my misery. It seemed highly irregular that Ronan Fletcher hadn’t even had one of his receptionists call or even email to let me know that someone else had filled the position. I didn’t care. I didn’t. At least that’s what I kept telling myself. If I didn’t recite to myself constantly that I didn’t need that particular job, then my heart rate kept accelerating at the prospect of earning a hundred thousand dollars in a short six-month period, and I was on the verge of weeping at the missed opportunity. There were no messages in the email from Waylan’s about our missing delivery. While I was there, I checked my personal email account to see if I had actually received something from the Fletcher Corporation there, but my inbox was notably empty.

  Well, shit.

  Damn Ronan Fletcher. Damn him for tempting me with all that money. Somehow he’d made me want a job I’d never have even truly considered before. I hadn’t been lying earlier; I really would go crazy on a tiny little island, and the distance between Maine and California would have been brutal, but it would only have been for six months. I could have done it. I could have, if I’d really tried.

  ******

  My car was in the shop and hadn’t been ready to collect when I’d returned from New York, so Dad drove us all home in the dusty, beaten-up 4Runner he’d had since I was in high school. Admittedly, the thing was still running perfectly, so there was no reason for him to replace it. Still, Dad had a thing about new technology, new cars, new anything. If it meant he’d have to learn how to navigate his way around some new system or software, he wasn’t having any part of it. Not unless he absolutely had to. I sat in the back behind Mom, traveling the memorized route back to the house—a route so familiar and rote to me that the houses and gardens we passed felt like they had probably been there since the dawn of time, nothing ever changing, nothing ever evolving or growing, and I felt suddenly cut adrift. This was the life I’d had fifteen years ago. Yes, the sound of Mom and Dad bickering affectionately every morning over breakfast made me feel safe and warm, but the ritual of it all, working at the restaurant, going to sleep in the twin bed Mom had bought me for my twelfth birthday, shopping at the Save & Weigh and taking Mrs. Freeman’s newspaper up her drive to her every morning, as I had done ever since she’d had her hip replacement surgery back in 2003, it all felt needlessly crushing, to the point where I felt like I couldn’t breathe.

  I closed my eyes and tracked out the rest of the journey home in my head, knowing exactly when the car would tilt and shift either left or right. Knowing exactly when we would turn onto our street. When we would turn into our driveway.

  “Look, George. We missed another package,” Mom said, as she got out of the car. Sure enough, a UPS “Sorry We Missed You” sticker was stuck to the front door, the lower half fluttering on the breeze.

  “It’ll be my new fishing gear,” Dad said, looking over his shoulder to waggle his eyebrows at me. He loved his fishing almost as much as he loved my mom. His obsession with getting up to go stand on the pier at the crack of dawn every morning drove her crazy, though. She could never see the point in spending hours down there, waiting, wasting time (as she saw it) to catch fish that he couldn’t even clean and bring home to eat, since the water wasn’t clean enough. It gave Dad an unbelievable amount of pleasure to wind her up by telling he’d bought this new reel, or that new set of floats.

  I could hear her swearing under her breath as she retrieved the UPS sticker from the door, scanning the note quickly, all the while threatening physical violence if he’d even dared to fritter away money they didn’t have on fishing paraphernalia.

  “It’s not for you, George. It’s for Ophelia,” Mom said, holding it up. “Says legal documents in the description.”

  I’d received a fair number of those in the mail over the past year. My divorce settlement with Will had taken a while to clear—the bastard had tried to wheedle way more money out of me than he was entitled to—and so the paperwork had only recently come through for me to sign and file. I’d thought everything was finished and over with, though. Strange that there would be anything outstanding now that I didn’t know about.

  “You want me to go and get it?” Mom asked. The guy at the UPS store down the road had been there for years and knew us all by name; it was common for us to pick up mail and packages for each other if we were in the area.

  “No, it’s fine. I’ll walk over there. I think I need to stretch my legs.” I’d been on my feet all day, but I didn’t feel like going inside just yet. Besides, walking always helped me clear my head.

