[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

for everything.”
“Shh,” I said. “I know.”
“I’m so relieved, though!” she said. “I’m so…I should have
told the truth as soon as people started thinking Andy did it.”
Yes, she should have. But she didn’t. “You’ve told us now,”
I said. “That’s the important thing.”
“There’s more,” she said.“I mean, not so big. It’s big, but not
like that. Like the fire. And it’ll only matter to you. It’s about
The Sea Tender.”
“I know you’ve been meeting Ben there.”
She shook her head. “Not just that,” she said. “I’ve been
going there ever since I got my driver’s license. My permit,
actually. Alone, I mean. Not with…a boy or anything.”
“Why?” I asked. I remembered Dawn telling me she smoked
marijuana. Did she go there to do drugs?
“You’re going to think I’m crazy. Or crazier than you already
think I am.”
“I don’t think you’re crazy.”
“I felt close to Daddy there. Sometimes I’d sit on the deck
at night and I’d close my eyes and suddenly feel like he was
there. His spirit or something.”
I felt a chill. I could almost feel Jamie in the room with us.
“Do you think I’m deranged?”
before the storm
461
“If you are, insanity must run in the family, because I’ve
dreamed he’s…visited me at night sometimes, too.”
Her pretty brown eyes opened wide.“Honest? Do you really
think it’s him?”
“I have no idea, Maggie. I just think he left a mark on both
of us—in different ways, of course—and we must both have
a need to stay attached to him.”
She suddenly stopped crying, looking right at me. “I’m
sorry about how I laid that whole Daddy and Sara thing on you.
That was so mean.”
“It hurt, finding that out,” I acknowledged. That pain already
seemed weeks old instead of hours, usurped by a more imme­
diate heartache. “It helps me understand how you must be
feeling about Ben right now, though.”
She turned her head toward the window. In her eyes, I saw
the rectangular reflection of sunlight.
“If he cared about me, he’d be here with me,” she said. “At
the hospital. Wouldn’t he?”
I thought that even if Ben did care about her, he was wise
to stay away from Marcus and me right now.
“I think he would be,” I said.
“Do you think Ben was really…you know, with Dawn the
same time he was with me?”
“Yes, sweetie, I do.” I remembered Dawn at her house the
night before, wrapping her satiny little robe over those long
legs as she swept into the living room. Who’s here, Benny?
“I trusted him totally. I loved him so much. I still do.”
“I know it hurts.”
She turned back to me. “Aren’t you totally furious with
Sara?”
462
diane chamberlain
I sighed. I was furious. That was something I’d have to deal
with on my own, though. “It was so long ago, Maggie,” I said.
“And there are things I did that I regret from long ago, too.”
“Drinking.”
“That’s for sure. Other things, as well. I guess most people
do things when they’re young that they come to regret. Sara
and I have been friends for so long. I hope we can find a way
to put it behind us.” I thought of Keith’s injuries. How could
Sara ever forgive my daughter? In her place, I wasn’t sure I
could.
“Mom, I just hurt so much!” she said. “I want to erase ev­
erything. The fire. Ben. Everything!”
“I’d love it if you could wipe all of that from your memory,”
I said. “But you know what your father said to me one time?”
“What?”
“You know that my parents died when I was little, and then
my aunt and uncle cut me out of their lives, right?”
“Yeah.”
“I tried, especially with my parents, not to think about
them. To just keep going on with my life. Moving forward.
Never looking back. And when I told your daddy that, he said
that if you don’t think about your losses, they’d come back to
bite you.”
“Bite you?” Maggie smiled. “That’s his exact words?”
“Yes, because I’ve never forgotten them, even if I haven’t
always followed his advice. He meant that sometimes you just
have to go through the pain.”
“So did you try to think about them?” she asked. “Your
parents?”
“Not until I was in rehab. I cried buckets about them then.
before the storm
463
But the thing I learned was that you don’t just get over one
loss and then you’re home free. Life keeps tossing them at you,
and you have to learn how to handle them. How to keep going. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

zanotowane.pl

doc.pisz.pl

pdf.pisz.pl

glaz.keep.pl