Straightening her spine and ignoring the trembling in her hands, she slowly lowered the blanket, pulling it up to the head of the bed, as if she could tuck this nightmare in and drive it back into sleep.
With slow and heavy footsteps, she retraced her previously panicked path through her tiny house, the converted brick summer kitchen had been spared when her family home had burned.
At some point over the past few years her reason for living out here had slipped from front and center, shifting so slowly into her peripheral vision that she’d barely noticed. She’d allowed herself to be diverted by the pleasure of restoring the old gardens of the plantation. Here in this secluded place of atonement, she’d somehow found peace.
But this morning the branches of gnarled oaks against the gray skies outside her windows looked menacing and the isolation had an air of desperation.
The dark realization settled upon her. Fate had just doled out another before and after:
Before I started sleepwalking—again.
She’d been free of the disorder for her entire adult life. It was a demon thought exorcised at puberty; gone and yet never fully forgotten.
As Abby stood in the early morning silence, she realized that this particular demon’s reappearance did not feel wholly unexpected. The fear of the disorder’s return had been a dark shadow that lurked in the fog every night when she closed her eyes; the real bogeyman under the bed. And it was the reason she would always live alone.
An isolated incident, she assured herself.
Why now?
Stress and hormones; Dr. Samuels had listed both as likely triggers for sleepwalking. There was only so much a person could do to insulate a life from such things, and Abby had employed them all. Still, stress had come crashing into her carefully constructed life with the unexpected death of her mother a few weeks ago.
Her gaze was drawn back to the footprints.
Vulnerability raced up her spine on spider’s legs. She’d been outside. In the dark. Alone. Unaware.
Doing what?
It was a question she wasn’t sure she wanted to answer.
She opened the back door and stepped onto the small stoop. The early April wind plucked loose hairs from her ponytail and snaked beneath her robe, drawing goosebumps on her bare legs. The marsh grasses leaned in unison and the distant surface of the Edisto River ruffled like tide-sculpted sand. Clouds boiled overhead, blotting out the rising sun, promising a storm before the day concluded.
The garden hose normally hung on a decorative hook near the back steps. It was unwound, the end disappearing into the squared boxwood hedge that bordered the main garden.
She crossed the coarse grass, the dew of early morning turning the dirt between her toes once again to mud.
Water cascaded over the lip of the birdbath like a fountain. The slap and splatter of it hitting the soggy ground reminded her of the way rain used to roll off the gutterless roof of the old plantation house that had been her family’s for generations—the house she’d burned to the ground. It was a sound that conjured both comfort and regret.
She returned to the stoop and shut off the spigot with a firm hand, just as if this was a normal morning and she’d just finished watering. Then she marched back inside, refusing to look back at the hose winding like a snake into the hedge.
An isolated incident. That’s what she had to believe.
As she closed the door behind her, she looked at the footprints on the tile, then at her dirty feet, both grating reminders of a raw vulnerability she’d hoped never again to experience.
Gran had been right. There was something unnatural about Abby—and she hadn’t grown out of it at all. She couldn’t let her father know. He thought she’d been cured years ago. In fact, she couldn’t let anyone know. Everyone in Preston already looked at her as the girl who’d burned down an irreplaceable historic treasure; the girl who’d nearly killed her own sister. The looks would return. Old ladies would once again shy away from her. Mothers would keep their children out of her path.
She went into the bathroom and started the shower. If only she could wash away the stain of fear as easily as she did the mud on her feet.
Sometimes Jason Coble thought it a cruel twist of fate that he, a psychiatrist who spent his days untangling other people’s emotions and assessing their mental health, had missed the signs of his now ex-wife’s alcoholism for so long. Sadly, it hadn’t been his professional skill that had guided her into recovery. It had been his harsh threat to seek sole custody of their children. Nothing else had broken through the stone wall of Lucy’s bitterness and denial.
