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The man with the dog abruptly left and we were essentially alone at the north end of the beach. There was a soft breeze off the water. A few puffy clouds had rolled in, adding drama to the sky and big shadows to the beach.
“I need to ask you something.” I stared out at the water, almost afraid to look at him. I dug in the sand with my hand and let it flow through my fingers. I stopped when I realized that the sand reminded me of Marc’s remains.
Hunter touched my arm. “What is it? You know you can ask me anything.”
Can I?
“Well, I’ve wondered why you came to me as Jeb. Why didn’t you just come as yourself? Why did you feel the need to pretend?”
He said nothing for several minutes, and then, “Look at me.”
I turned my head and Hunter waited until our gazes met. “Don’t be creeped out. At least not more than you already are.” He smiled. “But I’d been watching you for a while, actually, since the previous winter when Keith, Jeb, and I moved to Chicago from LA, where we’d been before.
“Jeb had told me all about you and that he’d looked you up and knew where you were. He said nothing, back then, about wanting to hurt you or get even or whatever was going on with him. No, he spoke with great fondness about you, at least at first.
“If it means something, he told me the whole story of when you were kids and how you fooled around and had this whole puppy love thing going on.
“It made me curious about you. See, I was taken so young, I never had anybody in my life. I never knew what falling in love even meant.
“And then I watched you come and go with Marc. I could see how comfortable you were with each other. There was an ease in the way you looked at the other, in your casual touches.
“Now know that I didn’t watch you a lot. I’d come up and stroll around the neighborhood, go down to the lakefront. I saw you guys maybe a total of three times, if that.”
“Okay, okay. But you’re not answering the question. Why did you pretend to be Jeb?”
Hunter shut down a little. I could tell he was thinking. “It was the story Jeb told me. The two of you swimming together in the river. The stolen kisses.” Hunter reached down and grasped the amethyst pendant still hanging there. “He gave me this. He said you’d given it to him, to protect him. No one, and he emphasizedno one, had ever tried to protect him before, especially not his parents.”
“Why then, would he give it to you?”
“Because things were starting to fall apart by that time. I could tell he was jealous that you had someone. Totally irrational, I know. You’d been kids when you last saw each other. But I knew, from his reactions when I’d report on how you were doing and that I’d seen you with Marc, that he saw the love you had for your own husband,thirty-some years later, as a betrayal.
“I think that’s when he started fantasizing about hurting you—or worse. It was no coincidence that it was also when he started getting more heavily into drugs. He was always into them and booze, always, but things started to take a turn for the worse when some dude introduced him to meth. He got hooked almost instantly. Walker encouraged it too. It made Jeb more ‘pliable,’ he said.” Hunter shook his head, remembering.
“More than ever, I wanted out. To be free was all I could dream of. When Keith died, setting us both free, I wanted to meet you, to get to you before Jeb could. And in some crazy way, I thought if you believed I was Jeb, you wouldn’t believe the real Jeb when he one day would show up.”
He eyed me and I could read the terror in his face.
“I also thought you might come to see me as a person you could love, as you once loved Jeb. He and I looked similar enough that I thought I could pass.” He stretched out a bit, raising his face to the sun for a moment. “Crazy, right?” He made a little circling motion at the side of his head, the international symbol for absolutely nuts.
“I wanted that puppy love. I wantedyou. And I thought I stood a better chance if you thought I was your long-lost love.”
The words caught me up short. Even though I’d imagined this as the reason for his masquerading as Jeb, I couldn’t quite get my mind around his rationale. I felt confused and lost. These were not the feelings I wanted to bring to this ceremonial farewell.
“Hunter,” I said after a long pause and him appearing distressed and worried. “I need you to go.”
“Oh no. I was afraid this would happen.”
“No, no. Please don’t worry. I don’t mean goforever. But I need to process.” I leaned forward to touch the silver bag containing Marc’s ashes. “And I really need to be alone.”
“Are you sure?”
“Oh yes.”
Awkwardly, Hunter rose to his feet. He appeared hurt, cast out. But I couldn’t help that. At least not right now.
We didn’t say anything more. I watched him leave the beach without looking back, and knew he was afraid I was casting him out for good.
But I didn’t know what I wanted. I had too much to think about.
