Rainshadow Road

Twenty

“You’re going to have to clear out soon,” Sam said, lowering to his haunches and watching as Alex worked underneath a tiny staircase that led from the second floor to the central cupola of the house. Alex had scraped and cleaned every crevice beneath the rickety staircase, and was now in the midst of pounding shims into the edges of all the treads and risers. By the time his brother was finished, the staircase would be solid enough to support an elephant.

“Why’s that?” Alex asked, pausing in his hammering.

“Lucy’s coming over for dinner.”

“Give me ten minutes, I’ll be finished with this.”

“Thanks.” Sam contemplated his brother with a frown, wondering what to say to him, how to help him.

Alex was behaving strangely these days, slinking around like a nervous cat. Sam and Mark had both hoped that getting through the divorce would have provided some kind of relief to Alex, but instead he was going downhill. He was thin and haggard-looking, with dark circles draped under his eyes like funeral swags. It was a testament to Alex’s genetic blessings that, even emaciated and exhausted, he was still strikingly handsome. At Mark’s wedding he had stayed in the corner, drinking, and women still hadn’t been able to leave him alone.

“Al,” Sam said, “you’re not getting into bad shit, are you?”

The hammering stopped again. “I’m not doing drugs, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“You look like hell.”

“I’m fine. Never been better.”

Sam gave him a dubious glance. “Good to hear.”

At the sound of the doorbell, Sam went downstairs to see who it was.

He opened the front door to discover that Lucy had arrived early. Instantly he knew that something was wrong—she looked the way someone did when a death had occurred. “Lucy?” He reached for her automatically, and she swayed back. Recoiling from him.

Sam was mystified, staring at her alertly.

Lucy’s mouth looked dry and ravaged, as if she’d been biting it. And then she forced herself to smile. “I have something to tell you. Please don’t interrupt, or I won’t be able to get through it. It’s great news, actually.”

Sam was so distracted by Lucy’s counterfeit cheerfulness, and the obvious misery beneath, that it was hard to take in what she was telling him. Something about an artist grant or program … something about an art center in New York. The Mitchell Art Center. She was going to accept. It was a prestigious grant—the kind of opportunity she had worked for her entire life. It would last a year. She probably wouldn’t come back to the island afterward.

Then she fell silent and looked at him, waiting for his response.

Sam groped for words. “That’s great news,” he managed. “Congratulations.”

Lucy nodded, wearing a smile that looked like it had been tacked on with pins. He stepped forward to embrace her, and she let him for just a moment, but all her muscles were knotted and stiff. It was like putting his arms around a cold marble statue.

“I couldn’t turn it down,” she said against his shoulder. “A chance like this…”

“Yeah.” Sam let go of her. “You should do it. Definitely.”

He continued to stare at her, trying to wrap his brain around the fact that Lucy was leaving him. Lucy was leaving. The phrase filled him with a numb, blank sensation that he guessed was relief.

Yes. It was time. Their relationship had started to get tricky. Always best to cut things off when they were still good.

“If you need me to help you put your stuff in storage—” he began.

“No, everything’s under control.” Lucy’s eyes had turned wet even though she was still smiling. She stunned him by saying, “It’s easier if I don’t see you or talk to you from now on. I need a clean break.”

“Alice’s wedding—”

“I don’t think there’ll be a wedding. Which is good, for Alice’s sake. Marriage is hard enough for people who actually love each other. I don’t think she and Kevin had a chance. I don’t think—” She broke off and let out a shivering breath.

As Lucy stood there with tears glittering in her eyes, Sam was gripped by an unfamiliar feeling, the worst feeling he’d had in his adult life. Sharper than fear, more painful than grief, emptier than loneliness. It was what he imagined an ice pick in the chest might feel like.

“I don’t love you,” Lucy said with a wobbly smile. At his silence, she said, “Tell me you feel the same way.”

Their familiar ritual. Sam had to clear his throat before he could bring himself to speak. “I don’t love you too.”

Lucy continued to smile and gave a satisfied nod. “I kept my promise. No one’s been hurt. Good-bye, Sam.” She turned and went down the front steps, favoring her right leg.

Sam stood on the front porch, watching as Lucy drove away. Equal parts of panic and angry wonderment engulfed him.

What the hell had just happened?

Slowly he made his way back inside the house. Alex was sitting at the bottom of the main staircase, patting Renfield, who was at his feet.

“What’s going on?” Alex asked.

Sam sat beside him and told him everything, hearing his own voice as if it came from outside himself. “Not sure what to do now,” he said gruffly.

“Forget her and move on,” Alec said prosaically. “That’s what you always do, right?”

“Yeah. But it never feels like this.” Sam dragged his hand through his hair until it stood in wild tufts. He felt physically ill, nauseous. Like his veins were filled with poison. He ached in every muscle. “I think I’m coming down with something.”

“Maybe you need a drink.”

“If I start that right now,” Sam said roughly, “I may never stop. So do me a favor and don’t say that again.”

A short silence followed. “Since you’re already in a shitty mood,” Alex ventured, “I have something to tell you.”

“What?” Sam asked irritably.

“I need to move in with you next week.”

“What?” Sam asked again, in an entirely different tone.

“Just for a couple of months. I’m low on cash, and Darcy got the house as part of the settlement. She wants me out of there while she tries to sell it.”

“Christ,” Sam muttered. “I just got rid of Mark.”

Alex gave him a disquieting glance, a troubling shadow in his eyes. “I have to stay here, Sam. I don’t think it’ll be long. I can’t explain the reason why.” He hesitated, and managed to say the word he’d used only a handful of times in his entire life. “Please.”

Sam nodded, chilled by the thought that the last time he’d seen that exact look in someone’s eyes, the pupils black as midnight, the wide staring bleakness of a lost soul, was when he’d seen his father just before he died.

