Beach House Memories

by Mary Alice Monroe

  “I didn’t mean it that way,” Stratton said, his voice muffled as he put a cigarette in his mouth. He bent to light the tip, inhaled, then shook the flame out. Exhaling, he added, “You know I didn’t.”

  Did she? Lovie glanced in the mirror to watch her husband smoking in a distracted manner. Who was this man? she wondered. He stood a few feet behind her, though the distance felt much farther. She didn’t know him anymore. Worse, she didn’t feel anything for him. Though they shared the children, the house, the business, and a whirlwind of business and social engagements, they didn’t share any interests or hobbies. She couldn’t remember the last time they’d had a good discussion or even shared a joke. Their dialogue was similar to that of a boss and his secretary—confirming dates on a calendar, gathering information, approving purchases.

  Still, he was her husband and she felt sure time together at the beach house where they’d had such happy times would bring them closer together again. The months of summer were a relaxed hiatus for the family, a slower time that allowed for bonding. He’d drive to work from the island and return at night for a swim in the ocean with the children. The summer holiday at the beach house was as etched in tradition as Christmas on Tradd Street.

  “You can always bring the Porters to the beach,” she suggested. “It would be a nice change for them. I’ll make barbeque. Won’t that be nice?”

  “Maybe . . .”

  Lovie kept her silence.

  “All right, you go ahead,” he said summarily. “I’ll manage here for a few days and come out later.”

  He looked her way. “You know, it’s not a bad idea to bring the Porters, too. You’ll be leaving Vivian, of course?”

  “Well . . . she was going to join us at the beach house next week as usual. Then she takes her vacation.”

  “She’ll have to change plans. I’ll need someone to look after me while you’re gone. Not only for this week, but later in the summer, too. I’ve got that trip to Europe in July, remember.”

  She did remember the trip. Six weeks across the Continent—and he did not invite her to accompany him for any leg of the trip.

  “Oh. And I may go to Japan.”

  “Japan?”

  He nodded in acknowledgment, his eyes gleaming. “That market is exploding now. There are a lot of opportunities. I want to get in there, and Bob Porter is my key to opening that door.”

  “Stratton, that’s wonderful! Imagine, Japan! I’d love to go there with you someday. Could I? It’s so exotic.”

  “Why, sure, honey. Not this trip, of course. This one is exploratory. Later, though. For sure.”

  Lovie felt a twinge of disappointment but shook it off. No wonder he was so preoccupied and terse tonight. Business always put him on edge. Perhaps she should postpone her trip to the beach house another week, she thought. If she could just help him a little more, he’d realize how valuable she was.

  Her guests were due to arrive soon and she couldn’t dwell. She’d discuss it with him later. “I’m going to say good night to the children now.” She paused, a hand on the doorknob. “Don’t you want to come along?”

  “I’ll come by later. I’ve got a few things to tend to before dinner. Oh, that reminds me. I’ll be going to the club with the boys after dinner.”

  Lovie felt her face heat with the sudden flare of suspicion that he would not be going to the club with the boys but with one particular woman. Gwendolyn Archer was an overprimped, underappreciated wife of a well-known Charleston lawyer. Charleston was a small town, and gossip flew fast.

  “Careful there,” she said, eyes on the floor. Then, lifting them, she determinedly sought his gaze. “Don’t drink too much.”

  Stratton’s eyes blazed and he growled out, “What are you implying? I’ll drink as much as I damn well please.”

  Lovie tightened her lips, feeling slapped. She turned and, without another word, left the room. She held her shoulders tight as she walked down the hall to her children’s rooms. She heard the high note of excitement in their laughter, anticipating their trip in the morning. Their innocent joy brought a smile to her face. Tonight, she would do her duty and play hostess at her husband’s business dinner. She would be gracious to Jeanne Porter—for that was her name—tidy the house afterward, and dismiss the hired staff. Tomorrow morning she would rise at dawn, tuck her children into the car, bid farewell to her husband.

  Then come hell or high water, she would escape to the beach house.

  The red-and-white Buick station wagon made its unhurried way under cloudless skies out of the city of Charleston toward the sea. It drove low to the ground, loaded down with overpacked suitcases, an odd assortment of dishes, books, and paint supplies, brown paper bags filled with groceries, coolers, and chatting away in the backseat, her two children.