In reality, there was little chance of his getting guardianship of his stepson Bryce, whom Lucy hadn’t allowed Jason to adopt. But their daughter Brenna was another case altogether.
Not that he wanted to live that way, with hostile court battles and ugly scenes. What he wanted was Lucy sober and an amiable coexistence that would nurture their children. Generally that’s what he’d achieved—so far. But it was a tightrope-balancing act. In order to safeguard that balance, he had to keep up constant covert observation of Lucy’s state of mind and her behavior. It was an unpleasant and unalterable fact of life.
Today he lingered on the fringes of Lucy’s family as they gathered in the tiny narthex of St. Andrew’s before Vera Marbury’s funeral. The loss of her Grandmother Vera had hit Lucy hard. It showed in her brittle posture and the jittery movement of her hands.
Jason’s feet shifted on the well-worn slate floor of the old church as he looked for signs that she’d found her consolation in a bottle of vodka. She was very good at disguising it.
He walked across the narthex.
Stepping behind her, he touched her elbow and leaned close, getting her to turn. “Hello, Lucy.”
“Jason.” Her eyes narrowed. Clearly, she’d figured out what he was doing; maneuvering her so he could smell her breath for alcohol. It was a dance they’d done more times than he could count.
He looked at his ex-mother-in-law, Constance. “I’m so sorry about your mother. Vera will be sorely missed.”
Constance nodded as regally as a queen. “Thank you, Jason.”
Lucy said in a chilly tone, “You don’t need to be here.”
Jason glanced at his seven-year-old daughter. She was looking at them with measuring eyes. He gave her a smile and a wink and received a bashful head duck in return. It broke his heart to see how far she had retreated into herself in the past year, since the finality of the divorce had officially broken their family in two.
“But I do,” he said to Lucy. “Vera was Bryce and Brenna’s great-grandmother. We’re family.” Sometimes Lucy got so tied up in her own emotions, she forgot that her children had feelings, too.
Bryce stepped forward and gave Jason a quick hug. “Thanks for coming, Dad.”
His seventeen-year-old stepson only called him Dad when he was feeling particularly vulnerable. His biological father had died of testicular cancer when Bryce had been only two. Lucy had been adamant about keeping her first husband’s memory sacred. Jason had honored her decision, but even without adoption papers he felt as much Bryce’s father as Brenna’s.
Lucy turned her back on Jason. “You won’t be sitting with the family.”
Constance spoke up in a tone that left no room for argument. “If Brenna wants her father to sit with her, that’s where he’ll sit.”
Surprised by her support, Jason nodded his appreciation. He knew Constance held him one hundred percent responsible for the divorce, that she considered it abandonment of the vilest kind. For better or worse, he’d taken the vow—and broken it.
He held out his hand to Brenna. She cast a skittish glance at her mother before she reached out and took it. But Lucy was walking away, diverting her attention to the flower arrangements being set at the front of the nave. She might not like being overridden by her mother, but she didn’t have the backbone to defy her openly. It used to make Jason angry for her; he’d seen his ex-wife run roughs
hod by her mother enough to understand that Constance was part of Lucy’s problem. But today he was selfishly grateful.
Bryce gave Jason an apologetic shrug and followed his mother.
Jason clasped his daughter’s hand. “Come on, Peanut. Let’s go sit down for a bit.”
She smiled up at him, showing the adorable gap where she was missing a couple of teeth.
A lump gathered in Jason’s throat. How was it possible to love someone this much?
He squeezed her hand more tightly as they walked into the sanctuary. He hadn’t been inside St. Andrew’s since Brenna’s baptism. The church smelled of aged wood, lemon polish, and incense.
In her bleakest moments, Lucy liked to blame his refusal to convert to Catholicism (and his ambivalent approach to religion in general) as a major stumbling block in their marriage. Lucy liked to blame lots of things that took the spotlight off her own behavior.
Father Kevin Ferraro approached, meeting Jason and Brenna in the main aisle. “Good to see you, Jason.”
