“They’re going to eat breakfast with us,” Molly assured her.
“We’re leaving so early. Are you sure they’ll get here in time?”
“Positive,” Molly said.
Phoebe didn’t reply. She only sighed deeply.
After a while, she spoke. “You want to hear what my dad said one other time when we moved? That even though I have to leave the people I love, my mommy’s star goes with me everywhere. He’s right. There’s Mommy’s star right there,” Phoebe said, pointing toward Vega. “Does your mom have a star, too?”
Molly blinked back her own tears. “I suppose so,” she said.
“Was she pretty, Molly? As pretty as you?”
“Prettier,” Molly said. Her memories of her mother involved brown eyes flashing with merriment at the pranks of her three children and the light, citrus-scented cologne she always wore. To this day, when Molly got a whiff of that scent on an elevator or in a restaurant, she was instantly transported back to her childhood.
“I bet that’s her star, right over there above Miss Take,” Phoebe said.
“Maybe it is,” Molly agreed. She hugged Phoebe closer.
“And your grandfather must have a star, right? Which one is it, do you think?”
By now, all the stars had appeared, gleaming against the velvety background of the sky in an incandescent display. Molly selected a bright one hovering over the tall gables of the Plumosa Hotel. “That would be Grandpa Emmett,” she said. “He’s shining down on the puppet theater that will bear his name.”
“Oooh, Molly, you’re going to name it after him?”
“The board of directors will probably vote to call it the Emmett McBryde Puppet Theater.”
“Mr. Emmett would like that,” said Phoebe. “He was a nice man.”
“Yes, he was,” Molly said. She’d look up the name of that star later, and when Patrick and Brianne joined her in Fort Lauderdale, she’d share this story with them.
“You know what I think, Molly? That babies who aren’t born yet have their own star up there, maybe a little tiny one.”
“What makes you say that?”
“It’s because I’m sure there’s a brother or sister for me somewhere,” Phoebe said contemplatively, settling more securely into the curve of Molly’s embrace. “That’s where I think they’d want to be.”
Through a blur of tears, Molly gazed up into the heavens, wondering if any of the smaller stars were her unborn children: her son, Nicholas; or her daughter, Emma. Of course, she’d never wanted any kids before, but that was before this sojourn on Fiona.
If she were ever lucky enough to have children, Molly would want them to be just like Phoebe.
Chapter Fifteen
Eric drove the marina van to the mall and bought Phoebe a box of pastel crayons and a bathrobe she had admired on their shopping trip. The presents wouldn’t compensate for their leaving Greensea Springs, but he wanted to do something to make things easier for her. Then he called his friend Steve in Thunderbolt, Georgia.
“Eric,” Steve boomed in his hearty voice. “We haven’t heard from you for a while. Joyce and I have been wondering when we can expect a visit from you and that sweet little girl of yours.”
“You’ve still got that camper trailer where you said we could live for a while? And the job on your fishing boat is available?”
“Correct on both counts. When can you get here?”
“I can probably be there sooner than you think,” Eric said. Then he proceeded to explain what he had in mind.
IT WAS ALMOST NINE O’CLOCK before Eric returned to Fiona. Phoebe was asleep in her bunk, breathing softly. He dropped the packages with the pastel crayons and bathrobe at the foot of the bed and went back to the galley, where Molly was removing a pan containing twice-baked potatoes from the oven.
“I didn’t know you were waiting dinner for me,” he told her. “I thought you and Phoebe would have eaten by this time.”
“You took a little longer than we expected,” Molly said. “Phoebe went to sleep about half an hour ago after she polished off a can of ravioli.” She started toward him as if she might kiss him on the cheek, but he sidestepped her and pretended to inspect the salads, which she had arrayed artistically on two individual plates.
“You must be hungry,” Molly said. She seemed upbeat, cheerful, and he was swept with guilt for what he was about to do.
“We need to talk,” he said heavily.
Her smile faltered, and a succession of conflicting emotions flitted across her face. “Sure,” she said, easing down on the lounge beside the table.
