Sidney Sheldon’s The Tides of Memory

It was over. The nightmare was over.

LESS THAN A MINUTE LATER BILLY was on the beach, smiling through the pain as a paramedic bandaged his head wound. Several people came over to shake his hand and inform him (as if he needed telling) how lucky he was to be alive.

“It was all for her, you know,” he told his admirers, nodding at Toni, who was striding over toward him, an Amazonian goddess in her tiny bikini, with her long wet hair trailing magnificently behind her. “My princess needed a pea. What could I do? Her wish was my command.”

Toni, however, was not in romantic mood.

“You goddamn fool!” she screamed at Billy. “You could have been killed! I thought you’d drowned.”

“Would you have missed me?” Billy pouted.

“Oh, grow up. What happened out there wasn’t funny, Billy. Poor Charles is in pieces. He thought he’d hit you. We all did.”

“ ‘Poor’ Charles?” Now it was Billy’s turn to get angry. “That dickhead was piloting his boat like a maniac. Didn’t you see how close he came to crashing into those poor kids in the rowboat?”

“They should never have been in the lanes,” said Toni. “And neither should you.”

Graydon Hammond had followed Toni out of the water and was tugging at her leg again, making whimpering noises.

“Graydon, please!” she snapped. “I’m talking to Billy.”

“But it’s important!” Graydon howled.

“Go ahead,” Billy said bitterly. “It’s clear you don’t give a damn about me. Go comfort Graydon. Or better yet, Charles. He’s the real victim here.”

“For God’s sake, Billy, of course I give a damn. Do you think I’d be so angry if I didn’t care about you? I thought … I thought I’d lost you.”

And to Toni Gilletti’s own surprise, she burst into tears.

Billy Hamlin put his arms around her. “Hey,” he whispered gently. “Don’t cry. I’m sorry I scared you. Please don’t cry.”

“Toniiiiiiiiiiiiii!” Graydon Hammond’s wails were getting louder. Reluctantly, Toni extricated herself from Billy’s embrace.

“What is it Graydon, honey?” she said more gently. “What’s the matter?”

The little boy looked up at her, his bottom lip quivering.

“It’s Nicholas.”

“Nicholas? Nicholas Handemeyer?”

Graydon nodded.

“What about him?”

Graydon Hammond burst into tears.

“He swam away. When you were watching Billy. He swam away and he never came back.”

CHAPTER THREE (#ud57785f1-6574-55b3-897a-02434e1a9121)

IT WAS A QUARTER OF A mile back to Camp Williams from the beach, along a sandy path half overgrown with brambles. Toni’s legs were scratched raw as she ran, but she was oblivious to the pain and deaf to the plaintive cries of the children struggling to keep up.

“My God. What happened to you? Forget your clothes?”

Mary Lou Parker, pristine in her preppy uniform of khaki shorts, white-collared shirt, and docksiders, looked Toni up and down with distaste. That bikini was really too much, especially with kids around. Mary Lou couldn’t think what Charles Braemar Murphy saw in Toni Gilletti.

“Have you seen Nicholas? Nicholas Handemeyer?” Toni gasped. Belatedly Mary Louise clocked her distress and the muted sobbing of the children huddled behind her. They looked like they’d been to war. “Did he come back here?”

“No.”

Toni let out a wail.

“ I mean, I don’t know.” Mary Lou backtracked. “I haven’t seen him, but let me go ask the others.”

One by one the other counselors and Camp Williams faculty emerged from their various cabins. No one had seen Nicholas Handemeyer. But Toni shouldn’t panic.

He was bound to have gotten out of the water.

Little boys ran off sometimes.

He couldn’t be far.

A group of the boys, including Don Choate, who was a varsity swim star, set off for the beach to help the rescue efforts. Billy Hamlin and Charles Braemar Murphy had stayed to help the coast guard, while Toni took the children back to camp.

Toni stood uselessly, watching them go. Not sure what else to do, she escorted the other boys back to camp, got them changed into dry clothes, and prepared some food for them. Mary Lou Parker arrived to find Toni mindlessly chopping cucumbers and staring at the wall.

“I’ll take over here,” said Mary Lou kindly. She didn’t like Toni Gilletti, but everyone knew how fond Toni was of little Nicholas. You could see the misery in her eyes. “You go and clean up. I bet you he’ll be back by the time you’ve had a shower. He’s probably getting hungry by now.”

Walking back to her cabin, Toni tried to make herself believe what Mary Lou had said.

He’ll be back any minute.

He’s probably getting hungry.

Other thoughts, horrific thoughts, hovered ominously on the edge of her consciousness, clamoring to be let in. But Toni pushed them aside. First the kids in the rowboat. Then Billy. Now Nicholas. The afternoon had been one long roller coaster of terror and relief. But it would end happily. It had to.

When Toni saw Nicholas she would hug him and kiss him and tell him how sorry she was for allowing herself to be distracted by Billy. Tomorrow they would catch crabs together and play possum. They would build entire sand cities. Toni would not be hungover, or tired, or thinking about her love life. She would be with the children, with Nicholas, one hundred percent present.

She stopped at the door to her cabin.

The boys emerged from the beach path one by one. They walked with their heads down, in silence. Toni watched them, numb, aware of nothing but the distant lapping of the waves ringing in her ears.

In later years, she would dream about their faces:

Charles Braemar Murphy, her lover up until that day, ashen white and ghostly.

Don Choate, his lips set tight, fists clenched as he walked.