“Allison?”
“It’s late. I didn’t mean to stay this long.”
“You’re really not staying here?” he asked. “Not even for a night?”
“Tourist season’s over. I can find a hotel easy.” Allison stood up and wiped the sand off her pants. “I’ll stay the night in Astoria and run by the hospital tomorrow morning.”
“Do you want to at least see the house again before you go?” he asked.
For his sake, for the sake of the hurt he was trying to hide, she decided to humor him.
“All right,” she said. “It would be nice to see the house one more time.”
In silence, they walked back to the deck, and at the side door took their sandy shoes and socks off and left them on the rack in the mudroom. She hung up her jacket, as well, and saw windbreakers and flip-flops, umbrellas and heavy winter coats. Something for every season on the coast. Roland stripped off his sand-covered checkered flannel and hung it up on a hook. Underneath he wore a plain white T-shirt that hugged his strong shoulders. She grinned to herself at the sight.
“What?” Roland asked.
“What’s a monk doing with big shoulders like yours?”
Roland laughed, almost blushed, modest as a monk.
“We carry the cares of the world on our shoulders,” he said. “It’s our version of resistance training.”
Roland opened the mudroom door to the house and said, “After you.”
She paused before passing through, a small pause, but Roland noticed.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “No one else is home.”
“Sorry. It’s a little weird coming back here,” she said. “Been a long time.”
She wasn’t scared of Roland, though he was a stranger now. And she wasn’t scared of anyone who might be lurking in the shadows waiting to jump out and throw her down the stairs. What scared her was the ache in her chest, the ache of longing for this house, this family, even though she knew better.
Allison stepped gingerly through the door into the foyer. Glancing around, she saw that little had changed since she’d left. There was the sunroom with the floor-to-ceiling windows. And she saw the same long ebony table with the wooden benches in the dining room—the perfect table for a family of eight. Roland led her down the hall and she saw the kitchen, which was much like she recalled except in her day the walls had been yellow and now they were painted red. Big kitchen. A family kitchen. Not fancy. Not formal. There were even drawings still hanging on the fridge. Allison walked over to inspect them. One drawing was of a series of brightly colored fish, all of them with human hairstyles. The Roland fish had long blond hair, the father fish had brown wavy hair and a gray beard, the Deacon fish had black hair sticking in all directions and the Thora fish had wavy hair the color of the setting sun. At the bottom of the page in a child’s hand was written The Fishpellos.
“I did that,” Allison said, staring at the Allison fish with the curly brown hair. “I was...nine? Eight?”
“Something like that,” Roland said. “My hair was never that long, though. You made me look like Bon Jovi. I mean, if he were a fish.”
“There’s nothing wrong with looking like Bon Jovi,” she said. She had added on to the drawing as the years passed and kids had come to the house and stayed. Oliver had a blond bowl cut so Allison had drawn him with a fish bowl over his head, while she’d drawn Kendra’s beaded braids as rainbow stripes. Even the cat, Potatoes O’Brien, got the Fishpello treatment. He was, of course, a catfish.
“Yours looks like you,” Roland said. “Got the nice pouty fish lips.” He made a fish face, mocking her rather thick bottom lip. McQueen had been a fan of her little lip bow, too.
Allison half laughed, half groaned. “I cannot believe this thing is still on the fridge. It’s so stupid.”
“Dad thought it was the cutest thing ever. He missed you, you know,” Roland said. “We all missed you.”
“Missed you, too,” she said quietly. “Didn’t realize how much until I got your letter.”
“I should have written you a long time ago,” he said. “I talked to Dad about you sometimes. I asked him once if he thought it would be okay to look for you. He said if you wanted us, you’d come back on your own. But you didn’t. I told myself you forgot about us. Better than thinking you hated me.”
“Don’t move,” she said.
“What?”
“Just...stay here.” Allison walked back to the mudroom, grabbed her bag off the hook and pulled out the photograph that she’d kept with her for thirteen years and four moves. She took it back to the kitchen where Roland stood waiting, back against the fridge.
“Here,” she said, and handed him the photograph. “Proof I never forgot.”
He took the picture from her and stared at it. Then he turned and put it on the fridge with a magnet. Then he took his wallet out from his back pocket and removed a photo of his own. It was the missing section of her picture, the torn-off part. With another magnet he put the two halves of the photograph together. Now it was complete. Allison in Roland’s arms, Roland standing next to Deacon standing next to Thora and all of them holding their sparklers together so that the four glowing tips became one.
“You gave me the picture?” Allison asked.
“I guess you really don’t remember anything from that time,” he said. “You were in the hospital and I wanted to go talk to you. Dad had told us you were going home with your aunt when you got discharged so I knew it was probably my last chance to clear the air with you. I waited until after dark and I snuck in to see you.”
Allison looked at him, stunned.
“You were asleep,” he said. “So not a big surprise you don’t remember that. But I talked to you for a long time, anyway. Probably my first confession.”
“What did you confess?”
“I said...” Roland paused. His eyes darkened. “I said I was sorry about what happened between us. I said I wished I’d been at home so I could have helped you when you fell. I said I hoped you’d get to come home to us soon. But if you didn’t, I wanted you to have this picture of us until you could come home again.”
Allison blinked and hot tears fell.
“I wondered where this picture came from,” she said. “I thought your dad put it in my suitcase.”
“I wanted you to remember us,” Roland said. “I should have given you the whole picture but I wanted to remember you, too. Monks don’t carry wallets but I had that picture of you in my prayer book until I left.” He paused and seemed to be deciding if he should say what he said next. “I prayed for you.”
“You did? What did you pray?” she asked, deeply touched. Had anyone else ever prayed for her?
“Nothing
