Chapter 11
Sam
I couldn’t find the house.
For hours, I drove around the town of Sandwich, which was probably quite nice, if you liked that sort of thing, which I didn’t. I have never been one for the quaint towns and the charming little places. I like the fast pace of a city, the high-speed internet and an array of restaurants representing every nationality on the globe. I had been with Natalie to see her folks, once or twice in college. I was certain I’d remember the house, a clapboard affair on the beach. But, as it turned out, there was a lot of coastline, and many, many cottage-type houses, all looking annoying similar but quite certainly not the right house. All the streets were familiar but after driving around endlessly, I finally gave up.
I was hungry anyway and stopped at a coffee shop in town for a greasy hamburger that the plump waitress assured me was the best in town. The coffee was barely drinkable, but I swallowed it like medicine. I needed the caffeine after all. Then I searched online for guesthouses but since I didn’t know the name of their place, I was stuck looking at one picture after another, becoming more uncertain by the minute. Eventually I added Natalie’s family surname to my search and was finally rewarded by a comment that Natalie’s mom had made to a guest review. Sue Deane had been polite and dignified in her response and now I had a name.
The Sandpiper.
And an address.
I entered it into the GPS and found that I hadn’t been that far off the mark.
I parked outside the right house and took a deep breath. It was important that I get this right. I had to find the right approach. When it came to business, I never had a problem convincing people of the superiority of our product. But when it came to me, personally, I was not entirely sure how to go about it. I had a lot to offer, though, didn’t I? A thought flashed through my head of Skye, leaving me when Ethan was only eight months old. During our fight, she’d said she couldn’t stay with me another minute. “You’re every woman’s worst nightmare, you know that?” she’d screamed at me, tears running down her face, ruining her mascara. I hadn’t had a girlfriend since then. But I’d never felt what I had felt with Natalie. That had to mean something.
I knocked on the door, I’d hoped that Natalie would open it.
But it was her mother.
I recognized Sue Deane, a strongly built woman almost as tall as me. She had a smile on her face but as soon as she saw me, her face changed.
“Mrs. Deane,” I started. “You won’t remember me, but I’m Sam Marshall. I am looking for Natalie?”
“Oh, I remember you all right.” She folded her arms across her chest and stared at me with an expression of hostility and contempt.
“What the hell are you doin’ here?” her voice was shaking with what seemed like real anger.
Her response threw me.
“I’m looking for Natalie, I was wondering if she might have come here?”
I was being polite, but Mrs. Dean came out the front door, her eyes shining with rage, stabbing the air with a pointed index finger.
“If you had a gun to my head, I wouldn’t tell you where Natalie was! You could kill me right here! You…you… miserable excuse for a human being!”
I was stunned by her anger. What had I ever done to her? I couldn’t explain this outburst.
“Mrs. Deane…” I tried to interject.
“Don’t Mrs. Deane me! After what you did to my child, how dare you come into my house asking to see her?!”
Her eyes were ablaze with fury. I was aware of stepping back carefully, my hands held up defensively as one would do with a dog charging at you. In the back of my mind, I worried that she might reach for a shotgun and point that at me.
“What do you mean, what did I do to your child?”
“As if you don’t know!” she scoffed.
“Are you talking about what happened at college?” I asked, dumbfounded. “Our relationship ended; it didn’t work out. Is that what you’re talking about?”
She went perfectly still and when she spoke again, her voice was icy cold.
“You really are a piece of shit, aren’t you?”
I was speechless.
“You destroyed her! If I recall correctly, one of your phrases was, ‘a pretty face and not even that pretty.’ Does that sound about right?”