Sliding double doors opened off either side of the hall—to the left onto the living room, to the right onto what we grandly referred to as the ballroom.
“You must come into the library,” Alicia was saying. “Grant and Colin are waiting. No one wants to go into the den. It’s too close to where it happened. The police were here for hours!”
“The police?”
“Why, yes! Of course, they said it was all routine but still, it was simply ghastly with all those strangers crawling around…and the questions! Why, it makes me dizzy. You must need a drink, love, to calm your nerves.”
I accompanied her down the short spacious passage, marveling anew at the vast differences between Alicia and Colin. Her propensity for the dramatic was evident under any circumstances. Even her appearance screamed Hollywood glitz. She was tall and overly thin with golden-bronze hair that frizzed riotously to her shoulders.
Her eyes were almond-shaped and made very green with tinted contact lenses. The lashes, which most certainly weren’t her own, fanned out from lids defined in shades of aqua and mauve. Her nose was small and straight over a kitten mouth, her lips carefully outlined and coated with a rich tangerine gloss. Her hands were dainty with fingers made much longer by perfectly manicured nails painted to match her lipstick. A collection of gold and diamond rings winked and gleamed as she gestured erratically.
My half brother, Colin, had met Alicia on one of his jaunts to California in the days when he was trying to be a jet-setter. She was a would-be actress doing bit roles in soap operas and TV commercials to pay the rent. I couldn’t guess what kind of spell she cast over Colin but after sharing her apartment for only a few months, they drove to Los Vegas and were hastily married.
Whether by choice or at Colin’s insistence, Alicia gave up her acting career almost immediately and before the year was out, she was installed at Beacon. That same year, Colin and David hatched out a plan to open a chartered fishing business. Thrilled that Colin was finally making an effort to curb his irresponsible ways, Leo loaned them the capital to get the enterprise off the ground.
I don’t know exactly when Alicia started to drink but the alcohol was beginning to leave its marks on her fine features. The makeup she used no longer hid the smudges beneath her eyes or the tiny lines at the corners of her mouth. She seemed to be growing thinner by the day so her clothes, despite being the height of fashion, hung limply on her.
Colin and David were doing reasonably well with their business from what I could tell. They acquired two new cabin cruisers and opened a sideline canoe rental for the Pere Marquette River. It meant nothing to Alicia, however. She still lived for the day when she could return to the stage.
Alicia’s unpredictable moods and incessant chatter were tolerated by everyone more out of pity than any magnanimous feeling of goodwill. It was common knowledge that Colin was jealous and viewed her career as a threat. If she blamed him, though, she never said so. Instead, she invented her own little world to live in and ignored the hopelessness of her existence. I could almost empathize with her. I knew what it was like to live under the smothering influence of a domineering man.
“Everyone is positively strung out, Suzanna,” she was saying. “Poor Colin is still suffering from the shock. It was Colin and David who found him, you know. He was just floating there in the pool. They thought he was dead already but…” She glanced sideways at me. I didn’t respond but pushed open the mahogany doors and stepped into the library.
Colin stood gazing at the bookshelves, his hands thrust into his pockets, absently jangling coins and keys. His shirt was wrinkled at the back and his curly brown hair was matted on one side.
He was every inch his mother’s son. Only his short, husky build belied his paternity. His nose was thick and slightly crooked from a break that happened during his school days. His complexion was pale with strain, accentuating the shadow of stubble on his chin. Though his eyes were wide-set and colored an indistinct hazel-brown, the thick fringe of lashes softened them and made them, in my opinion, his most endearing feature.
Across the room was Grant Fenton, my father’s right-hand man. He leaned against the bar, one foot propped on the chrome rail that ringed its base. He wasn’t a tall man but was well-proportioned with a broad chest and tapered waist. He was dressed in faded denims and a burgundy shirt and, like Colin, hadn’t shaved. His dark brown hair was sun-streaked with auburn and stood on end as though he’d been running his hands through it. His eyes, in contrast to his weathered complexion, were a startling marine blue and despite the lines of fatigue creasing his face, they always lit with amusement when he looked at me. It was a reflex I resented deeply.
Now his gaze unnerved me and I felt an uncontrollable blush creep up my neck to my cheeks. It would be just like him to make some sarcastic remark. Instead, he merely sloshed a healthy portion of brandy into a snifter and extended it in my direction. “Here, Suzie, you look as though you could use this.”
I crossed the room and accepted the drink with a polite murmur.
“We would’ve called you,” Colin said, perching on the arm of a chair, “but I understand your little hideaway didn’t provide the modern convenience of a phone. And your cell phone wasn’t working.” His voice was petulant.
“I turned it off,” I replied. “I wanted it that way.”
I knew Colin was baiting me. I felt defensive but refused to be drawn into a quarrel at a time like this. It seemed as though everyone was accusing me—as though my absence had somehow caused Leo’s accident. I gulped a bit of the brandy and grimaced as it burned its way down my throat.
“He was such a wonderful man,” Alicia piped up. Reclining cat-like on the settee, she downed the remainder of her martini and waved the empty glass at Colin. “Darling, do be a love and fetch me another. I’m simply a nervous wreck.”
