The Tree Keeper's Promise Part 8

Angela had managed to say very little when she had picked Caroline up last night. It had probably peaked Cathy's curiosity about the studio "date" Angela had with Mark, so she rehea.r.s.ed her answers.

"We had a nice time. No, he didn't propose."

At least not to me!

All her worries were in vain, though. Cathy was otherwise preoccupied.

"We should have planned this better, don't you think?" Cathy said at the door.

"Planned what, Mom?" Angela asked.

"Caroline could have stayed over last night, and that could have saved-"

"Some driving time?" Angela finished her mother's sentence. "Honestly, I didn't think of it until this morning, so thank you for driving out. What do you have planned?"

Caroline skipped out of her room and down the hall. "Shopping," she answered. "Grandma said I can pick out a new backpack for school."

"But you already have one. It's still in decent condition," Angela said.

"Purple and cream was so last year."

Angela looked to her mother only to find her smiling. So much for teaching her daughter to appreciate what she had. She knew the look on her mother's face. That new backpack was as good as bought.

As soon as they left, Angela jumped in her truck and checked the gas gauge.

Should be plenty to get me to Providence and back.

From the moment she learned Mark had proposed to Natalie in the studio, her studio, she wanted to get away. Leave her house on Hickory, leave Sutton. Not leave Mark, exactly, but put some s.p.a.ce between her and what had happened.

He hadn't done anything wrong. She knew that. He thought he'd loved Natalie, and he'd proposed to her. Just because it happened to be in a room of the house she now owned, why should it matter? Only that they'd been working on music in that room for months and he'd never mentioned it.

But the night had triggered something else. The memory of the hurt and pain she'd suffered when Todd left. That was what-seven years ago? Logically she knew she was overreacting. But she couldn't seem to stop the flood of memories. The only thing that might help was some s.p.a.ce.

She turned the truck onto the 295 and checked her watch. She worked out the mental math to make sure she'd be back when her mother and Caroline returned from shopping.

Blue Shutters was probably the farthest beach from Sutton but worth the drive. And, besides, it's what she wanted-distance.

She parked as close as she could without paying for parking, remembering the days she and her friends would walk here with little more than their towels and a few dollars for lunch. Yet these were different days. September was not mid-July, she wasn't sixteen, and she had more weighing her down than an oversized beach towel.

It could have been the clouds and rain casting a dimness on the coast, but the street looked older and the entrance to the beach was more run-down than she remembered. She saw the pavilion and stretch of sand that led to the water. Both looked the same as when she'd walked off the beach every day during those long-ago summers.

But the high-school summer memories were only floating around her mind, much like breezy bubbles might if children were playing nearby. What she came here to remember was a certain night-the night after Todd left.

She had lived through a night and day with no word, no indication of why he hadn't come home. She'd called family, friends, even his not-so-good friends. His band members had been unreachable. She'd scoured her calendar and his belongings to see if she'd missed a scheduled gig. Usually he had a dramatic way of saying good-bye and "Can't wait to see my Angel and my Carol when I get back." She bristled at the memory of those nicknames. But he hadn't left for a gig, and he hadn't said good-bye.

No. When he'd finally called her at eight o'clock at night, he said he was already in Florida. With his lead singer. And he wasn't coming home.

"Even to get your things?" she remembered asking him, rather mindlessly from the shock.

"Just box 'em up for me, babe," he'd said.

She hung up the phone, called her next-door neighbor's teenage daughter to come stay with Caroline once she'd gotten her to sleep, and was out the door.

She'd found a somewhat flat-topped boulder on the far side of the boardwalk, tucked away with some protection from the wind but with a clear view of the ocean. Not that there was anything to see at ten o'clock at night, but she could discern the crashing waves, and staring over the water into a pitch-black horizon comforted her somehow.

Determined not to cry in front of Caroline, she could be alone with her tears here. She could kick the sand and pound the rock, and no one would see. She could wander to the water's edge and wonder about the black depths that stretched on for miles, for lifetimes.

