by Karen White
Anyway, we were all assigned a research paper where we had to pick a type of shark and then write about a typical behavior. I picked the sand tiger shark, but only because Richie Kobylt had pushed to the front of the line and got the great white and Laura Gray had wanted to do the bull shark, and I couldn’t take that from her even if she was behind me in line.
So I picked the sand tiger shark and headed right for the library so I could write the best research paper the teacher had ever seen and maybe even impress Laura Gray.
I learned a lot about the sand tiger shark (Carcharias taurus). I learned that their babies are called pups and that the mama doesn’t stick around to take care of the pups after they’re born. And I also learned that sand tiger shark pups do something called “adelphophagy.” That’s a Latin word that means “eating one’s brother.” It’s when one of the larger and stronger pups inside the mama eats its smaller and weaker siblings.
I got an A on my project, but I stopped wishing for a brother or sister after that. And now, ever since Aunt Marnie’s come back, it’s made me wonder if a kind of adelphophagy happens with people, too. Because from what I’ve seen, sometimes when sisters grow up, there doesn’t seem to be a way for both of them to be happy as long as the other one is around. It’s as if they decided back in their mommy’s tummy that there was only room for one of them.
Maybe that’s why Aunt Marnie moved to the desert. Or maybe it’s why she came back. All I know is it’s like when they’re walking around by themselves, they’re only half a person. But when they’re together, they’re whole again. I want to go get a huge mirror and put it in front of them so that they can both see it, too. Or at least see that neither one of them is the bigger or stronger one; they’re both when they’re standing together.
CHAPTER 18
Last night I saw St. Elmo’s stars
With their glittering lanterns all at play.
On the tops of masts and the tips of spars,
And knew we should have foul weather today.
—HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
Marnie
I’d felt like a child avoiding Quinn for the rest of the next two days, the parts of his conversation with Diana that I had overheard playing over and over in my head. Diana stayed in her room, apparently working on her morbid mural, which made avoiding her easy. It was almost five o’clock in the afternoon on the second day before I realized that I was acting as I had when I was sixteen and seen Trey Bonner kissing Diana behind the shrimp nets out on the wharf. Besides, I’d heard enough of their conversation to know what was really going on in addition to the fact that it wasn’t like I was dating Quinn, anyway. I suppose it was simply old habit that would raise the familiar specter of jealousy between Diana and me, and I was old enough now to lay it to rest.
I showered and dressed, then put on a sundress that I had brought with me for reasons that even I didn’t know. It was lower cut than I was used to, and had a snug, gathered waistline that emphasized all my good points and hid everything else. It was made of a bright yellow cotton piqué material, and when I’d seen the dress in the store, it had reminded me of one of a similar fabric that my mother had owned, and I’d felt compelled to try it on. The color and the texture had reminded me so much of home that I probably would have bought it even if it hadn’t fit as well as it did. I paid for it without looking at the price tag and had never even put it on my body again since I’d brought it home from the store.
I slipped the dress over my head, enjoying the way the cool cotton felt against my bare skin, and I wanted to see what I looked like in a full-length mirror. I remembered the cheval mirror in my mother’s old room, so I went down the hall in the hopes of it still being there. The door was closed as it had been since her death, and I opened it slowly, with the old ghost stories that Diana used to tell me whispering around my head.
The room had remained pretty much untouched since the days of my mother’s girlhood, despite the fact that it had been Diana’s room, too. It was full of pink and ruffles and the stale smell of old perfume. Mama’s doll collection still sat on a low hutch by the window, and her books waited on the antique bookcase opposite the virginal twin bed.
It was an innocent-looking child’s room, but I still shivered, remembering the woman this child had grown into. I couldn’t help but spin around the room and imagine that all of Mama’s demons had somehow been given birth in here.
