The Summer I Dared: A Novel

by Barbara Delinsky

  Julia felt distant and disconnected from him. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a new feeling.

  He had been talking on through her musings. Now she realized he had stopped. “I’m sorry, what did you say?” she asked.

  “I was wondering,” he sounded cautious, “if you were coming home.”

  Had he said something sweet—that he missed her already and really wanted her home, even that he thought she would be better off in New York after what had happened—she might have been swayed. But there was nothing. So she said, “I want to wait here until the searching is done. There are families of people who died. I feel a kind of responsibility.”

  “For what? You didn’t cause the accident. You had nothing to do with it.”

  “Not responsibility, then. Connection.”

  “Okay. That makes sense,” he said, sounding more upbeat. “As easy as it would be for you to run home, it’s probably better that you don’t. Kind of like getting back on the horse after it throws you. Getting back on the bike after you fall. So… do you think you’ll stay for the whole two weeks, like you planned?”

  “At least,” Julia said. She sensed he wanted that.

  “I’ll be fine,” he assured her. “The important thing is that you recover from the trauma. Zoe can help with that. I’ll overnight you more money and a credit card. And a new cell phone. I mean, hell, we’re paying for the service whether you use it or not. Do you want me to send clothes?”

  She looked at her wedding band. It was an arc of sapphires and diamonds on a platinum band, and had a matching engagement ring, which she had left in New York. That part of the set was far too large for Big Sawyer, far more showy than Julia wanted to be here. But that was Monte—grand and showy. She shuddered to think which of her clothes he might pick from her closet.

  “No,” she said. “I can always buy a few.”

  “The car keys!” he exclaimed. “Where are they?”

  “In my pocketbook.”

  “On the ocean floor. Ah, Christ. Okay, I’ll send a set up with the cash. What else?”

  Julia couldn’t think of anything. Her life in New York was far removed from this island, this porch, this rocker.

  “Call your parents, Julia,” Monte instructed. “You don’t want them to read something about this in the news before they’ve heard your voice. Will you tell Molly?”

  “Uh-huh.” There was no point in saying that she already had. Monte simply wanted to know that it was taken care of so that he didn’t have to do it himself.

  “Good. Y’know,” he mused, “I’ll bet some of that camera equipment is covered by our homeowner’s policy. I’ll make some calls.”

  “Fine.”

  “So what you need to do is to sit in the sun and get some rest. It’s a shame about the photo stuff, but you can still salvage your vacation.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Okay, then. Be good.”

  “Yes.”

  “Bye.”

  She ended the call with a press of her thumb and dropped the phone into her lap. With the severance came a feeling of emptiness that was overwhelming. She didn’t understand how she and Monte could be at such opposite ends of the spectrum after living together for twenty years. Couples were supposed to grow more alike as time passed, not more different. But he had no idea what she was feeling, after surviving an accident like that. Worse, he didn’t seem to care. He was worried about the cash. She was worried about lives lost.

  “What was that about?” Zoe asked softly.

  Julia raised her eyes, then shut them and laid her head against the back of the rocker. “I’m not sure.”

  “I was surprised you agreed to come for two weeks. I didn’t think Monte would let you.”

  She pulled up her legs, tucked them under her robe, and rested the mug on a knee. “He was fine with it. The course was supposed to run for two weeks. He’s heartsick about the lost camera equipment.”

  “Are you?”

  Julia shot her a dry look. “It was his thing more than mine. I asked for a simple digital camera. He interpreted that as meaning I was interested in photography, with a capital P. I figured his heart was in the right place, so I thanked him when he bought me the Nikon, and then he bought me a tripod, and a zoom lens, and a macrolens, and before long I couldn’t tell him none of it was what I wanted.”

  “He’s a self-centered man,” Zoe said.

  Julia didn’t respond. Setting her tea aside, she rose quickly and went to the railing. “Where was the accident? Which direction?”

  Zoe pointed off to Julia’s left.

  Julia searched for an ocean view through the trees, but between leaves and the fog, she couldn’t see a thing. “Do you think they’ve found more?”

