As she’d pulled away, it had been all he could do not to chase after her and try one more time to convince her to change her mind. He wanted to tell her again how much he loved her. Instead, he’d watched her go, knowing in his heart that this was the last time he’d see her, and wondering how on earth he’d let her slip away again.
He shouldn’t have come back home. He didn’t belong here, he’d never belonged here. There was nothing here for him, and it was time to leave. As it was, he knew he’d been pressing his luck with his cousins by staying as long as he had. Turning around, he walked along the side of the house, toward his car. He had one last stop to make in town, but after that, he’d leave Oriental behind forever.
Amanda wasn’t sure how long she stayed in the room upstairs. An hour or two, maybe more. Whenever she peered out the window, she could see her mother sitting on the porch below, a book open in her lap. Her mother had placed covers over the food to keep the flies away. Never once had her mother risen to check on Amanda since she’d gotten back home, nor had Amanda expected her to. They knew each other well enough to know that Amanda would come down when she was ready.
Frank had called earlier from the golf course. He kept the conversation short, but she could already hear the booze in his voice. Ten years had taught her to recognize the signs instantly. Although she hadn’t been inclined to talk, he hadn’t noticed. Not because he was drunk, which he obviously was, but because despite a horrible start to his game, he’d finished with four straight pars. Perhaps for the first time ever, she was actually glad he was drinking. She knew he’d be so tired by the time she got home that he’d probably fall asleep long before she went to bed. The last thing she wanted was for him to be thinking about sex. She just couldn’t handle something like that tonight.
Still, she wasn’t ready to go downstairs. Rising from the bed, she went instead to the bathroom and rummaged through the medicine cabinet, finding a bottle of Visine. She blinked a few drops into her red, swollen eyes, then ran a brush through her hair. It didn’t help much and she didn’t really care, and she knew Frank wouldn’t notice.
But Dawson would have noticed. And with Dawson, she would have cared how she looked.
She thought of him again, as she’d been doing since she’d returned to the house, trying to keep her emotions in check. Glancing toward the bags she’d packed earlier, she spotted the corner of an envelope sticking out from her purse. She pulled it out, catching sight of her name scrawled in Tuck’s shaky script. Taking a seat on the bed again, she broke the seal and lifted the letter out thinking, strangely, that Tuck had the answers she needed.
Dear Amanda,
By the time you read this, you’ll probably be facing some of the hardest choices of your life, and no doubt it will feel like your world is falling apart.
If you’re wondering how I know, let’s just say that I’ve come to know you pretty well over the last few years. I’ve always worried about you, Amanda. But that’s not what this letter is about. I can’t tell you what to do, and I doubt if there’s anything I can say that’ll make you feel any better. Instead, I want to tell you a story. It’s about me and Clara, and it’s one that you don’t know, because I could never find the right way to tell you. I was ashamed, and I think I was afraid that you’d stop coming back to see me, because you might think I’d been lying to you all along.
Clara wasn’t a ghost. Oh, I saw her all right, and I heard her, too. I’m not saying those things didn’t happen, because they did. Everything in the letter I wrote to you and Dawson was true. I saw her that day when I came back from the cottage, and the more I tended the flowers, the more plainly I could see her. Love can conjure up many things, but deep down, I knew that she wasn’t really there. I saw her because I wanted to, I heard her because I missed her. I guess what I’m really trying to say is that she was my creation, nothing more, even if I wanted to fool myself into thinking otherwise.
You might wonder why I’m telling you this now, so I might as well get to it. I married Clara at seventeen, and we spent forty-two years together, fusing our lives, ourselves, into what I thought was a whole that couldn’t ever be broken. When she died, the next twenty-eight years pained me so much that most folks — including me — thought I’d plumb lost my mind.
Amanda, you’re still young. You may not feel it, but to me, you’re just a child with a long life yet to come. Listen to me when I say this: I lived with the real Clara, and I lived with Clara’s ghost, and of the two, one filled me with joy while the other was only a dim reflection. If you turn away from Dawson now, you’ll live forever with the ghost of what might have been yours. I know that in this life, innocent people inevitably get hurt by the decisions we make. Call me a selfish old man, but I never wanted you to be one of them.
Tuck
Amanda put the letter back into her purse, knowing Tuck was right. She could feel the truth as deeply as she’d ever felt anything, and she could barely breathe.
With a feeling of desperate urgency she didn’t quite comprehend, she gathered her bags and carried them down the stairs. Normally, she would have placed them near the door until she was ready to leave. Instead, she found herself reaching for the knob and making her way directly to her car.
She tossed her bags into the trunk before moving around the car. Only then did she notice her mother standing on the front porch, watching her.
Amanda said nothing, nor did her mother. They simply stared at each other. Amanda had the uncanny feeling that her mother knew exactly where she was going, but with Tuck’s words still ringing in her ears, Amanda was beyond caring. All she knew was that she needed to find Dawson.
Dawson might still be at Tuck’s, but she doubted it. It wouldn’t have taken him long to wash the car, and with his cousins on the loose she knew that he wouldn’t stay in town.
But there was someplace else he said he might go…
The words came into her mind suddenly, without conscious thought, and she slipped behind the wheel, knowing exactly where he might be.
At the cemetery, Dawson stepped out of the car and made the short walk toward David Bonner’s headstone.
In the past, whenever he visited the cemetery, he came at odd hours and did his best to remain unnoticed and anonymous.
Today, that wouldn’t be possible. Weekends tended to be busy, and there were clusters of people walking among the headstones. No one appeared to pay any attention to him as he walked, but he kept his head bowed nonetheless.
Finally reaching the site, he noticed that the flowers he’d left on Friday morning were still there, but they’d been moved to the side. Probably by the caretaker when he’d mowed. Squatting, Dawson plucked at a few of the longer blades of grass near the headstone that had been missed.
His thoughts drifted back to Amanda, and he was gripped by a sense of intense loneliness. His life, he knew, had been cursed from the beginning, and closing his eyes, he said a final prayer for David Bonner, unaware that his shadow had just been joined by another. Unaware that someone was standing right behind him.
Reaching the main street that ran through Oriental, Amanda stopped at the intersection. A left turn would bring her past the marina and eventually to Tuck’s. A right turn would lead her out of town, eventually becoming the rural highway she’d follow on her way back home. Straight ahead, beyond a wrought-iron fence, was the cemetery. It was the largest in Oriental, the place where Dr. David Bonner had been laid to rest. Dawson, she remembered, had said he might drop by on his way out of town.