Beach House Memories (47 page)

“Yes. Exactly.”

Miranda tilted her head in thought. “But to hear his voice this morning . . .” Her finger tapped her lips. “That’s significant. I wonder . . . Do you have unfinished business between you?”

Lovie’s eyes widened. This was too private to share with Miranda. She slipped deeper under the blanket and shook her head.

“Lovie, you may not believe it now, but someday—quicker than you know—you’ll be in your sixties like me and be able to look back at all this heartache and know it was all part of God’s plan. Now, don’t give me that look. I swanny, you and Flo are two peas in a pod. For now, you just have to take my word for it, honey.”

Lovie didn’t speak.

“Tell you what,” Miranda said in an encouraging tone. “I’m not going to sit here and preach at you. I’ll spare you that. You sit there and relax and I’m just going to read to you a bit. Okay?”

Miranda opened the worn leather Bible, turning to where she’d marked the spot with a silken gold bookmark. She cleared her throat and then began reading. She’d selected Psalm 30, which spoke about rising from anguish and despair. She read in her melodious voice only those few passages that had held the message that had sustained her at her husband’s passing.

When she finished, Miranda closed the Bible and left it on the mattress, inches away from Lovie’s hand. Lovie’s eyes were closed, but when Miranda left, Lovie’s fingertips inched over to the Bible.

Later that afternoon, Lovie spotted Cara swinging her legs dejectedly on a long, low-lying limb of the old live oak tree in the back. The proud tree was at least two hundred years old and perfect for climbing, with branches that curled and twisted low like a herd of elephants’ trunks. It was Cara’s favorite place to read. Lovie often caught her daughter lying on the low branch, miles away on some adventure in a book.

Lovie came walking from her bedroom porch in a slow gait. She stopped in front of the tree. “What are you doing sitting up in that tree like a cat?”

“I’m just thinking,” Cara replied dully, moving to sit up.

“What’s the matter, precious?” Lovie asked. “Is everything okay between you and Emmi?”

“Oh, she’s fine, I reckon,” Cara replied with a sigh. “She’s hanging out with Tom Peterson.”

“Is he that new boy who moved here last summer?”

Cara nodded. “Emmi’s got a crush on him.”

“I thought you did, too.”

Cara shrugged, but her face was pink and scowling. “Maybe before. Not now. It’s all stupid. Emmi’s stupid. She’s acting all weird and googly-eyed around him. I can’t stand it.”

“Ah, I see.”

Cara’s scowl deepened. “It doesn’t matter anymore.”

“Oh? Why is that?”

“On accounta I’m never getting married.”

“Oh.” Lovie brushed a mosquito away, wondering if her marriage troubles were having a bad influence on Cara. She’d been trying so hard not to let the children feel the underlying tension. Kids were so perceptive; it was the parents who were fooled. “Why do you say that, Cara?”

“It’s like Emmi’s not Emmi anymore. She’s this other person or somethin’ when he’s around, and I don’t like her. Is that what happens when you fall in love?”

Lovie tried not to laugh and forced a serious face. “Yes, it is. When you’re in love you act goofy. All googly-eyed. And it feels wonderful. Like nothing else in the world. It’s not Emmi’s fault. She’s happy, Cara. Someday it will happen to you.”

She shook her head definitively. “Ick,” she replied, not liking that answer at all.

“But the goofy part only lasts for a little while,” Lovie went on to explain. “Then it settles down into something different. Better.”

Cara looked up at Lovie with skepticism. “Uh-huh,” she said, but her tone said she didn’t believe her.

Lovie eyed her child and thought her sullenness went too deep for boy trouble. “What else is troubling you, Caretta? Come on, you can tell me.”

Cara dangled her legs and stared at the cookies awhile. “Then why’re you so sad all the time?”

Lovie breathed deep. Yes, she thought to herself. This is the thorn that needs pulling. “Because my friend died.”

“I know,” she said, dangling her legs. “In a plane crash.”

“Yes. Do you remember him? Dr. Russell Bennett? He was the man who helped me with the turtle project last summer.”

Cara looked at Lovie, squinting like she was trying to remember him.

“He took you to the nest hatching . . .”

“Oh, yeah,” Cara answered.

Lovie thought it was sad that Russell could already be forgotten, then thinking further, she was relieved that he didn’t make a big impression.

