Before the Storm by Diane Chamberlain Page B

return to my roots.
    Jamie was struck by the loss of my parents.
    “Both your parents died when you were twelve?” he asked,
    incredulous. “At the same time?”
    “Yes, but I don’t think about it much.”
    “Maybe you should think about it,” he said.
    “It’s all in the past.” I’d healed from that loss and saw no point
    in revisiting it.
    “Things like that can come back to bite you later,” he said.
    “Were they in an accident?”
    “You’re awfully pushy.” I laughed, but he didn’t crack a
    smile.
    “Seriously,” he said.
    I sighed then and told him about the fire on the cruise ship
    that killed fifty-two people, my parents included.
    “Fire on a cruise ship.” He shook his head. “Rock and a hard
    place.”
    “Some people jumped.”
    “Your parents?”
    “No. I wish they had.” Before I’d perfected my counting-
    backward-from-one-thousand technique, vivid fiery images
    of my parents had filled my head whenever I tried to go to
    sleep.
    Jamie read my mind. “The smoke got them first, you can

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    bet on it,” he said.“They were probably unconscious before the
    fire reached them.”
    Although I hadn’t wanted to talk about it, I still took
    comfort from that thought. Jamie knew about fire, since he
    was a volunteer firefighter in Wilmington. For days after he’d
    fight a fire, I could smell smoke on him. He’d shower and scrub
    his long hair and still the smell would linger, seeping out of his
    pores. It was a smell I began to equate with him, a smell I began
    to like.
    He took me to meet his family after we’d been seeing each
    other for three weeks. Even though they lived in Wilmington,
    I was to meet them at their beach cottage on Topsail Island
    where they spent most weekends. I’d probably been to Topsail
    as a child, but had no memory of it. Jamie teased me that my
    mispronunciation of the island—I said Topsale instead of
    Topsul —was a dead giveaway.
    By that time, he’d bought me my own black leather jacket
    and white helmet, and I was accustomed to riding with him.
    My arms were wrapped around him as we started across the
    high-rise bridge. Far below us, I saw a huge maze of tiny rectangular islands.
    “What is that down there?” I shouted.
    Jamie steered the bike to the side of the bridge, even though
    ours was the only vehicle on the road. I climbed off and peered
    over the railing. The grid of little islands ran along the shoreline
    of the Intracoastal Waterway for as far as I could see. Miniature
    fir trees and other vegetation grew on the irregular rectangles
    of land, the afternoon sun lighting the water between them
    with a golden glow.“It looks like a little village for elves,” I said.

    before the storm
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    Jamie stood next to me, our arms touching through layers
    of leather.“It’s marshland,” he said,“but it does have a mystical
    quality to it, especially this time of day.”
    We studied the marshland a while longer, then got back on
    the bike.
    I knew Jamie’s parents owned a lot of land on the island, especially in the northernmost area called West Onslow Beach.
    After World War II, his father had worked in a secret missile
    testing program on Topsail Island called Operation Bumblebee. He’d fallen in love with the area and used what money he
    had to buy land that mushroomed in value over the decades.
    As we rode along the beach road, Jamie pointed out property
    after property belonging to his family. Many parcels had mobile
    homes parked on them, some of the trailers old and rusting,
    though the parcels themselves were worth plenty. There were
    several well-kept houses with rental signs in front of them and
    even a couple of the old f lat-roofed, three-story concrete
    viewing towers that had been used during Operation Bumblebee. I was staggered to realize the wealth Jamie had grown up
    with.
    “We don’t live rich, though,” Jamie had said when he told
    me about his father’s smart investments. “Daddy says that