  Lovie glanced from time to time in the rearview mirror. Palmer was thirteen but apparently not too old to refrain from mercilessly teasing ten-year-old Cara, who was crouched in the corner, back to her brother, obstinately trying to read. Palmer was complaining how she always had her nose stuck in a book. Lovie sighed and held her tongue, choosing her battles. In the city, her children were always testy with each other, quarreling over insignificant things.

  Yet they were different at the beach house. There, they lived their lives not by the dictates of a clock but by the whims of the sultry summer sun. They rose when the bright sun’s glare shone like a bugle’s call, and once awake, the children were free to explore wherever their hearts led them, needing only to show up at Mama’s table for dinner. They fell asleep when the sun lowered, exhausted after a day of swimming, surfing, bicycling, fishing, or boating.

  Lovie was a different mother at the beach house, too. She was more relaxed, more at peace without the constant stress of her busy schedule. She smiled more, found she could be more patient, and as the children didn’t argue as much, she rarely had to scold. Nor did she tell them to keep their feet off the furniture or to mind that they put a coaster under their glasses. At the beach house, there were no fussy antiques. Only the “not so good” antiques and dishes were at the beach, suitable for damp swimsuits, the ever-present sand, and impromptu visitors. The fridge always held a pitcher of sweet tea and the cookie jar was filled with sugar cookies.

  Lovie crossed over the narrow Grace Bridge from Charleston to Mount Pleasant and felt the tension ease from her chest with each mile past the Cooper River. Coleman Boulevard was a quiet road that led to the long, narrow Ben Sawyer Boulevard, which traversed a great, yawning expanse of green marsh. There was something magical about crossing this vast wetland that separated the mainland from Sullivan’s Island. She often felt like she was leaving all her problems behind where the earth was rooted and solid. Ahead was the ephemeral sun, sand, and water—so much water! The glistening current of the Intracoastal Waterway raced behind them and just beyond lay the mighty Atlantic Ocean.

  She turned off the car’s air-conditioning and they all rolled down the windows to breathe deep the salty air. The breeze was warm on her face and immediately she felt the familiar tug of the islands. The tide was low, exposing mudflats spiked with sharp oyster shells, and the cordgrass where white egrets hunted. She sniffed, smiling when she caught the unmistakable, pungent scent of pluff mud. Anyone who didn’t like that odor didn’t belong here, she thought. Pluff mud and salt air smelled like home to Lovie.

  Lovie crossed the Ben Sawyer Bridge to Sullivan’s Island and continued past several quaint cottages with hanging baskets of flowers on the porches. In the yards, laundry flapped in the breeze, and in one, a large black dog slept in the sunlight. Her fingers danced on the wheel in anticipation when she reached the third and final bridge she’d cross this morning. The narrow Isle of Palms Bridge stretched over Breach Inlet, where many British soldiers had drowned in the treacherous water during the Revolutionary War. They were trying to attack Fort Moultrie on Sullivan’s Island, crossing the inlet by foot when the unsuspecting force fell victim to the powerful currents.


  In no time the station wagon was over the bridge and she was back on the Isle of Palms! Looking in the rearview mirror, she saw her smile reflected on Cara’s and Palmer’s faces. They were silent now, their eyes eagerly seeking out familiar touchstones. To their left was Hamlin Creek, lined with docks with boats at moor. The current was racing, and she felt her blood match the pace as she turned the car windward down the gently sloping road.

  In a breath, she saw Primrose Cottage. She guided the car off the pavement to where the gravel was so sparse the wheels dug into sand as she parked. She turned off the engine, the car rumbled, and she sighed in the resulting silence.

  “We’re here.”

  In an explosion of cheers and yelps, the car doors flung open as Palmer and Cara leaped out and ran like wild Indians across the dunes to the beach beyond. Lovie laughed and placed a hand to her heart as memories played in her mind. That was just what she and her older brother, Mickey, used to do. Now, years later, her children loved it here as much as she did. She pulled herself from the car and set her hands on her hips, lifting her face toward her house.

