Stranger on the Shore (Mirabelle Harbor, Book 4)

by Marilyn Brant

  Marianna smiled slightly, which was Ellen’s reward. But it was a short-lived victory. Her sister was soon frowning and shaking her head again. “I was never a very obedient kid sister, was I?”

  Ellen laughed. “Actually, until you ran off with Donny the A-hole, you played by the rules more often than I did. I was supposed to be the rebel of the family.” And you took that away from me, she added in her head.

  Funny, she hadn’t thought about that in ages. But it was true. Until Marianna’s defection, Ellen had been on a wilder path. Taking her time getting through college. Navigating boys, beer fests, and the occasional bong. She hadn’t gotten serious about school or her career until after her sister’s surprise marriage, when their parents’ gaze turned toward her to make up for their disappointment in her younger sibling. Then she began working on her profession in earnest.

  “What? You were always so reliable and so certain of what you wanted to do, Ellen. Our parents’ favorite child by a long shot,” Marianna said, with only a tinge of her usual resentment. Tonight, it came across more as resignation.

  “Nope. Not until after you eloped. Don’t tell me you honestly don’t remember? All the family patterns changed after that. Swiftly and suddenly.”

  Marianna shrugged, but Ellen didn’t buy the disinterested act. It had been like an immediate rewriting of history with their parents, and the sisters had remained complicit in their screwed-up family mythology even after Mom and Dad had passed away. That was one of their dirty little secrets. After her elopement, Marianna had become the black sheep overnight, and Ellen had been made over as the good girl, when they all knew it had been the reverse for eighteen years. Marianna was judged forevermore by their parents a deviant, despite having chosen a very traditional domestic life as a wife and mother, along with a “safe” career. (She’d gone into insurance, for cripes’ sake. The girl craved safety.) While Ellen had been all but forced by their parents to subdue her natural rebellious streak, and she was only allowed to take out her love of arguing in heated tax meetings. And, occasionally, with her sister.

  Could that be part of why she was having these damned panic attacks now? Had her mind finally reached its saturation point, unable to placate her parents’ wishes anymore, especially from beyond the grave? The only praise she’d gotten from them in decades had been for being a successful career woman—not for her marriage to Jared or, heaven forbid, for any maternal instincts she might possess, however remote. Not that she’d ever wanted to taint a new generation with the residual dysfunction of her nuclear family anyway.

  She felt the sweat beading up on her forehead again and the shortness of breath returning. Shit.

  “I don’t want us to dwell on all of that now, Ellen. No matter how it happened. And, besides, I can tell it’s upsetting you. Why don’t we wait until after you’re back at the bungalow before we start revisiting the unhappy past?”

  Her sister had a point, and Ellen readily agreed to let it drop for the time being. But she had the uncomfortable sense that she was getting really close to the source of her panic attacks. In the relative vicinity, at least, though she still hadn’t quite nailed it. Perhaps the dark truth was that she wasn’t sure she really wanted to know.

  The nurse came in to usher Marianna out of the room and to run the tests that Dr. Sutterfield said were coming.

  “You may come back in the morning,” the nurse informed her sister. “After nine a.m. We’ll be able to give you both a more thorough update then.”

  Marianna squeezed Ellen tight before she left. “I’m so sorry about tonight.”

  “Me, too,” Ellen whispered. “But go to the bungalow and get some sleep, would’ya? Otherwise, they just might end up admitting you here, too.” Her sister chuckled. “Oh, and please don’t call Jared to tell him about this, um, episode. I’ll talk to him tomorrow.”

  “Are you sure? Because I could—”

  “It’s after three in the morning, Marianna. Yeah, I’m sure. A phone call now would scare the crap out of the poor guy.” Plus, she needed time to think of exactly what to say.

  After her sister finally left and the nurse had poked and prodded her for fifteen minutes, she was finally left alone with her thoughts and instructed to “rest.” Like that was gonna happen.

  So, she pulled out the little spiral notebook that the doc had given her and began writing down the moment-by-moment rundown of everything that’d happened since Marianna had walked into the bungalow after her late date. But try as she might, she couldn’t isolate the trigger. Maybe she was forgetting some important detail or overlooking a tidbit of dialogue that would illuminate the problem. Hell if she knew.

