Chapter 23
Following the confrontation with his father, Colin’s days took on a languid, summertime rhythm.
He sat for his last exams at Outer Banks Academy and, ten days later, his first at UNC Wilmington.
In between the two, he returned twice to Roland’s law offices.
The papers came back from Grey Robinson, signed by his father, forming a legal framework for Colin’s freedom.
Roland had stipulated Celeste as his legal guardian. He had carefully laid out the manner in which all future meetings between father and son would take place: inside his law offices, supervised by either Colin’s attorney or his guardian, and limited in both time and frequency.
Roland had also inserted a clause stating that both Grey and his client, Roger Eames, found no fault with the academy or Sojourn House whatsoever. In their opinion, the academy continued to fulfill all aspects of its duties, both to Colin and all its other students, in exemplary fashion.
His father’s signature had torn the original document and creased the final page so deeply it was visible on the six copies.
Afterward Roland had taken Colin and Celeste to lunch at the City Club of Wilmington, located in a nineteenth-century antebellum-style manor.
They’d sat at the restaurant’s finest table, its corner position granting them a double-aspect view of the city’s historic downtown.
The meal was marked mostly by all the topics they avoided.
Nothing was said about Colin’s father or the investments or exams or schools.
They spoke with the easy familiarity of old friends, and dined on aged prime rib.
Three days later, Colin took a second long position on Legend’s stock.
The share price had bottomed out at just under three dollars, weighed down by Microsoft’s announcement of the newly updated X Box.
According to numerous online tech-journal op-ed articles, Legend’s still-unreleased game would probably not be supported on the new operating system.
Colin knew his investors were nervous about his intention to reacquire a stock the pundits predicted would soon crash and burn.
He met with Aaron and Roland and Ethan and Mira mostly to show them a confidence that might have been lost on the phone.
The deadline for signing onto UNCW’s summer classes came and went. Earlier Colin had intended to take the maximum course load. But now that liberty had started to take hold, he simply could not be bothered.
Several times each week Colin woke from nightmares, heart pounding, body bathed in sweat.
The flashing images often changed, but the foundation was exactly the same.
His father and attorney and campaign manager showed up at Sojourn House, usually with members of his father’s old sheriff’s department, always with court authorization to drag him away in chains. Often the three men grew fangs.
But once he was awake, even minutes after jerking from his nightly trauma, the quiet pace set in again. His breathing eased, his chest rose and fell more steadily, he lay there staring at the ceiling …
Content was too strong a word. Languid was how he described it to himself. Certainly not lazy. Just moving at a slower tempo.
For the moment, for the weeks that followed, it was enough.
That same lack of visible movement remained true for both of his new investments.
May passed with scarcely a shift. At Mira’s graduation party, he feared his investors would gang up on him, pressing for a word he could not offer.
Everyone was present except Celeste, even Aaron Weisfeld.
But no one appeared willing to inject business or doubt into the day.
Ethan and Alexi had hired a tent, one sized to cover virtually every inch of their rear yard.
Which was good, because the crowd was large and the day blisteringly hot.
Colin knew almost no one except the two families and Aaron.
Nor did he much care. The first party he had ever attended was a delight on a multitude of levels.
The band was loud and played music he had never heard before.
When they took their first break, Colin walked over and asked if they played any jazz.
The lead singer laughed and said, “What planet are you from?” Even this was of little importance.
Colin drifted around the edges of the crowd, returning time and again to the food laid out on the trestle tables.
He refused to dance, even when Mira begged.
He watched the way she returned to Lucas and pouted in his direction.
He offered to hold Gracie, who had grown comfortable with his presence.
He watched Mira and her friends shriek their laughter, shout their happiness to the tapestry of light and shadow overhead. It was enough.
There were numerous visible changes to his world.
He began to grow more comfortable leaving the academy’s confines.
Once or twice each week, he took an Uber back to Mayfaire’s outdoor mall.
Sometimes he went to the cinema. Other times he just bought a Starbucks cocoa and sat at one of the mall tables.
Studying people. Enjoying his first taste of free time.
Another significant shift came via his morning sessions at the pool.
He did not go every day. He had discovered the simple pleasure of staying up late, surrounded by the slumbering and rule-bound house, and doing whatever he wanted.
Sometimes he checked his calculations and the news feeds.
Or he inspected his two current investments and hunted for new signs of interest. After such sessions he lay in his bed and imagined himself as an invisible predator moving stealthily through the electronic jungle.
He often slept late after those midnight sessions, sometimes until noon.
Those days he did not bother going to the pool.
Once the public summer session began at nine, the water was too crowded, the children were too dense and active and noisy.
He never missed a weekend lesson. His progress was noted by the instructors, and in late May he was shifted to the intermediate class.
It was wonderful swimming with kids his own age, sometimes older.
But he missed Mira in those hours. She stayed with the youngest and the most frightened, singing her special speech, calming their hearts, introducing them to the liquid realm she loved.
The last weekend in May and twice again in June, Alexi and Ethan and their children picked him up at a quarter to six.
They raced the sunrise east, then north along Highway 17 to the Hampstead Marina, which was owned and operated by a friend of Ethan’s.
They always arrived before the marina officially opened.
Ethan unlocked the combination padlock, then they carried their piles of gear past the marina buildings and loaded them onto a boat tied up dockside.
They motored into the sunrise, crossing the Cape Fear before cruising down the channel and entering the wide, open waters marking the tip end of Topsail Island.
They anchored at the wonderfully named Serenity Point, and claimed what Mira always declared was the finest spot along the Carolina coast. When Lucas pointed out their location was different every time they came, Mira threatened to cut him off.
Of what, she never said. They carried over umbrella and open-sided awning and towels and coolers, anchoring the space that would remain theirs until the sun and the heat and the crowds finally drove them home.
Mira and Lucas often walked north along the empty shoreline, the two of them holding hands and shooing the others away whenever they stopped for stolen kisses.
Colin spent a great deal of time seated in the water’s edge, imagining his mother there beside him.
He could not remember how she looked. The absence often defined the midnight void.
When Lucas and Mira returned from their solitary strolls, he studied the way they moved and smiled and shared their intimate light.
He was happy for them, yet ached over what he might never know.
At day’s end everyone was crispy and pink despite multiple layers of sun cream, their skin tight with Atlantic salt.
Mira spent the drive leaning against Lucas and humming songs he pretended not to recognize.
Gracie often whimpered as she slept in her father’s arms. Noah liked to travel crammed into the rear hold by himself, climbing his truck over piles of gear.
Those were the best days of all.
Colin spent an increasing amount of time with Lenny Satterly.
The youth constantly surprised Colin with how little interest he took in anything beyond his languages.
Lenny showed a willful blindness to the big and the small of life, the world, even himself.
Only after half a dozen sessions did Colin uncover the reason.
The youth was not so much in pain as living with a constant state of discomfort.
Lenny’s body was a burden, a trial, a poorly functioning vehicle that threatened to break down at any time.
They spent an hour or so every other evening, usually starting at the dinner table and then moving into the computer room.
Lenny gave no sign he even heard the faint war sounds emanating from other computers and the constant rattle of keyboards fighting online battles, or the television in the next room.
When studying, Lenny’s diction became more precise, his speech so tightly concentrated each word emerged etched with a verbal laser.