After waiting a few more minutes for some sign of life in the Lighthouse, Rick gave up. He grabbed one of the gritty towels off the couch as he let himself out of the cottage, and a glance back at the upstairs windows revealed that the curtains were still pulled shut. He supposed he didn’t blame Trista for sleeping in, considering that he’d made such an ass of himself yesterday.
He ran to the ocean and dived in, surfacing well beyond the breaking waves. The water was cold and bracing, and he struck out toward the gray clapboard house, his strokes strong and precise. There were no other swimmers around, only a man strolling at the edge of the surf. He rested for a few minutes on the beach before starting back.
As he strode out of the water, he was relieved to note that Trista was sitting on the porch. His heart gladdened at the sight of her, and until then, he hadn’t realized how fearful he’d been after last night’s conversation that she would leave anyway. When she saw him, she set aside her coffee mug to start out across the dunes. She was clad in an oversize shirt with the ends of the long sleeves flapping, and underneath was the faint outline of her swimsuit. Her hair was pulled back in a careless knot, and as usual on the island, she wore no makeup.
“I can’t believe you went for a swim on the first morning without me,” she called as soon as she was in hearing range.
He stopped in front of her, seawater sluicing down his body. “I didn’t want to wake you.”
“We always go for a swim together on the first morning,” she said without attempting to hide her disappointment. “It’s tradition.”
He didn’t want to upset her any more than he already had, and he hoped he could find some common ground this morning. Humor might be his best bet.
“Okay, race you if you dare!” he challenged, pretending to take his mark. It felt natural to banter with her, though he had to force himself.
But she wasn’t about to let him off so easily. “The first-morning swim has to be with all of us together, right after the sun has risen, and before breakfast. Those are the rules.”
“We’ll all go together when Peter and Lindsay get here,” he said reassuringly. He scooped up his towel and began to dry himself. “What do you say we have breakfast?”
Her eyes lit up. “You’re on. There are no traditions about that.”
“Would you like to initiate one? It’s not too late.”
She only laughed, but it was a welcome sound, and they began walking toward the dune path that led to the house.
While Rick went to shower, Trista rummaged in the pantry for food, and when he returned, she had poured corn flakes into two of his mother’s blue willow bowls.
“Cereal was all I could find,” she said.
“This is what I eat every morning. When I eat, that is. How about you?”
“Power bars, all different flavors. Rice cakes sometimes.” Trista sat down at the table, and Rick joined her.
“I’ve been thinking about last night,” he said after a long silence punctuated only by the clink of their spoons.
Trista spared him a wary look.
“Maybe I’ve become a bit too introspective. Too self-centered.”
She pushed a few corn flakes around the bowl, appearing to consider this. “You’re entitled, but you can’t shut out the world forever, Rick,” she said.
“Sometimes I’d like to,” he replied softly. “I guess I hadn’t admitted it to myself until now.”
“Maybe this is a breakthrough,” she said.
“Maybe.” Suddenly, he wanted to explain himself, even though it wasn’t natural for him to want to confide in others. “It wounded my ego when Shorty put me on leave. I understand now that I hadn’t been operating at top speed even before the accident. Things hadn’t been good between Martine and me for a long time, and I was trying to make the pain go away by staying busy. In hindsight, I realize that I should have dealt with our problems before they blew up in my face.”
“Martine could have dealt with the problems, too,” Trista said.
“Ah, but I became a workaholic in order to cover up my misery. Martine had an affair. Who’s to say if one coping technique is better than another?”
Trista didn’t say anything. They were silent for a long time, each lost in thought, but she finished eating first.
“Whatever happened between you and Martine, I don’t blame either of you. It’s not up to me to judge or accuse or—well, you know what I’m saying. I care about both of you and wish you the best.” As if unconsciously, she spread a palm out on the table, fitting it over the white-painted outline of her hand that his father had painted there when they were ten years old.
