A vineyard spring, p.6
A Vineyard Spring, page 6
The circumstances of this late-night tryst couldn’t have been more different. Steve slid the key through the front lock and flicked on the lights, which flashed eerily across the desk and the plastic chairs in the waiting area. Several awards hung on the wall, advertising him as the most-trusted mechanic on Martha’s Vineyard and a beloved small-business owner.
Isabella had organized the paperwork just as well as any of Steve’s previous secretaries. It took him thirty seconds to find the paperwork from that fateful day. With a flourish, he splayed it across the counter, and he and Rina gazed down at the block letters that read: RHETT BARLEY.
“My gosh.” Rina shook her head. “What do you remember about this guy?”
Steve thought back a few weeks. The day had been blisteringly sunny, and Isabella had been in the office. This guy, Rhett, had pulled in with his beautiful car and walked toward Steve with a fire in his eyes. It was clear he felt on top of the world.
“He was tall, maybe six foot two,” Steve said. “With black hair and very dark eyes. He seemed terribly pleased with himself for driving a car like that. Oh, but there was a dent in it.”
Rina raised her eyebrows. Quickly, she removed a pad of paper and began to scribble notes to herself. Her handwriting was ornate and difficult to read.
“I managed to get the dent out,” Steve continued.
“Do you remember if he said he was just passing through?” Rina asked.
“I don’t think we talked much,” Steve admitted. The light in Rina’s eyes dimmed slightly, and Steve cursed himself for not having asked this potential criminal more questions. “But I remember he said he hadn’t noticed the dent when he’d purchased it.”
“Hmm.” Rina seemed pleased. Again, she scribbled in her notepad.
“I thought it was strange that a guy who owned such a nice and expensive vehicle hadn’t noticed the dent,” Steve said. “I figured he was just lying about when the dent had happened. Rich people don’t like to admit fault. At least, in my experience.”
Rina nodded. “That could be it.”
“He said he could pay me extra to get the dent out,” Steve continued as bits and pieces of that day returned to him. “That surprised me, too. Rich people aren’t exactly keen to hand over their money like that.”
“So, you got the sense that maybe he wasn’t rich?”
“I don’t know,” Steve told her. “It was a lot of mixed messages.”
Rina puffed out her cheeks. “Do you mind if I take a photograph of these records?”
“Of course not.”
Rina did so, then shoved her phone back in her purse. “I guess you don’t have CCTV footage here?”
“We do,” Steve explained. “But I only use it when I keep especially nice vehicles here overnight. I wouldn’t have had it on when Rhett Barley was here.”
“Hmm.” Rina made another note on her pad.
Steve stepped behind the counter, dropped down to the mini fridge, and removed a can of Diet Coke. “You want one?”
Rina nodded and cracked it open. “You have a treasure chest down there?”
“Something like that,” Steve said.
Rina’s eyes remained far away as she sipped her soda. This was her private detective persona; she’d switched over from her casual, friendly persona. It had always boggled Steve’s mind that every person in the world had multiple personas, some of which were only shown to their spouses or their best friends or their family members. It was a privilege to see this side of Rina.
“I hope this helps in some way,” Steve said when the silence became too painful for him.
“It’s certainly something,” Rina offered. After a pause, she asked, “You mentioned he seemed proud of the car.”
“Yes. Slightly arrogant, but only in the way men in their twenties always are,” Steve explained.
Rina sipped her soda and placed her pad of paper back in her purse.
“What are you thinking?” Steve asked. Where were all these clues leading her? He had to know.
“Oh, I have a lot to consider.” Rina was secretive and unsmiling. “Suffice it to say, I’m worried about Mandy. There’s obviously someone very bad out there. Someone who didn’t have her best interests at heart.”
Rina’s eyes glistened, as though she was on the verge of tears. Steve wanted to run around the counter and console her.
