She would need to get creative, she thought. It was turning out that being creative was what being on her own was all about.
She was thinking of all this on her way through the woods. She’d gone from Diana’s to Heart’s Desire for her afternoon work, and now at day’s end, she was ready to rest. She’d stowed her bike in its hiding spot beneath the trees, and as she hiked along the trail from Newman Road to the tree house, she could see the new spring growth around her everywhere. She could see, especially, how it was beginning to encroach on the path from Newman Road. She would have to borrow some clippers from Ivar in order to cut back the salal, the blackberry, and the huckleberry bushes that were stretching out to obscure the trail. Ralph Darrow would soon be doing the same thing on his other forest trails, she decided. She was going to have to be extremely careful with her comings and goings now.
As always, she paused when she got to the clearing with its twined hemlocks and the tree house in their embrace. She listened but heard no sound other than the usual birds and the angry chattering of squirrels warning each other of her approach. She made for the stairs, then, and climbed quickly to the trapdoor in the deck. It felt oddly good to be home, and how additionally odd it was to think of this little shelter as home at all.
She opened the door. She was surprised to see that Seth was inside. He was sitting on the camping stool next to the stove, not doing a thing, which was completely unlike him. Usually he’d be playing his guitar or he’d be struggling with his battered copy of Siddartha or he’d be messing with the woodstove. Something more than just sitting, though.
She said, “Hey! I didn’t see your car on the road. Did you come from your grandpa’s?”
Seth didn’t have a chance to reply. A gravelly voice said, “He did indeed. Come in and join us.”
Becca gulped. She stepped inside and shut the door. Doing this, she saw Ralph Darrow sitting on her camping cot. He wore a suede jacket and a wide-brimmed hat that made him look a little like Wild Bill Hickock, since his sandy gray hair was long and flowing and his mustache was impressive. Becca looked from him to Seth to him again. She didn’t know what to say.
This turned out to be no problem, since Ralph was the one to do the talking. He said, “You must be my grandson’s ‘tutor,’ she of the jealous boyfriend and the applied math.”
Becca said nothing. She was straining for whispers and it didn’t take long to hear them. When will he ever . . . in it deep so she might as well . . . age of this child . . . has no idea how much trouble it can . . . didn’t give her much to go on as to how she was supposed to answer. She went for part of the truth and hoped for the best.
“We’ve figured it out, me and Derric,” she said eagerly. “That’s my boyfriend. See, he didn’t get why there were things I wouldn’t tell him. Not about Seth but other things. And he was upset about me tutoring Seth and I got upset and it went from there.” She cast a glance at Seth. His face gave her nothing.
“I expect that’s true as far as it goes,” Ralph Darrow said, “but the way I see things”—he looked around the tree house’s single room—“explaining the finer points of applied math doesn’t require a sleeping bag, a Coleman stove, a lantern, flashlights, and a pile of groceries. All of which, aside from the groceries, happen to belong to me.”
She said, dumbly as she was to think later, “It gets dark early in the winter here. So we needed the lantern—”
“Beck,” this from Seth. “He knows. He came out here ’cause that’s what he does when the weather gets better. Just to check and make sure everything’s okay.”
“Care of one’s property,” Ralph Darrow told her. “It’s part of the responsibility of ownership. Now this little place I consider my property. What do you consider it?”
She swallowed. “I know it’s yours.”
He said to Seth, “And you, favorite male grandson?”
“Yeah,” Seth said. “I know it’s yours.”
“About how many ways have you lied to me, you think, Seth?”
“Grand . . .”
Why won’t he see . . . and now he thinks . . . just tell me the truth and when I . . . the law is the law . . .
“No ‘Grand’ now. How many ways have you lied? Lies of omission, lies of commission, and outright falsehoods. You’ve been packing those into our conversations and our interactions for months. Every time you stepped onto this property and didn’t mention you’d stowed a young girl here. How old are you?” This last he asked Becca.
“Fifteen, sir.”
