The Seacrest Read online

  “Hurry,” he said, pushing out the screen. “You’ll have to jump.”

  I realized in a flash there was no easy way down, but hoped the shrubs below would cushion our fall.

  “Should we tie our sheets together?” I shouted, moving as close to the window as I could.

  He pointed to the beds, but flames already licked at the mattresses and blankets. “No time.” He pushed me. “Go!”

  I nodded, swallowed hard, and lifted a leg out the window.

  “Go!” he shouted again, fear etched in his face.

  I went.

  With hands on the windowsill, I lowered myself and dropped to the first floor into a tangle of shrubs.

  Jax followed immediately after me, grabbed my arms, and dragged me toward the driveway where a fire engine now roared toward the house.

  I stared at the structure, horrified. “Where are Mom and Dad? Where’s Eva?”

  Jax began to cry, shocking me. “I don’t know,” he sobbed. “I think they’re still inside.” His voice came out low and raspy, his cheeks streamed with tears.

  I hadn’t seen him lose it since he was nine when someone in town stole his bike from the rack outside the Brewster General Store. But then I felt tears on own my face; I hadn’t realized I’d been crying as well.

  Blood roared in my ears. I looked down, realizing my arms and legs were covered in scratches and blood. My right ankle was swollen and I couldn’t put my weight on it.

  Firm hands took my arm and led me away from the blaze. “You’ve got to move back, son. Come with me.”

  An ambulance appeared out of nowhere, and more helping hands moved me toward it. Somehow a blanket was wrapped around my shoulders and someone applied ointment and bandages to my worst arm. I sat in shock, staring at our house. The section that held the bedrooms over the kitchen was completely engulfed, flames leaping so high they singed the fifty-foot trees above.

  This can’t be happening.

  I saw a medic put an oxygen mask on Jax, force him onto a stretcher.

  He must have breathed more smoke than me.

  In horror, I watched the commotion. More fire trucks arrived. Water sprayed toward the house. Snatches of conversation filled the air from firefighters, medics, and neighbors who now crowded around with frightened faces.

  “Three more inside, no hope.”

  “Smoking?”

  “…a cigarette in the couch. You know how it smolders.”

  “Such a shame.”

  “The parents and girl.”

  I suddenly stood, shouting and flailing arms in the air. “NO! Help them! Please! Get them out!”

  “Son, it’ll be okay. Just sit now, we need to treat you.”

  “It won’t be okay,” I sobbed. “My parents are in there. My sister!”

  “I know, I know.” The kindly woman urged me back onto the back of the ambulance. “We’ll take good care of you. Just relax now.”

  “No!” With one last futile effort, I started to run toward the house, but two firefighters grabbed me and firmly guided me back to the ambulance.

  “No,” I wept. “Please.”

  I perched on the bumper of the ambulance, and shut down. My mind defied the truth, blanked it out, and I couldn’t speak. I closed my eyes and shuddered.

  This isn’t real. I need to wake up. Must be dreaming.

  I need Libby.

  Oh, God, Libby. Where are you?

  I let them load me onto a stretcher like a limp doll and through the wail of a siren, forced the awful truth away.

  My parents are fine. Eva’s fine. It’s just a nightmare.

  My life was never the same.

  Chapter 57

  June 4th, 2013

  1:30 P.M.

  After visiting Berra and Jenna, I stopped as planned at Emack and Bolios ice cream stand, formulating what I’d say to Libby, how I’d convince her to leave her abusive, albeit damaged husband. I tried to imagine life coming back to normal.

  I wanted normal more than I’d ever wanted anything in my life. I wanted happy. I wanted to love and be loved, truly loved.

  Was that too much to ask?

  The white pistachio cone tasted creamy and delicious. Beside me, Ace had a bowl of water and his own dish of plain vanilla ice cream.

  I couldn’t resist getting him a little something.

  I sat at the green painted table and began to sift through new thoughts about my brother.

  Why in the world did Jax think I’d started the fire?

