40. Keaton 1970s Vortex
Uncle Lon!” I say, running to meet him. “You’re here! You came!”
“Keaton!” he says, sweeping me up in a hug.
Harris walks up the front steps, Salt in tow. “It’s getting real in here. The band is back together.”
Uncle Lon claps Harris on the back. “What are you doing here, Harris?”
Harris gestures to me. “I had to make sure this one didn’t get swept into a 1970s vortex, turn into the ghost of Becks, and never leave.”
Lon nods like that is downright sensible as he walks through the house toward the kitchen, looking around. “Where is my sister? Is she in a heap on the floor somewhere?”
Harris and I share a look. “She’s actually doing eerily well,” Harris says.
Lon notices my hand. “Whoa,” he says, holding it up to admire Becks’s ring.
“Oh, um, I found this,” I stammer. “But I will pay you your part as soon as I get the commission from selling the house.” I pause. I don’t want to offer because what if he takes me up on it? But I figure I have to. “Unless you want the ring,” I say. “Mom doesn’t.”
“No, no,” he says. “It’s just kind of like seeing a ghost. Mother left it in her will for Virginia, anyway. We just assumed she was wearing it when she died. She never took it off. Not even to sleep.”
“That’s so weird,” I say.
“I just think it’s surprising that whoever stole their cash didn’t find the ring,” Lon says. Harris starts to fill Lon in on all we have learned about our grandparents’ deaths and Townsend’s last journal entry and then adds, “Orrrrr… maybe they faked their deaths and took the cash.”
I roll my eyes at Lon. “I’m so tired of him saying that.” Then I see Bowen at the side door. My head is beginning to hurt with the idea of my mother upstairs having an emotional moment and my uncle here to suck all the air out of every room. But having Bowen here is a balm.
I open the door and kiss him quickly. “I just wanted to check on you,” he says. “And, also, I miss you.”
I smile at him. “You are welcome to come in if you dare, but I would understand if you didn’t…”
“I would love to come in, but can you come here first?”
I take his hand and walk down the back steps, laughing as I see Anderson standing beside the cutest yellow bike—just the perfect size for me. It has a little rattan basket and best of all, it’s filled with hydrangeas and… “A baguette!” I squeal. I kiss Bowen quickly and muss Anderson’s hair.
“You guys!” I put my hand to my heart. “I don’t know what to say.”
Bowen looks at me seriously. “You have to promise you will never try to ride a bike with Salt again.”
I put my hand up, as if I’m making a solemn vow.
“Thank you so, so much,” I say, climbing onto the seat. I ride toward the street, to the end of the driveway, surprised by how much better I’ve gotten since my first foray back into bike riding a couple weeks ago.
Bowen and Anderson follow me. When I stop, Bowen clears his throat. “Oh, and, um, I got rid of that other one you tried to ride…” I smile at him and his eyes lock on mine. “Sometimes a bike is just a bike, Keaton. And that was just a bike, nothing more.”
I get what he means. And it soothes me to hear that.
“Want to ride with me tomorrow?” Anderson asks.
“I want to ride with you always!” I say.
“But right now, I think Keaton needs to be at home,” Bowen says to Anderson kindly. He turns to me. “And I need to go meet your uncle.”
Anderson takes off on his bike, and I put my kickstand down, leaving mine at the end of the driveway. Bowen and I walk through the gate and up the front steps. “I hope that wasn’t bad timing,” he says. “I knew this was going to be a hard day, and I thought you might need a little something to cheer you up.”
I squeeze his hand. “Perfect timing.”
Bowen smiles and walks into the house, presumably to introduce himself to Uncle Lon.
I take a deep breath and turn, looking out over the waterfront. It is so peaceful here. I will miss this beautiful family home. It seems like a shame to sell it, especially when neither Mom nor Lon are particularly hard up for the money. The idea of losing this house makes my heart hurt. But there’s nothing I can do about it.
Although… maybe I just need to make Mom and Lon remember the magic of this place, wipe away the traces of the horrors they faced here—and the 1970s time warp—and turn it into the beach cottage of their dreams. It would give me an excuse to stay for a little while, to oversee the progress. But only if they agree to it, of course.
