Chapter Eleven
The morning light, breaking through the cracks in the blinds, tore Randall from a fitful sleep. The air inside the house was cloying, reminding Randall of the hours of lockdown he’d endured in prison. He hadn’t been outside since returning from Maurice’s house and was going a little stir-crazy. He’d seen it in prison, convicts losing their sanity—sometimes temporary, sometimes not—during periods of forced isolation. Randall had only endured the indignity of solitary confinement once, after becoming indirectly involved in a prison yard fight. The three days he’d spent alone in the windowless cell had been an experience he never wished to repeat. It had left him with too much time to think, to dwell on how things in his life had so easily unraveled. That isolation had been forced on him, and this was self-inflicted, but still it took all his will to push himself out of the armchair by the fire and move toward the front door.
Changing, he was surprised to find his walking boots were damp, and the smell of saltwater fresh on his rain jacket. He couldn’t for the life of him remember what he’d worn or packed for Maurice’s place, but it appeared to have included his raingear. No one had warned him how forgetful he’d become in old age. Or if they had, he hadn’t appreciated it at the time. Growing old was likely impossible for the young to appreciate, he figured. Now, it was as if there was a piece of him that often went missing. An absence in his thought process, as if little gaps were being hacked into his memory. It seemed to have worsened since his return to Galveston, and staying inside wasn’t helping any.
A gust of wind caught him off guard as he opened the door, forcing him to step back. That was another thing they didn’t warn you about. When he’d married Annie, he’d felt like the strongest man on Earth, and nothing would or could take that away. Now it was as if that strength was draining from him on a daily basis, and it made him want to turn back inside.
Pull yourself together, you old geezer.
His younger self would be dismayed to see what was happening to him, and he owed it to him to at least try. He would walk to the shore and back, taking the easy route, and would ignore the pain in his knee that was already causing him to stumble every few steps.
He half expected to see Maurice waiting for him as he followed the well-worn track. Seeing him the other day had been like seeing a ghost, and when he thought about Maurice’s house, and its adjacent church, a tight knot formed in his stomach, forcing him to stop and catch his breath. Annie had told him that she didn’t like Maurice, and that had been enough for him. He’d never been that fond of his brother himself. But what if there had been more to it than that? Maurice had always been a little strange around women, even in high school. Randall hadn’t quite understood it then, but Maurice had an uneasy way about him in their company. He’d never had a girlfriend that Randall knew of, and the thought made him feel a little uneasy. Annie had been unequivocal about her distaste for Maurice, but had refused to talk about it beyond that statement. What if Maurice had done something unspeakable to her when they’d stayed at his house? Randall hated thinking that way, but seeing his brother again had stirred these feelings of unease and it scared him to think that Annie had lived with something like that all her life in silence.
And if Maurice had done something to Annie, what else was he capable of?
The thought faded. The wind had picked up and he was carried along by it, the occasional grit of sand brushing his face, scratching his skin like sandpaper. At least it’ll make for an easy walk home, he thought, as he listened to the distant drone of the sea, and the gulls with their never-ending operetta of squawking.
Time didn’t behave in the way it used to, and he was on the shoreline without remembering anything else in between. A few people were on the beach, but it was easy enough for him to feel he was alone as he gazed out to the sight of an oil rig poking up from beneath the water, like a mirage. The decommissioned steel monstrosity was as much a part of the Galveston coastline as the rolling waves, but today it looked particularly alien and threatening in the gloom. Being back on the island was like being trapped in a memory. Every sight and smell was reminiscent of another time, and Randall’s past here was full of memories of Annie and David. He guessed they called it déjà vu, but the arrangement of clouds, the rig, and the heady smell of the seaweed—all of it made him think he was back at the day Annie had been found. A devastating storm had been brewing then, and he wondered if another was on its way.
He half wished for a hurricane to appear out of nowhere now and carry him away. He wanted to be swept along on the twisting air currents, and forget who he was and what his life had become. After Annie’s dad and his goons had attacked him that first day back, he’d been left alone, but no one wanted him back on the island. His only visitor was his delightful daughter-in-law, Laurie. Why she bothered, he didn’t know, but her appearances were a wonderful highlight. She’d come by late the other evening and Randall had told her all about Maurice. She’d listened with a saintly patience and Randall had sensed she wanted to tell him something. He’d asked after David, as he always did, and had noted a moment of hesitation before he’d told her how Annie would have been proud of them both. She’d left not long after, and he’d felt her absence long into the night.
Randall shuddered as the sense of déjà vu returned. On that day, he’d reluctantly agreed to allow Warren to take him to the crime scene, and had looked on in horror at the sight of his wife’s remains. It had all ended for him then. He’d become another person, in so many ways; the person he’d once been erased by what had happened to Annie.
He needed to get back, to escape the taunting weather. He half expected to stumble across Annie’s remains as he staggered along the powdery sand back to the relative safety of higher ground. There were other people in the area, and he sensed them watching him. He was convinced they were judging him on every step he took, his bad leg catching behind him as he stumbled along the path, and he had to fight the sense that they were about to give chase.
And then all of a sudden he was back home, breathless and scared. Had he imagined it all? For now, he didn’t care. Discarding his damp clothes, he lit the fire and wrapped himself in the blanket, hoping his memory would continue to fail until he reached the point where he remembered nothing.
Chapter Twelve
Laurie called David the moment she woke. Her fitful sleep had been disrupted by thoughts of him with Rebecca Whitehead, and she’d called without thought, determined to get some answers, only to regret the decision as she heard the phone ringing.
“Hey,” said David, answering after four rings. “Everything OK?”
They tended not to speak during David’s time away unless it was longer than a couple of weeks. David would always only be either working or asleep, but still, it felt like an unhealthy habit they’d slipped into. Laurie caught the familiar sound of static she always heard on these calls, and could at least rest knowing he was away at the refinery and not cozied up with the head of HR in her fancy old house. Though the possibility of that, however far-fetched it might be, angered her and she pulled the phone away from her ear for a second, noting how stubby her forearm looked. She jammed the phone back against her head. “Just checking in with my husband, if that’s OK?” she said, squirming at the sound of her neediness.