Frankie #2
move in with her.” As I speak, I’m texting Jackie:
I know you said you didn’t want to drag your team out here on a Sunday night, but I think you’re going to have to. Center
Island is on fire. Send help.
“You know, I just might do that,” Richard says, indignantly. “At least Devorah values the same things I do. You certainly never did. Look at my lawn!”
“Richard, you left me. It’s my lawn now. I can do what I want with it—”
“Or do nothing with it, which is what you’ve been doing.” He gives me a bitter smile. “I think the problem was that back then,
you weren’t ready for the truth. But you are now.”
“Oh, I am, am I?” I watch my phone screen, hoping Jackie will reply right away. No such luck.
“Yes. I almost think that’s why that storm sent my boat crashing to the rocks. Maybe that witch wanted to ground me so that I could return here to you, now that you finally see the truth.”
“The truth being?”
“Magic is real. Everything I ever thought was true turns out to be a lie. That’s why I lost you—why I lost everything, because
I didn’t believe. But I do now . . . and I want to make things right.”
I stand up, and not only because I know what he’s doing and I don’t want to hear it. Three small figures are emerging from
the fog and heading toward my house. “Get out of here, Richard.”
“Frankie, didn’t you hear me?” Richard is on his feet, as well. “I said magic is real, and I still love you. I think we need
to give our relationship another chance. My love for you has only gotten stronger since I’ve realized the truth—”
“Richard, how did you get here tonight? I don’t see a car parked anywhere nearby.”
“I had to sell my car,” Richard says. “To help pay for the boat. You know that. I took an Uber here.”
“Then Uber back where you came from.” I turn away from him as the three DeLong grandkids come toward me. “Now.”
“Frankie, this isn’t at all how I was expecting this to go. Can’t you see that I still love you? I miss you!”
There was a time when these words from Richard’s lips would have made my heart sing.
But that time is long past.
“You love this house,” I inform him. “You miss your yard. But you don’t love or miss anything about me. And unfortunately
for you, you don’t own the house or the yard anymore. You sold them to me. Now get off my lawn.”
Eddie, Robby, and Sammy DeLong have lined themselves up along the brick path to my front porch and are standing there, looking
uncertainly at Richard. I don’t blame them—it’s not often you get to meet the guy off the fish sticks box in the flesh.
Then I remember how he used to yell at them—little kids!—for kicking their soccer ball into our yard, and I feel even more
sympathy for them . . . and even less for him.
“Didn’t you hear me, Richard?” I demand. “Get. Out.”
I know this isn’t very empathetic of me, but I’m beyond caring. I just want him to leave, which fortunately he does, huffing
off into the smoky, foggy night, muttering how I’ll be sorry one day.
“I highly doubt that,” I call after him, then turn to the DeLong boys, who are all standing there with hunched shoulders and
concerned expressions.
“What’s up, boys?” I ask, when the sound of Richard’s footsteps on the side of the road has faded. “Isn’t it past your bedtime?”
Robby gives me a disgusted look. “Why does everyone keep saying that? It’s not even nine.”
“Ash is in trouble,” Eddie says.
I sigh and turn back toward my front door. I still have to call my therapist, feed the cat, check the kittens, and then get
in bed, pull the covers up over my head, and never speak to anyone ever again.
“I know,” I say. “But he doesn’t want our help. He wants all of us to go inside and lock the door. So I suggest you do the same.”
“No.”
Something in Eddie’s voice causes me to pause before slipping my key into the lock. I turn my head to look down at him standing
in the yard, the orange glow of the fire reflected on his worried, chubby face.
“He’s in danger,” Eddie says, and behind him, his little brothers nod. “He told us to go home, but we only pretended to. We
stayed behind and watched. Those girls from Center Island came over in a boat and hit him.”
“What?” In spite of myself, I’m hurrying down off the porch. “What girls? And what do you mean, hit him?”
“I don’t know.” Eddie looks a little less sure of himself but no less worried. “It was a bunch of girls in white bathrobes.
I couldn’t tell exactly what they did to him—”
“But they definitely tackled him,” Robby cries. “And knocked him out and tied him up and put him in their boat and went back
to the island with him and sank every other boat on the lake so no one can follow them—”
Now I’m running. It’s hard to run in high-heeled boots, which is what I’m wearing because I spent the day doing social things
like going to the farmers market and my mother’s house for dinner. My yard is still so muddy from the unexpected rainstorm
the other day, my heels sink into it and make sloppy sucking noises every time I lift a foot.
But none of that matters. What matters is that, when I get down to Ash’s dock, I find all the lights on; every single boat,
kayak, and Jet Ski scuttled; and Ash?
Ash is nowhere to be seen.