Today, she looked for "her" rock. Not that she'd named it, or carved anything into it, but it had felt like hers ever since it had served as her companion on that dark night-the rock that had waited for her while she'd waded into the water up to her ankles, then to her knees, and then to her chest, until she retreated.

She had sat shivering, knees to her chest, on that rock. A new anger had welled inside her. Never again would she allow someone to get to her the way Todd had. Never again would she let herself be that vulnerable. Caroline needed her. And she needed Caroline.

Now she strolled through the sand with rolled-up jeans and shoes in hand until she found it. She didn't sit on it right away. Rather, she circled it as if she could still see her younger self bracing against a lightless future.

This was why she came. To face this fear, the fear of starting down a path that could end right here again: betrayed, alone, afraid.

Finally she sat on the boulder and rearranged her hair so it would not whip around in front of her face. She dropped her shoes and rubbed her hands on the sides of her legs. The clouds were too thick for any sunlight to emerge. The ocean had a dark and angry motion to it.

Rather unannounced, tears spilled from her eyes. She thought of how grown-up Caroline was now and of how her fears that night for her daughter had been largely unfounded. She didn't try to stop the tears but wiped them gently from her cheeks.

She stood and walked down to the water's edge.

I'm not making the same mistake. This isn't about Mark.

It was the fear that it provoked inside her. A fear she needed to face. Mark was different from Todd in every way he needed to be. And she was different than that nineteen-year-old girl who had been trying to do the right things for the wrong reasons. Or was it the wrong things for the right reasons? Either way, standing on the wet sand, her feet might be cold, but her heart-her heart was at peace. She wrapped her arms around herself and turned her face into the wind, letting her curls fly and bounce about her. The light rain of the morning increased to a steady downpour.

The water curled up around her feet and receded. Once, then twice. With each retreating wave, she let go of the fear.

Climbing into her truck, she used an old towel to wipe the sand off her feet. When she tried to start the truck, it gave several threatening noises, then finally kicked in.

One of these days, Angela, you'll need a new truck.

The radio came on with a song she hadn't heard in years, one that had inspired her to write several of her favorite songs. She flipped the radio off and drove onto the highway.

Her music. Here she was feeling better about trusting Mark and trusting herself only to have a reminder of the songs she'd written.

Will there be time for songwriting if I'm working at the farm? Will there be room for it?

She saw the exit for Dona Florinda's old neighborhood. How many years had it been? Too many, but for the first year of her lessons, her mother had driven her weekly to Florinda's house. No surprise that after a year of driving, she'd offered a substantial "raise" if Florinda would come to their house instead.

But the weekly trips were nothing like the other lessons. Within a short time, Angela had felt like she was coming home to a place where Florinda and her cousin's family welcomed her in as if she were a long-lost cousin.

And that might have been the reason she took the exit. Or maybe it was the old song on the radio. What she wouldn't give to see Florinda, for a chance to talk to her about music.

Her heart raced at the thought. She knew what Florinda would say. She could hear her voice as clear as day. "gua mole em pedra dura, tanto bate ate que fura." Something about soft water and a hard rock and not giving up.

But in her English she would follow it by saying, "Don't quit, my Angela. If you don't quit, you will succeed."

She always emphasized the last phrase. "You will succeed."

Angela pulled up in front of a group of homes set back from the street far enough to allow for a small lawn and gate. The properties were clean and cared for. Angela turned off her truck and played with the keys in her hand.

She had no reason to believe that Florinda was here. Last she heard she'd returned to Portugal to help her mother. But that had been years ago. And surely she was back in the States. She could be here.

Knocking on the door, Angela felt like she needed to have her piano music in hand. Maybe that was what she would say if her former teacher answered-I'm here for my lesson.

Only the door opened and a short, dark-haired man with a mustache stared at her for a moment.

"Bom dia!" he said. "Eu conheco voc?"

Angela replied with her best "bon-gee-a" but wasn't sure what else he'd asked her.

