The Edge of the Light (19 page)

W
hen Seth saw firsthand that getting stoned had become a second nature activity in Prynne's life, he told himself that it was okay. After all, she wasn't doing anything wrong. Plus she wasn't doing anything dangerous. Plus it was legal. Plus he loved her. So he decided that the uneasiness he was beginning to feel really had to do with himself.

He'd never been a liar. Ever since he'd been a kid, anyone he tried to lie to could see on his face that he wasn't telling the truth. So he'd given up on fibs when he'd been around twelve years old, aside from small white lies like telling one of the guys in his gypsy jazz group Triple Threat that his new girlfriend was hot when really he wouldn't have given her a second look. But he'd lied to Prynne in order to get her to return to Whidbey. In his total desperation to have her back with him, he'd said he couldn't remember what that guy in Port Townsend had said to her: “I can't even
get
it anymore, Prynne. It's way too risky.” And once Seth had made that declaration to Prynne—that he couldn't remember what the guy had said—he couldn't exactly start asking her what “any more of it” meant.

Not long after Prynne's return, he found himself obsessing about those words. Could Steve have been talking about weed? No matter that it was legal now, not just anyone could sell it, so if he was selling it on the sly . . . But maybe it was Oxy he'd been talking about and maybe Prynne had been lying about only trying it just that once. Or maybe it was meth, Seth thought. Maybe it was coke. It could be molly. Or K2. Geez, it could be
anything
.

He began looking at Prynne more closely when she wasn't looking at him. He started trying to gauge if her behavior was different from this day to that. Was she slurring her words? Did her eyelids droop? Was her real eye too bright? He was starting to drive himself up the wall, and the worst of it was that the only person he could really talk to about this was Grand because Grand had forever been the person in his life that Seth had turned to when he needed to sort through something.

When Prynne unexpectedly announced that she had an additional gig the next Sunday in Port Townsend, Seth decided it was time to talk to Ralph. Prynne took off too early for Seth's comfort, so he loaded Gus into the VW and headed for Newman Road.

He and the Lab piled out of the car into the sound of crows raising a ruckus above the forest trees and an eagle sounding its five-note descending cry for its mate. Grand's property was a panorama of flowers, but Seth was immune to its beauty although Gus leaped up the side of the hill and rolled in the wildflowers there.

Seth called to him, and Gus ignored him. But he did head down the hillside, and Seth followed him to where Becca and Derric were waiting on the porch.

Derric waved as Seth came into view. Gus charged toward them, barking happily. Becca turned to the front door, opened it, and said something to Grand. As Seth came up the porch steps, Derric said, “'S happening?”

“Nada,” Seth told him, another lie, as Gus snuffled around the large wooden box on the porch, hoping for a bone. “Prynne's doing another gig in Port Townsend.” At least that was the truth.

Becca was shrugging her way into a denim jacket. A thrift store score, Seth figured. It was way too big. “Grand's waiting for you,” she told Seth. “Even set up the chessboard on his own.”

“Righteous. No help?”

“He had some trouble with the pawns. Derric did those.”

“Still cool, though.”

“That's what we thought.”

None of them said what else all of them were thinking: Nothing had changed, really. Seth had overheard his dad pleading with Aunt Brenda—a catch in his voice—about Grand's property and what it meant to him. “What's this really all about?” he'd cried. “For God's sake, Bren, let's be honest with each other.” But this had achieved nothing. The only thing Seth could work out from everything Aunt Brenda had done so far was that she and Mike had big plans for the 170 acres Grand owned.

He forced a cheerful smile anyway and said to Becca and Derric, “Where you guys heading?”

“It's a Josh day,” Becca told him. “We're taking him and Chloe to the Mutt Strut. God, Der, I didn't think of it,” she added, turned to Derric. “We should have made a costume for Gus. The kids would've loved it.”

Seth was cheered by the thought of the Lab dressed up. Josh would've gone for something like a pirate, Chloe for something like a princess. Becca was right. They would've loved it.

He waved them off, told Gus to come inside with him, and joined his grandfather. Ralph was waiting for him at the chessboard. Seth's only wish as he greeted Grand was that his language skills were what they had been. That was what he needed from him now: Grand wisdom. But Grand listening would have to do.

