The Man She Left Behind

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Authors: Janice Carter

BOOK: The Man She Left Behind
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“Leigh Randall! You’re back!”
Leigh watched the woman approach and felt her stomach quiver. Mary Ann was the last person she wanted to bump into her first twenty-four hours home. Well, maybe the
second
last.
 
“So how does it feel?” Mary Ann asked after Leigh extracted herself from her embrace. “Any qualms about returning to the scene of the...incident?”
 
Leigh took a deep breath. “That was fifteen years ago.”
 
“But some people still blame you. After all, you were the only one to survive. I guess it was lucky that Spencer McKay saw the boat flip over.”
 
Leigh closed her eyes. New York suddenly seemed very appealing.
 
“Say, speaking of Spence,” Mary Ann began. “Did you hear that he and Jen split up? Years ago.”
 
Spencer McKay. The very last person Leigh wanted to think about.
She turned, got into her car and slammed the door.
 
“I’ll call you,” Mary Ann said. “I want to know how your life has changed since that night.”
 
Leigh raised the window and drove off.
You have nothing to feel guilty about.
Leigh repeated the phrase until the pounding in her temples ebbed. She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
 
How has my life changed? Immeasurably!
Dear Reader,
 
Island people enjoy a unique and special bond This bond is forged by the closeness of community and a union of that community against the elements, for islands are always at the mercy of weather.
 
I first learned about the barrier islands of North Carolina in a
National Geographic
article several years ago. These islands, also called the Outer Banks, are a precarious line of sand and grass strung along the North and South Carolina coasts. Exposed to the relentless Atlantic, they are slowly being eroded by wind and wave and, some experts say, may one day not exist at all.
 
But the residents of the Outer Banks—and of Ocracoke Island—are a tough breed. History, along with the undiscriminating storms of the Atlantic, taught them to rely on each other for survival. in
The Man She left Behind,
I have attempted to capture part of the essence of the island spirit. Yet no one could paint a portrait of Ocracoke Island more vividly than those whose families have lived there for generations.
 
Thanks to Sundae Horn of the Back Road Books shop, I was able to obtain excellent reference works for my research. Because this novel is a work of fiction, I have taken liberties with some of the physical landmarks and geographical features of Ocracoke. And of course, none of the characters in the novel have any connection to any real person on Ocracoke Island.
 
The people of Ocracoke Island need no outsider to sing the praises of their unique and distinct home. I thank them for the Privilege of “borrowing” their magical island for my novel and hope future generations of visitors will continue to share and appreciate Ocracoke’s dunes, marshes, wild ponies, marine life and its people.
 