She sat staring up at him, and the tensing of her shoulders indicated that she sensed the importance of what was about to be said.
“I’ve been thinking, Molly,” he said, keeping his voice low so that he wouldn’t wake Phoebe. “This isn’t working between us.” He sat beside her, focusing his eyes on her lovely face. He didn’t like being the bearer of more bad news; she’d had enough for any one person in the past couple of days. But he couldn’t wait to tell her this because, in his view, more harm would be done by putting it off than by making a clean break.
She paled, but her gaze didn’t waver. “I thought it was working quite well,” she said levelly.
He shook his head. “You need to find another captain to get Fiona to Fort Lauderdale. I’m off the job as of tomorrow morning. I can give you the name and phone number of someone who can take you the rest of the way. It’s someone I met at the Farrells’ party. He’s well qualified.”
Molly’s face flushed and she stared at him incredulously. “What’s wrong, Eric?”
“I shouldn’t have stayed this long,” he said doggedly. “I should have left as soon as we got to Greensea Springs, found someone else to install the fuel injection pump.”
“I don’t understand why you’re saying this,” Molly said in disbelief. “I don’t want another captain, and the past few weeks have been the best time of my life.”
Her bewilderment seemed to be turning into anger, but then, that shouldn’t be a surprise. How could he expect her to take this news without putting up a fight?
“Maybe we should go up on deck to finish this discussion,” Eric said, glancing toward the closed door of Phoebe’s stateroom, where he had heard a rustle of the bedcovers.
“Fine,” Molly said through gritted teeth. She climbed up the ladder and charged through the cockpit, then made her way to the aft deck. He followed, realizing that though they hadn’t had much privacy below, there was even less here. A party boat trolled past in the distance, its occupants talking loud enough to be heard over raucous music. A dog walker strolled two docks over, his poodle prancing along in front of him.
“I can’t believe you’d do this, Eric,” Molly said. “I thought we had a relationship. I—”
“Molly,” he said placatingly. “This is for your own good. Of course we’ve had a relationship. You’re a wonderful person, and you’ve done so much for Phoebe. I’m grateful, and I always will be.”
Her chin shot up. “Abandoning ship right now isn’t the way to show how you appreciate me,” she pointed out. “I care about you and Phoebe. I doubt if you understand how much.”
“Maybe I do,” he said softly. “Maybe I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
“‘Good idea’? What does that mean, Eric?”
“I’m crazy about you, Molly Kate McBryde, but I have nothing to offer you. You called me a boat bum in one of your angrier moments, and I deserved that. I have no job, no home, nothing but myself and a seven-year-old girl who unfortunately got her hopes up much too high.”
Molly tossed her windblown hair back off her face, “Please don’t run yourself down. You’re intelligent, and good at what you do, and Phoebe is a big plus to our relationship. When I called you a boat bum, I didn’t mean that you’re not a fine person. I wanted to bring you to your senses about Phoebe’s needs. Let’s cut to the real topic here. Have I done something to anger you?”
; He was nonplussed. “Of course not,” he said.
“You’re breaking off with me because you think you’re not good enough?”
“I don’t deserve you, Molly. You’re beautiful, talented, fun and smart. You could find someone who has as much money as you do, who can buy you the kind of house where you’d feel comfortable.”
“This is about money?” Her tone had taken on a tone of disbelief.
“You’ve inherited a bundle. Emmett spoke to me of his bequests to you and your brother and sister. I’m not a rich man, Molly. Sometimes I don’t know where I’m going to get my next dime. I have a little nest egg for Phoebe, but that’s all. We’re not in the same league, and I’ve realized it from the start.”
Molly sank onto one of the chairs where they sometimes sat under the stars at night. When she spoke, she invested her words with heavy irony. “I was going to tell you tonight that I’m in love with you. If, in this age of disposable relationships, that makes any difference.”
Words left him, and he felt as if she’d socked him in the stomach. Out of the corner of his eye he became aware of a blur of movement. Phoebe, he thought. She had probably already heard more than he would have liked. She was edging along the railing toward the bow, intent on her task, and while he caught his breath, tried to figure out what to say, he heard a soft splash. She was tossing one of her messages in a bottle overboard; he waited until she went back down below to speak.
