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  A Sea Change

  Annette A. Reynolds

  Text Copyright © 2012 by Annette A. Reynolds

  All Rights Reserved

  Cover Photograph “High Tide” Copyright © 2012 by Kiara Rose Photography

  All Rights Reserved

  Published by Annette A. Reynolds

  Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  This book is dedicated to all the people I’ve loved and lost.

  And to Michael: someone I found and love.

  Although Salmon Beach is very real, the characters that people this book aren’t. This is, after all, a work of fiction.

  Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of my imagination or used in a fictitious manner.

  A Sea Change

  By

  Annette A. Reynolds

  “Though his bones are of coral made

  Those are pearls that were his eyes

  Nothing of him that doth fade

  but doth suffer a sea change into something rich and strange.”

  Act 1, Scene 2 “The Tempest” – William Shakespeare

  First Journal Entry

  April 6, 2000

  I had the strangest dream last night. I’m standing on Jaed’s deck. It’s early morning. Foggy. The bridges aren’t visible. Neither is the water. I look up the beach and the houses seem to float in mid-air. The pilings have disappeared. I’m holding something in my hand. Don’t know what it is, but it seems familiar. Like something I’d had most of my life but had lost. All I know is that I’m glad to have it back. I say, “It’s empty.” Have no idea what that means. Then I say, “I’m cold,” which makes a little more sense because I’m naked.

  And here’s where it gets really weird. A female voice says my name. It comes from just below where I’m standing. “Madeleine,” it says, “can you come closer?” So I kneel down, and I can actually feel the rough wood of the deck on my shins. I look but still can’t see anything, but then I do. I see a huge rock that’s never been there before. And the fog seems to clear around that rock, and sitting on the rock is a mermaid. Well, you know how dreams are. This seems perfectly normal.

  Like most mermaids (and I’ve seen so many in my 39 years…) she’s very beautiful. She smiles at me, and when she does the fog begins to slowly roll away. When she speaks again, it disappears completely but the water is a deep shade of gray and I feel disappointed. “Madeleine,” she says, “Do you like what you see?” I tell her “no.” She laughs, and suddenly the color of the water is a vivid aquamarine. I’m absolutely delighted, and I’m no longer cold. The last thing she says to me is, “Madeleine, do you know what a sea change is?” I shake my head. “Well,” she says. “It’s coming just in the nick of time.”

  And I wake up. And just minutes later, at about five o’clock this morning, I’m searching for the boxes I’ve marked ‘BOOKS.’ And after rummaging through two of them I finally come across my dictionary. I look up “sea change,” which Webster’s defines as: a transformation: esp. a major one.

  So, while the two students I’ve hired to load the rental van earn their ten dollars an hour I’ve decided to start this journal in honor of my mermaid and her Sea Change. It only seems fitting. Because starting today I’m back to being Madeleine Victoria Phillips, alone for the first time in her life.

  I’m terrified.

  A PROLOGUE FOR DANNY

  The man who calls himself Phil Madvick doesn’t remember his dreams. His subconscious won’t allow it anymore. When he sleeps – if he sleeps – his mind is a place with no room for fear, or desire, or hope. It is much like his waking heart.

  But there was a time, almost twenty years ago, when he did dream. His dreams were vivid, heroic interludes in an otherwise powerless and confusing life. A life filled nearly to the brim with humiliation, and a desperate yearning for belonging.

  From the moment of cognizance he instinctively knew he would never fulfill his father’s hopes for what a son should be. Did he understand, in his child’s mind, this wasn’t his burden? That it was the father’s? No, of course not. For that is the sorrow of the unwanted.

  This became clearer to him with each passing birthday until, in his sixth year on earth, he overheard the words spoken aloud. “A mistake,” his father had called him. “Something that never should have happened.”

  The little boy knew what a mistake was: It was something you got in trouble for. Something you had to say “I’m sorry” for.

  And his mother, a woman who up until then had fooled the boy into thinking she could love him, sobbed her agreement with his father.

