Wrecked

by Mary Anna Evans

  Amande had a flash of memory—her grandmother stooped over a table full of envelopes with windows on the front. Beside them lay her slim blue checkbook full of checks that had no money to back them up. She knew what life was like for old people who couldn’t always pay their bills.

  She blurted out, “Are you going to be okay? Now that he’s gone, I mean.” And then she wanted to sink through the floor, because it was probably really rude to talk about money, especially in front of guests. And, even worse, to remind Miss Jeanine that her dear, sweet Edward was dead.

  Jeanine took both of Amande’s hands and said, “God bless you, child. Not many people your age would give my worries a single thought. Not because they’re not good people, but because they haven’t seen much of the world. I’m thinking you have.”

  She squeezed Amande’s hands a bit, and her own hands were stronger than they looked. Then Jeanine said, “Edward took care of me, even in death. He lived on his military pension, so he didn’t have a lot of money to leave me, but he paid faithfully on a life insurance policy with me as the beneficiary. And the sale of his house will bring in some money. I can stay here in my home. I’m grateful to my brother for that.”

  She raised her cane and pointed it at the sideboard where Amande had stacked the food and water. “And I’m grateful for people like you who bring me gifts like those. Edward’s in heaven now and he knows what you’re doing for me.”

  “Well, it’s not like I brought brie and pineapple,” Amande said, perched on the edge of the dining chair and acutely aware of Greta’s fancy food.

  The strong bird-like hand grasped hers again. “You brought me practical gifts, dear, and Greta brought me luxurious ones. Both of you make me feel like you care.” Then she plucked a chunk of cantaloupe off Greta’s arrangement and handed it to her.

  Then Amande remembered that Miss Jeanine hadn’t had electricity since the storm. There was no way that one person could eat pounds of unrefrigerated cut fruit before it started to turn brown and smell. And once that hunk of brie was cut, it would spoil faster than the fruit.

  Also, Amande knew for a fact that people who lived where Miss Jeanine did got their water from a well. Her electric pump wouldn’t be working until the electric company got her lights back on. She had a feeling that Miss Jeanine was a lot happier to see her bottled water than Greta Haines’s wine.

  Somehow, the frail old woman had let Amande know that she shouldn’t feel bad for not bringing caviar and champagne, yet she’d done it without insulting Greta’s gifts. Amande figured that on the day she was smooth enough to do that, she would truly be grown up.

  When Miss Jeanine urged her to have some fruit and to help herself to a hunk of cheese while she was at it, Amande ate heartily, like a fellow adult who was in on the secret that these things needed to be eaten before they decayed. She steadfastly refused to accept anything nonperishable, though, not even a bottle of water.

  When Amande rose to leave, Miss Jeanine said, “Come back to see me, dear, and don’t think you have to bring anything with you. Well, you can bring your brother. His sweet smile reminds me of Edward at that age. We were like the two of you. I was much older and he was like my living baby doll. I think he spent the first five years of his life on this hip.” She smacked a hand on her loose cotton skirt. “I can’t believe…well, I just can’t believe he’s gone.”

  Again, Amande stood there feeling stupid and wondering what her parents would say if they were standing there. She decided to cheat and let them do the talking.

  “My parents send you their sympathy. We all loved Captain Eubank, and we’re just heartbroken to lose him.”

  Greta echoed her. “Yeah, me too.”

  Cyndee said, “I know how I’d feel if I lost any of my brothers.”

  Now Amande was completely out of things to say. She was saved by a knock at the door. Hustling to get to her feet before Greta did, she almost ran to let the visitor in.

  Opening the door, she saw an auburn-haired woman with blue eyes peeking out from under long bangs. She didn’t look much older than Amande.

  The young woman held out a hand, shook Amande’s, and said, “I’m a friend of the captain’s, and I have something for his sister.”

  Jeanine called out, “A friend of Edward’s? Oh, my. Please bring her in here so I can say hello.”

