Lowcountry Summer eBoxed Set

by Mary Alice Monroe

  “You’re asking me to help you to leave again.”

  She licked her lips, knowing it was a tender point. “Yes, I suppose I am. But not for long.”

  “That’s what you said last time.”

  “And I was gone less than a week.”

  “And now you want to leave again.”

  “It’s not about leaving,” Carson said with a hint of frustration. “I’m taking Nate to Florida for a weeklong program. Hey,” she said brightly as a new idea emerged, “why don’t you come with us?”

  “I can’t. I took time off to go to Florida the last time. With Delphine. Plus I’ll be out in the field for a week gathering samples. I have to be here for that.”

  She looked up at the ceiling again.

  Blake said quietly, “Like I said, I don’t know much about the special-needs program but I’ve met Joan, the woman who heads it up. I like her and I hear she’s a great therapist. She tailors the program to meet the students’ needs.”

  Carson felt a glimmer of hope. “So, you think it’s a good idea?”

  “It can’t hurt.” He begrudgingly smiled. “Yeah, I think Nate will do well there.”

  “You’ll help us get an appointment?”

  “I’ll give Joan a call and explain the situation. That’s all I can do.”

  Carson leaned over to kiss him, filled with gratitude. “Thank you, Blake.”

  He returned the grin of a man who’d just been played. “Come here,” he said, holding out his arms.

  Carson sighed and climbed into his arms.

  Blake lowered his lips to her head and slid his arms around her and held her, his cheek resting on her head.

  She closed her eyes and nestled against Blake’s chest. Listening to the strong and steady beat of his heart, she felt safe and secure. She didn’t want to go anywhere. She thought, I could love this man.

  Lucille returned from her appointment and joined Mamaw on the porch. She brandished a deck of cards.

  “At last,” Mamaw exclaimed, eager for a hand of gin rummy.

  Mamaw cut the deck and Lucille dealt the cards and turned over the discard. Mamaw wasn’t happy with her hand but refrained from making a face. She knew Lucille would be watching for any clues. She rejected the discard and picked up the jack of clubs, then, frowning, immediately discarded it.

  “I was thinking . . .”

  “Oh Lord, here comes trouble.” Lucille drew a card, kept it, then discarded a queen of hearts.

  Mamaw drew a card. “The tension between Harper and Dora is so thick at times I could cut it with a knife. I thought if they had something they could do together, something that would bear fruit, it might bring them closer.” She discarded.

  Lucille picked up her discard and placed it in her hand. “I thought them two were a mite too close together already.” She discarded.

  Mamaw looked up from her cards. “What do you mean?”

  Lucille looked at Mamaw as if she’d lost her marbles. “I mean, them two are sharing a room! They sleep in twin beds! That’s a lot of togetherness for two young girls, but for two grown women? It’s no wonder them two are testy with each other. Your turn.”

  Mamaw was stunned by this observation. Of course Lucille was right. She usually was. Why hadn’t Mamaw seen this for herself? She’d blithely assumed the tension between them was merely the difference in their ages or their backgrounds. Leave it to Lucille to figure out something as basic as proximity.

  Mamaw picked up a card and was delighted it was the card she was hoping for. “You are absolutely right,” she said. “It’s as plain as the nose on my face. But how? I’m plumb out of rooms and I certainly can’t afford to add on to the house again.”

  “Don’t need to. Discard.”

  Mamaw looked at her hand and quickly discarded. “Dora doesn’t want to sleep in the library with Nate and we learned we can’t move him. Where do you suggest we put another room?”

  Lucille considered Mamaw’s discard, then drew from the pile instead. She made a face and discarded. “You came up with the idea yourself a while ago.”

  Mamaw leaned back in her chair and racked her memory banks. Then her face lit up like a morning’s dawn. “My sitting room!”

  “It’s low-hanging fruit.” Lucille picked up the card.

