Charlie St. Cloud Page 0,17

She shoved the mike back in its cradle, hopped across to the galley, and strapped herself in with the safety belt. She was tired, thirsty, and a bit queasy from the thrashing, but she knew she needed energy. She reached into the icebox and found some fresh lettuce and a bottle of Newman’s Own light Italian dressing, but the boat lurched hard, and she decided it was nuts to try cooking. Instead, she pulled a PowerBar from one of the lockers. Her fingers could barely get a grip on the wrapper. She tore it with her teeth and ate it in four bites.

There was nothing to do now but wait. She unhooked herself, made her way forward to the main cabin, and unzipped the top of the survival suit. She climbed into her bunk, cocooned by mesh that held her snugly in place, and began to make a list of all the things she would do when she got back home. Food was uppermost on her list. On the expedition around the world, she would have to subsist on freeze-dried rations and would likely lose the fifteen to twenty pounds that most sailors dropped. During her last week on land, she wanted to splurge. Caramel popcorn and peppermint candy kisses at E. W. Hobbs in Salem Willows. Burgers at Flynnie’s on Devereux Beach. Calamari and lobster at the Porthole Pub in Lynn. She grinned at the gluttony. To work off the guilt, she would go on long runs around the lighthouse and take walks with Mom along the Causeway.

And of course, she would visit Dad’s grave at Waterside. She had gone there almost every week since he had died two years ago. Sometimes, she stopped by on a morning jog with Bobo. Occasionally, she brought a box lunch from the Driftwood or a cooler of Sam Adams in the late afternoon.

Tess didn’t believe in ghosts or spirits. All that psychic stuff on TV was a bunch of hooey for desperate people. It was the feeling of stability that kept her going back, and the serenity. It was a quiet place and beautiful too. Somehow, she felt centered there, and so she went every week to pluck dandelions from the grass or to clip the rosebush that Mom had moved from the backyard.

This time when she got back, she would sit on the bench under the Japanese maple and tell him about her stupid decision to sail right into the storm. She knew wherever he was, he would scold her. Hell, he might yell. But he would never judge her. Despite all her flaws and foolishness, his love had always been unconditional.

Her eyes began to feel heavy, and she was tempted to take a catnap, but suddenly her bunk dropped out from beneath her as the boat plunged into a hole. She floated for a second, then slammed back into the berth. Then Querencia broached, lurching violently to one side. Tess was thrown hard against a porthole. She feared the boat had been knocked down flat with its mast in the water, but the weight of the keel rolled the craft back upright. She stepped from the berth and started moving toward the companionway. She needed to see if there was damage to the mast. She zipped up her suit and hood, put the mask in place, and began to climb the steps.

Then the world turned upside down.

EIGHT

IT HAD BEEN THEIR RITUAL FOR THIRTEEN YEARS. AND THEIR secret too. Every evening they came together to play.

Thwack.

Sam caught the ball in his mitt and threw it right back—a two-fingered fastball. It had started long ago on the evening of Sam’s funeral after Mom and the other mourners had gone home. As the sun set, Charlie had stayed alone by the grave.

And then, incredibly, impossibly, Sam had appeared from the woods, his body banged up from the crash, still holding his mitt and ball. Oscar was there too.

“What now, big bro?” he had said. “C’mon, let’s play catch.” The moment had rendered Charlie so distraught—so inconsolable—that doctors gave him powerful drugs to ward off the visions. At first the experts called them dreams, then delusions. The diagnosis: post-traumatic stress disorder. They sent him to a shrink. They gave him Xanax for anxiety, Prozac for depression, and Halcion for sleep. They never believed what he could see.

But see he could, and they were not illusions or hallucinations. He had been dead and was shocked back to life. He had crossed over and come back.