* * *

Unable to sleep, Lucy worked in her studio for most of the night, finishing the stained-glass window. She wasn’t aware of the passing hours, only noticed that the sky was lightening and the early-morning bustle of Friday Harbor was beginning. The tree window was gleaming and flat and still, but every time she put her fingertips to it, she felt a subtle vitality coming off the glass.

Feeling drained but resolute, Lucy walked to her condo and took a long shower. It was the day before Alice’s wedding. Tonight the rehearsal dinner would take place. She wondered if Kevin had talked to Alice or broken up with her, or had kept silent about his second thoughts.

Lucy was actually too tired to care one way or the other. She wrapped her wet hair in a turban, put on some comfortably aged flannel pants and a thin stretchy tank top, and crawled into bed.

Just as she was beginning to sink into a deep sleep, the phone rang.

Lucy groped for the phone. “Hello?”

“Lucy.” It was her mother’s brittle voice. “Are you still asleep? I hoped Alice was with you.”

“Why would she be with me?” Lucy asked around a yawn, rubbing her sore eyes.

“No one knows where she is. I got a call from her just a little while ago. Kevin’s gone.”

“Gone,” Lucy repeated hazily.

“He took the first flight out this morning. That asshole changed the plane tickets that we bought for their honeymoon—he’s going to West Palm by himself. Alice was in hysterics. She’s not at their house, and she won’t answer her phone. I don’t know where she is, or even how to start looking for her. Some of the out-of-town guests are already here, and more are getting in today. It’s too late to cancel the flowers or the food. That little bastard—why did he have to wait until the last minute to do this? But the important thing is Alice. I don’t want her to do something … dramatic.”

Painfully Lucy sat up and staggered out of bed. “I’ll find her.”

“Do you need Dad to come with you? He’s dying for something to do.”

“No, no … I’ll handle it by myself. I’ll call you when I find out something.”

After she hung up, Lucy pulled her hair into a ponytail, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, and fumbled with the coffee machine until she managed to produce a pot of inky black liquid. It was too strong—she hadn’t measured properly. Even a heavy dose of half-and-half didn’t lighten the color. She grimaced and drank it like medicine.

Picking up the phone, she dialed Alice’s number, preparing to leave a message. She was almost startled when Alice answered.

“Hi.”

Lucy opened and closed her mouth, wanting to say ten different things at once. She finally settled with an abrupt, “Where are you?”

“The McMillin mausoleum.” Alice’s voice was raw.

“Stay there.”

“Don’t bring anyone.”

“I won’t. Just stay there.”

“All right.”

“Promise me.”

“I promise.”

* * *

The mausoleum, named Afterglow Vista, was one of the most beautiful spots on the island. It was located in the woods north of Roche Harbor. The founder of a hugely successful lime and cement company, John McMillin, had designed the monument himself. It was a massive columned structure, Masonic in its heavy use of symbolism. Towering pillars circled a stone table and seven stone chairs. One of the columns had deliberately been left unfinished, beside the empty space where an eighth chair should have been positioned. According to local rumor, visiting spirits from nearby graves had been seen sitting at the table after midnight.

Unfortunately for Lucy, the forested trail leading to Afterglow Vista was approximately a half-mile long. She walked gingerly, hoping she wasn’t doing any damage to her recently healed tendons. After passing through a little graveyard with many of the headstones surrounded by tiny fences, she saw the mausoleum.

Alice was sitting on the winding steps, dressed in jeans and a Henley shirt. She cradled a mound of foamy white fabric—some kind of tulle or chiffon—in her lap.

Lucy didn’t want to feel sorry for her sister. But Alice’s face was wretched, and she looked all of about twelve years old.

Hobbling to her—Lucy’s leg was beginning to hurt—she sat beside Alice on the chilled stone steps. The forest was quiet but not at all silent, the air filled with rustling of leaves, chitters of small birds, flaps of wings, droning of insects.

“What is that?” Lucy asked after a while, looking at the white fabric on Alice’s lap.

“Veil.” Alice showed her the pearl-studded headband the tulle was attached to.

“It’s pretty.”

Alice turned to her, sniffling, and gripped the sleeve of Lucy’s shirt with both hands as a small child might. “Kevin doesn’t love me,” she whispered.

“He doesn’t love anyone,” Lucy said, putting an arm around her.

Another pained whisper. “You think I deserve this.”

“No.”

“You hate me.”

“No.” Lucy turned enough to put her forehead against her sister’s.

“I’m fucked up.”

“You’ll be fine.”

“I don’t know why I did it. Any of it. I shouldn’t have taken him away from you.”

“You couldn’t have. If he’d really been mine, no one could have.”

“I’m so sad. So s-sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

Alice was quiet for a long time, her tears seeping through the fabric of Lucy’s sleeve. “I couldn’t do anything. Mom and Dad … they never let me try anything. I felt useless. Like a failure.”

“You mean when we were growing up.”

Alice nodded. “And then I got used to having everything done for me. If something got hard, I gave up and someone always finished it for me.”

Lucy realized that every time she and her parents had stepped in to take care of Alice, they had given her the message that she couldn’t do it for herself.

“I’ve always been jealous of you,” Alice continued, “because you could do anything you wanted. You’re not afraid of things. You don’t need anyone to take care of you.”

“Alice,” Lucy said, “you don’t need Mom and Dad’s permission to take charge of your own life. Find something you want to do, and don’t give up on it. You can start tomorrow.”

“And then I’ll fall flat on my face,” Alice said dully.

“Yes. And after you fall, you’ll pick yourself up off the ground, and stand on your own two feet without anyone helping you … and that’s when you’ll know you can take care of yourself.”

“Oh, bite me,” Alice said, and Lucy smiled and hugged her.