“He sure loves that guy,” Prynne murmured. “Working all week on construction and then coming here to do more? He’s tough.”
“He wants Grand home,” Becca said.
Prynne dipped her rag into the stain and began applying it. “I didn’t get to meet him before . . . you know . . . before the stroke.”
“He’s great.”
“Got to be. Nice that you get to stay here, too. I mean, nice that he lets you. Lots of old people . . . that’d sort of be the last thing they’d want, taking in some teenager they don’t really know. How’d it happen?”
Becca had replaced her earbud when Prynne and the other two kids had come out of the house. That many people in her immediate vicinity still proved too much for her to block out. But now she eased the earbud from her ear, the better to pick up what Prynne might be thinking about Becca King and her advent on the island.
Becca went with a slight variation of her original story: She’d come north from San Luis Obispo in California to live with her “aunt Debbie” at the Cliff Motel in Langley because her relationship with her mom wasn’t so hot. But things hadn’t worked out with her aunt, and she’d ended up here at Ralph’s because she knew Seth from his job at the Star Store grocery in town. “Where he used to work before construction,” she told Prynne. “He pretty much rescued me.”
“I know a lot about things not working out with relatives, that’s for sure,” Prynne said frankly when she’d heard the story. She confided that she’d moved out of her parents’ home for just that reason. Port Gamble, she said, had to be the worst place on the planet to grow up. “You ever been there?” she asked Becca. When Becca shook her head, Prynne said, “It’s Nowheresville. There’s nothing nearby. I do not lie. I hate it there.” If I’d never lived there I wouldn’t be no way I’m not thinking about that today.
Becca gave her a curious look. Thinking about what? was what she wondered. What she said was “Bummer,” and she tried to hear more. She even tried her luck touching Prynne’s arm when she told Prynne she was going to the house to make the sandwiches for lunch after nearly three hours of staining. But nothing else came from Prynne except a brief moment of her fiddle music.
Becca was assembling sandwiches for everyone when the roar of the chain saw up on the new driveway stopped. She figured Derric was breaking for lunch, and Squat’s and Jenn’s entry to the house followed by Seth and Prynne seemed to support this. Seth went to the fridge and brought out the pasta salad while Jenn and Squat did what they usually did, which was spar verbally. In this case, the sparring had to do with Jenn’s calf muscles. Squat pointed out to her the dangers of becoming too studly. Jenn pointed out to him how little she cared. She strode to the window as the others began loading the table with chips, cookies, fruit, and drinks.
She said, “There’s some woman coming down the trail, Seth. Wow, that’s seriously dumb footwear. She’s going to . . . Whoops. Ooooh. That’s hard on the ass.”
Dumb footwear equated to one person, and it wasn’t long before they heard the staccato sound of Brenda Sloan’s boot heels on the front steps over which the ramp was in the process of being built. She marched across the porch and flung open the door. She took in all of them, and Becca thought the course of wisdom was to remove her earbud. She did so as Brenda Sloan said, “What the hell is going on? And who is that black kid up in the forest?”
The atmosphere was suddenly rife with whispers. Man what a bitch . . . who’s she think . . . when Mike sees this he’s going to understand why . . . better call Dad . . . were just some of them. Diana Kinsale would have called this the perfect opportunity to practice Empty of all there is, but Becca didn’t think that would be the most useful route to take.
Seth was saying, “That ‘black kid in the forest’ is the under sheriff’s son.”
“Don’t try to impress me,” Brenda said. “Or intimidate me. Now who are you people and what are you doing in my father’s house?”
“It’s pretty obvious,” Seth replied. “We’re getting it ready for Grand.”
“How dare you even think you can go ahead when nothing’s been decided. A twenty-year-old doesn’t get to determine what happens to my father.”
“Grand is Dad’s father, too, and Dad says Grand stays here.” Or he will came after that, which told Becca volumes. She learned less from the rest flying around the room: Bitch on wheels . . . trespassing . . . all I need after not making money anyway . . . lying to me and maybe back to Port Townsend now.
“We’ll see about that,” Brenda said.
The door’s flying open stopped Seth from replying. A well-dressed man walked in, and he had Derric by the arm in a way that suggested he’d dragged him down from the driveway. He said, “D’you want to tell me who the hell this thug is and what he’s doing ripping off Ralph’s trees?”
It was a jaw-dropping moment. Everyone went silent. Becca shoved her earbud back into her ear. She didn’t want anything more to come at her. Derric’s face was enough. His expression. His eyes.
Seth said acidly, “He’s our friend, Uncle Mike. And Sheriff Mathieson’s son.”
Mike dropped Derric’s arm like a branch on fire. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me when I asked you?” he demanded of Derric.
Becca didn’t need to be without the AUD box to understand what Derric was thinking. Because I’m black was on his face. Because of what you thought because I’m black.
Mike Sloan looked around. He seemed to take in the markings on the wall that indicated where the handrails were going to be placed. Obviously, he’d already seen the early stages of the ramp to the porch. He said, “You’re completely reducing the value of this place. Trees going down, turning this into a house for the handicapped. D’you have any idea what that does to its sale price?”
