Page 23 of Make Me Yours

I rise, moving as quickly as possible through the crush of people to the minister sipping coffee at a corner table. We confer briefly, decide my poem should close the section of the service featuring speeches from family members, and I duck out the back door.

Dusk is falling but the children are still running wild through the grass, screaming with laughter, providing the cover I need to ignore Aunt Wendy’s call for me to come say hello.

I have nothing to say to Aunt Wendy or any of these people. The only person I’d actually like to speak to isn’t here. I scanned the crowd a hundred times, but there was no sign of wild, sandy blond hair or clear blue eyes.

None of the Sullivans were here.

Rodger would be pissed.

Or maybe he would have relished the fact that he was able to turn an entire family against him. Rodger didn’t mind making enemies…a fact I’ve been learning the hard way. When I emerged from the trail this afternoon, one of my tires had been slashed in a way that made it pretty clear the damage was deliberate.

And now…

I scan the rental car, covered from hood to bumper in a thick, gloppy gray mess that stinks of sour cream and rotten fish, and sigh. I should have parked closer to the funeral home, but this spot farther down the street felt like a better bet for a fast getaway.

“Chowdah,” a scratchy voice says from behind me.

I turn to see a couple as old as the sea sitting in the shadows on their sagging front porch. Their home is the same faded, dark beige as their skin and the man’s shirt, but the woman’s pink sweater draws my eye to their rocking chairs. “Excuse me?” I ask.

“He said it looks like chowdah,” the woman says in a voice nearly as rough as her husband’s, thick with an old-timer’s New England brogue.

“Ayuh,” the man says with a nod of his gray head. “Smells like it, too. Wicked awful when it starts to turn.”

The woman hums in agreement. “That one’s been off for a day or two, I’d wager. Gonna need a hose.”

The husband grunts. “You can borrow ours. Look just ‘round the corner. To your left from where you’re standin’.”

I nod. “Thank you.” As I climb the steep lawn toward the house, I ask. “Did you happen to see who did this?”

“Nope,” the man says so quickly that I know it’s a lie. “Just got out a few minutes ago. Was havin’ our supper.”

“Ayuh. Just came out after supper,” the woman seconds. “Seems like a lot of work, though, if you ask me. Totin’ all that chowdah up from some restaurant down on Main. Probably a few hundred pounds of it, don’t you think, Bran?”

I can’t see the man’s face—I’m already unwinding their neatly-stored hose and turning on the water—but I hear his grunt of agreement.

“Maybe more. You’d need a big truck to carry a load like that.” As I reappear around the side of the house, he adds in amore pointed tone “If you start looking for suspects, you should start with somebody who drives a big truck.”

“Thank you,” I say with a tight smile, “but I don’t plan on being in town long enough to bother.”

It’s the woman’s turn to grunt this time. “But you ain’t from away, Weaver Tripp. You belong here as much as anyone else, no matter how things have been with your brother and father in charge.”

I look up, a little shocked that she recognized me. I haven’t been in Sea Breeze since I was a very young man.

“Condolences on your loss,” she adds, her dark eyes now barely visible in the dense shadows on the porch. “We would’ve come to give our respects, but we don’t get around the way we used to.”

“Thank you,” I say, turning on the water and directing the spray at the hood of the rental.

The hose has excellent pressure. In just a few minutes, I have most of the soup off the car and the chunky parts guided into a storm drain. I’m sure old chowder isn’t the best thing to send into the ocean a few blocks away, but it’s better than leaving the mess on the road to draw animals and stink up the street.

By the time I turn off the water, the car is fine to drive. There’s still a hazy gray cloud on the windows, but this will work until I can locate glass cleaner and a rag.

I return the hose to its holder and start back down the steep yard, intending to offer the couple payment for the use of their water. But when I reach the front of the home, they’ve vanished. The laugh track of some thirty-minute comedy echoes loudly from behind their closed doors, making it clear calling out to them would be pointless.

And unwelcome.

I know when I’ve been dismissed.

But they were kind first, a gift I’m not sure I deserve. No, I’m not my father or my brother, but I doubt they’ll like my plans for the Tripp fleet any more than the way Rodger ran things. I intend to increase pay for anyone operating under the Tripp banner, but I can’t disband the entire operation.

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