Beach House Memories (48 page)

“I don’t know all the answers,” she began. “But I do know what I need. And that’s my summers at the beach house. My work with the sea turtles is nonnegotiable. It’s important to me, and more, it’s important to the turtles. I must be here early May. And I will stay until the last nest emerges. I’ll manage with the children’s school schedule somehow.”

“I won’t see you for months.”

“You’ll be traveling during this time anyway, Stratton. This schedule works for us.”

He pursed his lips and met her gaze, measuring her resolve. This was a man known for his power of negotiation. She stared back at him, unbroken. She had come too far to retreat now. He must have seen her determination because he nodded in agreement.

“Will you be returning to our bedroom?” he asked pointedly.

Lovie’s whole body stiffened at the thought of sharing his bed. “It’s too soon to make that decision, Stratton.” Then, remembering another discussion at another time, she added, “Let’s take it day by day and see where we end up.”

Stratton’s shoulders drew back and he looked out for a long while at the sea. Lovie didn’t press him but waited as tense as a cat curled on the chair.

“All right,” he replied at length. “I can start with that.”

Lovie’s muscles uncoiled, and she moved one step closer to truce. “Those are the conditions that I need, Stratton. But I ask only one thing.”

He didn’t scowl or get angry, as she thought he might. Rather, his face was open, willing to hear her. She took heart.

“Stratton, we need counseling. I’d like us to talk more and to really hear what we’re saying.”

He shook his head obstinately. “I won’t go to therapy.”

“It’s marriage counseling,” she clarified. She pressed her hands together and spoke calmly and deliberately. “Stratton, I’m afraid of your anger. I can’t live in the same house with you, afraid you’ll strike out at me, or our children.”

“It kills me to hear you say that. I’m so sorry I struck you, Lovie. I’ll never strike you again. I swear,” Stratton said with urgency.

“If I didn’t believe you, I couldn’t go back. But my fear is still
there and it will take time. And there are other issues,” she said, choosing not to throw his drinking and infidelity in his face now. “I know you have your issues, too. Please, Stratton.”

He reached far forward across the distance between them to take her hand, so small in his. Then he patted it. “If it brings your forgiveness, we can try.” He half smiled. “And see where we end up.”

She returned his smile. “Yes, Stratton. We can try.”

He placed his other hand over hers and held them tight, his thick gold band catching the last of the day’s light. He bent to kiss her forehead, sealing their pact. Then he released her hands, rose, and went to the door. Opening it, she caught a glimpse of Palmer’s and Cara’s faces peering in before they quickly darted back. Stratton looked over his broad shoulder and offered her a ghost of a smile.

After he left, Lovie walked across the room and leaned on the doorjamb, peering out. She saw Stratton sitting on the front porch with Palmer and Cara on either side of him, talking. She rested her cheek against her hand, breathing in the sight. She watched him leave, her heart beating as softly in her chest as the wings of a dove.

“I’m going to take a walk,” she told Vivian, then ventured a tired smile. “I need to think. Don’t wait dinner for me. I’ll be late.”

Twenty-five

L
ovie walked the beach and wrapped her patchwork shawl closer around her shoulders. In the distance, a lone cargo ship cruised toward a port far across the ocean, its line of red lights bobbing like lightning bugs. At her feet, a ghost crab skittered across her path. Breach Inlet was a tempest tonight, whitecapped waves churning in the dangerous currents.

She approached the turnoff for the path to the cottage. To the left was the small dune. She had not had the strength to return to it, nor the desire. She stood at the foot of the dune, as a summer full of memories flitted through her mind, one more vivid than the next.

Their last night together had been a night very much like this one. Sultry, with a full moon that spread its silvery light across the sand. The stars ahead were dazzling, the air so still it had felt otherworldly.

Olivia
.

Lovie went still. She heard Russell’s voice in her head, calling her name. She felt the hair on her neck tingling and felt suddenly afraid. Was she losing her mind? Was her grief so desperate? But it had sounded so real . . . She waited another moment, listening intently, but heard only the gentle roar of the surf.

She shook her head, clearing it. She was tired, she thought. Imagining things.

“Enough,” she said to herself. No more fears. Tonight was a night for decisions and reconciliation. She had to claim her life back, not only for her own welfare but also for that of her family.

Putting one foot before the other, she began to climb the dune. It was such a small dune to hold so many memories, she thought as her heels dug into the cold sand. It was wreathed with green vines and dotted with clumps of strong, unyielding sea oats, the roots of which went deep, holding the dune firm. This was where she and Russell had spread out the red-and-black checkered blanket and held each other while listening to the roar of the surf and the sea oats rustling and the beat of each other’s heart.

She reached the top of the dune, awash in memories. Every year the dunes altered in configuration with the ravaging wind of winter storms. But her little dune persevered, she thought, letting her gaze cross the gentle contours of sand.

Her attention was caught by a small red flag sticking out from the sand. It was the same kind of flag that she and Russell had used to mark the false crawls during the project. Curious that the flag was way up here, she walked closer. A nest had never been laid here. It didn’t make sense for a flag to have been planted on this dune. Who would have put it here?

As quickly as she had the thought, she knew the answer. Lovie’s deadened heart felt a spark of life. Russell would be just this clever. She dropped to her knees and began to dig, like a dog on the scent. Every fiber in her being was on alert as she probed deeper, faster, the tiny shells in the sand scraping her tender skin and the sand pushing under her nails. When her fingers hit metal, she wasn’t shocked.

