The Beach Trees by Karen White

Author:Karen White
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Penguin Group USA, Inc.
Published: 2011-04-10T14:30:00+00:00

It was dark when we returned to New Orleans. I carried a sleeping Beau up to his room and put him to bed, then retrieved Monica’s box from the back of the van before returning to the house. I assumed Aimee was at yet another Christmas tour-of-homes meeting, and I’d long since given up trying to keep track of Trey’s comings and goings.

Thinking of the large table Trey had set up in his study for the house plans, I went there and set the box on it, then began to unpack everything. I laid out the frames and ribbons, the stuffed animals, baby doll, and Rubik’s Cube. I pulled out a vinyl photo album with what appeared to be water damage on the corners, the pages all glued together. I left it alone, afraid to ruin any of the pictures inside. The corsages were too brittle, so I left them where they were. But in the corner of the box in the bottom, beneath a hand-knitted scarf with the needles still sticking in it, was a dark red leather-bound journal. In the top right in thick black ink and in fancy calligraphy, someone had inscribed the initials MMG. Monica Mercier Guidry.

I lifted it out carefully and stood holding it for a full minute before I could talk myself into opening the front cover. Inside, in her unmistakably girlish handwriting, Monica had written, The Life and Times of Monica Guidry, 1992. I let out a held breath, all of my expectations slowly dissipating. Monica had been ten years old in 1992, and I couldn’t imagine her having anything monumental to write about besides prepubescent crushes and the never-ending quest for a true best friend.

I flipped to the first page, dated January 1, 1992, and read the two-line entry. Trey gave this journal to me for Christmas, so I guess I should write in it. But I think I want to draw in it instead. Below the writing was a pencil sketch of a young Trey. It just showed him from his neck up, but it was unmistakably him. But as I looked closer, I realized that there was something I didn’t recognize in the eyes of the Trey I knew, something innocent and mischievous, as if he were in the middle of devising a prank when the ten-year-old Monica decided to capture him in lead and paper. Where did that boy go? I was left wondering if he’d fled in the aftermath of Katrina, as if his innocence had been one more loss, or if he’d gone when Monica had left ten years ago.

I turned the pages slowly, drawn in by the sketches of New Orleans landmarks—Saint Louis Cathedral, close-ups of wrought-iron fences, street vendors, and Café Du Monde. Interspersed with these were sketches of River Song and its environs, of Trey fishing on a pier and in a kayak with another boy, of multiple pairs of feet and flip-flops in the sand, and many sketches of Aimee with an older

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