Page 29 of Forgotten Path
He was right. As much as she might want to, she couldn’t just barge into Oyster Point and try to take control. A move like that would cause more problems than it solved. She knew that. She knew it, and she hated it.
“I promise if I get in over my head or if I sense the local authorities aren’t on the up and up, I’ll call you right away,” he reassured her in a voice full of conviction.
She believed him because he was Bodhi, and Bodhi inspired belief.
“Okay. I’ll get back to you as soon as I can about the local police.” She caught her lower lip between her teeth. “And, Bodhi?”
“Yes?”
“Be careful.”
CHAPTERNINETEEN
Judith was sitting on her porch, drinking a homemade lemonade doctored with two fingers of vodka and rocking gently in her wicker chair and definitely not waiting for Clara to come by with the mail and the gossip. Not at all.
The police chief’s SUV sped past, its light rotating and its siren screaming. She stopped rocking.Don’t let it be Deke,she prayed. Then she reconsidered. Maybe it would be a blessing if Deke had died in his sleep or had a fatal heart attack. Wouldn’t that be easier on him than slowly disintegrating? She imagined it would certainly be easier on Marnie.
“Pshaw,” she said aloud to nobody before resuming her rocking, “life in Oyster Point’s not easy. Why should death be?”
She sipped her lemonade and flipped through her memories as if her mind were a photo album that recorded the highs and the lows of the decades she’d spent walking this earth. She wanted to enjoy her memories while she still had them. Before time tore them from her the way it had stolen Deke’s memories.
She settled on the occasion of Craig’s birth at the regional hospital over in Ogeechee Grove, back when it was still open. She recalled the excited phone call from her son, ‘Mom! It’s a boy!’ She relived the anticipation that had filled her during her drive to the hospital. She recalled opening the door to the room to see her daughter-in-law, Jolene, cradling a blanket-wrapped bundle in her arms. Judith remembered how the shade of pink of Jolene’s perfectly applied lipstick exactly matched the pink of the blue- and pink-striped blanket. The way Phillip had beamed down at the tiny human he’d fathered. And, of course, the moment when Jolene handed her the baby, and she met her first—and, as it would turn out, only—grandchild.
Footsteps on the walk interrupted her reverie. She blinked and refocused, expecting to see Clara mounting the stairs to the porch, but it was her grandson. No longer a sweet-smelling bundle of coos, but a man nearing thirty.
She smiled in greeting, one foot still in the past, and raised her glass. “I mixed up a pitcher of lemonade if you’re interested.”
He paused, gripping the handrail, and gave her a look she couldn’t read. “Guess you haven’t heard the news?”
“What news would that be?”
“Doc’s dead. They found his body at the clinic.”
The words sliced through her, and she gasped. “Doc Ashland? They’re sure it’s him?”
“Who else would it be, Gran? That must be why he didn’t open up last weekend. He was in there dead—or dying.” He sank into the chair next to hers with a heavy sigh, like a much older man.
She gripped her glass and thought about that. Was there something someone could’ve done? If he’d been having a heart attack, could they have saved him if someone had broken down the door?
As far as she knew, the crowd hadn’t made any real effort to find out why the clinic wasn’t open. The door was locked, so they shifted their weight from side to side and griped and moaned about the unfairness and inconvenience of it. Their reaction—and she included herself in this—was learned through lived experience. Folks in Oyster Point were accustomed to getting the short end of the stick, and, as a result, they had a habit of giving away what little power and autonomy they did have. It was the way it’d always been in Oyster Point and the way it would almost certainly always would be.
“Gran?” Craig clenched a hand on her knee and gave her a worried look. “You okay?”
“I’m fine. Come on.” She placed her glass on the side table and curled her hands around the arms of the rocker to use the chair as leverage to hoist herself out of it.
Craig popped to his feet, his arms outstretched in case she wobbled and he needed to steady her. He was a good boy, Craig. A dreamer, sure. On the lazy side. But fundamentally decent.
“Where are we going?”
“To Louisa’s. Folks will gather there when they hear the news. Someone there’ll know what happened. Run into the house and fetch my purse, would you?”
* * *
Craig stood justinside the doorway and surveyed the room. His grandmother’s hunch had been right. The diner was swarming with people. A few heads had swiveled toward the door when the bell overhead had tinkled to announce their arrival, but most folks were deep in conversation.
A group of retirees crowded around the table in the window, nursing warmed-over coffee and trading gossip. Middle-aged office workers and laborers, who’d heard the news on their way home for the day, lined the stools at the long counter, theorizing about Doc’s death. The prayer warriors from the Baptist Church had commandeered a booth and were praying loudly for his soul. Not to be outdone, a cluster of nuns from Saint Rosalia’s out on Emerald Island sat one table over, their heads bowed as they murmured what Craig recognized as The Prayer for the Dead.
Gran ignored them all. Instead, she plunged into the mass of people and beelined for the back of the diner. Craig nodded to himself. Of course—she was going straight to the source. She headed toward a trio of uniformed cops at a table near the bathrooms. He was surprised that Oyster Point even had three full-time police officers, but if anyone would know what had happened to Doc Ashland, it would be the first responders.
