Message in the Sand

by Hannah McKinnon

  “Oh, Raddy.” Julia let herself in his stall and flung her arms around his strong neck. His mane was soft and smelled like hay and sunshine, and she buried her face in it, crying.

  Radcliffe stood very still, as if he understood, until she let go. “I’m sorry, boy. I don’t have any treats.” He lifted his muzzle to her forehead and sniffed, the soft whiffle of his breath warm and sweet against her skin. Despite herself, she laughed. “Thank God for you,” she told him.

  Outside, the moon rose over the horizon line. She sank in the corner of Raddy’s stall and closed her eyes. Images danced behind her lids: the sad expression on Chloe’s face. The text Sam had sent earlier, “How did it go?” The look on Pippa’s face when their aunt ferried her upstairs, as if Julia were the problem.

  She pulled out her phone.

  Sam picked up on the first ring. “So?”

  “So, nothing. It was a bust.”

  “All of them?”

  Julia tried to keep her voice even. “Every one.”

  “Damn.” He paused. “I hope you don’t take this the wrong way, but I was doing some research. Just in case.”

  “What kind of research?”

  “Remember we talked about kids who emancipate themselves?”

  She didn’t want to get her hopes up again. “I’d still need a guardian, Sam.”

  “Not necessarily. I mean, I don’t know for sure. But it turns out there is someone here who would know.”

  “In Saybrook?”

  “Yeah. Her name is Roberta Blythe. Wanna know what the weird thing is? She lives on your road.”

  Seventeen Wendell

  Ginny Feldman had been heavy on his mind. Ever since he’d run into her in the café, Wendell tried to shake off the memories that threatened to flood—if he let them. He could not say how long she’d been gone from Saybrook, because that would mean thinking of Ginny. And thinking of Ginny was a dangerous thing. But it had been a long time. After Wesley died. After he’d told her she deserved better and should move on. For a while she’d stayed at Saybrook after Wesley’s funeral. Each day that passed was unbearable, and one of the few times Wendell had prayed in his life, he’d asked God to give him the strength to wait her out, to convince her to go. When she finally did, he’d prayed to survive it. He’d heard from her only one time since, and that was when his father died, just six months after Wesley. By then Ginny had gone, out to Chicago, he’d heard. She sent a condolence card. When he’d opened the mailbox and seen her scroll handwriting, his chest had tightened. He still had that card, tucked in his top dresser drawer.

  Seeing her the other day had rattled him. It was like seeing a ghost from his past, and his past was already littered with them. He’d lost his mother to cancer. Then Wesley to war, and then his father to what he was pretty sure was grief, despite the official cause of death as stroke. A man’s heart could stand only so much. And though Wendell had done everything in his power to shut his own off, he was no different.

  But he could not allow himself to go back. He would focus on work and try to push Ginny from his mind. She was here temporarily. He’d done it before.

  So far, the morning was already a sticky one, shrouded in a heavy layer of fog. It was as if the estate had heard the news and was rebelling with a saplike humidity that slowed everything on the property to a near standstill. The apple blossoms had wilted and fallen. Oversize peonies, done blooming, turned brown, slumping on their stems as their once magnificent fragrance soured. Even the birdsong was muted, and Wendell spied the tall gray egrets still in the lake, as though their appetites had been diminished by the sun. He himself was slow-moving today, despite the long list of tasks Candace had assigned him.

  Unlike Alan, who had taken joy in meeting him at the big barn after sunrise, Candace left handwritten lists on yellow legal-pad pages affixed to the barn door with a single tack. The sparseness of the arrangement, coupled with the precise angles of her handwriting, provided a start to his day that left no space for sentiment. Today’s list of chores was nothing more than preparing the areas immediately surrounding the house that potential buyers would tromp across and inspect. Plumping the annual beds, weeding perennials, shearing hedges, applying a fresh layer of dark mulch atop that already bleached by the sun. To him, it was nothing more than fluffing pillows in a guest room.

