“Yes, they did.”
He was quiet and then he said, “It’s not fair what happened to them.”
“No, it’s not fair. But that’s life, kiddo. And sometimes life isn’t fair.”
“I guess,” he said, and turned his head away.
She leaned on her elbow and gazed at his face, at the seriousness of his expression for someone so young. “I know you’re worried about Pop. I’m not going to lie to you. I am, too.”
“Did he hurt that man?” Hank asked, and for the first time she saw real fear in her son’s eyes.
“I don’t know,” she said, trying to be as honest as she could. “But what I do know is that your grandfather would never hurt anyone on purpose.”
He nodded, but she wasn’t sure he believed her.
“Kids at school say he’s crazy.”
She pulled him to her, and to her surprise, he didn’t push her away. Instead, they lay on the dock, her arm around him, his head on her shoulder. He smelled familiar, his typical boy smell, salty and sweet, and something else she recognized as testosterone, a sign of the changes coming. Remember this, she thought. Remember this moment. It may be the last she saw of his boyhood.
She placed a hand on her stomach, touching the scar on her abdomen. She hadn’t been able to give him a sibling, someone close to his age who he could’ve counted on, someone who would’ve always had his back, been his best friend like she’d had with Myna at one time. She and Ian had tried to have another child the first few years after Hank had been born. But all of their attempts had failed, miserably so. After more time had passed, a year, two, then three, it had become an unspoken agreement that it was time to move on.
“They’re wrong,” Hank said.
“Who’s wrong?”
“The kids at school,” he said. “Pop’s not crazy. He’s just different.”
She looked at him. “There’s nothing wrong with being different.” She kissed his forehead without worrying he’d pull away, and he didn’t.
The sound of an engine drifted across the water. They sat up to find a news van had pulled into the parking lot. The picketers were no longer sitting but standing, holding their signs in the air. A cameraman fiddled with his equipment while the reporter talked with the small crowd that had gathered around her. She was positioning them in front of the dam, trying to get the shot she wanted for the five o’clock news. Two more news vans pulled into the lot.
“Come on,” she said to Hank. “Let’s get out of here.”
They walked the path through the woods. The wet earth had dried some throughout the day. They stepped over a tree root. Squirrels scampered in the limbs above. She ducked under a low branch of cherry blossoms as they headed up the yard to the side door. A car she didn’t recognize pulled into their driveway. Two other vehicles were stopped on the street in front of the house, more reporters looking to cover the latest news. She imagined what the five o’clock news would look like, a shot of the dam first, and then—Now over to you—another reporter standing on the street in front of the B&B discussing the murder of the young professor.
“Go in the house,” she said to Hank, and then she strode to the vehicle in the driveway.
Jake got out of the car.
Adrenalin shot through her chest and limbs. She was struck again by his good looks. My God. She’d been blind to how much he looked like his father. She felt sick. She lifted her chin. “What do you want?”
He stood by the driver’s side door, talking over the roof of the car. “I need to talk to your dad.”
She snorted. “Is that so?”
“It’s important,” he said.
She shot a look to the street where the reporters had gathered. Jake glanced over his shoulder at the commotion behind him.
“You want to talk with my dad,” she said. “Well, get in line.” She turned away in time to catch Myna flinging open the door and rushing outside.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Myna stumbled on the steps, finding her footing at the last second, and avoided tumbling to the ground. Hank had said the newspaper guy was back, and he was in their driveway.
Ian followed her outside, joining Linnet at the edge of the yard. Linnet’s long lean body was so stiff she could’ve been mistaken for a pole. A hard cold metal pole. She glared at Myna. Myna glared right back.
“Go back in the house,” Linnet said. Ian was already reaching out to put his hand on her shoulder as if to hold her steady.
“No, I will not go in the house,” she said, and headed toward the driveway where Jake stood helpless, looking back and forth between them.
