Message in the Sand

by Hannah McKinnon

  As the weeks passed, Roberta found herself holding her breath in anticipation of Charlotte’s bridge club. To her surprise, the women did not make her feel one bit excluded. If anything, Roberta felt somewhat revered. Of course, that had much to do with Charlotte, who had artfully set the tone from the beginning, causing Roberta to blush. “This is my dear friend Roberta, and she’s kind of a big deal. She’s a judge.” Which set off a wave of exclamations across the room. But what rang loudest in Roberta’s ears was what Charlotte had called her: “my dear friend.” Besides her insufferable sister, Roberta had never had someone to call a real friend. Forget one as stylish and irresistable as Charlotte.

  When the game nights ended, Roberta found herself lingering after the others left. She was drawn to something about Charlotte Combs’s house: perhaps it was the effortless glamor that Charlotte gave off, from her red flared pants to the gold cuff bracelets she favored—so different from Roberta’s sensible loafers and bland suits. Maybe it was the warmth of her home, a stately antique farmhouse that, upon closer inspection, defied subtlety: a purple velvet Victorian fainting couch in the corner, silver candlesticks on every table, heavy damask curtains the color of an August moon. Pops of Charlotte’s urban upbringing winked throughout the farmhouse like hidden treasures for the discerning eye. Even her husband, Alder, someone Roberta had thought of as just another politician, was intriguing. He rarely made an appearance at the all-female card game, but when he did, Roberta could feel the ardor he held for his wife. It filled the room as surely as the tall man himself.

  Roberta didn’t get invited to many parties, but she knew enough not to be one of those who overstayed their welcome. So she made herself useful. Against Charlotte’s objections, she’d station herself at the kitchen sink, rinsing the diminutive crystal punch glasses that Charlotte told her had come from her parents in New York as a wedding gift. “They don’t come out much,” Charlotte confided. “Oh, they love the kids, of course. But they never really understood what drew me out of the city full-time.” Or Roberta would wrap the leftover food on platters and tuck them carefully into the fridge. “Bertie, really. You don’t need to do this.” But Roberta did. No one had ever called her Bertie before.

  After, Charlotte would invite Roberta to the living room for a cup of tea; Charlotte would curl up on one corner of the sofa and tuck her knees under her chin, childlike. She was a waifish thing, and despite her tanned complexion and the strong arms that swept the boys up like they were weightless, Roberta noted a fragility to her.

  “What did you think of Penny’s news?” Charlotte asked wearily one night. Penny Leary had stunned the group midway through the game with the sudden announcement of her impending divorce, a move that led to a heavy hush in the room before a flood of questions. Roberta remained silent, but she ached for Penny Leary. Divorce was not new, of course, but in a small Connecticut town in the eighties it wasn’t the norm. As for Roberta, divorce cases didn’t come through her courtroom, but often the fallout did, in the form of custody hearings and financial cases. She’d listened in silence as Penny poured out her heart and then stopped abruptly and turned to ask for a refill of punch. Despite the hugs and advice offered, the evening had turned solemn, and there was no repackaging it after that. The game had ended early, and as the headlights went on and cars backed down the driveway into the night, Roberta imagined the others rushing home to hug their husbands. To make promises. To seek assurances. In case Penny’s situation might be contagious.

  “It’s very sad,” Roberta mused, staring at her own ringless left hand. “Unfortunately, I hear plenty of domestic cases in my courtroom. Though I’m sure it won’t come to that,” she added quickly.

  Even Charlotte seemed down, her bright spark dimmer than Roberta had seen. She sipped her tea, then stood abruptly and crossed the room to the bar cart. “Want some in yours?” she asked. Roberta watched as she poured some brandy into her cup.

  “Oh, no, thank you.” Roberta had to drive home. She also had to get up and work the next morning. She watched as Charlotte returned to the couch.

  “You know something?” Charlotte asked.

  “What’s that?”

  Charlotte let her head rest against the back of the couch. “We’re a lot alike, you and I.”