  In reality, the mother’s words were merely an appeasement. But a child doesn’t understand the negotiations of adulthood. A boy of six wouldn’t realize the compromises adults make to cling to security.

  And so, from then on, he knew what he’d always felt to be true. He was an error. Something faulty and unfixable. The garbled message had been decoded. He had no worth.

  There had been, however, one small space in his heart where love – and a feeling he might have mattered – lived. It was the place reserved for the only person he trusted; the only person he was certain cared. That tiny spot was the reason his soul survived. His sister’s love for him was all he knew of hope and he anchored himself to it. He worshipped her for it. He loved and protected her because of it.

  It was a pure and unconditional love, and in his thirty-seven years Maddy was the only person he’d ever said the words to, and meant them. Because love was an impossible emotion if you didn’t trust. And trust was unthinkable to someone like the adult, who grew from the boy, who was sure he’d been a mistake.

  And so, the man who calls himself Phil Madvick doesn’t dream. But there was a time – when he was still Danny Phillips – that he did.

  SPRING

  “The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again.”

  A. Bartlett Giamatti

  Chapter One

  “…and around the Puget Sound look for scattered showers with a few sunbreaks…”

  Maddy viciously punched the radio’s on/off button and in the ensuing silence said, “Why don’t you look outside, you idiot?”

  Instead of an occasional sprinkle, the solid gray sky – and the powers that be – decided a steady drizzle would be just the thing for this Tuesday morning. Which also happened to be the day of Maddy’s move. Scattered showers would not only have been normal for the Pacific Northwest in April, but at this point would have been welcomed.

  Her day had begun at 5 a.m. It was now 8:45. The college kids had managed to load the thirty-some boxes, and very few pieces of furniture that had been Maddy’s “B.T.” (Before Ted), in a little over an hour.

  Ted, using uncommon good judgment, had stayed away. But he’d called earlier to say, “I trust you won’t do anything stupid.” Her reply had been, “And you would certainly know ‘stupid.’” Little did she know that would be the highlight of her day: Sixteen years of her life coming down to biting remarks and thirty damp boxes.

  The students unloaded her belongings at a self-storage unit a couple of miles from her new home, which wasn’t hers at all but would have to do for the next year or two. She paid them and, as a tip for working under such miserable conditions, gave them two rolls of quarters she’d found in one of Ted’s drawers. It had been a small way to get back at him for the phone call. Besides, she didn’t have a dime to spare. Then it was back to Gig Harbor, and the house she’d put every ounce of herself into, to finish packing up the things she’d need to
survive at Jaed’s place.

  Maddy stared out the kitchen window, unable to process the finality of what was happening. The only thing left to do was walk out the front door and drive away – across the Narrows Bridge and into Tacoma. An hour earlier, as she’d crammed suitcases and boxes into every conceivable space in the Volvo, Maddy had tried a more positive approach to her thinking. You’ll never have to cross that damned bridge during rush hour again. You’ll be able to sit and watch those poor suckers from Jaed’s deck at five o’clock, with a latte in your hand and a smile on your face, because you know they haven’t shifted out of first gear for the past five miles. It had worked for a few minutes.

  But her eyes took in every rose she’d planted – every fruit tree. The Italian plum and cherry were in bloom. The apple was just beginning to bud. She couldn’t bear to look at the blueberry bushes. They were her favorites. Then, without really thinking, she opened the sliding glass door. She crossed the deck and went down the slick steps to the garden shed. While rain dripped into her eyes and down her face, Maddy dug up the one rose she didn’t want to live without.

  She’d started it from a cutting and it had lived in a pot for two years. Once planted in the ground it had taken way too much babying, and never really got enough sun, but Maddy was stubborn and it had finally grown three strong canes a few years ago. It had been worth the wait. The blooms were huge, perfectly-formed, and fragrant; its color, incredible. The tops of the petals were a deep, velvety red – their undersides, silver.

