Tonight, listening to his poetry, Harper understood the misery he wrestled with, the guilt he carried, and the depth of feeling that he struggled to keep under wraps. He was intelligent, with an artistic soul. She listened in awe and with a new respect for the courage it took to share his feelings. For his battle to keep those raw emotions under restraint.
Tonight she was seeing Taylor with opened eyes.
When he finished, there was rousing applause. Everyone in the room knew that he’d spoken from the heart. As Taylor walked back to the table, many people stopped to talk to him, shake his hand. Harper saw how people liked him, how this was a group of his friends, a world of his that she’d not known about before tonight.
“You were incredible,” she said excitedly when he sat down again at their table. “I understand now what you meant when you said sharing your writing is a gift. A giving of a part of yourself. I felt that when I listened to you tonight. That you were telling your story. It was so powerful.”
He didn’t respond right away. He doused his thirst with a long swallow of beer and set the bottle on the table. Then he reached out and took her hand. The gesture surprised her. It was so unexpected. So intimate. Suddenly it felt as though her whole being were captured in that one hand.
Taylor looked into her eyes. “I was reading to you.”
She shut her eyes for a moment, then said in a soft whisper, “I know.”
Another poet was announced, breaking the moment. An older woman with snow-white hair and black glasses approached the podium. Taylor glanced around the room, then rose to his feet, not letting go of her hand. He bent low to say in her ear, “There’s a free table on the sidewalk. Let’s go.”
Quietly, so as not to disturb the reader, he led her to the outdoor table. She was sorry when Taylor dropped her hand to pull out her chair.
A different waitress, equally perky, promptly came to take their order. When she left, Taylor pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket. “Do you mind if I smoke?”
“Must you?”
He shrugged. “It puts me at ease.” He put his hand up to arrest her argument. “I know it’s not good for me and I’m going to quit.” His gaze was resolute. “But not yet.”
“Okay,” Harper said, although in her heart it was anything but. She watched as he put a cigarette in his mouth, pulled out matches, and, cupping the cigarette in his hands, lit up. As a rule, Harper didn’t date men who smoked. She thought it was a nasty habit that only brought misery in time. Looking away, she knew, too, that she had such bad associations with smoking because of her mother.
Taylor took a drag from his cigarette, then waved the smoke away from her direction.
She relinquished the battle. “I’m fine. My mother is a chain-smoker. I’m used to it.”
“Just one. I promise.”
The waitress returned with her wine and another beer for Taylor.
Taylor took a drink, as though summoning his resolve. He cleared his throat. “That poem,” he said, referring to her earlier comment, “it was personal. I wrote it when I came back from Afghanistan.”
“I figured that.”
He paused to flick his ash. “You know I had PTSD?”
“No.”
“Carson never mentioned it?”
“No. . . . How did she know?”
“That’s what started me working with dolphins. It came up at the DRC.”
“Of course.”
He shifted in his chair. “Does it bother you?”
“No,” she replied honestly, looking directly into his eyes. “Should it?”
He stared back, his eyes pulsing. Then he averted his gaze and shrugged. “It bothers some people. They don’t want to get involved with someone who’s crazy.” He took a long smoke.
“You have PTSD. You’re not crazy.”
“No. I’m not.” He looked up and she saw relief. Even gratitude. “I’m glad you know the difference. Not everyone does.”
At that moment she wanted to be as eloquent with words as he had just been. To share all the feelings roiling inside her. To reassure him. To allay his fears. And her own.
There were no words. So instead she leaned toward him and cupped his chin in both of her hands. Then she kissed him. Sweetly, tenderly. A kiss filled with promise. When she drew away, she saw that he’d dropped his guard to reveal vulnerability.
Harper leaned back in her chair and picked up her glass. “Carson did tell me you were great with the dolphins.” She smiled before she sipped the cool wine.
