Message in the Sand

by Hannah McKinnon

  It was Eliza who had let herself into the quiet house at White Pines the morning after and broken the news. Poor Eliza, who’d been awakened by a frantic call from their neighbor, Mrs. Walters. The state trooper had gone to the Walters’s house after unsuccessfully attempting to rouse anyone at White Pines. The trooper apologized to the disheveled Walterses and explained that he’d been trying to reach a member of Lancaster family, but no one had answered. Of course they had not. Pippa and Julia had been tucked in their beds, exhausted by the celebrations of the night and blissfully unaware of the unfolding tragedy on their doorstep. Thankfully, Mrs. Walters had known to call Eliza. She was the closest thing the girls had to family.

  Since then, Eliza had not left their sides. She’d stayed the first two nights until Candace arrived from London. And even a couple after. Eliza rubbed Pippa’s back for hours. She washed dishes; she heated up the meals that all the neighbors and friends and concerned citizens of Saybrook brought to their door. And when Julia’s and Pippa’s grief left them unable to stomach the rich quiches and casseroles and savory roasts, Eliza stepped into the kitchen and whipped up comfort food that they could eat: macaroni and cheese. Buttered pasta. Chicken noodle soup that Eliza brought up on a tray to their rooms. As if Julia were sick; as if this were something she would ever heal from. Those first few nights, Julia heard Eliza’s voice, ripe with sadness as she spoke with Candace downstairs in the parlor, explaining the girls’ schedules, likes, and dislikes. As if she could teach this strange new relative something about her own nieces that might somehow save them all. In the mornings, Eliza made their beds and laid out fresh clothes. She placed toothbrushes in their hands and ushered them into showers and gently brushed their hair. Throughout the house, she set out puzzles and board games and crayons and paper to distract them. Afternoons, she lured them out of doors to the front lawn and read aloud from picture books on the soft grass under the impossible cheer of the July sun. Mute and numb, the girls followed her through the day like little wards. But Julia knew Eliza could not stay forever.

  The morning she packed her bag and hugged them goodbye, Julia’s heart ached with fresh rawness. She couldn’t bear the thought of being left with her aunt. From the moment she laid eyes on Candace’s reedlike appearance, Julia doubted she cooked or ate, and soon enough her suspicions were confirmed. Candace’s dishes were a gray meat and potato stew and some kind of lamb roast that Julia attempted to gum down and Pippa only stared at. Their days together were lonely; once they were dressed, Candace ushered them outside: “All right, then. Go play.” As if they could. She spent most of her time on the phone, with what sounded like lawyers and board members. Julia heard terms like “executor of the estate,” and there were hushed discussions about wills and assets and probate court. Julia didn’t care; times like that, she escaped outside to the barn, where she could think and be alone for a few minutes. Whenever Julia returned from the barn, Candace asked her to wash her hands and change her clothes the moment she stepped over the threshold. “Horse smell,” she’d sniff, wrinkling her nose. “You’d best shower.”

  At night, their aunt did not check on them after tucking them in, the way their parents had. And she had little tolerance for being awakened by a child with a bad dream. Very late on the first night the three of them were alone together, Julia’s bedroom door swung open. Shielding her eyes from the spill of hallway light, Julia made out two silhouettes, one large and one small, in the doorway. Her aunt’s voice was not unkind but also not patient.

  “Go on, then, you may sleep with your sister.” Since then, Pippa made a habit of coming to Julia in the middle of the night, wordlessly sliding beneath the sheets and curling herself around her big sister. There would be a few hiccups of tears until she settled. Then Julia would flip her damp pillow over, kiss her little sister’s head, and pull her in close. She was all Pippa had now. She would have to be both parents to her.

  Julia’s friends were another story. They did not leave her alone, as her aunt did. They filled her phone with texts and calls, images of flowers and kittens and videos of sappy songs and sunsets. Julia turned her phone to Do Not Disturb. Chloe was the only one she could manage to speak to, and Julia asked her to spread the word that she did not, could not, talk to anyone right now. That she appreciated the outpouring of concern but that she needed to be alone.