The cheval mirror sat in the same corner it had been in for more than fifty years, and I walked over to it to see my reflection more clearly. I’d brought two different shoes with me to see which worked best, and I slipped one on each foot before taking turns lifting up one foot and then the other. I was still trying to choose between the espadrille and the high-heeled slide when my gaze caught on a blank spot over my mother’s bed.
I turned to face it, trying to recall why it looked so different. The other three walls were bare, as they had been since I was ten and my mother had gone on a rampage and burned all of her artwork. Oh, yes, I remembered. My blue herons. The two paintings I’d entered into the art competition that had been hung in my mother’s house and then moved into this room after her death were gone.
Just like the walls downstairs in the front parlor, there were rectangles of darker paint on the wall, which gave testament to how long they had hung in their spot over the bed. I looked around at the pink chenille bedspread and chiffon drapes—two items that had remained in this room since long before my birth—and tried to think of a reason why those two pictures would be missing.
The door swayed open, making me start, until I saw that it was Quinn.
“Looking for ghosts?��� he asked with a tentative smile.
He wore a light blue oxford cloth button-down shirt that showed off his tan and his eyes, and my mouth went a little dry. “I might be,” I answered with a similar smile.
“Need any help?”
“No, thank you,” I said, my smile fading. “I don’t seem to have any trouble finding them on my own.”
His face grew serious as he took a step into the room. “Marnie?”
I stopped where I was, suddenly cautious and fervently hoping he wasn’t going to bring up the scene in Diana’s studio. “Yes?”
“Are you still planning on going on the nondate with me?”
“Yes, of course. I’m ready to go. Why—have you changed your mind?”
“That would depend.”
I swallowed, my throat even drier than before. “On what?”
“On whether or not you wore the same pair of shoes instead of one of each.” He looked pointedly down at my feet and I felt an annoying sense of relief.
“Oh, right. I’d forgotten.” I stepped forward to move past him. “Let me go get my other shoe and I’ll meet you downstairs.”
He put a hand on my arm. “I like your hair down like that. You should wear it that way more often.”
I felt myself blush at his close perusal. “I’ll see you downstairs,” I said as I brushed past him and walked quickly down the hallway to my bedroom.
The late-summer air was balmy and carried with it the heady scent of the marsh. Quinn paused at the bottom of the front steps. “We could take the car or the boat—you pick.”
I felt the air pushing at me, nudging me toward the dock, the rich odor of the water and the grasses filling the air around me. “If you promise not to get lost in the dark, let’s take the boat.”
He indicated for me to begin walking. “I’m not worried. You know the creeks blindfolded like the back of your hand.”
I glanced back at him. “I never told you that.”
“Nope. But your sister did.”
I didn’t say anything, hoping that by not mentioning Diana’s name, Quinn wouldn’t mention the conversation I’d overheard between them.
“About yesterday afternoon,” he began.
I shrunk inside. “Please. Don’t,” I said. “What you and Diana do is none of my business.”
I felt his
eyes on me but I didn’t look up. “Yes, it is.”
I remained silent, afraid to ask why.
He didn’t say anything more until we were both in the boat heading away from the dock. He kept the motor on low so we could still hear the singing tree frogs and the squawking of a night heron on the hunt. I was lulled by the warm air and the gentle sway of the boat until his voice shook me out of my reverie.
“Diana told me that she heard your mother’s voice before she took Gil out on the boat that night.”
I sat up straight, my hands clenching the sides of the boat. “Have you told her doctor?”
“Not yet, but I’ve scheduled an appointment for both of us next week.” He looked away for a moment. “I thought you should know.”
“Thank you,” I said softly. “Thank you for telling me.” My thoughts went back to the missing pictures on the wall of my mother’s room, as if the darkened spots should tell me something more. “But that was before she went back on her medication, right?”
“Yes, and Diana pointed that out to me, too. But still…” He looked at me. “Your mother wasn’t the sort to deliberately hurt her children, was she?”
