CHAPTER 33
Julie
Last night, two amazing things happened. While talking with Ethan on the phone, I complained about my writer’s block and how Granny Fran’s latest adventure was eluding me. He asked me to tell him about the story, and I found that as I described the problem I was having with Chapter Four, I began to get excited about writing the scene. It was a relief to talk about something unrelated to Isabel’s death or Shannon’s pregnancy for a change, and I was grateful to him for the inspiration. I knew I had to be cautious, though. Writing had always been my refuge, and I didn’t want to use it as my escape any longer. I wanted to find a balance between my life and that of my characters. It was time for me to let reality in.
The second amazing thing was a phone call from Shannon in which she’d apologized for her reaction to discovering that I was seeing—and sleeping with—Ethan.
“It’s okay with me if you want to date,” she said. “I’m sorry I made a scene.”
I wondered where her change of heart had come from but decided to enjoy it rather than analyze it.
“Thank you, hon,” I said. “That means a lot to me.”
“And I want you to meet Tanner when he gets here,” she added.
“And I want to meet him,” I managed to say.
We decided to have a barbecue at my house once Tanner arrived so that he could meet my mother and Lucy and me all at once.
“Would that make him uncomfortable, though?” I asked. “I mean, would he be overwhelmed having to meet so many people at one time?”
“No, Mom.” A little of her usual testiness was back in her voice and I knew our truce was fragile. “He’s very cool about social situations and stuff.”
“Okay,” I said, and then I ended the conversation, afraid that if I dragged it out too long, we could move into dangerous territory—such as her proposed move to Colorado—and lose the ground we were gaining.
So I felt good as I drove to Bay Head Shores to visit Ethan this morning. Since it was the middle of the day in the middle of the week, the Parkway was not clogged with traffic, but I wouldn’t have cared one way or another. I would have made that drive to spend twenty minutes with him, if that’s all the time either of us could spare.
Ethan had told me that his father would be visiting him, so I picked up sandwiches at the deli for the three of us, wondering what it would be like to see Mr. Chapman again after all these years and what safe topics we might find to talk about. The day was lovely, if too hot, and the smell of the sandwiches in the bag on the passenger seat was enticing. The only twinge of anxiety I felt was when I turned onto Shore Boulevard and spotted the canal between two of the houses on my right. It was an involuntary reaction, a little twisting of something in my gut, but it had nearly disappeared by the time I reached Ethan’s house.
I saw a car behind Ethan’s truck in his driveway and assumed it was his father’s, so I parked in front of the house on the street. As I got out of my car, I noticed that a plump, dark-haired woman was sweeping sand from the stoop in front of my old bungalow. How many hundreds of times had I performed that same task on that same front step?
“Hi!” I called, waving with a bit too much enthusiasm.
She looked up and returned my wave, an uncertain smile on her face as she resumed her sweeping. She probably thought I was strange.
I started to knock on Ethan’s front screen door, but I could see straight through the house to his backyard and spotted him and his father sitting near the fence, facing the canal. I went into the house, dropped the sandwiches on the tiger-maple counter in the kitchen and walked outside. They didn’t see me as I approached and my eyes were drawn to the yard next door, where two little boys played noisily in the circular, above-ground pool under the shade of the oak tree. It bothered me that the mother was sweeping out front instead of in the yard watching them. Something could happen to them in a heartbeat.
“Hello!” I called as I neared the men.
Ethan stood when he saw me. Smiling, he moved forward, his hands on my arms as he planted a kiss on my cheek. “Good to see you,” he said.
Mr. Chapman was getting to his feet. It appeared to be a struggle for him.
“Don’t get up,” I said, walking toward him. He was already standing, though, and he took the hand I offered in both of his, his smile warm and kind. His fingers trembled as he held my hand. He seemed so much older than my mother. I understood why Ethan had wanted to protect him from Ned’s letter and the resulting investigation.
“Little Julie Bauer,” Mr. Chapman said. “How good to see you. You’ve grown into a handsome woman. Hasn’t she, Ethan?”
Ethan grinned at me. “Extremely handsome,” he said. He dragged a chair through the sand and set it behind me. “Have a seat,” he said.
“It’s good to see you, too, Mr. Chapman,” I said as I sat down, and the elderly man lowered himself once more onto his chair. “I was very sorry to hear about Ned,” I added.
“Thank you,” he said with a nod. He was wearing sunglasses in dated, horn-rimmed frames and I wondered how long he had owned them.
“How was the drive?” Ethan asked. He was still standing, leaning against the back of his chair, arms folded across his chest. He had on his jeans and a navy-blue polo shirt, Chapman Joinery stitched in red across the pocket. He looked terrific.
“No problem at all,” I said. “I brought sandwiches and left them in the kitchen.”