  Wendell was working up in the gardens around the main house when he heard a scream. He spun around, searching for the source. It seemed to have come from down below, by the barn. A bolt of fear ran through him. Wendell dropped his shovel and started downhill toward the barn quickly.

  When he’d arrived, he hadn’t seen any sign of the family. But now, as he crested the rise and scanned the view below, a very different scene was unfolding. A large silver livestock trailer was pulled up outside the barn. Outside the truck’s cab stood a man wearing a baseball hat. In the barn doorway were two figures, and immediately, Wendell recognized Julia and Candace facing each other in some kind of standoff. Julia gestured urgently, her voice shrill, but Wendell could not make out what she was saying.

  The truck driver turned, and seeing Wendell approach, shook his head.

  “What’s going on?” Wendell asked.

  “All I know is we’re here to pick up a horse. Didn’t expect a scene like this.” He nodded over his shoulder. There, behind the trailer, a woman held Radcliffe on a lead rope. Raddy’s legs were wrapped for travel, a light fly sheet draped over him, just as if he were shipping off to a horse show. The woman seemed to be waiting uncertainly for Candace and Julia.

  “You can’t take him,” Julia pleaded, hanging on to Candace’s arm. “He’s my horse.”

  Confusion enveloped the group in the barnyard, but Candace stood in the midst of it like a flagpole in a storm. “Julia, please.” She freed her arm and turned her attention to the woman. “As I was saying, it’s best if you load him up now. I’ll give you his paperwork, and we can talk later today by phone. I apologize for this display.”

  Wendell hurried around the truck to where they stood. “What’s going on?”

  Candace turned. “Oh, good, Mr. Combs. We could use your help.” She began to make introductions, but Wendell had eyes only for Julia.

  “Tell her!” she cried, rushing up to him. “Raddy is a gift from my dad. She can’t just sell him.” Her eyes were like a frightened animal, and Wendell felt something rise inside him akin to the panic that so often found him in the night. He blinked, forcing himself to exhale.

  “Ms. Lancaster,” he said, turning to Candace. “There was no mention of anything about the horse.”

  Candace appealed to him as if she’d found an ally. “Thank you for coming to help.” She gestured to the truck. “Litchfield Farms has agreed to purchase the horse, and they’re here to collect him. Would you please help them load him in the trailer? I need to take Julia back in the house.”

  “No!” Julia grabbed Wendell’s wrist and squeezed hard. “He will never help you steal my horse.”

  Wendell could feel all eyes upon him. Radcliffe paced nervously at the outer edge of their circle, and the sound of his hooves on the pavement was ominous. Julia’s fingers on Wendell’s wrist pulsed. He needed to think.

  “Ms. Lancaster, when was this arranged?”

  “We are preparing this property for sale,” she said firmly. She turned to Julia, who was still holding on to Wendell’s arm like they were on the same team. “Julia Louise, I am sorry, but we cannot take your horse to London with us. It’s just not possible. So I have arranged for Litchfield Farms to take him in. It’s a lovely place, and he will have excellent care.”

  “He has excellent care here! And I’m not leaving.”

  The situation had spun out of control. All Wendell wanted to do was send the trailer away, tell the woman to put Raddy back in the barn.

  “Why don’t we take a breather,” he said, feeling the heat of Julia’s grip. “Perhaps you all could sit down and discuss this further.”

  Candace narrowed her
eyes. “There is nothing to discuss. White Pines and everything on the property is to be sold. Mr. Combs, we have an agreement, and I am asking you to help us load this horse.”

  Beside him, Julia began heaving. “Don’t let her,” she begged. He dared a look at her and regretted it immediately.

  “Julia, get back up to the house,” Candace snapped. “You are making a scene.” She nodded to the woman holding Raddy. “Load him up, please. Now.”

  Wendell felt Julia’s body coil like an animal’s, and he braced himself instinctively against her. “No!” she screamed, buckling against him. “Don’t take him! He’s all I have left.”

