Chapter 28 - Hannah's Pilgrimage
Three days later, a battered yellow cab pulled up to the end of the shell road where the pavement ended and the marsh began.
I was standing in the vegetable garden behind the cottage, turning the sandy soil with Julian’s flat shovel, preparing a bed for early spring greens. The sun was warm on the back of my neck, the first real sign that winter was beginning to lose its grip on the coast.
The cab door slammed shut with a hollow rattle.
Down the shell path came Hannah.
She was wearing a trench coat that had lost two of its tortoiseshell buttons, muddy leather ankle boots, and large designer sunglasses that covered half her face. Her blonde hair, usually styled in expensive salon blowouts, was tied back in a messy, grease-streaked ponytail. She carried a single overflowing duffel bag on her shoulder, dragging another smaller overnight case behind her through the oyster shells.
She stopped at the garden gate, panting, her chest heaving under the coat.
"Clara," she gasped, pulling off the sunglasses.
Her eyes were red and swollen, the dark rings beneath them stark against her pale skin. Without her makeup, without the jewelry, without the soft lighting of the Oakton parlor, she looked like a tired, frightened girl who had suddenly realized that the floor had vanished beneath her feet.
"The bank locked the front doors yesterday morning," Hannah said, her voice shaking violently. "They put padlocks on the iron gates. Dad checked himself into a private sanatorium in Maryland and turned his phone off. The country club revoked our membership. The sheriff gave me two hours to pack whatever I could fit into two bags."
She took a step closer, resting her trembling hand on the wooden gate latch.
"I had to take a Greyhound bus to Norfolk, Clara," she whimpered, tears spilling down her cheeks. "A bus. With... with homeless people. I had to spend my last forty dollars on a taxi to get out to this awful, stinking swamp."
I leaned on the handle of the shovel, watching her.
There was no anger left in me. No hatred. Only a profound, quiet emptiness—the same feeling you get when you look at an old childhood toy you’ve long outgrown and wonder why you ever thought it was magic.
"Why are you here, Hannah?" I asked.
"What do you mean, why am I here?!" she sobbed, pushing the gate open and stumbling toward me. "I'm your sister! I don't have anywhere else to go! Mom is in jail! Dad is gone! You have to take care of me! You always take care of me!"
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She dropped the duffel bag into the dirt at my feet and reached out for my coat, her hands clutching at the coarse wool like a drowning child reaching for a spar of wood.
"We can get an apartment together in town," she pleaded, looking up into my face with wide, desperate eyes. "You can get a job at the local firm—you’re good at accounting! I can manage the house! I can learn to cook, Clara, I swear I can! Just... don't leave me alone out here. Please. I don't know how to do anything."
