Cottage by the Sea

by Robin Jones Gunn

  “I’m ready.” She dipped her fork into the coffee cake one more time and took a long sip of her cooled tea.

  Tony insisted on paying and slipped a generous tip on the table. The two of them left, going to their separate cars. Erin led the way to Moss Cove along the two-lane road that wound through the forest. Some of the deciduous trees were just beginning to take on touches of autumn color. Erin thought about how beautiful this stretch of road would be a month from now on a sunny afternoon when all the fall leaves had changed.

  But I won’t be here to see it. I’ll be back in Irvine by then.

  That realization saddened her. Not only because it meant her father would be gone but also because she had come to love the charm of this place. Moss Cove had won her over. How restful it would be to come here one day with their family. Erin could see Sierra and herself slipping off for afternoon tea at the Wildflower Café while the guys tried their hand at fishing. In the evening they would string twinkle lights on the deck and turn up the music as the sun slipped into the sea.

  She finally appreciated her father’s vision for Hidden Cottage. It was a beautiful vision. But Erin knew she had to stop the dream right there. Delores was the one who would inherit Hidden Cottage. Erin would not have a reason to come back here after her father was gone.

  That sharp truth, like a lit match, begged to ignite any mound of kindling Erin could gather. She knew how easily she could tip that flickering match and let it restart a wildfire of anger and resentment against Delores.

  Gripping the steering wheel, Erin prayed for strength. That’s when she heard her mother’s words for the second time since she had started on this journey with her father.

  To experience the fullness of love, you must go the distance. Only the strongest and bravest stay on the path. And you, my darling girl, have been given everything you need to be among the strongest and bravest.

  Forming a small O with her lips, Erin blew into the space between herself and the windshield as if she were physically snuffing out the tempting flame on the freshly lit match.

  How could what she had experienced on the way to Glenbrooke be true forgiveness if she let it burn a hole in her spirit when the first opportunity presented itself? Forgiveness was a process. She knew that. Being with her father all these weeks had been a process. Starting over after losing her portion of the business was also going to be a process. But she knew that if she wanted to experience the fullness of love, she had to go the distance with all these difficult relationships. She could do this. God was supplying her with everything she needed—strength, courage, grace, and lots of hope.

  The fog had lifted when they arrived at the coast highway. Erin put on her blinker to indicate Tony should follow her, turning right and heading north. To make sure he saw it, she rolled down her window and waved her arm, indicating that he should turn right.

  He waved back.

  She waited at the stoplight and read the banner that hung between two lampposts across the narrow street.

  RACE FOR THE CURE

  PORTLAND, OREGON

  OCTOBER 9

  The light changed, and Erin had driven another few miles when she recalled Delores’s face. Not the way she had seen Delores’s stern face peering in her side car window during Erin’s first visit to Moss Cove. The image in her mind’s eye was of Delores’s face the way she had appeared that morning, swathed in the pink paisley head scarf. Delores was thin. Her skin was sallow. She wasn’t the same robust woman in the Hidden Cottage scrapbook photos wielding a sledgehammer and taking down the old kitchen wall.

  The scarf, her coloring . . .

  Erin gasped.

  Delores is ill. She has cancer. Delores has cancer.

  She thought of how Marge had told Erin to really look at Delores. Marge saw the signs right away. Erin’s heart pounded. She had missed it. All the indicators were there.

  How long? How long has Delores been fighting this?

  Pressing on her brakes and flipping on her blinker, Erin pulled into the nearest parking area and sat in her car with the engine idling.

  Tony parked and came over to the passenger’s window. He looked in at her the same way Delores had at the grocery store a year and a half ago when she had told Erin that if Jack became an invalid, she couldn’t stay with him. She would leave him.

  Erin pushed the button to roll down the window.

  “You okay?” Tony asked.

  “No.”

  “What is it? What’s wrong? Is it Dad?”