A smile filled with memories flitted across his face. He, too, leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs. “I went there as part of the Wounded Warrior Project. Dolphins are amazing animals. Honest. Funny. Wise. They have a very real presence. You look a dolphin directly in the eye and you know you’re making contact with an intelligent being. You feel it in your gut. They see you. Really see you.” He looked at his cigarette. “They helped me through tough times. So I just kept coming back.”
“How did you get involved with poetry?”
He shrugged. “It was part of my therapy. When I came back from the war, I felt emotionally numb. I was hypervigilant. Terrified to go out in crowds. It’s part of PTSD.” He looked at his cigarette. “You want to die, and sadly, some guys do.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Yeah.” He sipped from his beer. “I’m one of the luckier ones. My physical injuries healed. It took longer for the psychological wounds to heal. The wounds you don’t see. I went through a lot of different therapy—art therapy, EMDR, the dolphins, video games. That’s how I knew what to do with Nate this morning.”
“I wondered about that. You were so good with him.” Then she smiled. “And so was Thor.”
“He’s trained to bring me out of that dark place. He senses when I’m having a nightmare and licks my hand and my face to wake me up before I get to the red zone. You saw how it worked with Nate this morning. His job is to bring me back from the war raging in my head. We both knew what that little guy was going through this morning. When he’s in a tantrum, it’s like being stuck in a nightmare and you can’t wake up. It tore me up to see him like that. Thor, too.”
“I heard him whine.”
He took a swallow of the beer.
Harper sipped from her wine, set the glass on the table. Waited, then asked, “What happened to you in Afghanistan? If you don’t mind my asking.”
“It’s a long story.”
“I have time, if you want to tell me about it.”
Taylor took a drag from his cigarette and looked to the street, considering. When he turned back, he took a final swig from his bottle, then tossed his cigarette in. Looking up, she saw decision in his eyes.
“I was in Afghanistan,” he began slowly. His voice sounded far away. “The days all seem to blur into each other in my mind, so I can’t even say exactly when the accident happened. It sometimes feels like it was just the other day. It’s all so different there—the smells, the sounds, the people. But we had our routines. Jobs to do. Sure it was tough, but we knew what we’d signed up for. And we had our friends. Our band of brothers.”
He reached for his packet of cigarettes, paused as though remembering his promise, then let his hand drop.
“We were out riding in a caravan, on our way to a new location. Like we’d done dozens of days before. We were prepared for trouble. I was wearing body armor and a helmet.” He laughed shortly. “Man, it was hot. Hotter than here, trust me. My buddy Dave took off his helmet to wipe his brow.”
Taylor stopped speaking and rubbed his forehead. Harper went very still, knowing he was coming to the hard part of the story.
“I still can’t wrap my mind around how one small, insignificant movement can mean the difference between life and death. He took off his helmet just long enough to wipe his brow . . .” Taylor paused to look off. “It wasn’t our truck that got hit. If it was, I wouldn’t be here now. No way.” He shrugged, looking down at his feet. “One minute I was loo
king at his face, the next minute there was this loud bang and I went flying. Got knocked out. When I came to, I couldn’t see anything. I mean, I was blind. Everything went white and my ears were ringing. Reaching up, I felt blood coming out of my ears. When my vision finally cleared, I saw I was lying in a ditch. I was in a kind of daze, not thinking clearly. I wasn’t sure what had happened. When I could drag myself to stand, I wished I couldn’t see. There was wreckage everywhere. Bodies . . . The head truck that caught the IED was shredded. My buddy Dave, he was dead. And three other brothers. Gone in an instant,” Taylor said in a husky voice.
Harper didn’t speak. She blinked back tears of sympathy trying to imagine that magnitude of loss and pain. And what it might do to a person.
“You know, I keep thinking how fate dealt the cards that day. If our truck was first in line, or if I was the one who’d removed my helmet, or if I was in Dave’s seat, it’d have been me that died instead of him.”
“But it wasn’t.”
He shook his head and said under his breath, “No.”
Harper thought to herself, Thank God, but remained silent.
