Beach Girls (21 page)

Just then they heard some music booming from down at the beach. Nell felt scared—it sounded so strange and eerie, like voices coming from the sky.

“What's that?” she asked.

“Beach movie,” her father and Stevie said at the same time.

“Can we go?” she gasped, looking from one to the other.

“Dinner's almost ready,” her father said.

“We could eat fast . . .” Stevie said.

“Let's do it,” her father said.

They went inside; Stevie threw the herbs into the copper pot. It only took a few minutes for the clams to open. Nell's father made her some plain linguine with butter, just in case, and that was good, because Nell didn't want to eat the clams she'd just dug. But her father and Stevie ate them, and said they were the best they'd ever had.

When they finished eating, Stevie and her father quickly rinsed the plates, and Nell danced around the first floor with Tilly watching her from a hiding spot on the mantel. Nell felt as if this was her house, and she wished she could come back again and again. The wish made her stop dancing.

She thought of what Stevie had said in the herb garden. That you wish and do your best . . . and things happen.

Nell had wished that this day would never end, and now they were all going to the beach movie together. It made her feel strange and powerful. She hadn't had something to believe in in a long time. It was like raking the mud, finding a perfect clam. Or being in the dark, sticking your hand into a garden you couldn't even see, coming out with herbs for dinner.

Maybe Stevie
was
a witch, after all. . . .

STEVIE COULD
hardly believe she was doing this. Although her house faced the beach, and the sound of the movies bounced up the rock ledge every Thursday night in the summer, she hadn't been down to a beach movie since she was a teenager. She and Nell bundled up in extra sweaters, and she gave Jack an old Trinity sweatshirt of her father's. The cartoons were just ending as the three of them crossed the footbridge.

Nell raced across the beach to look for a good spot to put their blanket. The projector was set up on the boardwalk, focused on a somewhat rippled screen hanging from what looked like a weather-beaten goalpost. The crowd was made up of a combination of families with young kids, teenage girls out for the night, and teenage couples taking advantage of the dark and a legitimate reason to be lying on a blanket together.

Peggy was there with Bay, Dan, Tara, and Annie. Billy was haunting the boardwalk with his pals. Everyone seemed to see Nell at once, and they all called and said they'd move their blankets over and make room. Stevie walked through the crowd to the spot, aware that people were noticing. Nell held her hand proudly while Jack spread out the blanket.

“Hi, everyone,” Stevie said.

“Hi, Stevie, hi, Jack.”

“Thanks for making room for us,” he said. The night was dark, but the projector light on the blank screen illuminated everyone's face.

“Oh, we're thrilled to!” Bay said, grinning so madly, Stevie wondered what she was thinking. Tara seemed to be beaming with the same intensity. Peggy gave her a long, cautious stare; Stevie tried to reassure her with a smile.

“Where's Joe?” Jack asked.

“Oh, out keeping the world a safer place,” Tara said. “And leaving me footloose and fancy free at the beach movies.”

“Watch it—you're a betrothed woman,” Bay warned.

“I know. Love has taken the sting out of this cruel, cruel world,” Tara said. “Watch out, Stevie—once I say my ‘I do's,' you'll officially be the designated Scarlet Woman of the Point.”

“I wear it well,” Stevie said, laughing.

Just then, the movie started. It was just as Stevie remembered from her youth—the old projector creaking along, the film ratcheting through the spools, the sound competing with the crash of the waves, and the picture distorted by folds in the windblown screen. In other words, the movie was beside the point. She laughed with the joy of being back.

Jack and Nell had dug a pit, patted the pile of sand into a sturdy backrest, and spread the blanket. The three of them settled into their seats, with Jack in the middle, so Nell could sit beside Peggy on one side. The movie was
Tiger Bay
, and Stevie was completely positive she had seen it—probably this very same ancient copy—with Emma and Madeleine.

“I don't think of you that way,” Jack said, turning toward Stevie, his voice too low for the others to hear.

“What way?”