“We’ve outgrown our handprints,” he said, placing his right hand over the corresponding outline on his side of the table. “But not each other.”
“Not each other,” she repeated, a tentative smile curving her lips.
“Well,” he said, now that they’d reached a point of semi-normality. “Let’s get on with our morning chores.” He spoke with an air of brisk efficiency.
Trista slid her chair back from the table. “I’m planning to tackle the spiderwebs in the living room now, and I could use some help.” She seemed to deliver the words only with some effort, and he understood how it was. Despite his attitude of moving forward, he was merely going through the motions himself, attempting to salvage all he could with Trista after making such a mess of it with Martine. He intended to be on his best behavior from now on because he’d realized that yes, he did need his friends. Some more than others.
“I’ll collect the dirty towels,” he told her, putting the milk back in the refrigerator.
Trista regarded him, one eyebrow lifted in skepticism. “Big whoop, Rick. What about that leaning tower of beer cans?”
He pretended to be aggrieved. “That’s art,” he said, but he ripped a large plastic bag off the roll beneath the sink, went into the living room and began to toss the cans into it.
WithTrista dusting, Rick mopping and then taking turns with the vacuum cleaner, they soon whipped the room into shape. When they finished, good humor restored, Rick expressed a hankering for fried chicken and suggested a trip to the Bi-Lo supermarket on the mainland to buy some. “You can tag along with me if you like,” he said, hoping she would.
She shook the duster out the kitchen door. “I’d better get the Tolsons’ room ready,” she said.
“Suit yourself.” Rick wasn’t sure if she just didn’t want to go with him or if she really felt it was necessary to get the cottage all gussied up for Lindsay and Peter.
He jangled his car keys and left the back door slam behind him. But when he reached the bottom porch step, he turned and stuck his head back inside. “By the way, Trista, I really am glad you’re here.”
A flush rose to her cheeks. “Don’t overdo it, Rick. I’m planning to clean the bathrooms anyway.”
“I just wanted you to know.”
He was rewarded by a tentative but incandescent smile.
After he left the cottage, he drove slowly toward the bridge, the car radio set to the beach music station. Right now, Otis Redding was singing “Sitting on the Dock of the Bay,” which had always been his favorite Tappany Island tune, reminding him of all the days he had sat with Trista and Martine on the edge of the old dock on the marsh, swinging their legs over the side and planning—some might say plotting—their futures.
It was to the dock on the marsh that he had gone after Roger Barrineau’s funeral when his parents had offered Sweetwater Cottage to Virginia as a place to recover from the brutal murder of her husband. The funeral had been a long-drawn-out affair, featuring eulogies by two of Roger’s law partners, both of whom had assured Rick at the gathering at the Barrineaus’ house afterward that he still had a place in the firm after graduation from law school. No one realized that he had a fire burning in his gut, one that seared his soul so deeply he’d lost all interest in defending accused criminals.
After everyone had left the house, he and Martine had d
riven Virginia down to Tappany Island, with Trista planning to arrive later in her own car. As soon as they set foot inside the cottage, Virginia had bolted down the knockout pills supplied by her family doctor and retired to her room. Martine, red-eyed and teary over the loss of her father, had waved Rick away when he tried to comfort her, saying she was too exhausted to relive any part of the past horrible days, so, at loose ends, he’d headed across the street to the dock, alone.
Trista’s car, in those days a small blue sedan, appeared on the road as Rick was walking glumly toward the marsh, his hands stuffed deep in the pockets of a windbreaker that did little to soften the blustery wind sweeping out of the west.
She hailed him through her open window. “Hey! What are you doing?”
“Going to spend a few minutes on the dock. Need fresh air.”
She parked alongside the road, scrambling out and pulling her jacket with her. She didn’t speak as they walked down the dock, and he appreciated her silence. He’d been mulling over things in his mind, winnowing out choices and assessing possibilities.