  I thought back to the night of the blaze, and tried to remember the details. It was so long ago, so clouded and foggy. But I knew one thing. I’d closed those fireplace glass doors when we all headed up to bed. I’d heard them clang shut and had even tested the magnetic latch to be sure it was secure.

  I was positive about that.

  So why had Jax said he thought it was me?

  Was it because he hadn’t been smoking? Because it wasn’t his fault?

  I grimaced and tried to face the unimaginable. Had I been blaming him my whole life for something he hadn’t done?

  It was possible, I guess. But the part of me that had learned to hate him all these years had a hard time accepting it.

  I considered going to the fire department to ask for the report on the blaze. There had to be something there, even if it was ten years ago.

  I finished my cone and was just about to get up when the cell rang. I glanced at the screen.

  Libby.

  “Hello?” She didn’t answer right away, so I spoke again. “Libby? Is that you?”

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered, her voice thick with emotion.

  “I know, sweetheart,” I said. “I figured it was just too much to take. And I was a convenient punching bag.” I still felt hurt by her treatment yesterday, but I wasn’t about to admit it. “It’s okay. Really.”

  “No. It’s not okay. I shouldn’t have—”

  “When can I see you?”

  She didn’t respond.

  I fidgeted on my seat, and Ace seemed antsy, too. “Lib?”

  “Um. I wanted to tell you Ian’s here. He arrived this morning.”

  My heart sank. I thought I’d have more time to see her before he came home. “He’s early,” I said with disappointment.

  “Uh huh. They got an earlier-than-expected military plane to move him from Germany last night.”

  “What shape is he in?” I asked.

  “He’s…he can’t move from the waist down.”

  “Is it permanent?” A small part of me felt sorry for him, yet I was almost glad that this man who’d brutalized his wife got some payback.

  “I don’t know. A doctor’s supposed to call us later. And he’s actually on meds for depression.”

  I tried not to say anything snide or nasty. Although my brain was going that way, because I harbored such anger at him for hurting Libby. “I can’t blame him for being depressed. Is he glad to be home, though?” I could only imagine the joy of coming home from a war zone hospital to my wife and family.

  “He said just a couple of words when he got here. He’s been sleeping for the past few hours.”

  “Will he need a nurse?”

  “At first. He’s got a catheter. I’m not even sure yet how he does all the other things, like bathing and such.”

  “They’ll train you, I guess.”

  “That’s the plan. A nurse is coming in a little while. I’ll find out more then.”

  She sounded so down, so bleak, it broke my heart. “Do you want me to be there to help? I can come right over. I’m about a half-hour away.”

  More silence.

  “Libby?”

  “Um, no. That’s mainly why I was calling. You need to stay away now, Finn. I can’t see you anymore.”

  I sat with jaw tensed and heart pounding. “Why not?”

  She hesitated. “It’s not right. I’m married.”

  “I know, but…but for crying out loud, Libby, we just got together again after all those years
. I love you.” I said the words with such emotion, they came out in a croak. “And you don’t love him. He hurt you.”

  “I know. But…it’s different now. I’m so sorry. It’s just…I owe him this.”

  I heard a voice calling her in the background. It didn’t sound like Rudy.

  “I’ve gotta go,” she half-sobbed, then hung up.

  I didn’t move for ten long minutes. Ace fell asleep at my feet, and I sat still at the ice cream stand, completely alone in a large crowd of tourists.

  How could I handle one more loss? How could God expect me to?

  After living my life under a cloud of anger and tragedy, hating Jax all these years, missing my parents and little sister…after losing Libby for nothing I did…after losing my wife to my brother and his drinking problems…I had found Libby again. Life was going to be okay, in spite of it all. She’d said she loved me. In time, I was hoping to marry her. I believed she would have accepted my proposal.

  We’d live on the farm and raise blueberries and children and maybe even horses. We’d walk on the beach at night at low tide, enjoying the summery scents and holding hands. We’d make love again, in my big, new king-sized bed, over and over again until we couldn’t take the deliciousness of it, until we were so weak and tired and softened inside that we’d just fall asleep in each other’s arms.