  “They will. The water where it happened wasn’t very deep—only six or seven fathoms. That’s fortyish feet.”

  Julia tried to picture the ocean floor at forty feet. What she came up with was dark and littered with grisly debris. “How did I escape it?” she asked in bewilderment. It wasn’t guilt she felt, so much as incredulity. Her being in the bow of the boat had been pure chance. Had she reached the pier ten minutes earlier and taken a seat in the stern, or had the water been a tad rougher or the oncoming boat a hair faster, the outcome of the accident might have been entirely different. “One of the fellows in the stern offered me a seat. He was the one with the wife and…” it hit her then, “… and baby.” She was stricken. “They had a baby with them.”

  “Kristie,” Zoe admitted solemnly. “She just turned one. They have two others, ages three and five.”

  Julia’s heart ached. “What about Artie Jones?”

  “He had four.”

  “Did any of the others have children?”

  “Greg Hornsby, the captain. He had two.”

  She was trying to process the idea of eight children whose lives would be forever changed, when the phone in her hand rang. Startled, she managed to pass it to Zoe.

  “Hello?… Who is this?… What makes you think she’s here?” Zoe looked at Julia with dawning anger. “I’m sorry, she’s not talking to the press. If you have questions, give the police chief a call. His number is…” Her voice trailed off. She held the phone away from her ear, stared at it, lowered it to her side. “He hung up. There’s class for you. And from The New York Times.”

  Julia caught her breath. She was about to ask how The New York Times had known to call here, when something in Zoe’s expression registered.

  “Monte?” Julia asked and, feeling a blow to her belly, let out a quick puff of air. “He didn’t waste any time, just turned around and picked up the phone! How could he? He knows how private I am.”

  Zoe didn’t say anything, but the anger remained in her eyes.

  “He wanted the publicity,” Julia decided. Monte was always angling for exposure.

  “They’d have mentioned him in the piece.”

  “That is sick!” Julia was shaking again.

  Zoe was suddenly on her feet. She reached inside the kitchen door and pulled out a pair of garden clogs. “Put these on.” As soon as Julia had done so, she led her down the back stairs and around the side of the house toward the barn. The path was wide and well worn, though bordered by grass in need of a cut. The air was cool and moist, welcome against the heat of anger.

  Julia didn’t ask questions. Nor did she balk when they reached the door to the barn. She wasn’t normally a barn person. She had been raised to believe that barn animals were dirty creatures who could pass on disease. In past visits here, she had been content to view them from afar and even that was more out of politeness to Zoe than true interest.

  Zoe opened the door and pushed it wide to stay, but there was plenty of light without it. The openings where horses had once hung their heads out for fresh air were now covered by screens. Same with skylights in the roof. Both had shutters on pulleys, ready for closing in inclement weather.

  “I shut the doors at night,” Zoe explained, “because, believe it or not, there a
re foxes in the woods. They’d make a tasty meal of my crew here.”

  Her “crew” had started making little sounds, but it wasn’t until they got closer that Julia could see what they were doing. A large area in the barn, stalls included, had been taken over by cages. They were stacked two high in some places, three in others. Each looked to have a single rabbit inside, a good many of which were now pushing their noses against different parts of their cages—some against the wire, some against a crockery food bowl, some against the tubes of their water bottles.

  Julia was startled. She had seen the rabbits before, but only from the door. A glimpse of fur, and she had conjured an image of the classroom rabbit Molly had brought home to care for one first-grade weekend.

  Close up now, Julia wouldn’t have known these creatures were even rabbits if she hadn’t known that Zoe raised them. The traditional bunny ears, eyes, and twitching nose were lost in a cloud of fur. Most of those clouds were white, but others were beige, gray, or black. Some had a lilac tinge. Others were mottled.

