Sea Glass Summer by Dorothy Cannell Page B

an outdoor voice called.
    Moments passing . . . passing . . . and then the face of Madge Baldwin staring wild-eyed at her from the doorstep. ‘Oh, I thought you’d never come. I’ve been banging for five minutes. It’s Charles.’
    â€˜Tell me!’ The words clawed their way up her throat.
    â€˜He’s taken the car. When I drove it into the garage he came out through the mud room. He asked for the keys and when I said no, he grabbed them from me and there was nothing I could do to stop him. Please don’t look like that! Maybe it will be all right – he got the engine started without any problem. I know it would have been better if he hadn’t, that would have bought time, but he wasn’t weaving as he went down the road. At least the rain has stopped. Let’s think positive, Gwen.’
    â€˜The police.’
    â€˜You think you should phone them?’
    â€˜I have to think. I don’t want him frightened, but I can’t stand by and wait for him to cause an accident. Listen! There’s a car coming. Oh, please, God, let it be him!’ While Madge remained rooted to the step, Gwen hurried distractedly down the path to stand peering up and down the road. A car that was not hers drew up alongside the curb. The driver’s-side window slid down and a man’s head appeared.
    â€˜Problem? Struck me you look panicky?’ It was a rumbling English voice, somehow the more reassuring because it was bluntly matter of fact. ‘Need help?’
    Gwen drew her first full breath since waking up. ‘It’s my son,’ she said steadily. ‘Charles Norris. He shouldn’t be driving and he’s taken the car.’ And then she heard herself add with the irrelevance of such moments: ‘He was named after his father. To family and friends he’s always been Sonny.’

Three
    Nine-year-old Oliver Cully woke at 5 a.m., two hours earlier than usual on Saturday morning to a pale, clear sky. The sun was already up, but who cared about seeing the sun today? He knew it was wrong to think that way when God had put it in the sky, but his heart had hardened towards the Almighty over the past few days and he had already gone off Him some since Grandpa got sick. Oliver usually got up at seven. On school days this allowed him plenty of time to be ready for the bus that arrived at 8.15 a.m. On ordinary, happy weekends he wasn’t about to waste precious minutes lying in bed. Even so, five would normally have been a bit too early for a Saturday. But today was to be anything but ordinary.
    This morning was the last he’d spend in this house with Grandpa, the person he loved best in this world. Two people he’d never met were coming to take him to live with them. He knew of them as Uncle Gerard and Aunt Elizabeth. Grandpa had always referred to them that way, although not often because all he really knew of them was that Gerard had been Oliver’s father’s older brother and that he and Elizabeth lived in New York City.
    The furniture in Oliver’s bedroom was old, but his bed was painted red and the side tables, dresser and chest a dark blue. It had been that way since he was six. Grandpa had let him pick the colors and the curtains and comforter with cowboys on them. They had done the painting together. And Grandpa had let him use the big brush half the time. On top of the chest were several photos of Oliver’s Mom and Dad, one with them holding him as a baby and another when he was two and holding his teddy bear. Oliver still took it under the covers at night. He never fell asleep without saying goodnight to Mom and Dad’s smiling faces. But, Grandpa explained, they would be right there anyway while he slept. Those photos and Teddy were now in one of the cases he would take with him that morning.
    Oliver dangled a leg before climbing disconsolately out of bed. How could you be expected to like people who’d never bothered about you