SUNNY KNELT IN the corner of the kitchen Friday afternoon with a handful of dog treats while her mother stirred something good-smelling on the stove.
“So,” Mom said, “William’s coming to dinner.”
Something about Mom’s elaborately casual tone made Sunny’s eyebrows shoot up. “I wondered why you were cooking something fancy.”
“It’s not fancy,” her mother protested. “It’s oyster stew.”
“Smells great. Is he bringing his dog?” If he did, then Sunny wouldn’t mind him coming over. The more chance she had to work with both dogs, the better.
“I don’t know. Text him and tell him to, if you want.”
“Can I use your phone?” Sunny kind of wanted to scroll through their messages and find out if the vibe she sensed between them was real.
“Sure,” Mom said, and nodded toward it.
Which meant there was nothing even PG rated in their messages. She punched in her mother’s password, found William G in her contacts. William, it’s Sunny. Bring your dog so we can prove Ms. B**** wrong. She hit Send and grinned. It was up to William how he would fill in the blanks, since the woman’s last name started with a B. She scrolled through the few messages between William and her mother. Aside from the occasional smiley emoji, it looked like strictly business. No hearts or lovey-dovey words. She put the phone back onto the table.
She made Muffin sit, and then moved the treat backward over her head to get her to sit up on her haunches, something that she hadn’t been able to make happen yet. Muffin lunged toward the treat, and Sunny pulled it away.
“Don’t frustrate her,” Mom scolded from the stove.
“I know what I’m doing, Mom.”
Two more tries, and she proved herself right as Muffin raised up onto her haunches, propping her paws on Sunny’s arm for support.
“Look, Mom,” she said, low, and Mom did and clapped.
A few minutes later her own phone buzzed in her pocket, and she checked it. Going boy hunting tonight, want to come?
“Ugh, my friends drive me crazy,” she complained. “All they want to do, think about or talk about is boys. Listen to this, from Kait.” She read her mother the text.
Mom laughed. “I’m sure Ria would be appalled to know her daughter claims to be boy hunting,” she said as she stirred the soup. Then she turned and leaned back against the counter, taking a long swig of iced tea. “But, honey, boys can be great. I know what you mean about the boy-crazy stuff and centering your life around men, that’s ridiculous and too many women do it. But they have their place, men do.” She smiled a little. “I maybe didn’t communicate that to you clearly enough.”
“Men like William?”
“No!” Mom blushed. “He’s a friend and that’s all.”
“Uh-huh.” Sunny stood, grabbed a spoon, and tasted the oyster stew. “Delicious.” Mom wasn’t a gourmet cook, but she did a good job with all the local specialties. Sunny didn’t do much cooking, so far, but she knew how to make oyster stew. Mom had insisted on that.
“Yoo-hoo.” William rapped on the open front door, and Muffin let out a loud, baying bark and rushed to the door, jumping at it.
Sunny went and pulled Muffin back. “Come on in,” she said. “Oh, good, you brought Xena.”
William opened the door and came in, but Xena held back.
“Come on, girl, you remember Muffin. She’s your good buddy.” Sunny led Muffin back into the kitchen and grabbed some treats. William half enticed, half lifted Xena through the doorway.
Sunny scattered treats on the floor for Xena, and then another bunch in another area for Muffin. “I was reading that sometimes being with a more confident dog is good,” she said. “I guess Muffin is confident compared to Xena.”
Mom smiled at William, then went back to her cooking.
William held up a bag. “I brought ice cream from Goody’s,” he said. “For tonight, or you two can share it later.”
Sunny took the ice cream, checked the flavor—chocolate—and stuck it in the freezer.
“I also worked out a group discount for anytime we want to bring the teenagers in,” he said. “Yesterday almost broke the bank.”
Sunny read another text from Kait and rolled her eyes. More boy-crazy stuff. I’m training dogs, she texted back, hoping that would be boring enough to end the conversation.
She watched Mom and William as she focused on her phone and the dogs. They didn’t seem like they were dating, but still, Sunny got a funny feeling that they liked each other. Not just as friends, either. It was something about the way Mom laughed, something about the way William touched her back as he reached into the top shelf of a cupboard to get something down, which Mom absolutely did not need him to do; she was plenty tall enough to reach everything in their kitchen herself.
It started to annoy her. “Come out here and work with your dog for a few,” she ordered William. He smiled and came outside readily, and then she wondered whether she’d imagined his connection with her mom.
No matter. He’d been working with Xena to sit, and once Sunny and Muffin were far enough away not to be a distraction, Xena followed William’s command and sat. She refused to lie down, but William said she’d done it occasionally for him at home.