Janice Carter
THE MAN SHE LEFT BEHIND
Janice Carter
TORONTO • NEW YORK • LONDON
AMSTERDAM • PARIS • SYDNEY • HAMBURG
STOCKHOLM • ATHENS • TOKYO • MILAN
MADRID • WARSAW • BUDAPEST • AUCKLAND
This book is dedicated to my two families—
Hess and Carter—with much love
CHAPTER ONE
“L
EIGH RANDALL?”
Leigh craned her head around. From her perch on the hood of her car, she watched the woman’s determined approach and felt her stomach quiver.
Mary Ann Burnett.
A moment before, Leigh had been reveling in the tangy sea air as the ferry churned through the deep blue water of Hatteras Inlet toward Ocracoke Island. The single-deck boat was crowded even for a Sunday with vehicles, cyclists, assorted backpackers and families getting an early start on the tourist season.
When Leigh had begun the last leg of her journey home at the tip of the Barrier Islands, she’d mentally prepared herself for the inevitable encounters with former friends—and foes. But Mary Ann Burnett was the last per son she wanted to bump into her first twenty-four hours home. Well, maybe the second-last, she reminded herself, seeing Spencer McKay in her mind’s eye.
By the time the woman had bustled around the parked cars and trucks, Leigh had slipped off the hood of the car and gathered a semblance of welcome she didn’t feel at all. Mary Ann had been the type of student loathed by all who abhorred social organization; the timid and shy, the aloof and especially the oddball students gave her a wide berth. Even at sixteen she’d been an inveterate matchmaker and gossip; her mission, to link every girl at Ocracoke School with a boy. A difficult challenge, considering the school population seldom topped a hundred kids. But Mary Ann had the zeal of a missionary and the same self righteousness.
“It
is
you,” she exclaimed, reaching the front bumper of Leigh’s car. “I couldn’t believe my eyes back there. ’Course I’d heard you were coming home—you know how word gets around on Ocracoke—but I didn’t expect to see you so soon.” She stretched out her plump arms to give Leigh an awkward hug.
“How are you, Mary Ann?” Leigh asked when she’d extricated herself from the woman’s embrace.
“Oh, fine. Getting older, like all of the gang.” She gave Leigh an appraising once-over. “You look terrific as usual. Got your hair chopped off, I see. One of those overpriced New York salons?”
Leigh winced. Mary Ann had always been skilled at edging a compliment. She opened her mouth to reply, but Mary Ann saved her the trouble.
“So are you here for long?”
“Not really. Long enough to pack up some things and arrange for the sale of my parents’ house.”
Mary Ann nodded sympathetically. “Yeah, I heard. Sorry about your mother. It seems a shame to let such a beautiful old Ocracoke home go to strangers, but I suppose there’s no point in keeping it, you being in New York and all.”
Leigh simply shrugged.
Mary Ann let her large shoulder bag slide off her arm. “Say, this meeting is very lucky for me. I’ve got a regular column in the
Island Breeze
—you know the kind, one of those human-interest pieces—and I’ve had a heck of a time coming up with an idea for the next one. My deadline is Wednesday and I think it would be terrific to do an article on your coming back to Ocracoke. How about it?” She beamed at Leigh.
“Sort of ‘The Prodigal Daughter Returns’?”
Mary Ann giggled. “You slay me! Still got that sharp sense of humor, I see. Yeah, you can give me your feelings on coming back to such a small place after—How long has it been?”
“Fifteen years, although I flew in briefly for my dad’s funeral ten years ago.”
Mary Ann’s face sobered momentarily. Then she said, “Well, it’s been fifteen since I saw you. There’s so much to catch you up on—where on earth should I start?”
Leigh felt her mouth work into a tight smile. She had a feeling she wasn’t going to get out of the interview. The ride across the inlet took forty minutes, and they’d just left Cape Hatteras. “Okay. Give me some questions.” She sighed, hating herself for giving in so readily to the other woman.
“Right! Questions. Here, let me get out a pad and pen.” Mary Ann plunked her bag on the hood of Leigh’s car and poked through it. “So—” she flipped open a steno pad, ready to take notes “—what have you been doing in New York? Insurance or something?”
“I’m an investment banker.”
“Ahhh! One of those fancy-titled jobs. What exactly does an investment banker do, anyway?”
“Make money for people, Mary Ann.”
The woman glanced up at Leigh. “Is that a lucrative job?”
“It can be,” Leigh said, refusing to be drawn into a discussion about money.
Mary Ann nodded, but didn’t press the point. To Leigh’s surprise, she came up with some good questions, often forcing Leigh to take a moment to carefully phrase her answers. She didn’t want to raise any hackles on Ocracoke so soon after her arrival.
“Okay,” Mary Ann said, “now let me take some photos.” She stuck her hand into her bag and pulled out a camera.
Leigh was taken aback. The notion that the interview was going to be in a small but very real newspaper struck home.
“Pictures? Gee, Mary Ann, I don’t know about that.”
“Come on! Someone as photogenic as you can’t be afraid of the camera. And it’s not as if your coming home is a secret or anything.”
Secret? With a grapevine like Ocracoke’s? Not likely.
Still, giving in to Mary Ann had always been much easier than fighting her. The thought reminded her of Jennifer Logan, and she felt her stomach quiver again. Too much was happening too quickly. But what had she expected? Resurrecting the past came with returning home.
So she allowed Mary Ann to pose her for a set of photographs—a couple of her leaning against the ferry railing to stare pensively ahead at Ocracoke Island and then a few full-head shots.
“Okay,” announced Mary Ann, lowering the camera at last. “That should do it. Let me look over my notes for a second, make sure I’ve got what I need. My shorthand gets a bit messy when I rush.”
Leigh turned her attention to the bow of the ferry. The dock at the northern tip of Ocracoke was clearly visible. Thank goodness, she thought, surprised at the unexpected rush of anticipation.
Ocracoke Island
There’d been a time as a teenager when she’d thought she’d never get off the island. And then for the past fifteen years when she’d been certain she’d never return. An oft-repeated maxim of her mother’s surfaced.
Never say never about anything in life because you just never know.
“Leigh? Are you still with me?” Mary Ann was waving a hand across Leigh’s line of vision. “I asked if you had any qualms about, you know, reliving the accident and all.”
Leigh was grateful for her sunglasses. She stared at Mary Ann and fought to keep her voice neutral. “The accident?”
