In the gathering darkness of the longest day of the year, Karen's slim legs skimmed the dry grass, her long, blonde hair flew in the wind. She glanced back at the setting sun silhouetting the two-story colonial. That house of promises resounded with echoes of hurtful words and cries of pain. Ahead stood her refuge-a tilting old, gray barn. The farthest stall, her retreat.
Sam hated the barn, yet in a rare magnanimous gesture he agreed when she insisted it stay. The lingering smell of horses and decaying hay triggered his allergy attacks. "A good gust of wind will bring it down on you," he warned her.
Like a mother hen, Karen wiggled and settled on the hay into a small depression started almost two years ago by her behind. His voice slowly receded. S.O.S.-same old shit. "I work my ass off for you - bought you this house in the sticks-I give you everything-you can have another baby" and on and on like a litany. Then the physical stuff. Not anymore, Sam. Grasping a photograph, warm from its place in her jeans pocket, she lay down, closed her eyes, smiled and waited.
It always began with the permeating smell of salt air, then the feeling of her feet meeting the bumps of the cobblestones, seeing the antique shop with a myriad of colored bottles on the window shelves, sniffing the mouth watering aromas of the tiny bakery next to the cobbler's shop.
On the other side of the street the black shuttered Oak Lane Inn, surrounded by a low white picket fence supporting trailing red roses. But, most important, next to the Inn stood the cottage, the old boat shed and a small dock with a rowboat tied to it. And on the dock a laughing two-year-old blonde girl, her small arms waving, then pointing to the boat.
In that gathering darkness of the longest day of the year Karen ran, waving to her daughter.
When he was notified of his sister's death, Jeff suspected Sam of killing her and blamed himself. How many times had he called and begged Karen to leave the bastard. The quick visits he made, his mother made, were fruitless. He knew his brother-in-law pushed Karen around. No direct hits-just pushing and shoving-against a wall, into a chair, down a flight of stairs. The last, she had been seven months pregnant and lost the baby, a girl. A tragedy that had changed her, made it difficult to reach her on any level. No words made a dent. It was as if she was in a "holding pattern." Now, two months after Karen's funeral he still felt the same as he waited in the Medical Examiner's office.
A heightened and palpable sense of apprehension filled the small office. Jeff shifted foot to foot, his fists jammed into his jeans pockets as he narrowly eyed his brother-in-law standing near the doorway. The usually verbose Sam glanced away from the certificates he studied on the wall and broke the heavy silence. "That M.E. is taking his time getting here."
"Two months seems like a long time for an autopsy report."
Both men jumped when the door swung open and an older, harried man shuffled in apologizing for the men's wait. In his hand he clutched several papers which he placed on his cluttered desk. He adjusted his drooping glasses and softly said, "She drowned."
A chorus of "What?" filled the room.
The men looked at the coroner as if he were crazy. Sam spoke up. "The nearest body of water is the lake, a couple of miles away. I found Karen in that damn barn and she was dry."
"Not fresh water-sea water." the old man replied.
"Do another test!" Sam ordered.
"Don't need to. I sent samples of the fluid I found in her to several labs. All came back saying it was sea water. I'm baffled."
Jeff left the room abruptly, angry that Sam was off the hook. He drove over the rolling hills aimlessly, telling himself there had to be an answer, a solution somewhere to his sister's death. Later that day in his motel room he called home and after repeating the coroner's words to his wife he added, "Honey, I can't leave yet. I need to look around."
The next day, after parking the rental car, his eyes went to the barn. He wandered around the building, grateful that Sam was at work. Jeff walked, eyes down, moving the long grass with his sneakered foot. Finally he looked up, squared his shoulders and did what he had been dreading-he walked into the barn. There, he again walked slowly, poking the toe of his sneaker into clumps of hay on the ground. Instinctively, he walked to the furthest stall where he found a shallow, hollowed out space on the floor. Still following his instincts, he settled into it, leaned back against the old wooden wall and murmured. "What happened Karen?"
He closed his eyes and waited. Quickly the scenes unfolded like a stage play. Karen and he were in a double stroller, their parents squatting next to it saying, "Smell the water, kids. Look at the waves. It looks so peaceful now, so friendly."
He remembered how the sea had turned into a gray, seething mass the next day. Another scene - Karen and him in their parents' arms watching through the big window, feeling safe despite the approaching black thunder clouds.
The cottage, the shed, safe places. Places that Karen wrote about in her letters. About how she missed it all.
His hands were resting on the hay. Slowly, hesitantly, he moved them, then frantically his hands dove again and again into the bristly straws. In scratched and reddened hands he held a photo he had sent her. It was of one of his paintings. A cobblestoned, narrow road, the antique shop, baker and cobbler. On the other side of the road, the Inn and the cottage, the summer cottage that had been in their family for generations. When his parents retired to Florida, he moved into the cottage, weatherized it and lived year round with his family.
On the back of the photo Karen wrote - 'This is where I go when life gets tough -where I play with my little girl.' A black marker line encircled the shed and the dock. She had always called the shed her special place, a place where she played with her imaginary friends, read her books and played "mommy" with her dolls. Then selecting one doll she would sit in the tied up boat at the dock. Karen, Jeff and their parents always arrived at the cottage on the first day of summer.
A month later, looking at the painting on his wall, Jeff smiled, satisfied that his twin was at peace. He altered the scene slightly, painting in a blond little girl wearing a blue dress seated in the back of the boat and a smiling blonde haired young woman at the oars.
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