“Even so,” he said, “I can’t see her becoming a therapy dog, to be honest. She’s so scared of everyone and everything. She’s starting not to be scared of me, but that’s all.”
“She’s made progress, right? And you’ve only had her for a week.” Sunny frowned, thinking. “Maybe we should have her around people at a distance, and let her see they’re not going to hurt her. Like, at the edge of the park, or something.”
“Makes sense.” He handed Xena a treat.
“She’s food motivated, so every time she’s around another person, give her lots of treats. Like you’re doing now. She’ll start to associate treats with people.”
“Do you really think she’ll get there?”
“I don’t know,” Sunny admitted. “But I want to try. Do you?”
“Sure,” he said. “Truth is, I’m getting over some fears myself. Not a dog person, like I told you all before.”
“Dinner’s on the table,” Mom called, and they both went in, said grace, and dug in. Mom had made biscuits to go with the oyster stew, and a salad, and it was all good.
“My daughter loved biscuits,” William said. “It was her favorite breakfast.”
“What exactly happened to her?” Sunny asked. Mom looked at her sharply and she felt bad. “That was rude of me. You don’t have to answer. Sorry.”
“It’s okay,” William said, his voice quiet, but steady. He drew in a breath and let it out, then went on. “She was shot by a guy who broke into our house,” he said. “I’d left her home alone, which I’ll regret to my dying day, and she was taking a nap. She came out while he was hauling off our TV, as near as anyone can tell, and he shot her down.”
Mom put a hand over his, briefly. “It’s a parent’s worst nightmare,” she said, “but you shouldn’t blame yourself.”
He shrugged. “I was the one who left her alone.”
There was an awkward silence then. Both Mom and William were quiet, and they’d both stopped eating.
“Tell him he’s wrong,” Sunny finally said to Mom.
“I have.”
William shrugged and looked away.
Xena crept over to his side and lay there.
“Look,” Sunny said, amazed the two of them couldn’t see it. “Kids are left alone all the time. She was, what, fifteen?”
He nodded.
“Mom was leaving me alone when I was eleven or twelve, isn’t that right?”
“That’s right,” Bisky said. “Mostly in the daytime, but sometimes in the evening. Every morning, during oyster or crab season.”
“So it could just as easily have happened to me,” Sunny said, and then swallowed, because that gave her a strange feeling. Especially when she looked at her mother’s stricken face.
Neither adult answered, so Sunny jumped up and started clearing dishes, and she was relieved when they started talking about the teen program they were both working on and what activities would work best. She felt bad for William, of course, but she also felt an urge to get away. She checked her phone, which she wasn’t allowed to do at the table, and found three messages, two from Kait and one from Venus. “Come over,” was the upshot.
Sunny got the dishes into the dishwasher while Mom and William talked in low voices. “I’m going over to Kait’s for a while, okay?” she said as soon as she was done.
“Walking over?” Mom frowned out the window at the twilight.
“I’ll leave now, and they’ll meet me.” It was their usual arrangement, visiting each other’s houses during the dark season.
“Call when you want a ride home,” Mom said. “Before ten thirty, okay?”
“Eleven?” she asked. “Or I could take the car myself.”
“I’ll come get you.” Mom was old-fashioned that way and liked to be involved in Sunny’s life, preferring to drive her around rather than send her off in their one car.
Her phone buzzed again and she checked it.
Hurry up. We’re trying to figure out who’s abusing dogs.
Galvanized, Sunny rushed to grab a coat. “Later,” she called, and headed out the door. She’d give anything to figure out who’d hurt Muffin and Xena, and to make sure it didn’t happen to any other dogs.
WILLIAM WATCHED SUNNY hurry out the door and then smiled at Bisky. “They don’t slow down and ponder things like adults, do they? Jenna used to rush off the minute a friend called or texted.”
“They have their priorities.” She touched his hand. “I’m sorry Sunny reminds you so much of Jenna. That must be hard to deal with.”
Her hand on his was warm, and so were her eyes. He turned his hand over and squeezed her smaller one. “It’s not a bad thing. I have a lot of good memories I’d nearly forgotten. Sunny brings those out.”
“I’m glad.” Bisky’s eyes were thoughtful as she looked from his face to their clasped hands and back again.
He opened his mouth to say something and then closed it again, because he didn’t really know what to say. He felt close with her after sharing a family meal, but what was the good of telling her that when there was nowhere it could go?
She pulled her hand away, rose, and looked into the kitchen. “She cleaned everything up, or most everything.”
