Harper looked out at the Cove as she had done so many times over this summer. Her gaze wandered across the familiar winding creek with its racing current, the bright green grass of the wetlands that was teeming with life and mystery. She breathed deeply, tasting salt in the air and feeling the balmy ocean breeze play with her hair. Off in the distance she heard the swell of a chorus of insects. August began the season of migration, of heavy coming and going in the lowcountry. September was a time of change and transition. Whoever said there was no change of seasons in the lowcountry didn’t know how to open their eyes and observe the myriad miracles that happened every season along the coast.
She’d prowled every square foot of this island both alone and on scavenging hunts with Carson. The beaches, the historic forts and monuments, the mysterious wetlands. The wind gusted, rippling the water. Harper sucked in her breath.
In truth Harper felt more at home at Sea Breeze than she did in any of the other houses she’d lived and grown up in. This place had set deep roots in her heart. Her biorhythms were linked to the tides. Sea Breeze was not for her some way station, a place to rest and refuel before moving on.
Yes, Carson had lived here as a little girl. Yes, Dora had grown up in the South. But Muir blood coursed through Harper’s veins, too. She belonged here every bit as much as her sisters did. The waters of the Cove had baptized her a lowcountry girl.
And she was in love with a lowcountry boy.
Carson had been right, she realized with a short, abrupt laugh. There was no way she was ever going to get Taylor to pack up and leave for New York. He’d gone through too much soul-searching to ever leave the lowcountry again. And, she realized, so had she.
Harper felt her shoulders lower and a small smile of knowing ease across her face as everything fell into place in her heart. She’d spent the summer paying attention to all things great and small, seeking solitude for reflection, preparing herself for the change she could feel was coming. For months she didn’t know what she was waiting for but persevered with patience and faith. Then, when she’d met Taylor, she’d thought that he was her answer. And he was, in part. But not all. Not nearly all.
Taylor had said that a house didn’t make a home. It was the people. He was so right. Dora and Carson and, of course, Mamaw were the foundation that made Sea Breeze the home she’d been searching for.
Yet even her sisters were not the key to her answer.
It was so deceptively simple she had to laugh at herself for taking so long to come to it. Like Dorothy, she’d had the answer all along. The magic of the ruby slippers lay inside herself. She’d discovered her own strengths and talents. She embraced that she was a writer, whether or not she ever sold a book.
Through it all, Sea Breeze had been her sanctuary. This place—the smells, the tastes, the weather, the wildlife—was where she belonged. Sea Breeze was her home.
Harper felt a rush of excitement as she reached out and took Dora’s hand in one of hers and Carson’s in the other and squeezed. They looked at her, eyes wide at her impulsive gesture. They could sense something was up, in that way people can when some decision of import has been made.
“I know what to do.” Harper turned to look into Carson’s eyes, then Dora’s, then squeezed their hands again. “I’m going to buy Sea Breeze.”
Chapter Fifteen
Harper paused at the entry of Mamaw’s bedroom and peeked in.
Mamaw was sitting on an oversize, plump chintz-upholstered chair, her feet resting on the matching ottoman. Her head was bent over a book and she was deep in her story.
Harper turned to her sisters, standing beside her. Their faces were flushed with excitement. “Wait here. I want to talk to Mamaw alone first.”
Dora and Carson grumbled but complied.
Harper knocked lightly on the door. “Am I interrupting?”
Mamaw looked up from her book. “Goodness, no. Come in, Harper,” she called, reaching out her hand in welcome. “I had to retreat from the porch. The heat is beastly today. But mind you, I’m not complaining. The Atlantic is quiet with nary a whisper of a hurricane. Like everyone else in the lowcountry, I’m grateful for small blessings.” She adjusted her legs to make room for Harper and closed her book.
Harper closed the door behind her, then crossed the soft carpet to sit on the ottoman beside Mamaw’s legs.
“What can I help you with, dear? You look troubled.”
Harper leaned forward. “I’m going to ask you something, and please, I want you to be perfectly honest with me.”
“Oh, goodness, this sounds serious,” Mamaw said in jest.
“It is.”
Mamaw sensed Harper’s mood and all the joviality left her face. Her blue eyes shone with alertness. “All right. I’m all ears.”
“Mamaw . . .” Harper found her mouth was dry. She licked her lips and began again in earnest. “I’d like to buy Sea Breeze. Is it too late?”
Mamaw’s mouth slipped open in a gasp. For a moment she was speechless. Then she reached out to take Harper’s hands in hers. “Thank God!”
Mamaw, Carson, and Dora were overjoyed at the possibility of Harper’s keeping Sea Breeze in the family. Mamaw patted Harper’s hand and assured her that she’d sharpen her pencil and give her the “family discount.” They’d laughed over that one and knew that she’d be calling her banker and lawyer for more realistic arrangements. Harper insisted that the sales price take into consideration what Mamaw would need to pay off the mortgages and the bills and still leave enough for her to live comfortably.