  Roberta clutched her mug. She didn’t know what to say to that. Oh, she longed for it to be true, but she hadn’t the faintest idea what Charlotte was getting at. They just weren’t.

  “We are,” Charlotte said, lifting her head to meet her friend’s gaze. It was as if she could read Roberta’s mind.

  Roberta cleared her throat, shaken. “How’s that?”

  Charlotte hesitated, then smiled sadly. “We’re both outsiders here.”

  Roberta stiffened. This was not what she’d expected to hear. No, she wanted to cry out. You are on the inside. You’ve brought me to the inside, too. A feat Roberta had, her whole unexciting life, thought impossible. “What do you mean?”

  Charlotte lifted one shoulder. “This town. It’s a happy little town, for sure. But they stick together, they do. We didn’t grow up here. We’re not like them, and we never will be.”

  It was the first time Roberta had heard Charlotte utter anything less than plucky. She, who invited everyone into her home, who insisted they stay and play awhile. Who turned up the music and kept the conversations going. Who made a complete stranger like Roberta feel like a part of an established gang. Roberta realized she had fallen in love with Charlotte in a way that she had always wished she could fall in love with herself. The person she wished she could see, could be, when she looked in the mirror as a fourteen-year-old girl and saw the freckled nose and the dark blunt bangs that framed a perfectly forgettable face. In Charlotte’s company, Roberta felt she belonged, like she was seen. Now, to hear her refer to the both of them as outsiders split something deep within that had only recently healed.

  “But everyone here loves you,” Roberta began.

  Charlotte laughed, softly at first, then gruffly as she sat up and loosened her ponytail. Her blond hair fell about her shoulders. She shook her head. “Love. What a curious thing to call it.”

  She rose then, and Roberta, feeling unsure of herself, stood, too. Charlotte closed the space between them and Roberta held her breath. Maybe it was the brandy. Maybe something Penny Leary had stirred up. Charlotte stopped in front of her. “Good night, Bertie. Thanks for coming.” She relieved Roberta of her mug and brushed her cheek with her lips. “I’ll call you in the morning.”

  Roberta drove home with her insides mixing. She’d never known anyone like Charlotte Combs. When she rested her head on her pillow that night, she felt as uneasy as she imagined all the wives at bridge had felt that night after Penny Leary’s confession. But Roberta feared losing Charlotte.

  Charlotte did call in the morning. Her voice was bright and crisp on the line, like usual. “Bertie! How’d you like to come by next Saturday? It’s Wendell’s birthday.”

  And just like that, Roberta’s equilibrium was restored.

  Their friendship went that way from then on. A visceral necessary thing that Roberta treasured. Roberta grew to know and love the boys. She attended family gatherings and sometimes even holidays. Their lives, different as they were, became interwoven as much by their friendship as by the nature of being neighbors in a small town. Eventually, she began to catch the scent of what Charlotte had warned her about: they were not like everyone else. But it would be years before she really understood what that meant.

  Now, as Charlotte’s oldest boy pulled up alongside her in his blue truck and rolled down his window, Roberta smiled. “Wendell. How are you?”

  His blue eyes smiled back. “Doing fine, thanks, Bertie. How about you?”

  “Oh, I’m hanging in there, as much as an old lady can.”

  Wendell didn’t say anything, but his eyes crinkled kindly. He’d always been a quiet boy.

  “How’s work at the Lancaster place?”

  “Busy. The gala i
s tonight.” He leaned out the window. “Why aren’t you in your gown?”

  Roberta smiled. The gala. She’d never been, though an invitation appeared in her mailbox around this time every year. She knew it was Wendell’s doing. “Going to have to miss this year,” she said. “My tiara is still at the jeweler being polished.”

  Wendell nodded. He didn’t expect her to attend any more than he would’ve himself, though she appreciated the invitation every summer.

  “Quite the controversy this year, with the land acquisition disagreements in town,” she said. “Has it had an impact on attendance?”

