Kitabı oku: «Map of the Heart», sayfa 2
“My granddaughter?” Bart scratched his head. “No. You know what a riptide is. You know how to avoid it. I’ve seen you in the water. You’ve been swimming like a blue marlin ever since you were a tadpole. They say kids born out here have webbed feet.”
“Guess my webbed feet failed me,” Julie muttered. “Thanks for coming.”
In the parking lot they parted ways. As Julie got into the car, Camille watched her mother melt against Bart, surrendering all her worries into his big, generous embrace. Seeing them caused a flicker of envy deep in her heart. She was happy for her mother, who had found such a sturdy love with this good man, yet at the same time, that happiness only served to magnify her own loneliness.
“Let’s go, kiddo,” she said, putting the car in gear.
Julie stared silently out the window.
Camille took a deep breath, not knowing how to deal with this. “Jules, I honestly don’t want to stifle you.”
“And I honestly don’t want to have to forge your signature on permission slips,” Julie said softly. “But I wanted this really bad.”
She’d been blind to her daughter’s wishes, she thought with a stab of guilt. Even when Julie had pleaded with her to take surf rescue, she’d refused to hear.
“I thought it would be fun,” Julie said. “I’m a good swimmer. Dad would have wanted me in surf rescue.”
“He would have,” Camille admitted. “But he would have been furious about you going behind my back. Listen, if you want, I can work with you on surf rescue. I was pretty good at it in my day.”
“Oh, yay. Let’s homeschool me so people think I’m even more of a freak.”
“No one thinks you’re a freak,” said Camille.
Julie shot her a look. “Right.”
“Okay, who thinks you’re a freak?”
“Try everyone in the known world.”
“Jules—”
“I just want to do the class, Mom, like everyone else. Not have you teach me. It’s nice of you to offer, but that’s not what I want, even though you were a champ back in your day. Gram showed me the pictures in the paper.”
Camille remembered the triumphant photo from the Bethany Bay Beacon years ago. She had big hair, railroad-track braces, and a grin that wouldn’t quit. She knew taking the course was not just about the skills. Surf rescue was such a strong tradition here, and the group experience was part of the appeal. She remembered the end of the course, sitting around a bonfire and telling stories with her friends. She remembered looking around the circle of fire glow, seeing all those familiar faces, and there was such a feeling of contentment and belonging. At that moment, she’d thought, I’ll never have friends like this again. I’ll never have a moment like this again.
Now she had to wonder if she was robbing her own daughter of the same kind of moment.
“Your mom let you do the class,” Julie said. “She let you do everything. I’ve seen the pictures of you surfing and mountain biking and climbing. You never do any of that stuff anymore. You never do anything anymore.”
Camille didn’t reply. That had been a different life. Before. The Camille from before had grabbed life by the fistful, regarding the world as one giant thrill ride. She had thrown herself into sports, travel, adventure, the unknown—and the greatest adventure of all had been Jace. When she’d lost him, that was when after began. After meant caution and timidity, fear and distrust. It meant keeping a wall around herself and everything she cared about, not allowing anything or anyone in to upset her hard-won balance.
“So, about that permission slip,” Camille said.
Julie lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “I’m sorry.”
“If I wasn’t so scared by the accident, I’d be furious with you right now.”
“Thanks for not being furious.”
“I’m going to be later, probably. My God, Julie. There’s a reason I didn’t want you to take the class. And I guess you found out today what that reason was—it’s too dangerous. Not to mention the fact that you shouldn’t be sneaking around behind my back, forging my signature—”
“I wouldn’t have done it if you’d just let me take the class like a normal kid. You never let me do anything. Ever.”
“Come on, Jules.”
“I kept asking, and you didn’t even hear me, Mom. I really wanted to do the course, same as you did when you were my age. I just want a chance to try—”
“You took that chance today, and look how that turned out.”
“In case you’re wondering, which you’re probably not, I did great at the first three sessions. I was really good, one of the best in the class, according to Coach Swanson.”
Camille felt another twinge of guilt. How could she explain to her daughter that she wasn’t allowed to try something Camille had been so good at?
After a few minutes of silence, Julie said, “I want to keep going.”
“What?”
“In surf rescue. I want to keep going to the class.”