  “Good morning, little sweeties,” Zoe crooned and explained to Julia, “English Angoras are the smallest of the Angoras. They may look big, but it’s all fur. My largest rarely hits eight pounds.” She went to one of the cages, opened it, and reached inside. Slipping one hand under the rabbit’s belly and another over its ears, she lifted it out and cradled it against her middle. “They like the sense of confinement that comes when you put a hand on their ears this way. This is Gretchen,” she said, crooning again. “Gretchen, say hello to Julia.”

  Gretchen said nothing, of course. Julia couldn’t even tell if Gretchen was looking at her, her eyes were so hidden in fur.

  Zoe carried the rabbit to a grooming table. Its top was eighteen inches square and lined with carpeting. A raised compartment closed in one end. The other three sides were bounded by a three-inch-high lip of wood.

  “Sit,” Zoe instructed Julia, hitching her chin toward a chair by the table.

  Julia was no sooner in the chair when the rabbit was on her lap.

  “I need to dole out food and put out clean water bottles,” Zoe said. “I want you to hold Gretchen while I do. Put one hand here,” she said, replacing her hand with Julia’s on the rabbit’s ears, “and the other here by her chest, so that she won’t jump off.”

  “Does she nip?” Julia asked, feeling a little uneasy.

  “Nope. She’s my therapy bunny. One of my friends here lives with her grandmother, who is ninety-two and suffers from severe dementia. She can be ranting and raving seconds before I put Gretchen in her lap. Then she calms. Instantly.”

  “Maybe it’s sheer terror,” Julia said, only half in jest.

  “Is that what you’re feeling?”

  Actually, it wasn’t. Edging past the uneasy part, Julia was intrigued by the creature’s warmth and the softness of its fur. She saw nothing remotely related to dirt. There were no bugs, no matted parts, no smell, only a luxurious puff of fur. She found herself gently stroking the rabbit’s ears, which she could make out clearly now. The motion started small. When the animal didn’t seem to mind, it broadened.

  “Is this okay?” she asked Zoe.

  “Perfect. She loves it. You’re a natural.”

  Julia didn’t know about that, but she was encouraged when the rabbit actually seemed to relax in her lap. She let her fingers sift deeper, until she was finger-combing the feather-light fur. After a minute, she tipped her head sideways and smoothed enough fringe away so that she could see the rabbit’s eye.

  “Hello,” she whispered.

  The creature looked at her, then away. The simple gesture reminded her of Kimmie Colella, but the memory didn’t start her trembling again. She did feel calmer, holding the small rabbit. So she kept at it, stroking the ears—first one, then the other—combing its fur with her fingers, and exploring its shape, all in smooth, gentle motions. She found herself breathing more easily, relaxing more completely, even shifting the rabbit sideways so that she could see its nose.

  It did have a bunny nose. It wasn’t quite pink, but it twitched.

  “How many of these do you have?” she asked Zoe.

  “Currently? Twenty-three adults, twenty-five babies.”

  “Babies?” Julia did look up then. “I don’t see any babies.”

  “See the wood boxes in some of the cages? Those are nest boxes. The kits are inside.”

  “How do they fit?”

  Zoe laughed. “They are little, Julia. Here, I’ll show you.” She opened one of the cages and reached in. “Come here, cutie pie,” she cooed. Closing the cage again, she carried the baby to Julia. Though she used both hands, the baby would have fit comfortably in one.

  Julia caught her breath in delight. The kit was pure white, with tiny ears, eyes, and nose. “How old is it?”

  “Three weeks. It’s just beginning to fuzz up.”

  “But it looks more like a rabbit than these biggies.”

  Zoe chuckled. “More like a rabbit than cotton candy? It does. Give it another little while and it’ll sprout fringe on its ears and face.” One small leg kicked its way through Zoe’s hands. She shifted to hold the kit more securely. “This little guy is the dominant one in the litter. He’s the biggest of the bunch.”

  “How do you know it’s a boy?”

  “I’ve sexed it.”

  “Ah.” Julia wasn’t ready to ask how that was done. Both hind legs poked out this time. “He’s an active little guy.”

  “I’d be worried if he wasn’t. The strength of their hind legs is really the only defense Angoras have. If one kicks you, you feel it. You’d be amazed at how fast they can move.”