  There was no way to know how long the house would be on the market. With Ted there, she knew the plants would suffer. And when it sold there was no guarantee the new owners would give a damn about the garden. She couldn’t leave her Love in the hands of just anyone, and so Maddy gently transplanted the rose in the biggest pot she could find. She’d had to drag it around to the front of the house and muscle it onto the front passenger-side floor of the old Volvo wagon. And then she finally drove away.

  Her clothes and hair were so wet that the car’s ancient ventilation system couldn’t keep up with the steam on the windows. The sleeve of her jacket didn’t do anything but make a smeary mess. So, with the front windows cranked all the way down, and the fan cranked all the way up, Maddy managed to find a spot to peer through. For once she was thankful that the traffic on the bridge was crawling because she was driving blind. The wiper blades were shot, too.

  Maddy’s stomach began to growl as she turned onto Arnie’s street. She tried ignoring it, but it just protested more loudly, and when she stopped the car at the bottom of the Stannard’s sloping driveway Maddy painfully hiccupped. “A hungry hic,” her mother used to say. But she didn’t have time to eat if she wanted to make high tide.

  Arnie and Lil Stannard were old family friends. Arnie had been her dad’s fishing buddy until her parents retired to Phoenix. They’d had enough of cold, endlessly wet winters. Her father’s boat, a small Bayliner cruiser he’d christened QVII, had been moored at the Stannard’s waterfront home ever since. Not wanted to sell her (“It’d be like putting a price on your mother,” he’d told Maddy), he left Queen Victoria the Second to his only daughter. And Maddy, knowing the boat had been named after her mother, agreed to watch over it. Her father had bought it new the year Maddy and Ted moved in together, and the years had taken their toll on the boat, too. Even though it remained covered during the winters, the interior was ratty. Foam rubber spewed out of tears in the seat cushions, and mildew – impenetrable by even the most toxic chemicals – grew from every corner. The exterior looked like hell, but the hull was in fairly good shape, and the outboard motor chugged along once it started. If it started. There’d be no one to help if it didn’t. The Stannard’s were visiting her parents in Arizona.

  Maddy walked along the small, floating boat dock unsnapping the boat cover as she went. The drizzle had let up, but as careful as she was, the pooled water on the treated canvas still sloshed into the boat, and she swore. She finished the job from the inside and stowed the cover in the prow, her duck boots making sucking noises on the carpet below.

  In a moment of faith, Maddy began unloading the Volvo. Four large suitcases, followed by a train case, a duffel bag, five boxes, a two-drawer file cabinet, and – finally – the rose were placed in the QVII with ballast in mind. The battery charger sat on the dock in anticipation of trouble; a classic case of cockeyed optimism.

  As Maddy moved the car to the street, and then trudged back down the long drive, she thought about how many times she’d done this alone. Ted had always liked the idea of having a boat, but the QVII hadn’t been the yacht he’d envisioned. It was all or nothing with Ted. It proved to be his downfall.

  She reconnected the battery and held her breath, shoving the key in the ignition. Nothing. Maddy closed her eyes and groaned.

  Sitting on the Stannard’s covered deck, Maddy waited for the charger to do its job. As big a pain in the ass as this whole production was, she knew for a fact it was easier than going down to Salmon Beach on foot. Nearly two hundred stairs separated the parking area above from the beachfront homes. She was in pretty good shape but it would take her two days, and a case of Mentholatum, to move in. Taking the boat meant an hour – an hour and a half – on the water, and with the high tide working for her she could simply tie the QVII off next to the steps that connected Jaed’s deck with the little beach. She’d pick up the car later.

  Maddy pushed the boat to twenty-five knots. Rain poured off her red slicker. The rain hat kept her hair dry but water ran down her face making it impossible to see. The towel she’d been using was soaked. It was only five miles to Salmon Beach, but it had taken her half an hour just to reach the Narrows Bridge from the Stannard’s place. The wind through The Narrows – always bad – had picked up, and the strong current caused the engine to labor. It was making a new, unhealthy, noise.

