Aunt Clara huffed. “Oh, so this apology money is meant to get you in the good graces of Tipee folk-”
“I don’t care about Tipee folk, not really,” I returned. “Now that it’s all over and Beach Read’s staying open, I was hoping I could just get my aunts back.” I smiled at Clara and Charlotte, who looked surprised. “Well, except for you, Candy. I’m still pissed at you,” I added quickly. Candy gave me a menacing look, and left the counter.
“Oh, please. You’re really layin’ it on thick,” Clara replied.
“I can’t believe you’d want to have us back,” Charlotte added, looking distressed.
I smiled, as best I could, and explained, “I did some stupid things because I thought it was right at the time. In that way, we’re all kind of the same. Plus, if you’d gone easy on me, I wouldn’t have tried so hard. Thanks to you, I’ve become a real businesswoman.”
Clara winced. “TIBA will take the check as an anonymous donation. I ain’t lettin’ you buy affections.”
“Fine.”
“And as far as gettin’ your aunts back, I ain’t buyin’ it for a second,” Clara quipped. “I don’t care what kinda deal you got goin’ with Joe Duffy. You’re still on my hit list. Beach Read mighta survived the battle, but the war’s ongoin’.”
“Speak for yourself, Clara,” Charlotte chimed in.
“What?” Clara and I said together.
Charlotte floated around the counter and grabbed my hands in hers. “If gettin’ a new design studio means that Beach Read has to close, then I don’t want it anymore. You may not have all your aunts back, but ya got me. And I’m sick ‘a treatin’ you like poop on my shoe. It ain’t right and it ain’t fair.”
“You ungrateful twit!” Clara spat at her sister.
But, Charlotte didn’t listen. “You did it, honey. You made that skeleton of a store into a business. You put on beautiful parties. Did you know that since you started with those parties, I’ve been readin’?” Charlotte’s eyes lit up. “I ain’t picked up a book in decades and now, I can’t put ‘em down-”
“You’ve been goin’ to her parties?” Candy demanded, bounding back into the discussion. “How could you? You’re such a traitor!”
I huffed. “Takes one to know one.” Candy tossed me her disgusted expression.
Charlotte raised her eyebrow and cocked her head. “Delilah’s the best thing to happen to this town since, well, since us. Everyone who is anyone has gone to her parties. And you know what, I’m proud that I went because before I was ever Top to Bottom, I was Delilah’s aunt. I forgot that for a while, but her parties made me remember. And, you know what touched me most of all? As mean as we’ve been to her, Delilah could’ve thrown me out on my tush, coulda caused a scene, been real ugly, coulda ratted me out to you two, but she didn’t. She welcomed me and treated me just like, well, family.” Charlotte pulled me to her for a hug, and patted my back. “I’m sorry I had any part in the bad stuff we did to you,” she said. “I hope you’ll forgive me.”
I gasped, and nodded. “Already have.”
To her sisters, she said, “There’s room here for the both of us, Top to Bottom and Beach Read.”
Candy and Clara’s mouths dropped. If I had any idea how to use the camera on the phone Sam had given me (and since replaced), I would’ve taken a picture. Their shocked, dumbfounded, just-been-served expressions were priceless.
Back to our sunset tradition, Sam and I retreated to the beach. The sea breezes were no longer warm, but chilled with the onset of fall. Sam wrapped his arm around my shoulders. We stopped at the edge between boardwalk and sand, as usual.
“Remember how you said that today we’d kiss here,” I said, pointing to where we were, “and tomorrow, we’d kiss over there and we’d get closer and closer until we got our feet wet?”
Sam nodded. “I never forget promises to kiss you.”
I took a deep breath, and said, “Come on.” I pulled him along, passed the bench and through the dry sand. When our feet reached the damp, compact beach – not the waterline, but close – I stopped. We kissed. The dark shadows in my head stirred, like ghosts through abandoned hallways, and echoed. My heartbeat reflected their attempts. Power. Love.