Lovie pulled a small tin box from the hole and brushed away the sand. With a twinge in her heart, she recognized it. The box
was decorated with perforations in the metal. It once had held shells on her back porch. Her heart beat harder in her chest as the realization of what this all meant bloomed in her thoughts. With trembling fingers, she opened the box with reverence.

There was a letter. The paper was fine and slightly yellowed from age and the elements. She opened it. A breeze caught the edges as she tilted the paper in the moonlight to read. She immediately recognized Russell’s slanted, elegant penmanship.

March 15, 1975

My darling Olivia,

I don’t blame you in the least for not coming to meet me. I know better than most the complicated bonds that tie us to our responsibilities. Yes, I confess I had hoped that you would come. I waited at the beach house all night, masked by the dark like the thief that I was, hoping against hope to steal you away.

I don’t doubt for a moment that you loved me. Love me still. But you have made your decision. As promised, I will respect it.

But if you should ever change your mind, or if circumstances occur where you ever find your life untenable, I want you to have the freedom to leave—even if you do not choose to come to me.

You carry my love within you. A day will never dawn nor a sunset slip into the horizon when I will not think of you. I accept that the mind often dictates the heart. Yet I believe that the heart is the truer guide.

So, if in the course of time, you should want to come to me, do not hesitate. Know that I will be waiting for you. You will always have my heart—my love.

Always,
Russell

Lovie folded the letter slowly, then pressed the paper to her heart. “Russell!” She said his name aloud, knowing she was heard.

She understood all now. Russell had come to the beach house on March 15. He’d sat in the dark on her back porch, waiting for her. When she didn’t come, he’d written this letter. But where could he leave it? She could imagine him thinking this situation through in his organized manner. He’d paced the porch, searching for possibilities. He knew he couldn’t slip the letter under the door, or leave it propped on the porch table for fear that someone else might discover it and read it. He must have exhausted a litany of possibilities before he settled on his plan. When he’d found this tin box on her porch, when he devised his plan, he must have smiled with the memory of the Point. He would have emptied the shells from the box and placed his letter inside to protect it. Then he would have taken one of the flags from the red bucket and climbed to their dune. There, at a place that held precious memories for them both, he had buried his letter, marking the spot with the flag in such a way that only she would understand. His intent was for her—and only her—to find the treasure.

And at last, she had.

Lovie felt the tight string that she’d held herself together with for so many months begin to loosen. She took great, heaving breaths, and at last, the knot was released and she let loose all the anguish and disappointment and heartbreak that had been locked inside her. Lovie howled at the moon, not caring who heard her. She sobbed loud and freely, stretching out on the sand, belly to the earth, clutching his letter to her heart.

Lovie lay on her and Russell’s dune, her sanctuary, and felt her tears flow as freely as a welcoming rain, nourishing her soul, bringing it back to life. Her heart grew roots to this hallowed ground. Closing her eyes, she heard again Russell’s voice on the
surf.
Olivia
. Smiling, she fell asleep, and in her dreams, he returned to her.

When she awoke, the night was chilled and intensely quiet. Stars shone cold overhead. She was curled on her side, her knees up, shivering, with Russell’s letter still clutched at her chest. She pulled herself up to sit on the dune, the damp cool of morning waking her further. She saw the letter in her hand and, kissing it, tucked it into her pants pocket. The spark of her self-confidence had been reignited. It glowed as a small ember now, but she would continue to feed it until she felt it blazing inside her.

She shook the sand from her hair and rubbed her face with her palms. What time it was, she couldn’t guess, but the softening of the darkness told her that dawn was near.

Looking out at the sea, she stiffened when she caught sight of a hulking, shadowy creature in the surf. It sat at the edge of the beach where water met sand, a great prehistoric beast sniffing the air. It was a loggerhead!

Her senses went on alert and she crouched lower on the dunes. She’d seen sea turtles on the beach many times before, but never had she witnessed one emerging from the sea. This female turtle had heard the call of her ancestors and journeyed through spirals of swift water and a living broth of plankton and invertebrates. She ignored the hunger in her belly to push on past schools of great fish and solitary sharks, following instincts that had guided mothers of her kind for more than two hundred million years. When at last she reached her home shores, she mingled with the other turtles in the swells. Mating was a tempestuous contest of wills. Then she left the male, to swim alone on her voyage of continuity. Inside her body, she carried the hope of the next generation of sea turtles.

Now she’d arrived at this border between water and land. This
was her moment of reckoning. She would have to leave all she knew, all that was safe, to face the dangers of the unknown. To climb across the vast and dangerous distance to the dunes and nest.

Yet this powerful female waited. What instincts were coming to play at this moment? Lovie wondered. Did she sense the stealthy movement of a predator in the shadows? Perhaps she sensed Lovie’s presence on the dune.

“You’re safe, mother,” Lovie whispered to her, tears welling up. “I won’t hurt you.”

The great turtle slowly turned at the shoreline and lumbered back into the sea. Lovie knew a fierce disappointment, but her breath caught at the sight of a large chunk missing from the turtle’s rear shell. It had to be a shark bite. Poor mother! Magnificent beast, it’s no wonder you are wary. She’d been wounded, but here she was, resilient and determined to continue her destiny. Her return to the sea was not a retreat. She would try again. Perhaps later today at a different beach. Perhaps tomorrow at this same location. The decision she made would be hers alone, guided by her instinct and experience.

The first pink rays of dawn broke through the darkness and slowly stretched across the horizon to usher in a new day. Lovie felt her soul expand with light to become part of something so much bigger than her mere self. She felt at peace knowing that at the end of her time here on earth, her name would be written not in this sand but in heaven.