by Lisa Wingate
I don’t know if it was a show of bravado or not, but at the hurricane party the night before last, the old hippies were tipping their glasses to the storm, thumbing their noses at the weather bureau, and eating enough discount seafood to choke a whale. What else is there to do but feast when the power may be out for a while and the food will spoil anyway?
These people are either the heartiest souls I have ever met or the most foolhardy. I can’t decide which, but they are very nice. While helping to pack shop goods yesterday—and listening to Mom and Aunt Sandy argue—I met several women Aunt Sandy refers to as the Sisterhood of the Seashell Shop. Teresa, Elsa, Callie, Crystal . . . I can’t remember all the names, but most of them own shops up and down Hatteras Island.
They are as close to my aunt as sisters, and as I watched them, I noted something. This is lacking in my own life. Over the years, I’ve gotten so busy with work and my kids’ activities that I’ve let friendships slide off the map. Other than Carol at work, there’s literally no one to talk to who gets it . . . no one I’m close enough to that I’d admit the ragged truth, anyway.
I find my mother in the kitchen, trying to make heads or tails of some sort of professional coffeemaker that has undoubtedly been brought home from the Seashell Shop.
Mom looks like you might expect a former high school principal to look without her morning coffee.
And Aunt Sandy is nowhere to be found. That, of course, is the first thing Mom complains about, after letting me know what she thinks of the fancy coffeemaker.
I decipher the brewing machine because I am, after all, trained to save lives, and this is a life-or-death situation. We need coffee. Now. Or heads will roll.
We perch on barstools on either side of the small island as the pungent nectar of morning perks nearby. Some fresh strawberries are waiting in a bowl. I don’t know if they are for us or not, but I help myself.
I wait for the brewing to finish and for Mom to take in the requisite amount of coffee before I bring up the obvious. “We need to get on the road this morning.”
Mom is drumming her fingernails on her cup. Ching, ching, chang. Chang-chang. Ching-ching-ching. That’s not a good sign. “She won’t listen. She’s being ridiculous. It’s insanity.” Mom squints toward the back window. I gather that Mrs. Insanity has indeed gotten up early and escaped for her walk. “And I’m not the only one who thinks so either. That woman who owns the ice cream stand down the road, that Teresa person, she agrees with me. Not only was she sending her own elderly mother to the mainland to stay with relatives, she agrees that Sandra Kay is in no shape to be riding out a storm here, and especially not by herself.” She’s calling my aunt by first and middle name this morning, adding a parental tone to the battle. She is Big Sister Sharon now, and big sister knows best.
“Well, she’s done it before. They’ve been here for years, Mom. Surely she knows what she’s getting into.” I’d noticed my mother canvassing the crowd at the hurricane party, soliciting opinions, support, or information—or all three. She pulled Teresa aside again yesterday, when Teresa stopped by the Shell Shop to check on us. We were out back, packing up supplies in the glassmaking shop. Aunt Sandy was sweating like crazy, despite the fact that the day was seasonably cool.
On the one hand, I realize that what my mother has been doing, she’s been doing with the best intentions. Mom is not a mean person. She’s worried about her sister. On the other hand, I hate it when she does this to me. And I’m not unaware that in these months since her retirement, she has been nosing around in my life.
“Mom, I think you’re just going to have to let this . . .”
Her glare could fry an egg at thirty paces. “They all agree with me, Elizabeth. Every one of them I talk to. But especially Teresa. She knows the most because she’s the one going to the doctor appointments with Sandy.”
An uncomfortable wrinkle in the universe travels my way. “What doctor appointments?”
My mother lifts the index finger that says, I’m right, and you’d better listen. “Oh, you don’t know the half of it. And neither does George because Sandy’s been keeping secrets from him since not too long after they went through the last hurricane. She doesn’t want him having to worry about it, considering all the trouble he’s having with his mother and her dementia and the nursing home back in Michigan.”
“But what’s going on with Aunt Sandy?”
