Storm Shells

by G. J. Walker-Smith

  I knew I’d paid more than I should’ve but was still confident of making a profit when I resold it. The money didn’t matter, but making it a successful project did. That was the Décarie way. I wasn’t just passing time; I’d stumbled into a new career.

  I managed to finalise the sale and get possession of the keys within a week. Work started straight away, meaning I’d created my own nine-to-five.

  I couldn’t claim to have half a clue what I was doing. I knew nothing about renovating – but I’d known nothing about boat restoration, either. On days when I was at a loss, I called on Alex for advice.

  On days when Charlotte was at a loss, she called on Alex too. Not only was he a dab hand at plastering walls, he could settle a screaming baby at a hundred paces.

  Gabrielle ran hot and cold, and we did our best to make allowances for that. Some days she couldn’t get enough of Bridget, and other days she kept her distance. Either way, I knew that my little girl went a long way toward filling the hole in her heart until she could have a child of her own.

  I could never get enough of Bridget – or her mother. Things were finally falling into place for us, and slowly but surely I was beginning to feel as if I deserved to be a part of it.

  * * *

  For such a little person, Bridget demanded a lot of attention. Her tiny cry was the loudest sound in the world, especially at four in the morning.

  Charli sat up in bed, nursing our little girl. “I’m so tired,” she whispered.

  I reached across and ran my fingers along Bridget’s cheek. “I know you are, but you’re doing an amazing job.”

  “Do you miss sleep, Adam?”

  “No,” I whispered, leaning across to kiss her. “I don’t miss anything.”

  We had trouble settling Bridget. Charli was so tired that frustrated tears soon followed. “I just need sleep. You have to fix her,” she pleaded.

  I lifted the baby out of her crib. “She’s not broken,” I said quietly. “She’s just a night owl.”

  I carried Bridget back to the bed, switched off the lamp and leaned down and kissed her exhausted mother. “Go to sleep. I’ll take her for a while.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “I’m going to teach our daughter how to make coffee.”

  “Awesome,” Charli mumbled. “Just what she needs.”

  I pulled the bedroom door closed and wandered down the hall with the mini queen of noise. The minute I started pacing the kitchen, she quietened down. “So baby, how do you take your coffee?” I wondered aloud.

  I talked Bridget through the whole process of making the cup of coffee I didn’t really want – in French because that was our thing. The baby girl wasn’t paying attention. She was fast asleep in my arms.

  I sat at the table until the first glimpses of the sun appeared over the horizon. It was so quiet that I could hear Bridget breathing. The sensible thing to do would’ve been to go back to bed and make the most of the peace, but I couldn’t move for looking at her. The picturesque view outside wasn’t even enough to draw my attention away.

  I’d experienced love at first sight once before. I loved Charli from the first minute I laid eyes on her – then spent the next few years trying to get it right. Bridget was my second coup de foudre. It was different this time round. It was pure and uncomplicated from the start, which made me unafraid to feel it.

  I loosened Bridget’s blanket, freeing her little hand. I uncurled her fingers and stroked her palm with the pad of my thumb.

  She wrapped her fingers around my thumb and pulled a pouty face I hadn’t seen her make before. The new expression brought to light something else she’d been hiding.

  Bridget had a deep dimple on her right cheek.

  “Them’s the breaks, baby,” I whispered. “Just don’t let your mama see it.”

  July 11

  Charli

  Nicole met Bridget for the first time when she was thirteen days old. When she showed up at the cottage armed with a teddy bear and an excited smile, I did my best to hide the fact that my feelings were hurt.

  “Where is she?” she beamed.

  “Sleeping,” I replied, taking the bear from her and ushering her inside.

  Nicole walked to the bassinette and peered in. “Wow. She’s little, isn’t she?”

  “Not as tiny as she was a week ago.” I turned back to the mound of washing I’d been folding.

  Nicole picked up a shirt and started folding. “I’m sorry I haven’t been around earlier,” she said. “I’ve been stuck at the café most days. Alex has been taking a lot of time off lately.”