While the family was talking, Harper retreated to do serious planning. She had a great deal to both understand and undertake to make the purchase happen. After resting all summer she felt the old surge of energy return. Her brain was clicking on all cylinders. Harper was ashamed at how little she understood about her trust fund, much less how to get the money out of it. She’d been lax on the details concerning her wealth, blithely cashing without question the checks that came to her. Lazy was a better word. Time to put your big-girl panties on, she told herself. Her first task was her most fearsome: facing her mother. Georgiana was the gatekeeper of Harper’s inheritance.
Harper sat at her desk and did some research on trust funds in general. Then she assembled her checks and tried to figure out the sums. When she was finished, she realized just how lax she’d been. She’d been spending money freely all summer, without serious thought to what would happen when her bank account went dry. There was nothing left but to face the music. She sat at the edge of her bed and, trying to feel like her mother’s daughter and not her assistant, dialed her number on the phone.
“Georgiana James.”
“Hello, Mother. It’s me, Harper.”
“Yes?” Her tone was curt, indicating she was annoyed with Harper either for taking so long to respond to her offer, or for not returning sooner to New York, or both.
“How are you?”
“Well enough. I’ve only just returned from the Hamptons. Traffic was beastly.” She skipped a beat. “I rather thought I’d see you here when I returned.”
“Yes, well . . . I’m afraid I’ve made other plans.”
“Dear God, Harper. We aren’t going to thrash this out again, are we?”
“No, Mother, there’s nothing to thrash out.”
“Good. Because I’ve some news. An editorial position has opened up. It’s in nonfiction, but it’s acquisitions, and it’s only a matter of time till we move you over to fiction.”
“I appreciate the offer, but I’m afraid I can’t accept. I’ve decided to look for a position here in Charleston.”
The line was silent for a moment. “You surely can’t mean you plan to stay there? Permanently?”
“I’m very happy here. And I’ve met someone.” She paused. “Mummy, I’m in love.”
“You’re in love?”
Harper heard her mother laugh, and none too kindly. “With who, pray tell?”
Harper would not allow her mother to tr
ivialize her relationship with Taylor. She answered the question seriously. “His name is Taylor McClellan. I met him this summer. He’s wonderful. I hope you’ll like him because I love him.”
“I see. What does he do?”
“He is a project manager. For Boeing. The aeronautics company.”
“Who is his family?”
“The McClellans are an old family. From McClellanville.” Harper deliberately dropped the connection to a historical family that had a town in their name. That, she knew, would impress her mother.
“So he’s a southerner?” Her distaste was obvious.
“Yes. Mother, you don’t know anything about the South.”
“I married a southern man.”
Harper simmered.
“Tell me about his family.”
“They’re good people.”
“Yes, but what do they do?”
“They’re shrimpers.”
“What does that mean, ‘they’re shrimpers’?”
“His father owns a trawler and catches shrimp for the market.”
“Do they own a fleet?”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Mother, no, they don’t own a fleet. They own one boat. The Miss Jenny. Named after his mother. She is a schoolteacher. He has a brother but he’s still in high school. Let’s give him a few years to see what he does with his life,” she added with sarcasm. “Honestly, Mother, what does that matter? I love Taylor and he loves me. Aren’t you happy for me?”
“I’ll be happy once I hear you tell me what you are doing for yourself. I didn’t raise you to be a housewife. I’ve spent a fortune on your first-rate education. You are poised to be an important editor. If you love each other, he will understand that and wait while you get your career back on line. Perhaps he could even follow you to New York. At some point in the future. If he wishes.”
“We discussed that,” Harper offered. “We decided that wasn’t for us. You see, with appreciation for your offer, I don’t want to return to New York. In fact . . .” Harper took a breath. “There is something important I want to talk to you about. I need your advice.”
“. . . Go on.”
“It’s about my trust fund. I’ve never inquired before, but is there some way that I could possibly get all of the money from my trust fund at once?”
“Absolutely not.” Then Georgiana asked suspiciously, “Why do you want it now? What’s so urgent?”
“I want to buy a piece of property.”
“A piece of property?” Georgiana sounded flabbergasted. “Where? Not in South Carolina?”
“Yes, of course in South Carolina. On Sullivan’s Island.” Harper loaded her mental cannon and fired. “I want to buy Sea Breeze.”
There was a long silence on the phone.
“Hello?” Harper asked into the quiet.
Georgiana’s voice was low and lethal. “Did Marietta put you up to this?”
“What? No! Of course not. I told you she was selling the house last May. That was why she wanted all of us to come for the summer. To spend time together again before it was sold.”
“I see what’s happening. God, that woman is unfathomable! Marietta Muir smiles so sweetly and acts so friendly with her southern-belle charms, but don’t you trust her. She’s a spider spinning a web. She used her guile to manipulate your father, and now she’s doing the same with you. It’s so obvious it’s laughable. You must see that’s why she invited you to Sea Breeze in the first place. She wanted you to buy it! To save her from financial ruin.”
“She didn’t—”
“Did she tell you that the Muirs are descended from pirates? Believe it. They’ll rob you blind if you let them.”
“You forget that Muir blood runs in my veins, too.”
“And it’s rearing its ugly head now.”
“Listen to yourself! What nineteenth-century books have you been reading about the South? I mean, really! Pirates and southern belles? Do you even know how crazy you sound?”