  I couldn’t give up the dream. Not after all that had happened.

  I straightened and felt resolve strengthen.

  No. I’m not giving up on her.

  I’ll let her have some time. Time to assess the situation. Time to help him heal or get to a stage where he can live independently.

  Much as I felt sorry for his condition, much as I thanked him and all the soldiers for their service to our country, I couldn’t give up on Libby now.

  I wouldn’t.

  “Come on, buddy.” I stood and signaled to my dog, tossed my sticky napkin in a trash receptacle, and headed for the Jeep. I had work to do in the blueberry fields, and it wouldn’t get done with me sitting around feeling sorry for myself.

  No more of that.

  I jumped in the Jeep and started the engine, turning south on Route 6A toward Blueberry Hill.

  Chapter 58

  July 27th, 2003

  9:30 A.M.

  “Come on now, Finn, just try a little. It’s good.” Cora held a spoon to my lips.

  I smelled chicken soup, but hadn’t quite put together that she was trying to feed it to me until my stomach wrenched in hunger.

  How long ago had I eaten? Twenty-four hours? More?

  Yesterday was a blur. I’d left the hospital after being monitored the night of the fire. They’d drugged me, so I’d been completely out of it. I hadn’t remembered the fire in the deep, dark dreams that consumed me. I’d seen a demon. I’d seen dead bodies. I’d seen my brother grow horns and morph into a monster. But I hadn’t remembered until I woke that morning when a nurse was taking my vitals.

  I did remember screaming at Jax when he tried to come into my room mid-morning. I’d caused such a ruckus that they’d told him to leave and wait until I was ready to see him. That hadn’t happened in ten long years.

  By the time some of the drugs wore off, it had all come rushing back to me, and it took three of them to keep me in the bed and to calm me down. I’d lost it, big time, and to my horror I’d sobbed in front of them all. They gave me another shot and I’d been out until the psychiatrist came to talk mid-afternoon.

  At that point I’d gone pretty much catatonic, but when Cora showed up and said she’d take care of me, I’d gone along like a meek lamb. I didn’t really care where I was, I just wanted to get out of there and go to sleep, to forget it all. If it hadn’t been for Cora, I wonder if I would have turned to something like alcohol or drugs. In hindsight, I wondered if that was why Jax had done the same.

  Cora had driven me in her rusty old Ford Escort all the way to Providence, to my attic apartment, where she’d slept on the sofa and I’d tossed and turned all night in bed.

  “Just one bite, Finn. You need to keep up your strength.” She patted my arm and I looked at her, taking in my surroundings for the first time.

  “They’re all dead,” I said. “Why do I need to keep up my strength? I should’ve died with them.” My voice shook, and as much as I prided myself on being a man who was in control, I felt too close to the edge. I could lose it at any moment.

  “Try not to think about it,” she said, coaxing me to sip the broth. “Just for a little while.”

  I took a sip. Hot and fragrant, it tasted homemade. “It’s good,” I said. “Where did you get it?”

  “The deli down the street,” she said.

  She tried to feed me more, but I suddenly took the spoon and drained the bowl. My stomach didn’t hurt quite as much. I wasn’t sure if it had been due to the drugs they gave me or the horror of what I’d been through. Or maybe I’d just been starving.

  “Thanks,” I mumbled, trying again to get my bearings.

  “You’re welcome. Now, you lay back and rest. I’m going to read to you, okay?”

  “I guess,” I said, with a lackluster tone. “Why are you here, anyway?”

  “You wouldn’t see your brother. There’s nobody else to… I mean…I was the only one who…”

  I stared at her. “I have no one left, except my grandfather. And he’s somewhere out in the ocean. I have no way to contact him.”

  “Oh! I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to make you think about it. I just meant, someone had to keep an eye on you, or they might’ve put you in the psych ward for trauma victims. That’s what I heard them talking about. I just figured you’d rather be here. With a friend.”

  I looked at Cora, who’d been a student in my class and with whom I’d had a few pizzas and beers since we started working together on her nonexistent art skills. She was a nice girl. Comforting. Easy to be with. Sort of a friend, sort of a student.