“This job is a whole lot easier when I’m searching for bad people,” Rina whispered. “I know they’ve disappeared for selfish reasons and that nobody is out there missing them. Maybe I should have known not to take on this Mandy Dolores case. Learning what happened to her might rip me in two.”
Chapter Nine
That Sunday was another Montgomery family dinner, which Kerry called “the only way we can keep track of one another” and “a required family function— don’t be late.” A few hours before it was set to begin, Steve heard Isabella in the kitchen, smashing pots and pans. Her Bluetooth speaker blared, echoing through the hallways and out the cracked kitchen windows. Upstairs, Steve wandered out from the guest room and appeared in the doorway of the kitchen, watching his daughter tear a wooden spoon through a bowl of cookie dough. She looked on the verge of tears.
“Isabella?” Steve felt panicked.
Isabella stopped and turned to glare at him. “What?”
Steve was suddenly very sure he’d done something wrong. But what? Had he and Isabella had an argument he’d forgotten about? Admittedly, his mind was awash with thoughts of Rina, Mandy Dolores, and Rhett Barley, and he’d hardly given himself the requisite number of hours to grieve Laura, not last night nor that morning. The guilt for that was palpable. What else had he lost along the way?
“Is everything okay?” Steve asked, mentally preparing for her to bite back at him.
Isabella shrugged and returned her attention to the cookie dough.
“Did you have a good weekend so far?” Steve asked. There was coffee in the coffee pot, and he poured himself a mug, practically tiptoeing around Isabella’s volatile emotions.
“It was fine,” Isabella said. She rolled cookie dough into balls in her hands and lined them across the baking sheet.
“What did you do?”
“Hung out with Lexi,” Isabella answered. “And a few other friends.”
Steve sipped his coffee. Last night after he’d returned from the auto shop, he’d been so panicked about this Rhett Barley character that he’d knocked on Isabella’s bedroom door to make sure she was there. When he’d opened it, he’d found her cozied up in bed, playing a television show on her computer. “Good night,” she’d said in a slightly sarcastic tone.
“I think it’s important to be careful right now,” Steve said. “They still don’t know what happened to Mandy Dolores.”
Isabella placed the baking sheet in the pre-heated oven, closed the door, and turned to lock eyes with him. There was rage burning behind her irises. “Don’t you trust me?” Isabella asked.
Steve hated this question. Of course, he trusted his daughter. She had a brilliant head on her shoulders; she was courageous enough to stick up for herself. Then again, up against terrifying creeps of the world, was anyone really so strong?
“I just want you to be aware,” Steve said as Isabella turned back toward the counter and continued to roll the dough between her palms. This left Steve in the silence of himself, feeling more alone than he’d been upstairs.
Steve’s mother opened the front door of the Montgomery house with an exuberant, “Welcome home, you two!”
Isabella carried a big bowl of chocolate chip cookies and hurried up the porch steps to hug her grandmother hello. Steve held back, noting the marked difference between Isabella’s behavior with her grandmother and with him earlier that day.
“I used your recipe,” Isabella explained as Kerry took the bowl and blushed. “I’ve never found a better one.”
“You went looking for something better?” Kerry teased. “I can’t believe you!”
Isabella disappeared into the house to say hello to the other Montgomerys as Kerry welcomed Steve into her arms. For a moment, Steve closed his eyes and allowed himself to be hugged, really hugged, by the one woman in the world who’d always known how to make everything all right again.
“Jonathon, Carrie, and the kids are already here,” Kerry said. “I think they want to see their grandfather.”
“You just love calling me old, don’t you?” Steve joked.
“No way! Calling you old means calling myself much older,” Kerry said.
Inside the living room, Jonathon sat with his wife, Carrie, and their two little kids. When Steve entered, the grandkids rushed to his legs and wrapped their arms around them, squealing with excitement. Steve’s heart opened like a window. For a little while, he forgot about the chaos with Rina, about Isabella’s anger, and even about his own sorrows, and he collapsed on the floor with the children, tickling them and teasing them and arranging little races with their toy cars. Throughout, Jonathon played along as well, howling with laughter at his children’s joy.