“Is it hard when a friend dies?” asked Cara. “I mean, it’s not like a brother or your daddy or like that.”

Lovie moved to sit on the limb beside Cara. “Yes, it’s hard,” she answered in a soft voice. She leaned close to Cara and lay her cheek on the top of her head, feeling comfort from the closeness. “It can be very hard, if you cared for your friend a great deal.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Like if Emmi died?”

“Yes,” Lovie replied, “like if Emmi died. There’s an empty space in your heart.”

“But you have other friends,” Cara said, trying to make sense of it. “And you have me and Palmer and Daddy. And Vivian.”

“I know. And having you means so much to me. But that doesn’t make losing a friend less sad. It’s like some part of you is missing, and it hurts.”

Cara thought about that, her face scrunched up in thought. “Mama, what do you call it when someone loses a leg but it still hurts?”

“Do you mean ghost pains?”

“Yeah, that’s it,” she said. “Is that what you’re feeling now? Ghost pains?”

Lovie turned to kiss Cara’s head, marveling at a child’s perspicacity.

“Yes, dear. Mama’s having ghost pains.”

For three days Lovie remained in her room, hiding her grief. She’d rather her children think she was sick than in mourning. Hers was a private grief, not one to show in public. Flo took over for her on the turtle team, telling everyone Lovie wasn’t feeling well. Whether they believed the excuse or not, Lovie didn’t care. She was beyond the reach of gossip.

Only at night did she come out, like the lifeless vampire, a walking-dead thing. She sneaked out her bedroom porch to the beach and walked for hours, crying openly, cursing the stars and staring out at the sea.

Some people believed that the sea was a living, breathing beast. Seductive one moment, vindictive the next. Throughout history, sailors spoke to her lovingly, sensitive to her mercurial moods. Lovie knew it was true, and there were moments when she looked into the blackness of the ocean, as dark and fathomless as a spectral eye, and heard its voice calling to her, a voice that sounded like Russell’s, luring her to the mysteries and peace of its depths. On those infinite nights, Lovie didn’t know from where she found the strength to find her way home.

As the Fourth of July weekend approached, Lovie eschewed the crowds. She couldn’t leave her cocoon, even while recognizing that she was being self-indulgent with her grief, thanks to Vivian’s support. She was in her room, curled in an armchair, trying to read while listening to Joan Baez, when she heard Stratton’s voice in the living room. She set down Archie Carr’s book and turned off the phonograph. Perched on the edge of the chair, she listened to any words she could catch outside her door.

“Where’s your mama?” Stratton asked.

“She’s sleeping,” Palmer answered.

“Sleeping, huh?” Stratton said with a slur. “We’ll see about that.”

Lovie tensed and slunk back in her chair. She heard Stratton’s heavy footsteps approach, then a scurry of more steps stopping at her door.

“What’s the matter with you, boy?” Stratton said. His voice sounded weary and annoyed.

“She’s sleeping,” Palmer said again, his voice shaky yet gruff.

“I heard you the first time and I don’t care, hear? Now, git.”

“No, sir. I’m . . . I’m going to stay right here.” He cleared his throat. “I’m going to make sure Mama doesn’t fall down the stairs again.”

Lovie’s breath caught and she brought her hand to her mouth.

She clutched the arms of her chair, ready to leap, imagining father and son staring at one another. She couldn’t imagine what Stratton was thinking but felt sure his hand would rise and fall, smacking her son’s face for his impudence.

“Aw, son,” Stratton said in a miserable voice. “You shame me. And I deserve it. I know it. I’m not going to hurt your mama. I promise you. I’ll never hurt her again. You have my word.”

A moment later Stratton entered her room and closed the door. He stood at the foot of the bed dressed in his tan suit, his tie loose at the neck. His shoulders drooped in defeat.

“You’re here early,” Lovie said. “I didn’t expect you until the weekend.”

“I canceled my appointments and flew home early. I, uh, I heard about Bennett’s plane crash.”

Lovie brought her knees up and plucked at some unseen lint on the chair. “Yes. It’s all very tragic. We were all stunned.”

“I thought as much. I wanted to get home and see how you were. You didn’t answer my calls.”

She sighed and shook her head. “I’m sorry. I haven’t been feeling well.”

