by Wendy Wax
At the time there was nothing much around but a few restaurants and businesses and a couple mom-and-pop hotels and cottage courts. Weathered houses on stilts backed up to the beach. There was scrub everywhere and small cottages here and there.
Even now when I catch myself complaining about the traffic and the noise and the outlet malls, I remember the emptiness that stretched between small outposts of civilization. How few structures stood in the way of the near-constant wind. The sand it tossed and blew around, building mountainous dunes that became part of the scenery. The sea oats bent double beneath its onslaught. The sound of waves crashing or sometimes swishing on- and offshore.
It was so bold and so intensely beautiful I thought my heart might stop. And despite having been raised in the carefully manicured city of Richmond, it felt right. A place you would run to, not from. And of all the mistakes I made then and in the years that followed, it was the one thing I was right about.
As the sky lightens and separates from the Atlantic I settle into an Adirondack chair and try to picture my daughter and her fiancé together. I’ve seen Spencer’s picture but never a photo of the two of them. Lauren’s told me all about his plays and his talent and how much she admires his work, but only small scraps about his background and his family. I wonder what their relationship is like and how marriage will change it. Who will move in with whom? Or if they’ll start fresh in a place that they can think of as theirs?
The sun continues its rise and even after all these years I don’t take the sight for granted. I breathe in the salt-tinged breeze, my face turned up to the warming sun. Finally, I make my way back into the kitchen to pull ingredients for the blueberry muffins I’m due to deliver today to two B and Bs. My triple-chocolate and Italian wedding cakes are delivered fresh several times a week. On select mornings I cook a full breakfast on-site for the guests.
I began learning how to cook out of desperation not long after we arrived here. My mother had always had “help,” and I didn’t really pay much attention to how food got on the table. In college at Washington and Lee I lived in a sorority house where food also miraculously appeared when I was hungry.
I was surprised to discover I had a knack for cooking and especially for baking. That it was relaxing in its way, and that it could help supplement the odd jobs I ended up working to keep a roof over our heads, food in our bellies, and clothes on our backs. I’m still not Julia Child or even Mrs. Fields, but cooking has been an important addition to my skill set.
While I pull out the mixing bowls and preheat the oven, I’m still thinking about Lauren. When I start letting myself imagine her wedding day, I realize that I have no idea if they already have a date in mind or whether they might consider having it here. There was something in her voice last night that told me to tread lightly and not to ask too many questions. Like why she’s never even hinted that a proposal might be imminent.
I know that Lauren can more than take care of herself, so there’d be no reason other than love for her to get married. I’m not one of those mothers who’s stewed and fretted that her daughter was still single, but now that it’s happening, I realize just how glad I am that she’ll have someone to share her life with. Isn’t that what every mother wants for her child?
I close my eyes and stop stirring the batter. I have always chosen to believe that my mother loved me. But she never could stand up to my father even when I knew she wanted to. She could hardly stand up to life at all. Her abdication, her inability to cope, made me stronger. It made me vow to always be there to protect my child. No matter what the threat. To give my love and approval without rules and strings and hoops that had to be jumped through to receive it.
I manage to pull my thoughts back just before they plummet into the abyss of anger and regret that always accompanies memories of my parents and the ridiculously impulsive acts that set me on a path I never saw coming.
I’m debating whether to have a third cup of coffee or get dressed when I hear a car pull into the drive. Bree was just here last night and my friends know I spend most mornings baking and delivering, so I peek out the front window to see if it’s a lost tourist or maybe the new baking pans I ordered from Amazon.
The car is low and sporty and too expensive for an Amazon delivery. The man who unfolds from the driver’s seat is tall and overdressed. No doubt some tourist who hasn’t figured out which way the mileposts run. Or thinks the Sandcastle is one of the Unpainted Aristocracy built by early-summer families that front the dunes a little farther south. Though the Sandcastle is newer than those, it’s obviously not one of the brightly colored and oversized beach rentals that now fill every inch of what were once long stretches of sand and scrub. Maybe given the way he’s eyeing my house, he’s a Realtor looking to snap up yet another original beach box house from someone who can’t afford to hang on to it.
I begin to turn away with the intention of ignoring him if he knocks when I notice something familiar about the set of his shoulders, the way he moves. He glances at the steep wooden staircase that leads up to the front porch and I see his face. My stomach drops. My heart pounds painfully, and I wonder for one of those heartbeats if it’s possible to summon someone simply by dreaming or thinking about them. But if that were true he would have been here years ago.
I step back from the window so I can’t be seen, but I can’t stop looking at him. His dark hair is threaded with silver and there’s not as much of it as there used to be. But he’s still tall. And he’s still absurdly handsome. His taste in clothes has definitely improved.
The last time I saw him he was wearing an ill-chosen powder-blue tuxedo. And I was wearing THE DRESS.
Six
I’m frozen in place, my feet glued to the wood floor, as he walks up the steps to the front porch. The windows are open so I hear the echo of each footfall. He hesitates before he raps on the front door and I squeeze back against the curtain, unsure what to do. Run very quietly for the bedroom and simply wait until he gives up and goes away? Or open the door and brazen it out? I do neither.