“They’re never going to be able to calm down for their nap,” Carrie said, not unkindly. “I should have known their grandfather would rile them up too much.”
When Steve took a small break from playing, he sat near his father, Trevor, and his brother, Andy, and listened as they spoke of the upcoming baseball season and their excitement for the Red Sox. Very soon, Kelli arrived with a beer, and Steve cracked it, watching as the sunlight fluttered through the big porch window.
“It’s not that cold out there today,” Steve informed Andy. “We should play a few innings of baseball.”
Andy’s eyes flickered with surprise. It had been ages since Steve had been up for anything active.
“You sure about that?” Andy asked.
“We don’t have to get too competitive about it,” Steve said, already leaping up to grab the supplies from the garage. As he passed from room to room, he announced the plan and said, “Whoever wants in on the game of a lifetime, grab a baseball mitt and head to the backyard.”
To Steve’s surprise, many members of the family wanted in on the game. Kelli, her boyfriend, Xander, Charlotte’s fiancé, Everett, who was in from Orcas Island, Kelli’s son, Josh, Rachel, Gail, Abby, Lexi, Jonathon, Andy, Beth, Will, Trevor, and Uncle Wes, who’d decided to join in on the Montgomery festivities, all gathered together with the baseball mitts and baseball bats they could find in the garage. Uncle Wes was already smack-talking his brother-in-law, Trevor, telling him, “I’m going to take you down, Old Man.” To this, Trevor said, “Who are you calling old, Old Man?”
“That’s a great attitude to teach our kids,” Kelli joked.
“All right. We have to divide into teams,” Steve said as he slid a mitt over his palm. He then tried to balance the teams based on athletic talent, with Andy on one team and him on the other. Andy had been a marvelous baseball player back in high school— but only because Steve had taught him everything he knew. Steve was quick to remind Andy of that.
As Steve divided everyone up, he tried not to think about the fact that Isabella had opted not to play. Back in middle and high school, Isabella had been a killer softball player. Like her Uncle Andy and her father before her, she’d pitched no-hitters and hit homeruns plenty of times. Steve and Laura had sat in the stands night after night, mesmerized by her skill.
Now, Isabella seemed too annoyed with her father to participate in his game.
They flipped a coin to figure out who was “home” and who was “away.” The coin decided that Andy’s team was home, which meant Steve’s went up to bat first. Using old pillows Kerry didn’t care too much about, they set up home, first, second, and third base, along with a pitcher’s mound.
With Andy on the pitcher’s mound and Steve at-bat, Steve felt he was throttled through time. Perhaps it was actually twenty years ago, and perhaps he and Andy were messing around after Andy’s real baseball practice.
Andy took a few practice pitches, then said he was ready to go. Just before he reeled back, the front door opened and closed, and a figure appeared at the corner of Steve’s eye. Distracted, he missed the first ball, then turned to find Isabella watching him. She scowled, but her eyes were focused. Her love for the game had never really gone away.
Suddenly, instinct took over, and Steve smacked his bat against the ball, and it sailed clear past second base. Jonathon took off after it and soon threw it back to Andy at the pitcher’s mound, but not before Steve had gotten to second. Steve’s team howled with excitement. On the porch, Isabella nodded in approval, then took the porch steps down.
“Hey! Isabella! We could use another on our team,” Uncle Wes called. “It’s uneven.”
Isabella paused and thought for a moment. Steve’s heart rammed in his throat.
“Okay,” Isabella agreed. “But only if I can go up to bat next.”
Everyone agreed Isabella was up. Steve hovered on second base and watched his daughter wield the bat over home base, her eyes focused. Just before she swung the bat with sheer power, he was reminded that despite any disagreement they had in life, they were always on the same team. They had to be.
As the ball sailed over the backyard, many people on Andy’s team howled that the teams were unequal. Isabella cackled and raced toward first base, then second, as Steve burned his way home. When Isabella came around for a home-run, she high-fived her father, and Steve’s heart flooded with love for her.