  “Right. It wouldn’t be much to do and the cost would be reasonable.” She sat straighter, excited at the prospect. “Each girl would have her own room.” Mamaw was beaming as she studied her cards. “We settled the problem of rooms, but we haven’t come up with an idea to get Harper and Dora to do something together.”

  “Well, what do they have in common?” asked Lucille.

  “Not much, as far as I can tell. Dora’s kind of a Southern snob about Northerners, and I fear it’s reciprocated in Harper. Harper likes to run, and Dora is starting her walking program. There’s a start.”

  “But not something they do together.”

  “True. Cooking, maybe?”

  “Dora’s on a diet and Harper don’t eat nothing but rabbit food.”

  Mamaw knew Lucille could never accept Harper’s vegetarian diet. “The only other thing I see Harper do is be on that computer. She’s always typing . . .”

  Lucille set her cards on the table. “What’s she writing? That’s what I want to know. Her fingers are flying.”

  Mamaw nodded, and she lowered her voice. “Carson says she’s not just surfing the net. She’s writing something.”

  “Surf the net? What’s that mean?”

  Mamaw made a face. “I had to ask, too. It means she’s not searching around, or watching videos. Harper is actually writing something, like a diary or journal. Or maybe some travel article on the islands.”

  “What’s so secret about that?” Lucille wanted to know.

  Mamaw nodded in agreement. “Exactly.”

  “Well,” Lucille said, picking up her cards. “I ’spect she’ll tell us when she’s ready.”

  Mamaw raised her hand, picked up a card, looked at it, then immediately discarded it.

  “None of that aids and abets our cause. Maybe if we think of things Dora likes to do.”

  There was a silence as both women stared at their cards. Truth was, Mamaw was hard put to think of anything that Dora loved to do.

  Lucille picked up a card, then quickly discarded it. “I know!”

  Mamaw’s attention was piqued as she picked up a card.

  “Dora likes to garden. She used to have that big garden in Summerville.”

  “But do you think Harper likes to garden?”

  “Don’t know,” Lucille replied. “You asked me what Dora likes to do.”

  Mamaw laughed and moved a few cards in her hand. “We’ll have to keep thinking on it. The way I see it, it’s a two-pronged plan to bring Harper and Dora closer together. First we get them separated by giving each girl a room of her own. Then we bring them together by finding a project they can work on. It will come to me,” she said, drawing out a card and brandishing it in the air. “And when it does, I’ll pounce.” She set the card on the table and sang out, “Gin!”

  Dora couldn’t procrastinate any longer. Wearing old gym shorts and one of Cal’s old Gamecock T-shirts, Dora laced up her old tennis shoes and headed out for a walk. Mamaw and Lucille were out on the porch, and not wanting to draw their attention, she hurried out the front door. She didn’t have any plan—unlike Harper, who shot like a bullet out of the house early each morning. It was already midafternoon, but Dora wasn’t measuring her distance or heart rate, or wearing high-tech wicking clothes or running shoes, like her sister. Her intention was simply to start moving. Mamaw had told her to just go out and explore, not to have an agenda, but instead to look around and soak in the sights. To allow herself the freedom to simply roam without someone or something calling her back.

  Dora took the advice to heart. She drew in a breath, then began walking at a moderate pace—not so fast that she started to sweat, but quicker than a stroll. Large, drooping oaks provided w
elcome shade along the side streets. As she passed the few visible houses, she admired the landscape designs, checked out what plants were in bloom. It was a lovely day, with blue skies; she had to ask herself why she’d been so hard-pressed to get out of the house before now. The answer was, she knew, because the black cloud hovering overhead made the world appear dismal.

  But she was walking now, pumping her fists with determination. Dora reached the end of the pavement, and then she started down a sand- and rock-strewn beach path bordered on either side by an impenetrable maritime shrub thicket. She paused to study the groundsel, the wax myrtle, the yaupon bushes that survived—even thrived—under the harsh effects of wind-blown salt and sand. Survivors, every one of them. A lesson to be learned, she told herself as she moved on.