I shivered, suddenly cold. Quinn noticed and gave me his jacket to drape around my bare shoulders. “Not deliberately, no. She did cruel things,” I said, remembering the ill-fated trip to Disney World, “but never intentionally malicious. We knew she was…ill. And we knew to take everything with that in mind.” I looked up at the fullness of the moon, its maternal roundness embracing the marsh around us. “But she also loved us,” I added quietly, remembering the two pictures she’d framed and hung on her wall after I had thrown them away, knowing that they weren’t as good as Diana’s.
“Did she love you equally?”
I stared up at the moon again, watching as it cast its light unevenly over the water and blades of grass, and created striped shadows of darkness and light beneath the old cypress trees. “No. She didn’t.”
Something splashed in the water nearby and I froze, the sound reminding me of something I thought I’d forgotten, something I didn’t want to remember.
As if from far away, I heard Quinn’s voice calling my name, and felt his hands on my shoulders, shaking me.
“Marnie, are you all right?”
I managed to nod. “I’m…fine. Just remembering something, that’s all.”
He idled the engine and took both of my hands in his. “Your hands are like ice,” he said.
I shivered again, my teeth clenched tight to keep them from chattering, my head turning as if to hear another voice. I thought that if I reached out my hand, I could touch her, my mother. But all I could feel were her hands slowly letting me go. And then pushing me away in the frigid water.
“Marnie!”
I don’t know how many times he’d said my name before I heard him.
“Yes, I’m here,” I said, my teeth chattering. “I’m fine.”
He blew on my hands, then rubbed them with his own. “I can take you home if you need me to.”
I shook my head. “No, really, that’s not necessary. I just had a sort of déjà vu or something.” I forced a smile as I looked up at him. “I’m hungry—let’s go eat.”
He moved back to the engine, and we were under way again as I turned my face into the warm wind, trying to thaw my skin and my memories.
We docked the boat at Leland Marina and took a leisurely stroll to the Crab Pot Restaurant, its claim to fame being that it was once reviewed favorably in the venerable New York Times. What it lacked in linen and candlelight, it more than made up for in the best Southern seafood anywhere. Before I’d even stepped through the front door, my appetite had returned, and I was ready for their famed she-crab soup.
Without asking me, Quinn ordered a bottle of wine. “You look like you need it,” he explained as he helped me into my seat.
“Thanks,” I said, not really realizing how much I meant it until I tasted the first calming sip.
Quinn leaned forward, looking at me oddly.
“What?”
“Your hair. Did I mention how much I like it down like that?”
“Yes, actually. You did.” Self-conscious now, I brushed my hand over the side of my hair, and flipped it behind my shoulders.
He continued to look at me. Finally, he said, “There’s something I haven’t told you….”
“Marnie Maitland? Is that you?”
We both turned at the sound of my name, and I smiled when I recognized Kathy Arasi, my childhood friend. Diana and I hadn’t had many close friends growing up on account of us trying to keep our mother’s behavior to ourselves and other mothers wanting to keep their children away from us. And we had each other, neither one of us ever really feeling the need to seek outside friendship.
But Kathy had been different. An only child, the daughter of a local judge and a schoolteacher, she was wise beyond her years and usually sought out whatever others avoided. Thus, I became a pet project for her. She’d move her lunch tray next to mine in the cafeteria, and squeeze in next to me in the reading circle during library class. She’d be the only person to volunteer to be my gym partner and bullied others into letting me on their team during kickball out on the playground.
I stood and allowed myself to be enveloped in her hug. She’d always been slender, but she could put a lot of punch in her hugs. In a home where there wasn’t a lot of touching, it had been one of the things I’d liked most about Kathy.
“I didn’t know you were back,” she said, holding me at arm’s length. “And look at you—you’re even more beautiful than when you left. Isn’t she, Quinn?”
Quinn, having no idea what I must have looked like before, raised his glass. “I’ll drink to that.”
