Driftwood Summer

by Patti Callahan Henry

  Riley backed away, grabbed Brayden’s arm, heard the ensuing conversation as though she were a bug trapped in a Mason jar, the sounds muffled.

  Mack spoke to the older couple. “I am so sorry. I have so many wonderful memories of Sheldon. He was one of a kind, a true gentle and yet tough spirit.”

  “Yes,” Mrs. Rutledge said. “This was his favorite place in the world. And you were one of his favorite friends from those beach days. I know he regrets . . . regretted not keeping in better touch.”

  “Me, too,” Mack said, and bowed his head to stare at the dock.

  Mr. Rutledge spoke with a tremor in his voice. “We are here to toss his ashes into the sea. It is what he wanted. It is what he asked for. Our only son.”

  Sheppard placed his hand on Mr. Rutledge’s shoulder.

  Brayden looked up at Riley. “Mom, you’re hurting me.”

  She realized she was squeezing his arm so hard that the impression of her fingers remained when she jerked her hand away. Mack came to their side.

  “What’s going on?” Brayden asked him. His eyes were wide and his gaze flickered from Sheppard to the Rutledges and back to Mack.

  Mack bent so that he was eye to eye with Brayden. “This sweet couple are old friends of ours and they are here to say goodbye to their son. Do you want to run down to the ice-cream shack and we’ll join you in a few minutes?”

  Brayden reeled in his line and leaned toward Mack. “How are they going to say goodbye if he’s not here?”

  Mack looked to Riley with a question on his face. She understood she needed to answer her son, yet the words were locked inside her.

  Mack explained. “Their son died in Iraq. That box contains his ashes.”

  “Oh.” Brayden nodded.

  Mack’s hand went to the small of Riley’s back; she swayed beneath him, her eyes closed. He grabbed her with both arms, and she fell into him, her face against his chest, her arms limp at his side. “Oh . . . It can’t be.”

  “I know,” he whispered into her hair. “It’s terrible.”

  Riley’s body shook; her breathing became shallow. “Are you okay?” Mack asked, lifted her chin.

  “I don’t know. . . . I can’t . . .”

  “Mom?” Brayden’s voice seemed to contain a multitude of questions.

  Riley didn’t answer or look up, just buried her face in Mack’s chest. She felt his hand in her hair. “Riley?”

  She lifted her face. Mack’s voice was like a jackhammer to the glass jar surrounding her; shards of slivered glass seemed to fly through the air in brilliance; she saw Brayden in the light. He shifted his baseball cap on his head, twisted his feet on the dock as if trying to decide which way to turn in this uncertain world in which his mother wouldn’t answer him.

  Riley stepped away from Mack and straightened to her full height, finding a new strength in her guilty heart. She looked directly at Brayden. “This couple is here to say goodbye to their son. We will stay and add a prayer for his soul.”

  Mack lifted his eyebrows in question. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  Together the three of them joined Sheppard and the Rutledges. Riley hugged Mrs. Rutledge, then her husband. “I am so sorry about Sheldon. He was an amazing boy. I have so many great memories of him.”

  “Thank you, dear. He spoke very fondly of you also.”

  Riley held her hand out for her son. Brayden stepped to her side and she placed her arm over his shoulders. “This is my son, Brayden Sheffield. If you don’t mind, we would like to stay and help you say goodbye to Sheldon.” With each word Riley felt something in her world shift, as if broken pieces of reality were trying to come together but didn’t quite fit.

  Mr. Rutledge sat down on a bench to look Brayden in the eyes. “Son, do you understand what we are doing?”

  “Yes, sir,” he said.

  “My son died for our country, and we are here to honor him. Are you sure you want to stay?”

  Brayden nodded, his eyes wide. Mrs. Rutledge looked at them all. “This is a small miracle. We thought we would be saying goodbye to him alone and now . . . look, you’re here. More people who loved him.”

  “Everyone who knew Sheldon loved him,” Mack said.

  “Yes.” Mr. Rutledge stood, Mrs. Rutledge at his side. Mack placed his hand in Riley’s and together with Brayden and Sheppard they walked to the end of the dock with Sheldon Rutledge’s mourning parents.