  I leaned forward, my head in my hands. “How’d you hear about it all the way here in Providence?”

  “I have a cousin in Brewster. She knew you in high school, believe it or not. She called me. We’d talked about you before”

  “You did?” My thoughts came slowly, my brain filled with fuzz and unable to focus. “Why?”

  She loosed a fluttery laugh. “Oh, no real reason. Just because I knew you were from the same town.”

  I wondered about her now. Saw a flush creep up her neck to her cheeks. Cripes. The girl had a crush on me. I sure as hell wasn’t ready for that.

  I tried to stand, but my head swam and I lost my balance.

  “Whoa, just wait a minute now. Let me help you.”

  I put a hand on her shoulder to steady myself. “Thanks.”

  I sat back down on the bed, looking for the first time into her worried brown eyes. She seemed to care, to honestly care. For a minute, I wondered if she was trying to win a passing grade in her class, then I shook the awful thought from my head. Not nice, Finn.

  I had to admit the human contact was pleasant. And if she hadn’t stepped up to offer to watch me, I might’ve ended up, like she said, in some hospital ward.

  I wasn’t crazy.

  I was simply crazy with grief.

  There’s a difference, right?

  Cora settled me back on the bed, plumping up the pillows and covering me with a blanket. She pulled up a chair and opened a book.

  I noted with pleasure it was To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee. Nodding toward the book, I said, “One of my favorites.”

  She smiled. “I got it from your bookshelf, so I figured you loved it if you kept it all these years.”

  Flushing, I said. “Oh. I thought it looked familiar. But I’m kind of in a daze, to tell the truth. I can’t think straight.”

  “Don’t you worry about a thing. I’ve got you covered.” She started to read.

  I watched her bright eyes, cute mouth, neat teeth. She articulated well and even did Jem, Scout, and Dill’s voices in soft Southern acc
ents. It was pleasant, and even though every few minutes the stabbing pain of reality tried to shred me inside, I managed to be distracted for a while.

  Cora read to me for the next half hour, until I fell into a nightmare-filled sleep, where Mayella’s alcoholic father, Bob Ewell, set fire to my family’s home, and Scout patted my arm, saying it would be okay.

  PART III

  Redemption and Forgiveness

  Chapter 59

  June 4th, 2013

  4:30 P.M.

  When we arrived at Blueberry Hill, I let Ace out for a romp in the fields, following him through the rows, planning the tasks for the next day. There was pruning, mowing, fertilizing, weeding to do. Fences to repair. Dead trees to cut up and drag out of the way.

  I thought back to my past with Cora as we tromped through the blueberry bushes and high grass. She and I had become more than friends the summer of the fire, and although when I looked back on it, I felt a bit guilty for taking someone into my life for convenience and comfort more than for passion and heart-thumping love, I’d been grateful for her kindness at a time when there was nobody left who cared about me. It had felt right at the time. And we were married two years later, one year after my beloved grandfather died at sea. That had been another blow to endure, but I had such precious memories our times together, I clung to them and they helped me through the toughest days.

  At first we’d lived with her cousin in Brewster—my hometown—after she graduated, and before long we both accepted positions as live-in help at The Seacrest.

  I sighed, wondering how a man could be expected to endure so many losses in one life. But endure I had, and now I needed to look forward.

  After walking for an hour, we headed back inside. Tired now, I opened a cold beer and brought a bag of chips upstairs to the bedroom where Jax’s computer blinked at me in the late afternoon sun.

  What had he said to Cora about me, and vice versa?

  I settled in front of the PC and clicked over to the email account Libby and I discovered earlier. There they were. Hundreds of them.

  I tried not to think of Libby and the last time she’d been here.

  Would that incredible, sensual lovemaking session in the shower be the last time I’d ever touch her? The last time I’d make love to her? Would she avoid me the rest of my life, until I was a decrepit old man? Would I wizen away to a bitter old creature who avoided people and lived alone with his dog?