“Great,” Ethan said. “You hungry, Dad?” He raised his voice a little when he spoke to his father, and I guessed the elderly man was hard-of-hearing.
“Sure.” Mr. Chapman nodded.
“Shall I get them?” I started to stand up, but Ethan put his hand on my shoulder.
“Stay here with Dad,” he said. He took our drink orders and left me alone with his father.
“Well, Julie.” Mr. Chapman folded his hands across his belt buckle. He looked relaxed now that he was not having to exert himself physically. “You’ve made quite a name for yourself, haven’t you?”
“Oh, a bit,” I said, smiling. I shifted my chair a few inches in the sand, ostensibly so that I could see Mr. Chapman better, but I really wanted to keep an eye on the two unsupervised boys in the pool next door.
“I see your books at the library and always tell the librarian, ‘I knew that author when she was just a little girl,’” he said.
“Thank you.”
“I bet you don’t know it, but I remember you the best of your siblings,” he said.
“Really?” I was surprised. “How come?”
“Because you—” he pointed one long, slightly gnarled finger at me “—you had the most spunk of the three of you,” he said.
“You think so?” I asked. I thought that Isabel had had the most spunk of the three of us, but I wasn’t prepared to dive into the subject of my older sister.
“Oh, yes,” he said. “And you were the smart one, too.You always had a book in your hands and you weren’t afraid of anyone or anything.You went over there—” he waved his hand toward the opposite side of the canal “—with the blacks and befriended them. Who else would do something like that? No one living on this side of the canal, that’s for sure,” he said, answering his own rhetorical question.
“I got in a lot of trouble for it,” I said. The boys next door were riding on a big, blow-up alligator, and they yelped with glee as they splashed water out of the pool with the wake they created.
“You tried to figure things out for yourself and I liked that about you,” Mr. Chapman said. “I know that was hard to do in your family, but you weren’t the sort to simply accept your parents’ values without questioning them first.”
I’d had no idea he had been observing me so keenly when I was a child, and although I couldn’t help but enjoy the compliments, I knew my “spunk” had turned out to be more of a liability than an asset.
“My parents were very conservative,” I said. I reached down to slide off my sandals, then dug my toes into the warm sand.
“Especially your father,” Mr. Chapman agreed. “And you were willing to buck him, weren’t you? You were a lot like your mother that way.”
My mother never bucked my father, as far as I knew, but I didn’t bother to say that. This conversation was social, and I didn’t need to delve into my family’s dynamics with him.
“I always forget that you and Mom were friends when you were kids,” I said. The sun was hot on my arms. I’d put on sunscreen before leaving the house, but I would have to borrow more from Ethan if we sat out here much longer.
“Yes, we were good buddies, just like you and Ethan were,” he said. “It’s nice you two are back to being friends again.” He looked out at the canal. Not a single boat had passed by us since I’d sat down. “I’d like to be friendly with your mother again,” he said, “but she doesn’t even want to talk to me.”
I hesitated, not sure what to say. “You know, Mr. Chapman,” I began, “it’s just that anyone from those days reminds her of a very difficult time for our family.” Well, there. We were into the subject now, and it was my own doing.
“Yes,” he said. “I realize that. Have the police spoken with her yet?”
I shook my head. “I don’t think so.”
“It must be very hard for your family to have this opened up again,” he said.
“Well, and yours, too,” I said.
A fishing boat, loaded with men and gear, glided north through the water in front of us, probably headed for the inlet. We watched it in silence for a moment.
“Do you think Ned killed your sister?” Mr. Chapman asked, and I was taken aback by the directness of the question.
I looked toward my old yard again. The boys were quieter now, their heads bobbing below the edge of the pool where I couldn’t see them, then popping up again. They were probably playing the “who can hold his breath the longest” game. I hated that game. I’d forbidden Shannon ever to play it, a rule I’m sure she broke many times when I was not around. What kid wouldn’t?
“I don’t know what to think, Mr. Chapman,” I said. “I can’t imagine what else he might have meant in that letter to the police.”
He licked his dry, chapped lips. His face looked gaunt to me and I wondered if he were ill, although Ethan had denied that.
“I think Ned’s letter may be one of those things we’ll never be able to figure out,” he said.
“Could Ned have slipped away during the time you said you and he were together that night?” I asked, trying not to sound accusatory.
Mr. Chapman looked disappointed that I’d asked the question and didn’t respond. He licked his lips again, looking out at the water.
“I’m sorry,” I apologized. “I’m just trying to puzzle it out.”
“He was with me at midnight,” he said. “That I know for certain. And that’s when you said…it happened.”
“Well, I was never completely sure of the exact time,” I said.
