Excerpt from SEAVIEW ROAD

© Copyright 2020 by Brian McMahon

Book available for you to order here.

The text below comes straight from my first novel, SEAVIEW ROAD. I don’t want to spoil anything by giving you too much information here, so I’ll let the words speak for themselves. I hope you enjoy.

The stairs down from the deck led to a flat surface from which one could view the water or supervise children in said water before resuming their descent to a sandy path, one surrounded by brambled grass and head-high bushes until it spit travelers onto the beach. 

   Katie and Amelia sat above the flat surface, just three steps below the rest of the party. Other than a few of Jamie Jr.’s friends who had ventured down to the water for some heathenous purpose, they were the lowest to the ground of anyone in attendance. Amelia looked up as if she expected the show to start early. Katie held a drink that felt more comfortable in her hand than it had the summer before and wondered what proportion of people ended up drinking with their babysitters, giggling internally at the thought of sitters getting their wards drunk before thinking maybe it was a little dark, even for her private contemplations. For a while, they didn’t talk about anything of substance. Katie recited her takeaways from a year at school, and when Amelia struggled to process how old they had gotten, Katie savored the moment—this revelation that the Amelia she had lionized for so long was there, at least for now.  

   “If I sit here long enough and stay quiet, maybe the kids will just sleep through the night.”  

   “I think you got pretty lucky. They seem way better behaved than most of the kids we see out here on the beach. Little monsters.” 

   Katie still spoke quickly in her presence, conscious of taking up too much of the older girl’s time.  

   “They’re the best. Any time you hear me complaining or see me looking annoyed, just know that I know they’re the best.” 

   “That’s sweet.” 

   “Too sweet, isn’t it? I’m such a loser now. I have no life besides them.” Amelia stuck out her tongue at herself. Katie remembered the motion well from hundreds of past instances.  

   Katie looked up from her step, one below Amelia’s, and their smiles joined. Most of the natural light had ebbed away, and the deck’s fixtures didn’t reach this far down, but Katie saw in Amelia the same face she had esteemed all her life. Amelia looked Katie’s age, and Katie felt like a child, suddenly jealous of the tots sleeping inside. Amelia’s svelte white dress fluttered over her feet. Katie was reminded of what a beautiful bride she had been.  

   The wedding had been gaudy, the manifestation of Anne’s visions and self-assurances. Two hundred and fifty guests on a sweltering September afternoon, decorations and the space itself evoking the type of pastoral life no one in attendance had ever lived. But Amelia had been beautiful, her dress simple despite its cost, her flawless skin unaffected by the heat. She was always comely but was on that day breathtaking. When she took the time to dance with Katie, after the crowd’s buzz had started to dim, she whispered, “This will be you someday, with the luckiest boy in the world,” and Katie had hugged her, wondering even then if a hard-enough squeeze could transport them to another life, one that looked a little bit like the world in which the day’s constructed atmosphere professed to exist. 

   They could hear the ocean if they let their ears focus in that direction, and for a few minutes they did, until Amelia was almost asleep. Katie rested her head on the wood behind her and inhaled the salt of the air, her mouth drier with each breath. A few houses away, preteens blasted the songs of that summer. They screamed the choruses. 

   Jamie Jr.’s voice carried down to them as he searched for his wandering guests, but some unheard messenger convinced him not to go check on them, and his playful indignation vanished as he turned back. Amelia’s eyes had opened at the sound of her brother’s voice. They rested upon learning of his retreat.  

   What did Amelia think of her brothers? Katie was afraid to ask. Amelia was too polite to answer honestly anyway. Amelia could befriend anyone, tolerate any interaction. But Katie assumed she acted differently when it was just family around her, or maybe she didn’t. Maybe she just kept them comfortable. She saved them from the most disturbing confrontations.  

   “Do you think we need to go back up there? I feel like I should be socializing more.” 

   “Maybe. I’m all set. Everyone will just assume I’m inside with the kids. I’m also pretty sure no one’s paying close enough attention to notice that we’re hiding.” 

   Amelia’s face was more expressive than her parents’. Her darting eyes suggested a willingness to make a run for it.  

   “Yeah, and I think I’ve done my college is fun spiel enough for a night.”

Amelia’s tongue shot out again. “Whoops. I sort of made you do it, too, didn’t I? Bleh. My parents’ friends are all a bit screechy when they’re this drunk, and J.J. and his pals are a bit much no matter what.” 

   “I didn’t think you guys still called him that.” 

