Last Day (27 page)

“Is that why you introduced them? So she could exhibit his work?”

Her father paused. His gaze sharpened, a terrifying look entered his eyes, and for the first time she saw the deep change in him—not just age, but the darkness of life in prison.

“No. Definitely not. But I was proud of her,” he said. “I was being a big shot, letting him know I used to be someone, that my daughter was a star in the art world. Are you saying
he
killed her?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t even know his name until this week. Where is he?”

“He’s not from Connecticut. He got arrested here, a pot conviction; that’s why they sent him to Ainsworth. When he was released, the plan was for him to go back to Warwick, Rhode Island. That’s where he lived before, where his family lives. He had to return there; that would have been his parole arrangement.”

“Warwick’s not far from New London. Where did he get caught?”

“The shoreline somewhere.” Her father nodded slowly. “Maybe New London, I’m thinking. Maybe it was. But still, Beth lived in Black Hall—that’s a world away from drugs and the back streets.”

“She volunteered in New London; didn’t she tell you?”

“She sure did. I was proud of her.”

“And Jed wound up at her soup kitchen. They became friends,” Kate said, watching for his reaction.

“She appreciated talent, and he was a master of the line,” he said, frowning slightly. “He had a touch of Matisse in him.”

“I’ve seen his work,” she said.

“You did? What did you think?”

“I think he caused her problems,” Kate said.

“What problems? What did he do?”

“Worked at getting close to her. Complicated her life,” Kate said.

“He wasn’t a user, Kate. I know a little about people in here, after all that time, and I didn’t get that from him at all. Beth had good sense, and if she liked him, it was because he is a decent person. And I’m sure she saw his talent. Like I did. In fact . . .” He stopped himself.

“In fact what?” she asked.

“Well, he missed nature in here. It ripped him apart. He was always sketching rivers, hills, trees. When he was getting out, I told him he should draw the gardens at the Ledges.”

The Ledges was an abandoned estate a few miles north of Mathilda’s house, also on the Connecticut River. Years ago, a nonprofit group had restored and operated it as a state park. There was a sunken garden full of lavender and old roses. Concerts and plays had been held in an amphitheater beside the rock ledge sloping into Long Island Sound. Many Sunday nights, her family had gone there to picnic and fly kites and listen to Mozart or bluegrass, see performances of Gilbert and Sullivan and once a production of
Henry V
. But there were financial misdeeds on the part of the nonprofit’s board, and the Ledges went untended. Kate didn’t tell her father that the mansion had fallen into ruin, the gardens now overtaken by weeds and tall grass.

“Jed was never violent,” her father said, a ravaged tone in his voice. “He was peaceful. I worried about him in here. He wasn’t tough enough. I can’t believe he would have . . . that he could have attacked anyone. He was always one of the ones who needed to go home, who didn’t belong in this place. But I swear to God, if he fucking hurt her . . .”

“How
did
you find out she died?” Kate asked.

“Scotty Breen told me,” he said, using Scotty’s maiden name. “She called. It was the worst day of my life. The second worst.”

“Those two days are connected,” she said.

“I don’t dare ask you to forgive me,” he said. “I don’t even want you to. I don’t deserve it.”

Kate knew she should get the words out. This was her chance. Everyone always said forgiveness is not forgetting, that the act is as full of grace for the forgiver as the forgiven. This would not hurt her. She gazed at the old man across from her. She knew that she would never see him again, and she also knew she could never absolve him.

“It’s okay,” he said, as if he knew her struggle.

Kate pushed her chair back, ready to go, the words caught in her throat.

“Kate,” he said. “Thank you for coming.”

She nodded.

“You haven’t called me Dad,” he said.

She knew she hadn’t. She had told herself, long ago, that she no longer had a father. Gazing into his hazel eyes now, she went back a thousand years, was jumping up and down, wanting him to put her on his shoulders so they could be a two-headed giant.

What are we?
he used to ask.

Sweethearts and partners,
she would reply.

She turned to leave. Some of the women she’d come in with were still at the tables; others were on their way to the door. She glanced over her shoulder. Her father hadn’t taken his eyes off her. A guard approached him, ready to escort him back to his cell.

