CHAPTER ELEVEN
Erin asked for a menu, wondering about the origin of all this misery and how on earth she could possibly reach this woman and let her know that no matter how long the pain and misery lasted, there was always the possibility that life could turn wonderful. But Sherry would have to hold on long enough to reach that point.
“Sherry. I remember you from the tea. Are you originally from Oyster Cove?”
All it took was a few leading questions to send Sherry’s thoughts back to her family and all the heavy losses that she’d suffered in the past year. First a beloved grandmother, and then her only uncle, of cancer, and then her parents’ deadly encounter with a drunk driver. Her beautiful parents, gone in an instant, lying stiff and cold in their coffins, side-by-side. Sherry was completely alone now, and the agony was more than she could bear. She needed to be gone too. She needed to join her family.
“You’ve lost everything. Don’t ask me how I know. I just know.”
“Someone . . . someone told you?” Sherry’s eyes started to fill with tears. “I’m sorry. This is awful of me. I really don’t want to let my problems get in the way of my job. Customers deserve better, and my boss expects better of me.”
“Sherry, I don’t know whether you’re trying to be too strong or if you need to be even stronger. I may not even have the right to tell you what to do with your life. That’s not going to stop me. Right now, you’re surrounded by darkness and pain and you want to end it. You want to end your own life.”
Sherry gasped in complete shock. She quickly whipped her head around to make sure that no one had heard Erin’s very accurate but totally confounding assessment.
“Then you’ll never know how your life story was meant to play out,” Erin continued. “You’ll never know if you would have arrived at a moment when you were able to laugh again or enjoy a gorgeous sunset and feel happy to be alive again. Or to meet an amazing man who makes you feel like you’re floating on air.
“You don’t know about the babies, the human beings who would have been the joy of your life and would have gone out into the world and done fabulous things, but that never happened because you never had those babies. Or maybe it’s not your children who were going to go out and do things in the world. Maybe it was you.
“Maybe it’s your destiny to make the world a better place, to help people, to make their lives happier. Geez. I could even see right from this moment how conscientious you are. How much you care about the wellbeing of this hotel, their customers, and your boss. You’re a special, irreplaceable person, Sherry. Give yourself a chance to find out what healing feels like. What better feels like. What happiness feels like.”
“You can’t know. You can’t possibly know how badly it hurts. I can barely breathe sometimes. It’s like a thousand knives are stabbing at me from every direction. Every day. There’s no relief from it. How am I ever supposed to get relief if I don’t give it to myself? You just can’t know.”
Erin stood up and wrapped her arms around the miserable young woman. “You’re right. I can’t possibly know. I’ve never lost anyone like that. But there are people who have. People who have lost mothers and fathers and husbands and children. People who have experienced those never-ending knives slicing away at them.
“I know that I can’t help you, because you know that I’ve never been through this. That’s why you need to talk to someone who has. Someone whose word you can trust because they’ve been through exactly this kind of horrible pain. Someone who can tell you from their own experience what’s on the other side.”
By this time, Sherry was sobbing uncontrollably, and her boss, a very kindly middle-aged woman, had silently appeared at their side.
“Why don’t you two step inside my office, where you can have a little privacy?” she offered, relieved that Sherry had a good friend whose shoulder she could cry on. Everyone at the hotel had been very worried about her.
Before Erin left that morning, she and Sherry had called and gotten the meeting information for a nearby grief support group. Erin wouldn’t leave Sherry until she had her promise that she would attend the group, and not just once—that she would attend for six months to give them a real chance to help her. After she could read Sherry’s thoughts that she truly intended to do this, Erin was able to leave.
*****
Afterward, there was an admittedly less-urgent matter to attend to, but Erin had promised Wesley Gorman that she would try to get to the bottom of the dates of his father’s bigamist activities and to determine whether Wesley’s mother should have gotten her husband’s inheritance.
It occurred to Erin that, in addition to photographic evidence, someone who kept the quantity of handwritten journals that Regina Gorman had would undoubtedly have left some clues about the details of her marriage. Principal Chaplin had taken away those journals to find some kind of endearing anecdotes for the memorial service. Good luck with that! She would have to swing by his office at the school and hope that he was in.
