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“Dad’s getting married. He told me today.”
She caught her breath. “Oh my goodness, what wonderful news! I’ll bet Martha is over the moon. Naomi too. Does Bree know?”
“I’d guess Naomi called her after her mom spilled the beans.”
“I wondered how you met Henry. He and your dad were good friends, weren’t they?”
He’d have to tread carefully here or he’d spill the beans. She couldn’t guess he’d been in the jewelry store. “So Henry told me. I remembered his name, but it had been years since I’d seen him.” Best to steer the conversation back to his dad and Martha. “They’re tying the knot as soon as Bree is back. Dad doesn’t want to wait. I think his stroke reinforced how brief life is, and he doesn’t want to waste a minute of the time he has left.”
He’d give anything if he had that ring in his pocket right now and could tell her he didn’t want to waste his time with her either. Maybe he should do it anyway. She’d be glad to wait on a ring. Annie had never been materialistic.
The boat’s engine throbbed under his feet before he could spill the words he longed to say, and he was glad for the interruption. The day he proposed needed to be memorable in every way, including the ring he slipped on her finger. They had time.
Thirteen
With a full belly, Sarah locked the cabin’s latch behind her and glanced around the small space. Anu had pushed for her to move into the big house, but Sarah didn’t want to lose the opportunity to recover any snippet of memory she might still find floating around in her head.
The old lamps cast a yellowish glow on the log walls and floor. She wandered over to the sofa and touched its rough surface. Corduroy maybe? It was worn slick and shiny in several places, probably from her father’s thighs. In the kitchen she found a plastic colander, and she had an image flash of snapping green beans into its tan bowl. The dishes in the cupboard were gray Arabia dishes with a navy stripe around the edge. Their familiarity was instantaneous, and she could almost smell her mother’s pasties.
She hadn’t expected anything to be familiar.
She peered out the window into the dark back lawn. After dinner Max had given her a jubilant smile after a call on his satellite phone. His men had found the woman and taken her by boat to the hospital. She was going to be all right. Sarah had wanted to ask if the woman knew who had found her jacket and asked for help, but that seemed self-serving, so she kept her mouth shut.
Her eyelids were heavy, so she went to the larger bedroom where her parents had slept. No way could she sleep in her little-girl room. If only she’d stayed in her bed that long-ago night, she would have grown up here. Mother would not have had a chance to grab her.
But was that even true? When Annie recounted the abduction, it sounded like Mother had known there were two girls and came prepared to take one of them. Sarah knew firsthand how determined Mother could be. If she hadn’t found them that night, she would have hidden in the shadows to seize the chance when it came.
Maybe it had been fate.
The door creaked when Sarah pushed it open and entered her parents’ room. A light beside the bed cast a homey glow. The faint scent of perfume still lingered in the air and drew Sarah to the dressing table. Her mother had worn something withwhitein the name. There was a half-empty glass bottle of The Body Shop White Musk. She uncapped it and took a sniff. It brought images of hugs and kisses, soft warm arms enfolding her, and a woman’s voice.
Sarah went to the closet and touched the clothes inside. Her dad’s flannel shirts and jeans, her mother’s twill slacks and sleeveless tops. The clothes didn’t trigger the nostalgia Sarah had experienced with the perfume and kitchen items. On impulse, she opened the bureau drawers until she found one of her mother’s nightgowns. She shed her clothes and pulled it over her head.
She and her mother were much the same size, but the nightgown held no scent of her mom, only the staleness of wood from the drawer. There were clean sheets on the bed, and she slipped between them with a sigh.
She snapped off the lamp beside her and lay there with her eyes open as the tree limbs danced in the wind and moonlight cast shadows in the room. Now that she was in bed, she couldn’t rest, not knowing what had happened the last time she was here. What had possessed her to wake her sister and coax her into going to the dock? It would have been a fair hike for two little girls. Knowing that now painted Annie in a different light. She had indulged her little sister. Not many big sisters would have crawled out of bed and gone traipsing through hordes of mosquitoes in the night.
They’d been fearless back then. Now fear was Sarah’s constant companion. Did Annie wrestle with hidden demons, too, or had her idyllic upbringing left her unbothered by shadows?
Where was Annie now? Did she ever think of her sister, or had Sarah killed every bit of love in her heart for that little girl so long ago?
There would be no sleep until she answered some of the questions. Sarah threw back the sheet and climbed out of bed. She went back to the living room and slid her feet into her sandals, then stepped out onto the porch. Though her phone had no signal, it still told the time. Nine thirty. She set off in the direction of the dock where Mason had dropped her off.
When she saw the gleam of moonlight on the water, she checked her phone again. An eight-minute walk for an adult. Annie would have held her hand, and it would have taken two little girls longer to get here. Ten minutes, maybe fifteen? Had Mother been watching from somewhere, or had she been in the boat the whole time waiting?
Nothing made sense about what had happened twenty-four years ago. She’d come out of nowhere, hadn’t she? They’d been there a little while, but not that long. It was such a strange flukethat they would have gone out that night. It had never happened before, at least not that Sarah remembered. Could someone have planned it all along? Her uncle Clive maybe? If only she could remember more, but a five-year-old wouldn’t have noticed much.
It was unlikely the truth would ever be known about what happened that night and why. But Sarah decided then and there she would dig and find out what she could. She might come away none the wiser for it, but she had to try.
***
What a perfect evening. Annie stood at the boat’s railing and leaned into Jon’s embrace as he stood behind her. They gazed out at the moonlit water without speaking. The stars twinkling overhead and the sound of the waves lapping at the hull of the boat added to her contentment. They weren’t that far from the shore, and the lights of a shoreline cabin flickered on.
“What a fabulous dinner,” she said finally. “The filet was perfect.”
The chef had prepared grilled asparagus, corn on the cob, fresh salad, and cheesy potatoes as well. Strawberries dipped in chocolate were the perfect dessert, and now she was too stuffed to eat another bite.
And she had Jon here all to herself. Perfection.