  Primrose Cottage was perched high on a dune overlooking the sparkling blue water of the Atlantic. It was the same pale yellow color as the primroses that grew wild on the dunes. With its blue shutters and doors, it looked like another of the wildflowers that surrounded it—purple petunias, sassy Indian blankets, and the lemon yellow primroses for which the cottage had been named. She lifted her hand over her eyes like a visor and searched for signs of wear and tear. The prevailing salt winds and the long winters were harsh on a house. A bit more paint was peeling, sand was thick on the stairs and porches, and there was yard work to be done, but all in all, the little house had survived another winter.

  She felt the warmth of the sun as she pulled heavy brown bags of groceries from the car. It was just like the children to run off when she could use their help, she thought with a wry grin. She needed to get the milk, ice cream, and other frozen foods directly into the fridge. Her arms ached as she carried the bags up the precarious gravel path and struggled with the key. Pushing open the wood door, she was met by a wall of blistering heat and stale air in the closed-up house. She made a beeline to the small kitchen and, with a soft grunt, set the heavy bags down on the square pine table. Then with a prayer, she opened the ancient fridge. She smiled in relief hearing the low hum of electricity and feeling the blast of coolness.

  Sweat beaded as she hurried to the large patio doors, unlocked them, and pushed them wide open. Next she went around the room and one by one pried open the stubborn windows. The onshore breezes whistled through the little house, smelling of salt and stirring the curtains.

  Despite all the changes in her life—growing up, getting married, having children—nothing ever seemed to change at the beach house. It was always here, waiting for her. Constant, fixed, and reassuring. She slapped the dust from her hands, then spread them far out at her sides in a welcoming, open-fingered embrace.

  She was home at last! Home on the Isle of Palms.

  In a burst of enthusiasm, Lovie felt the young girl hiding deep within her spring to life. Chores could wait. Unpacking the rest of the car could wait. Cleaning and dusting could wait. At this precious moment in time, her children were out on the beach, playing in the sun. This, she knew, could not wait.

  Lovie almost skipped to the linen closet to pull out three thick terry cloth towels. She didn’t usually use her better towels for the beach, but sometimes one just had to break the rules. She tossed the towels in an empty grocery bag, grabbed her floppy purple hat, and hurried out the door.

  Her heels dug deep into the soft sand as she raced along the narrow beach path. This early in the season, the sea oats were low and spring green, not yet the tall gold sentries they’d become as summer waned. She climbed the last dune . . . and suddenly the breadth of the ocean spread out before her. Her heart leaped in her chest. Above, the sky was impossibly blue with white puffs of clouds that matched the fringe of the surf as it rolled to the shore.

  Immediately she spotted her children cavorting in the surf like shorebirds—Palmer a shorter, pale-chested sanderling, her dear “peep,” running on thin legs, dodging waves. Cara a sleek, slate-black hooded gull, raucously calling and laughing with joy.

  Joy . . . It filled Lovie’s heart as she sprinted toward her children. She paused only to slip out of her shorts and tug her T-shirt from her body to toss on the sand. Her simple black maillot molded to her woman’s body, but she felt ageless as she raced to the waves. With a cry, she leaped into the water, splashing and surprising her children, who whooped in excitement at her arrival. She heard their calls—“Mama! Mama!”—as birdsong before she dove under the oncoming wave. The water was startlingly chilly yet refreshing.

  Stroking beneath the water, she felt all the accumulated dust of the city wash away. Lovie kicked her legs, pushed with her arms, and burst to the surface. Gasping for air, tasting salt, she felt the warmth of the sun on her face.

  Three

  It was a glorious morning on the beach. Lovie pedaled her bike along the shoreline with a grin plastered across her face. She spied a long line of pelicans flying low over the ocean. Her daddy used to call them bombardiers on patrol.

  She was back on turtle patrol. All fall, winter, and spring she was so busy she hardly had a moment to herself, but in the summer she had only one job—the turtles—and it was the one she cared most about.

  She rode her bike along the beach early each morning. Her route began at Breach Inlet at the southern end of the island and ended way beyond the pier to where the maritime forest began. Some days she was able to enlist the help of a friend—usually her neighbors Flo Prescott and Kate Baker. She’d rather be consistent with a smaller patch of beach than inconsistent with the whole island.

