As far as she could remember, even as a newbie police officer with her crisply ironed uniform, Madison had come to Alki Beach to run after her shifts. The comfort of the sand under her feet and the rhythm of the tide after a hard day, the sheer physical release after a good day—this run had been a constant in her life, and Madison knew very well that there were precious few of those, and she was grateful for it.
Then, the last day of the year just gone, after the end of those thirteen days, Madison had come back to the beach, changed into her sweats, started running, and promptly slipped into a recollection so vivid, so physical, that she’d had to stop: the sweet smell of pine resin in her nostrils. Hands on her knees and water up to her ankles, her sneakers soaked. Any dreams you want to tell me about?
Her arm had healed; the rest of her would take whatever time it would take. Madison retrieved her gym bag and changed in the backseat of her car. Her first strides were hesitant, but she ignored the sense of a forest floor shifting under her feet and the sudden scent of blood. And she kept running.
The rush-hour traffic carried Madison onto California Avenue SW without any apparent effort on her part; she followed the flow south with the windows rolled down and her faded maroon University of Chicago hooded sweatshirt stuck to her back. She wiped the perspiration off her brow with a sleeve and drove, listening to the local news on the radio and not thinking about Stanley F. Robinson, PhD.
We find our blessings where we can, and Madison pulled into a parking space opposite Husky Deli and stretched her sore limbs as she locked her car.
Her grandfather had brought her here for an ice cream cone her first weekend in Seattle while her grandmother was busying herself in the market nearby. They’d sat at the counter; he’d looked at the twelve-year-old girl he barely knew and spoken to her in a way no one had spoken to her before.
“I hope you will like it here—I really hope you will. All I’m asking is that, should there be anything troubling you, anything at all, you talk to me, to your grandmother and me. I don’t know what, exactly, happened with your father, and I’m not asking that you tell us. I’m just asking that you don’t run away, that you don’t just leave in the middle of the night. And we’ll do our best to help you in any way we can.”
Then he’d put out his hand. Alice had looked at it; no one had ever asked for her word about anything. She passed her maple walnut cone into her left hand and shook with her right, sticky with sugar. Her grandparents kept their word, and so did she.
Madison rubbed the sole of her sneaker against the edge of the pavement where she’d parked the Civic to get rid of a significant amount of Alki Beach that had insinuated itself into the grooves. She mingled with the deli’s other shoppers and filled a basket with food for home, as well as a chicken cashew sandwich—no parsley—and broccoli cheese soup that would probably not make it home.
Standing at the counter, she appeared no different from anybody else.
“Whole or half?” the man asked.
“Whole.”
“Large or small soup?”
“Large.”
“Roll?”
“No, thank you.”
The man’s gaze lingered for a fraction of a second on the two-inch fine red line across her left brow; it would fade in time, the doctor had said. Madison hadn’t cared then and didn’t care today. All that mattered was that the scar made her a little bit more recognizable after the flurry of articles and media reports in early January.
The man nodded; from the look and sound of him, he must have been working in the place since bread was invented.
“Cone? Caramel swirl’s freshly made.”
Madison smiled. “Not today.”
She started sipping soup from the takeout container in the car, engine already running, and by the time she turned onto Maplewood and her driveway, the carton was empty.
Three Oaks is a green neighborhood on the southwestern edge of Seattle, on one side the still waters of Puget Sound and on the other patches of woodland and single family homes in well-tended yards.
Madison parked next to her late grandparents’ Mercedes and balanced her gym bag on one shoulder; her arm was wrapped around the grocery bag as she unlocked the door, toed the sandy sneakers off, and gently pushed the door shut with one foot.
She padded into the kitchen and unpacked the groceries. Without turning on the lights she crossed the living room and opened the French doors, letting in fresh air. The answering machine flashed red. She ignored it, settled herself into a wicker chair on the deck, her feet on the wooden rail, and unwrapped the sandwich.
The backyard sloped down to a narrow beach that ran along the waterside properties; tall firs on either side worked better than a fence. In the half-light Madison looked at the plants, other trees, and shrubs: soon they would wake up for a new life cycle—the Japanese maples, the magnolias—each one planted and nurtured by her grandparents.