Chapter 17 - Sand on the Lake
Lake Michigan in late October is not for tourists.
The wind comes off the water in great, freezing slaps that smell of cold slate and cedar needles, and the waves roll in gray and crested with white foam, thundering against the sandy bluffs like cannon fire.
It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.
For five days, we lived in Aaron’s brother’s cedar cabin tucked behind the dunes in Grand Haven. There was no cell service unless you walked half a mile out to the lighthouse pier, and we didn't walk out to the pier.
We built roaring fires in the stone fireplace out of birch logs that popped like firecrackers. We ate pancakes with real maple syrup for dinner. Theo wore his blue down parka with the silver astronaut patch, running along the water's edge with a piece of driftwood, pretending he was an explorer on the frozen moons of Jupiter.
"Look, Mom!" he shouted, his cheeks blazing red from the cold wind, holding up a round, smooth Petoskey stone. "It has stars inside it! Real stars!"
I knelt down in the damp sand beside him, taking the stone into my palm. The ancient, fossilized coral patterns looked like tiny galaxies frozen in gray rock.
"That's because this stone used to live under a warm ocean millions of years ago," I said, tucking a stray lock of brown hair behind his cold ear. "And even when the ocean froze and dried up, the stars stayed inside."
"Can I keep it forever?"
"Forever and a day, Commander."
Theo smiled, dropped the stone into his deep parka pocket where it clinked against Dad’s railroad watch, and took off running after a flock of gulls that took flight into the gray mist like thrown confetti.
Aaron walked up behind me, wrapping a heavy wool blanket around my shoulders, his arms crossing over my chest to pull me back against him. He rested his chin on the top of my head, breathing in the cold air with me.
"Greg called the landline at the cabin this morning while you two were picking pinecones," Aaron said quietly.
I leaned back into his warmth, watching Theo’s small blue silhouette against the vast, gray horizon. "What happened?"
"Mom accepted a plea deal," Aaron said.
The wind howled through the beach grass, carrying the sound of the surf.
"What did she take?" I asked.
"Ten years," Aaron said, his voice steady, devoid of anger, devoid of pity. "Four years served at Rockville Correctional Facility, three years of community corrections with an ankle monitor, and three years of formal probation. She has to make full restitution of eighty-two thousand dollars to the state and the victims, and she signed an irrevocable lifetime protective order barring her from ever coming within five hundred yards of Theo, Aaron, and Kendra Miller."
I closed my eyes.
Rockville Correctional was a brick-and-razor-wire compound seventy miles southwest of Indianapolis, surrounded by flat cornfields and drainage ditches. There were no chardonnay luncheons there. There were no church committees, no pink balloon arches, no lake lots, and no family members to bend over backwards to feed her hunger for drama.
"And Mallory?" I asked.
"Mallory had the baby yesterday," Aaron said.
I opened my eyes, looking out over the water. "Is she okay?"
"A girl," Aaron said. "Seven pounds, two ounces. She named her Nora. Not Paisley-Rae. Just Nora."
"Is Wayne there?"
"Wayne signed the divorce papers from his lawyer’s office in Greenwood. He’s paying forty dollars a week in child support and gave up all visitation until the girl is three." Aaron paused, his grip tightening around me. "Your dad was at the hospital, Kendra. He stayed in the waiting room the whole twelve hours. When Mallory came out of recovery, Dad carried Nora down the hall to show her the nursery window. He said Mallory cried for two hours, held the baby, and asked him if you were ever coming home."
A single tear spilled over my lashes, hot against the freezing wind, and dropped onto the wool blanket.
"What did Dad tell her?" I whispered.
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"Dad told her that you were teaching Commander Theo how to navigate through deep space," Aaron said gently. "And that when Commander Theo is ready, he’ll decide which planets are safe to visit."
***