September Song
Copyright© 2013, by Jeanie Freeman-Harper
ISBN 10: 1484892526
ISBN 13: 978-1484892527
This book is a work of the author's imagination and does not depict actual persons or places. Any similarities are purely coincidental.
All rights to this book are reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without written permission from the author, with the exception of quotes used for reviews.
Credits
“Baby Come Back”
Peter Beckett, John Charles Crowley
“See You in September”
Sid Wayne, Sherman Edwards
“Traces of Love”
Buddy Buie, J.D. Gordy, J.R. Cobb.
“These Arms of Mine”
Otis Redding
“Any Day Now”
Ronnie Milsap
Chapters
1: Baby,Come Back
2: Old Ties Undone
3: Invisible and Deadly
4: The Past Revisited
5: Mysteries: Art as in Life
6: An Unlikely Gathering
7: Some Sailed Away
8: Aftermath
9: Business as Usual
10: Confrontation
11: Georgia
12: Father and Daughter
13: Ruby and Lucas
14: Revelation
15: Please Come to Boston
16: Emma's Debut
17: New Sheriff in Town
18: Missing Links
19: Avenging Angel
20: Darkness into Light
Epilogue: Five Years Later
“Though lovers be lost, love shall not; And death shall have no dominion."
Dylan Thomas
1: Baby,Come Back
Emma St. Claire eased her station wagon along the dirt road past Moon Lake and stopped at the century-old house that loomed high on the hill ahead. Shrouded in the hazy dying light, it was the way she remembered it: a grizzled gray hulk of limestone and mortar mixed with long buried secrets. With its wide porches piled high with decaying leaves moving rhythmically in the wind, the St. Claire house was downright somber. It was also the childhood home she left long ago.
She rolled onto a concrete driveway now cracked from many relentless Texas summers and parked next to her father's pick-up truck. Then, almost against her will, she peered one hundred feet down to the water's edge. There small boats bobbled and bumped against the long wooden pier, and doves cooed for their soul mates in the tree–lined perimeter. Her pulse raced.
Don't think about the lake, she told herself. Not yet . You can deal with it later.
She took a deep breath like a diver perched on a high board and stepped out into the early autumn evening. She had forgotten about the sweetness of East Texas country air—so different from the smokiness of Boston. Its clarity swept away the cobwebs of indecision: I'll make the best of it. After all... it's only for a little while.
The road trip to Texas had been arduous. Emma had taken little notice of scenery or landmarks; but at last she had arrived in Cobblers Cove with the setting of the sun. Time stood still the minute she hit the city limits. Little had changed in that secluded pine-land village—outside of a few new shops and unfamiliar faces. Five miles out of town, she had come to stand before the childhood home she had forsaken long ago. Her heart pounded, and her head swam. She willed herself to place one foot in front of the other, as unpleasant memories flooded her mind.
At thirty-four years of age, Emma was still haunted by her seventeenth year—the year she had run as far as she could from home. Remembering it was the last thing she wanted to do, but the time had come. Back then, everything was oh so intense. She had waited feverishly for vacation of 1996 to end, that summer before senior year. She had barely noticed the mountains of Colorado or the canyons of Arizona and had done little more than endure the road trip with her puzzled parents.
All she had cared about was making it to September and the return to Cobblers Cove—and back to an eighteen year old lifeguard Ethan Abernathy. In those days before texting, there had been the rushed phone calls at service station phone booths along the route, the hastily scribbled cards and letters dripping with declarations of undying devotion. Yet, after all was said and done, Emma and Ethan had become a story without a fairy tale ending. Ethan was dead.
Because of the unrelenting trauma she associated with the Cobblers Cove tragedy, Emma had left to live with her Grandmother Donovan in Boston. It was far as she could get from Texas. And when she turned eighteen, she declared herself an adult and refused to set foot there again. During that first year, the St. Claires, Lucas and Grace, had spent week-ends flying up to visit their only child ,until the process became unmanageable. That's when her parents' marriage, held by one ragged thread, came undone. One bright spring morning, Grace St. Claire packed up her things, while Lucas was mending fences in the field and took the next flight out of Houston on a one way ticket to Boston.
And now, it was Emma who returned and stood at the threshold of her childhood home. She had come home as a woman, for the first time in seventeen years. It was as if she were a stranger, unaware of what she would find beyond the heavy double doors.
Her father came to greet her: Lucas St. Claire looked fit in faded Levis and well worn but shined boots, with closely clipped salt and pepper hair that had once been the chestnut color Emma had inherited. His still bright green eyes mirrored her own and were so similar in color that when she was a child,the old folks would remark, “That's one kid Lucas St. Claire can't deny.”
Lucas' smile was warm and genuine when he greeted her: “Welcome home. I suppose you noticed. The old place is up for sale.” He nodded toward the Walkers Real Estate sign on the lawn.
“I never thought you would consider giving this place up.”
“Getting almost too old to keep it up I guess, especially with just me here. I still haul livestock up North, and your old buddy Brad keeps an eye on it when I'm out of town. He came in the other day while I was hauling cows and fixed a leak under the sink. That boy turned out to be a good man.”