“As a scarlet woman. I'm sure Tara was just teas-ing you.”

Stevie looked at him, surprised, then actually stunned—that he would come to her defense. “Thank you,” she said. “But I am, sort of. Unintentionally.”

“No . . .” He took her hand. Their hands were hidden between them on the blanket, and he laced his fingers with hers, and a shiver went all the way up Stevie's spine. No one could see them, and the secret felt both thrilling and safe. “You're not,” he said.

“Thank you,” she said again. The sea breeze picked up, blowing through her hair. He reached over to brush it out of her eyes, and their eyes locked. She had a hard time catching her breath, and she had to force herself to concentrate on the screen. The movie blared, showing Hayley Mills hiding in the staircase. Nell and Peggy were scared to look, so they asked for their ice cream money early and went tearing up to the Good Humor truck.

“I've seen this part before,” he said, turning toward her. He let go of her hand and put his arm around her shoulder. She felt sixteen—no, even more excited than she remembered feeling at sixteen, with a boy at the movies. Her heart was pounding, as she felt his breath on her cheek.

“Me, too.”

“Even if I hadn't, I'd rather talk to you.”

She nodded.
Me, too
, she mouthed, smiling. He brushed her cheek with his lips. They watched the movie for a minute, and suddenly the film broke. Everyone moaned, but someone called out, saying it would be fixed in just a few minutes.

People surrounded them, but all Stevie could think of was kissing Jack. His arm tightened around her, and their hips pressed together. If they were younger, if Nell wasn't here, they'd go under the boardwalk . . .

The idea made her laugh, and he looked over. “What are you thinking?”

“Just that, once a scarlet woman . . .”

“I swear, I don't see it,” he said stubbornly.

Stevie nodded. “I didn't grow up thinking, ‘Oh, I want to be married three times before I'm forty.' I really didn't. I . . . did my best. I . . . fall in love easily.”

“You do?” he asked, smiling broadly.

She tried to smile. “That didn't come out right. I . . . what I was trying to say is . . . I feel so much for the people that I . . . well, love. I can't turn it on and off. And I grew up believing in marriage, you know?”

He nodded. “Your aunt told me your parents had a great one.”

“They did,” she said. Talking about this was hard, in a way she hadn't expected. Suddenly she felt uneasy, having Jack hold her. Their pasts really rose up to swamp her, and she involuntarily pulled back. “They were in a world of just each other. No one else . . . Like you and Emma.”

Why did he suddenly look away? Wasn't that the whole story? The great love he'd had for Emma? The reason he had left the south, Atlanta, their home? Wasn't it the reason he had stopped speaking to Maddie—because she had said something against his wife?

“It wasn't,” Jack said.

“What?”

“My marriage. It wasn't great,” he said quietly. “I thought it was. I really did. Emma seemed so happy. She stayed home with Nell, then started working at our church. St. Francis Xavier had a volunteer program—they went to nursing homes, a homeless shelter, the prison. Emma would read to prisoners. My sister's the one . . .”

Stevie waited. His face was creased with torment. “She's the one who told me,” Jack said. “I had felt something was wrong, but I was too dense to know what it was. Maddie had to tell me after Emma died.”

“Oh, Jack.”

“I want to tell you, but I'm not sure I can. It's been so amazing getting to know you, seeing how much Nell likes you. And realizing that you want to do the best for her. I have the feeling I can tell you anything. . . .”

“You can.”

He shook his head resolutely. “Not this,” he said. “I want to, but for Nell's sake—she's so young. She loved her mother so much, and I want to keep it that way.”

“Of course. You want to safeguard Emma's memory,” Stevie said, squeezing his hand. “I understand. But you should let it out to someone, Jack. It's already eaten away at you, destroyed a big part of your life. . . .”

“What do you mean?”

“Madeleine. It's kept you from your sister.”

He stared up at the screen, as if he wished the movie would start, keep them from talking anymore. At the same time, he squeezed her hand hard, and she pressed back.

“What did she tell you?” Stevie asked.