  “Twenty-five babies?”

  “Four litters, with five, seven, seven, and six kits, respectively,” Zoe said, ticking them off with a glance at each cage. “My rabbits do well at birthing, because the environment here is ideal. The temperature’s just right—never too hot, which would spell death for an Angora carrying this kind of fur. Angora wool is seven times warmer than lambs’ wool. Anything over seventy-five, and they start panting. Forty-five to fifty-five degrees is perfect for them. Once in a great while, in the dead of winter, we have to hook up supplementary heaters, but the walls of the barn deflect the wind, and the air coming off the ocean is always more moderate than it is on land. The screens here provide the kind of cross ventilation the rabbits need. Give them shade and a breeze, and they’re great.”

  “How did you learn all this?” Julia asked, because she had seen nothing of this magnitude in earlier visits. Yes, those visits had been brief, stolen time when Molly had been her excuse to come. And, yes, Zoe had emailed her bits and snatches of information in between. But Julia hadn’t imagined such a serious operation.

  Zoe carried the kit back to its cage. “I did a lot of reading. I visited with breeders. I had a friend in Rhode Island, Caroline Ellis, who raised Angoras and was a huge help when I first started out. Now a group of us is in constant touch on the Web, but in the final analysis,” she closed the door and returned, “it’s been trial and error. I began small, while I worked out the bugs. The thing is, no two rabbitries are exactly alike. For starters, the weather here is unique. Rabbits are like a green plant, in a sense. A plant may thrive in a nursery, then wither and die when you get it home because the light isn’t right, or the food you give it isn’t right, or your cat eats it up.” She glanced toward the barn door and said with gusto, “That’s why I don’t bother with houseplants, right, Ned?”

  Ned was a cat. He was large and black, and would have faded into the shadow of the door had Zoe not singled him out.

  “Mind you,” Zoe went on, “Ned might eat up these kits, too, if I put them on the floor. He’d think they were rats.”

  “Will he harm the adults?” Julia asked. The cat was certainly larger than Gretchen.

  “No. He’s trained to consider them friends and is actually protective. He might not be able to catch a fox or a raccoon, but he’ll make enough noise to bring me runni
ng.” She looked at the nearest cages. “I have to do some cleaning.”

  “Let me help,” Julia offered. The creature in her lap was so sweet. “Show me what to do.”

  Zoe gave her a curious smile. “Is this the woman who was three weeks in replying when I first emailed her that I was buying rabbits?”

  Julia protested, “We were away for two of those weeks and returned to no heat in the condo, so we had to stay in a hotel. Did I ever tell you not to buy them?”

  “No, but you never offered to help with them, either.”

  “I never narrowly escaped death before.”

  “What does A have to do with B?”

  “Todd Slokum, for one thing,” Julia said. “If he were here, you wouldn’t be doing these chores yourself.”

  Zoe’s shoulders sagged. “I skipped it yesterday, because I figured he’d be in today. I have to run down to his place. He may just be sick.”

  “I’ll work here while you go.”

  “Later, maybe. Have you called your parents?”

  Julia shook her head.

  “I would. We have no way of knowing what Monte told the Times. I wouldn’t want them getting a call from a reporter. They’d be hurt.”

  “They’d be hurt?” Julia cried. “Know how much support they’ve given me lately?”

  “The problem is Janet. Not your dad.”

  “Well, it hurts just the same.”

  “I know,” Zoe said. “I’ve been there.”

  Julia went back to stroking Gretchen. When she spoke again, her voice was calmer. “I know you have.”

  “Which is why,” Zoe said quietly, “I can’t make that call for you. I’d do most anything else. But not that.”

  Julia had been born knowing that Zoe was considered the black sheep of the family. Back then, though, Zoe and Janet had still talked. Julia didn’t know what had caused the final rift, only that it had happened when she was fifteen. For a while, she had blamed herself for annoying Janet by loving Zoe too much. Her father had assured her that wasn’t the case, but he had never given her anything in its place, and she quickly learned that the subject was too raw to pursue.