Stratton removed his jacket and tossed it on the bed. Then he sat on the mattress with a heavy sigh.

“Was it him?” he asked.

Lovie brought her fingers to her face and pinched her nose by her eyes. “Stop it.”

Stratton stared at the floor. Then he brought his hands to his face as his shoulders shook.

Lovie felt a sudden surge of pity. “Stratton . . .”

“What more do you want me to do?” he asked in a broken moan. “I’ve done all a man can do,” he said, shaking his head. He lifted his head to face her, his dark eyes pulsing with resentment. “I stuck to the marriage when you broke the vows. That’s more than most men would do, I can tell you. By all accounts I should have divorced you long ago, but I didn’t. I stayed by you. I tried, Lovie, I tried.”

“Why didn’t you let me go?” she cried, her own anguish breaking through at last. “I didn’t ask you to hold on. I didn’t
want
you to. I asked you for a divorce but you wouldn’t let me go. Why didn’t you let me go?” she cried again.

“I was saving our family!”

“No. You were saving your pride!”

“You left me with precious little of it!” he roared back.

“And you left me none at all!”

They stared at each other, breathing hard, each feeling excruciating pain.

Lovie rose and walked to the French doors, opening them wide. She felt the cool evening air blow in, smelled its sweetness, and gradually her heart rate lowered. What was the use of fighting? she thought as the malaise of depression returned. Lovie knew there would be no winner in this fight. Both of them would bear scars that would never completely heal.

“All this pain could have been avoided,” she said. Lovie skipped a beat to let the tension defuse. She turned to face him again. “Even now . . . This was your moment. You could have shown compassion, shared as an equal in the pain of this failure
we call a marriage. You could have asked me for my forgiveness and let me ask for yours.

“But you stand there in your pride and arrogance to once again remind me of all my failures and faults. How I betrayed our vows. How you were the rock while I floundered. How, against your better judgment, against your very nature, you have lowered yourself to save our marriage, to save our family.”

“I did all I could,” he replied, stunned and confused by her outburst. “I
am
the rock of this family. Are you denying that we were fine until you had your affair with Russell Bennett?”

Hearing him speak Russell’s name aloud took her aback. She sucked in her breath and looked directly at him.

“The trouble in our marriage began long before last summer. Russell was not the first affair in our marriage. We both know it, even if you don’t admit it.”

Stratton averted his gaze, but there was agreement in the faint nod of his head. It spoke volumes to Lovie.

“This is not what either of us signed up for. Stratton, I loved you when I married you. But I didn’t know what real love was. I was following the life that was laid out for me by my mother, and her mother. It was what was expected of me. I dare say that was the same for you. We are not the same young, naïve, guileless people we were then. Why do you still want to go on?” she asked him. “Do you think we can? After all this?”

“Yes,” he replied firmly, with typical bravado. “You’re still my wife. We’re still a family. I won’t let it all go. I can’t.”

Lovie looked at her husband, listened to his words, and understood all.
I won’t let go
.

Every man had his breaking point. For some, it would have come with the admission of an affair. The loss of face would have been all it took for a vain man to boot a woman out of the house. For others, the loss of something that was
his
, or worse, having
someone else take something he treasured from him, was an act that a controlling man could never allow. Stratton fell into the latter category. If she looked at the situation through his eyes, it was simple. She was his. The children were his. He claimed everything, and his ego couldn’t conceive of admitting defeat.

To be fair, she knew this about him when she’d married him. She’d relied on his strength and determination to build her home. He was her sole support. She depended on him.

She looked at her husband’s face and saw the years they’d shared in the lines that coursed down his face and gathered at his eyes and in the gray hairs that blended with the brown. She had her gray hairs, too, she thought. Lord help them, there was no villain in this marriage. There was blame enough to share. They’d married so young. They hadn’t yet realized that they were not the best match. Lovie approached her husband and reached out for his hand.

“It won’t be the same,” she warned him. “We have to set new boundaries. We can never go back to where we were.”

He sighed and looked at his hands splayed across his thighs. She instinctively knew he looked at his wedding band. “So,” he said, his voice low with defeat, “what are these new boundaries you need?”

Lovie returned to her chair and crossed her legs Indian style, her mind racing. She wasn’t prepared for this discussion. Not yet. She ran her hands through her hair, pushing it back from her face, and looked at her husband.