Colin rose to accommodate her, more out of habit I guessed, than a sense of duty.
“I still don’t understand how this could’ve happened,” I said quietly.
“Why my dear, surely David told you?” Alicia warmed to the subject. “It was all a horrible accident. You know how your father loved to swim in the evenings? Well, he must’ve tripped on something and hit his head on the side of the pool—”
“Oh, shut up, Alicia,” Colin barked. “Dad was drunk. We all know that. He was also fully clothed, so I doubt he intended to take a ‘dip’.” He handed his wife the martini and sat down beside her, roughly shoving her sprawled legs aside. She shrugged, unperturbed.
Grant was silent, staring intently at his brandy but I sensed an undercurrent. What are they hiding? I looked from one face to the next but they avoided my eyes. I opened my mouth to demand an explanation but was put off when David appeared in the doorway.
“I’ve taken your bags to your room, Suzanna,” he said, oblivious to the tension. “I’ll have someone bring your car back tomorrow.”
For once, I was grateful for his faultless practicality and appreciated the arm he dropped around my waist, leaning into it for support.
There was no room for conversation after that. David relived the episode for everyone’s benefit. Leo’s drinking wasn’t mentioned again and eventually, an uncomfortable silence fell. There was nothing more to be said. The light discourse that usually linked our separate lives no longer seemed appropriate and no one was willing to touch on the personal emotions pulsing just beneath the surface. Even Alicia was, for once, without words. It was Grant who broke the spell.
“I think we could all use some sleep,” he said, placing his empty glass wearily on the bar.
The others were quick to murmur assent, welcoming an excuse to escape.
“Come on, Alicia,” Colin said, pulling her to her feet. “Let’s pour you into bed.”
David gave me a squeeze. “I should be going too. Dad will need me. I’ll come by to see you after you get some rest. Will you be all right?”
“I think so,” I said and raised my cheek for his kiss. He left on the he
els of Colin and Alicia and I turned to follow, looking forward to some privacy but Grant stopped me.
“We need to talk, Suzie.”
I stiffened. I suspected this would be another one of Grant’s big-brotherly lectures. I waited. He was silent for so long, I became impatient. He was standing at the window, his back to me. Beyond him, the sky was becoming a little less black as the moon slumped low over Lake Michigan.
I went to stand next to him drawn by the beauty of the star-studded sky and the moonlight rippling on the sliver of water just evident beyond the rear gardens. In a few more hours, the sun would appear to paint the horizon pink and lavender and tinge the rolling swells with gold.
Leo had rarely missed a sunrise. He said each one was a work of art and not to be wasted. It suddenly occurred to me that he would never see another and a choking sob caught in my throat.
Grant glanced down at me and his eyes softened. “For what it’s worth, Suzie, I’m sorry.”
If he hadn’t said that, I probably would’ve been able to ward off the tears but his sympathy amplified my own self-pity and before I knew it, I was sobbing shamelessly, my face buried in his shirtfront.
How long I cried, I don’t know. I cried until there were no tears left, too bereft to appreciate the irony of finding comfort in Grant’s arms. I’d never thought him capable of tenderness. He seemed too unbending, too ruthless—a carryover, I suspected, from his childhood amid the dockside slums of Chicago.
Grant’s father disappeared when he was a baby leaving him and his mother to fend for themselves. By the age of six, he’d learned a lot about surviving on the streets. Stealing came naturally and was his only means of putting food on the table.
It was probably his greatest luck that he happened to choose Leopold Dirkston as a target one day. Leo caught the skinny lad’s wrist as he attempted to make off with his wallet and dragged him kicking and screaming across the wharf to his warehouse where he paddled him soundly. Afterward, he gave Grant fifty dollars to buy himself some decent food and sent him on his way.
After that, Grant became Leo’s shadow. When Leo appeared on the docks to oversee the loading or unloading of cargo, Grant trailed a few paces behind, watching and digesting everything that went on. Leo enjoyed the boy’s curiosity. It must have reminded him of his own checkered youth. Eventually, he put Grant to work unpacking crates and sent money secretly to Grant’s mother, stipulating some of it be used for the boy’s education.
When Grant’s mother died six years later, Leo brought him to live with us at Beacon. I remember him then as a scruffy urchin who had no manners and carried a huge chip on his shoulder. As time went by, though and he threw himself into his schooling, some of the rough edges disappeared and he grew into a formidable asset to the firm.
Now, years later, having risen to the position of Senior Corporate Attorney for Dirkston Enterprises, he still found time to visit the docks once or twice a month to work alongside the crews and keep abreast of the climate within the unions and among the laborers. This periodic link to his roots was essential to him and seemed to revitalize him like a grounded sailor in need of salt air and a rolling deck.
Colin tolerated Grant but there was no love lost between them. In one sense, he was relieved Grant took on the onus of succession. He’d never wanted to become involved in the business, much to Leo’s chagrin, so Grant was a welcome replacement.