  It wasn’t until several hours later—at a quarter to nine, to be precise—that Ellen finally figured it out.

  Her bedside phone rang. It was the nurses’ station, telling her that her niece was on the line, hoping to speak with her. “Shall I put her through to you?” the nurse on call asked.

  “Of course,” Ellen said. She loved Kathryn. She always enjoyed talking with her, although she’d never chitchatted with her niece from a hospital bed before.

  “Aunt Ellen?” Marianna’s college-aged daughter said softly.

  “Hey, sweetie,” she replied, her throat tightening up a bit. Weirdly overemotional for her, but she’d been running on roughly four hours of sleep.

  “My mom told me you were at Sarasota Memorial when I called this morning. I had to worm the details out of her, but I had to call. I’ve been thinking about you a lot, and I just wanted to hear the voice of my favorite auntie.”

  That last bit was an old joke between them. Donny the Deadbeat was an only child, so Ellen was Kathryn’s only aunt. But, nevertheless, tears sprung to her eyes and her heart began to race at her niece’s loving words.

  “Aw, thanks, Kathryn,” she said, forcing herself to sound upbeat, even though she was crying, her throat was tightening, and she could feel a trickle of sweat dripping down her back, beneath her thin hospital gown.

  The truth settled over her like a blanket. All of the childhood memories that had been dislodged from her mental vise grip recently—not to mention all of these panic attacks—were leading her to the one realization she’d never expected to have. Not at age forty-four, that was for damn sure.

  Did she really want to be endearingly called something other than “auntie”? How would it sound to her heart... to her soul... if she actually wanted to be someone’s “mommy” instead?

  Oh, God. I need to talk to Jared. Now.

  ~*~

  I had to cancel out on my friends for the first time that morning, but there was no way I’d be able to function—let alone work pliers and crimp beads—on so much emotion and so little sleep. As it was, I could barely drag myself out of bed to answer the phone when my daughter called. But, after talking with Kathryn, I figured I’d better tell Joy what was going on.

  “I’m so sorry I can’t come in today,” I said to her on the phone. “There’s been a little emergency... ” I explained about Ellen’s panic attack the night before, carefully omitting the reason for our argument. Joy was, of course, very understanding.

  “You take all the time you need, lady,” she said sincerely. “Just tell me, what we can do to help. Bring you and your sister dinner? How about some fudge?”

  I laughed. “Nothing right now, but thanks. I’m not sure if the doctors are going to prescribe a special diet for her, so we’d better not tempt her with Fudge Fantasia until after we know it’s on the approved list.”

  “Oh, I can bring her a pretty assortment of veggies,” Joy informed me. “The fudge—that’ll be for you.”

  After I hung up with her, I texted Gil. I didn’t know how early he’d planned to get to Castaways, but I was pretty sure Carter was the one opening the shop this morning, and I didn’t want to wake Gil unnecessarily. Last night, he and I had made tentative plans to grab a drink together after we were all done with work for the day. Clearly, that wasn’t going to happen.


  I briefly explained the situation to him, too, and was surprised to get an immediate text in reply.

  “This isn’t some awkward morning-after avoidance thing, is it?????? ;)” he texted, complete with half a dozen question marks and a goofy winking emoji.

  “LOL. No!” I immediately typed in return.

  He didn’t text back. He called.

  “You sure, Marianna?” he asked, his voice joking, but there was a hint of concern beneath the humor.

  “Oh, Gil. I am very sure.” I told him a few more details about my sister than I’d told Joy, but not any of Ellen’s comments about us. Still, he seemed to guess that my late return to the bungalow had been an issue.

  “I’m sorry I kept you out ‘til the wee hours.” He paused. “Well, I’m not, really, but I’m sorry if that created discord between you and Ellen. Once your sister recovers—and quickly, I hope—I’d love it if we could take a full day off, just the two of us, and go down to Sanibel Island. I’d like to show it to you, and—” He hesitated.

  “Yes?”

  “I know our time together is limited. I want to make the most of it.”

