Prologue #2
For a moment, Bates hesitated, then he said, “You are fifteen. Old enough to be included in these conversations. Mrs. Shepherd has decided that you won’t be going to Maine this summer.” He paused. “Or any future summer.”
“Not go—at all?” he asked, anger rippling through him.
Bates nodded. “I know you are to take a PSAT prep course. You also have riding lessons scheduled. And—”
“But I want to go to Maine,” he protested. “I need to go there. It’s what recharges me. Can you understand that?”
The chauffeur looked at him sympathetically. “It isn’t for me to say, Master Sullivan.”
He cursed under his breath, frustration filling him. He should have known this day was coming. His mother had put up a fuss last year when he had gone to Maine, saying he was wasting his time in such a pedestrian place.
In that moment, Sullivan hated his mother—and his father. Hated their phoniness and twisted values. Hated that they were keeping him from the two people he loved most.
Sullivan glanced down at his hands. These were the tools he loved. Pawpaw had taught him to work magic with them. They were supposed to build a China cabinet together this summer. A toy chest. He also had plans to work with a friend of Pawpaw’s on a sailboat.
Glancing at Bates, he reined in his rage. The chauffeur didn’t deserve any blame for this decision. He was simply the middleman, sent to bring Sullivan home.
Except that he wasn’t going there.
“I’ve got to get to my Latin exam,” he said. “You can go upstairs to my dorm room and bring down my trunk. My initials are on the top.”
He told the driver what room he was in, and Bates said he would place it in the car’s trunk.
“Come on,” Sullivan told Zane.
As they walked off, he said, “I’m not going home. And you’re going to help me.”
Zane flashed him a look of understanding. “Any way I can. I wish I could sneak you down to the Bay with me.”
On the way, Sullivan began devising a plan on how to make his escape.
They reached their Latin classroom, and he parted from Zane, going to his assigned seat.
Two minutes later, the teacher closed the door and passed out the blue books.
Sullivan dutifully wrote his name on the front of his.
He accepted the exam the teacher handed him and raced through it.
He knew the two translations he completed had no errors in them, and he was familiar with every verb and conjugated them appropriately, flying through deponent and semi-deponent verbs with ease.
Once he completed his exam, he looked over everything, making one change, then stood and walked to the teacher’s desk, creating the stack since he was the first to finish.
“Enjoy your summer, Mr. Shepherd.”
Sullivan left the classroom, pushing Latin aside so that he could concentrate on how to get to Maine.
Though his grandparents were no longer on their way, he couldn’t necessarily make that assumption.
Knowing Mother, she would have deliberately kept the plans she had made for her son quiet and would think it amusing that her in-laws drove four hours to retrieve their grandson, only to find him already gone.
He went upstairs, where several teachers had their offices, and went into the first one. Locking the door, he called the familiar number. His heart sank as he heard Memaw answer.
“Hello?”
“Memaw, it’s Sullivan.”
“Oh, my dear boy, I’m so grateful to hear your voice. Honey, Sullivan’s calling. Go get on the other phone.”
He heard the extension click and said, “Hey, Pawpaw.”
“Well, we weren’t expecting to hear from you.”
“I ran into Bates on my way to my Latin final. He told me I’m not coming to Maine this summer.”
A long pause occurred, and then Memaw said, “Your mother thinks that it’s best if you stay in the city. She has some plans for you.”
“I don’t want to do anything that woman has planned. I’m fifteen. She can’t decide my life for me.”
“She can, Sullivan,” Pawpaw said gently. “She’s your mother. Like it or not, you’re still a minor. Don’t worry. We’ll see you sometime. Hopefully, soon.”
“Not if she has anything to say about it,” he said bitterly.
“You know what she’s like. The only reason she hasn’t kept me from you before now is that she and Father travel a lot during the summer.
All you are is a babysitter to her.” He sighed.
“I want to see you. Be in Maine. Make things with my hands. That’s what I’m meant to do. ”
“Oh, Sullivan, you aren’t meant to be a carpenter. You’ll go to college like your daddy,” Pawpaw said. “You’re even smarter than he was.”
“I don’t want to go,” he said stubbornly. “I want to craft in wood.”
“No, you will go to college,” Memaw said firmly. “It’s an advantage not everyone has. Get your degree. By then, you’ll be an adult and on your own. You can decide what your future will be when that time comes. Don’t rock the boat now, honey.”