  The island had changed markedly during the ten years she’d been tending turtles, and it would change much more in the next ten. Yet there was a timeless quality to looking out over the ocean’s vastness. For turtle patrol, however, she kept her eye trained for turtle tracks.

  Lovie admired the courage of the female loggerhead that, under the cloak of darkness, left her home—the sea—to risk all to lay her nest. She was the brave mother who dragged her three-hundred-plus-pound body in a desperate crawl to the dunes. One by one, she labored to lay more than one hundred eggs, and then, knowing she’d leave her unborn to survive alone, she camouflaged her treasures with thrown sand and returned to the sea.

  Lovie had always felt she was the midwife of the nests, taking up for the mother to help the hatchlings survive against the odds. Each dawn, before beachcombers arrived, Lovie sometimes rode her bike, sometimes walked the pristine beach in search of the telltale line of tracks that stretched from the high tide line to the dunes. If she found a nest, she marked it so that she could watch it during the fifty- to sixty-day incubation period and, with luck and God’s grace, be there when the nest hatched to help the hatchlings make it safely into the sea.

  No one knew this beach better than Lovie Rutledge. Most people didn’t look at a beach the same way she did. She knew where the winter storms had created scarps in the dunes, where the lights shone brightest at night, where dogs or raccoons might poach eggs, where the kids liked to spoon—all possible problems for the nesting turtles. Other than Flo and Kate, there were precious few people with whom she could share her passion about the turtles. Or who cared. Mostly they just rolled their eyes and smirked whenever she mentioned the turtles.

  She reached up to wipe a line of sweat from her brow. But it was hard work, there was no denying it. The air had been cool when she’d stepped out on the beach, but already the sun was a red fireball rising over the ocean. The rising sun was her signal to head home. She veered away from the hard-packed sand of the shoreline to trudge through the softer, dry sand to the beach path. By the time she reached her house and parked her bike under the porch, sweat streamed down her back. She kicked off her sand-crusted sandals and stepped inside.<
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  “Cara?” she called out. “Palmer?” All was quiet and still.

  She set down her backpack and hat and walked down the hall. Cara’s bedroom door was wide open. Peeking in, her weary shoulders slumped. It looked like a bomb had exploded in Cara’s suitcase, jettisoning all her clothes across the floor and bed. Lovie understood that Cara wasn’t consciously messy; she simply didn’t care if her shirt was wrinkled, a hem hung low, or there was a button missing. Lovie thought it was her duty to raise her to be neat and tidy and prepared to raise a family of her own. But sometimes, Lovie found it was easier just to pick up after her than nag.

  She crossed the hall and opened Palmer’s door. She was met with the stale smell of a gym. They’d been here only a day, she thought with a sigh. How could it get that bad that quickly? She’d come in later and clean this room, too. Closing the door, she decided to let her son sleep in.

  All the windows were wide open, and offshore breezes wafted through the house. Later today she’d roll up her sleeves and dive into the seasonal shake-up and cleaning of the house. It wasn’t mere housework for her. She loved her sweet cottage and the tending of it. In an odd way she couldn’t explain, sweeping and washing the floors, shining the windows, plumping pillows gave her a sense of belonging to the house.

  But first, she’d rest a spell and have a nice cup of hot coffee. She hummed a nameless tune in the hopelessly out-of-date kitchen and reached up to choose a delicate pink Haviland cup from the collection of leftover china patterns collected by generations. Choosing a pattern was a game she played each morning, one that was pleasurable as much as comforting. The Haviland china had belonged to her beloved Grandmother Simmons, and remembering her brought a smile.

  She leisurely poured out a cup, noticing that several of the boxes of sweet cereal were already missing. She poured in thick cream, then carried it outdoors along with a pad of paper and a pen and settled into one of the four white rocking chairs that faced the ocean. Straight ahead, across the long stretch of dunes covered with gnarled greenery and her beloved primroses, rolled the ocean. She closed her eyes and breathed in the heady scents of strong coffee mingled with pluff mud. The marsh mud was especially odiferous today, she thought, before taking a sip.