Cottage by the Sea

by Robin Jones Gunn

  Erin knew he had used up all his vacation time and tried to dissuade him from coming right away. “Actually, I think he’s okay. My dad will have all the support he needs.”

  “I’m coming for you, Erin. I want to be there for you while you go through this last stretch.”

  Her heart felt suddenly young and vulnerable. They talked it through some more, and in the end Mike decided he would wait until Erin called him and said she needed him. Once she made that call, he would come.

  Erin went about the rest of the morning as if she were on her usual routine. Fridays were when she changed the linens on the master bed and cleaned the bathroom. She kept up those usual tasks as Marge read a magazine. It felt so strange. When Jack had been struggling he needed constant care. Now that he had ceased fighting for his breath, the air passed in and out of his throat and lungs with an unnerving sort of calm. He appeared to be in a deep, long nap. No noises seemed to affect him.

  At one point in her morning round of tasks, Erin went to his side and watched him closely to see if he was breathing. He was. But the rise and fall of his chest was nothing like the great pitches and heaves she had watched over the past month. His eyes were closed as they had been since the sunset viewing. His jaw was slack, his skin was pale, and in his diminished state his cheekbones were unusually pronounced.

  Erin smoothed back his white hair. His once snowy mane had thinned and taken on a tint the shade of soft butter.

  Marge went to the bathroom. As she stepped away, the song that came on the CD playing softly in the living room was a Mozart piece Erin knew well. Her mother played this piece whenever she was particularly happy. Many glad memories came to Erin of birthday mornings when she woke to hear this piece being played by her mother on the piano in the small living room of her childhood home. To Faith it had been a call to celebration. A prelude to a party.

  The poignancy of the music coming on at this particular moment prompted Erin to do something spontaneous. She had been so quick to lecture the stranger at the peninsula about how he should speak words of affirmation to his son. Why couldn’t a daughter speak the same words to her father? Especially in such a moment as this.

  Slipping her hand into her father’s cool left hand, Erin leaned close. “Daddy, I am so proud of you. I think you turned out great.”

  Her voice quavered, but she kept going. “And I love you very, very much.”

  His eyes didn’t open or move. The deeply embedded fretting lines remained in his forehead. But to Erin’s surprise, she felt her father’s hand move. The movement was undeniable. He was giving her two firm squeezes: Love you.

  Erin broke into a grin and bit her lower lip. She had waited so long to feel those two squeezes. Her response was immediate. She gave him three firm but gentle squeezes, and with the squeezes she whispered her echo: “Love you, too.”

  Just then Erin heard footsteps coming into the living room. Erin tucked her dad in, adjusting his pillows and feeling immensely grateful that she had been given this unexpected moment with her father. She was especially grateful that it had been just the two of them. Marge could return now to her watch, and Erin could go about putting the sheets back on the master bed. When Tony arrived he could have their father all to himself. Erin had said her good-bye.

  The footsteps stopped before entering the living room area. Erin turned with a peaceful smile, prepared to let Marge know that all was well.

  But it wasn’t Marge who stood five feet away from Erin. It was Delores.

  Erin had no words. She couldn’t move.

  The bathroom door opened, and Marge stepped out, coming toward the living room and then stopping. The women formed a triangle, and all three of them were speechless.

  Delores looked very different than she had six weeks ago. She wore a paisley pink head scarf tightly wound around her head and knotted in the back. It wasn’t a flattering look for her bold face, if that’s what she was going for. Although her outfit overall was an improvement over the stocking caps and fleece sweatshirts she had worn every day when she lived at Hidden Cottage.

  “How is he?” Delores’s voice was soft. The softest Erin had ever heard float from Delores’s ample lungs. The usual fierce expression seemed to be rubbed to more rounded corners.

  Erin slowly shook her head as a way of indicating her father’s condition wasn’t good. The gesture also meant No, you can’t do this. You can’t just walk in here like this. Not now. No, I don’t want you here.

  Delores broke the triangle of tension and walked over to Jack. She looked at him for a long moment and began to cry.

  Marge moved closer to Erin and touched her arm. With a tilt of her head, she motioned for Erin to follow her outside. Stunned at the scene unfolding before her, Erin followed Marge. They went outside into the thick fog and sat together on the moisture-dotted bench on the front deck.

  “I can’t believe she’s here.” Erin folded her arms across her aching stomach. The damp coldness seemed to permeate her bones.

  “She’s come just in time, it seems.” Marge sighed. “It’s their chance to say good-bye.”

  Erin gave Marge a long look, trying to interpret the passionate expression that softened her face and brought tears to her eyes. Could it be that Marge had read one too many paperback novels and was turning this into a romantic final farewell between Jack and Delores? Erin didn’t understand.

  “I’m sorry, but I have no compassion for Delores. How dare she do this to him?”

  Marge placed her hand on Erin’s shoulder. “Erin, you need to look at her closely.”

  “Why?”

  “You’ll see. Just look at her, really look at her, when we go back inside. You’ll understand.”

