The McAvoy Sisters Book of Secrets by Molly Fader

Author:Molly Fader
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Graydon House Books
Published: 2019-05-16T18:08:14+00:00

Eighteen

Lindy

Mom woke up on Thursday in the mood for a walk. She put on Dad’s old hat and her walking shoes, same as her other shoes, just—unbelievably—a brighter white. She even found an old cane in the closet from when Delia sprained her knee in high school.

“Mom,” Lindy said, shoving her feet into her tennis shoes without socks because Mom wasn’t giving her time to find any. “You sure you want to do this?”

The doctor said exercise, supervised and light, was good for her. But she knew her mother wasn’t the strolling type.

“What have I always said, Lindy?”

“Don’t trust men who drive red cars?”

“Besides that.”

“Don’t trust men who use toothpicks in public.”

“Lindy—”

“I don’t know what you want me to say right now!” Lindy pulled the rubber band from her wrist and put her hair up. She was not wearing her butt cheek cutoffs and she had a bra on. So it was a victory.

“Exercise isn’t just good for your body,” Mom said.

“You never once in your life said that.”

“Well, I thought it. Let’s go.”

Mom was out the back door and around the side of the house before Lindy managed to find her purse.

“Slow down there, speedy.” Lindy caught up with her by the hydrangea bush. “Where are we going?”

“Shortcut.”

The shortcut into town that dropped them at the bottom of the spit.

“Mom,” she said, matching her mother’s pace as they walked down the street to the edge of the ridge. The shortcut used to be a worn-out trail that disappeared into the grove of trees along the ridgeline. Sometimes it would wash out during a big storm and it could be seriously treacherous at night, but if you were a kid on a bike or on foot, the shortcut shaved twenty minutes and a giant hill off the trip into town.

In the last seventeen years, some genius had decided to make it a legitimate path, with concrete, a handrail and everything.

Meredith started down the staircase, one hand on her cane, the other on the handrail. She went slow and steady as if completely aware of her limitations.

At the bottom they stepped down into a small forested area on the side of the road. At the end of the road was the spit. And the Fulbright House.

They both stopped. Lindy didn’t mean to, she was going to walk right on by, but Mom hadn’t moved.

“Look at that place,” Mom whispered.

“It’s pretty ugly.”

“It was always ugly. Ugly people lived there.”

Lindy thought of Garrett’s story about Mr. Fulbright trying to get him arrested because of his skin color. Why didn’t anyone ever stand up to them? she wondered. What was it about all that money that made people keep their mouths shut?

“I never understood how you could go out there after your father died.”

“You knew?”

Mom shot her a sideways glance.

“It’s where the parties were,” Lindy finally said with a shrug. “I liked parties.”

Mom grunted and soldiered on.

For a moment, Lindy stayed in the shade of the trees. It was another beautiful day in Port Lorraine.

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