Between Here and the Horizon(11)

My heart ached for the poor kid. The last entry in the notes from Dr. Fielding’s office was dated October seventeenth, a month ago, and in his entry Fielding raved about the remarkable progress the boy was making. That made me less anxious to meet him, but still. To lose a parent so young? God, it didn’t even bear thinking about.

I was less worried about Amie. She had the same amount of paperwork in her file, the same amount of detail. She wanted to be the tooth fairy when she grew up. Her favorite color was green, and her favorite animal was a dinosaur. She’d clearly spent just as much time with Dr. Fielding as Connor had, too, although his records of their meetings were far less intimidating.

“Amie, like many children her age, has adjusted to this new circumstance very rapidly. Her sadness over her mother’s death is something that overcomes her on occasion, however for the most part she remains a calm, happy, bright child. Mr. Fletcher’s concern over her is understandable. I have advised him that he should make sure to spend plenty of quality time with her, to ensure she doesn’t feel abandoned by both parents. I have urged him to reconsider taking a leave of absence from work, even if only for a short period of time. He has informed me he will do his best to make that happen. In the meantime, I am happy to advise only a biweekly appointment for Amie, unlike Connor, who I would still like to see twice a week.”

The photos of the children that had come with the file were rather odd. I’d have thought Fletcher might have sent one of the two of them, smiling and happy, perhaps from before the mysterious tragedy that had claimed their mother. Instead the pictures of Connor and Amie were taken separately, each of them on their own. Connor had a look of his father about him—a halo of dark hair that flicked and curled all over the place, and dark, soulful eyes that stared straight out at me from the image. Both cheeks were heavily dimpled, and must have been even more so when the boy smiled. As it stood, Connor remained stony-faced as he stared down the camera lens, no flicker of emotion caught in the shadows and highlights of his face. He wore a white button-down shirt, done up high under his chin, and a pair of plain khaki shorts that showed off his gangly, skinny legs. It was clear he was going to be tall, just like Ronan.

In Amie’s photograph, she was sitting Indian style on an Adirondack chair, propped up with a blue and white striped cushion behind her, and she was looking somewhere off to the left, away from the camera. Just like her brother, she wasn’t smiling, though her delicate, incredibly fine features seemed less weighed down than Connor’s. If anything she looked impatient, ready for the moment to be over so she could move onto the next.

“Another gin and tonic, Miss?” I hadn’t even noticed the stewardess standing next to me in the aisle.

“No. Thank you, though.” I wanted to accept the drink, and I wanted to tell her to keep them coming, but the very last thing I needed was a buzzing hangover when I touched down in Knox County.





******





I’d thought I’d get a fairly decent feel for Maine as I traveled from the airport, north, toward Port Creef, where I would be catching a ferry to The Causeway, however the world was shrouded in darkness when the plane touched down, and the sky remained as black as pitch out of my taxi window until I fell asleep. No town car service for me here. There had been a rather overweight, balding guy with a huge green, waxed canvas coat that came down to his knees waiting for me in arrivals, though. He’d held a piece of paper loosely in one hand, on which my name had been scrawled hastily in black Sharpie. He’d looked like he was about to fall asleep, leaning against the railings, with dark circles under his eyes. Turned out this was Carrick, and he was my cab driver. He was also Irish, and it was next to impossible to understand him.

The first thing he’d said to me was this: “Where’s your coat, Miss? Colder than Satan’s ball sack out there. You’ll catch your death if you step foot outside wearing that flimsy thing.” He hadn’t seemed all that impressed with the oversized woolen sweater Mom had made me carry on the plane just in case I had gotten cold. I’d been too tired to argue with him, to tell him I was fairly warm blooded and I wasn’t going to need a jacket, especially if we were just going from the airport to the car, so I’d just unzipped my luggage and pulled out the thick, hulking coat I’d brought with me. Overkill, I’d thought. Way too much fleece lining, and the hood was just plain ridiculous.

Ridiculous until I’d followed Carrick outside and the frigid wind had tried to suck the air right out of my lungs, that is. How cold had it ever gotten in Manhattan Beach in winter? Fifty-five degrees? Maybe in the forties, though that seemed unlikely. The wind cutting across the concourse at the tiny Knox County Airport could barely have been more than ten degrees. Lower, probably. It stabbed through the swaddling of my jacket like a hot knife through butter, instantly chilling me to the bone. I’d been frozen by the time I’d climbed into the back of the fat, oddly shaped taxi waiting for us a couple of hundred feet away, and Carrick had chuckled under his breath.

Not much passed between us by way of conversation—a fact I was glad of, since I could barely understand a word he was saying. Sleep seemed like the most reasonable course of action.

An indeterminate period of time later, I was shaken awake by rough hands. Carrick shot me a toothy, mirthful smile and said, “We’re here, Miss. Don’t want to miss this boat now.” Out of the window now, weak light was cutting through a swollen bank of dirty gray, weighty-looking clouds—thunderheads, Mom called them. A sure sign of a storm. An age worn coastline stretched out to the left, grass sprouting in between the cracks and crevices of huge tors of stacked rock. Even in the pale, half-hearted dawn, the hills rolling off into the distance looked incredibly green and lush, way brighter, fatter and more vibrant than anything I’d ever seen by the beach. Beautiful. It was truly beautiful.