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He eased back in his chair. “She came to the house. Said she wants to see you.”
One brow lifted. “I bet.”
“Kit mentioned something about Sylvie’s will,” he continued. “Said the boat’s setting out tomorrow at dawn and that you’d know what she meant. What the two of you needed to do?”
Her expression drew down, and a muscle ticked in her jaw. “And I bet Kit was all dolled up. Looked well. Did she impress you? Catch your eye, like always?”
“Viv—”
“Changed my mind.” She stabbed the cigarette into the table, snuffing it out. “I do want to talk about it. Or, more to the point, I’d like to ask a question.”
He shrugged. “Go ahead.”
“If you had a choice between saving your life or Cal’s, which would you choose?”
Beau spread his hands. “Cal’s.”
“You’re sure?” She searched his expression, uncertainty in her eyes. “You wouldn’t change your mind if things took a turn for the worse? If, say, you realized that Cal wouldn’t make it, anyway. That no matter how hard you tried, Cal would go down, and if you held on, you’d go down with him. Would you try, anyway?”
His mouth tightened. What kind of question was this? Out of the blue? And the fact that she even had to ask . . .
He leaned forward, digging his elbows into the table. “No doubt.”
Her eyes narrowed on his face. “And would he do the same for you?”
“Of course.”
“Because you’re his father?”
“Because he loves me.” A strangled sound of frustration caught in his throat. “Where is this coming from? Don’t you know me better than this by now? I don’t understand what you’re—”
“I loved my mother.” She stabbed a finger toward the center of her chest. “Idid. I stayed with her for years. I peeled her off Lou’s barroom floor, dragged her home, and put her in bed every night. I sat beside her on the front porch at midnight, when she’d shake and scream, insisting someone was trying to kill her. I dragged her to therapy, picked up her prescriptions, made her take her meds, and stood still when she attacked me, said I wasone of themand scratched and clawed at my face. I bailed her out of jail. Paid off her lawyers. I watched my dad wither away and my brother grow more scared and confused every day. I watched her get worse and worse and worse, until she drowned herself in that creek, and even then I still pulled her ou—”
She hit the table with her fists and closed her eyes.
“Hey.” Beau reached out, covered her fists with his hands, squeezed gently until they unfurled. “Easy. You’re going to hurt yourself.”
She turned her hands over in his and stared down at her small dirt-stained palms as they shook in the cradle of his larger ones. “I know I’m a mess. Don’t you know that I know?”
“You’re not a m—”
“I am.” Viv looked up; her eyes locked with his. “Because I stayed. Because her life was more important than mine, and it was worth trying to save. And as soon as she’s dead, Kit breezes back in, expecting to spread our mother’s ashes with me and cry her goodbyes and act like she loved her. Like she didn’t make her choice fifteen years ago. Like she didn’t turn her back on her own mother. Next time you look at Kit, you remember that.” She trailed her hands away, then balled them back into fists in her lap. “Kit’s a coward. She has no soul.”
* * *
Some things you couldn’t take back.
Kit slumped on the front steps of Teague Cottage, leaned back against the—still locked— screen door (she’d tried forcing it open twice after she’d trudged back from the Suttons’ home) and watched as a fourth string of golf carts cruised along the dirt road toward the north side of the island. Most were quiet electric four-seaters, but a few were noisy gas-powered six-seaters equipped with underbody lights that glowed in garish pink, green, or yellow in the dark night. Occupants of the latter carts, their figures merely smudgy outlines behind the headlights, had to raise their voices above the motor’s rumble to carry on a conversation. Snatches of phrases traveled across the front lawn and reached the front steps.
“Best I’ve ever had in my life.”
“I know! So much more flavorful than . . .”
“Shame the place is stuck all the way out here. Nothing but run-down shacks and overgrown yards on this piece. Like that one. That one right there.”
Kit cringed as the voice became clearer. Sharper. As though the woman who’d spoken had turned her head and focused on the neglected two-story home Kit leaned against.
“That one has charm. I’ll grant it that. But it’s too far gone. Someone needs to raze it, along with the rest on this block, and start over.”
