“I’m sorry... I didn’t know.” Jesse stepped toward a familiar image. One of him with Loxley and the Brants at Martha’s Vineyard when they’d started dating.
“Why did you frame this one? I don’t deserve to be on this wall.”
Mr. Brant motioned for Jesse to sit in an oversized, leather chair as he took the one adjacent.
“For a long time we blamed you, because grief must have a target. We couldn’t blame our girl, so we dumped our anger, frustration, hurt on you.”
“As I deserved.”
“But did it make us feel better? Relieve any of our pain? No. It only made us hard and bitter. One day I happened by the department’s chaplain. A good man. Tony George is his name. I retired from the force, you know.”
“I did not.”
“Anyway, he said, ‘David, how are you doing?’ I tell you, I could’ve punched through a brick wall with everything broilinginside. Barbara and I were not doing well. We both worked too much. Hardly spoke to one another when we were home.”
Jesse listened. It’s what he came to do.
Mrs. Brant set two plates on the center table. “Let’s have our pie in here. I’ll be back with the coffee.” She exchanged a smile and a knowing glance with her husband.
Jesse hesitated, unsure there was room for pie amid the tension in his gut, no matter how tempting the aroma. But when Mr. Brant took up his, Jesse followed.
“Where was I?” he said.
“Punching a brick wall.”
The man grinned, cutting a bite from the tip of his slice. “Tony just asked if he could pray for me. Fat lot of good it would do, but I agreed. Nothing else seemed to work. When he was done, I felt peace for the first time in years. Even since before Loxley died.”
Jesse stabbed at his pie and the melting ice cream. “I wanted to tell you how sorry I am for my part in her death.” He set down the plate and stood, his nerves buzzing. “I pretended to propose to her. I mocked her. She thought we were in love, but I already knew I didn’t feel the same. Instead of being honest, I made fun of what she wanted, of how she felt, of who she thought we were.”
Mr. Brant set down his plate and leaned forward, hands folded. “And she walked off?”
“I tried to follow her, but she told me to leave her alone.” Jesse paced along the wall where Loxley smiled at him from a different world.
“Sounds like our girl.”
“I guess she got in the water. I don’t know. When she didn’t come back, we looked for her.” The words spilled out of him. A story eight years in the waiting.
Mrs. Brant entered with the coffee and her own pie plate. She sat on the love seat next to her husband. “Did you tell him?”
“Not yet. He’s filling me in on the details of that night.”
“I see.” She sipped her coffee, so calm, so in control of heremotions, while he felt like a runaway train. “You should tell him. He’s about to jump out of his skin.”
“Tell me what?”
“Loxley called us that night. We knew you two had had a fight and that she was walking the beach alone.”
Jesse returned to his chair.
“We tried to get her to calm down,” Mr. Brant said with a glance toward his wife. “I told her to take a swim. Cool off.”
“W-what? You told her to take a swim? And you never said anything?”
“We were too hurt. Too angry. Why blame ourselves when we could blame you?”
“I am not innocent here by a long stretch, but—”
“Did you know there was a riptide?”