“Dad,” she called.

“Katy,” he said.

“What are we?” she asked.

He beamed, exactly the way he had when she’d first walked in, the way he had when she was a child. She walked fast, past the frog-eyed door guard, leaving the visiting room before she could hear her father answer.

31

Kate’s hands felt light on the wheel, as if she were made of air. Driving south, past all the landmarks that had reminded her of her father, felt different now. He wasn’t just a specter from the past. He existed. The memories changed character as she sped through Hartford. They weren’t as poignant, she thought. But that was wrong—seeing him in prison, in his jumpsuit, with the scar on his forehead, made them more so.

“He’s never getting out,” Kate said out loud. They were miles from the prison, but she hadn’t spoken till now.

“What was it like?” Lulu asked.

“Like walking through the steel-doored gates and ten circles of hell. These poor women bringing bags of snacks to locked-up men—in line, no talking, marching through the doors, guards watching everything. The guards,” she said, remembering the look on that one’s face. “They wanted something; I don’t know. For a prisoner to act up, to catch a visitor with contraband.”

“You were in there a long time.”

“It took forever to get to the visiting area.”

“And you saw him.”

“Yeah,” Kate said.

“Is he . . . how is he?”

“He’s old. He’s sorry about everything.”

“What did he say?”

Kate shook her head. She didn’t want to talk about her father anymore. Every detail of the visit reverberated. The stoop of his shoulders, his old familiar smile, the sound of his voice. She wanted to hold on to the moments, keep them to herself. If she spoke about them, they would become conversation and dissipate. They wouldn’t belong to her anymore.

Lulu sensed it and looked out the side window. They sped out of the cities, south toward the shore. Once past Middletown, the landscape became wooded. The day had been long, and shadows from trees and rock cliffs lengthened across the pavement. Although the day was hot, summer was drawing to an end. The sun had noticeably shifted its place in the sky, the angle of the light lower, moving toward the equinox.

“You know what we should do?” Lulu asked just before they hit the Baldwin Bridge over the Connecticut River. “We should swim.”

Kate had imagined dropping Lulu off at her car in New London, heading to the Ledges to sit in the tangled garden and wait for Jed Hilliard to show up. Or maybe he would be there already, sketching weeds and wildflowers, waiting for the moon to rise. More likely, it was only a place her father had mentioned to him in passing, no meaning at all. Maybe Jed had never even been there.

“You’re right,” she said to Lulu. “A swim. But what about bathing suits?”

“What about them?” Lulu asked.

They laughed, and Kate drove them down to Hubbard’s Point. They told the summer cop by the train trestle they were visiting Scotty Waterston. The tide was high, the sandy parking lot damp. It had been built on a wetland, cleared of spartina and its thickly woven root system. The salt water followed its eternal path and still rose through the sand beneath a thin layer of gravel and broken shells.

Bypassing the main beach, scattered with late-day beachgoers, they walked to the western end and climbed the steep hill to take the path to the deserted haven known as Little Beach. The crescent strand was
backed by a coastal forest of pines, white oaks, and black walnut trees. Beyond the woods was the Great Marsh, fed by Seven Mile River.

The sun had just dipped behind the trees, and the beach was shadowed. There wasn’t a person in sight. Kate and Lulu dropped their clothes and walked into the water. The Sound was cool, but Kate didn’t hesitate. It had always been a point of pride that while others stood at the edge, getting used to the temperature, she dove right in and accepted the shock.

She swam straight out, underwater, eyes wide open. At high tide the rocks were far below, and she saw tendrils of sargassum weed drifting upward in the current. When her lungs were bursting, she crashed up through the surface and took deep breaths. Lulu was swimming toward the breakwater. Kate stayed where she was, treading water, facing shore.

Blinking, her eyes cleared, she caught sight of the graffiti Lulu had mentioned—sayings, initials, and patterns. She felt disgusted by the desecration and turned around to look out to sea.

Across the Sound, two ferries heading in opposite directions passed each other. Sunset gave the white boats a pink cast, turned the water’s surface lavender. Skinny-dipping at Little Beach was one of summer’s great pleasures and always had been.