  Amande did that. Jeanine’s most recent guest introduced herself as Samantha Kennedy as she held out a book bound in worn brown linen. “The captain lent me this book on the history of the lumber industry in Florida, and I wanted to return it,” she said. “It was a big help while I was writing my dissertation. There aren’t many copies left, and the other ones are held in archives too far away for me to even think about visiting on a graduate student’s budget. I can’t tell you how grateful I am to him, and I wanted you to know.”

  “Have you finished your dissertation, dear?” Jeanine asked. “Are you Dr. Kennedy now?”

  Samantha nodded shyly. “Yes, and I’m teaching, just like I’ve always dreamed—two courses at Micco County Community College plus a course at Florida State. With the captain’s help, I’ve put together a book manuscript that just might get me a tenure-track job, once I find a publisher. I couldn’t have done it without him.”

  Samantha was still holding out the book, but Jeanine waved it away. “Keep it, dear. If it helps you in your work, it will be keeping my dear brother’s memory alive. Please sit down and tell me about yourself.”

  Amande jumped up to give Samantha her chair, despite the fact that there were still two empty ones in the room. Then she fled, because she just couldn’t bear to be where she was any longer. Jeanine’s grief just might break her if she stayed.

  Also, Samantha seemed very sweet, perhaps even someone who could be a friend, but Greta Haines and Cyndee Stamp made her skin crawl. Amande couldn’t say why she felt that way, but she did.

  Amande knew that when she told her parents about her day, her dad would say he was glad Miss Jeanine had friends to visit her. Amande’s dad loved everybody in the whole wide world. It would never occur to him that anybody might have bad motives, because he’d never had one in his life.

  Her mother, however, would share Amande’s instinctive response to Greta and Cyndee, which was to roll her eyes and watch her back. She didn’t know exactly why Miss Jeanine would need to watch her back, but Amande had seen some hard years. Her grandmother had always been able to make sure that she ate, but it hadn’t always been enough to fill her up and make her feel safe. Amande had the impression that Faye’s mother and grandmother had worked just as hard to make sure she had what she needed, most of the time. Joe’s family had been poor, too, but poverty hadn’t marked him the way it had marked Amande and her mom.

  To Amande and Faye, money was a buffer against a hard world. Neither of them would steal to build up a pile of money big enough to make them feel safe forever, but Amande had no doubt that some people would. This gave her a suspicious streak and she wasn’t proud of it. It had taken years for the notion to sink in, but Amande was now realizing that she and her mother were a lot alike. This did not make her especially happy.

  She shoved that thought away to think about something else, like what gifts she could bring to Miss Jeanine that would outshine Greta’s stupid luxury items. Maybe a photo to remember her brother by?

  Amande had taken a picture of Captain Eubank that she liked. It was nothing special, just something she’d snapped with a phone camera when he’d come back to the marina with a really big fish. She’d insisted that he hold that cobia up next to a yardstick, because it was just so darn big. His grin lit the whole picture.

  She knew that her parents would come help Miss Jeanine. Her dad would climb up on the roof to make sure the tarps up there were doing what tarps were supposed to do. Her mother had been patching the roof on their Joyeuse Island house since she was in grade school, so she could help him,
but she’d be more useful in the house. Miss Jeanine was going to need help filling out the big pile of insurance paperwork sitting on her kitchen table, and her mom was way better than her dad at that kind of thing.

  Amande was confident in the fact that her parents were good people, even the mother whom she often wanted to throttle. She just wasn’t sure that she could live with them.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Faye was exhausted from a morning spent with people who were still trying to patch their lives together. She and Joe had just finished helping a young couple sweep broken window glass out of their house. They’d loaded a dumpster with those shards, and then they’d stacked busted boards with protruding nails on top of them. The goal was to get the house safe enough for their toddlers, who were all three staying with their grandparents. The nearer the couple came to being reunited with their kids, the perkier they got.