  It was a perfectly acceptable excuse. Alex dropped everything to come running every time I called, which was often. It hadn’t occurred to me that Nicole was picking up his slack.

  “It’s okay. I’m glad you’re here now.”

  She dropped the shirt on the coffee table and reached for another. “So tell me everything. What’s it like?”

  I glanced across at the bassinette. “It’s nothing like I thought it would be, and exactly what I want. Life is good.”

  “Wow. That’s a bold declaration, Charli,” she teased. “How’s Adam coping?”

  I felt myself cringe at her choice of words. Bridget wasn’t something we needed to cope with. She was our biggest joy; but maybe that was a secret that only parents could know.

  “He’s great. You know he bought the old bank building, right?”

  “Yes, Jasmine told me. What’s he going to do with it?”

  “He’s doing it up to sell it,” I said proudly.

  “Nice.” She grinned. “I’m glad he found a little pet project. It might keep your baby-daddy here a bit longer.”

  I abandoned the folding to glare at her. “Why would you say something so nasty?”

  “I’m sorry,” she replied, insincerely. “I didn’t mean anything by it. I just wonder how long he’s going to be able to stick it out here. You have to admit Charli, going from studying law in New York to sanding floors in Pipers Cove is a bit of an anti-climax.”

  If I’d had the opportunity to defend him I would’ve taken it, but Adam walked in. I took a few seconds to study him. He didn’t look like a man who was having trouble dealing with a slower pace of life. His jeans were tatty, his shirt was filthy, and I could smell varnish wafting off him. He looked grotty and tired, but more importantly, he looked happy – at least until he spotted Nicole parked on his couch.

  “Speak of the devil,” declared Nicole, less than politely. “Hi, Adam.”

  Adam looked far from impressed to see her. “Hey,” he replied, almost politely.

  I stayed silent, which did nothing to ease the tension in the room.

  “I just came to see your pretty baby.”

  Adam headed into the kitchen. “Gorgeous, isn’t she?” he called.

  Nicole grinned at me as she replied. “She must get it from her mother. Her father’s just a lowly contractor.”

  I whacked her with the pair of jeans I was holding, silently ordering her to pull her head in.

  “Yes he is,” he agreed, reappearing in the room with a bottle of water in his hand. “Great work if you can get it.”

  “Not a fall from grace?” she wondered.

  Adam glanced at me, infinitesimally frowning. In that moment, I knew he wasn’t going to let it ride.

  “I’m detecting spite, Nicole,” he said. “Coming from you, it’s familiar, but not a good look.”

  Nicole dropped the unfolded shirt back on the pile. “You’re detecting wrong then,” she told him. “Charli’s my best friend. I’m looking out for her.”

  “How, exactly?” he queried.

  I wanted the floor to open up and swallow me. I had no idea where the ugliness had come from, or how to handle it. I just wasn’t as deft at bitchiness as I used to be.

  Nicole shrugged. “I just think it’s a bit of a stretch to think you’ve managed to change your complete outlook on life in a few weeks. You didn’t want a baby. Now you’re trying
to make out that you do. It’s confusing.”

  Adam took a sip of water before replying. “I agree that it might seem disingenuous,” he said coolly. “Almost as disingenuous as you working your way back into the fold.”

  Perhaps realising she’d met her match Nicole didn’t bite back. Instead, she worked hard to lighten the conversation, making small talk and cooing at the baby for a few more minutes before making excuses to leave.

  Adam’s good mood slipped out the door with her. He disappeared to the bathroom, either to shower or get away from me – I couldn’t tell which.

  * * *

  I was putting away the clothes when he walked into the bedroom, wearing only a pair of jeans and mussing his wet hair with a towel. I waited for him to speak.

  “What’s Nicole’s problem, Charli?”