Linnet grabbed her by the arm as she passed by. “Yes, you will,” she said. There was a look of desperation in her eyes. This was more than Linnet’s concern that Myna would say something to harm Pop’s case. This was about protecting all of them. Ian didn’t know about the connection the sisters had with Jake. No one knew.
Not even Jake.
“I need to talk to your dad,” Jake said, addressing Myna specifically.
Myna pulled her arm out of Linnet’s grasp and took the last few steps to the edge of the drive. “About the fish?” she asked, hoping he’d say, yes, he wanted Pop’s thoughts on the dead fish.
He shook his head. His face was pasty, sweaty. Something was wrong.
“We have no comment,” Linnet said, and walked up behind Myna. “Get off my property,” she said to Jake, and grabbed Myna’s arm again, pulling her away, marching her toward the door. This time Myna didn’t resist. Ian was two steps ahead of them.
“I have questions for him,” Jake shouted.
Somewhere behind Jake a woman on the street called, “There’s the family now. Hello, can we ask you a few questions?”
Myna was almost to the door, Linnet’s hand gripped tightly on her arm.
“Dr. Jenkins!” Jake yelled. “Are you in there?”
Ian pulled the door open, motioning them to hurry inside.
“Can you please come out and talk with me?” Jake shouted. “It’s about my dad! Warren Mann.”
Myna’s steps faltered again. Linnet caught her and pulled her through the door. They retreated to opposite sides of the kitchen and avoided looking at each other. What had Jake meant? Why did he want to talk to Pop about his dad? Linnet stood at the sink with her back to the room. Pop was alert, watching them.
“What was that about?” Ian asked, leaning against the counter next to Linnet.
Linnet picked up a dirty mug from the sink, dropped it, and picked it up again. “I have no idea what his problem is,” she said, and put the mug in the dishwasher.
Hank walked into the kitchen. He was wearing his baseball hat and holding his glove. “Ready, Dad?”
“I forgot about practice,” Ian said.
Myna slipped into a chair at the table. She held her head in her hands.
“You need to eat something first,” Linnet said to Hank.
While Linnet was distracted, fixing Hank a hot dog and spooning applesauce into a bowl, Pop leaned in close and whispered into Myna’s ear, “Does that journalist want to talk to me again?”
She dropped her hands to her lap. So he was aware Jake had been outside calling for him. His whispering meant he was also aware Linnet didn’t want him speaking with him. “Yes, he does,” she said. “Do you want to talk to him?”
“I can only tell him about the fish. I’m not allowed to talk about anything else.”
She searched his face, the gray bushy eyebrows, the skin sagging around his sensitive eyes. How much did her father know about the present? How much did he remember about the past? For the first time, she wondered if his memory loss was intentional, if he’d used it to his advantage when it was convenient.
He reached out and touched her forearm, covering the birthmark. It was then Myna remembered something her mother had once said about him.
* * *
Myna returned home after taking her last exam before spring break during her junior year at the univer
sity. She’d dumped her backpack onto the kitchen table and grabbed an apple from the refrigerator, biting into it without washing it first. Linnet would have scolded her for her lack of good judgment, for not washing the chemicals from the skin of the fruit before putting it into her mouth. Too late. She rubbed the apple on her shirt, shining it up, and took another bite.
Linnet had gotten worse in the last few months, bossing Myna around, telling her to pick up her clothes off their bedroom floor, stomping through the house complaining she was the only one in their family doing all of the cleaning. She’d watched her sister during these tantrums, thinking she’d brought them on herself. She’d never worried about cleaning their bedroom before, the one they’d shared since they were toddlers. But that was then, when her sister had been her best friend. Myna wasn’t sure what they were now.
She bit into the apple again. A loud thump came from somewhere in the back of the house. She stopped chewing and put the apple on the countertop. She didn’t think Linnet was home. Lately, her sister had been spending all of her free time with her boyfriend, Ian. Myna followed the creaky wooden floor in the hallway, pausing outside of her mother’s bedroom door. Pop had stopped sleeping in the main house when she was still in high school, around the same time Linnet had stopped being her friend.