“Fave-rit mahl grunsho,” Ralph said slowly, and the twinkle in his eye told Seth how proud he was of coming ever closer to “favorite male grandchild.”

“How's it going, Grand?” Seth asked. Gus greeted Seth's grandfather in his usual way: by sniffing around to see if Ralph had any treats. Ralph raised his hand slowly and dropped it onto the Lab's head. Gus waited patiently for the caress.

“So so,” Ralph said. “Whan shess?”

“Sure,” Seth said. “It's, like, the only time I'll probably ever be able to beat you.” He sat and they began a game made slow by the difficulty Ralph had with the pieces. While Ralph was attempting to move a pawn, Seth said to him, “Prynne's in Port Townsend. Got an extra gig there.”

“Fidduh,” Ralph said.

“Yeah. She's doing her fiddle at the same place I met her, in that coffeehouse.” He waited for Ralph to complete his move. He counted how long it took. Thirty seconds . . . forty-five . . . fifty. He finally said, “You having trouble, Grand?”

Ralph looked up at him and his expression said how stupid he thought the question was. Grand had never liked someone stating the obvious. He said in reply, “Mayshens.”

Seth frowned. “What? Mayshens?”

“Mayshens, mayshens.” Ralph gestured to the board.

“You want me to do something?” Seth said.

“
Mayshens
whan.” Ralph pursed his lips. He blew out a breath that made a burble. It seemed as if what he was doing was . . . Seth wasn't sure. But he could tell his grandfather was getting upset.

He said, “Maybe we should play later. What d'you think? I sort of wanted to talk anyway.”

At this, to his shock, Ralph's eyes filled with tears. Seth had
never
seen his grandfather cry. He said, “What's wrong? Grand, what's wrong?”

“T . . . t . . . talk.” He spit out the word.

At first Seth thought Grand meant that he was waiting for Seth to tell him whatever he'd come to tell him. But before he could begin to go over what he'd been thinking and feeling with regard to Prynne, Ralph burst out with, “Becca banks,” and with his good hand he grabbed on to Seth's arm so hard it hurt. “Houch,” he said. “Seff houch . . .” and he began to flush.

Seth said, “Grand, you gotta calm down,” and he looked
around for the device to take his grandfather's blood pressure. He said, “Okay okay, Grand. I'll text Derric, okay? I'll tell Becca to come home, all right?”

“No!” Ralph cried. “Houch . . . banks . . .”

“Okay. No Becca. I'm calling Dad,” was Seth's reply.

B
ecca wanted to help the Darrows. She wanted to figure out something that was going to end the dispute in their family. But what that something was . . . she had no clue. So because she spent the most time of everyone alone with Ralph, she used those chances she had to connect with him.

His whispers were limited mostly to
banks
and
houch
. His visions were more varied. On one occasion she'd picked up the sensation of being in a car, she'd seen Grand's hands clearly on the steering wheel, and the course he drove looked like a dirt road through forest deep with shadows thrown by mostly untrimmed cedars with lacy branches screening the way. On another occasion, she'd seen a house with cedar shingles that were blackened by the Pacific Northwest damp. On a third she'd once again walked up a stairway on the outside of a building with him, also cedar shingled. He'd gone through the screened door she'd seen once before, and there was a woman behind a desk strewn with papers. She'd looked up, smiled, made a gesture toward a chair against a window. And that was that. Who she was and why Ralph Darrow had her in his memory remained a
mystery. Even when Becca told him of the vision, all Ralph would say was
banks
,
banks
,
banks
. He said it so urgently that Becca got scared she might drive him into another stroke.

There were other matters on her mind, too. When she and Derric left Ralph's place to pick up Josh and Chloe, she knew she had the opportunity to give Derric some information he wasn't going to like.

She hadn't wanted to do this on the phone. Truth be told, she needed to violate her own resolution about giving Derric the privacy of his thoughts. From what had happened to her on the previous night, it was clear that he hadn't taken her advice about the scores of letters he'd written and never mailed to his sister. As they headed along Newman Road toward the highway, she casually removed the earbud of the AUD box.

She said, “Der, I got some news for you.”

