The Running Girls(22)
How she longed for that man to return. When she pictured David now, it was yet another different version she saw: the grief-stricken man she’d lived with these last fourteen months.
Laurie thought again about the parallels between the two of them and Glen and Sandra Harrington. She tried to tell herself that her relationship with David would never end up that way, but as she struggled to find some sleep, it dawned on her that maybe it already had.
Chapter Eleven
The morning light, breaking through the cracks in the blinds, tore Randall from a fitful sleep. The air inside the house was cloying, reminding Randall of the hours of lockdown he’d endured in prison. He hadn’t been outside since returning from Maurice’s house and was going a little stir-crazy. He’d seen it in prison, convicts losing their sanity—sometimes temporary, sometimes not—during periods of forced isolation. Randall had only endured the indignity of solitary confinement once, after becoming indirectly involved in a prison yard fight. The three days he’d spent alone in the windowless cell had been an experience he never wished to repeat. It had left him with too much time to think, to dwell on how things in his life had so easily unraveled. That isolation had been forced on him, and this was self-inflicted, but still it took all his will to push himself out of the armchair by the fire and move toward the front door.
Changing, he was surprised to find his walking boots were damp, and the smell of saltwater fresh on his rain jacket. He couldn’t for the life of him remember what he’d worn or packed for Maurice’s place, but it appeared to have included his raingear. No one had warned him how forgetful he’d become in old age. Or if they had, he hadn’t appreciated it at the time. Growing old was likely impossible for the young to appreciate, he figured. Now, it was as if there was a piece of him that often went missing. An absence in his thought process, as if little gaps were being hacked into his memory. It seemed to have worsened since his return to Galveston, and staying inside wasn’t helping any.
A gust of wind caught him off guard as he opened the door, forcing him to step back. That was another thing they didn’t warn you about. When he’d married Annie, he’d felt like the strongest man on Earth, and nothing would or could take that away. Now it was as if that strength was draining from him on a daily basis, and it made him want to turn back inside.
Pull yourself together, you old geezer.
His younger self would be dismayed to see what was happening to him, and he owed it to him to at least try. He would walk to the shore and back, taking the easy route, and would ignore the pain in his knee that was already causing him to stumble every few steps.
He half expected to see Maurice waiting for him as he followed the well-worn track. Seeing him the other day had been like seeing a ghost, and when he thought about Maurice’s house, and its adjacent church, a tight knot formed in his stomach, forcing him to stop and catch his breath. Annie had told him that she didn’t like Maurice, and that had been enough for him. He’d never been that fond of his brother himself. But what if there had been more to it than that? Maurice had always been a little strange around women, even in high school. Randall hadn’t quite understood it then, but Maurice had an uneasy way about him in their company. He’d never had a girlfriend that Randall knew of, and the thought made him feel a little uneasy. Annie had been unequivocal about her distaste for Maurice, but had refused to talk about it beyond that statement. What if Maurice had done something unspeakable to her when they’d stayed at his house? Randall hated thinking that way, but seeing his brother again had stirred these feelings of unease and it scared him to think that Annie had lived with something like that all her life in silence.
And if Maurice had done something to Annie, what else was he capable of?
The thought faded. The wind had picked up and he was carried along by it, the occasional grit of sand brushing his face, scratching his skin like sandpaper. At least it’ll make for an easy walk home, he thought, as he listened to the distant drone of the sea, and the gulls with their never-ending operetta of squawking.
Time didn’t behave in the way it used to, and he was on the shoreline without remembering anything else in between. A few people were on the beach, but it was easy enough for him to feel he was alone as he gazed out to the sight of an oil rig poking up from beneath the water, like a mirage. The decommissioned steel monstrosity was as much a part of the Galveston coastline as the rolling waves, but today it looked particularly alien and threatening in the gloom. Being back on the island was like being trapped in a memory. Every sight and smell was reminiscent of another time, and Randall’s past here was full of memories of Annie and David. He guessed they called it déjà vu, but the arrangement of clouds, the rig, and the heady smell of the seaweed—all of it made him think he was back at the day Annie had been found. A devastating storm had been brewing then, and he wondered if another was on its way.
He half wished for a hurricane to appear out of nowhere now and carry him away. He wanted to be swept along on the twisting air currents, and forget who he was and what his life had become. After Annie’s dad and his goons had attacked him that first day back, he’d been left alone, but no one wanted him back on the island. His only visitor was his delightful daughter-in-law, Laurie. Why she bothered, he didn’t know, but her appearances were a wonderful highlight. She’d come by late the other evening and Randall had told her all about Maurice. She’d listened with a saintly patience and Randall had sensed she wanted to tell him something. He’d asked after David, as he always did, and had noted a moment of hesitation before he’d told her how Annie would have been proud of them both. She’d left not long after, and he’d felt her absence long into the night.