Then there was another knock at the door, this one louder and more insistent than the first. Okay, definitely the grocery delivery guy. Even so, he considered ignoring it. But he needed food, he reminded himself. He had exactly one can of chicken noodle soup left in the cupboard.
Aidan dried his face, took a few deep breaths, and headed back into the living room.
This time, he remembered to look through the front window, peeking through a crack in the curtain, to see who was on the front porch. Not the grocery guy, but Emmy, looking furious.
He wasn’t going to answer. His throat was already constricting again, and he instinctively headed toward the bedroom, wanting to put as much distance between her and him as possible.
“Answer the door, Aidan! I know you can hear me!”
Big problem with being afraid to leave the house—everyone knew where he was all the goddamn time.
He grabbed his iPod from the desk and was about to put the ear buds in and blast the music as loudly as he could stand it when he heard Emmy say, “I’ve got a key to this place, you know. I’ll come in if you don’t open up.”
His panic turned to fury, and he rounded on the door, stormed back to it and jerked it open.
“Don’t ever invade my privacy,” he said in a voice so deadly serious, Emmy managed to look a bit apprehensive—for a split second, anyway.
“Don’t you ever lay a hand on my son again!” As she spoke, she jabbed a finger at his chest, and on the third jab, she made contact.
He looked down at the offending finger, attached to her long, elegant hand, and he felt the fury drain from him. She was just a mother protecting her child. Any good parent would have done the same. The kid had probably lied to her about the extent of Aidan having nudged him out the door.
Her hand dropped to her side then, and he looked back at her face.
“I didn’t hurt your kid,” he said.
“You can’t grab him and force him to do what you want.”
“All I did was gently guide him out the door.”
Her expression showed warring emotions—fury being replaced by doubt. “If that’s true, next time, don’t touch him at all. Then there won’t be any debate.”
“Next time? How about next time, the kid stays the hell away from my door and leaves me alone?”
“I understand you don’t want to be bothered. I’ll make sure he knows he’s not to knock on this door again unless there’s an emergency.”
“Not even if there’s an emergency. No knocking—period.”
“That’s ridiculous. What if your house is burning down?”
“Then I’d better get the hell out. But I don’t need a six-year-old to tell me so.”
“You’re the nearest available adult besides me. If he’s hurt and needs help, I’d like to know that you would at least assist him.”
Aidan bit his cheek to keep from saying anything stupid. Of course the kid should be able to come to him for help. He wasn’t a heartless monster. But still some sick part of him rebelled against the idea.
He forced himself to say, “Sure, yeah, if it’s an emergency and he needs help. Otherwise, no more interruptions.”
“Listen,” Emmy said, sounding calmer now. “I’ve been thinking about what you told me, about how you’re suffering from agoraphobia…and I’ve been meaning to talk to you, because I know a therapist in town who might be able to help.”
She held a business card out to him, and he felt like a fool. Was he really the kind of person people needed to gently refer to therapists?
Of course he was.
He took the card and stared at the name on it. Lydia Cormier, Doctor of Psychology.
“She’s an old friend of mine. She’s worked with soldiers and others who’ve come back from war zones, so I thought…”
Her voice trailed off, and Aidan looked up at her.
Emmy was looking at him as if she both pitied him and loathed him. She was about to say something else when they were interrupted yet again by a kid’s voice calling, “Mommy, Mommy!”
The scrawny boy came running across the driveway from the direction of the construction site. He stopped when he had their attention.
“A treasure chest!” he called out, looking as if they were the most exciting two words he’d ever uttered. “The bulldozer found a treasure chest!”
CHAPTER FIVE
I used to laugh at the phrase peacekeeping force. Is it possible to force peace in any meaningful way? I still don’t know the true answer to that question.
From Through a Soldier’s Eyes
by Aidan Caldwell
EMMY LOOKED at the dark wood chest, probably a foot and a half wide by a foot deep and tall, still caked with dirt after being unearthed by the bulldozer while digging out the foundation for the house, and she felt a weird fluttering in her belly. It wasn’t just Max’s odd insistence that this lake was inhabited by pirates, or that the chest did resemble a pirate chest with its brass fixtures and heavy brass lock, or that Max had claimed Aidan himself was a pirate, or even that Max had been bent on hunting for a treasure for the past week. It was…She didn’t know what.
Odd.
Very odd.
It touched upon the faintest memory she had from childhood, some story she’d been told perhaps, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on what it was.
This property had belonged to her family since soon after the Gold Rush, when one of her ancestors had taken his earnings and bought up land he’d deemed investment-worthy all over northern California. He’d had exquisite taste, and the Van Amsted family was lucky to still own some of the best lots, like this jewel of redwood-dotted paradise on the shore of Promise Lake.
So the chest most likely had belonged to someone in her family. But why would it have been buried? And why here, so far away from the main house?
The fluttering in her belly turned into a full-on sense of dread as she turned over possibilities. Images of infant corpses or shameful family secrets crowded her head. Whatever this was, it was probably something someone had wanted to keep hidden.