I’ve imagined seeing Jake a million times in the last four decades, but in each imagining I was completely prepared. And I was definitely never wearing a stained chenille bathrobe. Or cowering behind curtains.
My mind is a hamster on a wheel, round and round, getting nowhere. I’m a teenager again. I can practically feel pimples popping out all over my face. I wouldn’t be surprised if I touched my mouth and discovered I was wearing braces.
He’s the first man I ever loved. The first man I slept with. The man I meant to and should have married. And, let us not forget, the father of my child.
I decide to go into my bedroom and put on clothes. And maybe a little makeup. If he’s still here when I get back I’ll open the door.
I turn to tiptoe from the window and the floorboard squeaks. Afraid to move, I hear him walk from the door over to the front window. I will myself to disappear. Or shrink. Or anything besides what I’m doing, which is quivering like a trapped animal in plain view.
“Kendra?” He speaks quietly but the sound of his voice slices through me. In that instant I remember how it sounded when he first told me that he loved me. How it quivered when he asked me to marry him. The wry little observations that he’d whisper in my ear when we were in a group of people.
I tell myself I can still go straight to the bedroom, close the door behind me, and pretend I didn’t hear him. That I can hide as long as I need to. What’s another couple minutes after all this time? It’s not like he’s going to break the door down or anything. If he’d ever really wanted to find me he could have done it a long time ago.
He raps on the window. “Kendra? Is that you?”
I consider the distance to my bedroom. It’s not far but he’ll be watching me run away. Which is no doubt how he remembers me. Only last time I was dragging a train behind me. A train that kept getting caught on the pews.
I straighten, set my shoulders, and raise my chin. Grateful that there’s no mirror in the living room, I turn. And see him step from the window and move back to the front door.
There’s no help for it. The time I’ve both wished for and dreaded has finally come. I tell myself it’s a relief. But I’m too nervous to believe it. I feel like a clown who’s been juggling balls for so long that he has no idea what to do when they fall on the floor and go skittering across it.
I move to the door. Run my sweaty palms down the sides of my robe and wish I didn’t have to do this in my pajamas. Armor would be good. Or at least a little emotional Kevlar. I take a last deep breath, open the door, and stick my head out. Do I have toothpaste on my chin? Is my hair standing straight up? I honestly can’t remember.
“It is you.” It’s a statement and a question.
I nod. It’s all I can manage. I have no words. I just keep looking into his eyes, studying his face, mapping every line—the small web of them around his eyes. The brackets on either side of his mouth. I note that his chin is still square and his jaw is firm. His cheeks are slightly ruddy. And his eyes—they’re still a whiskey-colored brown. But the warmth and twinkle of good humor that I remember is absent. He may be strong and sure on the outside, but his eyes tell a different story.
“May I come in?”
I step back in answer though I’m still debating whether to turn and run. He steps inside and glances around the room with its faded woven Native American rug, the sparse garage-sale furnishings, the wall of bookcases bulging with books and seashells and decades of found objects that share shelf space with framed photos of sunrises over the ocean and sunsets over the sound. Scenes I keep shooting in hopes of one day doing them justice.
He’s zeroing in on baby photos of Lauren and his eyebrows knit. I honestly can’t think what to say or do next. The oven timer goes off and I motion him toward the kitchen, where I pick up the oven mitts, pull the muffin trays out of the oven, and set them on the racks to cool.
“You bake.” Once again a statement and a question.
“Yes. I’m actually kind of good at it. Believe me, no one’s more surprised than me.” I wince as I realize I’m babbling. “Would you like some coffee?”
He nods and I wave him toward the table then busy myself pouring him a cup, carrying the cream and sugar over. Anything to keep moving, to put off whatever’s coming. I overfill my own cup and watch it slosh over the rim as I bring it to the table.
Then I sit across from him, which is as far away as I can get while still being able to look at him as much as I want. His hands are clenched tightly on the table as I study him studying me.
I still can’t believe he’s here. Emotions I can barely identify swamp me and I know that he can see everything I’m feeling. I don’t play poker because I don’t have the face for it. His gives away little. Or perhaps I’ve just forgotten how to read him.
I’m trying to think of an opening line. Something mild and nonconfrontational that will allow me to prepare myself, put up my shields. If I can just keep the conversation civil then maybe . . .
“Is Lauren James my daughter?”
Any hope of chitchat and working up to the hard stuff is blown out of the water.
Still I hesitate. Despite all the years I’ve had to prepare I’m not prepared at all.
His eyes are pinned to my face. I nod numbly.
“How could you not tell me?” He doesn’t raise his voice, but his anger is sharp and clear now. So is his pain.
“I wanted to. When I first found out I was pregnant I was too ashamed of what I’d done to you—leaving you at the altar like that—to say anything. And then my parents sent me to my aunt Velda’s to have her. They wanted me to put her up for adoption. Only I couldn’t . . . couldn’t do it.”
