Polly hadn’t been able to do what they shouted at her to do: let go. No one ever described it beyond coming up shrieking at the shock of the freezing water, or saying they felt something against their leg. No one talked about what it was like. But she often imagined it. Darkness, the gelid pool, no sound, no voice, no breath—obliteration. It occurred to her that the prospect gave her the same feeling she had when she drove along Dump Road. On the day she finally volunteered to go on the rope swing, she couldn’t bring herself to loosen her grip on the rope. She swung back and forth until the swing slowed enough for the other children to grab it. She ended up as dry as she’d begun, on the ledge.
Everyone was decent about her failure and said she’d do it soon, but she’d never again called a turn. She’d watched the others take the plunge over and over for years and had been there when a visiting cousin had let go on the backswing and crashed into the rocks, breaking several bones. His accident overshadowed her shameful swing in the annals of failure and Polly was guiltily glad of that.
Yes, she was a coward, to answer her earlier question. Coward then, coward now.
“I was a coward,” she said aloud, “don’t you agree?” She and Agnes had lived through all of life together.
“It ain’t over,” Agnes said ruefully.
The sky was pink and red along the horizon now, the chop settling. The afternoon wind had given way to the cool, calm evening, and the wildflowers were closing up shop. Polly looked up for the moon and the North Star. She gestured slightly, and Agnes looked, too, quickly spotting the bright distant touchstones in the sky. Then the mosquitos rose from the grass.
They parted at the graveyard. When Polly got home, Dick was sitting in the shadowy living room.
“Where were you?” he said anxiously.
“Very close by.” She snapped on a light.
“Well, I called you and I got no answer.”
She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed his head. “It’s been a long day. Eggs for supper?”
“What about Robert? It’s been a long day for him, too.”
She chose not to tell him that Agnes had spoken to a lawyer. “You’ll help him tomorrow.”
Dick nodded. “I’ll get him out. Dammit!”
CHAPTER 7 Agnes, EasterLee, July 2000
THE NEXT MORNING, AGNES WOKE WITH A STARK FACT IN mind: Robert had had a prior run-in with the law. He’d been arrested and convicted for marijuana possession when he was in college. Caught with pot, wrong place wrong time, a youthful dumb moment that had cost Agnes time and money and Robert his ambitions for law school. The insane drug laws could have meant Robert would rot in jail for fifteen years. Agnes managed with the help of certain friends to get him released on probation. He transferred to the Landscape Architecture program at Amherst and promised to pay her back every penny. She’d let him give her money, but not as much as she’d spent. She’d owed others favors in return, and they had come due over time. Such was the way of the world. But she never blamed Robert. People made mistakes.
She hadn’t thought about it in ages—never imagined he might be arrested again. Who would think it? Robert was the most honest person around. But that old conviction could hurt him now. He’d surely realized it, too.
She could kill Seela. She was worse than the gulls.
“Oatmeal?” Sylvie called upstairs.
“Yes, please. I’ll eat in the kitchen today.”
She dressed and went down. Her place had been set. Maisie lay down beside her feet.
“What a morning,” she said to Sylvie. “Sit with me.”
Sylvie cocked a hand onto her hip. “I’m too busy to sit, but I’ll tell you this. There’s not a soul in town who thinks he did it.”
“What did you hear?” The scent of the freshly cut herbs on the sideboard reinforced her determination to make the world right.
“That Mrs. Seela Lee accused Robert of stealing her diamond necklace.”
“That’s a detail I didn’t have before. The necklace. I hate that necklace. Of course he didn’t do it.”
“Suspicion creates suspicion. Also, everyone’s saying Mr. Archie Lee will stand up for Robert.”
“Archie better. I’m going to talk to him this morning.”
“Good. Nip this in the bud. Nip her head off.” She made a quick, decisive snapping gesture. Agnes didn’t want to think what she’d used that for. Sylvie had been a farm girl and had never approved of Agnes’s ethical vegetarianism. “Am I driving?”
“Nope. Going alone.”
Agnes braced for Sylvie’s disapproval. But Sylvie only said—“Just talk some sense into him, that’s all.”
“Thank you, Sylvie. I plan to. He’s a Lee. He knows what’s right.”
The inland road from the Point to the east side of Cape Deel cut through farmland, small places devoted to local produce, mainly vegetables and eggs. Cows and goats were fenced in with room to be stimulated by life. Agnes put her window down. She’d driven past Robert’s house many times but never turned in the driveway. The attractive and creative landscaping served as an effective advertisement for his abilities. She slowed to have a look at his beds, and a car came down the driveway. Agnes pulled over smack in front of the entrance. Robert’s right-hand man, Jeff Glynn, got out of his car and came to Agnes’s window.
“Good morning, Jeff. Is Robert here?” She knew he wasn’t, but she erred on the side of being open to fresh news.
“No, he’s not here.” Jeff said carefully. He was a few years younger than Robert, and had worked for Hiram since he was a kid.
“I’m driving over to talk to Archie.”
Jeff nodded. “I checked on things here. It’s all locked up now. I got the perishables out of the fridge.”
“That was smart, but he’ll be home soon.” Agnes’s stomach fluttered.
“Yup, well, anyway. Do you need anything over your way?”
“Not today, thank you, Jeff. Do you know what happened?”
“Not from him, so I don’t know for sure.”
“That’s exactly right. Thank you, Jeff.”
As she drove away, a line came to her, the way lines often did, even when she was occupied with the immediate. He knew very quickly his marriage was a mistake, but he stayed out of a sentimental fondness for his error. She wished she could write it down. She tried it out changing the pronoun to she to see if it brought up any of her Franklin Square women. Yes—there was Neve. It was very like Neve to stick to her story rather than try to make her life better. She felt a moment’s satisfaction that something had come through. She repeated the sentence, hoping she’d remember later.
In spite of her upset, in spite of her errand, she was moved by the beauty all around her. Cape Deel always pulled her mind down into her heart and through her feet into the ground, through the soil and rock. She had no interest in writing a memoir, per Maud Silver’s request, but if she did, she’d write about Cape Deel. Even the name stirred her, the sounds. Maine only peripherally figured into the Franklin Square series—she’d never given it its due on the page. She should. She wanted to.
Maud Silver was certainly persistent. Her tone had changed a great deal since that first note. Letters arrived regularly. Confident, persuasive letters. Her pitch was that a memoir would serve as an excellent companion piece to the repackaged editions of the When Nan series, which were in the works. The one could sell the other and vice versa. Agnes had rolled her eyes when she read that. “Don’t kid a kidder,” she replied. That should be the end of it, she thought, with a twinge of regret—she rather liked Maud’s letters. But it wasn’t over. Maud wrote back that Agnes should do it for her own reasons. What was that line from Lawrence of Arabia? “He will come because it is his pleasure.” Clever, but Agnes saw through it. Yet she didn’t end the correspondence, either. Maud Silver was bright. And—no reason for the girl not to get some mileage from the idea. Let David think she was considering it.