The very next Sunday after her conversation with Ralph Darrow, Becca set off on her road bike with plenty of time to get to the Congregation of Christ Jesus, Redeemer. Although the sun was out, the days were rapidly cooling now, and billowing white clouds scudded across the sky.
She didn’t want to be seen at the service, so she pedaled past the place and continued down to the lake. There, she could keep the church in sight. She could also watch some Canada geese who were paddling placidly on the lake’s still water. Hidden from sight, she saw Derric and his family arrive, and she watched them enter.
She hated seeing Derric only at school, and she hated not talking to him on the phone. Although he had a smart phone, she did not and thus had no way to text him. His computer privileges were history for now, so all they had were the moments they could snatch out of the school day to be together.
He’d cooperated fully with his mom: He’d gone to the psychologist she’d insisted he see. He wasn’t happy about it, but he’d come up with no other way to get himself back into his mother’s good graces. He’d spent three sessions so far with the man, but from what he’d told Becca, the only subject that came up between them was the party at the beach, his drinking, the fire, and his mom.
Becca wished he would open up about Rejoice so that he could somehow cope with his betrayal of her. But until he was ready . . . there was nothing she could do to bend him to her will. At least, she’d finally learned that.
The church service was over an hour long, accompanied by a lot of singing. There was a lengthy period of silence during which she figured the minister was preaching, and then more singing commenced, after which the service was over.
When people began to leave, Becca crept up to the parking area. She remained out of sight behind a long woodshed, where cords of logs were neatly stacked for heating the barn in the coming winter. From there, she could see the minister greeting his congregation as they left the church. Among them were the Mathiesons, and she fixed her gaze on Derric. He looked so sad. He made her heart hurt.
She waited till the last of the cars drove off. The minister went back into the church. He was probably going to close the place up fairly quickly, Becca thought, so she hurried into the parking area and through the great doors of the barn.
It was very plain inside. There were folding chairs, not pews. There were colorful dahlias in vases on a simple altar decorated with a cross. A lecturn stood to one side of the altar, and on the other side was a large wooden stand with a Bible open upon it. Along one wall there were bulletin boards with posters and pictures arranged upon them.
The minister was closing the Bible and scooping it off the stand. He was older than Becca had thought he would be, with hair coming out of his ears, very thick glasses, and old-fashioned hearing aids behind each ear.
He was called James John Wagner, Becca knew. She, however, would call him Reverend.
He set the Bible on the altar and began to straighten the chairs into parallel curves that fanned out neatly from a central aisle. He hadn’t seen Becca, so she said his name. When he looked up, she told him her own and went to help him.
She was surprised when he said, “Derric Mathieson’s girlfriend. It’s very good to meet you, Becca. You just missed Derric and his family. Or”—with a glance at the door—“did you come with them?”
“Came on my own,” she said. “Derric doesn’t know.” She hoped this was sufficient to clue James John Wagner into the fact that he wasn’t intended to mention her to Derric.
Young love’s difficulties let her know that it wouldn’t take much for her to secure Reverend Wagner’s confidence. So she said, “I sort of don’t want him to. I don’t want him to worry or anything.”
Pregnant flashed through the minister’s mind, but he seemed to dismiss this with my trial in life to jump to conclusions. Since from his thoughts it seemed that jumping to conclusions was something the minister was working to expunge from his life, Becca figured this could prove useful to her purpose.
Reverend Wagner smiled and said, “My lips are sealed, then. Shall we have a seat?” He gestured to the fan of chairs and Becca walked over to one.
He didn’t sit next to her but rather he swung one of the chairs around to face her. He kept a respectful distance, so they were knee-to-knee without actually touching each other. He said, “Seems like something might be bothering you if you’ve shown up to talk to the likes of me.”
She said, “Yeah.”
“Troubles with Derric?”
She shook her head. “Troubles with the place he came from.”