“They got me to the medic,” he continued in a steady voice. “Compared to some of the other guys, I got off easy. I didn’t lose my life, or my sight, or a limb. I told the doc I was fine and I could go back. I didn’t have any wounds I could see. But I wasn’t fine. It was the beginning of my second tour of duty and the third or fourth time I’d gotten blasted by some IED. This time, it was my ticket home. I hated being there and wanted to go home. But not like that.”
“Did the doctor diagnose your PTSD?”
“Not right away. I’m a Marine and we like to think we can tough it out. But this time I couldn’t.”
Harper saw something in his expression that made her realize how he’d suffered during the time it took for him to reach the point to ask for help. Harper slid her hand across the table to put it over his. “How’s your therapy been working out for you?”
He looked at their hands, then intertwined their fingers. “It’s going good. I’ve been reaching out. Pushing myself. I had to once more muster up the courage and strength to make another plan. I decided it was time to come home again and get my life back on track. I have my college degree from the Citadel. I’ve applied at a few places for a job, and one here in Charleston called me for an interview. That’s what prompted me to come back home sooner than later. So far, everything is moving on a trajectory.”
“Any company would be lucky to have you.”
He turned her hand in his, then gently rubbed his thumb across her palm.
She felt every neuron in her hand tingle.
He looked up from their hands and met her gaze. “Best of all, I met you.”
They stared into each other’s eyes, each aware that they were moving into new waters. Words, movements, emotions, all had to be navigated anew.
Around them came a smattering of applause and people began rising from their chairs. The noise level of the restaurant rose as good-byes were exchanged and congratulations offered. Taylor and Harper let go of their hands when a few of his friends stopped by the table to say good-bye and comment on his poems.
“Last call,” the waitress said, coming up to their table. “We’ll be closing soon.”
Taylor turned to her. “Want to go?”
Harper nodded and Taylor settled the bill. He rose then without a word, reached over to take her hand, and linked arms, keeping his hand on hers. “Can’t have you fall.”
She wanted to say something like I’ve already fallen, but she couldn’t bring herself to say anything so corny. So she only smiled, glad now for the silly shoes that kept her arm in his. Knowing with him she wouldn’t be hurt.
They drove home along East Bay and over the Ravenel Bridge, which soared like a great bird over Charleston Harbor. Sitting high in the truck, Harper looked ahead at the trail of red brake lights. Most of the restaurants on Coleman Boulevard were closed. She and Taylor spoke about the poetry they’d heard, their favorite poems, and other readings they’d attended. By the time they began crossing the wetlands in single file on the long two-way road across the vast acres of marsh, they’d lapsed into a comfortable silence. The tires hummed beneath them and the moon shone bright, lighting up the black, ragged tips of oysters in the mud at low tide.
In the darkness Taylor slid his hand across the seat to capture hers. She sighed at the touch and smiled, moved by the simple gesture that was, she knew, a statement. The radio played country music, and though Harper wasn’t a fan, she was attuned to the lyrics. Tonight had been a celebration of words, and these lyrical songs spoke of love and loss and life. While riding in a pickup truck with a lowcountry man, traveling over the moonlit marshes, Harper felt the music fill her.
Sea Breeze looked beautiful in the moonlight. Light dripped through the moss hanging on the heavy boughs of the old oak, bathing the gravel beneath in mystery. Taylor walked Harper to the front door. The fifteen steps felt like a mountain hike by the time they reached the porch. She stopped at the door and faced Taylor, her cheeks fevered. Desire pulsed between them. Mamaw had left the porch light on.
“I’d invite you in,” she said softly, “but Mamaw . . .”
“No. And I don’t have my own place.”
He lowered his forehead to hers. She felt the heat of his breath on her lips. His green eyes were catlike, intense and seductive. Her breath came quick.
“You’re driving me crazy, you know that . . . ,” he said in a husky voice.
She laughed shortly. “Yeah.”
Then he leaned back, creating a distance.
Harper’s breath puffed out.
Taylor’s lips slanted in a crooked grin. “I don’t know if it’s even proper for me to kiss you. I’m working for you and all.”