They shook hands. “It’s been a while.”
Jason and Father Kevin were in the same golf league. Here in South Carolina there were few completely golf-unfriendly months, but this spring had produced one. In the past weeks the priest looked to have lost weight; his cheeks were hollowed and his eyes appeared sunken. Jason wondered if the man was ill.
“And Miss Brenna”—the priest placed a gentle hand to the top of her head—“have you been keeping up with your studies for your Parish School of Religion class?”
Jason knew the man used the full name of the class because he assumed Jason was ignorant of the abbreviation. But Jason was well aware of Brenna’s love of her PSR studies. He was proud of her dedication to her spiritual responsibility, even though he sometimes worried that she used it as an escape.
“Yes, Father.” Brenna smiled proudly, but her voice was barely audible even in the silent sanctuary.
“Wonderful. Wonderful,” Father Kevin said. “Pretty soon you’ll be old enough to be an altar server. We need more little girls like you here at St. Andrew’s.”
The priest moved on. Jason and Brenna took a seat in a pew near the rear of the church, and began quietly discussing what Brenna was learning in PSR. Listening to his shy, lonely little girl, Jason wished other less introverted parts of her young life could also inspire that kind of light.
Abby’s morning had been so hectic that the muddy footprints were relegated to the periphery of her mind. Even so, the implications of their presence stuck there like a festering splinter as she rushed the last flower arrangement for Vera Marbury’s funeral from the back of her van to the side door of St. Andrew’s.
As always, Maggie was there on the doorstep to greet Abby with a wide smile. Father Kevin was guardian for his niece, a blue-eyed teen with a bright spirit, sharp wit, and Down syndrome. Maggie was Abby’s right-hand gal for all events that required flowers at St. Andrew’s.
Maggie crossed her arms over her chest. “You’re late.”
“I know, I know. Can you unwrap these and take them into the sanctuary?” Abby handed the bouquet to Maggie. “I have to go pick up Dad for the service.”
“Sure, but you’d better not come in late. Uncle Father doesn’t like it when people come in late.”
Abby waved as she hurried back down the steps, smiling at Maggie’s name for her uncle. Her parents had been killed in a helicopter crash two years ago while on a relief trip for Children of Conflict, the organization they’d founded to assist orphans of war-torn areas in Africa and the Middle East. They’d left both Maggie and COC in Father Kevin’s capable hands.
Because everyone called him Father, Maggie had decided calling him Uncle Kevin wasn’t respectful enough for her; Uncle Father was born.
There were ten stoplights in Preston. Abby had to drive through seven of them to reach her father’s house. While sitting at the fifth, her cell phone rang. She glanced at the caller ID. Her sister always called at the worst moments.
“Hi, Court.”
“I was just thinking you need to hire someone to wash Dad’s windows. I noticed when I was home for the funeral how dirty they are. Mom would have a fit.”
At sixty-three Betsy Whitman had been taken by a massive stroke, her death a shock without warning. The funeral had brought about Courtney’s only trip back to Preston since she’d left the day after she’d graduated from high school.
Courtney didn’t give Abby a chance to respond before she added, “You know I’d do it myself, but…” She paused. “Well, you know how it is with people in Preston….” Her voice slid into that tone that chafed Abby’s ass like wool underwear.
“I’ll take care of it.” She immediately regretted her sharp tone. After all, it was her fault Courtney felt uneasy in Preston.
She bore horrible scars from the fire and had always felt everyone here strained to see them, no matter what she did to cover them up. The plastic surgeon had done what he could, but he’d reminded them at every operation that childhood burn scars were the worst. There was only so much medically possible.
Courtney now lived like a hermit in a cinderblock house (as fireproof as she could get) in New Mexico. Both decisions she wouldn’t have made if Abby hadn’t been sleepwalking and set the house on fire.
The light turned green and Abby crossed the intersection.
