Chapter 12
I let Jessie out of the back seat, slam my car door shut, duck my head from the wind.
I pull my beanie lower until it completely covers my ears, but nothing could drown that roar of the waves.
Jess bounds just ahead of me, stopping every ten feet to turn around and make sure I’m still there.
I smile a little. If there’s one positive thing to come from the last few days it’s watching her confidence grow.
She’s like a different dog, head and tail up, a little uneasy with strangers, but she’s getting better. More sure of herself.
I can’t say the same for me.
I stroll down the sand dunes, hands stuffed in my pockets, but I can still feel the sting of cold at my fingertips. The sky is gray and spitting. Storm’s coming.
Jess launches herself into the water, chasing a seagull that lifts off into the last of the setting sun, squawking in annoyance. I stop and watch for a moment. God, I think. It’s beautiful.
And then…
Mum.
The memory of her lying in that shallow grave hits so hard, it makes me double over. My body is still raw and weak like I’m recovering from an illness. I wait there, bent over and unsure if I’m ready to venture this far from my bed. I haven’t left the house since I found her.
A handful of tourists are packing up, wringing their beach towels, stuffing their belongings into oversized bags.
They’re hurrying now, eyes on the darkening sky.
Silly. This is the best time to be on the beach, watching a storm come rolling in.
Seeing the water whip up. Sometimes you’ll even see the fish come soaring out of the deep, frenzied and afraid.
It’s actually a great time to fish because they gorge themselves when the pressure drops like this.
They’ll instinctively seek to consume more food before the storm arrives.
And there he is. Heath. Waist-deep in the water, back to me. I can’t see the rod in his hands. He looks like he’s standing frozen in the middle of the ocean, waves angry and rising, ready to swallow him whole. He looks like a man lost.
I stumble forward, uneasy. There are sharks out there in the deep and in the shallows.
I watch as a wave rises, swelling higher and higher, pulling him in. He’s shoulder-deep now, just the top of his black head showing. The wave towers above him, poised to crash. We’ve all been hit by one of these waves before. It’s like getting slammed by a car.
I yell, “Heath!” But my voice is lost in the roar. What the hell is he doing? I run now, sprinting down the sand, feeling it grow wet between my toes. “Heath!”
Jessie raises her head, sees me running. She races up the beach until she’s at my heels, and together we stand at the edge of the freezing water, calling.
“Heath?” My voice tears out of me, raw with fear. “Move!”
But he doesn’t. He stands there, shoulder-deep in the surf, eyes locked on something only he can see. The wave’s already coming, too fast, too hard, and he just stands there like he’s waiting for it.
I don’t think. I shove off the sand and plunge into the water.
It closes over my head, black and biting. It’s so cold it burns. My muscles cry out with every movement, but I keep going. Stroke after stroke. Jessie swims beside me, nose pointed straight at Heath.
The wave crashes over him and he disappears beneath the surge, swallowed whole.
“Heath!” I gasp, choking on salt and panic.
The surface churns with white water and foam. I can’t see him.
And then, suddenly, he breaks through.
He emerges with a gasp, dragging air into his lungs like someone who wasn’t sure he wanted it.
Jessie reaches him first. She paddles up to his chest and he instinctively scoops her into his arms, holding her close. Water streams down his face. He doesn’t even wipe it away.
I stop swimming, bobbing in place as the ocean moves around me. Heath doesn’t say a word. Doesn’t blink. His eyes lock onto mine, blank and hollow, like everything inside him has been gutted. Like part of him is still underwater.
I know that look.
I’ve seen it once before, on the face of someone who did not make it back.
Someone who turned into a ghost long before their time.
And now I’m seeing it again.
This time, in my brother.
—
You’re not supposed to light fires on the beach.
Heath does it anyway. Always has. He makes his own rules.
Jessie licks at the salt on her paws, watching me and Heath drag broken tea tree branches across the sand.
He places seven rocks in a circle, then scrunches old newspaper into a ball while I hunt in the shrubs for more kindling.
By the time I return to the beach, the fire is golden and glowing.
I dump my armload of kindling to the side, and Heath and I sit quietly around the fire, watching it burn.
It’s stopped raining, but it’s still cold as hell.
My jeans are soaked through, burning my legs with cold; the cuffs of my sleeves dripping wet.