  Dora followed the narrow path to where it opened up, revealing with a gust of wind the panorama of the Atlantic Ocean. The brilliant sea mirrored the azure skies, sunlight reflecting on its surface like diamonds. Heartened, Dora took off on a quicker pace, keeping to the hard-packed sand. She reflected on the many years she’d walked this same stretch of beach. When they were girls, she and Carson would pretend they were Chincoteague ponies, kicking their knees high and neighing as they galloped along the surf.

  Her mama would drop her off at Sea Breeze in early June when school let out and come collect her in early August in time to get her outfitted for school. Carson would cry when Dora had to return with her mother to Charlotte. Dora had always felt for the little girl without a mother. But she was a bit jealous of her, too. Carson got to live full-time with Mamaw in her great house on East Bay, the loveliest street in the world, she thought. And on weekends and holidays, she’d go with them to Sea Breeze. Mamaw tried not to show favoritism when the girls were together, but everyone knew Carson was special to her. As a grown woman, Dora could understand that it was only natural for Mamaw to feel more for the girl she mothered. But as a child, Dora envied Carson for the silliest things, like how Carson got the best bedroom, which, as eldest, Dora thought should have gone to her.

  Years later, she gave up girlish games to sit in the sun, coated with baby oil, roasting like a plucked chicken. Carson used to beg her to play, but Dora was three years older and her interests had shifted to the more sedentary scene of sitting on a towel, talking to her girlfriends, flirting with the boys, or reading a book. She had been awash in a sea of hormones, vacillating between laughter and tears, wanting to play the old games with Carson one day and trying to ditch the younger girl the next. It was a confusing summer of budding breasts, boys, and best friends.

  That first summer when Dora was on the precipice of womanhood was also Harper’s first summer at Sea Breeze. Carson was eleven and Dora was already fourteen. Then this tiny, doll-like girl of six years of age arrived from Manhattan with expressive blue eyes and ginger hair. She was introduced as their half-sister, Harper. Everyone catered to her, oohing about how pretty she was, how well behaved, how smart. Dora had heard of this younger sibling, of course, but she’d never met her. The age difference was too great for them to really play together, as she had with Carson. At best, they’d find a few activities they could share over the summer; at worst, she’d get stuck babysitting.

  When Dora remembered those summer days, however, she always returned to one day during that first summer when all three sisters were at Sea Breeze together. Mamaw had taken them to the beach, as she did many days. Mamaw sat in a folding canvas chair under a large, colorful umbrella. Beside her, three towels were spread out on the sand. While Mamaw read, the girls played—making sand castles, collecting seashells, playing tag in the waves. Mamaw’s strictest rule was that no one was allowed to go into the water unless she was watching.

  On this particular sunny day Carson had been pestering Dora to ride the skim board along the shoreline. Dora was getting annoyed. Carson was such a tomboy it could be embarrassing. After all, only boys skim-boarded and Dora wasn’t about to look like a fool in front of people she knew. Harper was building a sand castle in the moist sand at the low-tide mark. Dora lay on her belly on her towel, pulled out Seventeen, and soon got lost in the magazine.

  Then she heard Harper scream.

  Instantly Dora dropped her magazine and leaped to her feet, scanning the beach for the little redheaded girl in the pink swimsuit. She spotted Harper standing frozen by her sand castle, arms out as though poised to run, staring at the massive cargo ship passing the island. Dora ran to her side and grabbed her hand. Carson had also heard the scream and abandoned her skim board to reach Harper’s side just after Dora. The little girl was trembling with fear as the monstrous ship passed. The enormous, black, rusting hulk coming so close to the shoreline was very frightening for a child, even for Dora. Fully as tall as a high-rise building, it moved at a leviathan’s pace, skimming past the island.

  What Dora remembered most was standing on the beach, side by side with Carson and Harper, holding hands, bolstering one another as the behemoth cast its shadow over them. Both she and Carson had come running when Harper cried out. Dora felt a keen sense of solidarity with her sisters at that moment.

