When he caught his first glimpse of the water, as the bus approached the causeway into Galveston, Randall was surprised by his visceral response. He was a BOI—Born on the Island—and it was the only real home he’d ever known. He found himself crying for the first time since that night when the guard had locked his cell door shut. He tried to suck in the sobs, his body shaking as he forced the tears back. He rested his forehead on the cold, flat windowpane, his focus on the rippling waves, as he imagined the feeling of the warm water on his body, the sense the gulf always gave him of being part of something larger than himself.
People swarmed the shore, scuttling along the promenade and populating the beach. Randall wondered if any of them would know him. His social circle had been so small as to be nearly invisible sixteen years ago. Now, surely, only a handful of people would remember him, though he imagined the number who knew of him would be much greater.
He was on his feet the second the bus stopped. In another minute, he closed his eyes as his boot landed on the gray slab of concrete of the depot, the smell of salt-tinged air unleashing a thousand memories, each of which, one way or another, contained Annie.
Annie in a light, billowing yellow dress standing outside the pleasure pier as if she owned the whole town; Annie, naked, stepping into the warm gulf waters as he watched, mouth hanging open, tripping over his clothes to join her; Annie in her wedding dress, smiling as he leaned in to kiss her; Annie, scowling before turning away with Herbie, her red hair flowing behind her as she rounded the corner, never to return.
Would it always be this way, he wondered as he picked up his bag from the hot concrete. It didn’t matter. It was a risk returning, but there was nowhere else to go. Seeing the house would bring back more memories, but he’d rather be trapped with the ghost of his wife than alone in a town where she’d never lived.
Randall ignored the line of taxis. What better way to reacquaint himself with his hometown than a three-hour hike home? His right knee cursed him but he dragged himself out into the bustling crowds, through the historic town center toward the port, the smell of the water, and the detritus odor of algae, combining poorly with the hint of ammonia in the city drains. He kept his eyes toward the ground like he’d learned in prison, but still felt alien gazes focused on him. He tried to picture what he’d looked like sixteen years ago when the patrol car had hauled him in. His hair was longer but thinner now, his eyes shadows of what they’d been. He was trimmer, but his skin felt loose and papery on him. What would Annie think of him now? He’d always been punching above his weight with her by at least two or three divisions, and it was hard to fathom why she would have stayed with him during this last transition into old age.
The heat and exhaustion finally got the better of him two miles along Seawall Boulevard. The thought of another two-hour hike to come was enough to pull him into a small bar and order a diet soda. He smiled as he made eye contact with the young barwoman. Like Annie, she had red hair, and her smile in return was enough to knock him off balance.
“I don’t suppose you could order me a cab?” he managed at last.
“Where you going, hon?” said the woman, surprising him with a hint of Louisiana in her voice.
“Near Jenkins Road. A bit off the tracks, but there’s a road.”
From her jeans pocket, the woman retrieved a cell phone and arranged for the cab. Randall told her to keep the change from the ten-dollar bill he placed on the counter and left to wait for his ride outside.
Fifteen minutes later, a silver car glided soundlessly to where he stood. The driver buzzed down his window. The man looked to be about Randall’s age, though he carried it much better. Healthy tan, teeth an impossible white. “You Randall?” he said. “Jenkins Road?”
Randall nodded. “Close by it,” he said, opening the back seat of the cab.
“Holiday?” said the driver, the car making a barely perceptible humming sound as it glided away.
“I have a place there.”
“How long you lived out there?”
Randall glanced out of the window, unsure how to answer the question. “All my life,” he said eventually.
Twenty minutes later the driver dropped him at the foot of a dirt track that led to his old house. “Sorry, can’t risk taking her any further.”
Randall thanked the driver and watched him ease the car away before beginning the short hike. The vines and bushes surrounding the track were denser than he recalled but he supposed lots could change in sixteen years. Chattering cicadas accompanied him as he made his way across the baked earth, the noise from the insects incessant as if they were welcoming him home. Randall’s boots slipped beneath him for no good reason, and every few steps he had to adjust his stride as a dull ache hit his knee.
As Randall rounded the corner to the house, he half expected Herbie to come bounding toward him. He pictured the dog, a golden retriever/Labrador cross, straining on his leash as Randall was pushed into the back seat of the patrol car, the dog’s eyes wide and pleading as the second of his owners was taken away from him.
The windows of the house were boarded up, and as Randall placed his hands on the soft wood he shivered involuntarily, his blood running cold. The lock on the door had been changed, the old set of keys he’d been handed back on discharge worthless. Randall dropped his bag and slid to the ground. The late afternoon sun was still high, and although his body was coated in sweat, he couldn’t rid himself of the coldness.
He sat that way for some time, even though Annie wouldn’t have wanted him to mope. She’d have told him to get to his feet, to start fixing his situation before dark crawled up on him.
“Best do as she says,” he muttered, hauling himself up. Heat returned to his body as he searched the back of the house, his effort rewarded when he uncovered a set of rusted tools in his old shed.
As he pried loose the first of the boards from the front window, the musty smell of the trapped air leaking toward him, he heard the distant noise of an approaching vehicle. He stopped, the sound of his heart thumping in his ears. The cicadas stopped chattering as the engine roared, then faded into nothing.
Randall continued working on the boards but he was aware of something heading his way. It was the same feeling he used to get when Annie and Herbie returned from their walks. A change in the air, in the quality of the few sounds that reached them out here, before he could hear the dog trampling everything in his path to see him again.
He’d managed to free the final board, glimpsing inside of his former home, by the time he heard the footsteps behind him. He eased around, expecting the worst, as he’d done on a daily basis for the last sixteen years.
Three men stood maybe ten yards away. They all appeared older than him, but that didn’t make them any less of a threat. Randall recognized one of them. The man was twenty years his senior, but still had that iron-backed rigidity Randall had always respected and feared.
“Frank,” said the man, nodding his head half an inch.
Randall blew out a deep sigh and lowered his eyes. “Warren.”
“I heard they’d let you out. Didn’t think we’d see you down here again.”
“No, sir,” said Frank.
Warren Campbell was Annie’s father. He’d been the chief of police at the time of Randall’s arrest. Randall appreciated why Warren was here; knew firsthand that his sense of justice went beyond that of the courts. Randall opened, then shut, his mouth. He could plead and explain, tell Warren what he’d told him all those years ago, but he would have had better luck talking to the cicadas. Warren, like everyone else, needed someone to blame. Otherwise, Annie’s life and death made no sense.