Chapter Twenty-Four
Footsteps echo along the dock. I sit up, expecting to find Reid or Hadley trying to entice me to Idlewood.
Instead, Freya Faith stands at the foot of the dock, heels in one hand, a bottle of Scotch in the other, the sun shining off her auburn hair.
She pauses, as though assessing whether to intrude.
“I looked for you at Idlewood, Harold,” she says. “Your island isn’t meant for heels.”
I turn and face the water.
“Do you want to be alone?” she asks.
When I don’t answer, she crosses the dock and settles beside me, twisting the cap off the Scotch and taking a slug before passing the bottle to me. “Don’t worry. It’s after noon.”
I sniff the liquor and can tell it’s peaty and undrinkable, disgusting, but I take a sip anyway, letting the alcohol warm my insides. Somehow, I avoid spitting it out.
Freya takes another glug from the bottle and lights a cigarette.
“I’ll have one,” I say.
“I don’t think so,” she says. “And I should quit, anyway.”
“Why don’t you?”
She turns her face toward the sun. “I’m on the precipice, see. I’ve been fading away for years. If I stop smoking and get fat, if I stop dyeing my hair and give in to my age, I’ll disappear completely.”
“You won’t disappear.”
“We all fade eventually. It’s just how long we put up a fight and where we land in the end. It’s nice here in this cove, in this little town. It would be a good place to land. A good place to retreat. There are lots of good memories for me here, too.”
My memories of Burkehaven are anything but pleasant.
“We can sit here quietly,” Freya says, “or if you want to be alone, say the word and I’ll take off.”
I might be tired of being alone. I take another sip from the bottle. This time, it goes down easier. “I barely recognize you without your companion,” I say.
“Ginger got the morning off. She’s at the condo.”
“I meant Gilcrest.”
“Him, I’m not so sure about. He’s on probation.” Freya dips a bare toe in the water. “Cold,” she says.
“Reid swims every afternoon. Memorial Day through October.”
“I don’t have that resolve,” Freya says, stubbing the cigarette out and tucking the butt into the pack. “You know what I like? A big-city gym with bikes that don’t go anywhere and hot men who spend their workouts watching each other instead of hassling me.”
“Sounds like New York,” I say. “You just said that Hero would be a good place to land?”
“I keep going back and forth,” Freya says. “Your brother hasn’t made much headway on building the house since the fire, though. And my decision depends on a few other things, too.”
She means Gilcrest and his marriage and whatever choices he needs to make to make her choice worthwhile.
“Talk to me about something besides my mother,” I say. “Anything but being sad.”
“I can do that,” Freya says. “I saw your aunt for a few moments just now. She’s the one who told me where to find you.
It was nice to catch up, but I want to hear more about where life has taken her.
I’d forgotten what good friends we used to be, how much fun we had together, and in a way it was as if no time had passed.
Hadley’s lived the exact life she talked about living when we were teenagers.
She’s done good work and seen the world.
I hope we’ll keep in touch now. At the very least, we can be friends online, unlike before. ”
Freya swivels around and faces the shore. “You remember the old Burkehaven cabin. Two bedrooms and a bathroom that barely worked. It was about there, close to the path that leads to your cottage. My dad thought Hadley was bad news, so I had to sneak out and meet up with her on the sly.”
I can’t imagine anyone considering Hadley bad news, and it makes me laugh, and when I laugh, I realize I stopped thinking about my mother, if only for a few seconds, and even though the grief swings around and wallops me in the gut, I welcome the respite.
“Hadley’s such a do-gooder,” I say. “Why would your father think she was a bad influence?”
“He was in the air force,” Freya says. “He expected order and wanted a daughter who did what he told her to do, and for the longest time, I went along with it without question. He thought I should earn a teaching certificate, get married, and have kids, and I probably would have—not that there’s anything wrong with any of those choices—but Hadley told me I could move to New York and do whatever I wanted.
She dared me to have a dream. She told me about Juilliard and encouraged me to apply.
I don’t know if I’d have come up with that plan on my own.
That’s a lot to owe someone you haven’t talked to in a long time.
” Freya cups water in her hand and splashes it on her face.
“It’s as if she opened a door, and I walked through it and found my whole life on the other side. ”
The night before my mother died, she also mentioned passing through a door, a metaphor I understand better now.
Like my mother and Reid, I have a before, one I won’t be able to return to, no matter how much I wish I could.
I flip onto my stomach. In the shadow of the dock, a school of sunfish darts along the lake bed.
“Tell me more about Burkehaven,” I say to Freya.
“We stayed here every year for two weeks. The Burkes would come over most nights, or we’d visit friends around the lake.
On the last night of our stay, my parents hosted talent night.
It’s the first place I ever sang in public.
” Freya pauses. “If I tell you what I sang, it can never be repeated. Ever. You have to swear.”
“I swear.”
“‘Physical,’ by Olivia Newton-John. I wore a leotard and a headband. I bet you don’t know the song.” She sings a few of the lyrics. “You must have heard it in the grocery store.”
“And the oldies stations,” I say.
“Stop with the ageism. Anyway, I took my performance very seriously. Hadley helped me with my dance moves. I remember rehearsing for most of the week, and that some of the kids around here would come by to watch. They probably spent the whole night laughing at me.”
“Like Paul Burke,” I say. “And my father.”
“Yep. Paul. Isaac Haviland, too. Your father was there, but he was too nice to make fun of a kid like me. Speaking of your father, any new sightings?”
“Do you think I imagined seeing him?”
“Do you?”
“Sometimes.”
Freya hands me the Scotch, and this time I take a long swig.
“Are you doing okay, Harold?” she asks.
“I’m fine,” I say, as I’ve said to anyone who’s asked so far. “Actually, not really.”
“It’s okay to be sad,” Freya says. “You might be sad for a long time. I think about my parents when I come to this cove. My dad was an amazing person, even if he was a disciplinarian. So was my mom. She was a computer programmer when a lot of women didn’t have jobs.
They both died about five years ago. My mom first, and then my dad a few months later.
It takes a while to fill the hole from losing a parent, and part of you may never heal—I know I haven’t—but eventually the grief fades into the background. ”
“I don’t feel anything,” I say.
“That numbness protects you until you’re ready to face what’s behind it.”
I rest my chin on my fist and watch the sunfish poking their mouths at the lake floor. If Freya keeps pressing, I may have to face what’s behind the numbness, and I can guarantee I’m not ready for whatever I might find. To change the subject, I ask, “Are you pissed off at me for recording you?”
“All’s forgiven,” Freya says.
“I’m sorry anyway. It was a dick move.”
“Apology accepted.”
Behind her, a pickup truck rolls into the parking area by the construction equipment, and a man gets out. I squint across the water. “That’s Vance Moodey,” I say to Freya. “He runs the lumberyard.”
We’re far enough away that I’m not sure if Vance notices us at the end of the dock as he moves along the shore and snaps photos of the cove and the construction site as if he’s collecting evidence. A few moments later, he retreats to the truck and pulls away.
“That was weird,” Freya says. “What do you think he wanted?”
I sit up. “Where did you park?” I ask.
“Over at Idlewood,” Freya says. “Why?”
I could stay here on the dock all day and be sad and angry. Or I could find a way to distract myself, and I could do it with Freya.
“Because when we follow Vance, my yellow Volvo will be too easy to spot.”