"I'm looking for a friend. Dona Florinda. Does she still live here?"

The man knitted his eyebrows together. "Not anymore. This was her cousin's house. But they moved." He paused, gathering the words. "Many years ago."

"I see. Sorry to bother you."

The man looked at her thoughtfully. "Wait here." He left the door ajar and disappeared down the hall. Angela had enough time to scold herself for the impulsive stop and for interrupting this man's day.

"Here. This is the number I have for Marguerite, Florinda's cousin. She and her family are still here in Fall River. Try calling. Maybe she can help you."

Angela took the paper, thanked him once in English and once in Portuguese-she hoped-and scurried back to the truck. There was barely enough time to reach home.

She started the truck. Only it didn't quite start. Again, she turned the key. Finally a click.

Stunned that the truck wouldn't start and mad at herself for being stunned, she felt panic constrict her chest. Here she was on the outskirts of Fall River and the truck decides to quit.

Angela called her mother's cell phone. Always a risky venture. She dodged the questions of her exact location and promised to be home by dinner.

But there was still the problem of getting herself and the truck home.

I'll give it a little more time and try again.

Every ten minutes she attempted to start the truck, exercising some hope-but mostly stubbornness-that the starter had one more turn in it.

Forty-five minutes later, at the point she would either need to pay roadside a.s.sistance to come or call Mark, a man emerged from a house across the street and started toward his black Hummer. Before getting in, he stared at Angela and the truck. She immediately took interest in something in her purse, but when she tucked her hair behind her ear and looked out of the corner of her eye, he was approaching.

"Are you having some trouble?"

Wearing a dress shirt and tie, he wasn't as worrisome as she was prepared for him to be. Regardless, this was going to be a job for roadside.

"It's my starter. I think it finally quit."

"How about I make a call and help you get to where you need to be."

"That's nice of you, but I do have coverage on my plan."

"You don't want to wait here all night, do you?"

No, I do not.

He was already calling.

"Listen," she tried to get his attention. "You don't have to do that."

"My brother owns a tow truck. You sure?"

"That's kind of you, but I'm good," she bluffed.

She searched farther in her purse for her insurance card and the roadside number.

"Are you close to home? I can give you a lift."

Angela a.s.sessed his shirt and tie and the black hummer. Nothing dangerous, exactly. But then, most people with ill-intent didn't wear a sign on their foreheads, did they?

"Not close, no-Sutton." She closed her mouth, not happy about disclosing where she lived, but she felt the need to prove it was too far for him to help her.

"Sutton? I've done business there. Lots of trees," he said with a faraway look in his eye, and then his phone rang.

This gave Angela time to look more closely for the number. She found it and began dialing. He ended his call and started his conversation with her without missing so much as a preposition.

Angela looked over his features and receding hairline and wondered how old he might be. His posture added inches to his height, and he spoke with his hands.

Meanwhile, the representative on the phone was asking for her information. She began answering the questions. The man outside her truck began asking her what she did for work and how long she had lived in Sutton, and had she ever been to the tree farm there?

Due to her divided attention, she inadvertently divulged more personal information than she wanted to. Couldn't he see she was on the phone?

"I'm sorry, I've got to go-" she was saying to the man, only the roadside rep thought she was talking to him and hung up.

"Sure. If you think you're okay here," the man in the shirt and tie said, but he still hadn't walked away. "You know, I'll be in Sutton next weekend, Friday. How about dinner?"

Angela realized the roadside rep had hung up at the same time she was being asked out.

Seriously?

"Here's my card. Give me a call or I'll call you. There's a steakhouse in Millbury."

She took the card out of pure exasperation.

If this will get him to leave ...

"Name's John." He walked away from her truck, his cell phone ringing as he headed for his Hummer.

She looked at his card before tossing it onto the pa.s.senger seat.

John Jackson, Developer.

She didn't stop to think if the name sounded familiar. She only looked at the time-3:00 p.m., and knowing her mother, she'd want an early dinner.