In a few minutes Amanda was wearing a bikini and had a towel thrown over her shoulder as she and Zack walked down to the beach, only a couple hundred yards from the Channel Stop. She was a little nervous about that – possibly with good reason – but whatever this was she didn’t think it would be that bad. At least she hoped it wouldn’t. They didn’t talk much on the way down there, and mostly it was she who did the talking, mostly about Winchester Harbor and the fishing.

The little sliver of beach wasn’t quite deserted, since there were a handful of local kids there, but they were just getting set to leave. They spread their towels on the beach in a small shady spot, and while it wasn’t exactly cold, a light breeze off the lake made the hot day almost comfortable in the shade. She figured it had to be better than Jacksonville would be today.

As the noise of the kids on their bicycles faded behind them, Amanda figured it was time to get down to business. “All right, Zack,” she said softly. “I can see that you’re very troubled about something. What’s this all about?”

“It’s a long story,” he said. “But my father died, and I had to go back and deal with some paperwork. I didn’t want to, and I could probably have gotten by without doing it, but I figured I ought to since my sister wouldn’t. Besides there was one thing I felt I had to do.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, Zack. Don’t I remember that your father had taken off somewhere?”

“That’s the story I’ve always told,” he replied sadly. “The truth is that he was in the state prison.”

“I guess I can understand why you wouldn’t want to admit that,” she replied.

“It’s part of the reason,” he said in a flat voice. “I know I told you my mother was dead. He killed her.”

“Zack?”

“My father was a violent man, especially when he’d been drinking, and his drinking got worse and worse as time went on. One night . . .” he paused, looking for words, then continued, “one night it was even worse than usual. I don’t know what set him off, I was in my room, trying to avoid him, and it . . . and it . . .”

Amanda put out her hand and rested it on his, wordlessly trying to lend him a little support.

“I heard my sister screaming,” he continued, pulling himself together, trying to force the words out. “I mean, really screaming bad. I figured I’d better find out what was going on, so I went out of my room and peeked down the stairs. He was raping her, Amanda.”

“Oh, God,” she said softly.

“I went back to my room, crawled out the window, and went to a neighbor to call the cops,” he said. “I should have done more. There was a baseball bat in my room. I should have gone downstairs and tried to make him stop, or do something, but I just stood back and waited for the cops to come. And waited. It seemed like forever. God, I should have taken that baseball bat, or maybe the neighbor’s shotgun or something . . .

“Calling the cops was doing something,” she said softly.

“It wasn’t enough,” he said flatly. “Hell, I knew it at the time that it wasn’t enough. I should have done something to try and help my sister, but damn it, I was still only fifteen, and I was little for fifteen while he was a big fucking bruiser, and shit,” he said, the tears rolling down his face now, “I was scared. Too fucking scared to do what I really should have done, should have been willing to die trying to do.”

There was no question in Amanda’s mind that this was really painful for him to have to admit. She had no idea of what to say, other than to grab his hand tighter, while he just sat there silently, tears rolling down his face, saying nothing. Finally, in an attempt to get him talking again, she asked softly, “Did the cops finally come?”

“Yeah, but they took their time about it,” he replied, her query seeming to get him off center. “It wasn’t the first time they’d been called, so I suppose they thought it was nothing important, or at least nothing unusual. And besides, it’s a real small town so someone had to come from the county seat. But it was, Amanda. My mother was still alive when the ambulance got there, but she didn’t make it to the hospital. Maybe if I’d done something sooner . . .”

“Maybe not, too,” she said softly.

“Damn it, I should have tried!” he spat. “I was just a little fucking coward who didn’t have it when it was needed, and that was all there was to it. Granted, there might not have been much I could have done but get lucky, but damn it, I ought to have tried! But when things counted, I chickened out. I could have at least helped my sister, damn it! Amanda, she’s never really gotten over it either. She was only twelve, Amanda. God, I didn’t even have the balls to do that! No, I had to run and hide!

Amanda remembered the odd story or two from school of kids who had somewhat similar things happen in their families, although not too many of them. Thank God for that, she thought. Never had she heard something quite like that, at least directly from someone who had been involved. Now, she had no idea what to say. “At least you called the cops,” she said finally. “That was something.”