“I better go,” he said. “I’ll see you soon.”
They just didn’t know how soon.
Sullivan hung up and left the office. He went downstairs and sat on a bench, waiting for Zane to finish.
Five minutes later, his friend appeared. “So, what’s the plan?”
Quickly, he explained how he didn’t have to take his world history exam.
“I’ll get in the car with Bates. Have him raise the privacy window.
Then when we get to the gate, he’ll have to roll down his window and return the laminated visitor placard to the guard.
That’s when you show up. Knock on my window.
I’ll open the door. Make up some reason you need to tell me something.
Then when Bates turns back to the guard, that’s when I’ll bail. ”
“And then?”
“He’ll drive off. It’s at least three-and-a-half hours back to the city. I’ll tell him I’m gonna sleep, so he won’t bother me.”
“Where will you be instead?” Zane asked.
“Hitching a ride to Maine,” he replied.
“You know they’ll come after you.”
Glumly, he said, “Yeah. But at least I can see Memaw and Pawpaw before I’m caught in Dante’s Nine Circles of Hell.”
His friend laughed. “I say go for it. I’ll do my part.”
They walked back to their dorm, seeing more fellow students leaving. Sullivan told Zane goodbye and then walked up to the car where Bates waited. The chauffeur tucked his cell into his pocket.
“I have your trunk, Master Sullivan.”
“Could I at least be Sullivan when Mother and Father aren’t around?”
The driver bit back a smile. “Of course.”
He got into the town car, knowing that Bates would be in big trouble once his parents found out Sullivan wasn’t in the car. He doubted they would fire the driver, though. He’d been with them too long and knew too much dirt about the family.
Bates got behind the wheel and started the vehicle, heading toward the gatehouse at the edge of the property.
“Could you raise the privacy screen, Bates? I was up way late studying last night. I’m going to try and catch up on my sleep on the way back.”
“Of course, Sullivan.”
The chauffeur touched a button, and the screen began rising. Sullivan’s heart began beating in double time. He knew what he was doing was dead wrong.
But he was going to do it anyway.
The car slowed, and he prayed that Zane was ready to step in and do his part. Suddenly a rap sounded on the window, and he opened the door. He couldn’t see Bates, but Zane stood there.
“Here. I forgot to give you my grandparents’ new number in case you have a chance to call this summer so we can catch up.”
As Zane spoke, Sullivan rolled from the car and dropped to the ground, moving behind the car, even as he heard the security guard telling Bates goodbye. He raced to a nearby tree with a broad trunk and heard his friend say, “We’ll talk soon. Bye!”
Leaning around, Sullivan watched Zane close the door. “Okay, Bates,” he called. “Bye!”
The town car pulled through the gates which the security guard had opened. He hadn’t thought about having to scale the fence. His gaze met Zane’s, and his friend seemed to know what to do.
Zane hurried to the security window, standing so the guard’s vision was blocked.
Sullivan took off, managing to get through the gates just before they closed.
He scrambled to the right, praying Bates didn’t look in his rearview mirror as the town car sped down the road to the left.
Keeping to the wall, Sullivan moved alongside it, hugging it until he knew he was out of sight.
Then he began walking along the road. He planned to hitchhike to Baker’s Cove. In every movie he’d seen with hitchhikers involved, that was always a mistake, but he didn’t care.
Fortunately, he’d only walked about two miles when an eighteen wheeler approached from behind him. He held out his thumb, hoping the truck’s driver would stop.
He did.
Relief swept through Sullivan as he approached, and the driver rolled down the window.
“Where ya off to?”
“Maine.”
“Going that way myself. Portland.”
Eagerness filled him. “I’m heading to Baker’s Cove. It’s a few towns before Portland.”
“A-yuh. Know it. Have a brotha who lives there. Get in, kid.”
Sullivan did.
The trucker was friendly. Had a son a year younger than Sullivan. They had a decent conversation before a natural silence blanketed them. When they got to Baker’s Cove, the trucker stopped at a light.
“I’ll get out here.”
“Take care of yourself, kid.”
“Will do. Thanks again.”
He walked the two miles to his grandparent’s house, a cottage near the water. As he approached the shop which sat next to the house, he could hear the whine of a sander. Sullivan paused in the open doorway, breathing in the scent.
The shop smelled like home.
For a moment, he drank in the sight of Pawpaw, then he stepped inside. He doubted he would be in Maine for long.
But he was here now.