Together, Steve and Isabella gasped for breath.
“You’re really something,” Steve told her.
Isabella shrugged. “I figured you needed a bit of help.”
As Uncle Wes stepped up to bat, Steve and Isabella walked to the edge of the porch, where Steve collected his beer. Isabella clapped her hands and cheered for Wes, who, despite his age and his early on-set dementia, was not an athlete to scoff at.
Just before Andy threw the ball, an older woman stepped out onto the porch and wrapped her hands around her mouth.
“GO GET ‘EM, WESLEY!”
Isabella and Steve turned to see Beatrice, Wes’s girlfriend, her eyes electric as she howled his name. Wes turned and blew a kiss at his new girlfriend, a woman who’d re-shaped the way he looked at the world. At that moment, Steve was filled with hope.
After Uncle Wes was safely on first base, the teams quieted and re-focused. Under his breath, Steve said, “I’m sorry if I freaked you out this morning with all that talk of Mandy Dolores.”
Isabella shook her head. “I get it. It’s a weird time.” After another pause, she added, “I do want you to be happy, Dad.”
Steve furrowed his brow, unsure what she meant. “I want you to be happy, too.”
“Good.” Isabella seemed resolute.
This left Steve more confused than ever.
But later that evening, after they’d eaten their weight in Kerry’s cooking, Steve again found himself with his son, Jonathon. They sat out on the back porch and sipped domestic beers as the March light dimmed to blues and grays around them. It was too chilly to sit outside for long, but the freshness was rejuvenating after such a big meal.
“How have you been, Jonathon?” Steve asked.
Jonathon considered this. “I guess the only word for this time of my life is busy.”
“From what I remember, having two little kids is like being in a non-stop tornado.”
“So, the tornado does stop, eventually?” Jonathon asked.
“I’m not sure it ever stops.” Steve laughed. “It just changes.”
“Sometimes, I think Carrie is much better at the parenting thing than I am,” Jonathon confessed. “It seems to come naturally to her while I’m floundering.”
“You don’t look like you’re floundering,” Steve said. “You play with them. You make them laugh. You make sure they’re warm, well-fed, and cared for. To me, that ticks all the boxes.”
Jonathon remained quiet, as though he wasn’t sure he believed his father.
“I’m sure I had similar thoughts after you were born,” Steve offered. “You were so small! I had no idea how to hold you or how to feed you. The first time your mother left me alone with you, I watched you sleep the entire time because I was afraid something bad would happen if I left your side.”
Jonathon’s eyes widened at the story. Steve hadn’t remembered it in ages, yet here the memory was, tucked between the folds of his mind. Was it possible that Jonathon had ever been so tiny?
“I got better at it,” Steve admitted. “I had to because I loved you and your sister so much.”
Jonathon’s voice cracked. “I can barely remember my life before them now. They’ve changed me in every single conceivable way. Hard to believe that only ten years ago, I was still basically a kid myself.”
Steve sipped his beer, too overwhelmed with pride to speak. His son’s own joy for parenting was probably one of Steve’s greatest gifts. It meant that Steve and Laura’s love had survived to a new generation. It meant Laura was never far.
Chapter Ten
Isabella wasn’t sure what to do with her feelings about her father’s new dating life. On the one hand, when she’d seen him out on the makeshift baseball field at her grandparents’ place, there had been a spring to his step and a light to his eyes. He’d looked ten years younger and less plagued by grief. On the other hand, the image of the woman with the brunette bob was burned into her mind, so much so that she often felt overwhelmed with anger.
After dinner at the Montgomery house, Isabella and her cousins Rachel, Gail, Abby, and Lexi were in the kitchen helping with dishes. Aunt Charlotte, Aunt Kelli, and Aunt Claire were at the table, going through old photographs and discussing the golden old times. This left Isabella an opening.
“Rachel?” She spoke very quietly. “Can I ask you something?”