“Ned was with me out here,” Mr. Chapman said. “We were watching a meteor shower. And then he went to bed. It had to have been long after midnight by that time. Besides, what possible motive did he have? He adored your sister.”
I couldn’t tell him my suspicions about his son’s relationship with Pamela Durant. I would have to trust that the truth would come out in time.
“I guess you’re right,” I said.
I was relieved to hear the screen door bang shut as Ethan walked into the yard, and I stood quickly to help him. He was balancing three full glasses, stacked plastic plates and the sandwiches on a tray. I handed Mr. Chapman his glass of cream soda.
“I remember how you used to zip around the canal in your little runabout,” he said, as Ethan and I sat down and began to eat. “Back and forth, between here and the bay.”
“That’s as far as I was allowed to go,” I said.
“I bet you grew into a hellion of a teenager,” Mr. Chapman said. He did not seem to be hungry. He had not touched his sandwich.
“Well,” I said, “I really didn’t. After Isabel died, I became a lot more afraid of things.”
Mr. Chapman looked saddened by that news. “That’s a shame,” he said.
“She won’t even go in the boat,” Ethan said.
“No?” Mr. Chapman inquired. “Oh, you should. I’m leaving after lunch and I think the two of you should take a ride. It’s a beautiful day, not at all crowded on the water.”
“How about it?” Ethan raised his eyebrows at me.
“No, thanks,” I said. Next door, the boys climbed out of the pool and ran into the house, and I was relieved to be able to give up my self-imposed lifeguarding.
“You’ve got yourself labeled again, don’t you?” Mr. Chapman said.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“I mean, you used to call yourself ‘the Nancy Drew Girl,’” he said. “‘The Adventure Girl.’ Now you’re ‘the Scared Girl.’ You don’t have to stay that way, you know.”
“He has a point,” Ethan said.
It was strange the effect Mr. Chapman’s few simple words had on me. You don’t have to stay that way.
“Maybe I’ll go,” I said, not quite ready to commit to the possibility but suddenly ready to consider it.
Mr. Chapman left right after lunch, and Ethan and I stood in the front yard, watching him drive away.
“You ready for that boat ride?” Ethan asked, putting his arm around me.
I made a face that clearly said I don’t think so.
“How did you feel when you were a kid and went out in your boat?” he asked.
I thought about it for a minute. “Free,” I said. “Until that last night. That changed everything.”
He used his arm to turn me around and we headed through his side yard toward the dock. “That was 1962,” he said. “It’s a new century now. Come on.”
I let myself be led to the edge of the dock. Ethan began to untie the boat from the hooks on the bulkhead. I watched, remembering how my runabout’s damp, fibrous rope used to feel in my fingers. Grandpop had taught me many different knots. I bet I still remembered them all.
Ethan was on the other side of the dock. “Go ahead and hop in,” he said. “I’ll be right in after you.”
I looked down at the boat’s camel-colored interior. It swayed slightly on the wake of a motorboat that had just passed through the canal, and watching the seats move up and down made me light-headed. But I did it. I sat down on the bulkhead, caught the gunwale with my bare feet and slipped in. My heart was pounding as if I were standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon. I lowered myself quickly to the front passenger seat and clutched the side of the boat.
Ethan jumped into the boat with ease and took his seat behind the wheel. The smell of oil and gasoline mixed with the scent of the water. I used to like that smell. I breathed it in, wondering if I could learn to like it again.
“You okay?” Ethan smiled at me.
I nodded.
Putting the boat in Reverse, he backed into the canal, then took off in the direction of the river. I was quiet and anxious, one of my hands still holding on to the side of the boat as we approached the new—to me, anyway—Lovelandtown bridge. This bridge was higher than the old one and the pilings were much farther apart, so that we sailed beneath it with ease. We passed houses that were unfamiliar to me, having been built or remodeled since the last time I’d traveled the length of the canal, and I welcomed that unfamiliarity. We exited the canal and sped into the open water of the Manasquan River. The hot, damp air whipped my hair around my face and a spray of water cooled my eyes, and I found that those sensations brought back not the night I lost my sister, but rather the hours upon hours of fun I’d had in my little boat.
I studied Ethan’s face as we cut across the surface of the water. In his profile, I could still see the boy who’d dissected crabs and kept eel guts in alcohol and lay on his stomach in the reeds, examining marine life in the shallows. Who could have guessed I would be here with him now, enjoying him, wanting him, loving him?
I swallowed hard, suddenly hoping that Ned would not be found responsible for Isabel’s murder after all. It was going to hurt Ethan far too much.
He glanced over at me and smiled.
“You’re lovin’ this, aren’t you,” he said. It was not a question.
I moved closer to him, putting my arm across the back of the seat.
“I’m lovin’ you,” I said into his ear, and I leaned my head against his shoulder.