Away with the Fishes by Stephanie Siciarz

Author:Stephanie Siciarz [Siciarz, Stephanie]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Pink Moon Press
Published: 2014-08-06T00:00:00+00:00

It was nearly midnight when the bakery quieted down. Most of the flood of customers had come and gone by ten, but the next two hours witnessed a steady flow of the men-about-town who, with nowhere else to party, dropped in at the bakery whenever Trevor stayed open late. Raoul had gone home when the tide of islanders ebbed, and Randolph left soon after. He was headed to the courthouse where Madison was jailed, hoping to finagle a visit despite the late hour. Branson, who remained at the bakery with Trevor, was a bundle of nerves. He could hardly stand still as the young men talked about trials and evidence and a fisherman maybe gone mad, but he resisted, so that he could speak with Trevor alone after the partiers departed.

Finally, the last one sensed that the conversation and his welcome were wearing thin, and he grudgingly said his “good nights.” Such was Branson’s relief as he watched the man walk out—palpable, practically—that it drove Trevor to ask him, “What’s going on with you?”

“Aren’t you worried about Madison?” Branson replied.

“You know I am! But you look like you just killed Rena yourself. What’s the matter?”

Branson sighed. He hadn’t yet gotten round to telling Trevor about May’s visit and her accusations, but once he did, Trevor suddenly recalled, and made sense of, May’s scene at the bakery the day before. He started to laugh.

“What’s so funny?” Branson said, offended.

“What’s so funny is that silly woman thinks you’re so in love with her, you would put an ad in the Morning Crier to get her back.”

Branson looked at Trevor sheepishly and didn’t say a word.

“Don’t tell me you did it! You placed the ad?” Trevor was incredulous.

“No, of course I didn’t! You know me better than that. But she thinks I did.”

“Who cares what she thinks?”

“I do.” Branson explained that seeing May again had reminded him how much she once meant to him, that he had fooled himself into believing a stint off the island had erased his feelings. It simply wasn’t true.

Trevor didn’t like where Branson was headed. He remembered how much his friend had suffered at May’s hands, and he still blamed her for Branson’s eight-year absence from Oh. “Do you really want to jump back into that mess?” he asked him. “May didn’t seem too keen on you yesterday, when she was standing here spitting fire.”

“She hates me alright,” Branson confirmed.

Trevor wasn’t following and said so.

Branson sighed impatiently, failing to see how his dearest friend could fail to see the solution, obvious as it was.

“If I go to the police and say that I’m the one who placed the anonymous ad, then that would clear Madison’s name, and May won’t hate me anymore.”

“Says who?” Trevor objected. “You don’t know if she still has feelings for you—it didn’t look to me like she did—and how can you be so sure, if she does, that this is all it will take to win her back?”

Branson was silent.

“Have you thought about this,” Trevor went on.

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