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  This was that other nagging concern preventing her from truly getting excited over her future plans. The other thing that held her back.

  She heard the door sliding open behind her and the sound of her father’s efforts to come inside.

  “Do you still want that coffee?” she asked, taking the carafe from the coffeemaker.

  “Yeah, that would be good,” she heard him say.

  She filled the cup and was turning around to bring it to the small kitchen table in the center of the room when she saw that he was having some difficulty getting his right leg in through the doorway.

  “Wait a sec,” she said, not wanting to spill the drink as she carefully set it down.

  “I got it,” her dad said, but she could hear the frustration already growing.

  She turned to see Snowy outside on the deck, tennis ball clutched in her mouth, as her father continued to struggle.

  “Dad . . .”

  “I’m fine,” he barked, his anger providing him with enough fuel to actually haul the semiuseless leg up over the lip of the slide and get himself inside.

  That was when Snowy decided she and her ball were coming inside as well, her large and quite powerful eighty-pound body pushing past Sidney’s father impatiently, throwing off his balance and sending him backward.

  Sidney was on the move before her father hit the floor, reaching and grabbing at anything that might lessen the fall. Her father went down wedged into the corner of the kitchen, knocking some plants from the metal plant stand as his good arm flailed.

  He swore as she got to him.

  “It’s okay,” she said, not wanting to make a big deal out of it. “I’ve got you.”

  His breathing had quickened, explosions of expletives leaving his mouth as he settled. She squatted down, put her hands beneath his arms, and attempted to haul him to his feet. Sidney didn’t consider herself weak by any means, but even though he had lost some weight since the stroke, her father was still pretty darn heavy, and not having the full use of his right side only made matters all the more difficult.

  The first try was a failure, with her slipping to one side and him falling to the floor for a second time.

  “Leave me here,” she heard her father say. The anger was gone now, replaced by something that sounded an awful lot like disgust.

  “Yeah, right.” She tried again, getting a better hold beneath his arms, and managed to at least get him upright. “A little help here,” she said, chiding him. “That’s it. You got it.”

  He was helping now, though she could tell that he was tired. This only made her think of the man that he used to be. The guy who would be out of the house and off to one of his contracting jobs at five in the morning, only to return later that day to do even more work around their own house. She hated to see him this way probably as much as he despised being it, but what choice was there? The alternative was not an option she cared to consider.

  Though she was certain there were nights that her father had considered it.

  The idea of him being gone—being dead—nearly took her strength away, and she was afraid that she would drop him again. Snowy, ball still clutched in her mouth, stood across the kitchen, watching cautiously, tail wagging ever so slightly, the look in her icy blue eyes asking if everything was all right.

  Then, at that very moment, Sidney wanted the answer to be yes, yes, everything was going to be fine. Pushing all the sadness and concern aside, she managed to pull her father up to his feet and, balancing him against her shoulder, dragged one of the kitchen chairs over close enough that she was able to assist him in sitting down.

  “No gym for me this morning,” she joked, feeling out of breath from the struggle. She could tell he was exhausted as well, sitting slumped, head back. Snowy had come to him with her ball, checking the situation out, making sure that everything was as it should be. He petted her silently, the action helping to calm him.

  “You good?” she asked, rubbing his back.

  He didn’t answer as she picked up his cane, leaning it up against the kitchen table. She then reached over and slid the mug of coffee closer to his reach.

  “Here’s your refill.”

  He just nodded, letting the good hand that was petting Snowy reach for the coffee.

  Sidney had been planning on having a cup of tea and maybe something to eat before getting ready for work, but glancing at the clock on the microwave told her that wasn’t going to be possible if she didn’t want to be late.

  “If you’re okay, I’ve got to get ready,” she told him.

  He was mid-sip but finished and carefully brought the coffee mug down to the table. “I’m good,” he said as the mug landed without spilling a drop, and then he looked at her.

  But in his eyes she could see how sad he was, and how tired.

  And that he was lying.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Janice Berthold savored mornings like this.

  They’d been coming to their home on Benediction Island during the summer months for as long as she’d been married, but there was still nothing better than when all was entirely quiet, and she was alone.

  When he was gone.

  It wouldn’t last for long, and she knew it but tried not to remind herself. She wanted to savor each and every minute—every second—of these precious moments of solitude.

  Imagining how wonderful it would be without him. How every day would be just like this if he was no longer around.

  She felt the muscles around her mouth contract and a smile begin to form. It felt strange.

  Janice couldn’t remember the last time she had genuinely smiled, the misery of her days with him blocking any recollection of past joy.

  And as quickly as it had come, the smile was replaced with an expression reflective of the grim reality in which she lived.

  Her eyes slowly opened to the exquisite view from the sunroom window, but the undulating blue gray of the Atlantic could do nothing to recapture that so elusive bliss she had been experiencing.

  Once again, he had ruined it.