“Out of the question. You went behind my back—”
“And I’m sorry I did that, Mom. But now that you know, I’m asking you straight up to let me finish the class.”
“After today?” Camille said, “You ought to be grounded for life.”
“I have been grounded for life,” Julie muttered. “Ever since Dad died, I’ve been grounded for life.”
Camille pulled off the road, slamming the car into park alongside a vast, barren salt meadow. “What did you say?”
Julie tipped up her chin. “You heard. That’s why you pulled over. All I’m saying is, after Dad died, you stopped letting me have a normal life because you keep thinking something awful is going to happen again. I never get to go anywhere or do anything. I haven’t even been on an airplane in five years. And now all I want is to take surf rescue like everybody else does. I wanted to be good at one thing.” Julie’s chin trembled and she turned away to gaze out the window at the swaying grasses and blowing afternoon clouds.
“You’re good at so many things,” Camille said.
“I’m a fat loser,” Julie stated. “And don’t say I’m not fat because I am.”
Camille felt ill. She’d been blind to what Julie wanted. Was she a terrible mother for being overprotective? Was she letting her own fears smother her daughter? By withholding her permission to take surf rescue, she’d forced Julie to go behind her back.
“I don’t want to hear you talking about yourself that way,” she said gently, tucking a strand of Julie’s dark, curly hair behind her ear.
“That’s right, you don’t,” Julie said. “That’s why you’re always busy working at the shop or in your darkroom. You stay busy all the time so you don’t have to hear about my gross life.”
“Jules, you don’t mean that.”
“Fine, whatever. I don’t mean it. Can we go home?”
Camille took a deep breath, trying not to feel the places where Julie’s words had dug in. Was it true? Did she throw herself into her work so she didn’t have to think about why she was still single after all these years or why she harbored a manic fear that something awful would happen to those she loved? Yikes. “Hey, sweetie, let’s do each other a favor and talk about something else.”
“Jeez, you always do that. You always change the subject because you don’t want to talk about the fact that everybody thinks I’m a fat, ugly loser.”
Camille gasped. “No one thinks that.”
Another eye roll. “Right.”
“Tell you what. You’ve been really good about wearing your headgear and your teeth look beautiful. Let’s ask the orthodontist if you can switch to nighttime only. And something else—I was going to wait until your birthday to switch your glasses for contacts, but how about you get contacts to celebrate the end of freshman year. I’ll schedule an appointment—”
Julie swiveled toward her on the passenger seat. “I’m fat, okay? Getting rid of my braces and glasses is not going to change that.”
“Stop it,” Camille said. God, why were teenagers so hard? Had she been that hard? “I won’t let you talk about yourself that way.”
“Why not? Everybody else does.”
“What do you mean, everybody else?”
Julie offered a sullen shrug. “Just … never mind.”
Camille reached over and very gently brushed back a lock of Julie’s hair. Her daughter was smack in the middle of prepubescent awkwardness, the epitome of a late bloomer. All her friends had made it through puberty, yet Julie had just barely begun. In the past year, she’d gained weight and was so self-conscious about her body that she draped herself in baggy jeans and T-shirts.
“Maybe I do need to let go,” Camille said. “But not all at once, and certainly not by putting you in harm’s way.”
“It’s called surf rescue for a reason. We’re learning to be safe in the water. You know this, Mom. Jeez.”
Camille slowly let out her breath, put the car in drive, and pulled back out onto the road. “Doing something underhanded is not the way to win my trust.”
“Fine. Tell me how to win your trust so I can take the course.”
Camille kept her eyes on the road, the familiar landmarks sliding past the car windows. There was the pond where she and her friends had once hung a rope swing. On the water side was Sutton Cove—a kiteboarding destination for those willing to brave the wind and currents. After a day of kiteboarding with Jace nearly sixteen years before, she’d emerged from the sand and surf to find him down on one knee, proffering an engagement ring. So many adventures around every corner.
“We’ll talk about it,” she said at last.
“Meaning we won’t.”
“Meaning we’re both going to try to do better. I’m sorry I’ve been so buried in work, and—” A horrid thought crash-landed into the moment.
“What?” Julie asked.
“A work thing.” She glanced over at her daughter. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll deal.” Her stomach clenched as she thought about the project she’d been working on for Professor Finnemore. The moment the ER had called, Camille had dropped everything and burst out of the darkness—thus ruining her client’s rare, found film forever.