The movie began again, the film shakily advancing, the sound fighting against the easterly wind. It was picking up, smelling of the sea—Stevie always felt a northeaster before it actually arrived. She felt the spray on her face, smelled the salt.

“Maddie told me Emma was going to leave us,” Jack said. His voice cracked—or was he just being drowned out by the movie? Stevie looked at his dark eyes and held his hand tighter.

“Leave you?” Stevie whispered, but Jack didn't reply.

“She had a secret life,” he said, not quite answering the question. “A real, true, secret life that I knew nothing about.”

“But . . .” Stevie began.

“I don't want Nell to know, ever,” he said. “I wish I never knew. I wish Madeleine had never told me.”

“But she couldn't lie. . . .”

“I wish she had,” Jack said with despair. “It's why I decided to take Nell to Scotland. I wanted her as far from here as possible—but now . . .”

Stevie waited, holding her breath.

Jack didn't say anything more and Stevie's heart turned over. He leaned forward, his lips brushing hers. The sea wind blew harder, drowning out the movie.

Nell was back. She raced to the blanket with Peggy, snuggled on the other side of her father. Jack squeezed Stevie's hand, then turned to Nell

The every-day, every-night being-a-father took over. Stevie felt him slip his hand out of hers, reach over to wipe the ice cream off Nell's face. Nell was riveted by the movie, the strange friendship between Hayley Mills and the sailor. She watched, openmouthed.

The movie continued, and when it ended, half the kids had fallen asleep. Nell was drowsy, but on her feet. Everyone packed up their blankets, and Bay and Tara called to Stevie and told her to stop by soon. She thanked them and said she would.

Nell walked a little ahead with Peggy, sleepily making plans to get together the next day. Stevie took the opportunity to grab Jack's hand. She wished so much that she could give him the strength, the grace he'd need to face what was happening.

“I shouldn't tell you what I hope for,” she said.

“But I want you to,” he said.

“Stay here,” she whispered. “Don't go to Scotland. Stay.”

He touched her cheek, but he didn't seem to trust his voice. Stevie said goodbye for both of them. Nell ran over to give her a hug. And then she watched the Kilverts walk through the sandy parking lot toward their rented house, with their family's big secret shimmering between them.

Chapter 19

MADELEINE TRIED TO STOP STARING AT
the phone, waiting for it to ring.

Her brother's silent calls had given her more hope than anything in an entire year.
Hope
: she hadn't even realized that that was what she had—that little glimmer of positive feeling, of faith, the thought that maybe the next time he called he'd actually talk, that maybe they could begin to straighten out what had happened between them.

But then the calls seemed to stop, and Madeleine plunged into a darkness she hadn't known existed. She barely had the energy to get out of bed in the morning. She had to force herself to do the smallest things. The sight of a woman with Emma's hair color made her burst into tears. Driving home one afternoon she heard a song on the radio that reminded her of Jack, and she had to pull over and weep.

Chris was worried, and wanted her to get help.

Although she had seen a therapist after the accident, she didn't feel that it had helped at all. Talking about what had happened just seemed to stir up terrible feelings; instead of then flowing out, the emotions felt trapped in her body and mind, in her heart, under her skin. Her doctor's way of dealing with her torment was to put her on Denexor—which totally blocked her feelings and left her feeling alienated from herself. So she'd thrown out the medication—
and
the doctor.

One evening Chris gave Madeleine an article by a psychologist practicing in Providence, teaching at Brown. Her name was Dr. Susanna Mallory, and she specialized in the treatment of trauma. The title of her piece was “Waking the Dead,” and it opened with accounts of accident victims, their bodies recovering but their lives on permanent hold. “Alive but hibernating,” was how one of them put it.

Chris had left the article on Maddie's desk with a note: “This doctor seems to see things differently—do you think she would understand?” His tenderness and gentleness was so touching, it nearly did Madeleine in. She didn't have much confidence in “treatment” for what she'd been through—how could a doctor cure her relationship with Jack? But she decided to look at the story—more for Chris than for herself.