The door to his office was open, and his mug of coffee was still steaming, but Principal Chaplin was nowhere to be seen. No matter. The coffee was a guarantee that he would be back any minute. Fortunately for Erin, she didn’t even have to wait on him to get started. Regina’s journals were stacked right on top of his desk.
Erin started flipping through them, trying to locate the right dates that should have corresponded with Regina’s marriage to Mr. Gorman, and she noted with interest the bookmarks that Mr. Chaplin stuck in, presumably to make note of good material for his memorial speech.
It was momentarily unnerving, Erin had to admit, thumbing her way through someone’s private, innermost thoughts. But then she had to remind herself that it’s precisely what she had been doing ever since the transplant.
Mr. P. Who was Mr. P? He and Regina appeared to have been especially close. Oh, of course. Mr. Plummer—Jasmine’s father. He appeared for very lengthy stretches of Regina Gorman’s life story. No wonder that Regina was kind of put out when he broke it off with her. Still no excuse for punishing Jasmine, though.
There were pages missing. They looked as if they been ripped right out. Had Regina done that? But why would she? That’s the point of a journal, to get down your private thoughts with the confidence that no one will ever see it. Had these pages been ripped out very recently? Erin quickly surveyed the office, and her eyes landed on a large shredder. She went over and lifted the top off.
Right there at the very top was paper that was unlike the fresh white standard-issue office 8.5 x 11. It was thick, a softer beige color, and even shredded, it had some discernible handwriting on it rather than institutional print. No doubt about it. Mr. Chaplin had shredded some of Regina Gorman’s journal. She jumped, startled, when Vice Principal Metcalf appeared at the door.
“Ms. Sweeney. You must be looking for Mr. Chaplin. He just got an incoming call and the cell phone reception in his office is actually pretty bad. I’m sure I’ll be able to make do . . . if this ever winds up being my office. What have you got there?”
“Regina Gorman’s journals. I was just wondering . . . there seem to be some pages that Mr. Chaplin might have gotten rid of. I’m not sure why.”
“Hmm. I hope that you can be discreet, Erin. But there are numerous references in Regina’s journal about a certain Mr. P.”
“Yes. Jasmine Plummer’s father.”
“Ah, I see you know about that whole sordid affair. Yes, that was Mr. P. Although, in her own little twisted play on words, she would also refer to him as The Plumber.
Well, I don’t know if Regina Gorman really deserves our protection, but Mr. Chaplin felt there was no benefit in airing out any more of her dirty laundry than was necessary. Particularly as it could negatively affect the Plummer family, and they’ve been through quite enough. Apparently, the sections that Mr. Chaplin saw fit to destroy were rather . . . explicit.
“I see. I was hoping to be able to take these journals home and have a look at them. You probably know about the whole Wesley Gorman bigamy thing. I’m trying to nail down the dates of Regina’s marriage to see if she was Mr. Gorman’s first wife or his second. Legally and financially, it’s kind of a life or death issue for Wesley’s family.”
“Of course. I’m positive that Mr. Chaplin is done with those journals because I’ve already seen his written speech. So, by all means, take them. We need to do whatever we can to have a bit of closure on Mrs. Gorman’s life. I think we all need to be able to move on.”
Erin nodded gratefully, gathered up the large pile of journals, and hauled them out to her car. This was going to be a whole lot of reading. But she couldn’t get to it just yet. She was going to meet Orlando and his buddy Leo for lunch. She hadn’t been able to talk to Leo long at all when she met him on the bowling night, but if he was a dear long-time friend of Orlando’s and had stuck with him and remained his true friend through hard times, then he was all right by her.
*****
Leo’s hand had been so full of sticky barbecue wings the first time they’d met that he and Erin had never even shaken hands.
“Allow me to introduce my cleaner, more presentable, less-greasy self,” he joked as he reached out for her hand.