“Good God in heaven, Seth. Truly, I thought you had more sense.” Is he actually . . . what’s he thinking . . . he’ll end up in jail and that’ll put his dad in the grave . . . fifteen years old fifteen years old fifteen years old . . . can’t be because no way . . . no way no way . . . I c’n see his face tells me . . .
“There’s nothing going on, Mr. Darrow,” Becca said. “I mean, between me and Seth . . . I mean, we’re just friends and we’re not using this . . . I mean, it’s not what it looks like. I’m staying here, is only what it is.”
“Who are your people? Where’s your family?”
Becca looked desperately to Seth for help. She didn’t know Ralph Darrow other than to have seen him at a distance. She knew Seth was close to the old man. He was as close as she’d been to her own grandparent. But that was all she knew. “Grand’s cool” didn’t cut it when it came to trespassing, to using someone’s property as one’s own, and to being someone who looked like a runaway because what the heck else was he supposed to think?
“I don’t . . .” How to tell him, Becca thought. What to tell him that he might believe. How to walk a line between truth and falsehood. How to stay safe in a complicated world. “I don’t have any family here,” she settled on saying.
“And that means what?” Ralph Darrow asked her.
Seth said, “Grand, she’s got no one on the island. She was supposed to stay with Carol Quinn. Her mom brought her here to stay with Carol. But when she got to the house and found out that Carol’d died—”
“Way I remember things,” Ralph cut in, “Carol Quinn died last September, Seth. And are you telling me this girl’s mother dropped her off on Carol Quinn’s front porch and left her there without stopping to see she got inside the house? Without a halloooo to Ms. Quinn and a here’s my daughter, ma’am, and she’s going to be staying with you for God only knows how long and God only knows why? Is that what you want me to believe?” Lying again and how much longer . . . what I know and it isn’t everything . . .
Becca said in a rush, “My mom and I were trying to get away from my stepdad. But we knew he’d follow us when he could, so she wanted to leave me with Carol Quinn while she got us a place where we’d be safe. That’s where she is now but I don’t know exactly where . . . I mean her address or anything . . . because I had a cell phone and then I lost it and I was staying with Debbie Grieder at the Cliff Motel but I had to leave because the sheriff came, only he wasn’t looking for me only I thought he was looking for me, so I left.”
“She was in the Dog House,” Seth added. “That’s where I took your camping gear at first. You know the Dog House. The old tavern in Langley?”
Ralph shot him a look. “I’ve lived here for seventy-two years, Seth.”
“Sorry. I was just trying—”
“Stop trying,” Ralph said sharply. “Your trying is what gets you into trouble.”
Becca saw the hurt on Seth’s face even as she heard not fair . . . no excuse this time . . . people need you and you always said . . . right thing wasn’t it . . . not a stupid boy but when will he ever . . . And she knew she’d caused the division between Seth and his granddad.
“That’s not fair,” Seth said and he sounded numb. “She needed help and you would’ve helped her. You know you would have helped her, Grand.”
“I do not know that, and neither do you,” Ralph
said. “And one of the reasons we’ll remain in ignorance on that subject is that you didn’t tell me what was going on. You didn’t give me the opportunity to act. And that, Grandson, is only one of the mistakes you’ve made. Do you understand that?”
“I was trying to—”
“Seth, you’ve made a lot of mistakes through the years, and that’s part of growing up and I understand that. But this mistake here . . . It’s an important one. I c’n see that you meant well by this girl. But meaning well and doing the right thing are different, and you’ve got to learn that because I can’t be responsible for what your heart tells you to do if you don’t involve your head in the process.”
Stupid stupid loser loser loser told Becca how Seth was taking this, and that didn’t seem right at all. She said, “Mr. Darrow, I put him in this position. See, my stepdad showed up one night at the Cliff Motel. I couldn’t let him find me. Seth was with me and I asked him . . . I begged him Mr. Darrow . . . to get me out of there. This is where he brought me. And it’s kept me safe. He’s kept me safe.”