Harper leaned forward to wrap her arms around his neck and pull his face close. “You’re fired.”
A wry grin crossed his lips. “Good.” He wrapped his arms around her and lowered his head in a crushing kiss of passion and possession.
Harper fired and rehired Taylor several times in the following days.
Chapter Eleven
Mamaw walked into the kitchen, pleased to find it empty so she could take her time noting all the changes. Sunlight from the back windows poured into the freshly painted, bright room, filling the space with light. She reached up to touch the new roped chandelier over the table, then the gleaming, white-tiled backsplash. The room’s outline was the same, but everything else was so warm and inviting. So youthful and vibrant. Mamaw thought again how she wouldn’t have done any of this without Harper’s urging. Since Lucille’s death she’d been stuck in a rut. Content with the way things were. Before that, even, if she was being honest. Young blood was good to stir the old pot once in a while, she thought.
Laughter and shouts from outdoors caught her attention. She hurried to the rear window, pushed the shutter wide-open, and peered out at the water. “Well, I’ll be,” she muttered, squinting.
A party was going on at the dock. Carson was on her paddleboard in the water, pushing close to the dock. Nate and Dora, still in life jackets, were climbing out from their kayak. Why, there was Taylor, too, she saw with surprise. Standing next to Harper. She watched Taylor as he bent to lift Nate’s end of the kayak and hoist it to the upper dock.
Mamaw put her hand to her cheek. Bless their hearts, it must’ve been a coincidence that they all met up at the dock at the same time. “Thank you, Jesus,” she muttered. Carson began calling everyone into the water from her board. She was laughing and waving her arm. Mamaw watched as Taylor tried to lure Harper into the water even as Harper was backstepping, trying to escape his grip. “Go on, Harper,” Mamaw murmured aloud. “Don’t be timid. Jump in! Get wet!” She couldn’t remember seeing Harper swim in the Cove all summer. Harper preferred to swim in the pool, where the water was clean and there were no fish, no sharks.
Mamaw’s eyes widened in surprise as Taylor lifted Harper up in
his arms—to lots of clapping and hooting from her sisters. Nate was jumping up and down in excitement. “My, my, my.” Mamaw smiled. Things must be progressing between those two.
She heard the girls count to three. Saw Harper kick her legs in Taylor’s arms, watched her head duck on his shoulder as she clung tight and Taylor jumped into the Cove. Mamaw burst out laughing and clapped her hands together. Now Nate was jumping in! The first time he’d swum in the Cove since Delphine’s accident. Dora ran down the dock and did a cannonball jump in after him. Carson dove off her board and emerged next to Nate. Everyone was laughing and splashing.
Mamaw laughed again and brought her clasped hands to her heart, overcome with joy. “We did it, Lucille,” she said with a prayer to the heavens. “There’s laughter at Sea Breeze again.”
Mamaw turned from the window, feeling as though a heavy weight had fallen from her shoulders. She glanced at all the fresh changes that had been made in the kitchen. Mamaw knew what she had to do.
Without hesitation she went directly to Lucille’s cottage. “No more procrastination. It’s time for a fresh start.”
Later that afternoon, Dora, Carson, and Harper gathered in the cottage at Mamaw’s request, equipped with buckets, cleaning supplies, mops, boxes, and garbage bags. Mamaw had instructed the women to clean out and organize Lucille’s cottage top to bottom, though in typical Mamaw fashion she had soon excused herself from the work, citing her need for a nap. Harper was delighted because Mamaw had asked Taylor to return in a few days to paint the cottage, too.
Sorting through Lucille’s cottage proved more emotional than any of them had expected. Handling the personal items brought memories to sort through as well. They began in Lucille’s bedroom. Medicine bottles were collected in a box to take to the pharmacy for disposal. Blake had told Carson how damaging it was to the local water quality for people to toss their unused medicines into the toilet. The medicine was not completely filtered out in the water filtration plant and ultimately ended up pumped back into the local water to be consumed by marine life. This pollution was one of the reasons dolphins were getting sick in the wild.
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