He rose and stood behind her, looking at the neat kitchen. “Good kid. And that doesn’t bring up a memory of Jenna. She hated housework, just like her mother did.”
She looked over her shoulder at him. “Has to be done,” she said. “How’d you manage if neither of them liked it?”
Well, he and Ellie had fought a lot at the beginning. “Eventually, I started doing most of it myself. It was a good break from my desk job.”
She met his eyes, and it was as if she knew there was a story there, but she didn’t want to ask him about it. She stepped away almost like she was nervous and walked across the kitchen. She rearranged a few things on the counter. “Do you think we have the next steps figured out okay?”
He nodded. “What we talked about at dinner should work.”
Muffin ambled around the kitchen, sniffing. Xena came in and stood for a moment by William’s side, and then tentatively took a few steps to snag a crumb of bread.
Bisky knelt down to feed Muffin a treat. Then she tossed one to Xena, too. She stayed down on the floor, rubbing Muffin’s back. “I guess you’re mine, huh, girl? Sunny’s the one who wanted you, but is she here for your evening walk? No, she’s not.”
The singsong voice Bisky was using made Muffin’s tail start to wag.
“I swear she knows the word walk already,” Bisky said. “You’re a smart girl, aren’t you? Yes, you are.”
Following her lead, William knelt down and hesitantly stroked his dog in the same way Bisky was stroking hers. He couldn’t quite bring himself to talk the singsong baby talk, not with a witness, anyway. But Xena nonetheless rolled onto her back to give him access to her belly, which felt like a win.
He looked up to find Bisky watching him. “I like it better than I thought,” he said, “having her.”
“They grow on you.”
And then there was an awkward but somehow wonderful silence where they were smiling at each other.
Finally, he broke it. “I should go, but...would you want to walk them first?”
“Sure,” she said easily, without hesitation.
Moments later they were walking down the shore as the sun set, heading deeper into the dock area rather than back toward town. It was cool out, and they were both wearing jackets and hats.
William felt way too strong of an urge to pull Bisky close. To quell it, he turned down the inland dirt road.
Bisky hesitated, then followed him. “Are you heading where I think you’re heading?”
Was he? He’d walked this road a thousand times, as a child. But he hadn’t been back home since the day he’d left Pleasant Shores for good. “I guess I am,” he said. “Have you been back here lately?”
“No. I used to walk by every now and then, digging sang—wild ginseng roots—but I got too busy lately.” She touched his arm. “It’s not what it was. Just so you know.”
“It never was much.” The idea that the trailer he’d grown up in had deteriorated beyond the dilapidated state it had been when he’d grown up...that was hard to fathom.
The sun had set, but the moon cast a silvery light over everything.
The dogs sniffed and barked a little as they went deeper into the marshland. Frogs chirped and plopped into the water, and something rustled through the undergrowth that made Xena lunge, with Muffin immediately following suit. All of it was thrilling stuff, apparently, to the canine crowd.
“Sunny’s right, you know,” Bisky said out of nowhere. “You don’t have to feel so guilty about what happened to your daughter. It’s not your fault. It’s awful, but it’s not your fault.”
William had heard that sentiment before, but he’d always disregarded it. Now, maybe it was what Sunny had said about kids often being left alone, or maybe it was the way the past was rising up to greet him on this moonlit road, but he started to let it in.
If Jenna’s death hadn’t been his fault, then what?
If it were just some random, horrible thing that had happened...a wave of grief washed over him, tightening his throat. “It is my fault,” he said once he could speak again.
Because feeling guilty was better than just feeling devastated.
“There it is,” Bisky said, gesturing toward a structure ahead where moonlight glinted off metal.
It was his family’s trailer, all right, practically buried beneath vines and branches. A section of vines by the door was torn away, as if squatters sometimes made use of the place, but there was no light, no sign of life. It seemed to be deserted now.
They both stopped to look at the trailer while the dogs sniffed madly, pulling at their leashes.
“William?” Bisky was right beside him, close enough to touch, but she didn’t do it. “What really happened when you left Pleasant Shores?”
He turned his head to look at her. “You don’t know?”
“No one does. Just, one day you weren’t here and neither was your dad.”
For the first time, he wondered how that had felt for her. They’d matured beyond being childhood playmates by the time he’d left, but they’d remained friends, had seen each other a couple of times a week, had shared their cares and woes.
He tugged Xena, making her stay close, and slowly, he and Bisky and the dogs started walking around the trailer. “Mom always told me to leave Dad alone. To tend to my studies and keep the peace.”