“I’m sorry, Molly. I shouldn’t have let it go this far,” he said.
“‘This far’?”
“Phoebe has been making sand wishes that you’d be her new mom. I should have realized, should have put a stop to such nonsense.”
“So your daughter’s wishes are as meaningless as our relationship?” Her eyes had gone stony and dark.
He cleared his throat, wishing he were anywhere but here and doing anything but this. He couldn’t lie to her, tell her he didn’t love her. He knew now that he had loved Molly Kate McBryde almost from the first moment he set eyes on her, when she had ordered him about and looked down her nose at him. She had changed his perspective, brought him out of his grief, made him hopeful about his future.
“Leave Phoebe out of this for the moment, okay? I care about you deeply, Molly. I want only the best for you.” And that’s not me, he would have liked to add, but he didn’t. In that moment he wished with all his heart that it didn’t have to be like this. “Actually,” he said, his voice sounding to him as if it came from a great distance away, “I’ve already made plans. Phoebe and I will be leaving tomorrow for Thunderbolt, Georgia.”
“Georgia? Why?”
“A friend has offered me a job on his shrimp trawler.”
“Oh.”
“Believe me, it’s better this way.” Though, as he spoke the words and drank in her beauty, he doubted that this way was better after all.
She treated him to a long, hard, blistering stare. “Better than for the two of us to be together? Oh, I don’t think so. Better than for Phoebe to have her mommy wish? Again, I don’t think so.”
Tears shimmered in her eyes, and he felt like a jerk for doing this to her. Against his better judgment, he reached for her, but she pushed past him.
“I’ll save you the trouble of leaving, Eric. I’ll catch a plane back to Chicago tonight. Patrick and Brianne and I can meet here and sail Fiona to Fort Lauderdale ourselves.”
Then she was down the ladder and all he could do was stare after her. He didn’t know what he had expected, but it was not this. He’d never considered that Molly might leave Fiona. He scrambled down the ladder after her, knocking his shin against one of the supporting columns in the salon. She had marched straight into her stateroom and slammed the door behind her, and he heard her opening and closing drawers, dragging her duffel out of the closet.
“Molly!” he said, limping across the salon and pounding on her door. “Molly? You don’t need to go anywhere tonight. How will you get to the Jacksonville airport? What makes you think you can get on the next flight? Stay, Molly. You don’t want to sit up all night in an airport waiting room.”
“Go away,” she shouted. “I don’t want to talk to you ever again.”
“Molly?”
A weight slammed against the door, and he winced. She’d thrown something. He listened for the sound of Phoebe waking up in her own room, but all was quiet. Nevertheless, he lowered his voice.
“Molly!”
She didn’t reply, and he stood there breathing heavily until the door flew open. Her hair was a red-gold aureole. She’d pulled on a jacket and was lugging her harp case.
“Get out of my way,” she said.
Without speaking, he stood to one side. She barged past him and up the ladder, tossing her harp into the cockpit. When she came back, she glared as she brushed past him and grabbed her duffel.
“Can’t you be reasonable?” he asked with exasperation. “Can’t you at least stay overnight?”
“No,” she said. Her face softened as she drew even with the door to Phoebe’s stateroom. “If—if I may, I’d like to look in on Phoebe. I won’t wake her.”
“Go ahead,” Eric said, his heart aching. How he would explain Molly’s sudden leavetaking to his daughter was unclear, and he knew he wouldn’t do a good job of it.
Molly opened the door quietly, and he expected the light from the overhead lamps to fall upon Phoebe sound asleep, her face pillowed on her hands, her Barbie and Blaine dolls settled beside her on the pillow.
Phoebe’s bunk was empty. Her dolls weren’t anywhere in sight, and her backpack was missing. The pastel crayons and the bathrobe he had bought her were still at the foot of the bunk, but she was gone.
WHEN MOLLY DISCOVERED that Phoebe was missing, all thoughts of fleeing evaporated.