Harper stood and walked to the window. She opened the shutter and stared out at the Cove. The bucolic scene, the dock, palmettos, and racing water, pressed a delete button in her mind. She felt her anger leave her body as easily as it had come on.
“Mother, listen to me,” Harper began in a calmer tone. “Mamaw has plans to move to a retirement home. The house is on the market. In fact, an offer has already come in. Mamaw doesn’t need me to buy her house. I want to buy it, and if I don’t move quickly, I’ll lose the opportunity. Mother, can’t you understand? I love it here. I love this house, the island, the lowcountry. It was my idea to buy Sea Breeze. It’s the family house and I am a family member. Why shouldn’t I buy it?”
“Because I forbid it. I will not sit idly back and allow you to throw away your inheritance. Or your life.”
“It’s my life, Mother. And my inheritance.”
“It’s always been like this after you spent time at Sea Breeze. Even when you were a child. You’d get these crazy ideas in your head, and when you came home, you were insufferably rude and selfish.”
“Hardly rudeness, Mother. More speaking my own mind. When I’m at Sea Breeze, I have the freedom to make my own decisions, not have them made for me. If I didn’t speak my mind or argue, as you put it, when I lived in New York, it wasn’t because I was happy or content. It was because I always gave in to you!”
“I see,” she said frostily.
“I’m not that little girl anymore. I make my own decisions now.”
“Really? You have no idea of what Machiavellian scheming Marietta Muir is capable of. Her son was cut from the same cloth.”
Harper’s voice was laced with anger. “Her son was my father. He has a name, Mother. Parker.”
“Defensive now, are we? Well, Parker seduced and married me because he wanted me to publish his novel. He chose the wrong victim. I cast him out quicker than the ink dried on our wedding license. After you were born, I never got a farthing from him. He left me with nothing.”
“Thank you,” Harper said, deeply hurt.
“Harper, you know I didn’t mean it in that way.” Georgiana sounded instantly contrite. “You’re my daughter. I care about you. That’s why when I hear you talking about throwing your life away, I get frantic.”
“It’s my life. I’m twenty-eight years old. I called to ask you for your help. Not your permission.”
After another long silence punctuated with puffs on her cigarette, Georgiana spoke again, now calmly. “You’re twenty-eight years old. That’s the salient point.”
Harper tensed again. Her mother’s calm voice was her most deadly. “What do you mean?”
“You say you’re not a child?” Georgiana laughed bitterly. “You’ve blithely collected your income from the trust fund all these years like it fell from the sky. If you did ever bother to inquire, you’d have realized that your trust fund was set up with ironclad clauses. You can’t touch the principal until you’re thirty. Even if I wanted to, which I do not, there’s absolutely nothing I could do to get you your money early. You must wait until you are thirty.”
Harper slumped back down on the bed. She couldn’t get her hands on her money for two more years. Her hopes of buying Sea Breeze were dashed.
“Will this young man of yours wait until you’re thirty?”
“He doesn’t care about the money,” Harper said lifelessly. “He doesn’t even know about it.”
“Your grandmother Muir certainly does.”
Harper didn’t respond.
“Darling, I’m on your side. I know they’ve put a lot of pressure on you. You have a good heart and you’ve been made to feel somehow responsible to save the family house. But that most certainly is not your responsibility.”
“What about Greenfields Park? Is that my responsibility?”
“You stand to inherit Greenfields Park. No one is asking you to rescue it.”
“Aren’t you?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Georgiana’s tone changed, became more distracted
. “My car is here. Harper, I don’t have time to belabor this. I’m already quite late for a meeting.”
“We need to finish this.”
“We are finished. Your new job is here waiting for you, but it won’t wait for long. You know how busy things get here in the fall. Horses at the gate.” Georgiana waited for a response. When she didn’t get one, she asked tersely, “Are you still there?”
“I’m here.”
“You’ll feel better when you’re back in New York. Get the southern miasma out of your brain. You know I’m right.”
“I don’t know that.”
“Enough. I don’t have any more time to argue this. If you do not come home immediately, not only will you not get the principal from your trust fund, but I will make certain you no longer receive your income from it. Do you understand?”
Harper did not respond.
“Let me rephrase it in terms even a child can understand. You will return to New York, immediately, or I will cut you off. From everything. Do you love this boy enough to give it all up?”
Harper sat stunned. She knew that her mother was the executor of her trust fund, but she didn’t know that Georgiana could do that. Once again her mother had turned the tables. She demanded that Harper be the good little girl, the obedient daughter, and do as she was told. To do this meant not only giving up the dream of buying Sea Breeze, but relinquishing the possibility of moving to the lowcountry. She would lose Taylor.
“Do you hear me?” Georgiana asked sharply.
“Perfectly clear.”
“Good. Call with your flight reservations and I’ll have a car pick you up. Come home, Harper, where you belong.”
Harper stood quietly and felt an odd calm. She did not feel the anger or timid remorse she’d felt after a tirade of her mother’s that she had in the past. It was more the way one felt when something turned out exactly as one expected.
The Summer's End Page 22