  Now Faye sat with Emma, trying to work up an appetite for another peanut-butter-and-honey lunch. This was hard to do in a house that felt like a sauna. No wonder Emma looked so weary and so sweaty. Faye knew intellectually that her friend was in her seventies, but she worked hard to stay in denial about it. Faye planned to have Emma around until she herself was seventy. At least.

  Emma ate well, she exercised, and she was finicky about her clothes and makeup, so her youthful looks made it easy for Faye to stay in denial. Today, though, one of the people Faye cherished most finally looked old. Faye was shocked by how much this rocked her world.

  “If you could just cool off, you’d feel better, Emma. At least let us get you a generator and an air conditioner. Just a window unit. Joe will drive to Georgia if that’s what it takes to find one.”

  “No, thank you. Do you know how many years of my life I spent in Florida before I could afford air conditioning? I’m tougher than I look.”

  Faye didn’t doubt this, but she also knew how long it had been since Emma weathered a Florida summer without artificially cooled air. The temperature in her house was nearing the one hundred mark. This was the kind of weather that killed people. There was a reason that she’d had no takers from the neighbors she’d urged to come stay with her. They were more comfortable in their tents.

  Emma wasn’t finished arguing. “Do you know how many children live in the houses around me? I can’t have them listening to my generator whine all day and all night while they sit in the heat.”

  “Then invite them over.”

  Emma looked at her as if she were just too tired to say, “How many people do you think I can fit in my living room? This problem isn’t solvable for everybody, so don’t try to solve it for me.”

  Faye wasn’t finished arguing, but she decided to take a break from it and try to be useful. The dining room table was loaded with papers that were mostly pretty dry, because Emma had thrown a plastic tablecloth over them until Faye got the roof leak patched.

  Faye pulled back the tablecloth and heard Emma say, “Oh, don’t do that. I keep that stuff covered up because I can’t stand to look at it. I’ve got insurance paperwork to do and FEMA paperwork to file. The documents I need to fill out all those forms were stored in a filing cabinet that leaked. Now they’re moldy and mildewed. I can’t even find my regular bills, and it’s way past time to pay them. It’s all just awful. Leave that pile of misery alone, please. Let me just sit here and fret about it.”

  Faye pretended like she didn’t hear a word as she poked around in the damp paper. Then she found a form that brought her to her feet, spouting language that she ordinarily didn’t use in front of her substitute mother.

  “What is this shit? You didn’t sign it, did you? Emma? Tell me you didn’t sign it.”

  “Does it look signed?” Emma was too exhausted to even scold her for cursing. “What’s got you so upset, Faye?”

  “Upset” was a very pale word for the way Faye was feeling. “Enraged” might begin to cover it. Maybe. “Apoplectic” was better.

  “This is a power of attorney. If you sign it…well, I’m not a lawyer, but if I read it right, signing it will give away your rights to any money your insurance company gives you to get this house fixed.”

  Emma’s house was luxurious, because her late husband Douglass may have started life as a sharecropper’s son but he’d ended it as a very rich man. The hurricane had ripped some of that luxury away and dumped a ton of rain on what was left. It was going to take a big pile of money to make Emma’s house the way it used to be. Faye firmly believed that Douglass would haunt her if she didn’t make that happen. The idea that Emma could have been tricked into letting somebody steal the money she needed to repair her home made Faye want to beat her head against the wall.

  Emma tried to speak, but she only got out “Greta said—” before Faye interrupted her.

  “Greta Haines? Greta works for your insurance company. She’s an insurance adjuster. She’s supposed to decide how much her company owes you and then she’s supposed to tell them to cut you a check. That’s all. She’s not supposed to have any control over your money.”

  Faye was pretty sure she was oversimplifying the situation, but she thought this explanation was close enough.

