Page 20 of The Summer that Changed Everything
Patti lifted her chin. “Trailer trash! You wanted trailer trash over our beautiful daughter?”
He’d had a lot of time to think about the kind of person Lucy had been, how classy she was when he cut off their relationship—without even calling her—and how stoically she’d carried on in spite of everything. “Lucy was one of the kindest, most decent people I’ve ever known. I sincerely regret that I didn’t make a bigger point of telling everyone that fifteen years ago.” He picked up his credit card along with his laptop and tossed a hundred-dollar bill on the table. “And now, if you’ll excuse me.”
“So... what is it you’re doing in North Hampton Beach?” Missy asked.
Lucy was still a little rattled by her encounter with Reggie Burton, which was why, after spending the rest of the afternoon trying to talk herself into some sort of calm and failing miserably, she’d called her best friend in Vegas. She’d needed to hear a familiar voice, be reminded that she was no longer the vulnerable person she’d been when she lived here. “I just... wanted to get away.”
“But why North Hampton Beach? I’ve never even heard you mention that place.”
For good reason. She’d been trying to escape the terrible legacy her father had left behind. She wished that would’ve been possible, that whatever was driving her to seek justice for Aurora hadn’t reared its ugly head and interrupted the life she’d built so carefully in the west. “You’ve probably heard that quote by e. e. cummings—it’s always ourselves we find in the sea.”
“California’s on the coast, too,” Missy reminded her. “And it’s a hell of a lot closer.”
“California beach towns are different.” She’d missed the East Coast but coming back probably wasn’t going to be worth what it cost her, especially now that she’d alerted Reggie to the reason she’d returned. She’d kicked a hornet’s nest, which would very likely get the whole town buzzing.
Lucy didn’t like to think about what Reggie might’ve done had Anna not been there. It was entirely possible he wouldn’t have done anything more than he did—shout at her. But he was so damn menacing. He reminded her of a growling junkyard dog, teeth bared, as he strained at his tether, probably because his own dog had been barking so threateningly from inside the duplex.
“So what’s it like there?” Missy asked.
Lucy pulled her mind back to the conversation. “The town or the coast?”
“The town, I guess.”
“It’s located on Virginia’s Northern Neck Peninsula, about an hour’s drive from Washington DC and Richmond, and it’s a river town as much as a beach town.”
“What river are we talking about?”
“The Potomac.”
“Isn’t that the one George Washington crossed?”
Lucy chuckled. “That was the Delaware.”
“Oh, well, I was never very good at history. How many people live in North Hampton Beach?”
“Only about four thousand. It’s a sleepy little town most of the time with a handful of mom-and-pop restaurants, some gift shops, that sort of thing.”
“You seem to know a lot about it...”
“I lived here once,” she admitted.
“On the East Coast?When?”
Propping her legs on the coffee table where she was sitting on the screen porch, she looked out at the darkness. She couldn’t see the ocean from the cottage, but she could hear the surf. “When I was a kid.”
“Before your father died?”
Her mind conjured up the image of Mick as she’d seen him in prison. He’d looked like a stranger. In some ways, he’d felt like one, too. She’d gained enough distance from his crimes that she felt she could be more honest about her past—with Missy if no one else. But if she remained silent, she’d be able to return to Vegas when she was done with North Hampton Beach and never have to be reminded of the past, never have to talk about it or account for it. So as hard as it was to continue to hide that part of her personal history now that she was dealing with it again, she decided to stay the course. “Yeah, before my father died.”
Everything else she’d told Missy about her childhood was basically true. She told everyone who asked about her past that after her mother ran off, she’d been raised by a single father,that they’d moved around a lot and that he’d died when she was only seventeen, at which point she’d set out on her own. Death instead of prison. That was the only change—and yet it left out what had defined her life more than anything else.
“If that’s where you lost him, it must be a trigger for you.”
“I was happy here, so the memories are definitely bittersweet.”
“I’m sorry he died so early, especially considering how much you must’ve needed him. Do you want me to see if I can get some time off so I can come out there? I hate that you’re facing those kinds of memories alone.”
“I’m fine. Really. I’d never expect you to do that. I know you need to work.”