Chris was like a one-man hospital, giving her love, care, and almost endless patience. He didn't seem to mind that she sometimes drank too much, or that she cried in her sleep, or that she missed a lot of work. It was only when she stopped wanting to leave the house at all, and when he saw how much she was suffering, that he had really reacted.

“You love going out,” he said. “I know you do. But you never want to eat out anymore. You don't want to take rides to Newport or Little Compton . . . you don't even want to go to the beach.”

“No, that's not true,” she'd said, trying to deflect him. “I'm just tired.” Or, “I have a headache.” Or, her personal favorite, trying to joke: “I'm in perimenopause. I'm having hot flashes and bone loss.” “These are the calcium years,” she'd say to him with a shaken smile. “I'm just not my
old self. . . .”

He had gone along for as long as he could—letting her struggle through in her own way, understanding that she needed to cling to whatever control she had—but then he'd drawn the line. It was a month or so after her visit to Hubbard's Point, and another two weeks since Jack had stopped calling.

Periods of the day passed when she couldn't remember what she was doing. She felt stuck, emotionally paralyzed. At night, trapped in the horror, she relived the crash over and over. She heard Emma's scream. And she found herself imagining, almost all the time, how it would feel to walk up the Newport Bridge and dive off. . . .

Chris finally
made
her call Dr. Mallory.

The doctor's office was in a brick house at the Fox Point end of Benefit Street in Providence, with black-and-white photos of mountains and bare trees on the walls. She was in her mid-fifties, tall and slender, with great hair, compassionate eyes, and a deep capacity for listening.

Madeleine talked. She was an administrator, and she knew the value of getting to the point. Without tears or any apparent emotion, she told the doctor why she was there: she felt frozen, that she was having a hard time doing things. She was grieving for her sister-in-law, who had died in a car accident. Madeleine had been driving. Although she, Madeleine, had been hurt, her injuries were far from life-threatening. A concussion, and her shoulder had been torn.

What sort of therapy had been required? The doctor wanted to know.

Several surgeries and occupational therapy, Madeleine reported.

The doctor watched her for a minute; Madeleine knew she was waiting for something. Her eyes were steady and kind, and even without speaking, her unasked question made Madeleine's throat ache, as if she were choking on tears.

“Occupational therapy . . . surgeries,” the doctor said. “The injury must have been very serious.”

Madeleine wondered whether Chris had told her—that Madeleine's arm had nearly been severed. She swallowed the story—she had talked about it with the other doctor, and it had made her crazy with grief. Because, how could she stand to complain about what the accident had done to her arm—when it had killed Emma?

Her husband had been wonderful through it all, she told the doctor instead. Her brother and she, though, were . . . well, estranged.

Then she started off giving the rest of the history, in as dispassionate a way as possible, to get to the point, and to show that she was capable, in control, and completely sane. Where she was born, who her parents were, her brother, Jack . . . a happy, close, well-adjusted family. She gave the rundown on her health—generally good. Not much exercise—she'd stopped playing tennis, which she used to love.

“Were you close, you and your brother?”

Madeleine nodded. “He was four years ahead of me,” she said. “But he always walked me to school. He'd let me tag along with his friends, to Goodwin Park. The tennis courts didn't have lights then, but we'd play till dark anyway—sometimes long after! We'd play by sound—listening for the ball. And he used to take me downtown—sometimes we'd hitch a free ride on a bus—sitting on the back bumper!” She'd smiled to show the doctor that she hadn't been scared. Telling the story brought back a strong memory—the feeling of her brother bracing her with his arm, saying “Nothing's gonna happen to you, Maddie. I won't let it.”

Maddie hadn't even replied—it hadn't even occurred to her that she could get hurt with Jack around. Telling Dr. Mallory brought back the powerful feelings of loving and trusting her brother that much, and it made her smile.

“Why am I telling you this?” she asked. “It doesn't have much to do with why I'm here.”

The doctor smiled.