Chewing on the idea, I walk inside, through the living room, and toward the voices in the kitchen. I run my finger down Becks’s cherished dining room table and smile. Her life’s work was important. It mattered. And I’m going to make sure people know it.
The front door opens behind me, and when I turn toward it, I have a clear view of Dr. Scott peeking his head inside. I walk toward him and, in the flash of the light from the chandelier, I realize for the first time how incredibly blue his eyes are. “Is Violet here?” he asks quietly.
I shake my head, but he comes inside anyway, and I hear footsteps behind me. When Dr. Scott sees Harris too, he says, “Hey, any news on that plane?”
Harris nods. “They still have it. Want to go check it out?”
“Oh, that would be fantastic!” says Dr. Scott.
“Want to come with us?” I ask Bowen.
“For sure,” he says.
“I’ll get my car and drive everyone over,” Dr. Scott says.
“I’m going to go leave Anderson a note to get Violet if he needs anything while we’re gone,” Bowen adds. “I’ll meet you outside.”
I walk into the kitchen. “Hey, Uncle Lon, do you know where the key to Townsend’s hangar is?”
“Oh, yeah.”
I follow him toward the pantry. He reaches his hand inside, fumbling for a hook, but comes back empty-handed. He peers inside, and I do too, noticing that the hook he was reaching for is empty. “Huh. This is where Dad always kept the key.” He pauses for a moment, squinting. “I went to the hangar the day after they died,” he says. “The police wanted to make sure their plane hadn’t taken off.” He pauses. “Covering their bases.” He’s looking at me, but I feel like he’s basically thinking out loud.
“And?”
“And Mom and Dad hadn’t called in a flight plan. They were both sticklers for the checklist, so I knew they hadn’t taken off that night, but I just wanted to confirm that no one had seen them. No one had.”
“Okay,” I say. I’m not sure why this relates to the key.
He closes his eyes, obviously piecing the day together. “I remember driving over to the hangar.” He opens his eyes and looks at me. “It was locked.”
“But you had the key?” I say, not following.
“I think,” he says. “But I can’t remember. I’d flown with my parents hundreds of times. We always locked the hangar when we got back.”
“Ah,” I say. “That’s how you knew the plane was inside.”
“Maybe I didn’t return the key,” he muses. “Gosh, did I have the key with me? I wonder what I did with it.”
I pat him on the shoulder. “It was forty-seven years ago, Uncle Lon. I wouldn’t beat myself up about it.”
He nods. “I’ll just get the extra from the credenza.”
He rifles through it and hands me an old key that was buried under a stack of papers. “Uncle Lon,” I say, “are you like Mom? Do you think your parents were murdered?”
He shakes his head. “I love my sister, but honestly I thought she was coming totally undone. No, my parents died in a car crash. We never had any reason to think otherwise.”
“So why didn’t you ever come back?” Harris asks. “Mom was too scared.”
He sighs and runs his hands through his hair. “A lot of reasons. It was too sad. I didn’t want to deal with actually admitting they were gone and letting go of the life we had.” He sighs. “And, well, honestly, I didn’t really think our parents were murdered. But maybe there was enough doubt in my mind that I was a little scared too.”
“Oh, but you both sent me here! Thanks!” I say.
He laughs. “No, no. If there was a killer, he’s probably dead by now. Or at least moved away. Besides, the whole story was nuts. The man Virginia was afraid of was some new doctor in town or something. I don’t even remember the details of her theory.” He pauses. “But, you know, Keaton, I think your mom never felt safe again—and I don’t just mean in Beaufort; I mean in general. I think that’s why she’s dedicated her life to creating a safe place for people who, like her, don’t feel safe.”
The idea makes me physically shudder.
Lon points upstairs. “I’m going to go hug my sister. Let me know how it goes at the hangar.”
I walk outside, spotting Dr. Scott’s car. Harris climbs in the front seat and Bowen and I slide in the back, and Dr. Scott drives the short distance to Beaufort’s teeny private airport. We turn left toward the gated area and Bowen—who has called a friend to get the gate code—enters the numbers from the index card into a key code box, and I hold my breath. The chain link section of fence slides open. We all squint, looking at hangar numbers, until I spot number four and we pull the car right up to it. Harris gets out, turning on his phone flashlight, and Dr. Scott turns the car so the lights shine directly onto the hangar. Harris gets the lock undone relatively quickly. I want to stop Dr. Scott from—at eighty-two years old, mind you—getting out to help Bowen raise the metal garage door. Harris’s flashlight is shining on him, and I notice the most unusual scar on his hand. But I don’t have time to ask him how he got it. Because before they’ve gotten the door halfway up, I can see what they can’t.