“I remember,” she said. “Your mom was so sweet.”
“Too sweet,” he said. “Too sweet for her own good. That day I left, Dad beat her to within an inch of her life.”
Bisky sucked in a breath. “No one knew where she’d gone, either, but she came back a month or so later, without either of you. I don’t know if she talked to anyone about what happened, but if she did, my family never heard about it.”
“Your uncle never told you what went down?” He’d expected word to get out, via her cop uncle.
“Uncle Nate?” She shook her head. “He took me aside and told me you were okay, and that I wasn’t to ask questions or talk about you being gone.”
That sounded like Nate. “Do you really want to hear the story?”
She nodded.
He stared off into the darkness, and it started to play out in his mind, like a movie. “I was the one who pulled him off her.” He hated revisiting that day in his mind and rarely did it, but being back here brought it all back: the screams, the blood, his father’s rage as he stood over William’s bleeding mother. “Your uncle said I saved her life, and that was why he didn’t take me in for what I did to my dad.”
“What did you do? You didn’t...” She trailed off, staring at him, her eyes huge.
“I didn’t kill him, but I came close. As close as I ever have or ever hope to again.” He swallowed down bile. “Once I’d knocked him unconscious, I stood there over my two bloody parents and thought, I have to get out of here or this place will make me into my father.” He blew out a sigh and looked at Bisky.
She was watching him, quiet, waiting.
“I called your uncle. He’d been kind before, and I thought... I just didn’t want my father to wake up and finish the job on Mom, and I was worried she’d bleed out.” He remembered his own mix of rage and self-loathing and fear, and it tightened his throat. He swallowed, and coughed, and was able to go on. “Once Nate said they were both alive and would survive, and got her an ambulance, told me he’d hook her up with domestic violence people...I changed my bloody clothes and filled a suitcase with my things and left.”
They were standing right in front of the trailer now, and Bisky put an arm around him and squeezed a little. “It sounds awful.”
“It was.” But talking about it, at least to Bisky, wasn’t as bad as he’d imagined it would be. Maybe it was the way she accepted what he said and didn’t jump to judgment or condemnation.
“Where’d you go?” Bisky sank down onto the metal steps that led up to the trailer door, looking up at him. “How’d you survive? You were only sixteen.”
He nodded. “I was big and strong enough to find work. I took Dad’s car, and made it about a hundred miles. When it died near Stahlstown, I walked the rest of the way into town. Slept on a park bench until the cops found me and told me about a shelter for runaway teens.”
“That was lucky.”
He nodded. “Very. I stayed there while I worked day labor and earned enough to get a room in a rooming house. That was quieter. The woman who ran the place saw how hard I worked on my GED studies, and she got me to apply for college. I’m still in touch with her. I owe her a lot.”
“Wow.” Bisky moved over to make room for him on the steps beside her. “You had a time of it, didn’t you? Did your dad ever try to find you?”
He shook his head. “Mom got some counseling at a domestic violence center, and she ended up coming back here to live. But I guess you know that.”
“She’s the one who told people you taught in a college. She was real proud.”
That made him smile a little. “Dad...well, your uncle gave him the choice of staying away, forever, or facing charges for manslaughter.”
“Manslaughter?”
He swallowed. “Mom was pregnant.”
“Oh, wow.” She rubbed his back, gentle circles that felt good. Soothing, and something more. He liked her touch.
He turned to look at her. In the moonlight, her eyes shone.
He felt tender, exposed. “Would you do something for me?” he asked on impulse.
“What?”
“Would you take down your hair?”
Her eyes widened and she just looked at him for a long moment. Then, slowly, she reached behind herself and pulled the elastic from her ponytail. She never took her eyes off him as she spread her hair over her shoulders.
The two dogs had lain down at their feet. The call of a loon sounded in the distance, the night alive with small, natural sounds you’d never hear in the city, but they were sounds he’d grown up with.
He reached out and took a strand of her hair in his hand, lifted it, let it fall.
“It’s soft,” he said. “Pretty.”
“Thanks.” Her eyes had gained a knowing, now. They darkened, and her breathing quickened. He was alert to her because he was feeling the same changes in his own body.
He reached higher and tangled his fingers in her hair, and leaned closer. He could smell a slight, flowery cologne.
This was Bisky, his dear old friend. Who also happened to be an incredibly beautiful and warm and desirable woman.
He shouldn’t kiss her, right? But he was raw after telling his story to her. Too raw to choose the sensible, careful route.
Slowly, he leaned forward and brushed his lips over hers.