But, I smiled and edged closer to the waterline anyway. The moon, with all its breaks, still shines. So, would I. I may have scars that will never go away, but I am swimming in the Sea of Serenity, embracing who I am – my depth – and the damage I’ve suffered – my character. God had saved me again, and even gifted me the unexpected surprise of an aunt in my corner (one out of three isn’t bad!). And, I had the love of a very good man. Power. Love. Sound mind. My cup was overflowing.
Sam kissed me again, and when we parted, he asked, “Are you afraid?”
And for once believing it, I shook my head. “Not anymore.”
Epilogue
A Million Whispers
The beach in North Carolina stretches from the dry sand of the dunes and backshore to beyond the breakers, the offshore – the place where the beach ends, the shifting of the sand stops, and the ocean truly begins. Along the coast, water and sand create a unique partnership. The surf swells and rescinds, bringing with it sediment and sea life. The sand moves and sways under it, ever-changing, accepting whatever it brings, and the two, magically it seems, work together and create a heavenly oasis… most of the time.
When I was a little girl, I remember laying down on the compacted sand, where the water rushes up and spreads across the beach, and delighting in the way the water blanketed me, as if I was being tickled and cooled by a million whispers.
Sam makes me feel that way.
Finally, so did the island – in a different way. Tipee had become the island of second, third, and now fourth chances, which kind of made it like The Island of Misfit Toys. And if I didn’t belong here, then where?
Beach Read re-re-opened once the hubbub died down, and has been going strong, party after party after party, since. I’d cemented myself as a moneymaker, and landed a one-year contract with Great Uncle Joe. Instead of telling me to turn turtle, he was now telling me to go whole hog, and though I couldn’t wrap my head around that expression, it had to be an improvement.
Thanksgiving week. Two days before Sam and Beverly would join my whole family – and I mean ALL of them – at Grandma Betty’s house for a meal worthy of kings and surely drama worthy of Broadway, I hosted an Eat, Pray, Love party on the rooftop. I was done with fright nights. Eat, Pray, Love seemed fitting for Thanksgiving, and for me, as my prayers had finally been answered, my life was filled with love, and well, I love to eat.
Sam arrived as Henry and I were cleaning up the homemade saris, oversized throw pillows, cups of tea, and candles. Henry headed to the stairs with a tray full of cups and candles, while I gathered up pillows. We’d created a cozy retreat up here, layers of blankets covered the floor reminding me of The Princess and the Pea and her stack of mattresses. Bordering the cushion of blankets were throw pillows of all shapes, sizes, and colors. Many of the guests had sat here, sipping tea and talking about meditation and God and traveling to far off places. The talk, the gorgeous lights that Sam had draped everywhere, the pillows. Everything about the night was delicate and lovely and hopeful.
“Good-night, my lady,” Henry bowed, “and Namaste.”
“Namaste, Henry,” I smiled back. Henry descended the stairs, taking Willie with him. Henry made it a point to give Sam and I our space, and told me once that “A sensible man ought to find sufficient company in himself,” a line from Wuthering Heights.
“Hello, beautiful. You look relaxed,” Sam noted, eyeballing my white tunic, black leggings, and no shoes. My hair was down and sort of all over the place, but it fit the surroundings.
“And you look,” I started before really looking. He was wearing a light jacket, jeans, boots. Confusion swept over my face. Wasn’t he supposed to be working tonight? “Um, you look like you’re-”
“Delilah, I have to go away for a while.” Th
e dozen or so pillows I’d painstakingly gathered up into my two hands toppled to the rooftop.
“Is this just your way of getting out of a Duffy family Thanksgiving? I don’t blame you, but you should just come clean. Hell, I’ll go with you, if that’s the case. Save us both.”
“No,” he chuckled through his nervousness. “Believe me, I’d rather be with you, even if it’s with your family.”
My eyebrows crooked together, and I shook my head. “Okay, then where, why, and what’s a while?” I tried to keep my cool, but my heart swelled with that anxious gnawing that something just wasn’t right.
His eyes formed a stitch, and fixed downwardly. “Um, I’m not sure,” he answered cryptically.
My hands went to my hips, an action I’m sure I inherited from my mother whose fingers seem to be permanently attached there. “You have to give me something,” I urged, frustration and nervousness rising.