“Mom, look, it’s locked like a real pirate chest. Do you think we can figure out how to open it?”
Before she could answer, a white van with a People Food logo—a rainbow over the lake, with a psychedelic font for the name—pulled into the driveway. She watched as a woman she didn’t recognize got out and carried two bags of groceries to Aidan’s front porch.
This time, he opened the door without any drama, but his gaze brushed over them and the treasure chest before he turned his attention to the delivery woman.
Emmy’s anger at him had quickly dissipated when she’d realized he wasn’t thinking like a normal person. He was mentally ill, and he needed help. Max had been told always to let her know if any adult touched him at all—ever—and when he’d said Aidan had grabbed him by the arm and made him leave the cabin, she’d been furious.
But she didn’t believe Aidan had meant any harm, and Max didn’t have so much as a fingerprint from the incident.
As much as she found Aidan’s presence unpleasant and irritating, she still wanted to help him.
But that would have to wait. For now, she had a mystery chest and a little boy dying to know if it held any ancient treasures.
“I’m not sure how we’ll open the chest, honey,” Emmy said, distracted. “There’s probably a way to cut the lock.”
Nearby, the contractor, Frank, was listening. He came over and bent to take a closer look at the hardware on the chest. “Looks like you could just take it apart at the hinges with a screwdriver,” he offered.
“Do you have one handy?”
“Sure do. Let me get it off my truck.” And with that, he headed for the driveway.
The woman was climbing back into the driver’s seat of the van by then, and when Emmy looked over at the cabin, she saw Aidan hovering in the doorway, still watching them. Given the rest of his recent behavior, she would have expected him to slam the door shut as soon as he
could, but he hadn’t.
He was staring at the chest now, apparently fascinated. As was everyone on the construction site.
When Frank returned, he handed Emmy the screwdriver and said to his crew, “All right everyone. Show’s over. Back to work.”
To Emmy he said, “Let me help you move this away from the site. Where would you like it?”
She tested its weight. “It’s okay. I can carry it, but thanks.”
She tucked the screwdriver into her back pocket and picked up the chest by its two metal handles, which were still caked with dirt and corroded from probably decades in the cold, damp earth.
“I knew it. I knew there was a pirate chest! I knew it!” Max chanted over and over as he followed her across the property.
Emmy should have taken the chest right past the cabin to the guest cottage, but Aidan still lingered in his doorway, and when she thought of how he hadn’t come outside since she’d arrived she felt horrible for him. Here he was in one of the most beautiful places in the world, and he couldn’t even enjoy it. He didn’t seem to be enjoying anything about his life.
She made up her mind in that moment about what she would do, stopping in front of the cabin. “I could use a little help opening this,” she lied. “If you don’t mind.”
He stared at the chest, seemingly torn between his curiosity about it and his fear of going outside.
“I…” he said, looking pale.
Had she pushed him too far with that simple request? Was he going to have another panic attack?
“Could I bring it up onto the porch?”
His gaze darted over at the workers on the construction site, and she realized he didn’t want a crowd around to witness his emergence into the world.
“How about the back steps…where it’s sunnier and warm?”
That would be out of sight of the men working on the foundation, and it would be a little quieter, too.
It seemed as if he couldn’t say anything, so she decided to make the decision for him. “I’ll bring this around back,” she said and headed toward the side of the house before he could protest.
“But, Mommy…what if it’s his treasure chest? Won’t he be mad that we found it?”
“Perhaps,” she said vaguely.
Emmy hadn’t considered the possibility that the chest she was holding might belong to Aidan. That would explain his intense interest in it… And his fury over where she’d chosen to build the house.
But no, surely if it had belonged to him, he’d have had the sense to dig it up before construction began. Unless he’d been too afraid to leave the house, thanks to his illness. Or he’d forgotten where he’d buried it…
Well, they’d find out soon enough.
She rounded the corner of the house and went to the rear steps, then set the chest down. Aidan had probably figured out by now that she knew how to operate a screwdriver and didn’t really need his help, but she fully intended to stand here looking helpless until he opened the door and came out.
This late-June day was one of the most beautiful she’d witnessed in ages, and she didn’t want him to miss it. The air was a perfect seventy-five degrees, and the slightest breeze came off the lake, just enough to keep the sun from feeling too hot. The sky was a perfect crystalline blue, and light danced off the azure lake like diamonds floating on the surface.
This was the kind of day that made her feel as if she were a little girl again, running through the forest pretending to be a fairy, her hands and knees dirty, her hair hanging to her waist. She’d play with her siblings and cousins and friends all day, diving into the lake whenever they got hot, then play some more.
Why did adulthood so rarely contain such pure, unencumbered joy?
Max was dancing around now in that excited little way he had, bouncing and fidgeting. “C’mon, Mommy, what are you waiting for? Let’s open it!”
“I’d like Aidan to tell us if it’s his or not before we try to open it. Like you said, he might get mad…”
She tapped gently on the back door, and inside, she heard footsteps, but nothing else. Somewhere nearby, a woodpecker worked away at a tree. Max heard it, too, and peered up into the canopy of the redwoods until he spotted the bird.
