Beach House Memories

by Mary Alice Monroe

  She turned to her side and let the medicine do its work dousing the pain.

  For ten days, Lovie slept in the guest room on the pretense that, injured as she was, she couldn’t be jostled. Stratton knew the true reason she slept in a separate bedroom. And Vivian, of course. But Cara accepted the excuse without question, and Palmer remained aloof. Lovie was most troubled about her son’s moodiness. She’d catch glimpses of him as he walked by, peeking in. When she called to him, he disappeared.

  Thanks to the miracle of phone trees and car pools, Lovie was able to coordinate all the myriad details of sending her children off to begin a new school year like a wounded general at central command. Her bed was littered with schedules and memos and newsletters that had been sent to parents during the summer. In her usual competent manner, she’d ordered all the school uniforms before leaving for the summer and they were waiting for the children in boxes when they’d returned to Charleston. This year, however, she withdrew from all her committees, boards, and church groups. Her accident injuries made for a convenient excuse. In truth, she no longer had the heart.

  Vivian temporarily moved into the maid’s quarters to manage the house during Lovie’s recuperation. There was a tacit understanding between the women that she was also there should Lovie need her, for whatever reason. Vivian helped the children get dressed for school, packed their lunches, and prepared dinners, though once word went out that Lovie had fallen and broken her ribs, food started arriving every hour from neighbors, church members, and friends.

  Lovie had never felt so fragile. Most days she felt as though her life was spinning out of control and she was a passive observer. Ensconced in the yellow-trellised bedroom, Lovie felt like a guest in her own home. In the mornings she lay huddled under the covers as boisterous noises of a fresh day echoed up the stairwell. Listening to the high-pitched “good-byes” and slamming of the door as Palmer and Cara scurried out to their rides to Porter-Gaud and Ashley Hall, she rested her cheek against her pillow and smiled, filled with longing for them.

  In contrast, when she heard the roar of Stratton’s Mercedes as it took off down the street, she sighed with relief. He’s gone, she’d think, and the tension in her body eased. At such moments Lovie realized how much she still feared him and his presence in the house. At night when she closed her eyes, sometimes she’d still see his fist coming toward her.

  During the first two weeks, a loose pattern of lethargy developed, a far cry from the busy, organized schedule that was normal for her. From eight each morning until three in the afternoon, Lovie knew the only peace she had since leaving the beach house. During these few hours she’d let down her guard and let her mind wander to thoughts of Russell and the time they spent together. She visualized herself back on the beach with Russell at her side. She imagined the sound of the waves, the warmth of the sun, and the taste of his lips. With him, she’d been completely, totally happy.

  Flo had been right. She had kept herself busy, satisfying the expectations of a good wife and a good mother. Lovie had set high standards for herself in this arena. But what about the expectations for herself? This past summer, she’d found respect in the eyes of the community. And in the eyes of Russell Bennett. She’d only ever found derision in Stratton’s eyes. For the first time she was proud of her achievements, not as a wife and mother but as herself. Olivia Rutledge. Remembering, Lovie couldn’t continue living again with the fear and oppression she felt now. God help her and her children, but she couldn’t.

  Thoughts of divorce had taken root that horrible night she’d sat alone in the hospital while the doctor tended her wounds. She’d wanted to talk to Russell about them, but she couldn’t contact him. She couldn’t call him on the phone, couldn’t write him a letter. She had been the grand designer of the conditions of the promise and they’d sworn to abide by them. There must be no contact until the six months are over. None at all. No pressure of any kind. Lovie didn’t know how she could wait that long.

  Each day that passed, she felt a little stronger, a little surer of her decision. With time, the bruises on her face healed and she looked and felt more herself. She could dress herself using only her right hand as long as she didn’t choose anything with lots of buttons and wore slip-on shoes. She began rising early in the mornings to help her children get off for school, discussed menus with Vivian, and managed important appointments.

  In early October, Lovie was in the kitchen with Vivian packing her children’s lunches for tomorrow when Stratton strode into the kitchen. Lovie froze with her hand reaching for an apple.