But Grant wasn’t an easy man to understand. I remembered one of his court battles. A small fishing company sued Dirkston Enterprises for some real or imagined breach of navigational courtesy. Like a vulture, Grant had picked away at the meat of the testimony until everyone, including the judge, squirmed uncomfortably. The case was thrown out and the fishermen departed red-faced. I was appalled and embarrassed. I thought him cruel and unfair. It would have cost Dirkston relatively nothing to have settled out of court but Grant wanted to make an example of it and seemed not to care less that the fishermen involved might lose their reputations as well as their livelihoods.
This was the same man who now offered me compassion and understanding where no one else did and I began to doubt my poor opinion of him. I resolved to be more open-minded.
Once my tears were under control, he dropped his arms and handed me his handkerchief.
“Feel better?” he asked.
I nodded, mopping my eyes.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I guess it’s supposed to be good therapy to cry but I should’ve done it in private. Now, I’ve saturated your shirt.” I dabbed futilely at his tear-stained pocket.
He turned away abruptly and I sensed he was irritated.
“There’s something we need to talk about,” he said, “but it can wait until later. Go to bed now and get some sleep.”
I stared at his back, my hand still poised, shocked by the terse dismissal. My jaw clenched. This was the Grant I knew—cool, remote and unfeeling. I tossed the handkerchief onto a nearby chair and without another word, stalked off before he could see the hurt in my eyes.
* * * * *
It was peaceful on High Dune. I named it when I was very young when I came here with Mother—before her accident.
She would sit and write in her journal while I clambered up and down the shifting mountain pretending to be a general in the French Foreign Legion, or one of the Arabian Knights conquering an enemy stronghold. Sometimes I would lie at the top and see how far down I could roll, careless of the warm sand sifting through my hair and clothes. They were golden days.
After her accident, I avoided the place for many years until the pain abated and I was able to put things into perspective. Now it seemed to bring me closer to the past, as though a part of Anna still smiled from her shaded spot beneath the birch, her pen poised, her eyes proud and possessive as she watched me play.
I inhaled the fresh breeze whirling in off the lake. The air tingled with clarity and the waters seemed to stretch forever. The waves drifted onto the shore far below leaving huge dark arcs along a hard-packed, opaline beach.
I could see the house far to my left, a fat toad squatting atop a weathered bluff. It was truly an abomination of architecture jumbled together in a chaos of arches, gables, columns and balustrades, with chimneys sprouting everywhere, capped by a glassed octagonal belvedere, its foul-weather shutters turned back.
Leo’s dreams were far from modest and Beacon was a testament to that fact. It was obvious there was no real aesthetic theme to the design, so, while the house was indisputably breathtaking, it was also decidedly vulgar—an aberration in an otherwise harmonious landscape. But I respected Leo for the audacity and courage it must have taken to wave the red flag of nonconformity in the face of rigid midwest conservatism.
He’d worked hard to attain his position in the world and he had every right to do as he pleased with his money and his house. But my father’s tastes were very different from my own and I couldn’t help feeling he went overboard when constructing a home for a family of four.
Below and to my right stood the ancient lighthouse. Perched on a stony outcrop, its blind eye stared dully over the waves as it had for nearly a hundred years. It would have been nice to refit the lamp and bring the ponderous bulk to life but it was much too late for that. Its bleached stone skirt was beginning to crumble and there were fissures in one side where mortar had fallen from between the blocks. The continuous buffeting of wind and wave had eroded the rocky shelf on which it stood, making the whole structure tip to one side.
“I thought I might find you up here.”
David sat down, conspicuous in crisp white trousers and turquoise shirt. I’d watched him approach from the direction of the house, not really welcoming the company but too apathetic to avoid it. There was no point in trying to evade him. He was as much a part of Dirkston as anyone, now that he and Colin shared the partnership.
“How did you know I’d be here?” I asked.
“We all used to call this ‘Suzanna’s Spot’ not so long ago. I figured you’d want to come
here first. I hope you don’t mind me butting in?”
I sifted sand idly through my fingers. “No, I don’t mind. I was just thinking about going back. It must be getting close to dinnertime.”
He leaned back on one elbow and squinted at the glittering lake. The sun was a huge yellow balloon tethered to the horizon. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”
I nodded, watching a white gull soar above the spume. It dipped abruptly for some real or imagined tidbit, caught the edge of the lapping waves with experienced precision, then resumed a lazy patrol.
“I suppose you’ll be going away again when this is all over,” he commented.
I sighed. “No. I’ve decided to stay for a while. It wouldn’t be fair to leave a lot of loose ends for Colin and Grant to tie up.”
“It’s mostly business. I’m sure they’ll have things well in hand. After all, Grant is an attorney. He’s used to handling these things.”
I glanced at him, puzzled. He was treating my departure much too casually. I thought he’d be pleased about my decision to stay. Now, I wondered if he was the least bit affected by our breakup. Logically, I should have been relieved he was taking it all so well but some primitive instinct in me longed for him to collapse in desperation at my feet amid anguished pleas for reconciliation. Or, at the very least, give some indication he wanted me near.
I turned my gaze back to the house, trying to think of words to explain my decision. I sighed. “I need to get rid of the ghosts,” I said.
He regarded me for a moment. “Yes. I think I understand.”
ShadowsintheMist Page 2