“Yes, but I could have done more, and I didn’t! And hell, that wasn’t all.”

“More?”

He sat staring at the little waves flopping up onto the beach without much fuss for a couple of minutes, just trying to pull himself together. “In a way, all the horseshit from that night was hanging around my neck as long as I was in Clinton City,” he said finally. “Hell, you’re from a small town, you know what small towns are like, everybody knows everything about everybody. There’s only one newspaper in the county, and it’s a weekly, but it was the first murder they’d had there for years, so naturally they made a big deal out of it. And then they made a bigger deal out of the trial. My father didn’t have much money, of course, so the county had to come up with an attorney for him, and he was a real horse’s ass. He made my sister get up on the stand, made me get up on the stand, and really cut us both down, so all that shit got in the paper and all over the county, too.”

“If your father was in prison, he must have been convicted,” Amanda said hopefully.

“Oh yeah, the jury wasn’t out half an hour,” he smiled. “It was one of the few things that went right. I think they spent more time arguing over who was going to be the chairman than they did on the charges. As it was, he didn’t spend enough time in prison, as far as I was concerned.”

“They hadn’t let him out, had they?” she asked, a little confused.

“No, he wasn’t eligible for parole until about the time hell was going to freeze over,” he snorted. “They would have let him rot, but somebody shanked him.”

“Shanked?”

“A homemade knife, more like an ice pick. They get made in prisons sometimes, and I didn’t know that until a few days ago. The prison people have no idea who did it, but at least he finally got his. I suspect he mouthed off to someone he shouldn’t have.”

“Well, at least that much good came out of it.”

“I suppose,” he said. “But whoever that guy in prison was, he did something that I ought to have done back when it all happened, but I was a gutless coward.”

“You weren’t a gutless coward,” she said flatly. Whether it was something she should have said or not was beyond her, but she felt she ought to say it. “Hell, you were little, you were fifteen, and he was drunk and in a rage. Obviously I wasn’t there, but it seems to me that there wasn’t a hell of a lot else you could have done.”

“You might be right, but I’ve had a hell of a time convincing myself of it, especially after I kept hearing over and over again from all the pricks in school about how gutless I’d been to not defend my mother and my sister. I mean, I heard it all the time, not just from the kids, but from the teachers. And even if no one said anything I knew what they were thinking.”

“Oh, shit,” she sighed. “I guess I didn’t even think about that part of it. I guess I can see why you didn’t want any of your Coast Guard buddies to know about that. You must have thought you’d just get more of the same shit.”

“I guess you’re right,” he said. “I never thought about it that way. Honestly, Amanda, you’re the first person I’ve talked to about any of that shit since the trial. I think you can see why.”

“That’s a pretty heavy load to lay on a fifteen year old kid.”

“It is,” he sighed. “And let’s face it, I’m still carrying it. At least my sister had it a little better.”

“How’s that?”

“She managed to make it out of Clinton City. The local child care office, well, it actually covers several counties, all of them tiny little things. They figured she needed to get the hell out of town so she could recover from the rape. She was, uh, in an institution for a while, not that it did her a whole hell of a lot of good. I don’t know all the ins and outs of it, but after a while she got moved to Colorado. The last I heard she still has problems with it, and you can see why she didn’t want to come back to Clinton City when my father died.”

“Yeah, I think I understand.”

“At least they got her out of Clinton City. I had to stay and put up with the shit from everybody I knew and people I didn’t know. The child care office put me with another family in Clinton City. You’d have thought they’d have had the good sense to get me out of there, but they didn’t, so I just had to stay there and take it. And my foster so-called ‘family’ was just as full of shit to me as everyone else in town. It wasn’t a hell of a lot better than living with my father, and worse in some ways.”

“Oh, shit,” she replied. “I’ll bet that didn’t help a bit.”

“No fooling,” he said. “They went out of their way to remind me what a useless sack of shit I was in every goddamn way they could. Then, to top it off, two months before I graduated from high school they threw me out.”

“Threw you out?”

