You are strong at the broken places. I blinked quickly, clearing my vision, and remembered Loralee saying that to me, remembered how I’d wanted to argue with her. “Move,” I said again to the back of the SUV, but with less conviction this time, my wipers beating back and forth, back and forth. Courage is doing the one thing you think you cannot do. The words came to me in a rush, not as if they’d been spoken, but almost as if they’d taken up residence somewhere in my brain.
My breathing slowed, my hands loosening on the steering wheel. I neared the end of the bridge, aware of the lights along either side of me but still not daring to look away from the road directly in front. The traffic surged forward and I went with it, following the cars until we’d left the bridge and were back on solid ground again.
Blood pounded in my ears, and I thought for a moment that I should pull over to catch my breath, to make sure I wasn’t going to do what Loralee had feared and give myself a heart attack. If the muscles in my face hadn’t been so frozen, I probably would have smiled at hearing myself say those words in my head with a soft Alabama accent. But I couldn’t stop. Owen was out there in the dark night, alone and maybe lost, and I was going to find him.
The rain had lessened to a light drizzle, and I finally pried my fingers from the steering wheel and switched the wipers to intermittent. On the back roads of Lady’s Island the dark wedged itself between the trees like a fist, obliterating all light and making it difficult to navigate by landmarks. I flipped on my high beams, allowing my headlights to illuminate a wider path. I tried not to dwell on the occasional pair of yellow eyes in the underbrush by the side of the road as I looked not only for landmarks, but for a blue bike and a red helmet and a little boy who was too far from home. My only hope was that Owen had managed to make it to Gibbes’s house before nightfall, and that he’d thought to find shelter on the porch.
I came up to a road on my right, recognizing a seventies-style ranch house with brightly colored Christmas lights hanging from the sagging front porch. I turned, knowing I was headed in the right direction. I pushed the accelerator down, unaware of my speed, just needing to get where I was going. The long drive at the front of Gibbes’s property loomed ahead, and I pulled in at the metal mailbox I remembered, the relief spreading through my joints and expanding my lungs.
Dirt, gravel, and mud flew from the back tires as I tore down the road, afraid to slow down just in case my car got mired in the muck. A single porch light glowed in the distance and I began to get worried all over again. What if he isn’t here?
I skidded to a stop in the drive and threw the car in park. Leaving the keys in the ignition and the headlights bright, I ran from the car to the front porch. “Owen? Owen—it’s me, Merritt. Are you here?”
But the porch was empty, the rocking chairs still. Not here. The dock. I jumped off the porch, feeling my shoes squish in the mud, then ran toward the dock. “Owen? Owen? Are you here?”
“Merritt?”
Did I imagine that? I stumbled over something, nearly tripping in the mud, but managed to catch myself. It was Owen’s bike. “Owen?”
“I’m over here. On the dock.”
I turned toward the dock to where the whole creek was illuminated by the soft glow of Beaufort’s lights reflecting off low clouds. I saw Owen then, at least the outline of him, wearing the yellow rain slicker his mother had bought for him, the same one that he’d told me in confidence nobody—especially no boys—wore past second grade.
“Owen!” I cried, running down the dock, then catching him in my arms as he grabbed mine and squeezing him as tightly as I could until I heard him struggling for breath. I pulled away from him, but neither one of us wanted to let go. “Are you all right? Are you hurt?” I went from being relieved to angry to worried, then back again, unable to settle on a single emotion.
“I’m fine,” he said, his voice choked with tears. “I just . . .”
“You needed to touch base. I get it; I do. But I was so scared. . . .” I crushed him against me again, unable to finish my sentence, afraid the fear would return. I knelt in front of him. “Don’t you ever leave without telling me where you’re going; do you understand? Never. I was so worried.”
“I’m sorry, Merritt,” he said, wiping his sleeve across his nose. “I didn’t want to wake you up, and I thought Dr. Heyward would be here and he could call you. When I got here it wasn’t dark yet, but then it was and I was too afraid to go to the porch because I couldn’t see anything. I was just feeling so sad. . . .”
I brushed his soaking hair off his forehead. “I know. Me, too. But we’ve got to look out for each other. It’s you and me, right? Like Thing One and Thing Two?” I’d been studying up on Dr. Seuss, and hoped I’d made the right reference.
“Yeah,” he said, and I felt him smile.
“Promise me you’ll never do that again.”
“I promise.”
Something dropped from his jacket onto the dock and I leaned forward to pick it up. It was a book wrapped inside a plastic bag. “Your mother’s journal.”