Free Before the Storm by Diane Chamberlain Page B

loudly.

    before the storm
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    “Shh,” I hushed him.
    “You’re right, Andy,” Robin said. “She was already sliding
    back a ways before the fire, but now it’s got real bad.” She
    raised her gaze to mine. “We’re going to have to take her to
    see that psychologist again.”
    “I’m so sorry,” I said. Emily had suffered brain damage at
    birth, and I knew how far they’d come with her over the years.
    How hard it had to be to have a child who hated to be touched!
    Many FASD kids hated being touched, too, but I’d gotten lucky
    with Andy; he was a hugger. I needed to rein that hugging in with
    people outside the family, though, especially now that he was a
    teenager.
    Robin looked behind us. “So many people affected by
    this…mess,” she said.
    I didn’t turn around. My attention was drawn to the Surf
    City firefighters who were now filing into the seats reserved
    for them. In their dress blues and white gloves, a more sober
    looking bunch of men—and three women—would be hard to
    find, and as they sat down, a hush washed over the crowd. I
    saw Marcus glance at us, and I quickly turned my attention to
    the pink beribboned program I’d been handed when I entered
    the building.
    Some people had wanted to put the memorial service off for
    another couple of weeks so the new Surf City Community
    Center would be open and the event could be held in the gymnasium. But the somber mood of the island couldn’t wait that
    long. In the week since the fire, that’s all anyone talked about.
    The part-time counselor at the elementary school where I
    worked was so inundated with kids suffering from nightmares
    about being burned or trapped that she’d had to refer the

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    overflow, those whose fears showed up as stomachaches or
    headaches, to me. People were not only sad, they were angry.
    Everyone knew the fire was arson, although those words had
    not been uttered by anyone in an official capacity, at least not
    publicly.
    Maggie hadn’t said a word since we walked into the
    building. I glanced at her now. Her gaze was on the firefighters and I wondered what she was thinking. I was never sure
    how much she remembered of her father. She had a framed
    picture of Jamie in his dress blues on her bureau beside a
    picture of Andy taken on his twelfth birthday. There was
    another picture, taken a couple of years ago at a party, of
    herself with Amber Donnelly and a couple of other girls.
    She had no picture of me on the bureau. I realized that just
    the other day.
    Andy started jiggling his leg, making my chair vibrate. I used
    to rest a hand on his knee to try to stop his jiggling, but I rarely
    did that anymore. I’d learned that if I stopped the energy from
    coming out of Andy in one place, it would come out someplace
    else. Jiggling his legs was preferable to slapping his hands on his
    thighs or cracking his knuckles. Sometimes I pictured a tightly
    coiled spring inside my son, ready to burst out of him with the
    slightest provocation. That’s most likely what happened when
    Keith called him names at the lock-in. It was rare for Andy to
    react with violence, but calling him names could do it.
    “Hey, I know him!” Andy said suddenly.
    “Shh,” I whispered in his ear. I thought he meant Marcus or
    Ben Trippett, but he was pointing to the third poster-size photograph at the front of the room. It was Charlie Eggles, a longtime real estate agent in Topsail Beach. Charlie’d had no kids

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    of his own but often volunteered to help with community
    events. I’d been saddened to learn he was one of the fire
    victims. I looked at his engaging smile, his gray hair pulled back
    in his customary ponytail.
    “It’s Mr. Eggles,” I whispered to Andy.
    “He held on to me so I couldn’t hit Keith again.” I watched
    a crease form between Andy’s eyebrows as reality dawned on
    him. “Is he one of the dead people?”
    “I’m afraid he is,” I said.
    I waited for him to