Font Size:  

Chapter Four

Around eleven in themorning, Elise stood overlooking Arch Rock. The light played out a gorgeous symphony across the colorful stone, and the autumn waters just beyond seemed secretive, alive, and oddly just for her. For as long as her eye could see—all the way to the Mackinac Bridge and beyond—she saw not a single boat or ship. She felt like she was at the top of the world, and maybe nobody else existed on it.

These morning hikes seemed to get longer and longer. They cleared her head to allow her a long day of writing, and she found that her legs and stomach were more in shape and muscular than they’d been out in Los Angeles.

When she arrived back to the Bloomingfeld, she cast her eyes to the ground and muttered to herself—describing the next plot-points she needed in the script. As she walked up the steps, she hardly heard her name. In fact, Dean Swartz had to call it three full times before she turned toward him, her eyes all wide, and found him seated on the Bloomingfeld porch swing.

He looked at her much differently than he had the evening before. His eyes no longer labeled her as some intruder or monster sent to ruin him. He looked at her with curiosity; his eyes were aglow. Beside him sat his golden retriever, Diesel, who seemed in a perpetual state of smiling.

“Dean, hello...” Elise struggled to clear her throat. She stopped short with her keys extended toward the door.

Dean rose to his feet and twirled his mustache. After a long pause, he said, “I hated how I left things with you last night.”

What?

“That isn’t the kind of man I am. And, I suppose, after all this... You deserve answers from me. And maybe, just maybe, I deserve answers from you, too,” Dean said.

Inside the bed and breakfast, Rhonda sang to herself, a hobby she had taken up in recent weeks (one that hadn’t been necessarily welcome from her only resident, Elise).

“I wondered if you would like to go canoeing with me,” Dean said. “It’s a beautiful day, the kind of day that should be spent on the water. In my experience, everything comes to a head out there. I always see the world a little more clearly.”

Elise’s heart surged. She dropped her hands to her thighs and said, “I’d like that very much.”

Dean led her away from the bed and breakfast, back toward the little beach outside of the Grand Hotel, where a large, dark green canoe awaited, upside down. When Diesel spotted the canoe, he rushed toward it, his legs springing up off the ground with excitement.

“He likes the water,” Dean said with a chuckle. He bent down and flipped the canoe easily, with much more strength than his seventy years should have allowed.

Throughout their walk to the water, Elise had said very little. She had talked about her walk that morning, her favorite sights on the island, how her soul sometimes felt at complete peace as she wandered across the top of the rock. She’d left out all the thoughts that seemed most insistent in her mind:Should I go back to LA? Are you here to try to convince me to leave?

Dean instructed Elise to sit in the front of the canoe so that he could have more control in the back. Elise had a funny memory of being a girl scout, approximately one million years ago when all her girlfriends had brought their fathers for a canoe trip and her mother, Allison, had tagged along instead. When one father had piped up with qualms about this, Allison had spat, “I’m both the father and the mother. I change the oil and I pack the lunches and I say the prayers and I... Wait. What else do fathers do again?” And although the fathers had found plenty of reasons to pick Allison Darby apart, they’d also found plenty of reasons to flirt with her throughout the trip.

“Did I lose you?” Dean asked.

Elise shook her head. “Sorry. I was just watching the water,” Elise murmured. She yanked her ponytail down and shook her hair across her shoulders.

“It’s okay,” Dean said. “We don’t have to talk if you don’t want to.”

“No, no.” Elise swallowed the lump in her throat. Her heart felt like a buzzing bee. “All I want is to talk. I just have no idea how to begin.”

Dean’s ore snuck through the water, then splashed water back. Diesel panted in the center of the canoe with his big, fat pink tongue lolling out of his mouth. Elise turned and spread her hand across his head and patted him.

After they drifted far enough from the island, Dean placed his ore across his thighs, turned his eyes back toward the island, and said, “When Michael said that name last night—Allison Darby—my heart dropped into my stomach.”

Elise could feel the tears beginning to form in her eyes. She didn’t have words.

“Tell me. Tell me what happened to her.” Dean’s voice broke.

Elise allowed her chin to fall to her chest. After a long pause, she finally spoke, “My mother died in August. She was my entire world. She raised me and never asked for any help along the way. And she reached for her dreams—she really did. She appeared in a number of films and TV shows. She fought hard to get what she always wanted. She was taken from the world much, much too soon, but the worst of it is, she left out this entire part of her life—her time with the film and her time on Mackinac.”

Dean’s face fell. His own eyes filled with tears.

“I didn’t even know the name of this island. I didn’t even know you existed,” Elise whispered. “All I had was her diary. All I had was hope. And now, I’m here with you in this canoe, and I know how much I’ve messed up your life. I know that you didn’t expect someone like me to traipse onto your island like this. The fact that I’ve been allowed to know who you are and see you here in front of me, and pet your dog... That should be enough.”

A tear flickered down Elise’s cheek as she continued. “I don’t even know if she would want me to be here with you. I don’t know if she’d have wanted me to find the truth. What you said about some answers not being found? I think my mother would have thought the same. Why else would she have kept you from me?”

Dean shook his head delicately. He looked strangely defeated.

“Allison Darby was like an earthquake,” he whispered. “When I first saw her on set, I felt the beat of my heart almost break through my chest. I had never experienced anything like it before. Not when I met my wife, for sure and not any other time since. Allison Darby was the kind of woman who made you want to change your life.”

Source: www.allfreenovel.com
Articles you may like