CHAPTER TWELVE #3
She ignored me, as I figured she would. She needed to end her list. “Seven, rockfish have poisonous spines. You could have stepped on one. Eight, you could have stepped on a sea urchin, which is painful. Nine, you could cut your feet on barnacles or coral, develop an infection and die of sepsis—”
“Well, now you’re just reaching.” I did a three-point turn and headed up the driveway, where the gate opened for me automatically.
“Ten, you could slip on slimy seaweed, hit your head on a rock, and wind up in a coma you never wake up from.”
I drove through the opened gate and glanced over at her. “I’m not going to get the other ten, am I?”
She glanced at me. “Don’t do that again.”
“Kiddo, you can’t prevent me from going swimming. You don’t have to, but I happen to like swimming in the ocean.”
Crossing her arms over her chest, she stared straight ahead out the front window. “And if you die? What happens to me? I have to move back to Florida to live with Dawn and Irv. Florida, where Kyla is now out on parole? Florida, where my psycho pedophile birth-giver could find me at any moment?”
Ah shit.
This was more than just me swimming in the ocean. This was about my mortality and the fact that I was all she had.
We reached the top of the driveway, and I glanced over at her. “Nothing’s going to happen to me. It’s a safe, calm little bay by the school. There were some tide pools and rocks, but also sandy parts. I didn’t see any great white sharks, rockfish, or lion’s mane jellyfish. I think I was safe.”
Teenage side-eye hit me with full force. “Something still could have happened.”
“Is that why you went to Danica and Tom’s today? Do you not feel safe at home?”
Her exhale was loud and dramatic. I turned right to head back toward our house. “I don’t know how I feel. I just knew I didn’t like that woman snooping around the house and knocking so much. It freaked me out. It’s not right. It’s not polite.”
“You’re right. It’s not right or polite. What she did was wrong.”
I pulled over to the side of the road and brought out my phone.
“Who are you calling?”
“Just hang on.” I shot off a text to Tom.
(Me): Hey do you know where Jolene lives?
(Tom): I think I know what you’re planning. 4450 Willow Way. Buona fortuna, amico mio.
(Me): Thanks.
I punched the address into my GPS, which had me turning around.
“Where are we going?” Mabel asked.
“We’re going to deliver Mrs. Dandy a dose of her own medicine.”
“I’m not getting out of the truck.”
“You don’t have to.”
With conviction and my papa bear rage fueling me, I raced across the island to Willow Way.
Jolene Dandy lived in a big, old, white, four-story house with turrets and balconies on every level.
It looked like something out of Charleston or some other fancy part of the South.
It certainly didn’t mesh with the rest of the island homes I’d seen.
The gardens were pristine, and I doubted a weed dared to take root in her lawn.
Big weeping willows lined the driveway, and the biggest one of all sat in the center of her circular driveway.
What she didn’t have, I noticed, was an oceanfront, or even an ocean view.
For some reason, I found that interesting.
Surely someone who liked to talk as much as Jolene did would have pushed to have the best view and property on the island.
Two vehicles, including the sedan she was in the other day, sat in the driveway. The other was an old, fixed up, single cab, cherry-red Ford pickup truck with vintage plates.
I parked behind the truck and turned off the ignition. “Wait here.”
“I’d like to see you try dragging me out,” Mabel replied dryly.
I snorted at her humor and climbed out, marching across the stepping stones with the red and yellow tulips lining either side to the wide porch stairs.
I kept my steps light to not alert them and opened the screen door.
Then I grabbed the brass knocker with the ornate hummingbird on it and started to just rap on it like I’d never rapped anything in my life.
“Jolene! Oh, Jolene! Jolene … Jolene … Jolene, Joleeeeeeennnne. I’m begging you! ”
Then I started ringing the doorbell, and tapping on the etched glass window panels on either side of the door.
“Jolene!”
Footsteps echoed on the other side of the door, and a moment later, a very irritated, very flustered Jolene Dandy stood before me. “What in the name—”
“Not so nice when it’s done to you, huh?”
“Mr. Paul, this is—”
“No. You listen. I asked you politely and kindly the other day to respect mine and my daughter’s right to privacy.
To leave her alone and allow her to meet people from the island on her own timeline.
Then I get a call from her, while I’m at work today, that you showed up to my house and walked around the entire perimeter, peering through windows and knocking, calling out for her. How is that okay?”
“You’re hiding something, Mr. Paul. And I want—nay, the island—deserves to know what.
What is so wrong with your child that you don’t want anybody to meet her?
We are a very accepting and welcoming community.
If she has a lazy eye or inherited your cleft lip, nobody will make fun of her for it.
I can assure you. But your secrets have no place here. ”
I huffed a mirthless laugh. “People on the island have met her. People whom I trust to have her best interests at heart. Who I know won’t judge her, or me.
My daughter is a wonderful, brilliant, beautiful person, Jolene.
She loves birds, she loves to draw, she’s skipped three grades in school and is already auditing college courses—for fun.
But pushy, overbearing people who violate her personal space and boundaries can be a trigger for her.
Hell, they’re a trigger for me. So I’m going to ask you—nay, I’m going to demand—that you respect what I’m saying and leave me and my daughter alone.
You will meet her one day. The rest of the island will meet her—when she is ready. ”
Jolene’s face was almost as red as the truck in the driveway. “What are you hiding, Mr. Paul?”
“Not a damn thing. And even if I were, it’s mine to hide.”
“I’ve heard your daughter is thirteen. But you look too young to have a child that old. How old are you, Mr. Paul?”
I turned to go. “Have a good day, Jolene. I hope I don’t see you poking around my house again. I have cameras now, just so you know.” Then I headed down the stairs.
“Do you know the family you’re getting tangled up with?” she called after me. “That they came from a cult? A cult! Those cult people came to this island and kidnapped Raina’s son. They brought their dangerous lives to our safe little island. You better not be doing the same.”
I ignored her threats and kept going, tiptoeing through the tulips to my truck. I wasn’t alarmed when I didn’t see Mabel in the front seat. She was smart enough to know to duck down if she didn’t want to be seen.
I opened the driver’s side door and saw her crouched behind the passenger seat, in the same place Naomi had been a few days ago so she didn’t get caught by Jolene.
This busybody woman was going to be the Band-Aid in my salad, I just knew it.
I turned on the vehicle and pulled out from behind the truck. Mabel didn’t pop up or climb into the front seat again until we reached the end of the driveway.
“She’d not going to stop, is she?”
“Nope.”
“So what are we going to do?”
“Not sure, kiddo, but at least we know people whom we can ask for help.”
“I don’t think I want to stay home tonight now while you go out for a beer.”
“Yeah, I don’t want you to either.”
I glanced over at her as I pulled onto the main road. “We’ll figure it out, kiddo.”
Her smile was small and forced. “We always do.”