  The woman looked torn but did as she was told. She circled Radcliffe to the back of the trailer as the driver hurried around and lowered the ramp.

  “Please,” Julia whimpered against him. He could feel all the fight leaving her, and as it did, something inside him failed.

  Without thinking, Wendell wrapped an arm around her. There was the creak of metal springs and the thud of a trailer ramp hitting the ground. The obedient clomp of hooves as Radcliffe disappeared inside. “All clear,” the woman called from within. Outside, the driver secured the partition and closed the gate. It happened in such swift unison, it reminded Wendell of a tactical exit strategy. He winced.

  The woman exited the trailer through a side door and came to stand by them. She glanced between the three of them. “I’ll call to let you know when he’s settled.” She turned to Julia. “I’m sorry this is so hard, honey. We’ll take good care of him, I promise.”

  “Thank you,” Candace interjected. “We’ll let you be on your way.”

  Julia had gone limp in Wendell’s arms. They watched the truck back away from the barn and turn down the driveway. When it disappeared into the grove of trees, Wendell turned to Candace. “Why?” he asked.

  “Mr. Combs, this does not concern you. If you have a problem with how things are being run here, perhaps this job is not a good match for you.” She looked at Julia, sighed, and turned back up to the house.

  Wendell felt Julia stiffen. He released his arms, and she spun to face him.

  “How could you?”

  “Julia, please. I had no idea she was doing this.”

  Julia’s cheeks streamed with fresh tears, making her look almost like a little girl again. “He was the last thing I have from my father. You knew that, and you let her do this anyway!”

  “It was not my decision,” Wendell said softly. “I don’t agree with what she did. But what could I have done?”

  Julia hinged forward, her face close to his. “My parents liked you,” she sputtered. “Since they died, every adult I know has let us down. I thought you were different.”

  She may as well have spat in his face. Wendell took it all. There was nothing different he could have done, but he hated himself nonetheless.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I never meant to let you down.”

  When she took off toward the woods, Wendell watched her as the familiar dull roar began in his ears. Eventually, she reached the lake and ran along the sandy edge to the far side of the woods. He did not know where she was going, but as the sound in his ears heightened, he wished the woods would swallow him whole, too.

  * * *

  That night, unable to sleep, he lay prostrate as memories rolled through him. His mother, placing her hands on either side of his face. “Take care of your little brother,” she’d said. Ginny, standing in line at the funeral and how he’d refused to meet her gaze. The way he used to avoid the Lancaster family and linger in the truck at White Pines until Anne and the girls had passed, so he would not become entangled in conversation or niceties. Wendell had not wanted to know them, to care for them. The arrangement was supposed to be about business: Alan’s job gave him an escape; he gave Alan his trusted labor.

  But that first spring, when the row of dogwood trees he’d convinced Alan not to dig up and discard the season before had come back in a fragrant flush of pink bloom, Alan had found him on the property one day, come up from behind, and clapped Wendell on the back heartily. “You did good,” he said, like a father would say to his son. Or a staff sergeant to his private soldier. Words Wendell did not ever again deserve to hear. And he’d known then that staying apart would be hard.

  When the sun streamed in through the windows the next morning, Wendell rolled out of bed and slipped into yesterday’s jeans. He poured his morning coffee into a travel mug and headed outdoors. Behind the farmhouse was a small red barn where his father stored tools and lawn mowers. Wendell entered the barn and did not come out for two hours.

  At nine o’clock, when the bank opened, he called Trudy to the truck. That morning he did not turn right out of his driveway toward work. As he headed north toward the village center, he adjusted the rearview mirror, glancing once at his reflection. He knew what he needed to do.

  Eighteen Roberta

  No one ever knocked on her door. Maybe it was because she had no friends in town. After a friend like Charlotte, what was the point? Maybe it was because everyone else knew better than to bother her. Unlike Robert Frost, Roberta believed good fences did make good neighbors. She loathed dinner parties and would rather perish than “pass the potatoes” around some neighbor’s table. She had no desire to break bread and listen to people chew it, or, worse, impart their mundane thoughts. No, Roberta did not call in on people, and she did not have people call in on her.