“We’ll search the boat,” Eric said immediately, and even though she was furious with him, she warmed to the way he took charge.
“I’m sure she’s not in my stateroom, but I’ll check the shower and closet,” she said, moving swiftly. While she did that, Eric disappeared into his room and emerged almost immediately.
“She’s not there,” he said.
“Could she have fallen overboard?” she asked.
“We’d better have a look,” Eric said, anguish visible on his face. “I saw her throwing her bottle message off the bow during the first few minutes of our discussion up there, but I know for certain that she went back below. I didn’t see her leave again.”
“I didn’t, either,” Molly said. The words between them had flown furiously at some points, and she’d assumed that Phoebe was asleep in her bunk.
On deck, they shone lights down upon the dark water surrounding the boat, but they saw no sign of Phoebe. A damp mist was rolling in from the ocean, and Molly went below to get her windbreaker. When she returned to the deck, she spotted a bit of fabric fluttering in the breeze halfway down the dock and jumped off the boat to check it out. It turned out to be one of Phoebe’s headbands, and she held it up so Eric could see.
“Phoebe had this on when she went to bed,” she said, returning to the boat.
A quick inventory of Phoebe’s belongings told them that she must be wearing the same red shirt and plaid shorts that she’d had on all day.
“I believe she left Fiona, Eric.”
“But why?”
“Maybe she heard us arguing,” Molly said. Anxiety twisted in her stomach, burned behind her eyes.
“Where would she go?”
“To say goodbye to the Farrell family?” Molly suggested hesitantly. “I don’t think she was convinced that they would be here early enough in the morning.”
“I’ll call them right away,” Eric said.
Molly silently handed him her cell phone and he punched in the number.
Dee and Craig were getting ready for bed, and they expressed surprise and then concern that Phoebe was missing. “She hasn’t turned up here,” Craig said before insisting on joining the search.
Adrenaline
kicked in, mobilizing them into action. While Eric checked the marina’s laundry room and the small lounge housing the book exchange, Molly hurried to Micki’s boat to see if Phoebe was there. She wasn’t, and Micki suggested that they both go see if the child was visiting with Lainie Kallbeck and Jody. As they were rousing Lainie from bed, they managed to waken several other occupants of the marina, and soon an uneasy search party had assembled on the dock beside Fiona.
“We’ll fan out through the whole marina,” Micki said quickly. “Check all the little nooks and crannies. If she’s here, we’ll find her.”
“What if she fell in the water?” asked Lainie, looking alarmed.
“Phoebe is an excellent swimmer. We’ve spent so much time around water that I made sure she learned. Besides, Molly and I would have heard a splash. No, she walked off the boat,” Eric said.
“She was upset about leaving Greensea Springs,” Molly told the assembled group. “I’m sure her disappearance has something to do with that.” She tried not to focus on all the dangers that could befall a seven-year-old child.
They spread out over the marina, stopping at each slip to ask if anyone had seen Phoebe. One man who had been on the deck of his cabin cruiser unjamming a reluctant hatch mentioned that he’d spotted a child wearing a backpack walking with determination toward the marina office shortly after nine o’clock; he’d considered it strange, but since the laundry facility was open until midnight, he thought that she was going there to meet her mom or dad.
When Phoebe didn’t turn up, Eric grimly decided that it was time to call in the police. Sergeant Raul Blanco, his hair bristling around his head in an overgrown brush cut, showed up at the marina office. Molly and Eric, both struggling to quell their fears on Phoebe’s behalf, talked with him under the cold fluorescent lights in the marina office while he took copious notes. He said he’d notify all the local officers as well as the state clearinghouse for missing children. All this sounded ominous to Molly, and Eric looked beside himself.
As they talked, the sergeant received a phone call from a police officer who had been strolling his beat on Water Street. He had stopped to help a motorist with a flat tire on his SUV, and the man said that he’d noticed a small girl traversing the playground behind the Plumosa Hotel Arts Center while he was pulling his spare tire out of the back of his vehicle. He’d thought about calling someone to report it, but when he turned around again, she was gone.
The Mommy Wish Page 21
