John Saul - Cry for the Strangers

“It’s all right,” she said. “It’s all right Mommy’s here, and everything’s going to be fine.” God, she prayed silently, please let everything be fine. Please …

Still sobbing, Robby let himself be led into the cabin. Rebecca braced herself for trouble as she began cleaning him up, but Robby sat quietly while she washed his face. Most of her fear left her: it wasn’t the hyperkinesis then. It was something else. But what? He should be at school, not home, bloody and crying.

“What happened, Robby?” she said when the bleeding had stopped and most of the smudges had been removed from his face.

“I had a fight,” Robby said sullenly.

“A fight?”

Robby nodded.

“What was it about?”

“You and Daddy.”

“Me and Daddy? What about us?”

“They were calling you names and saying we shouldn’t have come here.” He looked beseechingly at his mother. “Why didn’t we stay in Seattle?”

“You were sick there.”

“I was? I don’t remember.”

Rebecca smiled at her son and hugged him. “It’s just as well you don’t remember,” she said. “You weren’t very happy when you were sick, and neither were Daddy or Missy or I.”

Robby frowned. “But we’re not very happy here, are we?”

“We’re happier here than anyplace else,” Rebecca whispered. “And things will get better. Just don’t listen to them when they say things about you.”

“But they weren’t saying anything about me ,” Robby said. “They were saying things about you and Daddy.”

“Well, it’s the same thing. Now I want you to promise me you won’t fight anymore.”

“But what if they beat up on me again?”

“If you won’t fight back they won’t do much to you. It won’t be any fun for them and they’ll leave you alone.”

“But they’ll think I’m chicken and they won’t play with me.”

Rebecca suddenly found herself wondering if she was getting old, for she had no answer for Robby’s statement. What he had said was true, but in her adulthood she had forgotten the level on which children think. She decided to drop the entire subject and let Glen deal with it when he got home.

“I don’t suppose there’s any point in my suggesting you go back to school this afternoon, is there?” she said.

“I won’t go,” Robby said flatly. He decided not to mention that he’d been sent home.

She surveyed the bruises on his face critically, then relented. “Do you feel up to helping me out or would you rather play on the beach?”

“I’d rather play on the beach,” came Robby’s prompt reply.

“Somehow I thought you would.” Rebecca grinned. “But here’s the rules.”

“Aw, Mom!”

“No, ‘aw, Moms,’ thank you very much. Either listen to the rules and obey them, or stay here and help me.” Robby’s expression told her he’d listen to the rules. “Stay within a hundred feet of the house. And just so you can’t claim you don’t know what a hundred feet is, see that big tree?” She pointed to an immense cedar that dominated the strip of forest beyond the beach. Robby nodded solemnly. “That’s a hundred feet away. Don’t go past that tree. Also, stay out of the driftwood. You could slip and break your leg.”

“Aw, Mom …” But the protest faded at Rebecca’s upraised finger. “And stay out of the water. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“And make sure you come if I call you.”

She stood in the doorway and watched her son scamper out onto the beach. Once more Rebecca marveled at the fact that she could let him play alone now without having to worry constantly about what he might be up to.

Happily, Rebecca returned to her chores.

* * *

Brad Randall parked in front of the inn, turned off the engine, then slapped his forehead as he remembered.

“Damn,” he said. “We forgot all about it!”

“All about what?” Elaine asked. They had spent the entire day poking around Clark’s Harbor and she couldn’t imagine what they might have missed.

“The Palmers. We said we’d drop in on them.”

“Well, it’s too late now,” Elaine replied, glancing at the sinking sun. “Besides, he was probably just being polite. I mean, it’s not as if they’re old friends. We hardly know them.”

“But I do want to see Robby again,” Brad said. “If there’s really been a miraculous cure, I want to see it for myself.”

“Maybe you can see him tomorrow,” Elaine suggested. “Right now I’m bushed.”

“I did sort of run you ragged, didn’t I?” Brad chuckled. “But what do you think? I mean, what do you really think?”

“I don’t know.” Elaine was pensive. “It’s beautiful, it really is, and if it hadn’t been for that poor man yesterday and that dog this morning, I’d be all for it. But I just don’t know.”

“It was coincidence, honey,” Brad argued. “The same thing could have happened anywhere.”

“But they happened here,” Elaine said stubbornly, “and I’m sorry, but I can’t get them out of my mind.” Then she relented a little. Clark’s Harbor was beautiful, and she knew Brad had fallen in love with it “Let’s sleep on it, shall we?”

They got out of the car and walked to the hotel gate. Elaine paused, staring up at the building. “I still say it’s on the wrong coast,” she said. “And not just the hotel. The whole town. It’s so neat and so tidy and so settled looking. Not like most of the towns on the peninsula that sort of fade in, sprawl, then fade out again. This place seems to have cut a niche for itself in the forest and huddled there. As though it knows its bounds and isn’t about to step over them.”

Brad smiled. “Maybe that’s what appeals to me,” he said, “I guess it strikes a chord in me somewhere. I like it.”

They strolled across the lawn arm-in-arm and went into the hotel. Behind his counter, Merle Glind bobbed his head at them.

“Have a nice day?”

“Fine,” Brad answered. “Pretty town you have here. Beautiful.”

“We like it,” Glind responded. There was a pause, and Brad started toward the stairs.

“You folks on vacation?” Merle suddenly asked.

Brad turned. “In a way. Actually we’re looking for someplace to live for a while.”

“We already got a doctor,” Merle said hastily. “Doc Phelps. Been here for years.”

“Well, I wouldn’t be any threat to him. I’m not that kind of doctor and I wasn’t planning to practice anyway. Frankly, I doubt there’d be much call for my kind of doctoring out here.”

“Well, if you’re not going to work, what are you going to do?” Merle Glind didn’t try to disguise the suspicion in his voice. As far as he was concerned anyone under seventy-five who didn’t do an honest day’s work was a shirker.

“I thought I’d try to write a book,” Brad said easily.

Merle’s frown deepened. “A book? What kind of a book?”

Brad started to explain but before he could get a word in Elaine had cut him off. “A technical book,” she said. “The kind nobody reads, except maybe a few other psychiatrists.”

If he’d known his wife any less well Brad would have been hurt. Instead, he gave her an admiring wink. Elaine had just rescued him from a long explanation of the subject of his book and the inevitable, endless questions about bio-rhythms. “It seemed to me this might be the perfect place to write it,” he said now. “Lots of peace and quiet.”

“I don’t know,” Merle said pensively. “Seems to me you’d be better off up in Pacific Beach or Moclips or one of those places. That’s where the artists hang out.”

“Right” Brad grinned. “And party and drink and do all the things they shouldn’t do if they want to get any work done. But Clark’s Harbor doesn’t look like that kind of town.”