  Stratton cleared his throat nervously. “Lovie, if you don’t mind. Will you join me in the library?” He turned and walked away, fully expecting her to join him.

  Lovie and Vivian shared a commiserating glance. Lovie was calm as she untied the apron from around her waist and set it over the back of a chair. “I guess I can finish these later.”

  “Go on. Don’t worry about these lunches. I’ll finish them up and go on to my room. The children are in their rooms,” Vivian added, assuring her of this salient fact.

  Lovie nodded, nervously clasped her hands, and went to join her husband in the library. The handsome walnut-paneled room was a man’s room. Old and rare books lined the shelves, and on the walls hung paintings of hunting scenes, both loves of Stratton’s. This is where he retired to at the day’s end to pay bills, read, or play solitaire for all she knew. He went into his office after dinner and closed the door, and she wouldn’t see him for hours. Tonight, however, the door was wide open.

  Stratton was sitting behind his large desk in his wide burgundy leather chair. His suit jacket and tie lay over a spare chair and he’d unbuttoned the constricting top buttons of his shirt. He’d gained weight in Europe, especially around his waist and neck. She thought his loud print shirt with its long pointed collar hideous but no doubt fashionable.

  He waved her in when she paused at the entrance, her stomach clenching at the sight of the crystal highball glass filled with brown liquid in his hand. She stood in the doorway and hated the thought that she might want to run. No number of apologies or kindnesses would ever remove the memory of his beating from her mind.

  “Care for a drink? I have sherry . . .”

  “No, thank you.”

  He lifted his glass, took another sip, and then leaned back in his chair. “Come in, Lovie. Sit down.”

  Lovie was grateful for the new granny dresses with their long flowing lines, scooped necks, and flared sleeves. She’d ordered several, all made of soft floral fabric, so she could walk around the house without the constriction of waists, belts, or zippers against her slowly healing ribs. Sitting was still an accomplishment; rising from a chair more so with the help of only one hand. She slowly eased herself onto one of a pair of tapestry Belter chairs that had been in Stratton’s family for more than one hundred years. She let her elbows rest on the elaborately carved arms and clasped her hands in her lap and looked at her husband.

  He smiled. “It’s great to see you up and around again. You look beautiful tonight.”

  “Thank you. I’m getting better. But I’m still quite tired.”

  “Are you still taking the pain medication?”

  She shook her head, thinking how awkward this was, talking across a desk with her stomach in knots. They were speaking like strangers conducting a polite interview. “No. I’m just taking aspirin when I need it. Sometimes I find a nap and a cup of herbal tea do more for me than any pill.” She looked at her hands. “I realize I spend a great deal of time resting in my room . . .”

  “As long as you get well.” He coughed and stood from the chair to walk around to the front of the desk. He leaned against it, half sitting. “You are feeling better? Your bones are healed?”

  “Not quite.”

  “But your face is. You look good, beautiful. More yourself.”

  Lovie looked at her hands.

  “I never meant to hurt you.”

  “You struck me.” She said
the words softly, still looking down.

  “Yes, but I didn’t realize how hard. You fell over the desk. That’s what broke your bones. I’d never—”

  “Okay. I know,” she cut him off. She couldn’t bear to listen to him rationalize away his guilt like this.

  He stared at her, blank faced, and then drank from his glass. The chink of ice cubes made her skin crawl.

  He cleared his throat again and looked at the ice he swirled in his glass. It was the Waterford pattern that she’d chosen before their wedding. “Lovie, it’s been six weeks. We should start discussing when you are coming back to our room.”

  Lovie held her breath to conceal the shudder. “I’m still not healed.”

  “I’ll be careful. Lovie, I miss you.”

  “Stratton . . .”

  He came from the desk and took the seat beside her. Reaching out, he held her hand in his. She knew these hands so well, she thought, looking at them. The same hands that had caressed her and that had beaten her. She saw the gold band and thought, In good times and bad. Her throat constricted with the words she knew she had to say. She looked up at his face. He looked older, tired.