  Wendell shook his head. “No, ma’am. Party is larger than ever.” It made Roberta wonder. For a small town, recently divided over the very land use the party was raising funds for, she couldn’t imagine where the supporters came from. She wondered if they were pulling friends from New York. She hoped not. Last year the New York Times had listed Saybrook as New England’s “best-kept secret.” She loved the Times but really wished they hadn’t: locals wanted to keep it that way.

  “Wendell, when can you come for dinner? I’m not getting any younger.”

  Roberta felt a duty to issue such invitations: she’d promised Charlotte to keep an eye on her boys. And after what had happened with Wesley, well… Roberta wouldn’t allow herself to think much more on that. It was the only time she thanked God Charlotte wasn’t alive to have to endure that.

  As Wendell glanced uncomfortably over her head at the treetops, she prepared for the usual polite refusal. “Now, I know you’re busy, and this time of summer is especially so. But what about an early dinner next Saturday on my patio? I grill a mean steak.”

  It was all a lie. Roberta was a vegetarian, and the only thing she grilled with any measure of success was corn. No matter; if she could get the boy to come over, she’d set him to the task. Men seemed to like to be in charge of primal things like fire and red meat.

  “All right, Bertie. Dinner would be nice.”

  Roberta almost fell over. That was the thing: Roberta knew Wendell Combs was as much a loner as she was, but it would be nice. Not just out of obligation to his mother’s memory. He was the one person in her life Roberta worried over.

  She wagged a finger between them. “Was it the red meat?”

  He laughed, and she rapped the hood of his truck. “Six o’clock, next Saturday. Don’t make me wait.”

  * * *

  Back inside, she put the kettle on for tea and considered the ticking grandfather clock in the corner. Roberta had lived alone the whole of her adult life; never married, never had kids. She’d been retired, as she told people, nearly fourteen years. These days there was nothing but time.

  What she didn’t tell people was how much she missed her job as probate judge. Having never had a family of her own, Roberta had thought of her work in the family court system as serving the greater family of her local county. The work was not pleasant, no. There were drawn-out custody hearings, the ones that pressed against her heart the hardest. Long-settled divorces that reentered her courtroom over revocation of rights. Disputes over trusts and estates. That was the thing about family court: the families who entered her courtroom barely qualified as such.

  As gritty as the work could be, it filled her with a sense of purpose in preserving family. Not having one of her own was an advantage, in her mind. Roberta was unbiased. Her empathies did not automatically tilt in the direction of the young mother because she had been one herself. She did not pretend to possess knowledge of how difficult it was to balance the caregiving responsibilities with the funds available in a family bank account. Exempt from long nights nursing a sick child, caring for an elderly parent, or covering for a drunk spouse, Roberta had unprejudiced opinions. While other colleagues might have considered her personal lack of family experience a hardship in her line of work, Roberta believed it lent her judgment clarity.

  For twenty years she’d been elected to office. That meant something. And she’d have stayed on as Saybrook’s judge for many more, if things had gone differently.

  If five-year-old Layla Bruzi’s custody case had never come through the door of her courtroom. If she’d only listened to her gut.

  Judge Roberta Blythe did not always get things right; over her esteemed career, there had been a handful of cases she might have ruled on somewhat differently when new evidence came to light. And there were a couple of cases she later had to revisit. But the Bruzi case was neither. It was the one that had not just ended her career; it was the one that would haunt her for the rest of her life.

  Four Wendell

  Preparations for the gala had consumed Wendell’s day. The White Pines lawns had been mowed so pristinely they appeared as a rolling green carpet just vacuumed. Not so much as a leaf tumbled across their lush sprawl. Freshly trimmed hedges draped in white lights flanked the driveway, leading a twinkling path up to the main house. Smartly dressed valets stood by in the circular drive awaiting incoming guests, and behind the main house, the peaks of white tents soared against the remnants of blue sky like sails. Wendell followed the cobblestone walkway to the rear of the house, noting that his crew, Jerry and Hank, had done a sound job power-washing and sweeping. He was pleased to see that the patio setup was complete. It had seen a lot of traffic in the last twenty-four hours. The event company had carried in and arranged all the tables and chairs, along with electrical cords for speakers and lights. There had been some minor disruption to the adjacent garden beds, but thankfully, Wendell’s crew had seen to a final tidying of every nook and cranny. As he was ticking off the last items on his to-do list, the party planner, Josephine, started hooting from the top of a ladder at the edge of the garden: “You! Over here.” Wendell glanced up to where she teetered on the top step, in orange heels, no less. “There’s a problem!”