“I’m hoping it’ll just be a couple of weeks, to be back by Christmas,” he spat out. “There’s – I have business to handle. The details are vague.”
“You at least know where you’re headed and why.”
“Fayetteville,” he said quickly, “at least initially.”
“Does this have something to do with Mason Cook?”
Sam nodded. “Cook and I are meeting there. He’s going to brief me, and I’m not sure where we’ll go next.”
My heart stammered. “Brief? Is this like a military thing?” Though both of my grandfathers and my own father had served in various branches of the military at some point in their lives, I knew very little about how it all worked. Sam had served in the army, but once you’re out, you’re out. Right? My mind spun with possibilities, none of them good or safe or-
“Delilah, it’s not – it’s really hard to explain,” Sam stuttered. “Just please understand and trust me. I know that’s hard, but I have to go.”
Actually, it wasn’t hard to trust him. Not anymore. If anything good came out of our latest swim in criminal waters, it was that my Sam trust-meter was so high, it was bursting. I always knew he loved me. Now, I knew he’d do anything for me, whether it was helping me through something, like my panic disorder, or breaking the law to give me peace of mind. Sam was truly my partner, in crime and everything else.
“When you overheard what I said to Beverly,” he went on, “that I couldn’t move forward because I had to keep looking back, that wasn’t about you. It was about me. I need to be able to write the end on my past life, close the book on it, stick it on a shelf, even burn it for all I care, though I know you don’t like the idea of burning books.”
I smirked. “No, can’t burn books, even the bad ones. But, I know what you’re saying. I felt that way when I came to Tipee, wanting to forget and leave it all behind. Didn’t quite work out the way I hoped, but I’m all for the effort. And this trip’ll do that?”
“Yes, once and for all,” he assured me, “and after this, there will be no more trips, at least none without you.”
“When do you leave?”
“Early tomorrow morning.”
Though I’d been trying for a Delilah Duffy record, racking up days without tears for over two weeks now the way factories record the days without injuries, my attempts were instantly thwarted. I fell into Sam’s arms, and he held me tightly, whispering apologies in my ear. I wasn’t sure why this trip, of all the ones he’d taken, hurt so much, even before he’d gone. It felt as though he was being ripped away from me.
“I’m sorry,” I whimpered. “You must think I’m such a baby, crying like this. It’s just sad and unexpected.”
“I know,” Sam said, “and if I could change it, I would. But, I can make it a little better, I think.” Sam pulled away from me, and smiled. He handed me one of his handkerchiefs; he always had one handy. I wiped my eyes.
“Are you going to stuff me in your suitcase?” I tried.
He chuckled. “No.” Sam took my hands and kneeled down in front of me, which didn’t do anything for my tears. They ran down my cheeks like waterfalls. “I don’t have anything to give you, and I’m sorry for that. There just wasn’t time but when I get back, will you, I mean, could you… I know it’s soon…”
“Sam Teague, are you nervous talking?”
“A little.” He laughed. His eyes reflected the twinkle lights around us, and stared at me with hopefulness. “Delilah, when I get back, let’s get married, if you’ll have me. Please say you will, now, even without the ring, before I go, before I take another breath. I can’t stand going one more minute thinking of you as just my girlfriend. You’re the queen of words. It just isn’t enough. I need you to be my wife. I want to pick out wallpaper with you-”
“You mean paint,” I corrected, laughing.
“Right, paint. And surf together every morning, and do yard work with you. I want to have fat, tan beach babies. And I want them to be smart and beautiful and freckle in the sun, just like their mother. I want to wake up to your face every morning, and hold you every night. Please say yes.”
“Yes.”
He embraced me at my waist and held me to him, but that wasn’t good enough for me. I dropped to my knees, plopping down on the mass of blankets and pillows, and kissed him.
“Thank you,” he whispered between kisses. “I promise when I get back, I’ll do this right. I’ll have the fat rock and the flowers and…”
“Sam, you’re all I need, and this was perfect,” I assured him, kissing him again. Our first kiss echoed in my heart. We’d been just like this, on our knees and sewn together. That day, I’d stopped our kiss to ask questions, to settle some uncertainties. Why would you ever want to stop, he’d asked me as we held each other on the beach. Why, indeed? And when I was later lost at sea, sure I was going to die, that was my biggest regret. Why did I stop that kiss? I shouldn’t have stopped then, and I didn’t want to stop now. “We have until morning?”