The reverend frowned. His mouth said, “Africa?” while his mind said parents and times haven’t changed when it comes to race have they. Becca was momentarily confused till she put his thought into the context of his age. He was an old guy—maybe seventy or something?—and he was thinking about the times when races mixing could lead to trouble. She supposed it still could in some places in the country, but as far as she knew, Whidbey Island wasn’t one of those places.
She said, “The orphanage? Children’s Hope of Kampala? I was writing to a girl there, a pen pal thing. She stopped answering and I didn’t know why so I looked online and ended up seeing that the orphanage is closed.”
Reverend Wagner said regretfully, “We hope it’s closed only for now. The need hasn’t gone away. But funding has been a struggle from the first.” He smiled sadly and added, “You wouldn’t be here to offer yourself as a secret benefactress, would you?”
“I wish,” she said. “But d’you know . . . what happened to the kids? I mean, the kids who were left there when the orphanage closed? Did they get sent to another orphanage? See, I know from Derric and his mom that you guys at this church were involved with the place. So I was wondering if maybe you know. ’Cause, basically, I hate to lose touch with my pen pal. I have a book I want to send to her and some pictures and stuff and . . . I guess I got worried when she stopped writing.”
Reverend Wagner nodded and said he understood her concern, that he wished more kids would take an interest in the challenges faced in third world countries. Then he asked her the name of her pen pal, which, naturally, he was going to need if he was to find out where the girl had been sent.
Becca knew this put her into deep waters since, of course, she had no clue what surname Rejoice had been given when the orphanage had found her. But since she’d said she was writing to her, she had to tell him something, so she said the girl’s name was Rejoice Nyombe, Nyombe being the only African name she’d ever heard.
Naturally, Reverend Wagner said the worst at once. “That was Derric’s original last name, wasn’t it? Is Rejoice a relative?”
She shook her head. “That’s even what I asked when Derric set me up with her as a pen pal. But Derric said it’s a real common last name in Uganda. He said they could be distant cousins, but he doesn’t know.”
“Ah,” the reverend murmured. “Rather like all the Adamses in America. How old is she?”
“She’s about thirteen, I think. She told me she doesn’t know for sure.”
He looked thoughtful, and he pulled on the lobe of one of his large ears. “Unfortunately, thirteen makes it doubtful that she was adopted,” he said. “It’s always the smaller children who are easier to place. If you were writing to her at Children’s Hope . . . And that is where you were writing to her, isn’t it?” When Becca nodded, he went on with, “So at the time of its closing, she might have gone from the orphanage into one of the convent schools. Or to work, for that matter. Sometimes when there are too many children . . .” God forbid spoke of the reverend’s worry regarding this matter, and that whisper did nothing to reassure Becca about where Rejoice was or what might have had happened to her. To work suggested child labor, or worse. The “worse” Becca didn’t even want to consider.
“I sure wish I knew why she stopped writing to me,” Becca said.
“That concern
speaks well of you.”
“D’you think there’s any way that you can find out where she is?”
“I’m not sure,” he told her, “as the directors in Kampala have all dispersed.”
Becca looked down at her feet. She let her body project the dejection she felt. She said, “I don’t know what else to do.”
Reverend Wagner reached out and patted her hand. “Let me try to get some information for you,” he said. “It may take some time, but I’ll give it my best. Shall I tell Derric if I discover anything?”
God no, Becca thought. She said, “I’m living over with Ralph Darrow. D’you think you could call me there? Derric doesn’t know that me and Rejoice’ve stopped writing, and if something bad’s happened to her . . . ? It would probably bum him out.”
“At Ralph Darrow’s, then,” the reverend said.
THIRTY-FOUR
Brooke and Cassidy weren’t making the chores in the chicken barn any easier for Hayley. Cassidy was stalking the birds in an attempt to pet them, and Brooke was stuffing a piece of white bread loaded with jam into her mouth. This was her second piece of bread and jam, which she’d kept carefully hidden in her fleece.