Clouds rippled in layers on the western horizon—luminous pearl gray, softest peach and a brilliant red fired by the setting sun. Trista’s eyes were swollen from all the crying of the past couple of days, and she seemed exhausted. He was grateful for her willingness to keep him company. Roger had been like a second father to him. With Roger’s death, Rick saw his life tumbling around him, Humpty Dumpty and the wall all over again. That had been one of his favorite nursery rhymes—once.
“How’s Mom doing?” she asked after they’d sat dangling their feet off the dock for a while.
“She went to sleep right away. Poor thing, she’s still in shock.”
“As are we all,” Trista said with feeling. “And Martine?”
“Okay,” he said.
“How about you?”
“I’ll manage,” he said. “I’m more worried about you. It must have been awful, finding out the way you did.”
“It was better for me to tell Mom than have the police show up on her doorstep,” Trista said. She’d been working at the TV station when an item came across her desk concerning “a prominent local criminal lawyer who was attacked outside the Richland County Courthouse by a former client,” and when she burst into the room where the video footage was being edited for that night’s broadcast, she saw her own father being gunned down. She immediately tried to locate Virginia, who was out shopping, and after she told her mother the terrible news, it had fallen to Trista to call him and Martine.
When Rick and Martine arrived at the house in Windsor Manor after driving several hours from North Carolina, Trista was the one in charge, talking on the phone with the funeral director, arranging for someone to clean the house and prepare it for a reception following the ceremony, even choosing her father’s burial clothes.
Despite the strain of all that, on the dock the day of the funeral Trista had skillfully led him through his own thought processes so that before they stood and brushed the bits of leaves and grass off the seats of their jeans, he had known that he would not join Roger’s law firm. He would devote his life to getting criminals off the streets and keeping them in jail; the man who had killed Roger was a two-time convicted felon who had been released on parole for reasons that made no sense to any sane person.
Thinking back to that day, Rick was so caught up in his musings that he was actually surprised when the Bi-Lo supermarket appeared on the left-hand side of the road. He turned in to the parking lot and hurried inside. As he waited at the deli counter, he wondered if Trista still liked drumsticks the best. If so, he’d buy several.
He dialed the cottage’s phone from his cell, but Trista didn’t answer either that or her cell phone. He belatedly recalled that she usually turned it off when on vacation. So he bought six drumsticks, figuring that if she didn’t eat them, either he or the crabs off the end of the dock would.
Chapter 11: Trista
2004
Click: Picture of a stray dog. She is the color of caramels, and her fur is matted with burrs. She’s sitting beside the garbage can at Sweetwater Cottage. Her tongue is lolling and she seems to be saying, “Give me a chance. Give me a bath. Feed me!” I snapped the picture. Rick wasn’t anywhere around.
After Rick left for the Bi-Lo, I vacuumed the Tolsons’ room, put fresh sheets on the bed and made a big pitcher of sweetened iced tea for later. Then I clicked on the television and popped one of my favorite movies into the DVD player. I soon realized, though, that I’d left my glasses in my car and went outside to get them.
“Yo,” said a voice behind me as I made my way along the sandy walkway. I whirled to find a spindly guy ambling up the driveway with a letter carrier’s bag slung over his shoulder. His skin was the rich color of weathered mahogany, and he had a twinkle in his eye. He carried a fistful of mail and looked slightly familiar.
“Yes?” I said politely.
“Are you R. E. McCulloch? I’ve been trying to deliver mail to you for months.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Haven’t we met before? My auntie used to bring me over here in the summers, and I’d help her wash windows and drag things out to the trash pile before heading down to the beach to throw a few nets for bait. My name’s Stanley Doyle.”
I moved a bit closer and peered up at him, the sun in my eyes. “You’re Stanley? Queen’s nephew? Why, I’m so glad to see you.” I had a flash memory of a skinny guy who loved to laugh.
“Queen’s favorite nephew,” he corrected as he pumped my hand, his eyes lighting up.