  Erin assumed Marge had gone soft on Delores because she had cried when she saw her husband in his emaciated state. Well, she should cry. She should be very sorry for what she did by walking out on him when he needed her most. She should have lots of regrets. Erin didn’t feel ready to brush it all away because Delores found it in her heart to show up and shed some tears. She hated that her heart had turned to stone like this, but at the moment she couldn’t find a shred of kindness to use to tie her affection to Delores.

  With a shiver, Erin stood. “I’m going inside to get my jacket.”

  Marge nodded and stayed on the deck bench as Erin marched back into the house.

  When Erin entered the living room, she saw that Delores had seated herself on the end of Jack’s bed and was stroking his arm and speaking to him in low, tearful tones.

  The sight of this woman stepping back into her intimate role with Jack at this eleventh hour messed with Erin’s mind and emotions more than anything else had during this laborious journey. One of them had to go. Erin decided it would be her.

  Grabbing her jacket and purse, Erin left without saying a word to Delores. “I have my phone,” she said as she strode past Marge. “Call me when my brother arrives.”

  Erin moved through the thick fog to her car parked by the garage. She was only six feet away from her car when she realized a car was parked behind hers.

  Great! Now I have to go inside and ask Delores to move her car so I can get out of here.

  At that moment the door opened on the driver’s side of the parked car, startling Erin. A man with a full dark beard got out and stood in the fog.

  “Do you need me to move my car?” he asked.

  “Yes.” She didn’t ask who he was or why he was there. She barely looked at him. The connection seemed obvious to her. Delores hadn’t wasted time finding someone else to be with. The new love interest understood her need to say good-bye and had been sweet enough to drive her here.

  The scenario turned Erin’s already churning stomach.

  The man took his time inching his car back up to the top of the gravel driveway as Erin waited in the BMW with her foot ready to step on the gas pedal. When he honked to indicate that the trail was clear, Erin backed all the way up the gravel driveway in the fog as if she were more familiar wit
h the stretch than she really was.

  With a crank of the steering wheel, she ignored the man in the car where he was pulled over to the side of the road, and she headed south. Erin had no idea where to go. It was far too foggy and cold to walk on her favorite stretch of beach at the state park. She didn’t want to go to the bookstore that had been a hideout more than once. Jenny Bee’s was out of the question. Too many people there now knew her by name, and if any of them were working, they would ask how her father was doing.

  For that same reason she knew she couldn’t stop by the Shamrock to visit with ever-obliging Sylvia. As much as she enjoyed the small friendship she had developed with kind and faithful Sylvia, she didn’t want to spew all her feelings to Sylvia right now.

  The only thing she could think to do was to drive inland. She had learned during her time on the coast that even when the fog was thick along the shoreline, after a short drive inland, the fog dissipated, and the temperature warmed as much as ten degrees. Erin liked the thought of finding a spot that was ten degrees warmer, a place where she could buy some coffee, or better yet, a cup of tea with milk and sugar. Then she could sit, think, and listen until she had calmed down enough to return to the cottage.

  She was about five miles into the wooded stretch that had been her favorite part of the drive inland from Moss Cove when she called Mike. He didn’t pick up the call, and she chose not to leave a message. Then she called Tony. She realized it wouldn’t be so great for her brother to show up at the cottage to find Delores there but not Erin.

  Tony answered and told her where he was on his drive to Moss Cove. Erin realized they were on the same coastal access road. They might even pass each other.

  “Where are you now? Do you see any markers?”

  “I just drove past a sign for a turnoff to a town called Glenbrooke.”

  “Oh, good. I know where that is. We’re not too far from each other. Tony, could you turn around, go back to Glenbrooke, and wait for me there? I can be there in about fifteen minutes.”

  “Okay. Is anything wrong?”

  “Sort of. I’ll tell you when I get there. Maybe you can find a place where we can have a cup of coffee and talk for a bit.”

  “Will do. It’s beautiful here, by the way.”

  “It is, isn’t it? Is it foggy where you are?”

  “No.”

  “Good. I’m almost out of the fog now. It’s really thick at the coast.”

  “Well, drive carefully.”

  “I will.”

  Erin hung up and knew they shouldn’t linger in Glenbrooke too long, just the two of them, catching up on all they had missed out on in each other’s lives over the past decade and a half. They needed to get back to Moss Cove. They needed to enter Hidden Cottage together and face whatever they found there.

  She hoped that once her brother saw their dad all of the old hurts would vanish as they had slowly been melting away for Erin during her time with their father. She had “made peace” with her father, as Marge had called it. All her childhood wounds were faint memories that had evaporated the way the heavy fog had dissipated as she drove inland. The sunlight now slipped its lacy fingers through the towering trees and left faint stripes of amber light across the winding road. She felt those same stripes of golden healing in her heart. All was well between her and her father.

  An uncomfortable thought came to Erin in the midst of all the morning beauty. She needed to find a way to make peace with Delores as well. Her father loved Delores. She knew that. He had told her in his own limited way. He shook his finger at her, and she had told him she wouldn’t judge Delores. And yet she had. Again and again. With each judgment, a stronger sense of entitlement to her anger and condemnation grew. Each time she added to the list of Delores’s failings, the embers of anger in her gut flamed into a fire.