  Late-afternoon light shimmered across the walls of Riley’s bedroom. A breeze from the open window lifted the sheer curtains, creating uneven shadow patterns across the hardwood floors. Riley’s body still shook with a fever of grief and guilt. She wrapped a quilt around her legs, curled into a ball on her bed.

  Images without words tumbled through her mind: Sheldon laughing in front of a bonfire; Sheldon above her telling her how beautiful she was and how he’d wanted her since the first time he saw her punch Lilly-Mae for bullying a little boy; Brayden’s face and eyes as Sheldon’s ashes flowed across the air and into the waters off Palmetto Beach.

  She longed to tell everyone and yet no one that Brayden’s father had just been honored at the end of a jetty pier. She craved to cry and yet feel nothing at all.

  She ignored the soft knock on her door, and then Maisy entered without permission. “Riley? Are you okay?” Her voice was soft.

  Maisy’s footsteps stopped next to Riley’s bed, but she didn’t open her eyes. Maisy’s hand came to rest upon her forehead. “You’re sick.” Riley nodded without otherwise answering. “You’ve been working too hard . . . too long.” The bed tilted under Maisy’s weight. Riley curled tighter into herself.

  “Maisy, did you know that Sheldon Rutledge died in Iraq months ago? Plane crash.”

  “God, no. That’s awful. Is that what’s wrong with you?”

  In full protection of her secret, Riley sat up. “No. Listen, I’ll get Brayden dinner after the Cookbook Club is done. They’re coming now.” She needed to find the strength to feed her son, check on the bookstore—all the responsibilities that made her get up each morning. This was not the time for self-pity, for regret and selfish tears. She’d made her choices and she’d live with them. She’d decided to keep her secret about Brayden, and a promise to herself was the same as to any other—you didn’t break it just because it didn’t feel good anymore.

  Use your logic, her mind screamed. This afternoon, this death, was a reminder to keep her head on straight and move forward. Romantic notions of Mack Logan were a silly waste of time. She felt like an idiot for even letting the prickling warmth of desire return.

  A breeze floated into the room. Riley forced a smile. “I’m fine, Maisy. Go on and enjoy your evening. I’ll finish with the Cookbook Club. You go . . . on now.”

  “You sound really weird, Riley. I think you need some sleep or something. Why don’t you spend the night with Mama? Adalee and I will take care of everything here. Brayden has been promising to play Monopoly with me—every time I try to nail him down, he’s running off to the pier. Let me help you with him.”

  Riley wished with a sudden and fervent desire that Maisy was the kind of sister she could confide in—the kind of sister who would understand her guilt and grief and offer comfort in return. The kind of sister she used to be.

  Riley got out of bed and stood straight and firm. “That is sweet of you, Maisy. Yes, you take over the Cookbook Club, but I’ll bring Brayden to Mama’s. He likes playing with the boy who lives next door.”

  Yes, it was a good idea for her to spend the night with Mama. She’d be back in the morning—first thing. Riley gathered an overnight bag, rounded up her son and drove to her mother’s house.

  She had tried to tell Maisy about Sheldon on the night of the bonfire. Later, she’d wanted to tell Maisy how the events of that one night had not only broken apart their relationship, but also formed a new life in Brayden.

  In the days before that last summer, Maisy had been the kind of sister to whom Riley would have con
fided this story of Sheldon. Once upon a time they’d have hidden beneath the canoe stored on the side of the Beach Club and whispered secrets. In that sweet past they’d tiptoed down the hall and sequestered themselves beneath the blankets on Maisy’s bed and told each other about the boys who wanted to kiss them.

  Tears filled Riley’s eyes at these memories from before she’d betrayed her sister in jealousy. She understood why Maisy had left town, why she hated her, but she didn’t understand why Maisy had never pursued Mack, why she had never gone after him or told him of her love. When Mack didn’t return the following summer, Maisy had run away instead of going after him.

  Brayden touched Riley’s shoulder as she pulled the car into the driveway. “Mom, is something wrong?”

  She smiled down at him. “I don’t feel all that well. I’m gonna go lie down for a while. You can play with Tommy next door, or hang with Gamma.”