“Have you seen him today?” Courtney asked.
“Not yet. I’m headed to his house right now.”
“Abby! You are not taking him to that funeral!”
“He wants to go.” Vera Marbury’s daughter, Constance, and Betsy had been close friends.
“It’s too soon,” Court said direly. “He’s not up to it.”
Court always had such grim predictions. She lived over fifteen hundred miles away and rarely talked to their father because it made her “sad.” How in the hell could she assess his emotional state?
“If I don’t show up to get him,” Abby said, “he’ll just go by himself. I don’t want him going alone. Listen, I’m here; I have to go. I’ll call you later. Bye.” Abby disconnected the call, shame and aggravation scrapping like selfish children for the upper hand.
She stopped at the curb and honked the horn; he was supposed to be watching for her.
As she sat there, she looked at the windows. Crap, they were dirty.
She hoped she wouldn’t have to concede Court was right about the funeral, too.
Her dad’s front door remained closed. Abby shut off the car and hurried inside the house. She found him in his favorite chair, the newspaper in front of him.
When he heard her come in, he lowered it and smiled. “There’s my girl.”
“Ready to go?”
For a brief second, he looked blank. Then he put down the paper and rose from the chair. “Of course. Ready.”
When they got outside the front door, her father reached into his suit pocket. “Uh-oh. No keys.” He opened the door again.
“I have a key,” she said. “I’ll lock up.”
Her dad continued into the house. “I have to find my keys.”
Abby glanced at her watch. “Dad, we’re going to be late.”
“I’m sure I left them on the kitchen counter,” he called back to her.
A full minute passed and her father didn’t return. Abby went inside.
She found him in the kitchen, ripping open drawers and rummaging through them.
“I can’t find my keys!”
“It’s okay, Dad.” Abby smiled to herself. Her mom had called him the absentminded inventor. Even though he’d been a science teacher his entire career, he constantly dabbled in the basement working on one project or another. The man was brilliant, but seriously could not find his socks when they were on his feet. “I have a set. Let’s go and I’ll help you find them when we get back.”
“But I need to know where they are.” His voice held an unusual edge.
“They’re probably in a jacket pocket. We’ll find them, but we need
to go or we’re going to miss the service.”
“No! I have to find my keys!” With increasing agitation, he opened the flour canister, looked in, and shook it.
“Stop and think about what you were doing the last time you had them.” She started looking, too.
Three minutes later, she found them—in the medicine cabinet in the bathroom when she’d decided she needed something for a rapidly escalating headache.
She dashed back into the bedroom, jangling the keys. Her father had every pair of pants he owned out on the bed, searching through pockets.
“Where were they?” he asked, his face beaded with perspiration.
“Medicine cabinet. You must have had them in your hand when you came home from the drugstore and put things away.”
He blinked. Then he shrugged. “Must have.”
“No matter. Let’s go.” She hurried him to the car and headed back across town.
As she drove she thought about her Dad looking in the flour canister. He was absentminded, but that seemed out there even for him. Surely it was just the panic that had made him do something so incongruous.
The funeral was small. At ninety-one, Vera Marbury had outlived most of her contemporaries. During the organ solo before the service, Abby stole a look at her dad out of the corner of her eye. He sat with his hands relaxed in his lap and a serene look on his face. Being here was not catapulting him back into raw grief. At least that was one I told you so Abby wouldn’t have to hear from her sister.
The last breathy notes left the brass pipes of the organ and Father Kevin stood. He began with a prayer. It was a long one.
Unused to such forced stillness, Abby shifted in her seat. Her foot began to jiggle.
Her father’s hand closed over hers. He whispered, “Easy, Jitterbug.”
He hadn’t called her Jitterbug in years. It was the nickname Abby’s mother had given her even before she’d been born, saying that Abby had been incapable of a still moment even in the womb.
Abby looked over at her dad. A melancholy smile graced his face and an unshed tear pooled in his eye.
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