Message in the Sand

by Hannah McKinnon

  He was upright, his chest pounding. It had been a dream, he realized now, catching his breath. Wendell looked around the room, disoriented. A lazy breeze stirred the curtains; the night outside his window had gone quiet. He fell back against his pillow. There was a sound outside, a scratch across the porch floorboards. Wendell was wide awake, but his limbs would not work to let him cross the floor to his window to look. It was probably nothing. What followed was a low moan, unlike the first sound. It reminded him of his dream, but he was awake now; it didn’t make sense. When he heard it again, this time he got up.

  The porch light flickered when he turned it on. Through the window, he saw a small figure curled up in one of the rocking chairs. He unlocked the door and tugged it open. A child in striped yellow pajamas was tucked into the chair, her knees pulled to her chest, thumb jammed in her bow-shaped mouth. It was Pippa. Wendell tiptoed outside and stood over her, watching her little chest rise and fall. The child was fast asleep. He looked left and right, across the porch. There was no sign of Julia.

  Not wanting to disturb her, he knelt. How long had she been out here? He placed his palm against her back; to his relief she was warm, not chilled, despite the cool temperature. Wendell had never spent much time around children, especially small ones. They made him nervous. But something about Pippa’s sweet, sleepy expression got to him. A tendril of blond hair had fallen across her eyes, and he gently tucked it back behind her ear. It was so soft. At the touch of his fingertip, her eyelids began to flutter. Slowly, she turned her head in his direction. For a start, Wendell feared he’d scared her. But Pippa just stared back at him sleepily.

  “Come on, Pip,” he said. “Let’s get you inside.”

  Without warning, she lifted both arms and draped them around his neck. She was light as a feather, and she wrapped her legs around his waist. “Oh, okay.” Gently, he carried her inside.

  But Pippa didn’t stir again. Almost immediately, she tucked her chin against his neck, her breath warm and heavy. He had barely made it into the living room with her in his arms when he felt her body grew heavy. She was already sound asleep.

  Slowly, Wendell carried her to the kitchen and lifted the phone with his free hand. Without meaning to, he turned, and his nose brushed the back of her hair. He recognized the smell instantly. The scent of baby shampoo that his mother used on him and Wesley when they were small and took baths together. Wendell closed his eyes and dialed Candace.

  As he waited for them to come, he sat with Pippa on his lap on the couch. The weight of her against his chest, and the smell of the baby shampoo, and something else—the sweet smell of a child—filled his senses. By the time Candace’s car rolled into the driveway, Wendell was sound asleep with Pippa still tucked against him. Upon hearing the slam of a car door, he started.

  Pippa was sitting up in his lap, watching him intently. “Can I see Raddy?”

  * * *

  Wendell met Candace at the door, Julia in tow. Julia blew right past him. “She rode here all by herself?”

  “She’s in the living room,” he said, but the screen door had already slapped shut behind her.

  Candace remained on the porch. She looked completely out of character in a blue bathrobe and tennis shoes. “I don’t understand. What is she doing here?”

  It was what he wanted to ask of her. Both girls coming the other night together was one thing. But Pippa venturing here alone in the dark was entirely different. “Did something happen at the house?” he asked.

  Candace looked offended. “Of course not. They were sound asleep in their beds.”

  “That may be, but a six-year-old doesn’t run away in the night for no reason.” He glanced over his shoulder, where Julia was rubbing Pippa’s back on the couch, and a wave of protectiveness rose within him.

  Candace was not having it. “There is nothing wrong except for the fact that these girls are out of control.”

  Julia joined them with Pippa, but she stayed on the inside of the doorway. “We want to stay here,” she announced.

  Candace looked between the three of them, her eyes flickering. “Enough is enough, young ladies. Get in the car.” She strode across the porch and down the steps.

  Wendell felt hesitation about sending them home, but it was best to let everyone sleep on it and circle back in the morning. “It’s late,” he told the girls. “What you need is to go home with your aunt and get some sleep.”

  Pippa whimpered. “But I don’t want to.”

  From the driveway, Candace flung the car door ajar. She screamed with such force, Wendell jumped. “Get in the goddamn car!”

  Wendell had never seen her lose control, and to judge by the girls’ reactions, they had not, either.

  Pippa started to cry. Wendell took her hand. “Come on, Pippa. I’ll walk you out.” He didn’t like being in the middle of this. But he didn’t want to stand aside and let things get any worse, either.

  Julia bit her lip but did not budge. “Julia,” he said, turning to her. “Listen to your aunt for tonight. We can figure this out in the morning.”

  “No. Pippa’s upset, and I’m not making her go. Let us stay.” Tears sprang to Julia’s eyes as she said it, and Wendell felt himself bend. It was all becoming too much.

  “Julia, now is not the time to push things. I promise I’ll come by in the morning.”

  But Julia had other ideas. “He has Radcliffe, you know!” she shouted across the porch.

  Candace came to the bottom of the steps. “What did you just say?”

  Wendell let his breath out. “Julia.”

  “What? She might as well know everything.” She spun to face her aunt. “After you stole my horse, he went and bought Raddy back. He’s here in the barn. Go see for yourself.”

