Chapter 6

      They sat on the deck in the white Adirondack chairs where they used to do their homework, boards across their laps as desks and black beach rocks on their papers to keep them from blowing away. The front section of the deck was flat with no railing, so they could sit and look at the ocean without anything in their way. The setting sun had lit the sky on fire and the red tendrils of flame stretched from the horizon to the back of the world where it was already night.

      “Where is everybody?” Allison asked after settling down in her chair. Roland set his chair close enough to hers that their shoulders brushed.

      “Who is everybody?” he asked.

      “You know. Everybody?” she said. “Dr. Capello. Thora. Deacon. Oliver. Kendra.”

      “I forgot how long you’ve been gone. Kendra and Oliver left the same year you did. Their families took them back. Haven’t talked to either of them in years,” he said.

      “That’s too bad,” she said. She didn’t remember them very well but she remembered liking them both. Kendra had been a reader like her, and Oliver, though quiet, had been a sweet little guy. “But I guess they were happy to get to go home.”

      “I guess,” Roland said.

      “What about the Twins?”

      “Deacon and Thora are good. They still live here. They’re with Dad at the hospital tonight.”

      “How’s he doing?”

      Roland shrugged. “He’s okay for a dying man. He had some tests run today and they wore him out, so they admitted him for the night. Famous brain surgeons get lots of attention at small-town hospitals.”

      “I bet,” she said. An awkward silence descended. Allison wasn’t sure what to say next. She didn’t want to ask questions about Dr. Capello’s illness that Roland didn’t want to answer, but maybe he needed someone to talk to. Maybe he needed someone to talk to about anything but that.

      “He’s got two weeks,” Roland said, interrupting her nervous train of thought. “If that.”

      “Jesus.”

      Roland nodded, tight-lipped and blank-faced. No more smiles.

      “Should I go to the hospital to see him tonight?” she asked. “Or should I come back tomorrow?”

      “Come back? Aren’t you staying?” He looked at her in confusion.

      “I hadn’t planned on staying. I’m taking a long vacation,” she said. “I’m starting in Astoria and driving down to...well, until I get tired of driving or I hit Mexico.”

      “We have plenty of guest rooms,” Roland said. “You can stay here.”

      “Or I can go see Dr. Capello tonight and get out of your hair.”

      “You’re not in my hair. Plus, it’s late. And he’ll be home tomorrow morning. You really want to leave already?”

      Allison pulled her legs into her chest and wrapped her arms around her knees, resting her head on her arms. Something about this house made her feel like a kid again, a scared kid.

      “I can stay a few minutes,” Allison said.

      Roland nodded again, rested his head against the back of the chair and stretched out his long legs in front of him.

      “I didn’t get you into trouble, did I?” Roland asked. “Mailing you at your boss’s company address?”

      “My boss? Oh,” she said, flushing pink. “My boss. No. Not in trouble.”

      “I wasn’t stalking you, I promise. Just Googling. I found your name in an article about some big hotel grand opening. Said you were Cooper McQueen’s assistant and you planned the party?”

      Allison tensed. McQueen was not a topic she wanted to discuss.

      “Sort of,” she said. “It was a temp job. I don’t, ah, I don’t work for him anymore.” McQueen’s real personal assistant had been sick one week, and he’d sweet-talked Allison into taking over managing the guest list. At the party, a society reporter had cornered her and asked her what she did for Cooper McQueen. Since the truth would have been unreportable, Allison had lied through her teeth.

      “I’m glad the package got to you, anyway,” Roland said. “Couldn’t find an address for you anywhere. You’re a little off the grid, kid.”

      “I’m, ah, sort of subletting,” she said, not ready or willing to tell Roland the truth yet. Or ever. “The apartment’s not in my name. I’m glad I’m not too late.”

      “Never too late to come home,” Roland said, and squeezed her hand.

      They fell into another silence but this one far less awkward, more companionable. Maybe it was because he was still holding her hand. Maybe it was because she was getting used to this tall handsome man who shared her former brother’s eyes and smile.

      “So...anything new with you?” she asked. “Married? Kids?”

      He shook his head slowly. “No wife. No kids.”

      “What about Deacon and Thora? Either of them married or anything?”

      “We’re all on our own out here. What about you?”

      “Free as a bird,” she said.

      Allison waited for him to say something else, more small talk, more catching up, but he didn’t seem in the mood for it.

      “Let’s walk down to the water,” Roland finally said.

      “I don’t know about that. Are you going to throw me in like you used to?” she asked.

      “Do you want me to?”

      “Not while I’m wearing suede boots.”

      “Got it. I’ll take off your boots, then throw you in. Come on,” he said, standing. He held out his hand to help her up and she took it. He dragged her to her feet with ease, and she followed him down the deck steps to the beach below. The wind whipped through their hair, clean and cool, as she and Roland strode across the sand, Lawrence of Arabia in blue jeans. The water rushed up the shore. Allison danced backward away from the wave but Roland let it hit him, and the water turned his brown boots to black.

      “Can I ask you something?” he said, and went on before she could answer. “Is it my fault that you never came back after you left?”

      “Your fault? Why would it have been your fault?” she asked.

      Roland looked at her, a long look, almost a guilty look, and all of a sudden it came back to her, a memory she’d either forgotten or repressed.

      From her first day in this household, she’d been treated like the baby of the family. The youngest child, the smallest, she’d fit into that role like she was born for it. Thora did her hair. Deacon walked her to class. Roland carried her on his back or his shoulders when they went anywhere because her legs had been too short to keep up with the older kids. But time passed and by her twelfth birthday, she and fifteen-year-old Thora were sharing clothes, even bras.

      It was the first week of June in her last summer at The Dragon. Allison had turned twelve the month before, and Roland had one more week left of his sixteenth year. A heat wave had hit and they were all miserable.