  Nicole had been jealous of the time I spent with Adam from the very beginning. It didn’t excuse her catty behaviour but it went a long way toward explaining it. Pipers Cove was a lonely place when you spent too much time alone.

  “I think she’s feeling a little abandoned,” I replied, handing him a shirt.

  “She needs to grow up.”

  “Maybe,” I agreed.

  “Why does she think I’m going to be on my way out the door at the first opportunity?”

  I wondered if he thought I’d somehow incited the attack. My friendship with Nicole would probably never recover to the point where I’d confide in her. Adam needed to know that any misgivings she had about him were her own.

  “I have no idea why she’s running with that idea. We barely talk these days.”

  “It didn’t seem like genuine concern to me,” he grumbled. “She’s trying to cause trouble.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” I said quietly. “I’ll talk to her.”

  “If you’ve got a problem, talk to me,” he ordered. “Not her.”

  Until Nicole’s visit, I didn’t think I had a problem in the world – and I told him so. I also told him that I didn’t appreciate the attitude he was giving me.

  “I’m not giving you attitude, Charli,” he replied. “I’m just getting tired of having to defend my decision to stay here.”

  “You can’t blame people for being sceptical, Adam.”

  He dropped the towel on the floor and followed up with a growl. “Why, Charlotte? Why can’t people just accept it?”

  “Because you’ve never wanted to stay here,” I replied, raising my voice to match his. “You’ve never given up a single thing for me. It’s really hard to believe that you’ve abandoned your career plans and life in New York for us. I think you got caught up in the moment when Bridget was born and decided to stay. I’m always going to be waiting for the other shoe to drop.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it always does,” I replied, scooping the towel off the floor and throwing it at him. “You’ve only ever been good for five minutes at a time.”

  He stared at me, and I realised that he wasn’t angry. He was hurt. I bit my lip to stop myself apologising. I couldn’t apologise for the way I felt.

  “My decision to stay had nothing to do with Bridget. If I prove it to you, will you promise never to question it again?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “What did you do with the paperwork the courier gave you?”

  “Huh?”

  “When he delivered my stuff,” he elaborated. “Did he give you any paperwork?”

  All of Adam’s possessions had been delivered via courier a few days earlier. I still hadn’t gotten around to unpacking my New York boxes. I didn’t even attempt to deal with his – all twenty-two of them. I just asked the driver to stack them with the others in the spare room. Every time I opened the door, there seemed to be more boxes. I was sure they were breeding. Unpacking was an impossible task.

  “I put it on top of the fridge.”

  I followed Adam as he stormed down to the kitchen. He grabbed the delivery receipt and handed it to me.

  “Look at it.”

  “What am I looking at?”

  “Read the date, Charlotte,” he grumbled, tapping the page with his finger.

  “June twenty-seventh,” I replied, reading the date at the top of the page.

  “Right. I asked my mother to pack everything up and ship it here on the day I left,” he explained. “Why would I ship everything here if I wasn’t planning to stay?”

  “You wouldn’t,” I conceded, staring at the delivery receipt.

  “Bridget was born on the twenty-ninth,” he reminded me. “I knew nothing about her at the time.”

  A lovely feeling of contentment filtered through me. I hadn’t felt it in a long time. The paper in my hand was absolute proof. Adam was exactly where he wanted to be. I had no idea why, and judging by the look on his face, he didn’t either.

  “Why were you so confident about coming here?” I asked. “We didn’t exactly end things on a high note last time.”

  He looked as conflicted as I’d ever seen him. “I wasn’t. I was terrified that you’d turn me away. But I had this overwhelming feeling that I needed to do it.”

  I wiggled my eyebrows. “Alouette.”

  He looped his arms around my waist, dragging me forward. The paper fell to the floor and I linked my arms tightly around his neck.

  “Maybe,” he conceded, focusing on my mouth as he spoke.

  I inched my head back. “It’s true. Alouette delivered Bridget’s soul to you. You had no choice but to bring it to her.” I studied his eyes closely. “Everything happens for a reason, Adam.”