She, Beth, Lulu, and Scotty had started doing it when they were in their teens. It had seemed grown-up and forbidden, and it had always appealed to her rule-breaking side. She felt the water on her body, but it wasn’t at all sensuous, and she wondered if it was for other people. She knew she was missing something but didn’t dwell on it.

For Kate, the best part of swimming without clothes was freedom. She was part of the ocean. It came close to the abandon she felt while flying. As her arms and legs moved water around her and kept her afloat, she started to let go of the claustrophobia of being at the prison, the unexpected sorrow she’d felt for her father. The rush of Long Island Sound’s waves hitting the shore took away the clang of the doors.

“Ahhh,” Lulu said, sidestroking in from the breakwater.

“This was the right idea,” Kate said.

“I figured you needed it. I know I did.”

They swam to shallow water, walked onto the beach, and slipped back into their clothes. The fabric stuck to their damp skin, but it quickly dried in the cool twilight breeze. They sat on the hard-packed sand. With the sun down, flies had stopped buzzing around clumps of seaweed along the tide line. She listened to the waves slapping the shore. Above, the first stars had started to appear in the violet sky.

The Compass Rose had sat here a million times. They had skinny-dipped, picnicked, searched for moonstones and sea glass. In the last blue light, Kate and Beth would walk along the damp sand at the very edge, watching for the moonstones’ glimmer. They would fill their pockets with the tiny, perfectly smooth ovals of feldspar. Kate always intended to make jewelry with them, but they were so beautiful by themselves, she kept them in a glass jar instead. They never gleamed as magically at home, though. It was never the same as seeing them in the sand, brushed by waves, collecting them with her sister.

“Are you still mad at me?” Lulu asked.

“About what?”

“Not telling you about Beth and Jed.”

In the peace of the moment, Kate had almost forgotten.

“No. More at myself.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m obviously a hard-assed, judgmental witch, or Beth would have told me herself. Or you would have, or Scotty,” Kate said, half hoping Lulu would say she was wrong.

“What did your father say about him?” Lulu asked. The question instead of a direct response confirmed Kate’s statement and pierced her heart.

“He had no idea that Jed and Beth were involved. He introduced her to him, though.”

“Did he know where Jed might be?”

“Some vague ideas, but not really. Just that he’s from Rhode Island and is a talented artist, but I already knew that part.”

The sound of voices, excited and raucous, came from the direction of the path. It was dark now and hard to see, but Kate could tell it was kids. They were too far away to recognize, but Kate heard the clink of bottles as if they were drinking a toast. Then rattles that sounded as if they were all shaking maracas.

“Spray paint,” Lulu said, jumping up. “Hey, stop!” she called as she and Kate started toward the group.

The kids scattered, but Kate ran toward one and grabbed her arm. In the starlight, Kate locked eyes with her niece.

“Sam,” she said.

Sam didn’t reply. She lowered her gaze. In her right hand, she held a paint can. In her other, she gripped a half-empty bottle of Heineken. Lulu had cornered Isabel Waterston, and they came toward Kate and Sam.

“You did this?” Kate asked, pointing at the rocks.

Still no answer from Sam.

“It’s art—better than bare rocks,” Isabel said, slurring her words.

“Okay, you’ve been drinking, no point in talking about it. Come on; we’re going home,” Kate said, glancing at Sam, feeling both angry and scared, not knowing quite how to handle her being drunk.

The four of them walked through the path. Kate had been here so often she had no problem making her way in the dark, but for the sake of the girls, she turned on the light on her iPhone. When they got back to Hubbard’s Point, they headed toward a cottage on the boat basin.

Scotty, Nick, and Julie were sitting on the screened porch. Nick was reading, and Scotty and Julie were playing Scrabble. At the sight of Isabel, Scotty and Nick stood. Julie bolted into the house. Kate noticed she’d stopped in the living room, crept back to peek around the door.

“They were graffitiing the rocks,” Kate said, looking straight at Sam, worried out of her mind at what was going on with her.

“Along with a few others who ran away,” Lulu said. “Nice friends, leaving Sam and Isabel to take the blame. It was as if they weren’t even there. Disappearing friends.”