“So are you back for good? How long have you been here? I can’t believe you haven’t called me.” In typical Kathy fashion, she never paused long enough between questions to wait for an answer. She hugged me again, then held me out for inspection. “So how long you here for?”
I glanced at Quinn. “It’s all kind of up in the air right now. I had planned to be gone by September, but I just extended my leave of absence from work through the first semester. I’m enjoying spending time with my nephew, Gil.”
She shook her head and clucked her tongue like a mother hen. “Bless his heart. I haven’t seen him since the accident, but I heard he’s still working on getting better. He’s lucky he’s got you. You were always such a nurturer, you know. I don’t think Diana would have made it to adulthood if you hadn’t been there for her. She really depended on you keeping her grounded, you know.” She smiled her toothy grin, making me wonder if maybe she should go into politics. “Of course, we know you both depended on neighbors for your dinner, but Diana always had you.”
I looked at her, feeling confused. I had never seen it that way at all. I had survived our childhood and our mother because of Diana and not the other way around. I was spared from having to respond by Kathy opening her mouth again.
“But you have to stay for the Shrimp Festival and the Blessing of the Fleet. It’s on May seventh next year. And don’t forget Charleston Race Week is the first week in April, and I know you must be dying to see it—or even enter! Now that you’ve reconciled with Diana and come home, I can’t imagine that you’d want to miss it. Or ever leave again. Remember at high school graduation how you were voted ‘Most Lowcountry’ and ‘Least likely to ever live anywhere else’?” She slapped her hand on her leg. “And don’t forget ‘Most likely to win the America’s Cup.’ I’ve got a bunch of laughs over that through the years, seeing as you live in the desert now. But I always knew you’d be back, Marnie Maitland. You and the ocean—just can’t ever imagine that you could stand to be parted.”
I stared at Kathy for a long moment, rolling her words back in my mind to determine if there had been a question and if I were required to answer it. “The Race Week—that’s in April,” I interjected. “I really don’t plan to stay past—”
“An
d not only that, but I’m starting a new women’s group and calling it Women Who Launch—isn’t that a hoot?—and we’ll meet every week during good weather to go sailing. You simply have to join us.”
Quinn spoke quickly, as if he were afraid this might be his only chance to get a word in. “It will all depend on Gil. I know that Marnie wouldn’t leave him until he’s better.”
Kathy turned her attention to Quinn, a sympathetic look on her face. “Bless his heart,” she said again. “How difficult this must be for you.”
“I imagine it’s a lot more difficult for Gil than it is for us,” I said quietly, “but he seems to really be getting better.”
“That’s wonderful. And poor Diana, to be involved in two boating accidents but lucky enough to survive them both. Her guardian angel sure is looking after her,” Kathy said, beaming.
Quinn sent me an uneasy glance. “I wouldn’t exactly call her lucky.”
Kathy flushed. “No, I guess not. I was just saying that she’s a survivor, that’s all.” She squeezed my hand. “You both are.”
“Thanks,” I said.
“Well, I’ll let you two eat. It was so great seeing you again, Marnie. I’m going to give you a call this week so that we can get together for lunch and catch up.”
“That’ll be great,” I said as I resumed my seat and my eyes caught Quinn’s amused ones.
Kathy turned to leave, then stopped. “Oh, wait—I almost forgot. Would you please let Diana know that I’m sorry I missed her when she stopped into the library but Tally Deushane—remember Trey Bonner’s little half sister? I’m training her right now at the library. Anyway, Tally said that she looked through every single book Diana had checked out in the last month at the library but didn’t find the piece of paper Diana thinks she misplaced. I know she only asked Tally to look through the one book—what was it?” She tapped a long fingernail against her chin. “I think it was Modern Psychiatry or something like that, but anyway I looked through that one really well again and then just decided to be really thorough and looked through all of the books we had a record of her checking out in the last four weeks or so. Tally could tell she was really upset and this was important to Diana, so please let her know that we did everything we could.”