“Diabetes that’s out of control. She won’t take her medicine. And near blackouts behind the wheel of her car. Eating things she’s not supposed to. She refuses to monitor her diet. And if anyone tries to tell her what she should do, she makes excuses. She says there’s been too much going on since the last hurricane, and she doesn’t have time for the adjustment to the medicine. It makes her sick and takes away all her energy, so after just one week of trying it, she went off the stuff. She says she’s been making it okay all these years—she’ll be fine until things settle down and she has time to be sick. Can you believe that? Can you believe the ridiculous stubbornness?”
Oh yes, I can. I’m looking at the mirror image. Different hair. Same personality. These women run the world, or else.
I take a sip of coffee, savor the taste on my tongue, try to come up with a solution that doesn’t include throwing a gunnysack over my aunt’s head and tossing her into the trunk of the car.
“Well, maybe when we get back home, we can—” I don’t even get talk to Uncle George out of my mouth.
“I’m staying.”
The hammer drops, and I hear it ringing against my ear. My brain sloshes back and forth in my skull, and it’s a minute before I can form a coherent thought.
“What do you mean, you’re staying?”
“I’m not leaving. That’s it. She can’t be here by herself. And she won’t let any of her friends stay over with her because they have houses of their own to look after. And she refuses to weather this thing at their houses because she wants to keep a watch on this place.”
“Mom, you can’t stay here.”
“Oh yes, I can. And I am. What’s my sister going to do? Throw me out in the ocean? Once you leave, she’ll be stuck with me, whether she likes it or not. If she’s that worried about my safety, well then, she’ll have to get in her vehicle and drive to the mainland, now won’t she?” My mother gives me a lemon-lipped smirk, pleased with herself. All those doctoral classes are paying off. She has outmaneuvered everyone. She thinks.
“I’m not going to drive off and leave you here with a hurricane coming.” No way. Nohow. Not happening.
“Oh, it’s not even supposed to be that bad. You saw the weather report last night. Just a little brush.”
“Yes, and I see the eighty-seven gas cans piled on the deck out there too. It’s a hurricane, Mother. You can’t tell from one minute to the next what these things will do. Even assuming that it doesn’t cause some kind of catastrophic damage around here, there could be travel problems on the East Coast for days, maybe weeks. Who knows?”
She focuses out the window, as in, La la la, I can’t hear you. “I’m capable of making my own decisions, Elizabeth. They may have put some young know-nothing in charge of the school that should’ve been mine, but I’m still a fully competent adult.”
This is a fine way to prove it. My cell phone rings in my pocket, and if it weren’t for the fact that the kids might need me and the investigation into Emily’s kidnapping is still ongoing, I wouldn’t pull the phone out to look at it. As it is, Mom gives me a disgusted look as I check.
It’s Carol.
Something cold and solid sinks slowly from my throat to the pit of my stomach. “I need to take this.” I can barely get the words out.
Mom lodges a complaint about young people and bad cell phone manners as I head outside to the second-story deck and pull the door closed behind me.
I answer, and Carol sounds emotional on the other end. I know before she says the words. It’s bad news.
“Elizabeth, they’ve found a body out by Palmer Lak
e. They haven’t got a positive ID yet, but I didn’t want you to hear it somewhere else if you were following the local news over the Internet. Jason says it’s her.” Carol’s son, Jason, is one of the officers on the case. He’s looked at that picture on the flyer a thousand times. If he says it’s her, it is.
“Is he sure?” I ask anyway. I can’t think of what else to say. I feel myself breaking inside. Shattering into a million pieces.
How can this be? How can this be happening?
“Yeah. But they haven’t done an ID yet,” she repeats as if that extends a ray of hope. As if it would be better for some other little girl’s lifeless body to be found in the woods. “You okay?”
I don’t really need to answer. She knows me well enough to guess. “No.”
Once again, I cycle through those moments. Those moments after the call came in, the time wasted because my mind was lost in a fog of my own problems. Could it have made the difference? Would the outcome have changed if Carol had taken the call?