“Look, it’s a northern woodpecker!”
Emmy smiled. Two months ago, he’d studied the field guide to birds of northern California until he’d memorized them all, it seemed.
He’d since moved on to other field guides, but he still accurately identified every bird they came across, even the dead ones on the side of the road.
“I don’t think he’s going to come out and help,” Max said. “He never comes outside.”
“Let’s wait and see,” Emmy said quietly, not wanting Aidan to overhear them. “He’s been busy writing a book.”
“I’m going to write a book, too,” Max said. “I want to write a treasure-hunting guide for Promise Lake.”
“Do you think there’s much more treasure buried around here?”
“There has to be. We found this today, and yesterday I found a bottle in the sand by the lake, and the day before that I found a metal tub.”
“Sounds like you’re becoming the treasure-hunting expert for the area. You’d be the person to write the book.” This gave Emmy an idea. “Hey,” she said casually, “Why don’t you get your notebook from the cabin and start working on your guide while I wait for Aidan?”
Maybe if Max was gone, if the only person Aidan had to face was Emmy, he’d come out.
“But I want to see what’s in the treasure chest!”
“I’ll call you as soon as we’ve got the hinges off. We won’t open it until you’re here.”
“But—”
“Go ahead, sweetie. Every good writer knows it’s important to write while the ideas are fresh in your head.”
He looked reluctant still, but with one more glance at the chest, he nodded. “Okay, but you promise you won’t open it without me?”
“I promise.”
He then took off at a run toward the guest cottage.
Emmy turned her attention back to the door. She tapped gently again. “Aidan? It’s just me out here. Will you please come out and help?”
Silence.
She waited, and waited some more, feeling foolish that she thought she might be able to lure him outside.
Overhead, the woodpecker continued its ratta-tat-tatting. Emmy watched its flamboyant red head moving in the tree, and she remembered the time when she was a kid and she’d found the most thrilling treasure of her young life at the base of a bay tree—a tiny, perfect red feather, probably from the head of just such a woodpecker.
She’d picked it up so gently, cradling it in her palm as if it were a delicate life she needed to protect. And it had seemed like something magical with its brilliant redness, so unlike the rest of the forest’s palette of green and brown.
She’d kept the feather for years, tucked inside her nature journal. Like so many of the things she treasured in the past, she had no idea where it was anymore. That thought made her impossibly sad, much the same way seeing once-treasured objects from her marriage—a wedding portrait or a silk tapestry bought on a trip to China—made her ache for things forever lost.
Tears welled up in her eyes, and she blinked them away. She was prone to crying since the divorce. Not because she wanted her marriage back—she didn’t—but because she now understood the stark reality of how changeable life was, how nothing was permanent, not even the love people tried to cement with vows.
She swallowed away the sadness that threatened to overtake her and turned her attention back to the chest. She too was wildly curious to know what was in it, and she wasn’t going to make Max wait all day, over some misguided notion that she could lure Aidan outdoors.
So she picked up the chest and was about to head back to the cottage, when she heard the lock on the cabin click.
Finally, he opened the door.
HE WASN’T SURE what had made him want to do it.
The lure of the chest, for sure, had played a part. But there was something more. Maybe the way the breeze had felt when he’d stood in the doorway, crisp and refreshing, but still a warm caress on his skin.
Maybe it was the light, the bright sunlight dancing on the leaves of the trees, so different from the dim existence inside the cabin.
For the first time since he’d come to Promise Lake, he ached to go outside.
And so, he’d opened the door. Emmy stood outside, holding the chest and looking at him as if waiting for the answer to a question.
Would he come out?
That was the question she wanted the answer to.
So he was the charity case she’d decided to take on, searching out a therapist for him and now trying herself to lure him out of his crazy exile with a mysterious chest that she could surely figure out how to open on her own.
But in spite of being aware of her machinations, some part of him wanted to go along with it.
“This wouldn’t happen to be your chest, would it?” Emmy asked.
“Never seen it before in my life.”
“The bulldozer turned it up while they were digging the foundation. I guess maybe it was buried by some member of my family.”
“It looks pretty old.”
“Yeah, it could have been there for decades.”
“You have a screwdriver?”
Emmy nodded as she set the chest down next to the steps. Then she pulled the screwdriver from her pocket and bent to see if it would fit the screws in the hinges.
“Looks like it’ll do the job,” she said. “Would you mind giving me a hand? I’ve…got carpel tunnel syndrome, and I’m not supposed to do anything strenuous with my wrists.”
“Oh.”
His mouth went dry, and he could feel the telltale perspiration again, forming on his brow and beneath his shirt. But he hated Emmy seeing him like this, behaving like such a coward that even the benign world itself was too scary for him to face.
He wasn’t going to let her believe he was a coward. He gripped the handle on the screen door that separated him from the outside, and he pushed the door open. Blinking in the bright sunlight, he forced himself to inhale the fresh air, to savor it. He wasn’t going to let her believe he was a coward.
A Forever Family Page 5