Great. The one-of-a-kind negatives, which might have offered never-before-seen images nearly half a century old, were completely destroyed.
Professor Finnemore was not going to be happy.
Two
Every time he came back to the States from his teaching post overseas, Finn made a stop at Arlington Cemetery. He walked between the endless white rows of alabaster markers etched with black lettering, nearly a half million of them, aligned with such flawless precision that they outlined the undulations of the grassy terrain. Somewhere in the distance, a set of unseen pipes was playing—one of the thirty or so funerals that took place here each week.
He paused at a headstone upon which was perched a small rubber bathtub duck. On the back of the toy, someone had written Hi, Grandpa in childish scrawl.
Finn paused before taking out his camera. The messages from little kids always got to him. He shut his eyes and murmured a thank-you to the soldier. Then he photographed the marker and added the memento to his bag. As a volunteer for the Military History Center, he visited Arlington whenever he was in town, recovering items that had been left on headstones. With his fellow volunteers, he helped catalog the items for a database so each remembrance, no matter how small, would be preserved.
Moving on, he made a detour to view the markers of his first bittersweet accomplishment. Working with a group of villagers in the highlands of Vietnam, he’d discovered the crash site of four U.S. soldiers who had gone missing fifty years before. The soldiers—an aircraft commander, a pilot, a door gunner, and a gunner—had been hit with enemy fire, and their chopper had crashed into a mountainside. For decades, the men had been lost. Finn had talked to their families, hearing echoes of his own family’s story. With no way of knowing what had become of their loved ones, there was no place for the grief to go, no closure. It lingered like a fog, impenetrable on some days, lifting on others, but it was always present.
The remains had been interred in a group burial service with horse-drawn caissons and a white-gloved honor guard, while their families looked on, clinging together like survivors from a storm. One of the daughters had written Finn a note of gratitude, telling him that despite the revived grief, there was also a sense of relief that she was finally able to lay her father to rest.
More than a thousand veterans still remained unaccounted for, and his father, Richard Arthur Finnemore, was one of them. For years, Finn had searched for his father’s likeness in the faces of panhandlers outside veterans’ halls, wondering if torture had left him impaired and unable to make his way back to his family.
Finn picked up a small scrap of paper from a marker in Section 60, where the recently fallen were laid to rest. The handwritten note said, I have to leave you here. You should be home playing with our kids and laughing with us. But this is where you’ll stay. Forever. I guess in that sense, I’ll never lose you. Despite the summer heat, Finn felt a chill as he dutifully photographed the marker and added the note to his collection.
Finally, he consulted an app on his phone and located the new marker of a very old casualty—army air forces first lieutenant Robert McClintock. Finn had scoured the countryside around Aix-en-Provence, where he was living and teaching. His research had led him to the crash site of a single-seat P-38 aircraft, piloted by McClintock on a strafing mission against an enemy airfield in 1944. Combing through archives, Finn had discovered that on the day in question, poor weather conditions had impaired visibility. A scrap of news on a microfiche had reported that McClintock’s aircraft had dived through the clouds and seemingly disappeared.
With a group of private citizens, Finn had worked with a recovery team, finding teeth and bone fragments, all that was left of the twenty-one-year-old airman. The Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory matched three sisters from Bethesda, and last year, Lieutenant McClintock had been repatriated here at Arlington. Finn had not attended the burial, but now he stood looking at the freshly etched marker. Again, there had been letters of gratitude from the family.
He appreciated the kind words, but that wasn’t the reason he did what he did. He let people think he was looking for accolades and recognition in his academic work, because it was easier to explain than admitting that he was really looking for his father.
Standing amid the sea of alabaster headstones, Finn felt a breeze on his neck, redolent of fresh-cut grass and newly turned earth. Where’d you go, Dad? he wondered. We’d all love to know.
The roll of film his sister had found, with his father’s initials on the small yellow can, was the best hope of finding out. The film expert, Camille Adams, was finally going to reveal his father’s last images, taken somewhere in Cambodia decades before.
