Page 55 of Stony Point Summer
After parking the golf cart, she brushes aside tall grasses and gets onto the cracked stone walkway. A few pieces of wood siding are simply missing from the cottage’s L-shaped addition. Untrimmed branches of nearby trees sweep along the roof. In the side yard, a chipped birdbath lies on the ground.
But the cottage itself …
Maris continues up the broken walkway, trying not to trip on the uneven slabs of stone. At the front porch, she shines her flashlight through those cloudy windows. White sheets are draped over a few pieces of furniture shoved to the side—as though Jason and Neil were saving them. They look to be chairs, maybe straight rockers. Some sort of table, too. Other shrouded pieces, she can’t decipher. It’s odd to seeanythingpreserved in this long-forgotten building. A few tools, a hammer and scraper maybe, stick out of a dusty clay garden pot.
It’s all very sad, she thinks while stepping back. Pulling Jason’s key ring out of her tote, she next walks to the cottage front door. Finagling the keys there, she tries to get a grip on them one at a time—with one hand—while still holding the flashlight in the other.
She tries the first key. Nothing. It doesn’t even fit in the tarnished lock.
Then the next on the key ring. She roughly inserts it into the lock and tries to twist and turn it, but the key doesn’t budge.
Another jostling to get the third key positioned. No luck with that one, either.
The fourth key, though? It glides right into the lock and does the trick.
Maris quickly shoulders open the wood door and slips inside. Closing the door behind her, she leans against it and looks around while dropping the key ring back in her tote. Early sunrays come through any cloudy windows not covered with plywood. That sunlight shines on floating dust particles, and cobwebs strung over the window corners, and one web suspended from a ceiling rafter. She rubs her free hand up and down an arm and summons some nerve to step into the dank room. Because it’s different without Jason here. He knows this cottage as well as he knows how to breathe. Now she’s on her own within these walls. And quite honestly, it’s an eerie space.
While taking slow steps, tiny shards of debris—wood chips and plaster crumbs and scraps of wiring—crunch beneath her inadequate flip-flops. So she’s careful, looking around and walking cautiously. But oh, she can’t help picturing a younger Jason and Neil demolishing this interior. Swinging sledgehammers. Ripping down that plaster. Something even about the debris, the way it’s neatly stacked in buckets here, precisely leaning there, is all Barlow. You can see the two brothers had a plan. There was a method to their work.
Maris takes another step, then another. She reaches up and touches the leather tool belt hanging from a hook on the wall. Aren’t there echoes of conversations in this room, too? Design ideas worked out. Weekend plans squared away—fishing, maybe, with a stop at some local dive bar for a brew later. Jason and Neil going at it about Neil messing around with Lauren when she was engaged to Kyle. Then there are the words Jason’sfatherwould’ve said to his broken sonafterthe accident. His only remaining son. Sad, sad. How that man’s heart must’ve shattered into so many pieces that year.
Barely shaking her head, Maris moves toward the kitchen. Her flashlight beam catches mere hints of stalled lives: a lunchbox on the counter; safety goggles on a shelf; an empty beer can in the sink.
Backing up into the living room, she nearly falls over a work shovel propped against the wall studs. Shedoesn’tfall, but the shovel clatters to the wooden floor as she hops out of the way. Walking down the hall next, she passes the bathroom. The sink and toilet bowl are taped off. In one of the bedrooms, she’s surprised to actually see a twin bed pressed against a wall. A blanket is tightly tucked around the mattress. And on the windows, curtains hang. They’re so coated with dirt, the curtains’ color can’t be deciphered. Inching into the room, she walks into threads of dust.
But nothing stops her.
The bedroom closet door is ajar, so she opens it. Clothes hang limp there. One of the guy’s shirts, she supposes. A tee folded over a hanger. A few button-downs. Some pairs of jeans. A belt. Old leather boat shoes on the floor.
Another mystery. Someone actually spent time here. She glances at the bed again. Slept here. Maybe Jason? Maybe Neil? Somebody had to get away?
It comes to her then. All of this might help her with writing Neil’s novel. The dusty, haunted rooms here; the personal effects left behind; the artifacts of two brothers, oh yes. Especially those. Moments from Jason and Neil’s last days together.
So she raises her cell phone and begins snapping photographs. Because what Maris picturesmostnow is the latest scene in DRIFTLINE’s manuscript.
She can envision some ofthisshaping that passage. The emotion, the turbulent darkness of this lonely cottage, will guide a pivotal turn in the plot.
* * *
A half hour later, Maris is back in her own writing shack. A coffee and muffin are beside her laptop; the shack door is propped open to let in the warm summer air; grains of sand fall in her turned-over pewter hourglass.
And Maris is typing away.
First, though, she’d uploaded onto her laptop all the photographs she just took at Jason’s secret cottage. So while typing this DRIFTLINE passage, she often switches screens and leans closer. She zooms in on the photos’ shadowed details: the forgotten clothes; loose design sketches on a grimy tabletop; a ratty sweatshirt slung over a nail in a wall. Then there are the images of the cottage rooms themselves, and the way sunlight slants in through the cloudy windows. Dust particles float like stardust in the bleak space. Long shadows hover like ghosts from the past.
She looks. Looks again. Sips her coffee.
Then she lifts her hands over the keyboard and keeps typing.
* * *
It’s all a ruse, that quiet. That stillness when the eye of the storm hangs over the beach. Because it’s not done, the hurricane. That calmness is a trick, if you will. A calmness meant to deceive you—maybe even trap you.
So standing on the cottage deck, he pays attention. Though the sun has not yet risen, he sees light, dangerous light. The distant sky flickers with flashes of lightning as the storm’s eye wall approaches. There’s thunder, too. The faraway rumbling so slight, he has to tip his head to hear it.
Is there enough time to leave? How many more minutes, hours, will this calm last? That old, abandoned cottage is only a few streets away. If he could just jimmy open a door and sit there for a while. Think in the quiet—without anyone around. Or maybe he could get on the highway and hitch a ride out of here.
Can he make a getaway now?