“The graduation-night drownings. Have you been involved in any other tragedy?”
At that moment Leigh knew she’d underestimated Mary Ann Burnett. Beneath the cheery busybody facade was a steely core. She waited a moment before saying, “That was fifteen years ago, Mary Ann.”
“But still like yesterday for some people—for instance, Laura Marshall’s mother. How will you feel about seeing her? Or Jeffs parents? Ocracoke is a small place and the chances of bumping into any of those people are good. Are you up for that?”
“I’m not sure what you’re asking me, Mary Ann.”
“Are you apprehensive about facing those people? Tony’s parents left the island, you know. Too many memories, they said.”
Leigh fought the nauseating rush of adrenaline. Her mother’s advice from years ago came back.
You’ve nothing to feel guilty about. Take a deep breath and wait at least ten seconds. Look them straight in the eye.
“Why should I feel apprehensive, Mary Ann? I didn’t cause the accident.”
Mary Ann lowered her notepad onto the hood of the car. “But you were the only survivor, Leigh. Three of your graduating classmates drowned and you were the only one to live.”
“There was another boatful of kids who lived. It wasn’t just me.”
“People said it was your idea to go across to Portsmouth Island after the prom.”
“That’s not true! I’ve lived with that lie for fifteen years.
“Then why didn’t you ever say what happened? At the trial, you were so vague about everything.”
Leigh turned away from the intense expression in Mary Ann’s face. She waited ten seconds again before replying. Her voice, when it came, was dead calm. “I was still in shock. Traumatized. Unless you’ve lived through an experience like that, you can’t know. And it wasn’t a trial, Mary Ann, only an inquest. We were all to blame for being foolish enough to cross the Sound in a storm without life jackets.”
Mary Ann murmured, “Laura, Jeff and Tony paid dearly for that oversight.”
“Yes,” Leigh agreed, and fell silent. She could still see Jeff’s pinched face from the stern of the fourteen-foot aluminum motorboat. Could see him frantically yanking on the rip cord of the stalled engine and watching the monster wave, birthed by the unexpected squall, rolling toward them. Her last memory of that disastrous night was of Laura’s scream as the wave hit the boat, lifting the stern out of the water and sending Jeff flying off into the blackness.
“Lucky for you the accident happened so close to the island. ’Course, you were always a good swimmer.”
Leigh sighed. How tiresome to have to explain this again. “I wasn’t swimming, Mary Ann. I was swept into shore, or I would’ve drowned, as well.”
“And lucky that Spencer McKay was down on the beach and saw the boat flip over.”
Leigh closed her eyes. How much longer did she have to endure these memories? New York suddenly seemed very appealing.
The ferry reversed its engine and eased into the docking site. Crew members clambered over the rail to tie up while passengers returned to their vehicles.
“I’ll give you a call if I need any more,” Mary Ann said, starting toward her car.
Leigh didn’t bother telling her that the phone connection wasn’t hooked up. She turned to open her door and was bending to get in when she realized Mary Ann was walking around the front end of the car.
“Say, speaking of Spence McKay,” she began, “did you hear that he and Jen split up? Years ago, it was. Everyone said they wouldn’t last, but—”
Leigh got in and slammed the door, pretending not to have heard. Undeterred, Mary Ann walked up to the window and tapped on it. Leigh started the engine and pointed toward the windshield. Her car was in the front row and would disembark first.
Mary Ann was gesticulating with her notebook and holding up five splayed fingers.
Sighing. Leigh pressed the window button.
“The paper will be out in five days—Friday,” Mary Ann shouted over the roar of idling engines. “There’s one more important question. How has your life changed since graduation night? Think about it. I’ll call you.” Then she turned away.
Leigh raised the driver-side window again and switched on the air-conditioning full blast. At a signal from one of the crew she shifted into drive and drove off the ferry onto the Ocracoke Island dock. Cars and other vehicles were lined up patiently waiting to board. As soon as she cleared the area, she pulled over onto the shoulder, lowered the window and filled her lungs with clean salty air.
Nothing to feel guilty about.
Leigh repeated the phrase like a mantra until the pounding in her temples and the nausea in her stomach ebbed. She didn’t know whether she wanted to laugh or cry.
How has my life changed?
Immeasurably.
Fifteen minutes later, swinging into the drive of Windswept Manor, Leigh couldn’t help recalling native Carolinian Thomas Wolfe’s famous line.
You can’t go home again.
Maybe he was right, she thought, wondering why she hadn’t simply engineered the sale of her parents home from New York. But the thought of returning to the Outer Banks after a fifteen-year absence had been a stronger impulse than reason, even if the decision to take leave from work had raised more than a few eyebrows in the corporate offices she shared with other bankers.
Leigh turned off the ignition, opened the car door and swung her long legs onto the gravel drive. Once out, she arched her back, easing some of the kinks. Prolonging the moment before she took her first step inside, she looked toward the southern end of Ocracoke Island, where the village curved around the horseshoe of Silver Lake Harbor, known locally as the Creek. Leigh inhaled deeply and slowly turned to face the house. Windswept Manor.
Home.
The gingerbread trim of the three-story, white-frame house was tinted a neon pink from the setting sun, and the west-facing gable window was ablaze. If Leigh hadn’t had such ambivalent feelings about coming back to Ocracoke, she’d have paused to admire the effect. Instead, she leaned into the car for her purse and keys and started to unload the trunk. By the time she’d lugged two suitcases and a laptop computer onto the sweeping veranda, the sun was no more than a crimson band lining the horizon. She inserted her key into the front door with its etched-glass panel and, propping it open with her right foot, heaved herself and a suitcase inside.
Months of dust and stale air assaulted her. She dropped the luggage and hurried from room to room to open windows stiffened with sand and salt. Then she stared at the ghostly hulks of furniture shrouded in covers.
Memories ready to pounce.
She marched about the ground floor, whisking away the tattered bedsheets and tablecloths until the ghosts became plain chairs and tables.

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