  “Stratton, you know I care deeply for you,” she began. She saw immediately the barely perceptible change in his expression, noting that she had substituted the word care for love. “You were my first love.”

  “And I still am. I love you,” he interjected urgently.

  She knew he expected, wanted her to say those same words to him. She had many times before. I love you. Words said so frequently—when he left in the morning, on the phone, before a trip—they held little meaning. But to say them now, those three words would carry so much weight. To say them now would mislead him. So she persevered.

  “I think you love the idea of me,” she said. “I’m your wife, the mother of your children. I keep your home, I organize our family schedule, I’m active in our church, I entertain your guests—I know you love me as your wife. But I honestly don’t feel that you love me. I’m not sure you even know me.”

  His face screwed up with confusion as he drew back, dropping her hands. “What the hell are you talking about? Of course I know you. We’ve been married for fifteen years! There’s nothing I don’t know about you. You make it sound as though my loving you for all those things you do for me and the family is somehow wrong.”

  “No, no, not at all,” she countered. She wanted desperately for him to understand. “I know you’re grateful and appreciate all I do for you, and for the family, as you said. Truly, Stratton.” She held her breath, knowing she was about to light the powder keg. “That is a kind of love. But gratitude is what you feel for a secretary or a servant for a job well done. Vivian’s been with us for as long as we’ve been married. I’m grateful to Vivian for staying here at the house and assuming my duties, and she does it remarkably well. I depend on her. But I’m not in love with her for doing that. Does that make sense?”

  Stratton leaned back in the chair. The browns and golds of the tapestry blended with his hair. “Frankly, no,” he said in a cold voice. “What you’re saying is that you feel gratitude to me? That you are not in love with me.”

  He’d said the words aloud that she could not bring herself to utter. There it was. All she had to do was say yes.

  “Yes.”

  His hand squeezed the glass so tightly she thought it would shatter. She saw his face mottle and his expression change from shock to anguish to settle on fury. Lovie’s muscles tensed. In a sudden swoop, he threw the Waterford glass across the room. Lovie ducked against the chair and heard it crash against the wall.

  “It’s that guy,” he roared. His hands grasped the arms of the chair until his knuckles whitened. “That Dr. Somebody.”

  “No, it’s not him.”

  “So there is another man!” he shouted with a ring of triumph.

  Lovie swallowed hard. “I didn’t say that.”

  He rose to his feet and began to pace the room. Lovie clasped her hands so fiercely in her lap they felt numb.

  “I knew it! When you didn’t name him, I dared to hope I was wrong and that there really was no one else, that what I’d heard was just some nasty rumor. And to think I felt so horrible that I hit you. So guilty. I’ll never be able to forget the sight of you on the floor, seeing what I’d done. But I believed that if I worked hard enough, groveled enough, begged for your forgiveness, that someday you would grant it to me and we’d move on. We could be a family. But now . . .”

  He stopped and looked down at her, and his gaze cut her heart out with its scathing coldness. “Now I know you’re no better than a whore.”

  Lovie’s breath escaped her, and she hunched over as though physically hit in the solar plexus.

  “Now the tables are turned!” he ground out. “I’m no longer the villain seeking forgiveness in this scenario.” His shoulders drew back in righteousness as he paced. “I’m the wronged husband, the cuckolded fool. I was out working hard for my family, and you’re vacationing with no thought but to your own pleasure.” He stopped and pointed his finger as he bellowed, “It’s you who needs forgiveness. Not me!”

  Lovie cowered, each word a dagger.

  Stratton stopped pacing and went to sit again in his chair behind the desk. He leaned far back and crossed his arms across his chest, trying hard to restrain his fury. Sweat beaded on his brow, and he panted like a horse after a long race. The emotions were so strong, the words spoken so colossal and irretrievable; they both retreated to their corners, exhausted.

  Time cooled his rage and tempered Lovie’s fear. She felt spent but rallied her waning energy. That, she knew, was merely round two of this match.

  Stratton rested his hand on some papers and thrummed his fingers deep in thought. Then he looked up. “God, Lovie, how did we get here?” He sighed and said with magnanimity, “I can try to forgive you.”