He glanced at her. He was very adept at reading her, so what he said was, “When you look like that, it ain't good.”

“Rejoice called me last night,” she told him.

“Like I said,” was his reply.

“Yeah. But it's sort of worse than her just calling me. She was, like, totally wrecked.”

“Drunk?”

Becca hastened to clarify. “No. I mean wrecked, like in emotionally.”

They were at the highway. Derric was waiting for a chance to make a left. It was obvious that the ferry had docked eight miles to the south in Clinton because the stream of traffic on the road
was unbroken, which meant a wait for the traffic light down at Bayview Corner to turn red and cause a gap up here. The fine weather was bringing hordes to the island now. They would grow every weekend until, during the summer, the ferry line would be no less than two hours long.

As they waited, Derric chewed on his lip. He said, “I don't know if I want to know what she said.”

“I think you got to hear it,” Becca told him. “She's wrecked because you aren't calling and you're not returning her texts. She says I'm the one responsible, like I'm
making
you stay away from her.” Becca didn't add the rest because there was really no point: Rejoice's tears and her accusations of Becca's refusing to put out for her boyfriend unless he stopped seeing Rejoice. The girl hadn't wanted to hear that Becca wasn't even sexual with Derric yet, not in that way. She'd shouted, “Oh right. Oh really and truly
right
, Becca! You must think I'm stupid!” and her sobs had been unnerving to hear.

Derric directed his gaze to the Forester's roof, as if there was someone up there—like God—who was going to tell him what to do next. He finally spoke once they'd managed to make the left turn onto the highway. “I've screwed this up.”

“I think you just got to give her the letters,” Becca said.

“And
that's
not going to freak her out?”

“It probably will for a while. She might feel hurt or whatever. But—”

Derric's head filled with swear words that he was directing at himself.

Becca said, “Seems to me, like I said before, that the one thing she's going to see—aside from the fact that you really are who you say you are, her brother—is that you love her and she's not alone. She's not on the planet without a blood relative.”

True but God . . . maybe it's better because that way Mom and Dad wouldn't know . . .

Becca was pleased with the accuracy with which she heard the whisper, less pleased with how Derric was thinking about things. She said, “Course, it'd end up with a huge change in your life if she
does
believe you, since all of a sudden hello you've got a sister and then you . . . I guess then you start introducing her around. But it's sort of cool, if you think about it. Least, if I was you, I'd think it was cool, having a sibling. I wish I had one.”

“In what way is it cool?” he demanded. “Hey I've got a sister I pretended wasn't my sister for the last . . . what? . . . twelve years of my life?” To this he added
selfish
and
what's it going to be like when everyone knows it
.

“You didn't know where she was once you got to America,” Becca reminded him. “And you didn't pretend to
yourself
she wasn't your sister, since you spent all that time writing her letters. I say give her the letters. Do it in person and sit there while she reads them and see what happens.”

He sighed, but he kept his eyes on the road. “You're not letting me get out of this, are you?” he said.

• • •

THE CLIFF MOTEL,
sitting on its corner with the waters of Saratoga Passage glittering behind it, was aglow with spring: the
ground blooming with the last of the winter pansies and freshly planted wallflowers, while Canterbury bells were sending up shoots that heralded their summer spikes of blue and white flowers. Josh and Chloe were out in front of the place, dancing with excitement as Derric and Becca drove into the parking lot.

“Yea, yea, yea!” Chloe cried as Derric and Becca got out of the car. “Grammer said I could wear a costume, Becca.”

She wore a costume indeed. Debbie had fashioned her into a fairy with a castoff tulle ballerina's tutu, a pink Hello Kitty T-shirt, tennis shoes newly done up with stripes of gold glitter, and small wings of wire covered in tissue paper. For his part, Josh was having nothing to do with costumes. He was all man all the time in jeans and a flannel shirt. But he couldn't hide the thrill of seeing his Big Brother. He bounced over to Derric and they high-fived each other with “Hey man” and “Wha's happening, dude?”

Their grandmother came out of the motel office. Debbie Grieder stood at the edge of the porch, arms akimbo. “Take these two loony birds off my hands.” She directed this to Becca and Derric, but she said it with a smile. “They've been up since five.”

