Little Gale Gumbo by Erika Marks Page A

an unimaginable day; she couldn’t begrudge him his distance. Her father had been a burden in their marriage for so long, and even now in his death, the fog of Charles Bergeron’s violence would remain in their hearts, hurtling them backward to a time they’d nearly put away, a time of suspicion and fear, when the islanders had demanded proof of their innocence before relinquishing their trust. Even Wayne, as native to the island as the stones along its shores, had been cast out for a time by people who had practically raised him, all because he’d loved a Bergeron girl.
    Josie stood at the sink, listening for the sound of the Buick’s engine, then the telltale crunch of gravel under tires as it pulled away, a familiar ache returning instantly, seamlessly.
    Â 
    â€œHere you are, Mr. Haskell. Room three ten.”
    The young woman at the front desk of the Sand Dollar handed Matthew his key, smiling blankly. Matthew had felt her eyes on him as he’d filled out his information, possibly trying to decide whether he was any relation to the Haskell who’d been found slumped over a dead man that morning.
    Fifteen years ago, it would have been Lenora Parsons at that desk, knowing Matthew almost as well as she had known her own son Tim. But these days, the island was a new place, filled with new faces. Matthew had been spared any reunions on the ferry ride over, easily hiding himself in the thickening dark on the lower deck. To avoid the crowds on Ocean, he’d taken Franklin to Bartlett. To avoid the old house, he’d taken Orchard to Douglas, feeling guilty with every circuitous step.
    It still seemed unimaginable to him that he wouldn’t be climbing the driveway to the old house, wouldn’t be laying his suitcase across the creaking twin bed that he’d tossed and turned in hundreds of nights in his youth, wouldn’t be waking to the familiar squeal of his father’s router in his woodshop: Ben getting an early start on the latest project, a bookshelf or a new bathroom cabinet. The countless Saturday mornings he and the sisters had met in the hallway, squinting and yawning, their mouths sour with morning breath as they’d collectively groaned at the noise outside.
    The woodshop, the whole rambling house, was silent now. A chisel had been left on a piece of wood, a mortise started, rough and waiting to be finished.
    Matthew took the two flights to his room, came in and collapsed on the king-size brass bed. A complimentary copy of the Portland Press Herald lay on the night table. He read the headline and dared to flip it over, dreading what he would find, but there was nothing about his father. There would be, of course, farther in. But at least today it wasn’t front-page news.
    He kicked off his shoes and lay on the flowered bedspread, watching the curtains curl in the breeze. He felt an instinct return to him that he had lost years ago. He wanted to call the sisters, but that wasn’t right. They had never called one another; there had never been any need. What he wanted was to walk out of his room and cross the house to their apartment, as he had done so many times, for so many years.
    Matthew sat up and reached for the phone. He didn’t know which sister’s voice he wanted to hear first.
    No, that wasn’t right either. He knew.
    But it was too late to call.
    Â 
    When Dahlia heard the knock on her door at a quarter to ten, she knew it was Matthew. She’d been so sure he’d come to her first that she’d left the porch light on for him. Now, thumping down the stairs in her robe, wearing only a thin T-shirt and hiking socks beneath it, Dahlia could see the blurry shape of a man on the other side of the frosted glass panel, and her heart shuddered briefly.
    But when she opened the door, she found Wayne filling out the doorway instead, his face drained, his shoulders slumped.
    A fierce hope gripped her. “Ben.”
    â€œNo, it’s not