The thought made him lengthen his strides as he headed for his rental car. Maybe the courier charged with picking up the processed film would be back already. Finn got in and grabbed his mobile phone from the console. It indicated multiple voice mails from the courier company. As he tapped the phone to play the messages, Finn thought, Please, Camille Adams. Don’t let me down.
“You don’t sound happy,” said Margaret Ann Finnemore, her voice coming through the speakers of the rental car.
Finn stared at the road ahead as he drove across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, heading for the Delmarva Peninsula. Delaware-Maryland-Virginia. He had to cross state lines just to find Camille Adams.
“That’s because I’m not happy,” he said to his sister. “The film was supposed to be ready today, and the courier company can’t even locate the woman responsible for developing it. She totally flaked out on us.
Stopped answering her phone, isn’t reading text messages or checking e-mail.”
“Maybe something came up,” Margaret Ann suggested reasonably. In the Finnemore family, she was known as the reasonable sister.
“Yeah, she blew me off. That’s what came up.”
“She came so highly recommended. Billy Church—the guy at the National Archives—gave her such a strong recommendation. Didn’t he say she’s done work for the Smithsonian and the FBI?”
“He did. But he didn’t say we’d need the FBI to find her. I should’ve called her references instead of just checking her website.” The site for Adams Photographic Services had featured dramatic examples of photos she’d rescued or restored. It had also displayed a picture of Camille Adams, which had caught his attention. She was a beauty, with dark curly hair and faraway eyes—but apparently, no sense of responsibility.
“I’m sure there’s an explanation.”
“I don’t need an explanation. I need to see what was on that roll of film, and I need to see it before the ceremony.”
“You couldn’t have sent someone else all the way out there?”
“The courier bailed after waiting around for an hour. Everybody else in the family has a job to do, so I decided to track her down myself.”
“Wouldn’t it be great if there were pictures of Dad?” Margaret Ann sounded wistful. As the eldest of the Finnemore siblings, she had the most vivid memories of their father. Finn had none of his own, which was probably why each surviving photo meant so much to him. “If there are any shots of him, they’d be the last ever taken. We could add them to the display at the White House.”
Finn tempered his expectations. “He shot that roll long before selfies were a thing.”
“Maybe one of his fellow officers or men took a picture of him.”
Finn had about a dozen things he could be doing instead of driving out to the edge of the known world, but he wanted to get his hands on those pictures. He hated the idea of letting his family down. The tightly knit clan consisted of steps and halves in every combination, and somehow it all worked. The somehow was his mom. They all revolved around her wellspring of strength and love.
Tomorrow would have been his father’s seventieth birthday. On the night before Richard Arthur Finnemore had been deployed on a mission to Cambodia, he had kissed his children good night, and then made love to his wife one last time. Nine months to the day after that, Finn was born to a woman who had recently been informed that her husband was missing in action. Sergeant Major Richard Arthur Finnemore had performed an act of heroism, surrendering his position to the enemy in order to protect a group of men involved in a covert operation.
And he had never been seen again.
Tavia Finnemore had managed to put her life back together. In time, she fell in love with a guy who was completely unfazed by the fact that she had three kids. In fact, he had two of his own. They went on to have two more boys together. It was an unwieldy tribe of a family, filled with noise and chaos, pathos and laughter, and most of all, love. Yet all his life, Finn had felt the absence of his father, a man who had died before Finn had drawn his first breath of air. It was entirely possible to miss someone you’d never met. He was walking, breathing proof of that.
“We’ll find out soon enough,” he said, “assuming the film expert didn’t abscond with the goods.”
“She didn’t abscond. Why on earth would she abscond with an old roll of film? And besides, who says ‘abscond’ anymore, except maybe my overeducated history-professor brother?”
“I hope like hell she didn’t.” Finn had no patience for people who didn’t keep their commitments. If he found the woman—and he fully intended to, even though it meant a two-hour drive from Annapolis—he was going to have some choice words for her.
“Promise you’ll call the minute you find out if she was able to salvage any of the pictures. Oh my gosh, Finn, I can’t believe what’s happening. A presidential Medal of Honor ceremony at the White House. For our dad.” Margaret Ann’s excitement bubbled through his phone’s speaker.
“Pretty surreal.” The whole Finnemore-Stephens clan would be in attendance—the family his father had before he was reported MIA, and the family his mother had started when she married Rudy Stephens. More than four decades after the shocking telegram had reached a young woman with two little girls and a babe in arms, his mom was finally getting closure.