“Our family took summer vacations at a beach called Hubbard's Point. We didn't have much money, but our father always saved, and wanted to give us everything he could. We were teenagers then, but Jack still let me hang around. Before I met my own friends there—one would turn out to be Emma, and the other Stevie,” she paused, looked at the doctor. “But before that, he took me under his wing. We didn't know anyone there.”

“But you had each other.”

She nodded. “He drove up to Hartford whenever he could—he had a girlfriend there. But we'd play tennis together, or he'd take me fishing. We'd race out to the raft. One day we just rode our bikes all around . . . we explored the roads. And we found this old water tower, up by the railroad tracks. I climbed up the ladder, to impress him . . .” Madeleine closed her eyes, remembering. “He called to me to come down, but I wanted to show him I could do it.”

The doctor listened.

“It was a rickety old ladder. Made of some kind of silver metal—but very thin and rusty. I got all the way to the top—and made the mistake of looking at the ground.”

“You were high up?”

Madeleine nodded. “Thirty feet or so. I just froze.” Her body tensed, and her fingers involuntarily tightened, as if around the ladder rung. “I couldn't move—I couldn't move a muscle. I just clung to that ladder, sure that I was going to fall off and die. I was paralyzed.”

“And your brother?”

Madeleine swallowed. Tears sprang into her eyes. “He climbed up to get me,” she said.

The doctor was silent, watching Madeleine's face. Maddie let the memories come—the heat of the day, the way the ladder shook as Jack climbed up, the terror she felt.

“‘Hold on, Maddie,' he said. You're fine—just don't look down. I've got you.' He was down below me, and I felt him grab my ankle. I told him to let go—that if I crashed down, I didn't want to take him with me.”

“And did he? Let go?”

Madeleine shook her head, tears freely flowing now. “No. He didn't. He told me that I wasn't going to fall—that I was strong, all I had to do was move one hand at a time. He stayed with me . . . talked me down . . . and never let go of my ankle. You know what I think?”

“What?”

“That if I had fallen, he was completely prepared to hold on—and not let me crash.”

“It sounds that way,” the doctor said gently.

The doctor sat in her chair across the small office while Maddie sobbed quietly. She reached for a tissue from a box on the table beside her. Madeleine's left ankle tingled, as if his fingers were still around it.

“I grew up thinking he'd save my life if he could,” she cried.

Dr. Mallory's eyes were kind, filled with sadness—as if she was feeling Madeleine's pain right along with her.

“He got you safely down to solid ground when you felt paralyzed on the ladder.”

Madeleine nodded, weeping.

The doctor was quiet, and Madeleine's thoughts moved slowly, tangled like a ball of yarn. She held a tissue to her nose, trying to stop crying. When she did, she saw Dr. Mallory watching her.

“You said at the beginning of the session,” the doctor said, “that you felt ‘frozen.' That sounds something like feeling paralyzed.”

“Just the way I felt on the ladder,” Madeleine said, her ankle prickling again.

“And this time your brother . . .”

“Isn't here to save me,” Madeleine blurted out. “Doesn't even
want
to.”

Dr. Mallory sat silently, letting Madeleine's words resonate. Maddie pressed the wadded-up tissue to her eyes, trying to stop the tears. “He thinks I killed his wife,” she whispered. “And I did.”

The horrible words rang in her ears, but the doctor's kind expression didn't change.

“I didn't mean to!” Madeleine cried.

“I know,” the doctor said.

“Why won't he forgive me? How can I live, or why should I, if he really hates me that
much . . . thinks I killed his wife, Nell's mother?” Madeleine turned her head, gasping for air. “Can you help me,” Maddie begged, “so my brother will forgive me?”

The doctor was silent for a moment, but then she leaned forward—so far that her knees were almost touching Madeleine's. “I can't promise you that,” Dr. Mallory said, her hazel eyes glinting with compassion. “But I can help you forgive yourself.”

The words were too much for Madeleine to take in, so she just closed her eyes and let the sobs wrack her from the inside out.