“I turned eighteen, and that meant they didn’t get any more money for being my foster parents,” he sneered. “So there was no reason to keep me around.” He shook his head and went on, “It wasn’t all bad. That meant that there were several hours a day that I didn’t have to put up with shit from them.”

“What did you do?”

“I joined the Coast Guard,” he smiled. “Well, not right then, I had to have that high school diploma, but I’d decided right back even before the trial that there was no way in hell I was going to hang around Clinton City a minute longer than I had to. I think I told you one time why I decided I wanted to join the Coast Guard, because there aren’t any coasts within about a thousand miles of Clinton City.”

“I remember that,” she smiled. “Hearing the reason why makes it seem like it makes sense.”

“I thought so,” he nodded. “I suppose it was a couple years before I left high school when I made that decision. Fortunately they had Internet at the school and I was able to get done a lot of what I needed to do and find out what I needed to know. I might have taken a shot at it even sooner but I realized I needed the high school diploma, and had to be eighteen, so I had that much reason to stick it out.”

“How did you get along after they threw you out?”

“However I could,” he told them. “There was an old abandoned house not far from the school. I broke into it and stayed there. There were some cold nights but I’d found a blanket in the trash, and I had a few clothes from when I got thrown out. I had the school lunches from the school, and I’ll admit I did a little dumpster diving, too. I could take showers and clean up in the school gym every now and then, not real often because I didn’t want to risk being alone around some of the bastards I went to school with. I didn’t go to graduation since I couldn’t afford the cap and gown, but I was able to pick up my diploma from the school office the next day. I already had a seabag I’d scrounged out of someone’s trash, and as soon as I got the diploma in it, I started hitchhiking up US-30 for Denver.”

“Denver? To see your sister?”

“Well, yes. I hadn’t seen her in years, and thought I ought to at least see her. She still blamed me a little for what had happened to her, and I can’t say as I blame her. But the big reason is that there aren’t any Coast Guard Recruiting Offices in Kansas. The nearest one is in Denver. I still wasn’t able to go right in, there were some tests and paperwork, but I told the chief in the office I was broke and didn’t have any place to stay. He found me a little job and a place to stay for about a month before they sent me to Cape May. The rest of it, such as it is, you already know about.”

“Zack, I had no idea about any of that stuff. I never had a hint. It seems to me like you did the best you could with a tough situation, and I mean in school and Clinton City as much as anything else.”

“I’m glad you feel that way after what I’ve just told you, Amanda. It’s like I said, I’ve never been able to tell anyone else about any of this. I’m just afraid all the old horseshit is going to start up all over again.”

“Not from me, Zack. Not from me. I’m amazed you went back to Clinton City at all.”

“I am, too,” he sighed. “I could have done most of what I had to do at a distance, but there was one thing I had to do personally, and it just about made it worth the trip. I left some flowers on my mother’s grave, and most important of all, I had about four diet sodas and a couple big iced teas. I was so full my bladder was just about ready to burst, but it gave me enough piss to really hose down my father’s grave.”

“I can’t blame you for that,” she smiled, and had to avoid a snicker. “I’ll bet that felt good.”

“In more ways than one,” he smiled. “Shit, he deserved it for all the shit he put us through, me, my sister, and my mother. And if by some odd accident I ever get near Clinton City again, I’ll stop off and do the same thing.”

“Like I said, I can’t blame you for that, but I’ll bet you don’t plan on getting very near the place again.”

“Not if I can help it, and one of the best things about the Coast Guard is that they don’t have much of any place they can send me in Kansas. I may have to drive through there some time, but I probably can drive around it if I have to. I even went out of my way to drive through as little of it as I could.”

“What did you do? Drive the whole trip, in that old beater of a car you have?”

“It’s an old junker but it’s reliable,” he smiled. “It was a long drive, the airlines don’t exactly run right to get to either here or Clinton City without a rental car and a lot more messing around, But I needed the time to think, and I got it.”

“What did you do? Drive straight here?”

“Yes,” he said. “I made up my mind before I got to Clinton City that I needed to talk to someone about all this, and you were the only one I could think of. It’s only a couple of extra days, and I don’t have to be in any big hurry to get back to Jacksonville. I have compassionate leave, so it’s sort of open ended. I’m just glad you were willing to listen to me. It takes a lot off my mind.”