  Wendell closed his eyes.

  Julia was on a tear now. “And I’ve been coming to see him every day,” she went on. “You think you know everything, that you’re in charge. But you’re not.”

  Wendell couldn’t even look at her. Julia didn’t realize it, but she had just cemented her aunt’s ire. He walked to the porch railing to face Candace.

  “Is this true?” she sputtered.

  He didn’t know which part of the story she meant, but he supposed it didn’t matter anymore. “Yes, ma’am. All of it.” He would not say he was sorry.

  “What were you thinking?”

  “I felt badly about the horse being sold. The kids had been through so much.”

  Beside him, Julia crossed her arms as though she’d won the battle. But the war was Candace’s, Wendell already knew.

  “Your judgment is baffling,” Candace said finally. She turned to Julia. “I’m leaving, with or without you.”

  “Please?” Julia begged at his elbow. “Can we stay with you now?” But if she’d been expecting an ally, she did not have one.

  “Julia, it’s time to go,” he said.

  “I had to tell her. This way she’ll see that we have this under control. We don’t need her.”

  Wendell shook his head. “Listen to your aunt.”

  She would not budge. “Whose side are you on?”

  “There are no sides, Julia.”

  Candace got in the car and started it.

  Julia glared at him, and Wendell could feel the heat of her disappointment. Then she took Pippa’s hand. As she stomped down the steps, she called back, “I thought you were different. Some hero you are!”

  It was a blow effectively targeted and expertly delivered. He took it, dead on.

  Candace rolled down the window. “Mr. Combs, we will talk in the morning.”

  Wendell leaned against the railing. “I only bought the horse as a nod to Alan; he was my friend.” As the words came out, Wendell realized he meant them. He had never admitted it before, and yet when Alan had died, a friend was exactly what he’d lost.

  Candace stared straight ahead as the girls clambered into the backseat in a flurry of disarray. “We’ll discuss this tomorrow morning. First thing.” He was going
to be fired.

  Wendell stood on the porch until the taillights rolled down the driveway and turned into the darkness. There would be no sleep for him tonight. He sank down in the rocker that he’d discovered Pippa curled up in.

  Wendell was used to feeling numb. It was a state he’d spent years chasing. But tonight he felt too much. Sadness. Regret. Loss. He sat, rocking, until the first light came over the horizon. He thought of the girls, driving away in the backseat of the car, and wondered if he’d made a huge mistake. Of Ginny, driving away from him that afternoon. He thought of Dr. Westerberg, who had told him that he needed to let himself feel the good parts along with the bad. But what happened when everything good left?

  When the sun made its slow climb over the hills, Wendell stood up. There, at the bottom of the porch steps, was a tiny pink bicycle with sparkly streamers on the handlebars. He went inside and shut the door behind him.

  Twenty-Five Roberta

  Julia Lancaster was a hell of a pain in the butt, that much she was sure of. What Roberta was not sure of was whether or not she could help the girl.

  Roberta had been working in her kitchen on a pie crust when there was a knock at the door. Blueberry season had come early, that first week of July, due to the long spring and warmer weather. Nothing, it seemed, was as it should be that summer. Not the season, not the sense in Saybrook. But an early crop of blueberries, she would welcome. She’d just begun rolling out the crust when Julia Lancaster showed up.

  Now, perched on Roberta’s living room couch, wringing her hands nervously, Julia looked to be in that aching stage between little girl and young woman. It tugged at Roberta’s heart.

  Julia cleared her throat. “I’m sorry to barge in. But we have a situation at my house.”

  “Oh?”

  “I tried to reach Jamie. She’s pretty cool, by the way. But apparently, she’s in court all day?”

  Roberta leaned back in her chair. “I’m glad you like her. She’s very good. Okay, so this is not uncommon. Lawyers are not usually reachable by phone right away, but I’m sure she’ll call back as soon as she can.” She paused, knowing that by asking more questions, she would further involve herself. Which she did not want to do. “What is the situation at home?” She could not help herself.

  “Things are bad. Last night Pippa ran away.”

  Roberta shook her head. “Good grief, you girls are a couple of night owls! Again?”

  “Yes. To Wendell’s.”

  “I see.” Wendell was surely having a time of things. Roberta would have to check in on him next. “What happened?”

  “Pippa and I don’t want to stay with our aunt anymore. We don’t want to leave our home, but as long as she’s in it, we can’t stay. I filed for emancipation. I just didn’t think it would be this ugly this fast.”

  Roberta felt for Julia, but she wanted to ask the girl what she’d expected. This was how it went. People took so long getting to the end of their rope, making big decisions. And by the time they did, often things had broken down so much they couldn’t stand to remain under the same roof as the courts tried to make sense of it all. “What is it you want to do?”

  “Jamie said a guardian ad litem was being assigned to us. I want that person to come sooner than later. We need them.”

  Well, she knew what she was talking about. And it was not an unreasonable ask. What was unreasonable, unfortunately, was the time these things seemed to take to process and get going. Nothing involving the state was ever fast.

  “There must be someone you can call,” Julia said hopefully. “An old judge friend?”