  “No, it’s Delores.” Turning to Tony she said, “She has cancer.”

  Tony opened the passenger’s door, slid inside, and sat next to Erin. “Turn off the motor,” he said.

  She obliged.

  “What makes you think Delores has cancer?”

  “The way she looked when she walked in this morning. Have you been around many people who are going through chemotherapy?”

  “No.”

  “There’s a look. I should have known when I saw the head scarf. And before, when I arrived in August, her hair wasn’t right. She was tired all the time. I should have picked up some of the signs.”

  “Why didn’t she tell you?”

  “She’s an intensely private person. She’s aggressive and abrupt. But, Tony, Dad loved her. He really did. I know this must sound strange, but I could read it in his eyes.”

  “I believe you,” Tony said calmly.

  “It makes sense now. Don’t you see? She couldn’t take care of Dad. She needed someone to take care of her.”

  Erin let out a long, slow breath and looked out the car’s front window. “I should have seen it. I should have picked up the clues.”

  “From what you’ve said about her, it doesn’t sound as if she left many clues.”

  “She told me something significant right before she left him, only I didn’t know what she meant at the time.”

  “What did she say?”

  “She said she married Dad because he was strong and full of life, but now he couldn’t do for her what he had promised.”

  “And you’re thinking that he promised to take care of her.”

  Erin nodded.

  “That would explain a lot.”

  Erin nodded again. “We should go. I just had to pull over for a second when all of that hit me. We’re not far away. Hidden Cottage is just down the road.”

  Tony returned to his car, and Erin led the way. She turned down the long, gravel driveway and was disappointed to see that Marge’s car was the only one there. Delores was gone.

  Tony edged out of his rental car and stood for a moment, giving the place a full view. “Is this the place Dad fixed up?”

  “Yes, this is Hidden Cottage.”

  “It’s amazing.”

  “Yes, it is. Remind me to show you the before and after photos.” Erin paused at the persimmon red door and looked at Tony. “You ready?”

  He nodded. His eyes were misted with tears. He looked every inch the prodigal son at last returning home.

  Only it was too late for his father to come running to meet him.

  21

  May you live to be a hundred years

  With one extra year to repent.

  Opening the door slowly, Erin entered first. Marge looked up from the couch. All was calm. All was airy and light. Soft music floated through the confined space.

  “Do you want to be alone with him?” Erin asked Tony. “Marge and I can go outside. Or I’ll stay if you want me to.”

  “Stay,” Tony said.

  Marge gave Tony a respectful nod and slid out to the front deck.

  Shoulder to shoulder, Tony and Erin approached the man who was now a shadow of their father. Erin tried to think of how his state would appear to Tony since he hadn’t seen any of the progression.

  Tony’s lips were pressed together. A hint of horror was in his eyes.

  Erin placed her hand on their father’s shoulder and leaned close. “Dad, Tony is here. He came from Maui to be with you.” />
  A weak, nearly imperceptible sound echoed in what remained of the great cavity of Jack O’Riley’s barrel chest.

  “Hi, Dad.” Tony reached forward but didn’t seem to know if he should touch his dad.

  Erin whispered, “It’s okay. Here.”

  She reached for their father’s good arm and gently laid it bent across his narrow middle, making it easy for Tony to put his hand in his father’s hand.

  Tony reached for it as if he were now the one extending the “right hand of fellowship” in a manly handshake. As soon as he grasped his father’s hand, though, the energy dissipated. Tony repositioned himself, moving to the other side of the bed to be on the side that wasn’t paralyzed. He tenderly stroked his father’s weakened hand the way an awestruck parent gentles the hand of a sleeping newborn.

  “Dad . . .” Tony cleared his throat. He leaned closer and tried again. “Dad, I want you to know that I’m sorry. In so many ways. I’m really sorry.”

  Thin, opaque tears slowly edged from the corner of their father’s closed eyes and slid over his hollowed cheeks.