  “I want to tell you something,” he said gravely. “And it’s probably going to sound crazy.”

  “Ooh,” I teased. “I like crazy.”

  “I know you do. This one’s all shades of crazy. It’s a story of magic.”

  I’d never been more intrigued by anything he had to say than I was at that moment. I nodded eagerly but said nothing, fearing he’d change his mind about sharing. I listened as he explained how he’d stumbled on one of my pictures at Billet-doux – the same picture that had brought him to me three years earlier.

  “I took it and hung it in the apartment. It’s always been special to me. It reminded me of better times. I spent an abnormal amount of time just staring at it, Charli. I thought I was losing my mind at one point,” he admitted. “I had nothing else going on in my life.”

  “What about school and your clerkship?”

  “I graduated in May. I had an opportunity to start my clerkship early but I knocked it back.”

  “Why would you do that?” It was almost impossible to fathom. I’d been fighting for pole position my whole married life, always coming in second best to his career plans. Nothing had ever been able to shift his focus.

  “I don’t know. I feel like I just lost my way. I fell off track.”

  “It might be fleeting, Adam,” I suggested unwillingly. “Maybe after all that studying, you just needed a break for a while.”

  The words tasted sour in my mouth. I didn’t want Bridget and me to be his temporary down time. I didn’t want him to suddenly find focus and disappear again. I wanted him to stay lost forever.

  “It’s permanent, Charli,” he assured. “I’m sure of it.”

  “How? How can you be so sure?”

  “Because I didn’t go with the first thought. Staying in New York and seeing things through would’ve been the easy option, don’t you think?”

  I had to agree. From what I’d heard, toeing the line was always easier than going your own way – I’d just never done it.

  “What was the second thought?” I asked.

  “Coming back here and begging you to let us start over.”

  I mulled over his confession. “You graduated in May. Why did it take another month for you to get here?”

  “Because second thoughts take time,” he explained, winking at me, “and I’m a slow learner.”

  “Coming to your senses isn’t magic, Adam,” I said, slightly disappointed.
>
  “I haven’t got to the magical part yet.” His dark blue eyes brightened as he smiled. “You said that Alouette gives you a sign. I got one. I just didn’t know what it meant at the time.”

  Adam wasn’t a believer in anything other than proven fact. La La Land was a place he visited – but he owned no real estate there and always made sure he had a return ticket to the real world. I’d told him a hundred fairy-tales over the past few years – and it took something as simple as a picture falling off the wall to convince him that the universe was sending him a message. I laughed at the irony.

  “Don’t act like I’m the crazy one,” he grumbled. “If you don’t believe, what hope is there in the world?”

  “I believe,” I insisted. “Do you believe?”

  He didn’t need to speak. As far as I was concerned, Alouette hadn’t just given him a sign of Bridget’s impending arrival. She’d drilled it into him like a brick to the head, managing to change his whole outlook in the process. “You do believe, Adam,” I crooned in my best fairy-tale voice. “You do, you do.”

  “I’m pleading the fifth,” he replied, leaning in to kiss me again.

  July 13

  Adam

  One thing I’d learned from Charli’s time in New York was that I could never take her for granted again. It was hard not to get caught up in my renovation work at the bank – I was excited by the progress I was making – but I was careful to clock off at five each day and stay away on weekends. Arriving home to a beautiful baby and her gorgeous (although sometimes strung out) mother was nothing short of a gift.

  We’d somehow fallen into the pattern of a very traditional family. Charlotte was a brilliant mother, she just didn’t realise it. Every now and then moments of self-doubt would creep in and turn my beautiful wife into a certifiably crazy woman. On days like that, I made sure we got out of the house and spent time together. My suggestion for this day was a trip to the city – not because she was in a crazy mood, but because I was keen to try out the new stroller Gabrielle had given us. Even Alex had been impressed by it.

  “It’s Italian,” he’d noted, whistling in approval. “That means it’s built for speed.”