Sweet Water(35)

When I make it to the front door, half-frostbitten, I ring the doorbell, and a kid with curly bedhead and squinty eyes asks me who I’m looking for.

“Marty Ellsworth.”

The kid stares at me oddly. “You’re not a reporter, are you?” he asks.

“No, definitely not.”

The kid looks behind him. “Is Marty back to school or is he still at home?”

“Back. Upstairs,” someone mutters from inside.

“Back?” I ask.

“He took a sabbatical until his dad could talk to the dean and until they could clean the house. Hold on. Marty!” the kid yells.

I’m left on the doorstep feeling like a dope, and I wonder what Marty’s dad has to do with anything.

Then I see Marty walk down the stairs. When he sees me standing on the stoop, he looks dumbfounded, closing the front door so we’re standing on the flat patio by the stairs with the polished lions.

“Hey, Sarah. I heard you were looking for me at the party, and I meant to call you, but I’ve been a little busy.” He looks sheepish and tired but not the least bit sick. Hopefully he’s recovered, but the gift in my hand seems ridiculous now.

“Oh yeah, the guys must’ve told you I stopped by. Marty, I’m so sorry about Tush. I heard him play his sax that night . . .” My throat gets caught on the memory, but I steady it. “And to be wrongly accused and go through all that . . .”

“Yeah . . . it’s been a rough week.” Marty’s easy smile disappears as he looks out over the porch into the autumn trees, losing their leaves one by one to the cold front rolling in. “Oh, hey, and Sarah . . . call me Martin. The guys call me Marty,” he says, and I feel like I’ve been upgraded.

“Okay,” I say, taking a good look at him. Everything about Marty seems to have matured since the last time I saw him. His clothes look less shabby, he’s lost the sideburns, and now the formality of his name.

Tush’s death has changed him. As it should.

“Here, I brought you some soup.” I hand the container to him.

“Soup?” he asks, confused.

“Because you’re sick,” I say.

It doesn’t seem to register at first as he takes the container with a half grin.

“The school paper, it said you were sick, and that’s why you weren’t . . .”

His dark eyes ignite with recognition. “Oh, oh yeah. That was, uh . . . a few days ago. I’m sorry, I’m fuzzy, just getting my senses about me again after everything.”

He touches my arm, and I like the warmth of it, along with the sincerity in his voice, the reflection of the autumn leaves in his earnest brown eyes. There’s good there. But other people won’t see it now because of this. “Thank you so much for the soup. Let me pay you back. Let me buy you dinner. Somewhere nicer than the last place.”

My heart leaps out of my chest, and never did I dream I’d get a date out of cafeteria soup. But more so because this is a boy who’s suffered. A boy who needs me.

“Yeah, that sounds good,” I say.

“Okay, I have to go home to get caught up on classes and some legal things, but I’ll give you a call before next weekend.” He grabs a pen that’s hanging from his shirt pocket and holds his palm out like he’s waiting for a high five. We both laugh as I scribble my digits on the underside of his hand, which I notice is remarkably smooth.

That boy’s never held a hammer, my father would say. Or a guitar.

And maybe that’s okay. The kids who go to school here don’t have to hold hammers. They’re learning how to make the robots that will someday replace hammers.

“Don’t grab the soup with that hand; you’ll smear the ink,” I joke.

“I’ll protect it with my life.” Marty places the scribed hand over his heart, and I’m in love. Something about Tush’s passing has me even more invested in Marty than before. The campus gossipers have been on a crusade to find someone to blame, and they chose him. I want to prove them wrong.

There’s good there.

Marty probably thinks everyone hates him. I want to be the one to love him. I know what it feels like to be all alone, irrelevant in a sea of people who seem to have a clear direction of where they’re going. Sometimes you just need someone to believe in you.

“You’re a good one, Sarah Denning. I need a good girl like you to keep me out of trouble.” He winks, and I melt into pieces right on the doorstep. I feel my face break into a smile, even though I fight it.

“Well, step number one: hit the books,” I demand.

“Yes, ma’am. Talk soon. Thanks for the soup, very sweet.”

“You’re welcome.”

He closes the door, and from that moment forward, I am his.

His good girl who will keep him out of trouble.





CHAPTER 10

Present

As expected, a policeman arrives shortly after Finn is situated at the kitchen table with his hot cup of coffee—presentable. Detective Harvey Monroe, on the other hand, is a bit on the scruffy side.

He introduces himself at the door with a stone-cold face that hangs flat and square. Detective Monroe’s head is bald and misshapen, and although he’s shorter and squatter than Martin, I can see the intimidation on my husband’s face. I think back to the kid who leaned in the doorway of my dorm like he owned the place and then again the way he presented himself on our first date at the new hot spot in town. He always had it together, but his confidence has seemed to drain in an instant, and we are in trouble.