scamper upstairs, a little brown-haired girl anxious to please, hoping that while I’m up there, he’ll tell me some bit of a story. Here in this place where he was raised, he is filled with them. He wants me to know these islands of the Outer Banks, and I yearn to know them. Every inch. Every story. Every piece of the family my mother has both depended on and waged war with.
Despite the wreckage left behind by the storm, this place is heaven. Here, my father talks, my mother sings, and everything is, for once, calm. Day after day, for weeks. Here, we are all together in a decaying sixties-vintage trailer court while my father works construction jobs that my grandfather has sent his way. No one is slamming doors or walking out them. This place is magic —I know it.
We walked in Rodanthe after assessing the house on the shore that day, Pap-pap’s hand rough-hewn against mine, his knobby driftwood fingers promising that everything broken can be fixed. We passed homes under repair, piles of soggy furniture and debris, the old Chicamacomico Life-Saving Station, where the Salvation Army was handing out hot lunches in the parking lot.
Outside a boarded-up shop in the village, a shirtless guitar player with long blond dreadlocks winked and smiled at me. At twelve years old, I fluttered my gaze away and blushed, then braved another glance, a peculiar new electricity shivering through my body. Strumming his guitar, he tapped one ragged tennis shoe against a surfboard, reciting words more than singing them.
Ring the bells bold and strong
Let all the broken add their song
Inside the perfect shells is dim
It’s through the cracks, the light comes in. . . .
I’d forgotten those lines from the guitar player, until now.
The memory of them, of my grandfather’s strong hand holding mine, circled me as I stood on Iola Anne Poole’s porch. It was my first indication of a knowing, an undeniable sense that something inside the house had gone very wrong.
I pushed the door inward cautiously, admitting a slice of early sun and a whiff of breeze off Pamlico Sound. The entryway was old, tall, the walls white with heavy gold-leafed trim around rectangular panels. A fresh breeze skirted the shadows on mouse feet, too slight to displace the stale, musty smell of the house. The scent of a forgotten place. Instinct told me what I would find inside. You don’t forget the feeling of stepping through a door and understanding in some unexplainable way that death has walked in before you.
I hesitated on the threshold, options running through my mind and then giving way to a racing kind of craziness. Close the door. Call the police or . . . somebody. Let someone else take care of it.
You shouldn’t have touched the doorknob —now your fingerprints will be on it. What if the police think you did something to her? Innocent people are accused all the time, especially strangers in town. Strangers like you, who show up out of the blue and try to blend in . . .
What if people thought I was after the old woman’s money, trying to steal her valuables or find a hidden stash of cash? What if someone really had broken in to rob the place? It happened, even in idyllic locations like Hatteras Island. Massive vacation homes sat empty, and local boys with bad habits were looking for easy income. What if a thief had broken into the house thinking it was unoccupied, then realized too late that it wasn’t? Right now I could be contaminating the evidence.
Tandi Jo, sometimes I swear you haven’t got half a brain. The voice in my head sounded like my aunt Marney’s —harsh, irritated, thick with the Texas accent of my father’s family, impatient with flights of fancy, especially mine.
“Mrs. Poole?” I leaned close to the opening, trying to get a better view without touching anything else. “Iola Anne Poole? Are you in there? This is Tandi Reese. From the little rental cottage out front.
Despite the wreckage left behind by the storm, this place is heaven. Here, my father talks, my mother sings, and everything is, for once, calm. Day after day, for weeks. Here, we are all together in a decaying sixties-vintage trailer court while my father works construction jobs that my grandfather has sent his way. No one is slamming doors or walking out them. This place is magic —I know it.
We walked in Rodanthe after assessing the house on the shore that day, Pap-pap’s hand rough-hewn against mine, his knobby driftwood fingers promising that everything broken can be fixed. We passed homes under repair, piles of soggy furniture and debris, the old Chicamacomico Life-Saving Station, where the Salvation Army was handing out hot lunches in the parking lot.
Outside a boarded-up shop in the village, a shirtless guitar player with long blond dreadlocks winked and smiled at me. At twelve years old, I fluttered my gaze away and blushed, then braved another glance, a peculiar new electricity shivering through my body. Strumming his guitar, he tapped one ragged tennis shoe against a surfboard, reciting words more than singing them.
Ring the bells bold and strong
Let all the broken add their song
Inside the perfect shells is dim
It’s through the cracks, the light comes in. . . .
I’d forgotten those lines from the guitar player, until now.
The memory of them, of my grandfather’s strong hand holding mine, circled me as I stood on Iola Anne Poole’s porch. It was my first indication of a knowing, an undeniable sense that something inside the house had gone very wrong.
I pushed the door inward cautiously, admitting a slice of early sun and a whiff of breeze off Pamlico Sound. The entryway was old, tall, the walls white with heavy gold-leafed trim around rectangular panels. A fresh breeze skirted the shadows on mouse feet, too slight to displace the stale, musty smell of the house. The scent of a forgotten place. Instinct told me what I would find inside. You don’t forget the feeling of stepping through a door and understanding in some unexplainable way that death has walked in before you.
I hesitated on the threshold, options running through my mind and then giving way to a racing kind of craziness. Close the door. Call the police or . . . somebody. Let someone else take care of it.
You shouldn’t have touched the doorknob —now your fingerprints will be on it. What if the police think you did something to her? Innocent people are accused all the time, especially strangers in town. Strangers like you, who show up out of the blue and try to blend in . . .
What if people thought I was after the old woman’s money, trying to steal her valuables or find a hidden stash of cash? What if someone really had broken in to rob the place? It happened, even in idyllic locations like Hatteras Island. Massive vacation homes sat empty, and local boys with bad habits were looking for easy income. What if a thief had broken into the house thinking it was unoccupied, then realized too late that it wasn’t? Right now I could be contaminating the evidence.
Tandi Jo, sometimes I swear you haven’t got half a brain. The voice in my head sounded like my aunt Marney’s —harsh, irritated, thick with the Texas accent of my father’s family, impatient with flights of fancy, especially mine.
“Mrs. Poole?” I leaned close to the opening, trying to get a better view without touching anything else. “Iola Anne Poole? Are you in there? This is Tandi Reese. From the little rental cottage out front.
Similar Books