  “Oh, no. She doesn’t work for my insurance company. She’s what they call a public adjuster. You hire her to be your independent advocate, like you’d hire a lawyer. It only makes sense, Faye. Why should I trust my insurance company to volunteer to give me what I’m due? That’s the way Greta puts it. I feel like I need somebody like her on my side, making sure the insurance people do what they’re supposed to do.”

  “No no no no no, not somebody like Greta.” Faye made a big show of tearing up the power of attorney. “We will help you with this paperwork.”

  “We? I doubt Joe’s any better at paperwork than I am.”

  Faye tried to imagine Joe gathering the information to file a bunch of insurance claims, then filling them out and filing them, and then following up when the company threw up roadblocks to getting them paid. She couldn’t do it. There was a reason that Faye ran the business side of their lives.

  “Okay. Not we. Me,” Faye said. “I’ll take care of the paperwork.”

  “When? Faye, you always try to do too much, but this hurricane has made everything worse. All of it. You can’t fix everything for everybody. I thought that maybe hiring Greta to help me would take some pressure off of you.”

  “Okay, so I can’t fix everything for everybody, but let me try to fix things for you. You, Joe, and the kids. And maybe the sheriff and Magda, if they run into trouble.”

  “Is that everybody you plan to load on your back and carry? You’re going to break, Faye.”

  “I’ve been doing it a long time and I haven’t broken yet. I’ll get through today. We’ll worry about tomorrow later. Just please don’t even talk to Greta Haines, not ever again. Don’t let her in your door. Don’t let her step foot on your property. Promise me.”

  * * *

  Faye did her best thinking alone in the car. Damaged roads near the coast meant that she’d had to take a roundabout way to Crawfordville and back for her afternoon supply run, but the extra minutes gave her time to clear her head. She needed to sort through the sick feeling that the captain’s death had left in her stomach. She also needed time to stew over the damp papers steaming gently in her back seat, topped by the torn-up pieces of the odious power of attorney. By the time she’d driven ten miles, she had a plan.

  Unless the captain’s autopsy turned up something unexpected, there was a real chance that his death would be declared an accident. Faye wasn’t ready for that, not yet, and she didn’t feel the need to wait any longer to try to learn more. There was a way to do some investigating that didn’t require the sheriff’s permission. And it was even legal.

  When she entered the land of satisfactory cell service, she called her daughter and said, “Will you see Jeanine Eubank this afternoon?”

 
Amande said, “Yes,” so Faye immediately said, “I’ve got a favor to ask.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  At the end of a long Wednesday, Faye put her car in park and looked around the marina parking lot for Amande’s car. No luck. The young woman was still out making her rounds. Or maybe she was picking up Michael, strapping him in his car seat, and bringing him home. It was well past five, so they both must be exhausted. Faye certainly was.

  She saw Joe waiting for her on the deck with a cold drink, and she tried to remember where their boats were. If Amande’s boat was here, then she and Joe could get in the one that had brought them ashore and make tracks for home. If Amande’s boat was back at Joyeuse Island, then they’d need to wait. It would be really embarrassing to get a call and hear her say, “Mom? Do you want to come get us? Or do you want Michael and me to sleep in the car?”

  Oh, yeah. They’d figured this all out over breakfast. Amande’s boat was here. Faye and Joe could go on home in her oyster skiff, because Amande kept a tiny little life jacket for Michael on her boat at all times.

  She cut across the parking lot, waving at Joe to meet her at the boat ramp, because she was just too tired to walk out of her way. And also because she was too bone-tired to make idle conversation with Manny.

  Then she saw Manny standing by the boat ramp, chatting with Joe’s buddy, Nate Peterson, and she knew that she wasn’t going to be able to avoid him. From this distance, even Manny looked a little worse for wear, and that was notable because his personal brand was to be utterly chill. She wasn’t sure that twists and curls as bouncy as Manny’s could be said to droop, but his were hanging closer to his sweaty face and neck.

  As Faye drew near, she heard Manny and Nate talking, mostly about the price of gas and the heat, which was still a stifling ninety-five with only an hour or two left before sundown.