Maybe you just don't know him, Emma thought.
Lucas grabbed her luggage, and she followed him inside. The front room looked much the same as she remembered: a mix of traditional and antique furniture, a cavernous river rock fireplace and her father's leather recliner sitting in the same place in front of the television. The heavy, ornate drapes had been removed sometime after her mother had left. Her father had always hated the way they had stifled the natural light that now streamed freely through the tall open windows. There was to the place a lived in look: unpretentious, with books stacked here and there in no particular order and deep cushioned, oversized furniture. There was that obvious lack of a woman's touch, for her mother had not set foot in the house in years preferring to remain in Boston, even after Grandmother Donovan passed away.
“Sit down,” Lucas ordered. “Surely you need no invitation. This is still your home...at least until its sold.”
Lucas went to the kitchen, and Emma could hear the coffee brewing and cups rattling. “I dusted your old room,” he called out. “Filled the fridge with your favorite treats. You know what...maybe we can take the boat out tomorrow. Just like old times.”
“I don't think it can ever be like old times, Dad. We'll make the best of it while I'm here taking some vacation time...but not more than a few weeks.”
Now he was standing before her handing her a mug of his rich chicory laced coffee. “Creamer and honey...just the way you like it?”
Emma cradled the cup in her hands, took a sip and smiled. “ Just as I like it, Dad. ”
Lucas sat on the ottoman in front of
her chair and sipped his coffee silently for a moment before speaking:
"You say you've finally come to piece together the past, Emma. I don't know why, after all these years and don’t need to know. I'm just proud of you for it. Seems like you told me that the doctor said you needed to come back to be able to recall what happened, especially before we found you with the body. I know you've decided it's time to let go. Ethan passed away a long time ago.”
Lucas St. Claire made a ceremony out of tugging off his boots and easing into his recliner and Emma waited for his thoughts to unfold:
“We can speculate, and I've done plenty of that, but his death was classified as 'undetermined'. Most folks around town believe he drowned himself. Even men in the sheriff’s department believe he chose to end his life right out there in Moon Lake. If that's true, that’s what he chose, and you chose to live...even when you didn't want to. So live. Get on with your life. You've never been able to even have a lasting relationship...that I know of.”
“That's not exactly true, Dad. There's Benjamin Winfield...you know...in Boston. Did I tell you I do graphic artwork for his ad company? We've been seeing each other for a few years now and...”
“Oh, of course. Benjamin in Boston. How's that working out for you? Hasn't gone anywhere, has it?”
Emma set down her cup and turned her hands palms up in helplessness. “He would like for there to be more...and I'm considering it. I'm sorry, but I can't discuss this.”
Before Lucas could respond, she walked out to the porch among the crisp clutter of dead leaves and neglected potted plants both dying and dead. She faced the darkening lake with arms folded against both an early chill and her father's intrusion into her self–contained world. Lucas gave Emma her moment, before he came out to lean in the doorway behind her; when he spoke, his tone was softer:
“What's going on in that head of yours, Emma? What are you thinking right now?”
“Do you really want to know, Dad?”
“Wouldn't have asked otherwise.”
Emma's eyes focused on Moon Lake, now illuminated by a rising moon. “Do you think that in Ethan's last moments he felt regret? Do you suppose he wished he could live...in that moment when his lungs began to fill with water?”
She was surprised by the sound of her voice. The words had come out hard and clipped, as if to override the aching knot in her throat.
Her father bowed his head and was glad for the cover of darkness, so his daughter could not see the pain in his eyes: “Stop it Emma.”
“Why Dad? You always said I needed to face the past...you and my therapist both. What was it he called it? Hysterical amnesia? What a silly term for blocking pain so you can go on living...breathing. But then Mother tried to shield me from that so called “total recall.” She said not to talk about it... to focus on my career, and some day...someday... it wouldn't hurt so bad. Well, she was wrong. Sometimes I try handling it in that tough Texas manner like you handle everything in your life. I'm not sure I can do that either. I've gone on with my life, but I 'm not sure where my life has gone.”
“Some day you'll find your way. You’re more St. Claire than Donovan...more me than your mother. You and I can meet things head on.. Of course, it's simpler for me. I'm not sophisticated like your mother's blue–blood family. We're worlds apart, your mother and I. It was an odd twist of events that brought us together, given our backgrounds.”
“How did you meet?”
Lucas paused as if lost in reverie and then continued: “I never told you? Well... I was in the Air Force, stationed at a base up in Bedford, and your mama was a civilian from Boston. She worked there. Know what drew me to your mama?”
“No, Dad.Tell me.”
“Her quirky laugh and New England reserve... and it didn't hurt that she was a looker...but Emma, she was always too quick to retreat when there was a problem. I have nothing bad to say about her, but we're different, that's all. I don't run from life. Neither does my flesh and blood.”
“I haven’t been running from life, Dad. I've been running from death...Ethan's death...for a very long time. Running has taken me in a circle right back to here. Why now, after all these years, you asked me. I had a dream...or maybe an omen...something really strange. It was like I could almost reach out and touch Ethan. He was smiling at me, and it was September, and he was beckoning me back home and...”