  “Me, too,” I said, and I meant it with my whole heart.

  The past twenty-four hours had been a rollercoaster of thoughts and feelings, but just about the only thing I knew with absolute certainty was that I was going to miss Gil like crazy when I went back home. And Joy and Lorelei and Abby, too. Mostly, I was going to miss the me I’d become when I was with them.

  Gil and I said our goodbyes, and I glanced at the clock—it was just after nine a.m. Time to go back to the hospital and find out where things stood with my sister today. She’d been so intent on unearthing the secrets of our family’s past that, I had to confess, I was nervous to be alone with her. I didn’t want to relive all of that crap.

  But, no doubt about it, it was partially (maybe even primarily) my fault we were dealing with all of this now. I needed to face it.

  So, I splashed some water on my eyes, brushed my teeth, got dressed, and tried to make myself look less like a human zombie. One glance at the mirror told me I hadn’t come close to succeeding. Nevertheless, I grabbed my keys and a granola bar for the road and got in the car.

  When I walked in to Ellen’s hospital room, her cheeks were streaked with fresh tears and a nurse I hadn’t met yet was standing next to her, handing her a box of tissues. I felt my anxiety spiking. Oh, no. Now what?

  “Did the tests come back?” I blurted. “Was there a problem?”

  The nurse glanced at Ellen first, then at me. “No. Dr. Sutterfield will be in with the results in a couple of hours. Your sister is just, uh... ”

  “Sad,” Ellen said. “And moody. Like I have a bad case of PMS. Got any chocolate?”

  “Um, not with me.” I thought about Joy’s fudge offer. “But it could be arranged.”

  My sister smiled wanly. “Good. I may need some later.”

  “Have you talked with Jared yet?”

  She nodded. “Briefly. But we’ll be talking for longer later in the day. He’s in a big meeting right now, so we’ve got a phone date planned for four-ish this afternoon.”

  A meeting on a Sunday morning?

  But I knew Jared was a workaholic, just like my sister, so all I said was, “Okay. Hopefully, you’ll be back at the bungalow by then and can take the call from your favorite spot on the sofa.”

  She almost laughed. “Thanks, Sis. We’ll see what the doc says.”

  As it turned out, the doctor said the tests didn’t show any other problems and that the panic-attack diagnosis seemed to be right on. Dr. Sutterfield requested a few minutes to talk privately with my sister, so I stood outside the room while they had their discussion. I had no idea what they were saying in there, but I was more than a little surprised to see Ellen actually give the doctor a hug before she was discharged. Since when had my sister become so weirdly emotional? Was there something more to this panic-attack thing than she was telling me?

  Probably. It wasn’t as though she hadn’t kept secrets from me before.

  By lunchtime, we’d return to the bungalow, and I’d gotten Ellen set up like the queen bee she was in the middle of her floral command post. I handed her a cup of green tea, which she sniffed at in mild disgust (“This doesn’t have caffeine, Marianna. What’s the point?”), along with the remote control to the TV, a stack of magazines, and some extra pillows for the sofa.

  “You can watch a show, read an article, or just take a nap, if you’d like,” I told her. “I’ll figure out something to make us for lunch, okay?”

  “Sure,” she said, apathetically flipping through the magazine on the top of the pile. “Thanks.”

  To be honest, I would’ve given her whatever form of entertainment might keep her occupied and not interested in rehashing the past today. But, despite how she’d professed her desire to talk about our parents in the early morning hours at the hospital, Ellen seemed unusually tightlipped this afternoon. I couldn’t account for the change, but I was grateful.

  Before I had a chance to even look through the refrigerator and pantry for food options, I got a text from Lorelei.

  “Are you and your sister back home now?” she asked.

  When I replied that, yes, we were, she wrote, “Excellent. Expect us in about 20 minutes. Joy already ordered the meal, so there will be no arguments.”

  Standing in the kitchen, holding my cell phone, I actually laughed aloud at the words on the screen. No, there was no point in arguing with Joy. Or with Lorelei and Abby, for that matter.

  “Looks like we’re going to have some company soon,” I warned my sister.