“I’m just glad you felt you could talk to me about it,” she told him. “It’s a shame you don’t have anyone else.”

“I don’t really have anyone,” he replied sadly. “With the exception of you, most of the friends I have are in the Coast Guard, and you see why I didn’t want to tell any of them about this. I guess all the shit I went through in high school and Clinton City made me a little reluctant to have many friends. Until you came along, I never had anyone I could even remotely call a girlfriend.”

“That’s sad,” she said. “You’re a nice guy, you’re gentle and intelligent, but I can see that this whole thing has left its mark on you. I’m sorry about that, Zack, I really am, and I wish I could do more to help.”

“Oh, you’ve been a big help already, just from listening to me about this. I was afraid you’d laugh in my face and give me the same shit everyone else has who’s ever known about it. I envy you, Amanda, I really do. You’ve got a nice family, one who supports you, one who gives you a lot of opportunities, and you pay for that with your loyalty to them. I don’t even have a family, with the exception of my sister, and we’re barely on speaking and Christmas card terms. In fact, she’s the only one I can write a Christmas card to. Well, at least until now. I’ve got you and your family now.”

“Feel free,” she smiled. “Maybe things are improving for you.”

“They started improving the day I walked out to the edge of Clinton City and stuck out my thumb,” he told her. “But maybe now I can throw this off a little.”

“I hope you can. I think you made a big step in coming to see me, and I think it was the right thing. I’m glad you’re my friend, Zack, and I’m glad you think of me as a friend. Now, what would you say if we walked back up to the Channel Stop, changed clothes, and went over to Dot’s Tavern for a cold beer?”

“I’ll go with you if you really want to, but I’d just as soon not,” he told her seriously. “I drink as little as I can.”

“We’ve been out drinking before. In fact, you got a little smashed at my birthday party last winter.”

“I only acted smashed since everyone else was. Even Cyndee had more to drink than I did.”

“You had a beer in every place we went into,” she smiled.

“I had a beer in front of me in every place we went into,” he laughed. “That doesn’t mean I drank much of it. Look, Amanda, I don’t think I have it in me to be the kind of asshole alcoholic my father was. At least I hope I don’t, but I don’t intend to find out, either. He was still an asshole when he was sober, but he was a lot worse when he was drunk. I don’t want to follow in his footsteps. I really don’t. Look, Amanda, I want a wife and a family someday, but I have a hell of a good example of how not to treat them. I don’t ever want to find myself going down that road.”

“I guess that makes sense,” she said. “I got pretty blasted that night but I hope I learned my lesson. I may have a beer or two at the end of a hot day, or with friends, but I drew the line after that. What would you say to going up to the Channel Stop and trying out the deep fried lake trout special tonight? It was caught only yesterday. It was off the Chinook, not my boat, but it ought to be pretty good.”

“I think I’d like that,” he smiled. “But since we’re down here at the beach, maybe we ought to go swimming.”

“That is an idea, now that you mention it,” she said.

They stayed in the lake long enough to get thoroughly cooled off, then walked slowly in the dying heat of the day up to the motel, where they went to their rooms and changed into comfortable clothes. The lake trout was very good, and the Lewis family knew how to prepare it right. Amanda’s father came in as they were eating, and joined them at the table for a bit. He was surprised to see Zack there, of course. Neither he nor Amanda wanted to tell him the whole truth of what Zack was doing in Winchester Harbor, so she explained to her father that Zack happened to be in the area and had dropped in to see her for a couple of days.

“You know, Zack,” her father said, “since you’re here, maybe you ought to go out fishing with Amanda.”

“I’d like that,” Zack smiled. “I’ve never been fishing in my life. It’s a little hard to do in Kansas.”

“I’m told there’s some fishing there, but it’s not like here. Besides, maybe you could help us out with a little problem.”

“What’s that?”

“Samantha, the girl who’s been the deckhand on the Chinook most of the summer, is young enough that she has a limit on the number of hours she can work each week,” Jake explained. “She’s right up against it now. You spend at least a little time steering that patrol boat you’re on, don’t you?”

