by Ann Tatlock
“Where you going?”
“Anywhere.”
“I can take you partway.”
“Hop in, John,” she said. “I’ll take you.”
He put his hand on the door. “I—”
She patted the seat, waved him in.
He felt as though he were stepping back and watching from a distance, even as he saw himself get into the car and pull the door shut. “I’m in the white cottage, number one-twenty-two.”
She shifted into drive, and the car moved forward. The tires spat out gravel from the side of the road and picked up speed. John watched curiously as they passed his cottage and sailed forward over the asphalt.
He almost laughed. He marveled at how easy it was to let go of all resolve. The warring was over, and he was at peace. “Where are you taking me?” he asked.
She didn’t answer right away. She seemed intent on the road. Finally she said, “Apparently I’m taking you to my place for a drink.” Her mouth drew back in a small amused smile. She turned her head, locking eyes with him. “You don’t mind, do you?”
He settled back into the seat and let her drive.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Rebekah lay on her bed staring up at the ceiling. She wiped at the corner of each eye with an open palm, not wanting her friend to see her cry. But it was too late.
“Listen, Beka,” Lena said, “tears are for babies and weaklings, which we are not, okay? Besides, lying there crying isn’t going to do you any good.”
“But I’m going to lose him, aren’t I?”
“Not if you listen to me and do as I say. Now get down here and give me a hand.”
Rebekah sat up and looked over the side of the bed. Lena sat cross-legged on the floor by the open closet. She wore shorts and a tank top, and her feet were bare. Her skin, browned by the sun, glowed in the flickering light of the candles lined up on the crate Rebekah used as an altar. The room was otherwise dim, as Lena had pulled down the shade and closed the curtains against the afternoon sun. Lena had also bolted the bedroom door, even though the girls were alone in the cottage. Rebekah’s father and brother were at work, and her mom had taken Phoebe to a dentist appointment in the next town over.
“What exactly are you doing?” Rebekah asked.
“Getting ready.”
“But, I mean, what’s going to happen?”
“Nothing bad. We’re just going to throw down a little wall between David and Jessica, just to make sure she stays away from him.”
“Can you make her ugly?”
Lena laughed, stopped suddenly, and narrowed her eyes. “I was going to say there’s a limit to what we can do, but I’m not so sure there is. Now get down here and help me.”
Rebekah slid off the bed and sank to the floor beside Lena. Her friend was sifting through the box of herbs and spices Rebekah had collected over the past months, bottles and bags of them.
“You got any nutmeg in here?” Lena asked.
“I don’t know. Why?”
“Good for fidelity. Ah, here it is.”
Rebekah watched as Lena added the bottle to a small pile on the floor. She looked at the pile skeptically and almost wished she hadn’t asked Lena to come over. She’d just wanted to talk, to spill her feelings to someone. She’d been crying since yesterday when she saw David with Jessica again. Jessica had been leaning casually against the wall of the pavilion. David was standing over her, one hand against the wall above her head. “We’re just friends,” David had sworn to Rebekah later. But friends don’t stand that close, don’t look at each other like that.
“Snap out of it, Beka,” Lena said. “You’re staring into space again.”
Rebekah shook her head. “Forget it, Lena. It’s no use.”
Lena stopped her busywork and frowned at Rebekah. “You still don’t get it, do you?”
“Get what?”
“The power you have. The power we all have.”
“I haven’t seen it work.”
“Well, I have.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. Listen, haven’t I told you about Carl, the last guy my mom was dating?”
“I don’t think so.”
“I didn’t like him. He wasn’t any good for her.”
“You just don’t like your mom dating anyone.”
“She can date someone, if I approve.”
“Why is it up to you?”
“Because if she marries him, I have to live with him.”
“Okay. So what happened to Carl?”
“Well, I’m not really sure, but the point is, I got rid of him.”
“How?”
“I cast a spell, this spell. One night Mom and Carl were downstairs mixing up drinks and having themselves a little private party, and I was upstairs making sure it was for the last time.”
“And it was?”
“Yeah.”
“And you don’t know what happened to him?”
Lena shrugged. “He just never came back.”
“Well, you know, your mom might have really liked him.”
“She did. But I did it for her own good. Everything I do is for somebody’s good, Beka.”
Rebekah looked at her friend. As the seconds ticked by, she understood what she had only vaguely sensed before: She didn’t believe her.
And yet she wanted to.
“Listen, Beka,” Lena said slowly, emphasizing each word. “You love David, don’t you?”
Rebekah nodded.
“And you want to keep him, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Then let’s get started.”
Rebekah nodded again. She took a deep breath. She’d do whatever she had to do to keep David.
CHAPTER THIRTY
John sat on the top step of the porch, a sweating glass of iced tea in his hand. He had occupied the same spot often as a boy, had sat there looking out over the water, daydreaming. He’d had so many dreams once. Nothing grandiose, nothing even very far beyond his reach. Just simple dreams of doing something with his life. Maybe owning a business, maybe designing buildings or bridges, maybe—and this was the grandest one—becoming an airline pilot and flying planes all over the world. Why not? John could do anything he put his mind to; that’s what his father had said.