  Lovie, who was still hunched over her thighs in desolation, slowly raised herself to an upright position. She lifted her chin and spoke clearly though softly: “Thank you. Do you seek my forgiveness as well?”

  He snorted in superior disbelief. “I think not.”

  “I see. And you see that beating as . . .”

  “Deserved.”

  “Ah.” She had to look off, not seeing the books or the paintings, only feeling the desperate squeezing of her heart. She’d been right. She mattered that little. Well, all right, then, she told herself. That made her decision that much easier. “I’m just curious,” she said, facing him again. “What about your affairs? Do you think I should forgive you for those?”

  He looked at his fingers on the desk, then again at her. “What affairs?”

  She laughed a short, bitter sound. “I see.”

  He immediately changed his expression as the righteousness fled from his face, and in its place she saw a pained, pleading man. “Lovie, let’s drop this entire pretense. I’m sick to death of fighting with you. I didn’t call you in here to cast guilt or blame. Let’s just say we’re both guilty of some sin and let it go. There’s no building from that. I want us to get back to where we were before.”

  She lowered her shoulders and felt curiously unafraid. She looked in his dark brown eyes, as rich and as hard as the walnut walls. “Stratton, try to understand. I don’t want to go back where we were before. I can’t. I’m not the woman I was. The woman who did your bidding without question, the woman you belittled, the woman you raged at when you were drunk. That woman doesn’t exist anymore. Stratton, I can’t be that wife.”

  “Can’t? You are my wife.”

  She shook her head. “I want a divorce.”

  He stared at her for a long moment, his face implacable.

  “Stratton, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to blurt it out like that. The last thing I want to do is hurt you. But you have to see there’s no point in continuing our marriage. I’m not asking for anything from you. You can have the house, the furniture, the money, everything. I don’t want anything from you. The childre
n and I will just go someplace else to live. I won’t make it difficult, I promise.”

  His brow rose in an inscrutable face. “The children? You think you can take my children from me?”

  Lovie licked her lips as a new fear wormed into her heart. “Not take them, surely. We can work out a custody arrangement.”

  “No,” he said gruffly, the word bubbling with fury and intent.

  Lovie felt a wave of a cold. “What do you mean no?”

  He stood up then, his hands on his desk, and leaned forward, eyes blazing. “I mean no! Do you think for a moment I’ll hand over my children?”

  “They’re my children,” Lovie cried. “I’m their mother! No court will take them from me.”

  “You’re an unfit mother!” he shouted, pointing at her. “A whore who had an affair under the nose of her own children. Who do you think you are? This is my town. My name means something here. Divorce me and I swear I’ll see to it that the children are taken away from you.”

  She pushed herself up from the chair, gasping at the pain of the sudden movement on her injured ribs. “I won’t listen to this. You’re too angry.”

  “Get back here.”

  She felt numb but kept moving, one foot in front of the other. She had to get out, away from him. She panted with the effort, but fear kept her moving. As she walked up the stairs, he came into the hall and bellowed after her.

  “Try to divorce me and I’ll crucify you to the cross!”

  Twenty-one

  The offices of Robert Lee Davis were located on Broad Street near Meeting Street in the heart of Charleston. This intersection was known as the venerable Four Corners of Law, where the laws of God and man were said to meet. Charleston City Hall was located on the northeast corner; the Charleston County Courthouse on the northwest corner; the United States Federal Courthouse and Post Office on the southwest corner; and St. Michael’s Church on the southeast corner.

  Lovie passed the flower and sweetgrass basket ladies who sold their wares on the street corners as she made her way up the stairs of the white Federal-style building. She still couldn’t drive with a broken wrist and she didn’t want anyone to know where she was headed today. So she’d walked the six blocks along crumbling sidewalks on the unusually steamy October day. She wore panty hose, dress flats, and a loose-fitting A-line dress that was forgiving enough to let a little breeze flutter the hem. She hated the nylons that were de rigueur in the city and made her thighs sweat in the heat, but at least she could manipulate the new panty hose with one hand much better than she could the garters she remembered only too well.