  “Got it,” he said, jumped from the car’s passenger seat and ran through the hedges to the next-door neighbor’s house, calling Tommy’s name.

  The car idled, and Riley rested her head on the headrest. Walking into the house, talking to Mama and then retreating to her own bedroom seemed too monumental a task compared to just closing her eyes. The sun’s warmth filling the car pressed her toward the comfort of dreams.

  A loud thump startled Riley and she opened her eyes, realized she’d fallen asleep with the motor running. Adalee stood outside the car, her eyebrows furrowed. Riley shut off the engine and opened the door to stand and face her sister. “Hey, Adalee.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine, but I can’t believe I fell asleep just now.”

  “I’m headed over to the bookstore. I was hoping you could drive me.” Adalee glanced back toward the house. “If Mama thinks I drove, she’ll lose her mind. She is madder at me about that DUI than she’s ever been about anything ever.”

  “Oh, Adalee. I just left the bookstore. Can Maisy come get you?”

  “No, she’s working on . . .” Adalee stopped her words short. “Forget it. I’ll get Harriet to take me.” She turned on her heels and ran back into the house. Riley stretched, lifted her face to the sun’s warmth, wanting to absorb it into her heart and mind, let it wash the mourning and regret from her body.

  Riley slipped through the back door, ignored Mama and tiptoed up the stairway to her old bedroom, where she curled into her childhood bed and slept.

  NINETEEN

  MAISY

  Maisy was filled with the frantic need to create something beautiful. She knew to take advantage of this drive. It was when she did her best work—when love’s promise appeared before her and it seemed as if her dreams might just work out . . . this time. Her creative work reflected the promise of fulfillment. As soon as the cookbook ladies went home, she’d head for the storage room and the project she was working on with Adalee, but now she sat at the café bar and chatted with the club members about their latest dish—shrimp and grits from Nathalie Dupree’s cookbook.

  A crowd sat in rows of chairs where the café tables were usually arranged. Cookbooks were displayed on iron stands throughout the area. The aroma of garlic, shrimp and a spice Maisy couldn’t name wafted across the room. Classical music, chosen by the club members, brought a sense of peace. Maisy stood behind the counter as the club cooked, and the leader, Sharon Martin, spoke to the audience about the process. When the public had had its fill of food, and Ethel had rung up the cookbook sales, Maisy took a seat on a barstool and smiled at the club. “You all did a fantastic job. I think I might even be able to cook that dish now.”

  “It’s an easy one,” Sharon said. “Now that everyone else is gone, we get to have our own party.”

  Eventually the discussion turned from the dish they had prepared to issues within the community and the personal problems in their lives.

  Sharon placed a clean plate in front of Maisy, dropped a ladleful of steaming shrimp and grits onto it. “This is for you,” she said.

  “Thanks.” Maisy dug in. “Delicious,” she said. The discussions continued: children who hadn’t visited from college; grand-kids who needed tending; husbands who had lost their jobs or their sex drive. The women shared their joys and pains as Maisy helped them clean up and pour more wine, listening and laughing with them.

  Sharon was complaining about her teen daughter, who barely spoke to the family anymore. A beautiful woman, tall and thin, replied, “Well, Carla is still talking to us, but only in country music lyrics.”

  Maisy laughed. “What?”

  “She’s not making that up,” Sharon said. “Her daughter thinks that if she only speaks in lyrics, her country music career will finally take off. It’s some weird superstition.”

  “Has she thought about maybe just moving to Nashville and breaking into the music scene? Seems a lot less complicated than talking in lyric-only language.”

  “Well, I’ll just let ‘Jesus Take the Wheel,’ ” the woman said with a laugh, then explained to Maisy, “That’s a Carrie Underwood song.”

  “I know, but maybe you should tell her to find a ‘Good Friend and a Glass of Wine.’ ” That was the title of a LeAnn Rimes song.

  “Ooh . . . that was a good one.” The woman laughed with her head back, wine almost spilling from her glass. “By the way, I’m Barbara.” She held out her hand and shook Maisy’s free one. “So nice to have you here.”

  “Thanks,” Maisy said, and thought of a song title she’d like to recite to Mack: “If You Ever Have Forever in Mind” by Vince Gill.