  Tony looked at Erin with a stunned expression. “Did he hear me? Do you think he heard me?”

  “Yes, I’m sure of it. His tears are all he has left with which to communicate.” Erin swallowed back her own tears.

  Tony let go of his father’s hand and crumbled to his knees. He lowered his head, pressing his forehead against the side of the hospital bed. With trembling emotion in his voice, Tony spoke the purifying words. “Please forgive me, Dad. I really messed up.”

  As Erin watched, her father seemed to draw on every last inch of energy he had. He dragged his hand to the side of the bed and placed his frail fingers on Tony’s head, as if in preparation to extend a blessing.

  Erin covered her mouth with her hand and blinked back the tears. She was witnessing the answer to her mother’s prayers after all those years.

  A breathy sound floated from their father’s parted lips. It seemed to take all the strength left in him to make the weak reverberation.

  It was enough.

  Tony’s apology had been received and accepted. Erin knew it.

  And by the expression on Tony’s face, he knew it, too. He rose to his feet and took his father’s hand in his. Tony’s face was wet with tears, as was their father’s.

  Erin’s heart raced. Like her mother, she had hoped and prayed for this moment but never imagined the sense of beauty that filled the room.

  Reaching for a couple of washcloths, she handed one to Tony and used the other to dry her father’s tears. His eyes had been closed the whole time, and she imagined he was too weak to open them. What surprised her was that the deep worry lines still were etched into his forehead. She would have thought that after this holy moment he would be at peace.

  Erin adjusted his support pillows and did what she had done a number of times during this journey. She tried to imagine what her father was thinking and feeling right now. What did he need that he was unable to express?

  She noticed that his lower lip was trembling.

  “Dad, is there something you want to say?”

  He drew in a long, threadlike breath, but no sound came out. The worry lines deepened.

  “Dad, it’s okay. Tony knows that you’ve forgiven him.”

  Thin tears flowed again. Her father’s chin dipped. The veins in his neck quivered.

  “What is it, Dad?” Erin felt at a loss. He seemed to be using the few small muscles he had left to communicate, but she couldn’t decipher any of the signals.

  Then a clear thought came to her. What if her dad wanted to apologize to Tony? What if he wanted to ask Tony to forgive him for the break in their relationship? Erin couldn’t imagine how painful it would be to have something like that in your heart and not to be able to speak it when you knew the end was so close and the person you wanted to communicate with was only inches away.

  Erin leaned in. She rested her hand on her father’s shoulder. “Daddy, do you want to ask Tony to forgive you, too?”

  A faint sound like a distant birdcall rose from his throat, and a flood of tears poured over his cheeks.

  “Oh, Dad.” Tony leaned in and spoke firmly. “You don’t even have to ask. It’s okay. I forgive you.”

  Then Tony bent down and held his father’s face the way a coach would congratulate an athlete who had run a stellar race and collapsed after crossing the finish line. “You’re free, Dad. I hold nothing against you. I know that you hold nothing against me. Be at peace.”

  Erin stepped back and watched an astounding transformation take place in front of her. It was as if a wave had washed over the shore of her father’s face. As it receded, the invisible wave took with it all the anxious, agitated worry lines, carrying them out to the deepest sea and burying them forever.

  Tony leaned closer. He pressed a holy kiss on his father’s smooth forehead and then drew himself upright. He wiped the last of his tears with the palm of his hand and stood quietly beside the bed as he and Erin held each other’s gaze.

  The shared moment came to a jarring halt when Tony’s cell phone rang. Erin looked at their father. He had returned to his place of deep sleep. No more worry lines dug into his forehead. His slight and steady breaths eased in and out. The cell phone chime didn’t bother him. Nothing seemed to be bothering him.

  Tony stepped into the kitchen to take the call. It lasted only a few minutes, and when he returned he took a seat beside his father’s bed, waiting, watching, being fully present for the first time in two decades.