  Erin knew that fire could destroy all the good that had been built between her and her father during the past weeks. She also knew that such a flame could burn like a wildfire and sear a continuous path through the rest of her life if it wasn’t put out. She had seen what the wildfire of emotional devastation had done between her father and her brother.

  With a humbled heart, Erin quieted her spirit. She knew she needed to find a way to release Delores from the prison in her thoughts where she had shackled her. She knew this was what her father wanted. It was also what her Heavenly Father wanted.

  Drawing in a deep breath, Erin honored her father one more time. She forgave Delores. With the choice to forgive came another choice to mentally and emotionally destroy the list she had been keeping of all of Delores’s wrongs. Erin knew this was the only way to be free.

  The whispered words came first. Then the feelings.

  20

  When the first light of sun—bless you.

  When the long day is done—bless you.

  In your smiles and your tears—bless you.

  Through each day of your years—bless you.

  Erin wiped away the tears that flowed silently as she drove into Glenbrooke. Releasing her anger toward Delores had made her feel vulnerable and tenderhearted.

  Her brother called just then and said he was in Glenbrooke, too. “I found a place for us to meet. It’s called the Wildflower Café. It looks pretty good.”

  “Sounds perfect. Could you go on in and get us a table?”

  “Sure. See you in a bit.”

  Erin found the Wildflower Café easily and parked across the street. She thought it was the most charming place she had seen since leaving Southern California. The booth where Tony was waiting for her by the window seemed to be a special spot set apart for people who liked private conversation.

  He stood when he saw her and came to her, brushing a kiss across her cheek and giving her a warm hug. “Aloha.”

  “Hi.” Erin smiled a weary smile. She could feel the tears still glistening in the corners of her eyes. “It’s so good to see you.”

  Tony looked the best he had in many years. His hair was still long, but he had it pulled back in a ponytail and fastened with a leather strap. He looked more like their mother than Erin did with his dark eyes and broad forehead. She was the one who had inherited all the Irish touches from her dad with her russet-colored hair and his blue eyes.

  A young blond woman stepped up to their booth. “Morning. Would you like some coffee?”

  “I’ll have orange juice,” Tony said.

  “Do you have hot tea?” Erin asked.

  The woman nodded. “We have several different kinds. How about if I bring the basket, and you can choose what you would like?”

  “And do you have any pastry you would recommend?” Tony asked.

  “Yes, as a matter of fact. We have fresh marionberry coffee cake. It’s Genevieve’s recipe and really good. I can highly recommend it because I just had some for breakfast.”

  “How about if we split one?” Tony asked Erin. “Unless you would like something else. Or your own piece.”

  “No, that’s fine.” Being with her brother again felt strange and yet familiar. She watched him take the lead in decision-making. She knew he had it in him to be a strong leader like their father. It was so good to be with him.

  “So tell me what’s going on with Dad. Why didn’t you want me to see him yet?”

  Erin explained the morning’s events and was interrupted by the waitress when she placed a yellow ceramic teapot on the table and presented Erin with a basket full of an assortment of tea bags. Erin reached for the Irish breakfast tea and the waitress asked, “Would you like milk and sugar or honey for your tea?”

  “Milk and sugar, please.”

  The waitress returned a moment later with the milk and sugar as well as a huge piece of warm marionberry coffee cake and two forks.

  “Good thing we’re splitting this.” Tony punctured the corner closest to him and asked, “So do you think Delores is still at the house?”

  “I don’t know. A man was waiting for her in a car; so I don’t know how long she planned to s
tay.”

  They ate a few more bites, and then Erin confided in her brother how she had worked through forgiving Delores on her way to meet Tony and how intense and yet rich her time had been with their father.

  Tony reached across the table and rubbed the top of her hand. “Thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “For being there with him through all this, for sending the money for the ticket, and for convincing me to come. I should have come sooner.” Tony’s face changed so that his forehead looked just like their father’s did, heavy with anguish lines.

  In an effort to comfort her brother, Erin said, “What matters is that you’re here now. You can move on from here.”

  He nodded and put down his fork.

  Erin took another two bites of the delicious coffee cake and sipped her tea. She realized that if Delores hadn’t left her father, things would be very different right now. Erin had lost her business and had run on empty for weeks, but more than ever she knew her decision to stay was right. Her father had been able to remain at Hidden Cottage to the end. That was his wish fulfilled. And now Tony was here. This was what her mother had hoped and prayed for until the day she died. Erin believed she would soon see the answer to all those prayers for reconciliation.

  I will give you the treasures of darkness, riches in secret places, so that you may know that I am the LORD, the God of Israel, who calls you by name.

  Erin felt like she was seeing the words of Isaiah 45:3 coming true in front of her. She had experienced treasures of darkness and riches in secret places. Soon the Lord would be calling her dad by name. The line between the eternal and the temporal seemed very thin at this moment in the Wildflower Café.

  Tony finished his orange juice but didn’t go for any more of the coffee cake. He seemed to have wandered into a deep fog.

  “Are you ready to go?” Erin asked.

  Tony looked up. “Yes, I would like to get to Dad’s place. I’ve come all this way, I’d hate to be sitting here, this close, and have him turn a corner.”