“We got 'em covered.” Derric opened the back door of the car so that Josh and Chloe could pile inside. “Okay for them to have pizza after?”

“Pizza!” Chloe shrieked.

“Cool,” Josh said.

Debbie waved a yes at them before she turned and went back inside. They set off, then, with Bayview Corner in their sights. It would be crowded with costumed people and their costumed dogs, set to parade before a panel of judges.

Bayview itself was some four miles away. The route took them through the forest before it skirted several farms climbing the emerald hillsides and a thoroughbred horse ranch where three foals scooted close to their dams. It passed by Lone Lake, whose waters reflected the day's perfect sky, and ultimately it deposited them near an old 1895 schoolhouse that was used by the island's literary arts community. Across the street from this, the buildings that had once been visited by farmers buying everything from tools to grains were now used for other purposes: arts, hair salon, taproom, wine room, restaurants, and the great red barn of a gardening center.

Some careful maneuvering got them a place to park up near the highway in a hard-packed field. Out of the car, they were at once in a stream of people heading toward the Big Event. To the joy of the kids, there were dogs everywhere: all shapes and sizes, purebreds, mixed breeds, and a slew of unidentifiable, cocky mutts. They were dressed in all manner of costumes. Space dogs, princess dogs, zombie dogs, Scuba dogs, hot dogs (those would be the dachshunds, of course), pumpkin dogs, beach dogs, surfer dogs, artist dogs, gardener dogs, and everything else one could imagine. Over the sound of excited chatter all around them came the amplified voice of the master of ceremonies in the distance.

“The parade comes first.” Chloe grabbed Becca's hand and began to pull her. “Come on, Becca. We don't want to miss that 'cause it's when all the doggies march with their peoples.”

Becca allowed herself to be pulled. She waved good-bye to Derric and Josh, who were striding behind them.

The parade was silly and colorful and lots of fun, since both the participants and the viewers along the route became thoroughly engaged. Someone had passed out kazoos to those watching, and they were providing the music: “When the Saints Go Marching In.” Becca demonstrated kazoo playing for Chloe, who picked it up pretty much as quickly as anyone picks up the use of a kazoo. With lots of giggling, they kazooed with the crowd although when the dogs came into sight, Chloe spent more time crying out “Look! Oh look!” and “I
wish
Grammer would let me have a dog.”

Each person in the crowd fell into line with the parade as it passed until about two hundred people were strutting along with the costumed participants. The parade wound its way throughout Bayview Corner, into and out of the gardening center as well, and it finally came to a stop in a parking lot between the barn and the repurposed buildings, where a tiny viewing stand had been set up. Here the judges sat.

Now was the time for the costume contest. Chloe squirmed to the front so that she could see. Along with other small children, she sat in the gravel. There someone dressed like a clown was passing out balloons twisted into the shape of dogs.

Becca found a spot where she could watch the action. Derric came to join her, and she slid her hand into his. The noise put her in the position of having to use the AUD box or ending up with a terrible headache, so she had the earbud where it belonged, and the soothing static allowed her to enjoy being among the happy crowd.

“Where's Josh?” she asked Derric but before he could answer, she saw the little boy joining the other children. He'd given in to balloons and a good view of the contest. Evidently one could participate in this and still be cool.

The contest itself involved the master of ceremonies calling forth one at a time the name of a costumed dog and the dog's costumed person. Every couple got a moment in the limelight. The rules required each costume to be handmade, so there was much hilarity—not to mention loud applause in an attempt to sway the judges' opinions—as dog and person made their strut before the crowd.

The event was well under way when so many things became clear to Becca. The master of ceremonies announced, “Sophie and David Banks along with their grandma and her dog, Prince. What have we here? Elves and a reindeer and Mrs. Banks seems to be Mrs. Claus.”

Hearing this, Becca wanted to slap herself on the forehead. She wanted to shout “You idiot!” followed closely by “Of course, of
course
.”

Grand had been telling her all along. He'd been saying it and visualizing it and doing what he could to get the message across to her, but she'd been too dim to get his point. Banks was a person, not an institution. And when she looked closely at Mrs. Claus, she recognized the woman within Grand's vision.