  The last person to make that mistake was a fresh-scrubbed young man in a polyester suit who’d rapped on her door with his skinny knuckles and thrust a religious pamphlet under her nose. She knew those people had circled the neighborhood with some regularity in the five years since, but not once had one dared to stop in front of her house again.

  So when someone stood at her door knock-knock-knocking like their life depended on it, Roberta was somewhat amused. They’d tire out soon enough, she figured as she turned the pages of her new book; they always did. But when the knocking paused and resumed, cruelly, she got annoyed. It did not matter who it was. Who did the caller think they were?

  Book in hand, she peered out the window. It was not a religious pusher, as far as she could tell. Nor was it a delivery person. She squinted. It was a young girl. She softened a little. Maybe the girl needed help. Oh, hell. Roberta opened the door. “Yes?”

  It was a girl, all right. A pretty blond teenager. She didn’t recoil at Roberta’s scowl. Nor did she step back as Roberta filled the doorway. Instead, she leaned in.

  “Are you Roberta Blythe?”

  Roberta sized her up. This one had pluck. “Who wants to know?”

  “I’m Julia Lancaster.”

  Roberta’s breath caught. It was one of Wendell’s Lancasters. She held the door open.

  * * *

  The girl had gone through two cups of peppermint tea, but Roberta had not even sipped from her first. She hadn’t had a chance.

  “Let me see if I understand you correctly. You want me to help you emancipate yourself from your aunt and stay in Saybrook with your little sister.”

  “Yes.” Julia’s expression was level. She’d done some homework. And she was dead serious.

  What Roberta couldn’t figure out was how this girl had arrived on her doorstep. “Forgive me for saying so, but it’s my understanding that you have means. There are plenty of talented attorneys out there. You could afford to hire anyone.”

  “I don’t want anyone. I want you.”

  “How exactly did you find me?” she asked, expecting the girl to mention Wendell right off the bat.

  “My boyfriend. I mean my friend, Sam. He found you somehow online. I think it was a newspaper article or something?”

  Roberta’s insides shuddered. Was she referring to the Bruzi case? She switched the subject. “We actually have a friend in common.”

  Julia stared blankly. “Really?”

  “Yes. Wendell Combs.”

  Immediately, Julia’s face clouded. “He’s no friend of mine.”
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  Roberta was confused. She knew Wendell didn’t let anyone get close, but from all the stories he’d shared of the Lancasters over the years, she’d come to the understanding that they had. And they’d liked him quite a good deal. “I’m sorry. I know he works for your family.”

  Ever so slightly, Julia shook her head. “Not for long. He works for my aunt now. And she’s leaving.”

  “I see.” All through her career, Roberta had to try to read people. It was part of her job. She could tell she’d hit a nerve with Julia; something had happened that she did not yet know about. But to guess from the look on the girl’s face, she was not about to share what it was. “Well,” Roberta said, “having heard all you shared today, I think you may actually have a case.”

  Julia brightened.

  “But I am not an attorney. Nor am I a guardian ad litem, which is what you will also need.” She stood and went to a small antique secretary desk in the corner. She pulled out her old Rolodex and riffled through it until she found what she was looking for. “What I can do is refer you to someone who is.” She plucked out a business card and handed it to Julia. “Here. Someone who can really help you.”

  Julia blinked as though she’d not heard correctly. “But…”

  “But nothing. You give her a call.”

  Julia read the card aloud. “Jamie Aldeen.”

  “She was just starting in a local firm when I was on my way out of the courthouse. But I worked with her a good deal on some family cases in my last two years. She’s sharp. And she’s passionate.”

  “Are you not those things?”

  Roberta pushed her glasses up on the bridge of her nose. This child was something else. “Who I am is a retired judge. There is nothing I can do for you.” Roberta pointed at the card in Julia’s slender hand. “But she can!”

  Julia looked deflated, but she kept the card. “On one condition.”