  Adalee came through the front door, iPod buds in her ears, singing too loud to a beat only she could hear. “Oh, to be young again,” Sharon said. “To not care that you’re singing off-key.”

  Adalee noticed the women staring at her, placed a hand over her mouth and popped her ear buds out. “Oh . . . hey. I’m sorry.”

  The women waved at her to join them and returned to their discussions while oohing and ahhing over the food. Adalee whispered to Maisy, “Can I go out with Chad? I know you want me to spend the night here with you, but this is the perfect chance for me to get out and see him. Living in Mama’s jailhouse, I’m going to lose my mind.”

  Maisy leaned closer to Adalee. “I thought you were gonna help me with the furniture and stuff tonight. That’s the main reason we got Riley to leave.”

  Adalee made a cute pouty face. “Just for a bit?”

  Remembering when she’d been twenty-two and in love beyond reason, Maisy nodded. “I’m going to regret this, aren’t I?”

  “Not at all,” Adalee said, jumped off the barstool and ran upstairs, a duffel bag slung over her shoulder.

  Once the dishes were clean, and the café back in order, the Cookbook Club sat down to rate the food in their Big-Book-of-Recipes notebook. Each woman wrote down her comments in a special section. Comparing their remarks inspired as much laughter and conversation as the cooking itself had. Sharon wrote: Reminds me of my first date with Bill when he took me to the Boathouse in Isle of Palms. Barbara scribbled across the page and then showed her comment to everyone: Wish we had My Keylime Pie.

  “Get it?” she asked.

  They all shook their heads.

  “I get it,” Maisy said. “ ‘My Keylime Pie’—you know, that Kenny Chesney song.”

  Laughter filled the room as each woman continued to fill the comment section.

  After they had hugged one another goodbye and the club had gone home, Maisy unlocked the storage room and began to move the furniture she and Adalee had bought and were hiding from Riley. Maisy could now sit in this room, her music blaring, and not imagine she saw Tucker Morgan. Instead she imagined only the beauty that would emerge from this old furniture and the odd knickknacks. She had to admit Adalee did have a great talent for decorating, maybe bigger than her own. They were taking a chance that Riley and Mama would love the transformation without having contributed to it.

  The history boards were tucked neatly behind a screen of cane chairs, still sti
cky with new paint. Another set of boards, ones Adalee had made about their family, were propped on the other side of the room.

  Maisy laughed, turned her music all the way up and began to paint another set of chairs in the sage green Adalee had chosen. Perfect color. The slipcovers from Beach Chic should arrive in the morning, and the linen she’d dropped off at Mama’s seamstress should be ready by the afternoon. Maisy realized she was smiling even as she worked.

  This was where she felt most at peace: in the midst of a consuming project. Her smile grew wider as she recalled the day with Mack; the way he’d touched her face. She reached her hand up, caressed her own cheek, closed her eyes and sighed. “Please,” she whispered out loud. “Let it happen this time.”

  Maybe it was true that happy endings were formed here at Driftwood Cottage. Maybe that was the real reason the cottage was now full to overflowing with books, stories, clubs and gossip. Maisy approached the history boards and read what Adalee had written in calligraphy below photos from when the Logan family had lived here: Legend says that Driftwood Cottage is a place where people connect and all stories have happy endings. But maybe Driftwood Cottage is a place where all of our stories are played out over and over, again and again, none of them ever really ending, just continuing. . . .

  Maisy touched the picture of the Logan family sitting on the front porch. She stared into a young Mack’s eyes. “Or,” Maisy whispered under the music, “maybe this is a place where happy endings come true for me.”

  An hour later, she was engrossed in painting when her cell phone vibrated on the hardwood floor; Peter’s name appeared on the screen. She took a deep breath, and decided not to answer him. Yet, by the time she’d reached over to turn off the ringer, she found she’d already taken the call.

  “Hey, baby.” Peter’s soft voice traveled over the airwaves. Maisy sat down on the floor, leaned up against the closed doors and felt her stomach clench with rising longing. She hadn’t spoken to him in three days, and at the mere sound of his voice, every emotion she felt for him returned full force.