  As she crossed under the huge suspension bridge, Maddy couldn’t help but look up. She always did. It was part reflex and part superstition. She could hear the cars 180 feet above her, see their headlights flickering through the metal grate even though it was only one o’clock in the afternoon. And she never failed to remember that the first Narrows Bridge had collapsed one windy day back in 1940. She’d vowed she’d never be caught napping. If the thing was going to fall, Maddy wanted to know about it. That particular theory hadn’t seemed to apply to her personal life.

  Just as the QVII came out the other side of the bridge, a massive gust of wind hit her full force. The blast buffeted Maddy and she gripped the wheel more tightly with her left hand while she throttled back with her right. As soon as she felt the boat respond Maddy raised her face to the steely sky and screamed, “I hope you’re watching and taking notes! And if you can hear me, take this down: Ted Perry was not one of your better efforts!”

  Chapter Two

  Nick McKay pulled off his waders, tossed them into a crate next to the front door, and stepped inside. Water dripped onto the entry mat and formed a circle around his feet. As he hung his rain gear on the brass coat rack an enormous sneeze escaped him, and he shuddered. Nick waited for the obligatory second sneeze, and when it was out of his system, he walked straight to the telephone and unplugged it.

  This had been the third time in less than a week he’d had to rescue Emily DeMille’s cat from her crow’s nest. Nick tried explaining to her that if C.B. managed to get up there, he’d figure out a way to get down, but Emily was persuasive. It was hard to say “no” to a woman who’d lost a husband and son to the sea but still managed to smile and get on with her life. Besides, she always brought over a cake or some muffins the next day.

  Normally, C.B.’s circus act wouldn’t have been a big deal, but Nick’s morning had started with his own toilet backing up. It had progressed to a major roof leak at house Number 80, when Corina and Norm Nelsen woke up to water soaking through their down comforter.

  The day had then moved a little further downhill when Sparky Karlson, whose nickname had nothing to do
with being a fireman, called to report he “may have started a small blaze” in his kitchen at Number 12, Salmon Beach.

  “How small is small?” Nick had asked, as he quickly stepped into his boots and tried to calculate how much time it would take him to run from his place to Sparky’s, uncover the fire hose, and douse the fire before it spread to Karlson’s newly remodeled living room.

  “Well,” Sparky had said in his maddeningly slow way. “It seems to be confined to the stove area at the moment.”

  Nick had stopped in his tracks and taken a deep breath. “How about using that fire extinguisher I installed last month.”

  And Sparky had said, “Well now, Nick, I would but you remember that one exceptional day we had last week?”

  And Nick had shut his eyes in frustration because he knew that Sparky Karlson would take as long as it took to get to the point, and nothing you could say or do would hurry him along. “Yeah, Sparky. I remember.”

  “Well, the day before, almost as if I’d had a premonition, I’d gotten the most beautifully marbled piece of top sirloin at the Albertsons. You know the one up on Pearl?”

  Nick could picture the kitchen curtains going up in flames. “Sparky, tell me the rest of the story when I get there.” And he’d grabbed his own extinguisher and raced out of his house, along the dirt path.

  Five minutes later Nick was shooting foam at Sparky’s oven, while the old man calmly finished telling him the story of the steak, and the barbeque, and the deck awning he’d set fire to, which was the reason he couldn’t use the extinguisher Nick had mounted on his kitchen wall.

  So, by the time Emily DeMille called, Nick’s – usually limitless – patience had worn tissue-thin. He’d been polite to Emily, but as he’d climbed the ladder to the crow’s nest on her roof – and C.B. began to hiss at him the closer he got – Nick lost it. “Don’t give me any lip, you worthless furball. If it weren’t for you I’d have a lot more spare time on my hands.” He’d grabbed the howling C.B., who promptly sank his teeth into Nick’s hand. Fortunately, his leather gloves absorbed the assault. “It’s a good thing you have a really nice mommy,” he’d said, as the cat stubbornly reattached himself to Nick’s arm.