  At the UPS store, Jacob was sitting behind his desk, eating what looked like a pastrami sandwich. He looked up, guilt written all over his face. “Don’t tell Bett,” he said, grinning sheepishly. “She’ll be down here monitoring my calorie intake every afternoon if she knows I’m not eating salad for lunch. My cholesterol’s through the roof.”

  I pretended to zip my lips and throw away the key. “She’ll never hear it from me,” I told him. “You should probably alternate between the pastrami and the salad, though, Jacob. That uniform’s looking a little tight around the midriff these days.”

  Used to a gentle teasing every once in a while, Jacob just rolled his eyes. “Take it you’re here for that envelope I couldn’t deliver earlier?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Mind my sandwich for a moment while I go get it for you, then. And don’t be sneaking a bite.” Jacob heaved himself out of his seat and disappeared out back, returning only a few seconds later with the envelope in his hands. It was at least an inch thick, way heftier than I would have imagined any stray divorce documentation to be. “Could kill a man with this if you done drop it on his head,” Jacob advised me. “What on earth you got in here, girl?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t got a clue. I thought it was lawyer stuff from Will, but…” I took the envelope from him, frowning. “I get the feeling it’s something else entirely.” I signed for the mail and left Jacob in peace, despite the fact that I knew how eager he was to find out what was inside the envelope.

  When I got home, both Mom and Dad were in the yard, talking in hushed tones. Dread cycled through me whenever they did that—it meant something bad had happened. Something probably to do with money. Another letter in the mail, maybe. A phone call from a debt collector. Those were the worst. They put everyone in a spin for days, while we all rejigged what little assets we had and tried to find money to pay them off. I left them to it. No sense in making them feel even more awkward than they already did. Instead, I crept up the stairs and closed myself away in my room. I had no idea what was inside the envelope I held tightly in my hands, but I got the feeling that it was nothing good. Tearing back the seal a little at a time, I had to fight to force myself to open it all the way.

  Inside: two photographs, a boy and a girl.

  Two files in plastic wallets: Connor Fletcher, Age 7. Amie Fletcher, Age 5.

  A blue, white and red business envelope, American Airlines. Inside, a business class flight to Knox County Airport, dated for two day’s time.

  At the bottom, underneath all of this baffling information, one handwritten note.

  Ophelia,

  I’m sure you’ve had plenty of time to consider my proposition by now. My children aren’t like me. They’re young and fragile, and they miss their mother. They need proper mentorship, as well as someone to call their
friend. Neither Connor nor Amie have ever been to The Causeway. They know nothing of the world outside of New York and the home they shared here with their mother and me. If you would assist them (and me) during this huge transition stage, I would be eternally grateful.

  Yours,

  Ronan Fletcher

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The Causeway

  Another plane. Another journey. Two days hadn’t been nearly close enough to get my affairs in order. I hadn’t even had time to rethink my decision to accept the job. Perhaps that had been Ronan’s plan all along, to stump me by requesting that I jump on a flight forty-eight hours after offering me the position, so I wouldn’t have time to weigh up my options or chicken out. That’s what would have happened, I’m sure. Given enough breathing room, I would have talked myself out of it. The Causeway was too far away. What if something happened to Mom or Dad, or with the restaurant?

  Mom had burst into tears when I’d told her about the plane ticket and files on the children. She’d been so guilty, didn’t want me to leave, didn’t want me to feel like I had to. Dad had told me over and over again that we’d figure it out if I didn’t want to go, but I could see on his face that he was relieved. If I did this, stuck out six months on a tiny island in the middle of nowhere, I’d come back with enough cash to solve all of the financial problems with the restaurant, and there would probably be enough left over to do a few renovations here and there, spruce the place up a little. If I didn’t, the place was going under and that was a fact. Two, maybe three months—that was how long we might have been able to limp along, scraping money together to keep the place open another day.