   They didn’t, not often, and never to his face. They knew it bothered him because he had told them several times—most notably at a dinner around the time of his college graduation. A few classmates and their parents had joined them for a friendly meal to celebrate their boys. After the third or fourth instance of “J.J.” at the table, Jamie Jr. lashed out. His parents and siblings accepted the change in due course, for at a previous, Clarkes-only meal he had made his general desire to act like an adult clear by way of a titanic fit, thrown after he accused Anne and Amelia of condescending to him about the best way to remove a ketchup stain from his tie. Katie had experienced none of this, but the Murrays had caught on quickly when “Jamie Jr.” became the preferred nomenclature. Even thinking “J.J.” to herself flooded Katie’s mind with impressions of him playing on the beach or running home from it, making and evading trouble at the hands of his parents, stopping short of full-on bullying Katie and Ryan and others not out of pity or sporadic empathy but because he understood what he could get away with, a dangerous tool for any kid, one he hadn’t lost hold of, one his sister never wanted, one about which his brother had never learned. 

   Amelia didn’t respond. Katie learned from her silence. She could read in her eyes that for J.J. there was still hope for change or maturation. While Jamie Jr. was set in stone, set in his ways, still abusing his power, J.J. would someday think better of it and stop pushing, stop his consequenceless experimentation.  

   Katie wondered if Eric lived somewhere in his sister’s silence or if he ever had. She thought she saw a touch of him. She wanted to ask where he was and why it wasn’t here, with them, on the steps. But she was afraid of losing this Amelia, of scaring her back into her shell at the mention of his name, at the first sign of disturbing this little peace that had formed in the shadow of the sea. When would she have the opportunity to speak with this Amelia again if she let or forced her to escape now? But this was, for all intents and purposes, her only chance to remind a Clarke about their pariah, her chance to investigate if they were confident in his well-being or just too uncomfortable to ask. 

   “I thought I might see Eric here tonight. Ryan has seen him around this summer.” 

   Amelia’s affectless response confirmed the family’s malaise. Of course Katie hadn’t expected to see her brother, and they were both aware that “around” didn’t mean close to them or here. Clearly Amelia had been aware Eric was in the area, and sensed what kept him here. She looked down. Katie hoped she might cry and reveal years of discomfort and fear. She had been Eric’s babysitter, too. Sometimes she monitored them all together. She let them stay up late, watch movies they shouldn’t have watched at such young ages, ask her questions their parents wouldn’t answer. Katie searched her eyes for a desire to help, to run and scour the streets for him. 

   “I don’t think my parents wanted that. I doubt Eric does either.” 

   “But how do you know?” 

   Amelia’s discomfort was clear and bordered on visible agitation. Her tongue stayed in her mouth.  

   “Sorry, I shouldn’t pester you about him.” 

   Someone’s impractical shoes clacked messily and paused halfway between the top step and the girls. Katie could smell her perfume but didn’t recognize her even as she moved out of the way of the light behind her and revealed a face not worth the effort she had poured into it for the night.  

   “Amelia, there you are. Your mother is looking for you. She wanted you to meet the Lewises. I think. Something about a college classmate of yours who went to Delbarton. Squash player. Some of the specifics are, um, well. She sent me on a search and rescue mission for you. Or maybe search and destroy your evening.” 

   She slurred the final words and mumbled the last before returning to the party, latching onto a conversation between two men who eyed her approach skeptically. Amelia rose fast and reached out to help Katie up.  

   “Millie, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything.” 

   “It’s okay. He’ll be alright, Katie. I’m sure of it.”   

   She lifted Katie and climbed the stairs in one motion. Katie watched her go, then glanced back at the water. Inaudible fireworks danced in the sky, rising from some other town’s shore. 

   Katie climbed the stairs and found herself walking an empty path through the middle of the deck, which was more crowded than it had been all night. A throng, now condensed into rows, pressed against the railing, staring up at the Monomo show. The sound only registered for her upon looking at the crowd, which didn’t meet her gaze. These fireworks were of a different kind from both the prior night’s and the other towns’, paid for by a few private, overzealous citizens.

   The opening caught the attention of everyone on the Clarkes’ deck and dozens like it, some filled with adults and others with kids or families but all of them full and looking to the sky. The benefactors had prioritized variety this year, and the show dragged a little in its second act due to a prevalence of fizzing and popping and a dearth of thunderous bangs, for which even the adult decks longed. Katie had stepped forward as the pyrotechnics began but paused ten feet shy of the house and watched them alone, the parted way leaving her three feet from any warm body. The finale put the rest of this and other shows to shame, its reds and blues cacophonous. The crowd around Katie started to mutter, checking if the exhibition was done, but their whispers were soon drowned out by the encore. 

   They all looked up in expectation of something hard to describe, something they were yet to see. Some returned to the earth faster than others who, resisting gravity, reached and strained to stay where the light was, where the burning was encouraged and, after the last pops diffused, applauded. 