“That may well be,” Ralph Darrow told her, “but he’s walking on the wrong side of the law in this, and there’s not a Darrow on the island who’s ever done that. Seth knows it. He knows both parts of it. Now collect your things.”
“Grand!”
“I’m not hearing more, Seth. I’ve heard enough. You c’n pack up all this camping gear. I’ll see to the groceries. The subject is closed.”
Hard as nails . . . when she needed help and you always say . . . proud of me but . . . can’t see things clearly and when he needs to . . . parents involved . . . no progress at all . . .
It was too painful for Becca to listen to more. She found the AUD box and plugged in its earphone and settled the earphone in her ear. The static was loud and it was soothing. Dully, she began to gather her things. They were few enough and most of them were in bags already. Clothes and school books made up the lot of it. It wasn’t going to take more than one trip to vacate the tree house. That was for sure.
• • •
THEY MADE A solemn procession through the woods. Ralph led the way, and he took them in the direction of his house, not Newman Road. For this Becca was moderately grateful. At least she could stow her belongings on Ralph’s porch while she scouted out a new place to live.
Behind her, she heard Seth say, “Sorry, Beck,” and she glanced back at him. He looked more miserable than she’d ever seen him.
She said, “’S okay. It’s not your fault. I’ll work it out.”
“Not if he calls the cops,” Seth said.
“Maybe even then,” was what she told him. She had trouble believing this, however. Calling the cops meant calling Dave Mathieson. She couldn’t see how that was going to lead to anywhere good at all.
They were silent the rest of the way, the only noise coming from their footfalls on the damp forest floor. It began to rain just as they hit the outer reaches of Ralph Darrow’s great rhododendron garden. The huge shrubs there were beginning to bloom. They were spotted with red and pink and white and yellow. In a week or so, they’d be a mass of color backed by the fresh cool green of the trees.
They crossed the grass and climbed onto the wide front porch. There were four rocking chairs on it along with a picnic table and benches for outdoor meals during summer. Becca dumped her belongings on this table. She pulled out a bench and waited for what was coming next. If worse came to worse, she could make a run for it, she figured. Ralph Darrow wasn’t about to tie her up till the sheriff got there. He didn’t seem the type.
He did look at her though as she dropped onto the wooden bench with a thud. He frowned and said, “What do you happen to be doing now?”
She said, “I figure I’ll wait out here if it’s okay. Or maybe . . . Seth’s car’s here, right? He c’n drive me to . . .” She didn’t know where. Diana’s? Debbie’s? Heart’s Desire? Back to the Dog House for another sojourn in that creepy place? She didn’t know. She wanted not to care, but that wasn’t happening. She said, “I’m just sort of hoping you won’t call the sheriff or anything.”
“I have no plan to call the sheriff,” he told her.
She looked at Seth for guidance. He was watching his grandfather. He’d set the camping equipment on the porch and, like Becca, he was merely waiting.
He said, “Grand . . .” And his voice was cautious.
Ralph said to Becca, “Get yourself and your belongings inside.”
She didn’t move. She didn’t know what to think. She said, “I don’t get . . . ’Cause you said . . .”
“What?”
“About the law and the Darrows and being on the wrong side of things,” Seth clarified.
Ralph nodded at this. Thoughtfully he groomed his Fu Manchu mustache. “Darrows don’t operate on the wrong side of the law,” he agreed. “But they also don’t leave teenagers living in the woods. Between those two things, a Darrow decides.”
“You mean . . .” Seth said.
“You talk to me next time you think you know the way of my world,” Ralph Darrow told him. “Now are we standing outside and discussing this further or can we go in and get this girl set up in a proper accommodation?”
“I guess we can go inside,” Seth said. “You okay with that, Beck?”
She was more than okay. “Mr. Darrow,” she began.
“Not a word,” he told her. Then he nodded sharply and opened the door.
Elizabeth George, The Edge of the Water
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