He remembered once as a kid pointing toward the strange fortress across the lake and saying, “See the Castle over there, Pop?”
His father, sitting on the steps beside him, nodded as he squinted against the sun. “Sure do, son.”
“Someday I’m going to fix it up and make it nice again,” John had boasted. “That’ll be mine. But I’ll make a room for you and Mom, and you can live there too. Would you like that, Pop?”
His father was drinking something like iced tea or lemonade or maybe iced coffee—something cold to ward off the summer heat. He lifted the glass to his lips and took a long drink. Then he said, “Sounds like an agreeable plan to me.”
Good thing Pop wasn’t here to see him now. John had grieved at his father’s funeral, thought his death untimely, but now he knew what the old man had been spared. John hadn’t built any castles. Hadn’t even renovated any. Far from it.
John stiffened at the familiar squeak of the screen door behind him. He didn’t turn to see who was there. He kept his face toward the lake while taking a long swallow of the tea.
From somewhere above him, just beyond his left shoulder, Andrea’s voice rained down. “I thought you could use a little more to drink.”
John marveled that words so gentle could cut so deep. She couldn’t know, of course; she meant only to be kind.
He lifted his eyes no higher than her waist, saw the pitcher of iced tea in her hands. He held up his glass, watched the tea cascade from the lip of the pitcher.
“Thanks, Andrea.”
“Get you anything else?”
“No thanks. I think I’m set.”
For three days John had scarcely looked his wife in the eye. He didn’t look at her now. He heard her footsteps
on the porch, heard the screen door squeak open, slam shut.
The woman’s name was Pamela Jarvis, and she lived with her daughter in a small cottage on the north end of the lake. She was divorced, had been divorced more than once, he gathered, but he wasn’t quite sure. It didn’t matter. She was alone, available.
“Your daughter—she . . .” He’d waved a hand while glancing around the unfamiliar room.
“She’s at my sister’s house. She spends a lot of time there. She has a couple of friends with her tonight, and they’re watching the fireworks together.”
He didn’t learn the daughter’s name. That didn’t matter either, so long as the girl wasn’t home.
“Drink?” Pamela asked, opening up a surprisingly wellstocked cabinet. Then she laughed. “So how long?”
“How long what?” he responded.
“You know. How long without a drink?”
“More than five years.”
“Good for you.”
He couldn’t tell whether the words were laced with sincerity or sarcasm. He watched as she poured herself two fingers of bourbon. Small beads of sweat began to sting his brow. She was Thirteenth Stepping, as it was known in A.A. She didn’t attend meetings looking for sobriety through the Twelve Steps. She was looking for something else, something beyond all that.
She held up the glass. “You sure?” she asked.
He shook his head. He had, at least, the strength to do that much, knowing that alcohol could send him right back to prison. But a woman. Now that was something else altogether. A woman could take him places he hadn’t been in a long time.
“Daddy!”
Startled, John caught his breath. He hurriedly tucked his thoughts away, then smiled grimly to himself when he realized they were already hidden. He looked over his shoulder and saw Phoebe standing just inside the screen door.
“What are you doing, Daddy?”
John waved the girl outside. “I’m just sitting here drinking some iced tea. Want to join me?”
Phoebe stepped out onto the porch. “I will in a minute, but wait right here, okay?”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
The child ran past him down the steps. She disappeared beyond the steep bank by the lake and then reappeared with something in her hand.
“What have you got there, Phoeb?”
“Smell, Daddy.”
She opened her small hand, revealing a few crushed leaves. John inhaled deeply and relaxed into a genuine grin. She had gathered some wild mint for his tea.
“You want it, Daddy?”
“I sure do. Drop it right in there.” He held out his glass for the mint, and she let it fall from her palm. “Thank you, sweetheart.”
“You’re welcome.”
John patted the step beside him. “Have a seat.”
The little girl sat, hugging her knees with both arms. “Billy’s coming out in a minute. He’s been in the shower.”
“Uh-huh.”
“The toilet was all plugged up this morning when I got up—”
“Again?”
“But Billy got the plunger out and fixed it.”
“Okay. That’s good.”
“Not without making a mess, though. That’s why he’s taking extra long in the shower.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Beka says this place is falling down around our ears.”
John sighed. “I suspect she’s more than half right.”
“But I don’t care. I like it here.”
“Well, I’m glad you do, Phoebe. I’m glad someone does.”
“When Billy gets out of the shower, he said he’d play with me awhile before you guys have to go to work.”
“That’s good. What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know.” She shrugged. “Play Chinese checkers, maybe. Do you like the mint, Daddy?”
“I sure do. I used to pick mint for your granddaddy’s iced tea. Did you know that?”
Phoebe shook her head.
“I wish you could have met your granddaddy. He died too young, before you were born. You’d have liked him, though. He was a good man.”
“Like you, Daddy?”
“Well—”
“Billy says you’re a good man.”
“Well, I—”
John didn’t have time to go on before Billy pushed past the screen door to the porch and, straddling several floorboards like a cowboy taking aim with a pistol, pointed his cell phone at them in a two-handed grip. “Hey, Dad, Phoebe, say cheese!” he said.