  Roberta raised one eyebrow. “Old judge? Like myself?

  Julia flushed. “Sorry. I didn’t mean it like that.”

  “In any case, I can’t get the wheels of justice spinning any faster than anyone else. But I suppose I could make a call and at least inquire. I do know the probate judge for Litchfield County; he’s a good man.”

  “Would you please?” Julia looked grateful.

  “Yes, but in the meantime, you need to share this with Jamie as soon as you hear from her. What you need is legal counsel. Not talking to a retired judge in her living room.”

  “While she’s in the middle of baking a pie.”

  Roberta glanced over her shoulder into the kitchen, where the pie crust waited on the counter.

  Julia shrugged. “I saw the blueberries. And the dough. Pippa loves blueberry pie.”

  For a terrifying second, Roberta almost invited her back to the kitchen. It would not kill her to hear this girl out further. To weigh in. To get involved, as she’d told Wendell.

  Instead, she smiled tightly and ushered Julia to the door. “Yes. There is the matter of the pie.”

  With Julia gone, she returned to the kitchen. As she’d feared, the darn dough was warm. When she balled it up to roll it out again, she dropped it. It wasn’t the slipperiness of the dough so much as the shaking of her hands. The last thing Julia had said before leaving: “I knew you’d know what to do.”

  There was a time when Roberta was foolish enough to think so, too. But no longer. The truth was, Julia Lancaster was calling up old memories. Memories she’d rather not allow back in the corners of her mind.

  The Layla Bruzi case had been complicated from the beginning. Jenny Bruzi was a twenty-three-year-old single mother of two children, Layla, age five, and Dominic, age two. The children were fathered by different men, neither of whom married Jenny, but she lived with Dominic’s father, Austin Hicks, with both kids. At age seventeen, Jenny had dropped out of high school, just one semester before she would have graduated, to have Layla. She’d never gone back. Layla’s biological father was not in the picture, at least when Jenny Bruzi had been brought to the probate court’s attention by Layla’s maternal grandmother, Edith Warren.

  From the start, Roberta had seen red flares. Edith Warren was appealing for custody of both her grandchildren, but it was her claims about Layla’s physical well-being that concerned Roberta most. Edith felt that Layla was in some kind of danger being around Austin Hicks, though there was never any evidence of that.

  In documents obtained by the Department of Children and Families and the New Milford Police Department, there were two domestic violence calls made, one by Jenny in September 2012 and one in November by her mother, Edith, against Austin Hicks. Austin was arrested on each incident and later let go. Charges were filed and then dropped both times by Jenny.

  Sadly, it was not uncommon for women in situations of domestic abuse to bravely make the call for help, and file a charge, but later drop it. The reasons were many: financial strain, lack of stability and support, fear for their personal safety or the safety of their children. At the end of the day, Roberta knew the ugly truth: no restraining order was going to provide any real protection for a woman and her children if someone was determined to cause them harm. There were shortcomings in the law, just as there were shortcomings in people. As much as she believed in the law, and some might say loved it, it was on a judge to make case-by-case determinations to provide the real protections needed for those most vulnerable, in this case, a five-year-old girl.

  At the first custody hearing in Roberta’s courtroom, Edith Warren claimed that Austin had a nasty temper, and though he and Jenny fought often, it was Layla who she felt was most vulnerable. “He’s real jealous. It’s not good for either child to be around him when he and Jenny get into it, believe me. But Dominic is Austin’s biological son. He treats him different.”

  Roberta wanted to hear more. In her experience, third-party witnesses were often reliable and made sound contributions to completing the picture she was trying to piece together. “Please give the court some examples of your concerns if you can, Mrs. Warren.”

  “Well, I haven’t seen him hit her or nothing. At least not in front of me. But when he gets fired up, he looks at her funny.” Her voice broke then, and she paused, looking as if she might cry. Roberta felt for Mrs. Warren. It was not easy for families to show up and
testify under oath, even if they were doing it for what they thought was the right reason. She waited as Mrs. Warren collected herself.

  “Layla reminds him of Jenny’s ex and the life she had before him. He doesn’t like having Layla around, I can tell.”

  “Can you elaborate on your fears, Mrs. Warren?” Roberta needed specifics to point to, as much as she hated to ask and feared the answers. In her experience, there had been cases of domestic abuse that, statistically, the women seemed to absorb the most. But she’d had a case of a child with a broken arm who’d gotten pulled too hard by an angry stepmother. Another, just a six-month-old infant, who’d been shaken but, thank God, survived. In her small country courthouse, it was not common. But it happened everywhere, even in the forested hills of Litchfield County, where the front yards were manicured, the schools were good, and the playgrounds were full of happy, healthy, cared-for children. It happened everywhere. And if Mrs. Warren was suggesting she had good reason to believe it was happening now, that Layla Bruzi might be in some kind of imminent danger, Roberta was going to flesh it out. “If you could give us any examples of something Mr. Hicks has said or done to warrant your fears, that would be helpful.” She watched the conflicted expression on the grandmother’s face as she looked over at her daughter, Jenny. “Anything at all,” Roberta encouraged.