Her words caught in her throat, and she looked up into the star filled night as if the answer was hidden somewhere in space.
After a moment, her father moved toward her and touched her shoulder lightly: “Go ahead, Emma. Tell me the rest of your dream.”
But Emma only pressed her finger tips against her temples and closed her eyes. “Look, Dad...I'm really tired. I think I'll just go on up to bed.”
Lucas eased himself into the porch rocker and said nothing more, feeling the gap between them widen.
“One more thing before I go in. I'm really sorry that you and Mother live thousands of miles apart. I know it was because of me. Some day I hope to see both of you together again.”
Without turning, Lucas responded, as much to himself as her: “Maybe it wasn't you. Maybe that's just how it is when two planets collide. They simply spin out of their orbits.”
Seeing there was nothing more to say, Emma left the porch to go up to her old room, trudging up the staircase, carrying with her the weariness of the long trip that had just ended. Her room was much the same as it was seventeen years ago: the quilted comforter with the yellow rose buds, the wall filled with ribbons from her high school art projects, the ruffled white curtains that fluttered at the windows opened to an early fall night. The bed felt the same as she sprawled across it, just as she had done as a teenager when she wanted to sort her thoughts.
Bit by bit, she relived the argument that had ended in Ethan's death, that September day, just before the St. Claire family had returned home. The phone call had begun with Ethan hearing the coolness in her voice and asking her what was wrong.
“I know you've been seeing someone else while I've been on vacation,” she had cried into the phone. “You couldn't wait for me to get back?”
“Who told you that?” Ethan had shouted into the receiver. “I'll never love anyone but you. Nothing matters but you.”
“It doesn't matter how I found out! The person who told me would never lie to me.” His voice had broken: “Please, Emmie...lets don't do this on the phone. Wait until we see each other. I'm going to hang up now. See you in September.”
That's when she had said something she never meant to say—fatal words she would never get a chance to take back: “I don't want to ever see you again.”
She had been oh so young and foolish and had regretted her words immediately; but her pride had locked up her heart in a prison of her own making. By end of vacation, she was so distraught she could barely eat or sleep. Brad Caldwell, whom she had known since kindergarten, had been the one to tell her about “another girl” in Ethan’s life. Emma refused to believe it. She had believed that Brad must surely have been mistaken, after listening to idle gossip. Or was it possible he had made it up? How could Ethan love her as much as she knew he did and betray her so easily? If it had been a lie, it was one Ethan did not live long enough to refute.
She closed her eyes, hugged the pillow to her chest, and the past flooded her senses. At first, she struggled against its current, yet part of her welcomed the crushing waves of memory:
That day in 1996 returning home from summer vacation, her father turned onto Lakeside Road toward their house. From the back seat of the car she spotted Ethan's old row boat tied at their pier. Inside was his bait bucket and the bright blue tackle box she had given him for his birthday. He couldn't be far away—perhaps taking a dip nearby.
“He's here!” she squealed with happiness. “Dad, let me out here...please!”
Her parents had waved her on, smiled wearily and continued down the road to home. Emma raced toward the water in bare feet, feeling the gras
s between her toes and the warm sun on her face. Her senses were heightened , as if to retain that memory of joy and relief.
“I didn't mean what I said Ethan!” she had called out. “Oh please forgive me? Ethan? Where are you?”
Ethan, where are you?
The words resounded into the here and now to echo inside her head. Emma's eyes flashed open, and seventeen years had come and gone. The memory faded and then eluded her altogether—like an illusive dream that disappears upon awakening. She had been sleepwalking for a long time: unable to love, to feel, to move on. Remembering might put the past to rest; comprehending might overcome its hold —or send her to the depths of despair.
To lighten her mood, she switched on her old bedside radio that was still tuned to the oldies station they both had loved. One of their favorites was playing, and it jolted her senses with long repressed memories:
Baby come back.
Any kind of fool could see...
there was something in everything about you.
Baby come back.
You can blame it all on me.
I was wrong... and I just cant live without you.
The song continued with verses repeating, and then it ended. The announcer's voice sent chills up her spine: “That song was dedicated to someone special in Texas...from Ethan.”
2: Old Ties Undone
The next morning Emma found a note from Lucas on the kitchen counter, and it was as cryptic as she would have expected from her father: “Eggs in fridge. On my way to Amarillo to deliver cattle. Be back Monday. Amy called. Left message. Coffee on warmer.”
She checked the messages and found the one left by her one time hometown friend Amy Walker. Obviously, someone had spotted Emma driving into town and had told Amy.
Something about small towns. You can't sneak in or out unless it's the middle of the night.
Emma decided it was time to make an appearance and be done with the questions, the piteous looks, the careful inquiries regarding her mental health. Amy seemed to be the best starting point in the maze ahead of her; so she dialed Amy's number and made a date for lunch downtown. Then to tide herself over, she poured a glass of orange juice, made toast and went out to the front lawn in her pajamas, just as she had done as a little girl.
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