Free Darkling by R.B. Chesterton Page A

needed. We were both desperate for the bounty of Belle Fleur. “You’ll grow up and want your own life.”
    â€œYou’re grown, Mimi. And beautiful. But you don’t date. Margo can’t stand being away from boys for a minute, but you don’t seem to care at all.”
    Cora had sometimes prodded me to date. I’d gone to movies or dinner, but never more than twice with the same young man. The spark of romantic love had failed to settle on me. The boys in Coden bored me. “If I knew someone worth dating, I’d date.”
    â€œWhat if I flirted with Andrew Cargill?” Annie asked. “I could break them up. Men like me.”
    â€œMargo would snatch your hair out.” I couldn’t help but smile at the thought. Annie had a point, though. When we were all in town together, men would do a double-take when Annie walked by. She was thin and gangly, but she had something men responded to.
    â€œBerta would be happy if I broke them up.”
    â€œAnd you would be dead because Margo would kill you. You can’t interfere like that.”
    â€œIt was just a thought.” She went to my record collection and started to look through the albums. “I wish I could play and write like John Prine.” She held up his album, Diamond in the Rough . “He’s a genius.”
    â€œYou can borrow my guitar if you want.” I regretted it the moment I said it.
    â€œI’d like that.” She touched my guitar, a fine old Gibson that I’d bought second-hand. The guitar deserved a more talented owner, but I enjoyed trying to play.
    â€œTry it.” I showed her a few chords and helped her sing a verse of “Blowing in the Wind.” “Your voice is true.” She blushed at the praise.
    Her fingers touched the strings. “I don’t ever want to leave here,” she said. “I don’t care who I used to be. Like you, I’m not part of the family, but we belong here. I don’t know how I know it, but my parents are dead. It had to be something awful or I’d remember. Cora said your parents are dead, too.”
    I hated that Cora had shared my past with her. It felt like a violation. “I’ve forgotten the details.”
    She perched on the edge of my bed. “You don’t remember anything?”
    I didn’t, but I’d been told. It was better to deal with this head-on than have Annie asking Berta about my past. “There was a gas leak and when my dad started the car in the garage, the house blew up.”
    â€œAnd you got away?”
    Something in her tone made me look into her dark eyes. “I don’t know how. I don’t remember.” The only image of that night that I retained rose up behind my eyes. Flames danced from the windows of the small frame house. Inside someone was screaming. I dropped a curtain over the memory.
    â€œI knew something bad happened in your life.” She touched the deep furrow between my brows. “When you worry, which is a lot, your have a mark here.”
    â€œI try not to frown, but thanks for the beauty tip.” I stood up and put the guitar back in its case. This was too close to the bone, too personal. She had no right to stomp around in my private pain.
    â€œSometimes you can’t help what the past does to you.” Annie handed me the pick. “See you in the morning, Mimi.”
    When she was gone I played a Beatles tune, “Yesterday.” I was only twenty-one, but I’d had sea shifts in my life. Cora was the only constant. Until the Hendersons. Like Annie, I never wanted to leave.

    The gulls screamed across the water and marsh grass. They circled and spun, white wings outstretched and black markings nearly invisible as they blurred by. In the distance a shrimp boat trawled the rich Sound waters. Another covey of gulls circled the boat, swooping down for any debris. In the distance, their calls sounded like laughter.
    â€œWhat type of