“Mom,” Myna said, and opened the door a crack, peeking inside. Her mother sat on the end of the bed, facing the mirror, a hairbrush in her hand.
“Come in,” she said.
Myna pushed the door open and stepped inside. The room smelled stale, the air stagnant.
“He tricked me, you know,” her mother said, combing the ends of her hair over and over again. She licked her dry lips. “He was my professor. And I was just a kid.” She gazed at Myna in the mirror, unblinking as she spoke. “He knew better. I didn’t.”
She’d been only one year older than Myna was now when she’d married Pop. Myna wondered how she might’ve reacted if one of her professors had pursued her. There was one teacher in particular in her sophomore year that she’d daydreamed about, fantasized about. It had been a schoolgirl crush.
She imagined herself in her mother’s place, sitting in the canoe on the dam, surrounded by the snow geese, the handsome professor from her sophomore year standing, falling into the water, his clothes wet, searching for the ring, proposing. It was the kind of scene every girl dreamed about, complete with romance and charm. What girl could resist?
But what Myna wanted to know was when her mother had realized she’d made a mistake. Was it before or after the wedding, before or after she and Linnet had been born? Or had it happened around the time her dark days had taken over? She’d never been afraid to ask her mother questions when she was a child and had been naive. But she was afraid to ask this woman on the bed, the one who’d been absent much of Myna’s life for reasons she hadn’t always been able to control. For once, Myna was too scared to hear the answer.
“I shouldn’t have told you that. I don’t know why I have these thoughts. I don’t know why I say these things.” Her mother brushed her hair, slowly and methodically, over and over again.
Myna was unsure what to say, so she didn’t say anything. Instead, she stood there in the silence, helpless, waiting to be dismissed.
When it became practically unbearable, she left quietly and gently pulled the door closed behind her. She turned and jumped at the sight of Linnet standing in the hallway.
“You startled me,” Myna said.
“Sorry,” Linnet mumbled, and hurried by.
Myna made her way back to the kitchen and out the side door. She promised herself she’d never be fooled into marrying someone the way her mother had been, wooed by romance, lured to a place she didn’t want to be by a man as sweet and smart and charming as Pop. She wouldn’t allow her life to be wasted that way. She wouldn’t. She kicked a stone in the yard, sending it sailing into the woods. She wiped her eyes with the back of her arm.
It was during that same week that Pop had found Myna’s mother unconscious in bed. She was rushed to the hospital. Pop, Linnet, and Myna had sat in the emergency waiting room, holding hands. Hours later a doctor emerged from behind the closed doors marked Personnel Only. He’d explained she’d taken pills, mixed prescriptions. It was ruled an accidental overdose.
It wasn’t until after the funeral that Myna had found herself walking the path to the dam alone. Pop had retreated to his study, his journals, to mourn. Linnet and Ian had shown the last of the remaining guests, most of whom were Pop’s colleagues, out the door. A thin flock of snow geese, stragglers really, milled around. The majority of the birds had already come and gone, making their way north to Canada for the mating season.
She picked up a feather from the ground. It was a contour feather, a wing feather, responsible for supporting the bird during flight. The tip was black, the rest as white as snow. She turned it with her fingertips. If ever she needed a sign, this was it. She’d do the very thing her mother had been incapable of.
She’d leave Mountain Springs, The Snow Goose. And fly away.
* * *
“Myna,” Linnet said, her jaw set, her features pulled tight. “Can I talk with you alone, please? Now.”
Pop removed his hand from Myna’s forearm. “I’ll just go to my study if you don’t mind. It’s been a long day,” he said.
“Why don’t you wait, and I’ll walk you down in a few minutes,” Linnet said.
He rose from the table. “I’m more than capable of walking myself home.”
