Chapter 15
Faith

She’d been dreaming of the sandbar, of Alex’s bare and muscled back, when the crash came. The sound of glass as it shattered all around her made Faith jump. She was confused, and the big bedroom seemed wildly foreign. Where am I?

The wispy curtains flailed on the other side of the nightstand. She peered over the bed and saw a dangerous jigsaw of broken glass on the dark wooden floors. It wasn’t the safety glass she was used to, the kind she’d hoped to shop for soon. The pieces were big, and the edges dangerously sharp. What the hell?

Faith eased her legs over the edge of the bed so she could toe her flip-flops closer. The rubber soles crunched across the glass as she looked out the window to see a fist-size stone headed straight toward her. Shit. She ducked just in time. The stone flew silently into her bedroom to hit the dresser at the far end of the wall with a thump.

She crouched as low as she could and made her way to the hall. As she scurried downstairs, she saw a light on in the kitchen and the sound of a shotgun being cocked. It sounded just like it did in the movies.

“Faith!” Mama hissed under her breath. The older woman was hidden behind the table in the formal dining room, shotgun at the ready.

“What’s going on?” Faith asked in a whisper, but Mama just held one finger to her lips.

Mama took Faith’s wrist and pulled her down beside her. “Don’t worry,” she said. “These hooligans are about to be scared off real good.”

“But who are they?” Faith asked. Mama just shook her head and listened.

Faith’s heart thumped like crazy, loud enough that the blood that rushed through her head was deafening. Soon enough, male voices could be heard on the patio. Their boots were heavy on the planks. There was no reason for them to be quiet.

Mama rose to her knees and angled the shotgun through the narrow window opening that led directly to the patio. Faith couldn’t make out what the men murmured, but one of them let out a low chuckle. Mama fired a shot that rang in Faith’s ears. By the time her hearing returned to somewhat normal, she could still hear the men swearing.

“Jesus fucking Christ!” one yelled. His voice seemed much farther away.

“Did you . . . did you hit him?” Faith asked. Her own voice sounded funny. It trembled in a way she’d never heard before.

“Of course not!” Mama said. “Just scared ʼem off.”

“Oh thank God,” Faith said, though she didn’t know why. Wouldn’t it be better if they had been shot?

“Honey,” Mama said as she lowered the gun to her lap, “if I wanted to hit ʼem, I would’ve.”

In the distance, they heard an engine roar to life. Headlights flooded the living room. Faith saw that Mama still wore her nightly white face cream and a carefully buttoned-up pajama gown. Pink spongy curlers were in her hair. Even through the craziness of the night, Faith had to stifle a laugh. There was something too contradictory about seemingly sweet Mama cradling a smoking shotgun across her legs.

“Mama?” Caleb’s voice hollered through the house. “Mama? Faith?”

“In here, honey,” Mama said. She stood up as the tires outside squealed away. It took Faith a minute to realize Mama held out her hand to help her up. She felt like an outsider, a big-city outsider, to accept the hand, but it was her only choice. Her legs felt like Jell-O, and she immediately looked outside. “They’re gone, baby,” Mama said with oceans of comfort in her voice.

“Long gone,” Caleb agreed. “Thanks to Mama’s eagle-eyed shot.”

“It was nothing,” Mama said. She engaged the safety and put the gun on the dining table.

“What the hell is that?” Lee asked as he came into the room. He stared out the window into the front yard.

“What in the Lord . . .”

Mama squinted and pulled the window up. “Oh my . . .”

Faith, Mama, Caleb, Lee, and Matt rushed outside to the fire. “What the fuck?” Matt said under his breath.

“Language,” Mama said automatically, but nobody listened. Perched on the front lawn was a burning cross at least seven feet tall. It was nothing like the modest nod to the Christian upbringing Mama had originally installed on the property, right alongside the American flag. This one was big and mean—and burning bright with gasoline. Throughout the yard and into the flower garden, little sparks of flames popped up everywhere.

A flash of yellow appeared in the distance. Faith made out Alex’s shape jogging toward them. “Hey!” he yelled. “What’s going on?”

“I have no idea,” Mama said quietly. However, it only took her a moment to take charge. “Caleb, Lee, y’all get to puttin’ this out. Grab the hose. Matt, take a look around, but be careful, baby. Make sure there’s nothing round here that can catch fire. Put out what little flames you can with them blankets in the bed of Lee’s truck.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, and started to circle the cross.

“What’s going on?” Alex asked again as he reached them.

“Some no-good intruders, that’s what,” Mama said. “And burning up my rose garden like this! What nerve.”

“Mama?” Matt asked as he approached them.

“What? You find something, baby?”

“Well, maybe not what you were looking for,” Matt said. “But, uh, you need to take a look at this.”

“What . . . what is this?” Mama asked. They walked carefully around the little clumps of flames in the grass and the rich garden soil.

“You gotta see it from here,” Matt said. He took Mama’s elbow and directed her away from the house.

Faith and Alex followed in silence. She didn’t realize how heavy her breath was until Alex put a hand on her lower back to calm her.

“What in the . . .”

Mama was speechless. They all were. Facing the house, thirty feet away from the porch, the flames crudely spelled out a warning. LAST CHANCE BITCH was emblazoned in the yard.

Faith’s hand shot to her mouth in shock. Last chance? And the cross? She wasn’t sure how, but she knew those big burning crosses were a KKK symbol. Or was it just an homage to Mama’s little cross they’d burned earlier? “This makes no sense,” she said.

“Honey, there’s nothin’ these lunatics do gonna make any sense,” Mama said. She sighed. “And they had to go and ruin a full season’s worth of planting.”