When Hayley protested about the eating and not helping, Brooke said, “Chill. I’m hungry, okay? I’m not hurting you.”
“You’re also not helping,” Hayley pointed out. “And what’s with the food? You’re already a tub and—”
“Shut up!” Brooke cried. “I am not and I’m hungry!”
“You can’t be hungry. You’re always eating. What’s going on with you?”
“Mind your own business!”
“Fine. Then help me. I’ve got other stuff to do.”
What she had to do was mammoth. She’d rewritten her college essay as required by her mom, but a meeting with Tatiana Primavera had resulted in the requirement that she revise the dumb thing because “it lacks a personal tone, Hayley, and that’s going to be essential.” Aside from that, she had mountains of homework from every single one of her classes.
And then there was the home front. Hayley’s mom had begun cleaning houses. This was a three-days-a-week time eater for Julie Cartwright, leaving Hayley with the dinner responsibility as well as maintaining the chicken barn and making sure Brooke did her homework, Cassidy had help with her grade school projects, and their dad was taken care of.
So Hayley was stressed, and right now having Brooke and Cassidy be part of the chicken barn problem instead of the chicken barn solution wasn’t helping matters. When Brooke still didn’t stir from eating her bread and jam, Hayley finally broke. She said sharply, “Come on. You’re supposed to be helping and you know it.”
“I hate chicken shit!”
Cassidy squealed. “Brooke said a bad word!”
Hayley shot Brooke a look. They still had to trundle the manure up to the vegetable beds, so she wasn’t about to put up with her sister’s lack of cooperation. “Am I gonna have to talk to Mom about you?” she asked Brooke pointedly.
“Whatever,” Brooke answered. “Like she’s gonna care? Or even notice that you’re talking to her?”
Hayley gritted her teeth. Did anyone else have to put up with what she had to put up with? And it wasn’t like she didn’t have other things on her mind as well. There was the whole fire-setting problem still dangling out there waiting for her to make a decision about it.
At the most recent jazz band practice, she’d talked to Derric. It was the only time she saw him at school without Becca or one of the other kids with him. He’d been looking as glum as she’d been feeling, so she’d asked him how he was loving being on restriction. He’d rolled his eyes and said, “Last time I’m getting drunk till I’m twenty-one,” and that had taken them to the party at Maxwelton Beach.
Derric had told her where things stood. His father had revealed how the fishing shack fire had started. Rags soaked in paint thinner, shoved into a rotting place where the wood of the shack had come loose from its meager foundation. Add to that some crumpled newspapers and a few fatwood sticks brought along for the purpose, and the rest was history. It wasn’t, he said, anything that could even remotely be called an accident.
The sheriff’s department was looking at every source of paint thinner on the island to see who might have bought some recently. But the problem was that there were a bazillion house painters and artists of various ilks on Whidbey, so finding someone who’d bought paint thinner recently wasn’t going to be very helpful.
She had to tell Isis about this, Hayley decided. If Aidan did indeed like to start fires, then he could have brought what he needed with him in a backpack that night of the beach party: paint thinner, rags, newspapers, and fatwood sticks. Or he could have even ducked down there in advance of the party and set the whole thing up. But when Hayley told her friend about the paint thinner part, Isis’s reaction was one of relief.
She said, “That’s great. I mean, it’s not great because of what happened to the guy inside the shack but it’s great because Aidan . . . See, he always used just matches. Matches and bits of wood and straw and stuff that was easy to get his hands on, and no way would he have changed his . . . well, his style.” She seemed to think about all this for a moment. Then she frowned and added, “He’s gonna be so righteously mad at me now, though. See, I kept bugging him about talking to the sheriff before the sheriff found out about the school in Utah. It’s not like I ever thought he might be the person who started the fire because I didn’t think that. I only thought he should talk to the sheriff. Problem is that now Grandam thinks something’s going on because he and I keep having these . . . well, these tense discussions that we stop whenever she comes too near. So she’s still making him run to the beach to de-stress himself or whatever and he’s doing it and, okay, maybe I haven’t been watching him every second like I’m supposed to but—”
Hayley had stopped listening. The mention of Nancy Howard brought to her mind what Nancy Howard did for a living. She interrupted Isis with, “Isis, maybe there’s paint thinner on your grandmother’s property.”