Home, Myna thought. He’d stopped thinking of the main house as home long before her mother had died. Surely, she knew the reason why. The three of them knew the reason why.
Ian had taken Hank to baseball practice, and Pop left for his study, leaving Linnet and Myna alone.
“What the hell did you say to Jake?” Linnet spat. “What did he mean he wants to talk to Pop about that, that man?”
“I didn’t say anything to him,” she said. “I swear I have no idea where that came from.”
“He knows something,” Linnet said.
“Whatever he knows, it didn’t come from me.”
“Maybe not. But you invited him into our lives. You let him talk to Pop. I told you it was a bad idea.” Her voice faltered. She turned away.
Myna couldn’t recall the last time she’d seen her sister so shaken. She got up from the chair and crossed the room, standing close but unable to reach out and comfort her. “I can find out what he wants.”
Linnet’s head snapped up. “No,” she said. “No way. We have to avoid him. We have to stay as far away from him as possible.” She grabbed Myna’s hand. “Please, stay away from him.”
“Okay,” Myna said without much conviction.
“Promise me,” Linnet said.
She didn’t want to promise Linnet anything until she found out what Jake wanted. It was more than just guilt, regret. It was always that. But Jake was like a burr that stuck to her clothes when she strayed too far from the path to the dam. She couldn’t shake him off easily, not when he was a connection, a missing piece to her mother she’d never been able to let go of.
“Promise me you’ll stay away from him,” Linnet said again, giving her hand a squeeze.
“I promise,” she said.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Jake pulled open the door of the Loose Goose and stepped inside. Several men and women were seated at the bar. A few others were scattered around tables. Every single patron turned to see who had walked in.
He eased the door closed behind him. He tried to ignore their staring as he made his way across the room. He found an empty stool in a corner of the bar. It was a good seat, out of the regulars’ way, and yet he could see every one of their faces.
Rodney set a cold beer in front of him. “Don’t mind them,” he said. “It’s been a long few days around here, and they’re a little skittish with all these reporters around. Don’t take it personally.”
“Thanks,” he said, appreciating Rodney’
s attempt at a few kind words even though they didn’t help much. He couldn’t shake the way Linnet had looked at him as though he were the enemy. But not Myna. She had wanted to talk with him. He’d learned from years in the newspaper business, from interviewing all sorts of people, who would or wouldn’t cooperate. Myna might be his only way to get close enough to the doc to be able to talk with him again.
His phone rang. He recognized the chime and picked it up.
“What’s going on, Jake?” Kim asked. “Did you see the news?”
“It’s about to come on now.” The small television at the other end of the bar was turned on, the volume low. The five o’clock news had ended some time ago. An ad for dish detergent played on the screen. The few people scattered around tables had come to stand near the TV, gearing up for the six o’clock news that would replay what everyone had already heard at five and Jake had missed.
“The guy, Henry Jenkins, was questioned by the police today,” Kim said. “He’s a suspect in a murder investigation.” She paused. “Are you involved in some way? It’s kind of a huge coincidence you were asking me to find out about a phone number, and then it turns out to be this guy’s.”
“I can’t talk about it right now.” He glanced around. “I’m not involved, not directly.”
“Are you in trouble?”
“No, at least I don’t think so. If I could just talk with him again … but the sisters won’t let me near him.” He said the last part under his breath.
“The who?”
“He has two daughters. They’re very protective of him.”
Myna had told Jake that her father had trouble remembering things. He’d sensed there had been something off with the doc when he’d been talking with him about the birds. At the time Jake had felt sorry for him. But what if he had something to do with the professor’s murder? What if he’d been involved in some way with Jake’s father’s accident?
“Maybe you should go to the police,” Kim said. “I can send the documents verifying who the phone number belongs to. But you’ll have to protect me and my…” she coughed, “source, so to speak.”
The Sisters of Blue Mountain Page 21