  But then Mrs. Fitzpatrick appeared at the front door with her arms loaded with flowers and pink boxes Julia recognized from Haven’s Bakery. Candace invited them in.

  “It’s very nice to meet you,” her aunt said, accepting the giant vase of flowers. But Mrs. F had eyes only for Julia, and the second she saw her, she unloaded the pastry boxes onto the nearest table and rushed her.

  “Oh, sweetie,” she said, weeping, pulling her in. Julia fell into the maternal hug, at once pillowy and strong and saturated with warm sadness.

  Chloe was right behind her mother, and the two teens pressed their foreheads together when they embraced. “I’m so sorry, Jules. I’m so sorry.”

  Everyone was sorry. Which left Julia in the odd position of telling everyone who said it that it was okay when, really, nothing was. With Chloe, Julia did not say this. She nodded and cried, and swore under her breath, and let her best friend hold on to her.

  Candace had stood in the background, watching with a pinched look of despair but also something else. Awkwardness, Julia thought. Pippa, having heard the fuss from her room upstairs, appeared at the bottom of the stairwell, and Mrs. F scooped her up, too. Julia was relieved when her aunt invited everyone to move into the living room to have some tea. What she lacked in maternal instinct, she possessed in manners.

  They stayed awhile, sniffling between attempts at normal conversation, but it all felt forced and tiring, and Julia soon found herself wishing they would go. Chloe sat close beside her on the couch, squeezing her hand. They didn’t go out to the barn to hang with Raddy, like usual. There was no pulling Chloe up to her bedroom to whisper about Sam’s latest text or to giggle about school gossip. When they finally left, Julia stood at the front window watching the car go.

  Without warning, her chest smarted with something like anger. Chloe got to go home with her mother. Back to her house, where everything was normal and everyone was accounted. Julia had been there hundreds of times, so she could picture the rest of their day: Mrs. F would make something good for dinner. Chloe and her little brother, Matt, would argue about who set the table and who fed the dog, but eventually, both chores would get done. Mr. Fitzpatrick would wander in from work in his suit, his tie as loose as his smile. He’d be tired but happy, and they’d all sit down together to eat. Together, Julia had thought as she’d watched their car turn around a corner and disappear behind a stand of trees. It only made her miss her parents more.

  The only person who did not make her feel worse was Sam. Since the morning after he’d texted. All day, each day. What Julia found she liked most about his messages was what Sam did not say to her. Sam did not ask how she was. He did not tell her it was going to be okay. Nor did he press her to reply, which she did only once: “I feel like I’m broken.”

  His reply came right away: “Because you are. But I’m here for you.”

  After that, Sam sent her texts instructing her to go down to the lake, where he would leave something for her. He understood she didn’t want to see him yet. But still, he found ways to send tidings. There, in the sand at the base of their special rock, he left his messages.

  “I miss you,” written with a twig stuck in the sand.

  “Beauty” next to a small bouquet of silvery bird feathers tied with a red string.

  “Hope” etched into the mud beside a puddle filled with wildflower petals.

  Each message a secret comfort to her soul.

  Between comforting her sister and crying for herself, between trying to eat and trying to sleep, and navigating their aunt, who stood out in their family home like a foreign object, Julia found herself depending on Sam’s messages. They
were the only things that got her through each day. She woke to them in the morning. And she looked at them one last time before bed. Sam was her lifeline, even if she couldn’t bring herself to see him yet.

  “Why don’t you want to see him?” Chloe asked.

  “I can’t. I just can’t.” It was true. There were too many reasons she could not.

  First, there was the matter of Pippa, who sensed like a little wild animal if Julia’s attention turned anywhere other than toward her. Pippa was skipping and coloring one minute, then sobbing the next. Julia could not leave her.

  But it was more than just Pippa that kept her away from Sam. There was the gnawing terrible guilt she felt. He was the reason she’d sneaked out and left the house that night. The last time her parents were alive, Julia had not been sleeping in her room under the same roof, like she was supposed to be. Like they believed her to be. She’d been out in the woods with Sam.