“Doesn’t matter,” Seth said. “Grand’s not selling.”
6
Seth put his arm around Prynne to keep her warm. They were at the dock, outside of the waiting area, having left it when the ferry from Port Townsend made its turn around the mass of Admiralty Head and began crawling through the near waters of Admiralty Bay. All lights were blazing welcomingly upon it. Prynne said, “Finally.” She sounded relieved. But Seth didn’t want her to leave the island.
He said, “Still wish you’d spend the night.”
She pulled her knitted cap down over her mass of hair, giving him a smile and scooting even closer for warmth. “Your parents would really love that,” she told him.
“They’d be cool with it,” he said. “They like you. Plus they already know me and you. . . . You know. . . . Whatever. They wouldn’t care.”
“You mean they wouldn’t care if we slept together.”
Seth felt his skin get hot with a blush that went from up his chest and onto his neck and his cheeks. “Well, yeah. No big deal to them.”
“Parents can be less cool than you think, especially when it comes to kids hooking up right under their noses.”
“Yeah, but like I said, they know about me and you.”
“And like I said, you better check it out with them. Anyway, who wants the pressure?”
Seth was watching the ferry maneuver slowly into the dock. Other walk-on passengers came out of the warmth of the waiting room and into the dark and frigid air. The wind had died down and the sky was clear, heavy gusts having blown away the cloud cover. But without the cloud cover, the temperature had dropped further. With the least precipitation, there would be snow. He said, “What pressure?”
“Pressure at breakfast. Like, I’m not exactly ready to face your mom and dad over the granola, you know? Anyway, I got to get home to my peeps. I told them I’d be back.”
Prynne’s peeps were her three roommates: musicians like her. They were also all guys. Seth didn’t like this, but he coped with the fact of it as best he could. He also coped with the fact that in the last month Prynne had moved from her
family’s home to Port Townsend without even telling him. He felt odd about this and odder still that she’d not yet invited him over to her place. Because of this and because he’d still not met her housemates—not to mention her parents—he said, “When do I get to meet these guys? It sucks, you know.”
“That my roommates are guys? The only sucky part is the smell. What is it about guys’ shoes? I have to burn scented candles so the house doesn’t reek. And the idea of doing laundry? Totally a foreign concept to them.”
“I still want to meet them,” Seth told her. “Wouldn’t mind meeting your parents either.”
“I’ll try to get them to come to Port Townsend, but I got to tell you: They hardly ever go anywhere. I got no clue why they stay in Port Gamble. I mean, there’s peace and tranquility, and there’s living in a total backwater.”
The cars began to roll off the ferry. More cars waited on the Whidbey side to make the journey across Admiralty Inlet. Weekend night, and people wanted to head to the Olympic Peninsula for a few days. It was storm watching season, and a popular activity was to book into a cabin along the Pacific Ocean, where waves could rise to twenty feet or more.
“I could come over with you right now,” Seth offered. “I could even spend the night.”
“What about Gus? You’d just leave him in the VW wondering where you went?”
“I’d go get him. He could go, too. Why d’you have to go back tonight anyway? If we’re working on Grand’s house, I need you here.”
“I’ll be back tomorrow. As for tonight . . . Look, I just need to get home and so do you. We both need to relax for a while. This thing with your aunt and her husband . . . It’s too intense for me. I bet you they’re going to be at your dad’s house when you get there.”
Seth homed in on the word relax. When Prynne said that, he knew it was just another way of saying that she wanted to get high. That didn’t bother him. Weed was legal in the state. She was close to being the right age to buy it, too. But that she couldn’t figure out another way to relax . . . That was a big deal to him, although he wasn’t sure why. He lied about it, though, saying, “You can do weed at my place, you know. Mom and Dad won’t care. They wouldn’t want it in the house, but outside, it’d be okay.”
“I’m not going to freeze my ass off smoking outside, bud. And anyway, how okay would it be with you?”
Truth was, Seth didn’t like her stoned. He didn’t smoke weed himself because it made his learning disabilities worse: causing him more difficulty with reading, writing, or even being able to add or subtract. So early on, he’d learned that weed wasn’t right for him. He didn’t do it, and he had to admit that despite saying he could go back to Port Townsend with Prynne, he didn’t really want to be there when she and her roommates were toking up.
“I’ll handle it,” he said. “And Gus’ll be all right. He’ll just sleep. Compromise, okay?”
The cars in the waiting lot began to start their engines. The waiting walk-ons stirred as one of the dock workers moved into position to allow them onto the ferry. Prynne said, “You wouldn’t like it at my place, Seth. These guys . . . they do it pretty heavy. Anway I’ll be back tomorrow, like I said. I’ll come as early as I can.”
Seth had to be okay with that. He drew her to him, kissed her good-bye, made sure the kiss showed her he would miss her. He felt her fingers play with his ponytail. She tugged on it playfully, whispered good-bye against his lips, and then was gone with a wave as the line of walk-ons moved forward.
He watched her go. He had a feeling that there was something not quite right about their conversation, but he couldn’t put his finger on what it was. So he told himself he was being a dumbnut, he was smothering her, and he needed to back off. But he wasn’t able to reach a point of believing that. Even saying Prynne was just being Prynne didn’t do much good.