Then a thought occurred to him. “Shit. I’m supposed to pick up my dress uniform at the cleaners this afternoon, and here I am driving across the Chesapeake.”
“If you were married again, you’d have a wife to help you out with stuff like that.”
He gave a bark of laughter. “Seriously? That’s your rationale for wanting me to remarry? You just set the women’s movement back fifty years.”
“Everyone needs a partner. That’s all I’m saying. You were so happy when you were with Emily.”
“Until I wasn’t.”
“Finn—”
“You’re still ticked off at me for not liking the last one you set me up with.”
“Angie Latella was perfect for you.”
He winced, remembering the painfully awkward setup his sisters had organized. “I don’t get why you and Shannon Rose—and Mom, for that matter—are on a mission to get me married off again. Because the last time turned out so well for me?”
The women in his family were endlessly preoccupied with his love life. They were convinced that his life would never be complete until he found true love, settled down, and started a family. He wasn’t afraid to talk about it. He was afraid because they were probably right.
He wanted the kind of love his siblings had found. He wanted kids. Yet he had no desire to see if his luck would change the second time around. These days, he wasn’t even sure he knew how love happened, and how it felt.
“It’s been three years. You’re ready. And Angie—”
“She was a half hour late, and she had an annoying laugh.”
“That’s code for she didn’t have big boobs and an obsession with extreme sports.”
“Come on. I’m not that shallow.” Christ, he hoped not. His sister loved him, but when she tried to boss him around, he always pushed back.
“Then what about Carla? Now, she has boobs, and she’s a worldclass mountain biker.”
“Daddy issues. And you’re the one who told me a woman with a bad history with her father is a problem waiting to happen. Besides, I live overseas now, remember? Not interested in a long-distance gig.”
“That’s temporary. You’ll be back in the States soon enough.”
He decided now was not the time to tell her his visiting professorship in Aix-en-Provence had been extended. “Can one of your kids pick up my stuff at the cleaners? It’s the one on Annapolis Road.”
“I’ll have Rory pick it up on her way home from work. She goes right by there.”
“Thanks. Tell her there’s a good bottle of wine in it for her.”
“You’re going to turn your niece into a wine snob like you. Remind me again when you have to go back,” Margaret Ann said.
“A week from Saturday. Summer term starts on Monday.”
“Teaching in Provence in summer, you lucky dog.”
“Living the dream.” He said this with a touch of irony. He had once believed he could find the kind of happiness his mom and other members of his family had found. But finding that would mean opening himself up to a new relationship, and he wasn’t so sure he was up for that. Casual sex and no commitment made life simpler. More empty, yes. But simpler.
“What topics?” asked his sister.
“Advanced studies in historical inquiry, and it’s awesome, not boring.”
“And working on your next book?”
“Always.” He was researching a work on World War II resistance fighters. And he was always looking for long-lost soldiers, searching out crash sites and battlefields for remains to restore to families yearning for closure.
She sighed. “Such a tough life.”
“You should come for a visit and see how tough it is.”
“Right. Dragging along my three reluctant teenagers and workaholic husband. I’m sure your archivist girlfriend—what’s her name?”
“Vivi,” Finn said. “And she’s not my girlfriend. Hey, coming up on a tollbooth,” he said, suddenly tired of the conversation. “Gotta go. I’ll call you about the pictures, if there’s anything to report.” He ended the call and drove past the nonexistent tollbooth.
The bridge led him into a whole new world. Refocusing his mind on finding the AWOL film expert, he made his way across to the low, teardrop-shaped peninsula. He’d never actually explored the region, which was odd, since he’d spent so much of his life in and around Annapolis. He’d attended the U.S. Naval Academy, and after five years of service, attained his Ph.D. and became a professor there. Yet this area had always been a mystery to him.
The remote lowlands traversed a place of watery isolation, and the vibe felt entirely different from the pricey suburbs that clung to the western side of the Chesapeake. The road and town names reflected the region’s varied colonial heritage—Native American, Dutch, and English: Choptank, Accomack, Swanniken, Claverack, Newcastle, Sussex.