  * * *

  All Julia knew about what happened after she sneaked out with Sam was that a little after midnight, her parents took a drive.

  From what Eliza told the girls and the police, the last guests had just left the party, and she’d bumped into Alan and Anne in the front driveway on her way home. They’d thanked her for all her help and said good night. Anne had even hugged her, she recalled tearfully. They seemed happy. As Eliza walked toward her car, she heard Alan say to his wife, “Come on. Let’s take a moonlight drive.”

  Julia would never know if her mother agreed right away or if her father had to work his charm to convince her. It was late, but the moon had been almost full, so full that Eliza said she could see her way easily across the yard to the side field where her car was parked.

  Julia was surprised they had gone for a drive. They didn’t like to leave the girls home alone, even though Julia had babysat Pippa plenty of times. But those times were different; they were planned. Julia was told where they were going and when they’d be back. There were goodbyes and hugs. So it made no sense to her that they had just gotten in the car that night and driven off.

  If Julia had thought the day her parents died was the worst day of her life, the funeral made her reconsider. The morning of the service, Eliza had come back to the house to help the girls pick out dresses and get them ready. Julia did not care what she wore. For all she cared, she could stand up in front of the church naked. What was the difference? She’d been ripped open and laid bare to the universe. Her limbs weighed a thousand pounds, and she moved through each day doing what she was told. It was easier. She did not want to think. But that day at the funeral home, seeing all the people from Saybrook and beyond who’d come to say their goodbyes, had momentarily jolted Julia back to life.

  There was not an open seat in the church, and many of the mourners had to stand against the walls in the back and along the windows. So many sorrowful expressions turned their way when she and Pippa entered the church. Julia could almost feel the weight of them as she processed down the aisle. There was her nursery school teacher, Miss Flynn, dabbing her nose with a tissue in the last pew. The owner of the IGA market, sitting in the row beside the Walterses. Her riding instructor, Heidi, waved sadly from across the aisle as she and Pippa passed. So many of the faces she’d seen just nights before at the gala. Faces that had been laughing and dancing and eating fine food in her very own backyard. Dressed up as they were now, only this time in mourning attire.

  As Julia and Pippa followed Candace down the aisle of the church to the front pew, Julia stole glances at those faces around her. Red-rimmed eyes. Pursed lips. The muffled cries that escaped when they laid eyes on the Lancaster girls, as if this were the saddest thing they had ever seen. Julia had wanted to escape. To turn and race back down the aisle, and push open the church doors, and scream at the sunlight, which she could not believe had the gall to shine on this of all days. But she did not. Because when she got to the front of the church, Candace, who’d been blocking Julia’s view, stepped aside, and Julia’s attention was ripped from the sorrow around her to the two coffins directly in front of her.

  They lay side by side, blinding her: the white lacquer, the brass handles, the wave of flowers that cascaded over them. So many flowers that the stems and blossoms overflowed, filling the narrow space between the two coffins, intertwining like hands being held. It was all Julia could do to sit down in the pew before her knees snapped beneath her.

  * * *

  Now, sitting in the therapist’s office as Lottie handed her an appointment card for next week’s session, Julia realized she was holding her breath again. Something she seemed to do all the time now.

  How foolish. What could she possibly be afraid might happen? The worst already had.

  Eleven Ginny

  The lake cottage was summer perfection. Oh, it was far from perfect, as far as a dwelling went. The hundred-year-old rental was tiny. And it was perched on a steep rocky slope overlooking the lake whose waterfront access consisted of a hillside staircase constructed of old logs that jutted out at precarious angles the whole way down. Not to be attempted in the dark or after a couple glasses of wine, Ginny noted. Inside, the kitchen was dated and basic: a farmhouse sink, a butcher-block counter, and a behemoth GE Americana turquoise refrigerator that was so prehistoric Ginny looked it up on eBay and learned it was a 1964 World Fair special edition. To her surprise, it still worked, even if it hummed loudly.