I smiled at him. “How is Queen?” I asked.
“My aunt has gone to live with her son Bert in McLellanville. He owns a fleet of fishing boats, and she does all the bookkeeping for his business.”
Well, life moves on for everyone. I’d missed Queen around the cottage during recent summer visits, and Lilah Rose had been vague about what had happened to her. “Tell Queen I said hey. I’m Trista, and I remember her waffles.”
Stanley laughed. “So do I. They were almost as good as her biscuits. Now, who’s this R. E. McCulloch? Is that the same Rick, or have you got someone new?”
“That’s Rick, all right. You probably remember him.”
“Uh-huh, bright kid, great smile. How am I going to get him to put up a mailbox? Can’t deliver the mail if he doesn’t have one.”
“I’ll give Rick the mail, if you like.”
“I can’t do that. Regulations.”
“Okay, I’ll make sure Rick gets a mailbox.”
“That’s a good idea. Been holding mail at the post office ever since I took over as relief letter carrier while the regular gal is out on maternity leave. The U.S. Postal Service doesn’t take kindly to being a warehouse for letters addressed to people who are too lazy to put up a proper receptacle.” He winked.
“I understand.”
“Okay, I’ll be watching for that mailbox.” He smiled and tipped me a genial wave, then paused on his way down the path. “Hey, it occurs to me that maybe you’d be interested in that mutt over there.” He gestured toward the hedge, and in the shadows underneath, a dog was sitting with her tongue hanging. She was light brown with short hair and a long straggly tail. A small dog, only a puppy. I hadn’t noticed her before.
“Is that your dog?” I asked.
“Nope, she’s a stray. She pads around after me on my route, been doing that for weeks now. I pour her a drink from my water bottle and sometimes give her part of my sandwich at lunchtime. She probably survives by eating food people leave on the beach.”
My heart went out to the poor thing. “Why don’t you take her home, Stanley?” I asked. When the dog noticed us studying her, she wagged her tail enthusiastically. There was something lovable about the way she cocked her head and blinked at us.
“No, I’ve got a couple of attack cats who wouldn’t take too kindly to the intrusion.”
“That’s too bad.”
“Yup, she’s a sweet little old
mutt, from the looks of her.”
“I’ll give her water,” I promised. I couldn’t bear to see an animal suffer.
Stanley grinned. “Maybe you’ll want to feed her, too,” he said. He went on his way, humming a tune.
I’d been warned so many times by my mother not to feed strays, a dictum established because Mom had no use for animals. Her one aberration had been Bungie, and that only because she was under pressure from my father, who said Martine and I needed a pet; otherwise our growing-up years wouldn’t be authentic. But right now, Mom wasn’t here, and this was an attractive pup. My camera was just inside the house, and I went to get it, hoping to capture her sweet expression.
The dog seemed to know she was the center of attention, and her ears perked right before I snapped the shutter. Entranced, I observed her for a few moments. She lay down in the shade of the hedge, an intelligent glint sparkling in her eyes. And there was something more—a warmth, an eagerness.
I hoped she would soon find a home, but I wasn’t prepared to provide it and doubted that Rick would, either. I splashed some water from the hose into an old aluminum pie plate I found under the porch and waited while she drank her fill. She gazed up at me, her eyes full of gratitude.
I stroked the soft fur between her ears but realized this might give her the wrong idea about the local hospitality. “Shoo,” I said, waving my hands at her. “Go find some rich retired people to hassle.”
Turning my back on her, I hurried back inside. Then I settled down to watch Debbie Reynolds charm Gene Kelly in Singin’ in the Rain. I spent almost an hour absorbed in the costumes, music and plot before the phone rang. Reluctantly, I paused the video and answered the phone at the bar.
It was Lindsay. “Trista, I’m so glad it’s you! Can you talk?”
Clicking the TV off, I hitched myself up on a stool. “Rick’s out, so sure.”
“How’s it going?”
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