This stopped Isis in her tracks. “She’s a chain saw artist. She doesn’t paint. And anyway, Aidan used matches and the other stuff like I said.”
“But some of her sculptures end up painted, don’t they?” Hayley persisted. “Like when she does a sign for someone? Or when someone wants a painted sculpture? And if she paints them she’d have—”
“No!” But Hayley could tell that Isis didn’t mean her grandmother had no paint thinner. Rather she meant no to the possibility that her brother had set the fire. “He wouldn’t have done that,” she told Hayley. “He’s cured. They wouldn’t’ve let him out if he wasn’t. He might’ve been troubled at one time and okay let’s say he still is troubled now and then, but . . . Hayley, someone else has to be into setting the fires.”
PART IV
Bayview Farmers’ Market
THIRTY-FIVE
When Parker Natalia asked her out for a “surprise” date, Hayley was more than ready for a diversion. Hayley couldn’t imagine how anything on Whidbey Island might be a surprise to her, but she agreed to the plan and he gave her the date and the time.
When Parker arrived to pick her up, she was helping her dad get out of the house. He’d insisted on an inspection of what he was jokingly calling “the south forty,” and when she’d told him she was worried about how he was going to get back inside the house if she wasn’t there, he said, “I haven’t been outside in four days, Hayley. I’ll manage something and don’t you worry.”
Parker helped her dad negotiate the steps from the porch onto the front path that led to the driveway. He asked, logically, if they’d thought about building a ramp to take the place of the steps. Just when Hayley was about to say that a ramp would be helpful and that Seth could build it in no time flat, her dad announced that “they’ll have to pound me into the ground before you catch me using a
ramp, son.”
Then he started on his perilous way to the barn. Hayley watched him, biting down on her lip. Parker, she saw from the corner of her eye, watched her.
• • •
HAYLEY FIGURED OUT their destination once Parker made the turn off the highway. He headed briefly south then west on the route that would take them over to a place called Keystone. An old army fort lay in that direction, but so did the ferry that took Whidbey Islanders along the upper edge of Admiralty Bay. Its destination was the Victorian town of Port Townsend, with its old brick-built commercial streets and its gingerbread houses stacked on a cliff above them.
Once off the ferry, their first stop was an old-fashioned diner on the town’s main street. A bit out of place in a picturesque nineteenth-century town, Nifty Fifties boasted chrome bar stools, individual juke boxes on Formica tables, bright colors on the walls, neon signs, and a menu heavy on burgers, fries, malts, and milk shakes. They ordered and began to flip through the tunes on their table’s juke box. Parker chose Elvis Presley—“Love Me Tender”—and he put in the money. He slid some coins in her direction and told her the next selection would be hers.
Hayley felt herself coming alive in the presence of this young man, so different from the boys she knew from South Whidbey High School. It was, she thought, incredible what a difference a few years out of high school made. Parker was a man instead of a boy, sure of himself, easy to be with, interesting to talk to, and interested in what she had to say. And when he brought up something tough, he didn’t forge into it like someone driving a snow plow.
He said, fingering his silverware, “I c’n tell how much you and your dad mean to each other. The way you were helping him . . . the way you were worried about him getting back into the house . . . That’s great, Hayley, to have that with your dad.”
She colored a little. And even that, Parker Natalia took in because he went on with, “I c’n tell the whole subject of your dad is a tough one. Your family doesn’t like to talk about it, do they? But if you ever want to talk about it, about your dad, about anything . . . ? I’m your guy. Otherwise I just want you to know I respect whatever you want to say or don’t want to say.”