  In Wendell’s opinion, there was more than one, but he was not about to waste his breath. Josephine Applegate was apparently some kind of big deal in Litchfield County. She seemed to be under the mistaken impression that Wendell worked for her. “I need you,” she called, though he was already moving in her direction.

  Wendell looked up to where Josephine was hanging Japanese lanterns. He really hoped she wasn’t stringing them too tight; the pear tree leaves were delicate at this time of year. “What seems to be the problem?”

  Josephine grasped the nearest lantern and shook it urgently. “There’s no power.” Her eyes were wide and frantic.

  Wendell was used to this. The Lancasters, who were a much bigger deal than the likes of Josephine Applegate, made entertaining look effortless, but no matter how laid-back they were, their event planners were not. He could never understand why people got so worked up over party decorations. “I checked the lines earlier. It may be a fuse.”

  Josephine stared down at him. “And?”

  At this proximity, Wendell noticed her lips were the same shade of orange as her ridiculous shoes. “And I will check on that for you.”

  “Right now, yes?”

  Wendell would have very much liked to leave Josephine Applegate teetering right where she was. But although he did not work for the likes of Josephine, he did work for Alan. And he knew this would upset Anne, which meant it would upset Alan. Without another word, he turned on his heel.

  “Wait! Where are you going?” she shrieked.

  He didn’t reply. At that moment what bothered him more than Josephine Applegate was that he’d have to go through the main house. In all the years that he’d worked for Alan Lancaster and his family, Wendell had made a point to stay out of the house. As he saw it, his job was to manage what was on the outside. Whatever happened on the inside was up to them. But the Lancasters, being who they were, made that difficult. They were always trying to bring him into the fold. Once, when Alan was away, Wendell had helped Anne carry in a large tufted sofa that the furniture company’s delivery truck had inexplicably unloaded and left in the driveway. She’d been so grateful for his help that she’d asked him to stay for a lemon
ade. It was homemade, just like his mother used to make when he was a boy, and the fresh pulp and grit of sugar on his tongue almost brought tears to his eyes. The memory and the kind look in Anne’s eyes were too much; he’d gotten out of there as fast as he could.

  Another time, after Alan had deduced that Wendell had no family of his own, they’d invited him to Thanksgiving dinner. Wendell had been flummoxed. He had one good suit, and he hadn’t worn it since Wesley’s funeral. He could not imagine being more out of place than at their sweeping walnut table, laden with crystal and fine china and candlelight. Alan and Anne would preside at either end, as cemented in their happiness as one of those wedding-cake-topper couples. And the girls. For some reason those little girls had always followed him around, though Wendell could not for the life of himself imagine why. At least on the estate he could avoid them, walk faster, stay busy. But there would be no escaping them in their own living room.

  Wendell dreaded the invitation right up to Thanksgiving morning, almost begging off with an excuse of stomach upset. But he was honest, if nothing else. The meal had been rich and hearty, the family’s conversation boisterous, and by the time dessert was served, he’d almost begun to enjoy himself. But after, when the girls ran off to play outdoors and Alan carried out a tray of steaming Irish coffees by the fireplace, Anne had asked about his own family. Wendell felt himself sinking into the buttery recess of the leather armchair, struggling to keep his breath even. He’d choked down the rich drink and excused himself abruptly, burning with shame as he pulled the front door closed behind him. He could not mix business with pleasure, he chided himself on the drive home. For him, there could be no pleasure.