But the dark clouds are clearing, the stars are coming out.
I keep looking over at Heath, not knowing what to say.
We’ve been silent since I plunged into the water.
Silent since he finally turned around and gave me that hunted look that reminded me of our mother.
I call for Jess, opening my arms. She drops into my lap, tucks her golden head under my chin.
We stare at the waves and time slows down.
There’s a rhythm to the water, the steady pull and crash, like the ocean is breathing.
And I wonder if it’s remembering my father.
It was Heath who told me about Dad nearly drowning here as a child.
Heath who said, Minnow, I think when that wave took him under… not all of him resurfaced.
Heath was right. A few times a month, Dad would wake up screaming.
Heath would disappear down the dark hallway, footsteps hurried and frantic.
One night, I crept to the door, peered in.
The room smelled of vomit and, faintly, of seawater.
Dad was sitting up in bed, hands wrapped around his knees, rocking like a little child.
Heath sat beside him, arm slung helplessly around his shoulders.
The wave took the best of him. The worst of him remained.
I think of Dad sitting quietly at the dining table, an undercurrent of violence swimming through him.
Heath keeps his eyes on the water, but I can see the agony on his face.
Can see him grappling with the enormity of this week.
I wonder if he sees Mum, cross-legged on the sand, shielding her eyes from the sun.
Wonder if he sees himself, reeling in a fish, dragging it out of the shallows, straining with effort, while Mum shouts encouragement: He’s a big one, Heath! What a beauty!
“Did you know she was…dead?” I finally ask.
He takes a shallow breath, trying to steady himself, but his eyes never leave the horizon. His shoulders are heavy, as if the weight of the world has settled on them again.
“I didn’t wanna believe it…” He wipes at his face. “But she always came back after a few days. Always.”
Yes, she did. She’d emerge silently like a shadow, adopting her old routines until she disappeared again. We never said a word about it. We should have. Silence had a hold on our house. On all of us.
“When she didn’t come back…” He swallows hard. “She wouldn’t have left us, Minnow. Not for good. Not like that.”
I lower my head, suddenly weak and bone-tired. I’m glad Jessie is in my arms. I’m that little girl again, staring at the front door. Waiting, always waiting, for my mum to come back. To come home.
“Do you think he killed her?” I choke out.
Dad.
Yes, he did.
No, he didn’t.
What will hurt worse?
Because if Dad didn’t do it…who did?
He grabs my shoulder, and I cling to it. His nod falls heavy, final. “Yes,” Heath breathes. “I do.”
I exhale loudly, blowing all the air out of my lungs.
“And you think someone killed him for it?”
Heath swipes his eyes. “Either that or he fled after. I honestly don’t know.”
“Did you ask Terry if he did it?”
“He says he didn’t.”
“Do you believe him?”
Heath leans back on his elbows, and we watch the sky darken, watch the seagulls bob upon the whitecaps. A boat skims hard over the waves, picking up speed as it races to shore. A raindrop hits my collarbone. My eyebrow.
“You do think Terry killed Dad.” The wind picks up, pushes my hair into my mouth. “You think he did us a favor.”
“Didn’t he?”
The boat rushes past. The whitecaps look sharp enough to slice through its hull.
“Min.” Heath pauses. “Were you the one who found Mum?”
I’ve been dreading this. After Chris and I found her body, he was the one who called the police. I told him to keep my name out of it, and he agreed.
I think of Donny Granger and his young son. My throat closes up, my hands shake. I’ve never told a soul about what happened on Soldiers’ Road. I’ve danced around it with Chris, but I wouldn’t admit the whole truth. Couldn’t.
“Yeah…I found her,” I confess. “But it wasn’t Mum I was looking for…”
I dig my phone out of my pocket, bring up the photo of Donny Granger. “Did you ever see this man?”
Heath takes the phone from my hand, peering hard at the screen. “No…who is it?”
“He went missing around the same time as Mum. Supposedly he was last seen in Warrnambool, but that’s not true.” Heath passes my phone back. “I saw him here. With Dad.”
Heath’s mouth is a grim line, and for a moment I feel my body stiffen. In this town, silence is their first language. Us. Them.
Whose side is he on? Whose side am I on?
“Dad took him to the Wicked Woods?”
“Yeah.”
“…And?”