“Yes.” He rested his forehead against mine. His arms were secured around me, like he was afraid to let go.
“Then, let’s not take one second for granted,” I said softly. My words were barely whispers, fit in between gentle kisses. “I know what we said, our arrangement, but it’s been a lifetime since then. And it’ll feel like another lifetime until you come back to me. I can’t be left regretting that I didn’t hold on to you, that I didn’t love you the way I wanted. You can’t settle for calling me your girlfriend anymore. I can’t stand one more minute of waiting for what I know is beautiful and right and meant to be.”
I expected an argument, a reminder of all the reasons we should wait, but Sam kissed me, and a smile eased up on the corner of his lips. “Neither can I.”
A relieved chuckle escaped me. My eyes were glassy with tears. Sam cupped my cheek, and told me, “I will love you forever.” His words, simple but perfect, would stay with me always, haunting me.
Sam left before dawn. And I didn’t go back to sleep. I laid in bed watching the sunrise, the golden bands filtering into my windows, and the warmth felt like a blessing. A million whispers danced through my head. I ached for Sam already, but coupled with that was peaceful contentment. We were going to get married. All the tiny dreams of what a wedding involved filled my thoughts, the way it happens for girls, I suppose. But, I was quick to push all of that to the back corner of my head. Flowers, dresses, cakes, who cares? I didn’t really want any of that. Just something simple and soon and perfect.
And perfect was all I could think to say about Sam and me. My heart whispered, perfect. I’m glad I never resorted to the Tequila.
My phone chimed and I grabbed it from my bedside table. A text from Sam:
Best night of my life,
Can’t wait to call you my wife.
See what you’ve done to me?
You’ve got me spouting poetry!
Good-morning, Delilah.
I laughed, and held the phone to my heart as if it could remotely resemble holding him there. And again, pesky tears rose to the surface. The
next couple of weeks were going to be long and tortuous.
After coffee on the roof, I readied myself for work. The best course of action was to bury myself in Beach Read business. I had a lengthy fix-it list to complete. Plus, Clara had arranged a new event for early December: The Santa Claws Seafood Festival, and though she told me I was quarantined to my store if I valued my life, I prepared to reap the benefits – stocking Beach Read with loads of potential Christmas presents and planning parties around the event. All of it went a long way to making me feel finally like a real businesswoman. And I was, wasn’t I?
When I opened my purple front door to dash down the stairs, I nearly ran into someone coming up them. I rammed back into the door, banging my head on the porch light.
“Oh, Ms. Duffy, please accept my apologies,” Hugh Huntley said. “Are you alright?”
“Mr. Huntley, you startled me,” I admitted, rubbing my head. “What are you doing here?”
He was dressed in his customary barkeep’s outfit even though it was just 8:00 in the morning – the black tuxedo with the red vest and bow tie. The gold pocket watch chain dangled across his medium belly. He carried a thick envelope, rumpled and blank. He handed it to me. “I’ve been asked to deliver this parcel-”
“Asked by whom?” I interrupted.
Mr. Huntley smiled uneasily, and continued, “and not to answer questions about its origin. However, I have been asked to tell you, good-morning, Delilah. Hope you are sleeping well. Please accept this humble gift as reward for winning the game.”
“I don’t want it,” I insisted pushing it back toward Mr. Huntley.
“…and if you do not accept, then I will be greatly pained.” Mr. Huntley recited. Pained. We are all just one pain away from lunacy. Chris’ words shattered any illusion I had of safety or peace.
Hope you are sleeping well. Could that just be a coincidence? Or did he know about my night with Sam? I shuddered, like a cold wind had penetrated my skin and iced my bones.
“Fine, I’ll take it,” I said snatching it from Mr. Huntley’s hands and tossing it to the planks at my feet. “Doesn’t mean I have to-”
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