“They don’t know any details yet,” she warns. “Elizabeth, don’t go jumping to any conclusions. That won’t help anything, okay?”
I don’t answer. I can’t.
“Okay?” Carol repeats, louder this time.
“I have to go.” Somehow I manage to thank her for letting me know. Then I’m walking across the deck. And then I’m running, down the stairs, across the lawn of wispy salt grass and weeds, down the path through the scrubby bayberry bushes, toward the dunes and over them onto the thin strip of sand that hasn’t been overtaken by the storm-swelled tide.
I run and run, shoes sinking into the sand, the weight of it pulling and tugging, slowing me down, not letting me get away fast enough. The waves claw the shore, and tears blur my eyes. Far out to sea, the first hints of a change in the weather blacken into a formless darkness.
I pant and I scream, but other than quiet, shuttered houses, no one hears me. As far as I can see down the beach, there’s not a sign of another living soul. Nothing to stop me from running, except myself. My own weakness.
Eventually I can’t go any farther. I can’t put any more distance between myself and that phone call. My lungs burn and my legs go numb, and all I can do is collapse into a dune and watch the waves violently strike land, and feel myself going out to sea with them, piece by piece.
CHAPTER 6
I’m chilled to the bone by the time Aunt Sandy finally finds me. Overhead, the sky has narrowed, the clouds closing in. The waves have taken out the beach, the water already brown and churning with a mix of sea foam and debris. There’s only a few feet now between the shoreline and the dunes. Aunt Sandy is driving on it in the little ragtop Jeep she uses to run around the island.
The vehicle slides to a halt, and she hurries toward me in a stocky shuffle as I rise from the dunes. I have no idea how long I’ve been here, watching the storm slowly work its way toward us. That is the beauty of the ocean, even when it’s angry. It steals all perception of time. Right now, I need to lose myself more than anything.
But as I catch my aunt’s frantic look, I realize how selfish I’ve been, and guilt strikes me like a cold splash in the face. Undoubtedly they’ve been looking for me all this time. I’ve kept them from last-minute hurricane preparations. By default, I have probably sacrificed any possibility of talking them both into leaving. If Aunt Sandy is really having as many health problems as my mother indicated, she doesn’t need to stay here.
“Where have you been?” She grabs me and rubs her hands up and down my arms. The sweatshirt is wet, stiff, and practically icy. The spray is so cold now.
I like the numbness it has created.
“I’m sorry.” I think I’ve gotten myself together. I intend to say that I had a call this morning with bad news. Instead, I manage, “The call . . . the call . . .” and then the flood wall bursts. Sobs come rushing forth, and I cry, bent over her shoulder for who knows how long. Against me, she seems strong, her feet spread a distance in the sand, bracing to hold back each strike of wind. I huddle on her leeward side like a clump of sea oats, seeking to ride out the storm.
She does me the favor of not asking for more information, here and now. The surf is so loud, it isn’t a place for talking. Finally she guides me to the Jeep, buckles me into the passenger seat like a child, continues up the dunes until we find a place to cross through, then motors between beach houses and down the highway. In the distance, the cylindrical black-and-white stripes of the old Hatteras lighthouse stretch skyward, seeming to promise that it is possible for something well built to survive the storm.
I wonder if I have what it takes. I don’t feel as solid as that lighthouse.
Instead of taking me home, Aunt Sandy steers toward the Seashell Shop. She lets us in and calls my mother’s cell phone from the landline. The service is patchy right now, so the call ends abruptly.
“We need to get you out of here, and you need to take your mother with you,” she says, suddenly all business. The storm comes first, and I’m glad of it. I don’t want to talk about the news from work. I don’t want to think about it. “There’s probably still time for you to get off the Banks and over to the mainland, at least if the traffic cooperates. But you need to go now. Just let me check everything and get the shutters in place on the door. And then we’ll hurry home.”