  Erin went outside where Marge waited on the deck. She looked up from her book. Erin sat beside her and took the corner of the blanket Marge had across her lap and tucked herself under the warmth beside Marge.

  “Is everything okay?” Marge asked.

  “Yes.” Erin didn’t have the emotional reserve to try to articulate the moment she and her brother had just experienced.

  “And what about you?” Marge asked. “Are you all right?”

  Erin crossed her legs. She leaned in a little closer to Marge. “I wish I hadn’t left when Delores arrived.”

  “It was understandable, Erin. You’ve had a lot to handle for a long time. Delores asked me to tell you a few things. Would you like to hear them now, or do you want to wait?”

  “She has cancer, doesn’t she?”

  Marge nodded. “Ovarian. Stage four.”

  Erin let out a low breath. “How long?” She meant How long does Delores still have? but Marge answered the question differently.

  “She told me she had breast cancer five years ago, but it was in remission when she married your father. The ovarian cancer was diagnosed this spring right before they were supposed to go to Ireland. She made several trips to a treatment center in Mexico earlier in the summer. She’s in Portland now with her nephew. He’s the one who has helped her keep up with the chemo and radiation.”

  “He’s the one who brought her here today, isn’t he?” Erin cringed once again at the assumptions she had made about Delores. Wasn’t that what Delores had told Clint at the post office when he shipped her boxes to Mexico? That he shouldn’t assume things about people.

  “I imagine so. I didn’t see him. Delores said she didn’t want you to know any of this earlier, but since you weren’t here when she was ready to leave, she asked me to tell you.”

  “Did she leave any contact information?”

  “No. She seemed to treat this visit with finality. I told her your brother was coming. I hope that’s okay with you.”

  “Of course.”

  “I thought she might want to meet him, but she was set on leaving when she did.”

  “How did she even know my dad was here? When she left, we were planning to move him to Irvine.”

  “I asked her the same thing. She said Sylvia gave her updates whenever she needed them.”

  Erin nodded. Of course. Six O’clock News Sylvia.

  “That’s why she knew she needed to come right away. I could
tell it took a lot out of her. She had a hard time walking to the car when she left.”

  Erin was beginning to understand more clearly the bond that had formed between her father and Delores. They needed each other. Delores was a strong, unemotional woman who wanted a fresh start, and so did her dad after Faith’s death. Moss Cove had provided that. For both of them the move was a chance to dream a new dream.

  Erin looked at the properly hung, expertly painted shutters on either side of the kitchen window and thought of how hard both her dad and Delores had worked to rebuild this cottage. With each paintbrush stroke and hammer thump did they feel they were working together to rebuild their own lives? Or maybe they were trying to work together to leave something behind. Delores inherited the cottage. Who would she pass it on to? Her nephew? Maybe this wonderful place would still be a destination for traditional family vacations as her dad dreamed it would. Maybe one day a few young children—perhaps the children of Delores’s nephew—would explore the tide pools and dance with their mother on the deck.

  Either way, Hidden Cottage stood strong while neither Jack nor Delores was able to do the same. The bitterness of death’s slow sting turned in Erin’s stomach like a knife.

  “I’m going to try to call her,” Erin said quietly. She stood and was three steps away from the door when it opened and Tony stepped outside, his face flushed.

  “Everything okay?”

  “I just needed some air.”

  “I’ll sit with him,” Marge said.

  Tony walked over to where Erin and Marge had been and took in the spectacular view. “This is quite a place.”

  “Yes, it is.” Erin smiled when she remembered her dad sitting in his wheelchair in the same spot where Tony now stood surveying the surroundings. “We had a cookout here on the deck when Mike and I first arrived. Jordan and Sierra came on the way home from their honeymoon. Dad was in his wheelchair, right there, where you’re standing. All the locals came. They steamed whole crabs for us.”

  Tony pointed to the embroidered name on her fleece jacket. “Would that happen to be Paddy who steamed the crabs?”