  She decided to try again, closing her eyes, feeling herself lulled by the natural sounds of the million-dollar summer home: the ticking of the grandfather clock in the library study, the humming of the refrigerator from the gourmet kitchen, all wrapped up in the muffled rhythmic ebb and flow of the ocean outside.

  Yes, she was almost there . . . almost . . .

  The sound of the door coming open and then slamming closed tore her from the embrace of peace and dropped her back into hellish reality.

  She could already feel it happening, all brought on by the sounds of his arrival and the knowledge of his presence within the once-peaceful house. She could hear him moving about, the irritating thump of his footfalls, the clamor of his car keys carelessly being thrown upon the granite countertop in the kitchen, the refrigerator door pulled open, its contents rummaged through, before the heavy door was slammed close.

  She could feel her panic setting in, wanting to run and hide herself away someplace where he could not find her—could not affect her with his poisonous being.

  But he would always find her.

  “Janice!” his voice bellowed, shattering what remained of her blessed silence like a brick thrown through plate glass.

  He expected her to answer, but that would just be foolish as he would find her all the faster. She stood up from the couch, steeling herself for the inevitable. His steps were coming closer, and she could see his grotesque shape as he shambled down the short corridor somehow sensing and being drawn to the room she was in.

  “Janice, where are you?”

  His voice caused her flesh to tingle and itch as if covered with insects, the sound of her name coming from his mouth so sickening that it made her want to change it to something else entirely. But then he would eventually know it, and speak it, and it, too, would be corrupted by his foul mouth.

  She could feel him there in the doorway behind her, the poison of his very presence radiating from his body
.

  “There you are,” her husband, Ronald Berthold, said, followed by the sloshing of water and the sound of him swallowing.

  Though she would have preferred to look out the floor-to-ceiling windows at the undulating expanse of ocean, she braced herself and turned to look at him.

  Her husband was drinking greedily from a bottle of water. He had been out for a morning run and still wore the sweat-stained T-shirt, running shorts, and sneakers upon his feet.

  She could smell him now, smell his sweat, and almost became sick, breathing through her mouth to counter the nausea.

  “Hey,” he said as he brought the bottle down from his mouth, screwing the cap back in place. “We should think about getting out of here sometime today. There’s a pretty big storm coming.”

  She’d heard the weather report earlier but had been distracted from the news by the fact that her husband had been getting ready to leave for his run. That was all she could focus on at that moment, the sweetness of him not being there. She would have tolerated the most destructive of natural disasters if it meant he wouldn’t be there.

  “I’ll start to pack,” she said, hating to speak to him because it would only lead to him talking to her more.

  She sensed his movement and turned to see that he had left the entryway and was approaching her.

  Oh God, she thought, feeling her revulsion rise. She turned to face him. The smell coming off his body was nearly too much, and she felt herself grow light-headed.

  “I should probably get started if we want an early start” she was able to get out without gagging, trying to move past him, but he reached out and gently took hold of her arm.

  The feeling of his hand on her flesh was beyond awful, and it took all that she could muster not to scream. And to think that at one time, so very long ago, when she was too young and naive, she had actually invited his touch.

  She fired a withering glance at his hand upon her arm, and he released her as if laser beams had shot from her eyes to sear his flesh.

  “Let me shower and I’ll go pick up Alfred from the vet,” he suggested.

  “No, I’ll do it,” she said quickly, seeing it as a way to remove herself from his loathsome presence, if only for a time. Yes, she would have to spend some of the time with the dog, but at least Alfred was somewhat tolerable.

  “Are you sure?” he asked, his voice like nails on a blackboard. “I can do it . . . just let me clean up a bit and—”

  “No,” she said with finality, already on the move to get away from him. “I’ll do it. You stay here and get the house ready for the storm.”

  She could feel his eyes following her as she was leaving the room.

  “Okay,” he said. “See ya when you get back.”

  Janice was already starting to feel better being away from him when she heard him call out from the sunroom, words that were like poison-dipped blades thrust into her flesh.

  “Love you,” Ronald Berthold announced.

  It was all she could do to keep from vomiting.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Sidney had hoped that a warm shower would have helped her headache, but that wasn’t the case. It felt as though she had a steel band wrapped around her forehead and somebody was slowly tightening it.

  She sometimes had problems with sinus headaches, especially when the weather was going to get bad, so it didn’t surprise her one bit to hear that a pretty serious storm was on the way.

  Before leaving the house, she’d taken two Advil, but it hadn’t done much of anything to cut the nausea-inducing pain, so she figured that maybe some caffeine might do the trick. At this stage in the game she would be willing to try just about anything. She wondered if it was entirely the weather’s fault for her nasty head pain, or if it also had to do with what had gone on earlier at the house with her father, and the message she still hadn’t listened to. Her eyes darted from the road to quickly glance at her phone on the passenger seat.

  Snowy whined from the backseat of the Jeep, realizing where Sidney was going. Charter Street was unusually crowded for a week day, and it took her longer to find a parking spot. An SUV pulled out of a space directly across from the Sunny Side Up Diner, and she thought maybe there was the chance that today wasn’t going to be as bad as she’d originally thought.