. . .

Katie wasn’t surprised to find her brother and father keeping to themselves in a corner of the deck, the latter listing on the railing and the former sitting on it, each with a near-empty beer in hand. Ryan raised his to welcome her. Kevin’s stayed put as he pulled her in with the non-leaning arm. Ryan smiled and pushed himself off the ledge. 

   She wondered why he would give up his spot, but he tapped her on the shoulder and moved past her, greeting a boy she didn’t recognize who had just stepped out from the house.  

   “Who’s that he’s talking to?” 

   “I don’t know, Dad. Probably from the club or something.” 

   Ryan’s friend texted and talked animatedly. Ryan stole a glance at his father, but he and Katie had turned to look over the barrier, the angles of their leans mirroring each other, racing away from this place. 

   The friend finished a text, stuffed the phone into his pocket, and handshake-hugged Ryan, holding it until Ryan nodded and held up his hands to suggest he would make his best effort.

   “Dad, you mind if I head out?” Ryan bobbed up and down on his toes, flexing his calf muscles.

   Kevin didn’t even turn, but Katie flipped herself to listen to him cut down his boy. “Probably not a good idea, especially if it’s to go get in trouble at Greenstone.” 

   “That sounds like something Mom told you to say.” 

   Now Kevin turned and inspected his son. He placed his bottle on the railing and used the freed hand to pull Katie in for a side hug. He was a cautious father at times but trusted them both. Neither one ever let things get out of control, not like their classmates, not like some of the kids he taught. His parents had never paid much attention to where he was or when he got home, which had been nice at times. He had been allowed to follow his impulses, to indulge in whatever he and his friends found most alluring on a given night. For a long time, he gave in without thinking. He gave in so often, so routinely, that it became difficult not to. To resist an urge was painful, a feeling reserved for the old-fashioned, the imprisoned. He couldn’t remember how he had escaped the cycle. He recalled drifting apart from some friends, growing tired of the constant exhaustion and the haphazard sleeping arrangements. By the time his parents sat him down, he had already turned, but he didn’t mind their help or its tardiness. It gave him an excuse for when the friends tried to bring him back along, to ignore his trepidation.

   “If your sister goes with you, I’ll turn a blind eye. That way you two can keep an eye on each other. Or I suppose she can keep an eye on you and drag you out of there if she has to.” 

   Katie groaned and pulled away. “What? Why? This isn’t Taming of the Shrew.”  

   Kevin clasped her tighter and laughed while Ryan searched for the humor in his sister’s reference. 

   “10 Things I Hate About You? C’mon, Ryan, you’re better than that.” 

   “Okay, okay, relax. I get it. I knew what you meant.” 

   “You’re the dumbest smart person east of the Mississippi.” Katie had used the line many times before. Ryan embraced it. Sometimes he felt it was generous.  

   He wiped his nose and coughed and flashed her the middle finger of his left hand.  

   “Katie, don’t say that.” Kevin feigned an austere look.  

   “Yeah, Katie, do—” 

   “He’s smart for a dummy is all.”  

   Father and daughter kept laughing and reclined. Ryan joined in but grew silent as his eyes jetted between them. 

   “So are you coming?” 

   “Convince me.” She crossed her arms and waited.  

   Before he could try, she remembered her conversation with Cassie. She would enjoy Mark Hunter’s company but would have preferred to make it somewhere other than Greenstone, which she was certain would be crawling with drunk numbskulls looking for a fight at the slightest provocation.  

   “I don’t know, Katie. It’s summer, and we’re young. Let’s have some fun, and we can leave right away if it’s a bad scene.” 

   “Bad scene? Is this Grease? Whatever, I’ll drive you at least, but no promises on me socializing with anyone.” 

   She pushed herself off the railing. Kevin warbled, “Summer lovin’, had me a blaaasst.” 

   Ryan spun his arms in an attempt to shush him, but he only hummed softer. “Works for me. Dad, I’ll make sure I bring protection and everything.” 

   Kevin stopped humming. “Not funny. Not even in the neighborhood of funny.” 

   “Let me just run to the bathroom.” 

   They left Kevin in the corner, and he looked around for his wife, not overly concerned with finding her. Ryan found his friend and talked quietly on the opposite side of the deck while Katie turned to go inside, her path now refilled with guests. She reached the inside of the house without being pulled into any conversation, which she considered a victory. The bathroom was a sharp left turn away. As she took it, she saw Amelia’s profile in the doorway to the kitchen. Amelia led the conversation, laughing and gesturing to what must have been the Lewises, the white of her dress shining in the bright room, her smile radiant, or maybe radioactive, glowing outward and searing her from the inside. 

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Book on sale May 12, 2020.