“Yeah, they like to rotate the duty around.”

“Well, if the two of you were to take the Chinook out, you’d know enough to steer it while Amanda deals with the fishing. All you have to do is to do what she tells you to do when she yells at you.”

“It doesn’t sound that much different from being on a patrol boat,” Zack grinned. “Especially when you’ve got a female chief running it.”

“I suppose it isn’t,” Jake told him. “That’ll get us through another week with Samantha, and I’m pretty sure she’s not going to mind staying in by the air conditioner for a day.”

“After the summer in Jacksonville, this isn’t all that hot,” Zack grinned. “In fact, it seems pretty comfortable to me.”

That evening Amanda and Zack sat in lounge chairs on the deck in front of the motel, looking out at the Channel. “Look,” she said. “I guess it’s OK if you want to go out on the Chinook with me tomorrow, but you don’t have to do it if you don’t want to. Dad sort of ran that one past you a little quickly. It’s not that hard, but you are on leave.”

“Hell, I’m away from the Coast Guard,” he told her. “I don’t mind riding around on a boat. Besides, I want to see what it is you do and how you do it.”

Early the next morning, well before the customers arrived, Amanda took Zack down to the Chinook to show him around, and explain a few things about how they operated. The fishing confused him a little bit, but he didn’t need much instruction about running the boat. Amanda was with him on the flying bridge as they went out of the harbor and between the breakwaters, but after that she just gave him a compass course and a speed to run, and he did it as if he were an automatic pilot. Maybe it was the good luck of having him on board, but they managed to find some fish. They didn’t quite limit out, but didn’t come far from it, either.

After the day was over with and the customers went home, they got on swimsuits and went down to the beach like they had done the day before, but this time it wasn’t nearly as heavy. Zack said that he thought he’d learned a lot from watching, but that he’d be a long time being as good at it as Amanda was. Mostly, they just swam and fooled around, then went back up to the snack bar for dinner, and wound up once again spending the evening sitting out on the deck at the motel, just talking.

The talk was especially nice since Amanda could feel that a wall that had been between them down in Florida had fallen. A lot of his shyness had disappeared, at least with her; he was still pretty quiet around the customers and the people they met at the snack bar. After an awkward start on this visit, she was very comfortable with him – and all too aware that he was going to have to be heading back to Jacksonville very soon.

Zack managed to stretch out his stay another couple of days, but also told her while sitting out on the motel room deck on his last evening there that he didn’t really want to be around when Ron and Cordy showed back up. It was going to be awkward enough as it was to explain why he’d driven so far to see her.

“That’s easy,” she grinned. “Tell them that you had some extra time and drove up to see me because you missed me.”

“Well, I did. It’s going to be lonely down there in Jacksonville with no one like you to talk to. I still don’t want what I told you to come out among the guys, but actually, coming to see you seems to me a pretty good reason to make the trip by itself.”

“You know, Zack,” she smiled, “I’m going to miss you, too. It’s going to be three and a half months before I get back down to the Rag Doll, but I’m looking forward to taking you out sailing on her.”

“I’m looking forward to it, too.”

Amanda still had her reservations about getting together with him, but now, unlike in March, they weren’t about him, but about what his being in the Coast Guard represented. She couldn’t help think of the challenge that her brother and Cordy faced when the time came for Ron to be reassigned. Now, the same challenge seemed to face her, at least if she were to get serious with Zack.

It was something to think about, but at least she would have three and a half months to think about it. “How are you fixed for leave time, Zack?”

“Oh, hell, I’ve got tons,” he said. “I don’t have much reason to take leave.”

“Well,” she said, “I think we’ll have to wait till I get back down there before we can work out the details, but maybe we could wind up doing a little more than just daysailing on her.”

“Amanda, are you saying what I’m thinking you’re saying?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I’m going to have to think about it. But I will be thinking about it, I promise you that. And Zack?”

“Yes?”

“Do you have a passport?”

“No, I’ve never had the need for one.”

“Get one,” she said. “I can’t make promises, and we’ll have to see how things go next winter, but the Bahamas aren’t out of the question.”

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