He waited till the ferry moved away from the dock before he went back to his old VW. Gus greeted him like a long-lost litter mate, his tail thumping in anticipation. Seth reached for the glove compartment and its contents: dog bones the size of shoes. He gave one to the Lab. Gus crunched it happily.
There was little traffic on the drive south to Seth’s parents’ house. It was over twenty miles, but with only two traffic lights and an eye on the speed limit, it didn’t take Seth long to get there. He kept on alert for deer and other critters. All was still, though, and he made it without incident to an intersection where the highway ran west to east and a road called Coles ran north and south.
He turned onto the south branch. A wetland to the right created a good-sized pond edged with winter-dead grasses and reeds. To the left, a strip of forest formed a curtain of Douglas firs, alders, and branch-drooping cedars that created a barrier between him and the broad fertile bowl of Maxwelton Valley. His parents lived at the very end of this road, in a house that Rich Darrow had built many years ago. It stood on two acres, and the land also accommodated a refurbished barn, where Rich did his glass blowing, and a small studio, where Amy Darrow did her weaving, her knitting, and her flat-surface design projects. These two buildings adjoined each other and were separated from the house by the goat pen, the vegetable garden, and a wide strip of land where a Lexus SUV was parked.
Seth knew what it meant that his aunt and uncle were inside his parents’ house. So he was going to need a moment to center himself before facing what was probably going to be a family firestorm.
He parked behind the SUV, let Gus out, and followed the Lab to his usual spot for sniffing, peeing, and all the rest. This vantage point on his father’s property looked out in the darkness at the lights from the scattering of buildings—farmhouses and barns—that formed an enclave across the valley called Midvale Corner. Between where he stood and that tiny community lay a placid shield of water that was Miller Lake. It wasn’t large, but it reflected the wind-cleared sky, and so it looked in the night like a miniature, earthbound Milky Way.
Gus snuffled. Seth waited. He imagined he could hear raised voices from within his parents’ house.
When the dog had done all he intended to do and was unable to scare up a rabbit to chase, Seth told him to come. Gus hesitated, but when Seth said his name sharply, the Lab seemed to decide that obedience might serve him well. He loped back to join Seth, and they went to the house. They entered into the middle of an argument, just as Seth had figured they would. Gus sought his bed. Seth couldn’t blame him. He wished he could have done the same.
Everything was as it usually was when his aunt came to call. The house was small; all rooms save the bedrooms opened onto each other. So Seth could take everything in with a glance. Mike Sloan was sitting on the sofa, which he’d probably brushed free of cat fur before depositing his well-dressed butt on it. Seth’s dad, Rich, was sitting backward on one of the dining chairs, his arms resting on its back. Seth’s mom, Amy, was leaning against a counter in the kitchen, looking seriously pale. Brenda was pacing and waving her arms. No surprise there, Seth thought. It was what Aunt Brenda did.
Seth’s immediate concern was for his mom. She’d had emergency surgery just two weeks earlier, when her bowel had become bizarrely twisted, leaving her a weeping lump of pain on her bedroom floor at 2:00 A.M. Seth didn’t know how that kind of thing happened to someone, and he didn’t care. He just wanted his mom to get better. So did his dad. She needed to concentrate on healing, and anything that took her mind away from that was something that Rich and Seth didn’t want in the house.
Like Aunt Brenda and Uncle Mike, Seth thought. Like Aunt Brenda doing what she was doing at the moment, which was loudly demanding, “And who exactly is supposed to take care of him when he gets home? Are you going to do it, because it can’t be Amy. She can barely move. She won’t be able to lift a thing for months, so how d’you expect—”
“Amy’s not involved in this,” Rich Darrow said.
“Then who is? You? Seth? You can’t take care of him, and he needs taki
ng care of. We saw him today. He’s not making progress. The light’s completely gone from his eyes. He knows he’s not going to get any better than he is right now.”
“He will if he knows he’s going home,” Seth put in.
Brenda ignored him and said to her brother, “You’re holding that out like a carrot on a stick: telling him he’ll be able to go home when you know he can’t. That’s cruel. To lie like that to Dad . . . Plus to allow your son to carry on this . . . this project or whatever it is on Dad’s house . . . I don’t agree to it. I never agreed to it.”
“He needs to go home, Bren,” Rich Darrow said wearily. “And there are aides who’ll be trained to help him.”
“And who intends to monitor these aides? Who’s planning to be there to make sure they aren’t . . . You know what those people can be like. They worm their way into a sick person’s life and pretty soon he’s signed everything over to them!”
“You’re getting carried away,” Rich said.
“Oh really? When was the last time you saw him?” Brenda demanded. “Do you know how bad things have gotten? D’you have any clue how vulnerable he is?”
Amy stirred. She looked exhausted. “That’s not fair, Brenda. Rich is there at least four times a week. If he can’t go, Seth goes. Even when Rich can go, Seth goes.”
“And what they do is fill his head with pipe dreams.” She turned to Rich and said, “Have you tried to see if he understands what’s going on? Mike and I were there for an hour today, and we got nothing from him.”