He was neatly dressed in a button-up shirt and slacks, his wet hair plastered to his head, the scent of English Leather cologne trailing him like a pungent afterthought. “Look, I took your picture!” he exclaimed. “Beka showed me how to do it!”
He proudly displayed the picture, holding the phone in front of their faces.
“That’s great, Billy,” John said. “You’ll have to show me how to do that.”
“It’s easy, Dad,” Billy responded confidently. “I can show you in no time.”
John nodded. “You got some nice gifts for your birthday, huh, son?”
“Yeah, Dad, the best.”
“How’s that nightlight working out for you?”
“Whoa, Dad—it’s so cool.”
“It glows real pretty in the night, Daddy,” Phoebe added.
“I bet it does,” John remarked. “Nice of Beka to get it for you, Billy.”
“Yeah.” Billy laughed. “She sure surprised me.”
Phoebe said, “Billy put my picture up on the wall. Did you see it, Daddy?”
“I sure did. It’s beautiful, Phoeb.”
“I told her it looks just like us. Don’t you think so, Dad?” Billy asked.
“As good as any photograph, I’d say.”
Phoebe smiled happily. Then she said, “Hey, Billy, can you show me how to take a picture on your phone?”
“Sure, Phoeb. Come sit here and I’ll show you. It’s real easy.”
Billy and Phoebe moved to the glider while John moved up to the padded wicker chair. In just a little while he’d have to go inside, take a shower, get ready to go to work. He wanted to put it off for as long as he could. The thought of going to work was making him nervous.
Pamela had shown up at the restaurant yesterday, sat there drinking lemonade by herself. She had the paper spread out on the table as though she were reading it, but he never saw her turn the page. Their eyes met once, maybe twice. They didn’t speak. They didn’t have to. There was some sort of electric current running between them that said it all without a single word. It had brought that whole Fourth of July night rushing back like a tidal wave crashing onto the present moment. How was it that no one else in the restaurant felt it, a thing that big, that overwhelming?
Dear God, he thought now as he looked out over the lake. What have I done? My children, my—
He remembered the scent of her, the smooth softness of her skin. He clenched his jaw as he glanced over at Billy and Phoebe. He had lied to them and to Andrea. He had said he’d come straight home from the meeting, that he’d had a headache so he’d gone to bed early.
Dear God, he thought again. What have I done?
He sniffed then at the irony, at the absurdity of the question. He knew exactly what he’d done.
More than that he knew, given half a chance, he’d do it again.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Andrea glanced at the clock in the kitchen and then walked across the front room to the porch door. “John,” she called out through the screen, “it’s ten o’clock. Don’t you think you should be getting ready?”
John flinched. He blinked slowly, as though coming back from far away. “Okay, thanks, Andrea,” he said, his voice listless. “I lost track of the time.”
“I just don’t want you and Billy to be late for work.”
“No, I’ll get moving. Beka in the shower?”
“She’s barely out of bed yet. The shower’s all yours.”
“
Hey, Mom!” Billy smiled up from the glider. “I’m showing Phoebe how to take pictures. Look at the picture I took of Dad and Phoebe.”
Andrea stepped out onto the porch and took the phone. She angled it so she could see the photo. There was Phoebe, smiling broadly, John, looking sullen, surprised at best. “Wonderful, Billy,” she said, handing him the phone. “Has Beka shown you how to send them to the computer?”
Billy shook his head. “Not yet. But she said she would.”
John finally rose from the chair. The porch floor creaked beneath his weight. Andrea turned toward him, saw the empty glass in hand. “I’ll take that for you,” she offered.
He barely glanced at her. “Thanks. I’ll be out of the shower in a few minutes, in case Beka wants it.”
“No hurry.”
“Hey, Mom, say cheese!”
Andrea turned back toward the glider to find Phoebe snapping a picture with the phone. The child laughed. “I got you, Mom! I took your picture!”
“You didn’t even give me a chance to smile.”
“Yeah, Mom,” Billy said, studying the phone in Phoebe’s hand. “You’re not smiling. You look a little funny. Want to see?”
“No, thank you. I’ll pass. Now listen, Billy, you’ve got thirty minutes, and then you and Dad are out the door.”
“I know. I’m all ready to go. I’m just waiting on Dad.”
Andrea stepped toward the door, stopped a moment. “By the way, Billy,” she said.
“Yeah, Mom?”
“You smell nice.”
While Phoebe frowned and sniffed the air, Billy tore his attention away from the picture and looked up at his mother. Deep crows-feet formed around his eyes as his small face opened up into a wide, full-toothed smile. For Andrea, there was no other face in the world that could match that one for joy.
“Thanks, Mom!” Billy said.
Andrea carried the image of that face with her back to the kitchen, where it promptly dissolved, mistlike, at the sight of Rebekah sitting at the table. In profile she looked like a little lost waif, her clothes rumpled, her hair disheveled, her face weary beyond her years. She stared absently into a tall glass of orange juice.