A series of winding, ever-narrowing roads took him past courthouse towns, fishing villages, and long marshy areas alive with shorebirds. Finally, crossing a narrow neck of land dividing the ocean and the bay, he reached the township of Bethany Bay.
The colonial-era town, with its painted cottages and old-fashioned buildings, had the lived-in look of a seaside village, the landscape and structures battered by wind and weather. Nearly every house had a boat in the yard, a stack of crab pots, and a web of netting hung out for drying or repair. The main street was lined with charming shops and cafés. He passed a waterway labeled EASTERLY CANAL, and a marina filled with pleasure boats and a fishing fleet. Then he followed the beach road along a three-mile crescent clinging to the Atlantic shore.
If he hadn’t been so annoyed at having to drive all the way out here, he might have appreciated the sable-colored sand and rolling surf, the smooth expanse of beach, where pipers rushed along in skinny-legged haste. A few surfers were out, bobbing on the horizon as they waited for a wave. A lone kiteboarder skimmed across the shallows under the colorful arch of his kite. A towering red-capped lighthouse punctuated the end of the beach like an exclamation point.
He was in no mood to savor the small-town charm of the remote spot. He had other things on his mind. Checking the business address on his phone, he came to a clapboard cottage about a block from the lighthouse. Gray with white trim around the small-paned windows, the cozy house had a front and back porch and a chimney on one end. It was surrounded by a picket fence and climbing roses, and a martin house on a tall pole.
He got out of the car, let himself in through the front gate, and promptly stubbed his toe on a garden stone carved with the words J.A. Always in my heart. Grabbing his foot, he let loose with a stream of cusswords he saved only for special occasions. Nothing said “You’re having a bad day” quite like a freshly stubbed toe.
He took a moment to compose himself before approaching the house. Under the brass mailbox was a logo that matched the one on her website—a line drawing of a vintage camera, with the name of her company—Adams Photographic Services.
He saw no car in the driveway. Maybe it was in the garage, an elderly structure with a sliding door on iron rails. He walked up to the front porch and knocked sharply. The air smelled of the sea and blooming roses, and was filled with the sounds of the waves and crying gulls. Two pairs of gardening boots stood on the mat.
He rang the bell. Knocked again. Called her number for about the fourth time and got no answer. Leaning toward the door, he thought he heard a ringtone inside.
“Do not do this to me,” he said to the voice mail. “It’s Finn—Malcolm Finnemore. Call me as soon as you get this message.”
He shoved a hand through his hair as if it would keep him from building up a head of steam. Maybe he could find a neighbor who would know how to get in touch with her.
Damn.
As she turned down the beach road toward home, Camille felt exhausted, her nerves worn thin after the ordeal in the ER. Julie was staring straight ahead, her face expressionless.
“Mom,” Julie said. “You can stop checking me out. They said I’m okay.”
“You’re right, but that doesn’t stop me from worrying. You have a contusion. You’ve never had a contusion.”
“It’s a fancy name for a bump on the head. Jeez.” Julie pointed at the house. “Who’s that guy?”
“What guy? Oh.” Camille turned into the driveway and parked. The guy Julie was referring to stood on her front porch, a phone clapped to his ear as he paced back and forth. He was tall, with a ponytail and aviator shades. His lived-in shorts and dark T-shirt revealed a physique of tanned skin and sinewy muscles. Shoot. Was this the courier sent by Professor Finnemore?
She got out and slammed the car door, and he turned to face her, taking off the glasses. And something unexpected happened—her heart nearly jumped out of her chest, yet she had no idea why. He was a complete stranger. But she couldn’t take her eyes off him. There was something about his stance and the way he held himself. He was just a guy, she thought. A stranger on her porch. There were a few glints of blond hair at his temples, framing gumball-blue eyes and a face that belonged in a Marvel Comics movie—he was that good-looking.
Well, hello, Mr. Courier Guy.
As she came up the walk, his eyes narrowed into a hostile squint. Clearly, he hadn’t felt a similar jolt of attraction.
“Can I help you?” she asked, stepping onto the porch.
He put his phone away. “Camille Adams?”
“That’s me.”
“I’m Finn.” He hesitated. His eyes were now cold and flinty. “Malcolm Finnemore.”
Whoa. She took a second to regroup. This was not how she had pictured the nerdy history teacher. “Oh, uh, Professor Finnemore.”
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