When The Tide Brings Her In (part4)-by Minea

The next morning I woke up feeling groggy from tossing and turning all night long. I now had several conflicts to deal with, not actually my own but Tommy’s and Lucinda’s. Last night Lucinda had called me and confessed that her parents were having some problems with their marriage. They were going to see a family councilor and she was very frustrated and embarrassed about that. “I don’t know what’s changed, Sylvie,” she managed through her sobs, “but my parents don’t get along with each other anymore. This is just so awful. Promise me you won’t tell anyone?”

“Of course I wont,’ I had promised her. Lucinda’s parents were both very nice people and I felt so bad that they were having problems. My father died before I could really remember him and my mother had never remarried, so I wasn’t much help to people who were having problems like these.

The other reason I was feeling less than cheerful today was the poem Tommy Carr had written and gave to me yesterday. “Mother hurts no more. Her body lies on the ocean floor.” It was morbid enough to give me nightmares, and had I actually went to sleep long enough I probably would have had one or two bad dreams. He’d also told me not to believe anything his father said. So if Tommy wasn’t lying then that meant his father must have lied to my mother about misses Carr’s drowning. This was getting so confusing.

Now there was a barbecue to attend. I looked at my clock and saw that it was almost eleven and we had been invited to come somewhere between eleven thirty and two. It was sort of a “come and go, meet your neighbors” type thing. Of course my mother had insisted on making a salad and so we would probably be the first ones there, and possibly the last ones to leave knowing how my mother loved talking to everyone.

I pushed myself out of bed and took a nice long shower, then got myself ready to go. From the look of things it was going to be a warm day, so I put on a cute sundress that I bought last summer but hadn’t worn very much. Lucinda wouldn’t be there so she would never know that I was wearing something, in her words, “majorly out dated.”

Mom and I walked to the end of our road carrying two coolers which held the salad and the dressing and croutons. When our heads popped over the last hill we could see the lake in plain view cool and sparkling.

“Looks like all of the ice has disappeared. Want to take a swim?” She grinned. I shivered, “Not for a few weeks, thanks.”

Just then we heard shouting coming from somewhere over to the left. “Just leave me alone!” yelled a voice I recognized as Tommy Carr’s. Then a door slammed.

Mom and I looked at each other quizzically and then slowly we made our way over to where the sounds were coming from.

“If you don’t help me, I’ll…” Mister Carr stopped in the middle of his sentence and his head swung around to face us.

We were looking at not “just an old trailer” as we’d expected, but a fairly new mobile home. Mister Carr had his head stuck out the door and was yelling at Tommy who was briskly walking away from him. Both men seemed extremely tense and irritated. The angry look quickly melted from mister Carr’s face and was replaced with a slightly embarrassed smile when he saw us. “Oh, hello there Margaret, and, Shelby?” He tried to remember my name.

We both smiled and I corrected him. “I’m Sylvie.”

When Tommy heard my voice he stopped walking and spun around in surprise. “That’s right, I’m sorry,” mister Carr said, “I won’t forget again.” Then he made a gesture with his thumb at Tommy, “You know teenagers,” he winked at Mom. “Always carrying on about something. I asked Tom to give me a hand with the barbecue but what’s the use?” He laughed.

Mom and I dropped our coolers on the ground and she went over to help him set up the barbecue. Tommy was standing over on the beach shore digging his foot into the sand and kept looking at me.

I decided to go over and say hello to him, and maybe thank him for the poem. What else could I say about it? I wondered. “Hi, Tommy,” I said shyly.

He kicked at a stone with his shoe, “You’re here early.”

“Yeah, well,” I stammered, “Mom loves getting involved with these kinds of things.”

“Want to take a walk?” he asked quickly.

I smiled at him and the two of us began taking a stroll along the lakeshore, with me walking closer to the water. We heard a motor boat in the distance, probably someone on the other side of the lake. It felt really nice to be alone with him again especially without any of the forced dialogue. I was starting to relax and I could tell he was much more at ease than earlier.

Suddenly a small wave came in, and the water lapped furiously at my ankles. It made a cold chill run right through me and I gasped from the shock of it. Then I laughed and saw that Tommy was actually smiling at me. His grin didn’t last long though, but my heart fluttered for a while afterwards.

After a moment I turned to him, “I think you’re an excellent poet,” I told him sincerely. “The poem you gave me, about your mother, was very sad and,” I paused, “I’m very sorry for the pain you must be feeling.”

The troubled look in his eyes made me continue, “My father died when I was only three. He was electrocuted on the job fixing power lines after a snowstorm. Just a freak accident,” I added. I hoped that my telling him this would give him the confidence or whatever he needed to open up to me about his mother’s death. But instead he only said, “That must have been painful, but fast.”

Then as if he could see the disappointment on my face he added, “My mother died slowly and she suffered. She tied a rock around her foot and jumped out of the canoe. I didn’t see it but that’s what he told me,” the word “he”, meaning his father, was emphasized with a note of disgust.

I gasped and brought my hand up to my throat as if feeling choked. What a horrible way to die! I thought.

“Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry…” I said gently, “but, why are you so angry at your father?” Tommy stopped walking and turned to me, his eyes grew dark and suspicious. “Because there’s something he’s not telling everyone. To save his pride and reputation,” he spat out, “the rest of the world, besides our family and the police, was told that she had an accident that day.”

I shook my head, thinking it was terrible mister Carr would lie about his wife’s death like that.

“My mother was depressed,” he explained, “mostly because my dad treated her so badly. If she did kill herself then it wouldn’t surprise me.”

I stared at him, “If? You mean you think there’s a possibility she didn’t kill herself?”

Tommy closed his eyes and shook his head in frustration, “The searchers never found her body,” he said. “I don’t understand how they retrieved the canoe but not her body. If Dad saw the place she jumped in then why hasn’t her body been found yet? Is he also lying to his family and the police about what happened to her? I need to know the answers, Sylvie. She needs to be found and examined.”

I nodded thoughtfully.

“And if they find anything on her besides a rock tied around her foot,” His face turned red with anger and he clenched his fists, “So help me God I’ll make him pay for whatever he’s done!”

My mouth dropped open at the ferocity of his words, and I had to hug myself to stop from trembling.

The faint voice of mister Carr could be heard calling for us to come back because guests were arriving and the food was ready.

(In the next couple of chapters watch for a love affair and evidence of a possible murder discovered in the most unusual way ;) LOL :) Thank you for reading.

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