“But, I mean, clearly this is for me,” Faith said. “And the whole KKK thing, the race thing, I don’t get it.”

“How so?” Mama asked.

“I’m French and Irish!” she said.

Alex’s hand moved from the small of her back to her waist. She felt him resist, uncertain, but she threw herself against him. Tears threatened to spill down her cheeks, but somehow she kept them in check. “This is crazy,” she said into his chest.

His hand gently rubbed her waist, and in that moment she felt safe even as the flames burned all around them.

Mama sighed. “Alex, you take Faith inside, all right? Y’all have some tea, I’ll have the rest of the boys handle this.”

Faith and Alex were silent as they ascended the porch steps. The fire lit up the house and made their shadows dance.

“Are you all right?” Alex asked when they reached the kitchen. He put on the kettle and pulled the tea bags out of the cupboard.

“I guess so,” Faith said. “God, I’m so sorry.”

“Sorry? For what?”

“Well, really I should say sorry to Mama. For everything! These burning crosses, her ruined yard, and—oh God, I forgot.”

“What?” he asked as he sat down beside her. Their knees touched.

“Those guys, they threw stones through my bedroom window. Shattered the glass, and I don’t know what other damage.”

“It’s fine, Faith,” he said. Alex reached across the table and took her hands. “It’s just a window. I’ll take care of it. You said there’s glass broken?”

She nodded. “I don’t know how bad it is,” she whispered.

“For tonight, you’ll stay in one of the guest rooms. That glass is old, I don’t want you cutting yourself.”

She bit her lip. “I should go home,” she said. “I’m just making a mess and trouble. For all of you,” she added. Faith looked up at him and couldn’t help but notice how boyishly handsome he was even with mussed up hair and tired eyes.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he said. The kettle started to whistle, and he stood up. “None of this is your fault.”

“Clearly it is! You think any of this would be happening if it weren’t for me?”

He shrugged with his back to her. “I have no idea. But I do know this island—and the people on it—better than you. There’s a lot of history here that you know nothing about. Hell, that I don’t know much about.”

“But the whole KKK thing . . . that just makes no sense,” she said.

“Who knows,” he said as he sat down a mug of steaming hot tea before her. “Maybe they’re confused, maybe there’s more to it than we think, I have no idea. But what I do know is that you shouldn’t go running back to California just because a few rednecks get fire happy.”

She sighed. “Maybe you’re right,” she said. “I don’t know. But I feel terrible, dragging your whole family into this.”

“You didn’t do anything,” he said. Alex sat down beside her and blew on his own tea.

“Do you . . . do you think it’s those same guys? From the ferry?” she asked. Faith couldn’t bring herself to say “cousins.”

“Maybe, I don’t know,” Alex said. “I didn’t get a look at them. But judging from the size of your so-called cousins, I’d think they’d be pretty easy to identify.”

“I didn’t get a good look at them,” she said sadly. “I just—I woke up because of the window breaking, and when I tried to look outside, all I saw was another stone coming my way. Maybe Mama saw more than I did.”

He shook his head. “I doubt it. Mama’s blind as a bat without her contacts.”

“But she was shooting a gun!” Faith said, flabbergasted.

“Yeah, might not want to mention that to her,” Alex said. “She swears she doesn’t need good vision to shoot. Instinct, she calls it. But my bet is she couldn’t tell you if those guys weighed one hundred or one thousand pounds.”

“Great,” Faith said with a moan. “Do you . . . do you think they’ll be back?”

“Hard to tell. Anyone with a lick of sense would steer clear of Mama and her shotgun.”

Faith smiled. “She’s a tough woman,” she said. “You know, they make it sound like you need to be hard to live in the city. San Francisco, New York, whatever. But I’ve never seen grit like what your mama has.”

Alex smiled. “That’s a country woman for you. But with Mama, I think it’s more than that. She basically had to raise a whole brood of boys on her own. That’ll thicken anyone’s skin real quick.”

Faith laughed. She cupped her hands around the hot mug and let the warmth soak into her. Suddenly, she realized she no longer shook with terror. The flames were still getting doused outside, but at the breakfast nook with Alex, the horror of the evening felt a world away. “This isn’t what I expected,” she said.

“What’s that?”

“This. Everything. Life on the island, your mama. You.” She blushed at how it sounded, but didn’t want to take it back. It was all true. People really can surprise you.

“Think we got it all,” Lee said as he stomped into the kitchen like an overzealous puppy.

“Any other messages?” Faith asked as she finished her tea.

“Not that I could tell,” Lee said. “They sure were generous with the starter fluid, though.”

“—thing tomorrow. You tell that nursery manager I don’t care if they’re not in season. I want my garden . . .”

Mama shot directions at Caleb in the mudroom as they kicked off their boots. Faith smiled slightly. Everything was already en route to normal again. Mama worried about her flower garden, and Faith could just picture Lee as he took mental notes of tomorrow’s tasks.

“I smell like I work at a gas station,” Matt complained as he came in behind Caleb and went directly to the sink to scrub his hands.

“A little manual labor’d do you good,” Caleb said.

“Manual labor and pumping gas aren’t exactly comparable,” Matt said.

Alex rolled his eyes at Faith, and she giggled.

“What’s so funny?” Matt asked as he dug through the cupboard for soap that wouldn’t dry his hands to hell, according to him.

“Nothing,” Faith said with a smile. “Can I do anything to help?” She tried to stifle a yawn.

“Y’all go on back to bed,” Mama said as she appeared in the kitchen. “That’s enough excitement for one day.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Matt said, and bolted out of the room.

“Well, that’s one way to start a Friday,” Caleb said.