“And it never occurred to you that I would want to know her? Be a part of her life?” He runs a hand through his hair. His voice breaks.
“Of course it did.” This is an understatement. There were days, sometimes weeks, that I was desperate for him, for his love, which I’d destroyed, for his help, for any contact with him at all. “But I’d made such a mess of everything. And by the time I’d worked up the nerve, I heard you were marrying someone else and I . . . I knew I didn’t have the right to disrupt that, too.”
The bleak look on his face brings me to a halt. I swipe at the tears that are slipping down my cheeks and try to understand why this is happening now. “How did you find out?”
He takes a newspaper clipping from his pocket and lays it on the kitchen table. It’s a brief piece about a book signing in Charlotte. It includes Lauren’s author photo and a caption that reads Author Lauren James to speak at Park Road Books as part of a tour of the Southeast to promote her latest novel.
“My wife saw the resemblance to my mother. And of course she knew about what happened at our wedding and that my former fiancée’s mother’s maiden name was Jameson. She turned out to be quite the amateur sleuth. She figured it out.”
“But that photo, that tour was almost fifteen years ago.” I put the clipping down, trying to understand what had changed, why this was happening.
“Yes. She put together a file on Lauren James, who grew up Lauren Jameson in the Outer Banks. Only she never mentioned it to me.”
“Why not?”
“Because no matter what I did to try to reassure her, she was convinced I was still in love with you. She lived in terror that you would show up one day and try to take me away from her and our children, break up our family.” He scrubs at his face. “I never once looked at another woman or said or did anything that might make her believe that. But she could never let go of the idea. She fed on it. She was . . . unstable.” He looks up at me. “Like . . .”
“My mother.” I say it quietly, but I can’t bring myself to tell him how much Aunt Velda told me about his marriage and his wife. About her unpredictable behavior. The institutions she’d been in and out of. That it was Jake who had been mother and father to their two sons. Staying quiet and keeping out of the way seemed the only choice, the only way to protect both Lauren and her father.
“What made her decide to tell you now?” I ask, still trying to sort it out. When Aunt Velda died ten years ago so did news of Jake. At the time I told myself it was better not to be privy to the details of his troubled marriage or his family life. That I had to let go completely. I was careful never to Google or search for any sign of him. “What made her change her mind?”
“She didn’t.” His smile is a horrible twisted thing. “She died six months ago. She’d apparently been hoarding her sleeping pills until she had enough to go to sleep and not wake up. She used to call that a coward’s death, but I guess it became too attractive to resist.”
He falls silent and the regret and guilt are written all over his face. “I only found the clipping when I was cleaning out her things last week. It took about fifteen minutes to do the math and track you down. After all those years of being so careful not to, for fear of tipping her over the edge.”
I have the oddest feeling that both of us are going to cry. If I had any right at all I’d put my arms around him and offer comfort.
“It’s ironic, isn’t it?” he says. “Both of the women I chose to marry decided I didn’t deserve to know that I had a daughter.” Anger seethes under the sadness.
I take the jab. I deserve it and more. “I am sorry, Jake. I really am. I . . . I had to do what I thought was best for Lauren. I couldn’t put her in the middle of what was going on in your marriage and your life.” Nor did I want to add to his burden after the blow I’d already dealt him.
His smile breaks my heart. “You know what hurts the most?”
I wait in silence for his answer, because from the tone of his voice it sounds like everything hurts.
“That all this time Lauren’s assumed I didn’t give a rat’s ass about her. My c
hild who is now an adult has spent her entire life believing I abandoned her.”
“Oh no. That’s not what she thought.” I sit up, eager now to tell him the good news. “She never thought that. I’d never let that happen.”
“No?” His tone says he doesn’t believe me. And so do his eyes. And who can blame him?
“No, of course not because . . .” I stop when I come to my senses and realize that what I did tell her was in many ways worse than the truth.
“Because what?” His eyes narrow.
I swallow and it takes everything I have not to drop my eyes or leap up from the table so that I can run and hide. “Because . . .” I swallow again. “She doesn’t think you abandoned her. She thinks you’re dead.”
Seven
Bree
Manteo
I’d like to pretend that turning forty hasn’t thrown me. That I’ve successfully treated it like any other birthday. That I’m not upset that Lauren is getting married or jealous that she’s not only having the career I once dreamed of but is now venturing into the territory I staked out for myself.
I’ve been snippy and out of sorts since the big four-oh! and the engagement news has only made it worse. Not that anyone seems to have noticed. Clay and Lily are busy with their own lives and don’t really notice what I’m up to unless I force them to. Rafe, who’s in his junior year at Carolina, communicates primarily by text and most of his communication revolves around asking for extra spending money or complaining about a professor, or his part-time job, or whatever else is on his mind in that moment. I am the recipient of his thoughts and emotions; something I treasure as a mother even as I’ve come to believe that no news really is good news. And, of course, it rarely occurs to him to ask about me in any way. To my children I’m simply She Who Is Always There. And given how not “there” my parents were, I’m proud of the fact that my children never had reason to doubt their parents’ love or affection.