  When the ship had gone and the sun shone warm on the beach again, the girls dropped hands and each went back to their individual play. But that moment had sealed an unspoken pact between them. They were sisters. They’d be there for one another.

  Mamaw, Dora realized now, had never forgotten the sisters’ unspoken promise to one another, though the sisters had in the many years they’d been apart. Mamaw had been standing behind them on the beach, watching. Years later she’d brought them back here, to this same island, to this same beach, to feel that bond again.

  Was it possible? Dora wondered. Could anyone recapture the innocence and trust of youth once she had transitioned into the cynicism of adulthood?

  She continued walking, lost in her thoughts, before she turned a curve and saw a dozen or more kite surfers gliding across the water, their colorful kites like brightly plumed birds in the sky. She grinned, mesmerized by the sight. Carson had told her about this new sport and, curious, Dora took a spot with others along the shoreline, watching the amusing aerobatics out on the water. Of course, Carson had already learned to kite surf from Blake. Dora smiled and thought, Maybe next year.

  Reaching the tip of the island, she looped around and began her long trek back along Middle Street. She hadn’t realized how far she’d walked. She’d reached the northern end of Sullivan’s Island. Her throat was parched and her body ached; she was exhausted, sweaty, and had a long way to go before reaching Sea Breeze, clear on the other side of the island. Dora scolded herself for having left without water, but she’d not planned to go so far! But as there was no place to get any or buy any, she had no choice except to put one foot in front of the other and keep walking.

  Sweat dripped from her face and was pooling along her neck and between her breasts, blotching her T-shirt. Her thirst became palpable, and she began to worry. You’re such an idiot for going so far on your first day. What if you have a real heart attack this time?

  A car honked beside her and she nearly jumped from her skin. Blinking in the bright sunlight, Dora put her hand up over her eyes like a visor to see who it was waving her over. A shiny red pickup truck with big wheels and a shiny front grille was idling at the curb.

  “Hello?” she called out in a questioning tone.

  “Dora! Dora Muir, is that you?”

  Dora didn’t recognize the man at the wheel, nor did she want anyone she might know to see her dressed like this and all sweaty. She waved and kept walking.

  The truck followed.

  “Dora!” the voice called again.

  She didn’t stop.

  “Hold on a minute. It’s me. Devlin.”

  Devlin? Dora stopped again, then squinted toward the man in the truck. He was a barrel-chested man with shaggy, sunbleached hair and deeply tanned skin; he was wearing a pale blue polo shirt. He had the look of an islander. She couldn’t put a finger on exactly what it wa
s that gave someone that look, but it was as deeply embedded as DNA.

  “Devlin Cassell?” she called out. Earlier in the summer, Carson had told Dora she had run into Devlin.

  The man in the truck grinned wide. “The one and only.”

  That was a name that brought up memories that had been packed away in a pretty box labeled “old boyfriends” and tucked into the deep recesses of her brain. If Dora’s face hadn’t already been so flushed from overheating, Devlin would have seen her cheeks pinking. She’d heard he’d become a successful real estate agent, and that he was divorced. Dora wiped her brow. It was just her luck that she’d run into Devlin Cassell again after fifteen years when she was exhausted and soaking in her own sweat.

  “Hey, Devlin,” she called out halfheartedly. “Nice to see you again.”

  “Well, come on over here, girl,” Devlin called back, waving his arm in a come-hither gesture. “We don’t want to keep shouting.”

  “I’m all sweaty,” she begged off.

  “So what?”

  “So, I don’t feel like stopping right now.” Nervousness made her dry mouth feel like a desert. She started to cough, and it was one of those hacking coughs that could go on forever.

  “You okay?” Devlin called out.

  She waved her hand dismissively, wishing either that he’d go away or the earth would just swallow her up.

  Dev put the truck in park and rushed to her side with a bottle of water. He handed her the bottle and gently patted her back. She drank thirstily, and as the coughing fit subsided she took great heaving breaths, embarrassed to the core.

  “Thanks,” she said between breaths. She was so hot, if she were alone she’d take the rest of the water and pour it over her head.