  The dog started to pace in the back of the Jeep, going from the window on one side to the other, whining the entire time. Sidney turned in the driver’s seat, motioning with her hand for Snowy to pay attention to her. She hadn’t intended on bringing Snowy to work with her today, but seeing as her father wasn’t having the best of days, she thought maybe it would be a good idea.

  Sidney snapped her fingers, even though the dog could not hear, but the movement was enough to capture her attention.

  “You be good for a minute, and I’ll bring you a corn muffin, all right?” Sidney said, giving the hand signal that informed the shepherd that she was leaving for a moment but would be right back.

  The dog sat obediently, watching her with a steely gaze as Sidney got out of the Jeep and crossed the street to the diner.

  Jillian, a classmate of hers since kindergarten, was working the to-go counter and greeted her with a smile, and immediately asked how she and Cody were doing. Sidney thought about just blowing it all off and saying they were fine, and leaving it like that, but she just couldn’t bring herself to do it, the words much harder to get out than she expected.

  “We’re not together anymore.”

  The expression on her friend’s face went from shock to sadness and sympathy.

  “Oh my God, what happened?”

  Sidney just didn’t want to get into it right now and attempted to simplify. “It was just one of those things. We’d grown apart, and with me leaving for school, we thought it would be best if . . .” Sidney paused, and Jillian accepted this as an invitation to put in her two cents.

  “That really sucks; I’m so sorry. I didn’t think you two would ever break up.”

  “Yeah, but . . . ,” Sidney said, eager to wrap the conversation up.

  “I thought for sure that you two were like, permanent. I could totally see the two of you married and stuff, and . . .”

  Sidney’s headache had grown much worse, and her stomach wasn’t doing too good at the moment either.

  “Things change,” Sidney said firmly, but then managed to smile.

  “Well I think it sucks,” Jillian added. “But who knows? Maybe you’ll get back together.”

  Sidney wanted to tell her no, that they wouldn’t be getting back together, and the fact that they had been together for so long didn’t necessarily mean that they were going to be together for eternity. It was just over; things like this happened.

  Instead she just smiled again, saying “Who knows,” and ordered up a large black tea to go, momentarily forgetting the corn muffin that she’d promised Snowy. But she quickly rectified the situation, putting the order in when Jillian brought her drink.

  Waiting for the muffin, she distracted herself by watching the flat-screen televisions on the wall above the counter and the weather forecast that was predicting doom and gloom. From what she could see, the storm was going to make a direct hit on Benediction with some heavy rains and high winds and might even stay a hurricane instead of being downgraded to a tropical storm, which is what usually happened.

  Great, Sidney thought, remembering the last bad summer storm and how they went without power for six and a half days, and that one had been downgraded.

  Jillian returned with her muffin and said again how sorry she was. Sidney thanked her through gritted teeth, leaving the diner with a wave while sipping from the steaming cup of tea. She decided to leave the tea bag in the boiling hot water, wanting the tea to be as strong as it could be to help alleviate the pressure in her head.

  She stopped on the sidewalk for an opening to cross, darting out when all was clear. Snowy was patiently waiting, eyes fixed on her as she approached the Jeep. Sidney could see that her tail was wagging lik
e crazy, somehow knowing that a special treat would soon be hers.

  “Were you a good girl?” Sidney asked as she slid into the driver’s seat.

  Snowy didn’t wait for an invitation, climbing from the back into the passenger’s seat, snout having already found the bag that contained the muffin.

  “All right, you gotta sit,” Sidney said while making the hand gesture that the dog was quite familiar with. Snowy sat, trickles of drool already leaking from the sides of her mouth in anticipation.

  The dog watched as Sidney rummaged in the bag, first breaking off a piece of muffin for herself, and then another for the dog, which was gently plucked from Sidney’s fingers. It wasn’t long before the corn muffin had completely disappeared, most of it making its way into Snowy’s belly. She didn’t give the German shepherd people food all that often, but every once in a while Sidney liked to give her special pup a treat.

  “There,” she said, crumpling up the bag. “How’s that?” She rubbed the dog’s head and pointed ears affectionately, then signaled for Snowy to return to the back before they could go.

  Sidney turned the key in the ignition, starting the Jeep up, but before putting it in drive, she unconsciously reached for her phone, checking for new messages.

  The message from Cody was still there, begging to be listened to.

  She thought she was stronger than that, strong enough to put the phone away—maybe even delete the message—before heading on to work, but in a moment of weakness she called up the voice mail to listen.

  “Hey, it’s me,” Cody’s voice began. “I know you said that you didn’t want to talk anymore about . . . about us . . . but I think we should—”

  Sidney gasped, startled as somebody rapped a knuckle against the driver’s-side window. Lowering the phone, she saw an all too familiar smiling face at the window, motioning for her to put the window down.