Erin’s ability to read minds without touch had become so developed now that she would have been able to read Leo even without the handshake. But the physical connection only amplified his thoughts, and they were some pretty astonishing thoughts.
“She’s really pretty. I’m so glad that things worked out for Orlando. Decent job at the urgent care clinic. Pretty girlfriend. I really need to stop feeling so guilty about changing the dosage on that prescription. I thought that my buddy was messing up and that I was helping him out and covering up his mistake. But he got it right the first time. And my “fix” was the stupid mistake that made that man have a heart attack. But Orlando’s signature was on it.
“One of us had to go down, and I just panicked. I just couldn’t throw away all my hard work, all my dreams. At least I’ve done what I can to make it up to him. I’ve stuck by him when so many of his friends walked away. Not just because I know that he didn’t do anything wrong. I just wanted to keep a close eye on him and make sure that his life wasn’t suffering too badly because of what I did.”
Erin could hardly believe what she was hearing. Orlando had been beating himself up, wallowing in guilt and self-incrimination for the past fifteen years for an error that his friend, Leo Price, had made. And Leo never said a word. He just stood by and watched Orlando suffer. He watched his friend’s career suffer, and he watched his mental state continually weighted down by the guilt. She wanted to throttle him.
It was a long, endless wait before Orlando eventually excused himself to go to the restroom. Erin wouldn’t have long to lay down her ultimatum.
“Listen carefully, Leo. I know that it was you who made the mistake. That it was you who changed the prescription. And when Orlando comes back to this table, you’re going to tell him exactly what you did. You’re going to tell the medical school and the legal authorities what you did. You’re going to set the record straight. And because he considers you to be one of his closest friends, better that it comes from you than it comes from me. But make no mistake, if it doesn’t come from you, it will most certainly come from me.”
“How could she possibly know this? She can’t possibly know. But she does know. She knows everything. That means someone else must have known and told her. Who is out there who knew all about this? And look at her. She’s not playing. She’s dead serious. She’ll tell him if I don’t. Oh, God. It’s all over. I thought I could get away with it. I’m going to lose everything. Everything.”
Orlando couldn’t possibly have any idea of what motivated the confession. As he sat, stony-faced, listening to his friend’s blubbering account of an unforgivable error, covered up by an equally unforgivable lie, it was only in the back of his mind that he could wonder why Leo had chosen this moment to come clean when he could have confessed five years ago. Ten years ago. How about immediately afterward, when Orlando still had the chance for prestigious positions open all around the country?
“Erin, walk with me,” he said, not even responding to his friend because he was at a complete loss as to what to say to him.
“Yeah, of course. You need to think things over,” Leo stammered. “Don’t worry, I’ll get the tab.”
This generous offer was not gratefully received by either of his companions.
Orlando and Erin walked all the way to the boardwalk, and then along the waves, right under the pier. Erin didn’t want to press Orlando into talking until he was good and ready. And if not today, then she needed to give him all the space he needed. She just wanted to be there to hold his hand.
Of course, she could follow his thoughts, and they were the widest range of complex thoughts and reactions imaginable. Relief. Relief from the crushing guilt. Of course, this didn’t change the fact that a man had died. But he didn’t need to carry that on his shoulders anymore.
“Leo’s career might very well be over now. But what a schmuck I must be to even care about his future. But I can’t help it. Leo was a great doctor. But it was almost as if it was mandatory that someone suffer, and Leo’s shift is up next.
“If I get exonerated, I can go anywhere, could probably get consideration at some of the biggest hospitals.”
“Where would you want to go?” Erin wondered.
“I wouldn’t want to go anywhere. As long as you’re here in Oyster Cove, there’s nowhere else I’d want to be. Hey, what made you even ask that?”
She hadn’t asked it. Not out loud. Orlando had heard her thoughts nonetheless. She had actually projected her thoughts directly to Orlando—the last stage of control over her mind that Delphine had foretold.
With a big, long hug, Erin left Orlando to contemplate his change of future, as well as his change of past. It had been a long, long day already. And the last big event of the reunion—the final dance—was yet to come.