  At the front of the cottage was a modest half-bath with a pedestal sink, and the only shower was outdoors. No matter, it was on the side of the house with a water view. There was just one bedroom, which narrowly fit the queen bed and antique dresser squeezed into it, but its window was wide and opened to the lake breeze and hillside greenery. The rest of the cottage was open-concept. The pine-paneled walls were painted white, and there was just enough room for a downy sofa in front of a fieldstone fireplace. But what the cottage lacked in newness and size, it more than made up for in character and seasonal charm. The backside of her rental overlooked the lake through a wall of floor-to-ceiling windows, and when Ginny stood in its center, she realized she was ensconced in blue: everywhere was water and sky. An itty-bitty deck with room for two Adirondack chairs and a charcoal grill lay outside a set of French doors, which were the first thing Ginny drew open on the night she arrived. Immediately, a cool gush of lake air filled the cottage, and Ginny hurried from window to window, sliding them up, letting the outside in. When she was done, she unpacked her two suitcases, unloaded into the antique fridge the three bags of groceries she’d purchased, and went to the back bedroom to change. She shed her jeans and slipped into a pair of cutoff jeans and walked barefoot to the kitchen, where she grabbed a beer, cracked it open, and went out to the deck. The lakeside was wooded with evergreen trees, and she tipped her head back and inhaled the pine scent. Somewhere across the water, a motorboat hummed and children laughed. Summer perfection, Ginny thought. Spartan and simple, like a new beginning should be.

  In the days since her arrival, she’d not had much time to spend at the cottage, but already the space was feeling like her own. Most of her time was spent visiting her parents. Her father was home from the hospital, taking it easy. Ginny had prepared herself for what he might look like the first time she saw him, but to her relief, he was surprisingly chipper.

  “I’m not dead,” he said when she walked into his bedroom and burst into tears.

  “If anyone’s going down, it’s going to be me. Trying to take care of him,” her mother countered. It was good to see they were engaged in their usual banter, even if her dad did look a little pale.

  “You look good,” Ginny told him, planting a kiss on his cheek.

  “I’m just fine,” he insisted. “Now that I’ve laid eyes on you. I hear your mother is putting you to work.”

  “Well, it’s the only work I have at the moment,” she said bashfully. She wasn’t sure who was helping whom with this new arrangement.

  “Nonsense,” her dad said, squeezing her hand. “You’ll be flying the co
op before we know it. I’ll be better in no time. Don’t let us hold you back, you hear?”

  She appreciated her parents’ belief in her, but honestly, working at their real estate firm was the only gig she had going. It was an oddly unsettling feeling, being home at her age without a job or place to call her own.

  After, her mother had heated the teakettle and called her into the kitchen. “Business isn’t what it used to be for our agency,” she shared in a hushed tone. “I don’t want him worrying about it, but I have to say it’s a good thing you’re here. Think you’re ready to start sooner than later?”

  The real estate market in Saybrook was booming, Ginny discovered the next day. Despite that, her parents’ agency was struggling. That morning she rose early, went for a quick jog up the lake road, showered, and got into the office all before eight o’clock. Sheila was already at her desk scrolling through listings. “Oh honey, am I glad to see you.”

  “I hear it’s a seller’s market,” Ginny said, after giving Sheila a hug hello. “Big difference from the last time I was home.”

  Saybrook had always had a unique market, being a small town not too far from New York City. The good school system and proximity to the city helped, but so did the sense of privacy for artists and professionals looking to raise families or live simply amid the bucolic charm. But inventory was limited, and the market could be slow. Now, according to her mother, properties were flying faster than the agency could list them. “Why the uptick?” Ginny asked, helping herself to a cup of coffee and coming to sit on the edge of Sheila’s desk.

  “Politics and policies. This past year, the town switched from two- to four-acre zoning as part of the Land Conservation Board’s initiative. Which would limit new construction and sales of smaller lots. So people rushed for permits to grandfather their lots in ahead of time, and since then we’ve had a bit of a building boom.”