There’s nothing there. Townsend and Rebecca Saint James’s plane is gone.
Harris and I don’t discuss what we will say to Mom and Uncle Lon. But we’re brother and sister. We’ve been winging this stuff for years. We walk in the door, and I follow Harris to the kitchen. It’s there I see Lon holding the piece of paper, the note from the phone pad I have not moved.
There’s a place that I know.
It has called out to me.
Where the sea meets the sky,
And the sky meets the sea.
I see Mom walking down the back steps, her eyes puffy with tears, and I run to her. “So?” I ask.
She shrugs. “It was definitely the letter of a woman who knew she was dying.” She pauses. “But it wasn’t the letter of a woman who knew she was dying that day.”
I’m about to ask more when Mom gasps. “Peter?” she whispers. She takes a few steps back and clasps Lon’s arm like a life raft.
I look around. Who’s Peter?
Then I realize that she’s looking at Dr. Scott, and I think how funny it is that I hadn’t known his first name, just as I hear Violet’s “Yoo-hoo!” coming from the front door.
Mom looks like she’s seen a ghost. I walk over to put my hand on her arm, and she jumps, her eyes never leaving Peter’s.
“What are you doing here?” she asks, breathless.
I am so confused. “Mom, Dr. Scott wanted to look at the plane.”
“Why would you want a plane?” Violet interjects. “You don’t fly.”
Well that is odd.
“Wait,” Mom says, pointing from Violet to Dr. Scott. “Are you,” she gulps, “married?”
I look from Lon to Harris and back to Mom. What is happening here? Why is this so weird?
Violet nods. “Yes. Forty years. We met right here.” She adds quietly, “Well, you remember.”
“The last dinner party,” Lon whispers.
Maybe this is why they’re being so weird? That was the last time they saw each other?
“Peter had been engaged to a friend of Virginia’s,” Violet explains.
Okay, sure. But, well, that was more than forty years ago. Get it together, Mom.
Before I can ask anything else or tell Mom what we found—or, well, didn’t find, as it were—Lon hands her the paper in his hand. I assume he’s trying to diffuse this weirdness.
Mom gasps. She holds up the paper. “This is a poem Daddy and I wrote together when I was in fourth grade.” She pauses. “Or, well, maybe fifth. I’m not positive.” Harris and I share a here it comes look. We’ve been waiting for a freakout.
Lon pats Mom’s arm. “Well, that’s great, Ginny. How nice.”
“I didn’t understand quatrains,” Mom says. “And so he wrote this for me.”
I don’t know what to say, and I look at Bowen, afraid that this real-life, deep-inside glance into my family is going to be too much for him.
“Geez, talk about the favorite child,” Lon says. “Letter from Mom, poem from Dad. I’m chopped liver.”
I ignore him. “That’s interesting that it would be on the phone pad,” I say. “Maybe he thought of you and thought of the poem and decided to write it down.” I’m about to tell them about the plane.
But before I can, Mom’s eyes lock with Peter’s, and her voice breaks as she says, “He left it for me. He left this poem for me.”
I can see why this makes her emotional, of course, but why is she looking at Peter?
“You knew?” she whispers to him.
He shrugs. “Not until right now. I only guessed.”
Her eyes fill with tears. “I’m so sorry, Peter. I thought…”
She trails off, and Violet is looking from Mom to Dr. Scott—well, Peter, I guess—and back.
“What are you two talking about?” Violet asks.
To Mom, Dr. Scott says, “It’s okay. I understand. I always understood.” And to Violet he whispers, “We’ll talk about this later.”
Mom looks down at the paper again and then back up. “I know where they are.” She puts her hand to her mouth. “I know what happened to my parents.”
Harris and I share a look. And, without a word, I know we both understand something: We don’t need to tell my mom the plane is gone. She already knows.