She walks around the room, muttering to herself, reviewing a mental checklist that makes me realize how many times she must have been through this procedure before. “All the furniture up . . . glass cutters and saws at the house . . . inventory on the high shelves . . .”
How does somebody do this—face storm after storm as if it’s to be expected? Why hasn’t she just given up?
She stands in the center of the shop, her hands braced on her hips, her face partially hidden by a baseball cap she has grabbed and pulled over her short blonde hair. “You might want to get one off the rack,” she says, motioning to the hat. “It’s about to be a bad time for hair around here. And depending how far inland you two make it—which, like I said, is all about the traffic—it may be a while before there’s a hot shower.”
“I’m not going.” The words come out in a rush as if I’ve just discovered them myself, but I’ve known for hours that I couldn’t bear to return home. Not right now. Suddenly, riding out a hurricane seems like the lesser of two evils. I can’t watch the discovery of Emily’s small body as it’s broadcast on TV. The confirmation that it’s her. The pictures of her sobbing mother clutching her baby brother. The interviews with the grandparents, who have stood rock solid through this entire process, their faces stricken with grief. I can’t bear to hear the behind-the-scenes details coming out bit by bit. I can’t go back to work. I can’t take another call. What if I screw up again, cost someone else the time that’s needed to save a life?
“Oh no . . . ,” Aunt Sandy begins, but when her survey of the store turns her my way, she catches my face, studies me a moment. I feel like she’s reading everything inside me. “All right,” she says then. “Okay . . . but let’s just hope this one passes on by without being anything like Irene was.”
I nod, and then she hands me the phone and adds, “You’d better call your family while you can. Tell them not to worry if they don’t hear much from us for a few days. You never know about communications after one of these things.” For a few days slides past me, plucking a disquieting note. “And take those suncatchers out of the bay window, would you? I forgot those were there. Wrap them in bubble wrap and tuck them in one of those boxes with the egg-crate slots. Put it up high somewhere. Two dozen suncatchers are worth some money, and if, heaven forbid, we get any damage out of this storm, we’re gonna need it.”
The ominous tone should scare me—I think she means it to—but instead it produces one last burst of determination. I find myself slipping into my mother’s role. Maybe Aunt Sandy will listen to me. She knows I’m not trying to take over her life. “I understand how much this place means to you. But listen, I was talking to Mom this m
orning, and she’s legitimately worried about your health.”
She turns away with a quick shake of her head. “Don’t start on me. Just help me do these last few things and get the doors shuttered, okay? I’ve heard everything your mother has to say. I’ve already promised her that I’ll get checked out and see what I can do about finding a medication that doesn’t put me flat on my back, when there’s time.” A backhand hatchets through the air in a maneuver so like my mother’s, it’s scary. No wonder they drive each other crazy.
I hope it’s not genetic, this ridiculous determination to ignore all the people around me and answer a concern with a laissez-faire flip of the hand. If I ever catch myself doing that, I hope I smack myself upside the head in the process. “Okay, okay . . . but how about if we just go inland and get a hotel for a few days? All of us. I’ll drive. I’ll help you shutter up before we leave. It really doesn’t seem like a good idea for you or Mom to be here during this storm, just in case it’s . . .”
A look comes my way, and it aborts the rest of the sentence. There’s no point. Mind made up. Those blue eyes say it all. “Elizabeth, storms are part of living on an island. Every decision you make in life has benefits and consequences. Sometimes you just have to go on faith, and even that comes at a price. It means you have to give up the idea that you’re the one in charge of the universe. This old house and I have been through all the storms before, and we’re going to get through this one. Whatever I need, whether that’s provisions or friends to help in the aftermath or the kindness of strangers, like the volunteers who helped after the last storm, God’s going to bring it my way.”
I don’t have an answer for that. Aunt Sandy is the expert in this area. She’s the Bible study teacher. But I think, What if the provision this time is a sister who’s telling you to get yourself to the doctor?