Sanctuary

“Morning, Meg. And how’s pretty Lisa today?”
    The little girl raced over and began to chatter.
    Jo used the voices for background music as she went about her chores. The older woman was Joan, and it seemed she and Dick had the campsite adjoining the one Meg and her husband, Mick, had claimed. They’d formed that oddly intimate vacationers’ friendship over the past two days. They made a date to have a fish fry that night, then Meg slipped into one of the shower stalls with her little girl.
    Jo listened to the water drum and the child’s voice echo as she mopped up the floor. This was what Ginny liked, she realized, collecting these small pieces of other people’s lives. But she was able to join in with them, be a part of them. People remembered her. They took snapshots with her in them and slipped them into their family vacation albums. They called her by name, and repeaters always asked after Ginny.
    Because she didn’t hide from things, Jo thought, leaning on her mop. She didn’t let herself fade into the background. She was just like her brightly colored plastic flowers. Cheerful and bold.
    Maybe it was time she herself took a few steps forward, Jo thought. Out of the background. Into the light.
    She gathered her supplies and walked out of the ladies’ section, rounding the building to the door of the men’s facilities. She used the side of her fist to knock, giving the wooden door three hard beats, waited a few seconds and repeated.
    Wincing a little, she eased the door open and shouted. “Cleaning crew. Anyone inside?”
    Years before when she’d been helping Ginny, Jo had walked in on an elderly man in a skimpy towel who’d left his hearing aid back at his campsite. She didn’t want to repeat the experience. She heard nothing from inside—no sound of water running, urinals whooshing, but she made as much noise as possible herself as she clamored in.
    As a final precaution, she propped the door open and hung the large plastic KEEPING YOUR REST ROOMS CLEAN sign in plain sight. Satisfied, she hauled her bucket to the sinks and dumped in cleaner. Twenty minutes, thirty tops, and she’d be done, she told herself. To get through it she began to plan the rest of her day.
    She thought she might drive up to the north shore. There were ruins there from an old Spanish mission, built in the sixteenth century and abandoned in the seventeenth. The Spaniards hadn’t had much luck converting the transient Indians to Christianity, and the settlement that historians suspected had been planned had never come to pass.
    It was a nice day for a drive to the north tip, the light would be excellent by mid-morning for photographing the ruins and the terraces of shells accumulated and left by the Indians. She wondered if Nathan would like to go along with her. Wouldn’t an architect be interested in the ruins of an old Spanish mission? She could ask Brian to put together a picnic lunch, and they could spend a few hours with the ghosts of Spanish monks.
    And who was she fooling? Jo demanded. She didn’t give a hang about the monks or the ruins. It was the picnic she wanted, the afternoon with no responsibility, no agenda, no deadline. It was Nathan she wanted. She straightened and pressed a hand to her stomach as it fluttered hard and fast. She wanted the time alone with him, perhaps to test them both. To see what would happen if she found the courage to just let herself go. To be with him. To be Jo.
    And why not? she thought. She would call his cottage when she got back home. She’d make it very casual. Impromptu. Unplanned. And whatever happened, happened.
    When the lights switched off, she yelped, splashed water all over her feet. She spun around, leading with her mop like a lance, and heard the echo of the heavy door closing.
    “Hello?” The sound of her own voice, too thin and too shaky, made her shiver. “Who’s there?” she demanded, and in the dim light filtering through the single high and frosted window, she edged toward the door.
    It resisted her first shove. Panic reared up toothily and snapped at her throat. She shoved again, then pounded. Then she whirled, heart booming in her ears. She was certain that someone had slipped in and stood behind her.
    She saw nothing—just empty stalls, the dull gleam of the wet floor. Heard nothing but her own racing breath. Still, she leaned against the door, terrified to turn her back on the room, and her eyes wheeled left and right, searching for movement in