  When the ladies arrived at our door less than a half hour later, it was like inviting a funnel cloud of love and delight into the bungalow, and it swept both Ellen and me into its whirlwind. I’d gotten used to their energy and enthusiasm—more or less—over these past few weeks. But Ellen, who was usually so imposing and commanding herself, looked comically railroaded by my new friends and the way they simply took over the place.

  Joy bounded in first with a platter of seafood skewers. “Shrimp and veggie kabobs from On the Barbie,” she informed us. “Very healthy!” She put the platter down on the kitchen counter, skipped over to Ellen, and thrust out her hand. “It’s so great to finally meet Marianna’s sister. I’m Joy.”

  Ellen, staring wide-eyed at her from behind a large sofa pillow, slowly reached out to shake it. “And I’m Ellen.”

  Joy pumped her hand. “I know!” Then, to me, “Wow. You two have seriously different auras, though.” She waved her palm in Ellen’s direction. “So much orange. Who knew?”

  Ellen squinted at her in confusion, and I couldn’t help but laugh. But I didn’t have even a second to explain before Lorelei plunked two wine bottles onto the coffee table in front of my sister, and Abby came into the room, too, bearing a Fudge Fantasia bag and a devilish grin.

  “Joy’s seafood and Lorelei’s wine might be heart healthy,” Abby said to Ellen, “but I got you covered on the dessert.”

  My sister grinned back, and I could sense Ellen finally giving in to what I knew would be a lively introductory lunch with my Sarasota friends.

  “We’re taking the afternoon off to spend it with you two,” Lorelei said.

  “Yep,” Joy concurred. “We closed the shop for the next few hours, and we’re taking a break from the bracelets. This is more important.” She shot me a significant look, and my heart soared at their kindness.

  When I explained to Ellen that these were the women I was working with on the B.E.A.D.S. project, I saw the light of understanding dawn on my sister’s face. She could hardly help but notice how vivacious and spirited they were. And if she’d been lost in pensive thoughts and on the verge of glumness prior to their arrival, she didn’t have the opportunity to dwell long in that mood. Not in the presence of such dynamic company.

  Soon, she was laughing just as loudly as the rest of us at the stories that were being shared, and even contribut
ing several of her own.

  In the midst of this, the phone rang. Olivia Michaelsen’s number. I picked it up.

  “Hi, Olivia!”

  Across the room, Abby twisted her head in my direction.

  “I heard through the grapevine that your sister was in the hospital,” my lovely Mirabelle Harbor friend said. “How is she doing?”

  “You heard through the grapevine?” I repeated.

  Abby’s gaze caught mine, and she winced. “Guilty,” she mouthed at me.

  Ohhh. I nodded.

  “Just because I’m not a few blocks away this summer doesn’t mean that I don’t still keep tabs on you,” Olivia said lightly.

  I laughed and let her know that Ellen was definitely doing better and back at the bungalow now. While Olivia and I were busy catching up on the phone, I could overhear Ellen asking Abby about how she knew the Michaelsens. (Because, even though Ellen hadn’t resided in Mirabelle Harbor for years, everyone who’d ever lived on Chicago’s North Shore seemed to know the Michaelsens.) Abby explained that she’d grown up in the area, too, and she gave my sister an abbreviated account of her relationship with Chandler. Soon, the two of them were comparing notes on all of the families in town and giggling like schoolgirls, along with Lorelei and Joy, with the help of several glasses of wine. It allowed me to slip into the bedroom for a few minutes, so I could answer the questions Olivia was asking me.

  “What’s been happening with that hot man you met at the beach?” she asked me. “Gil, right? Have you seen him again?”

  When last we’d spoken, I’d only just been formally introduced to Gil. He’d walked me to my car and we’d chatted by the shops. But that was all before the Craft Festival. Before our growing friendship. Before he’d kissed me. Before the beach drumming... or the visit to Venice Beach... or making love at his place. I suddenly realized there’s been a lot of things I hadn’t told my good friend.

  “I’m crazy about him,” I admitted to her, after giving her a quick but still fairly comprehensive rundown of the highlights. “He’s just a wonderful man, Olivia. And these weeks here are going by so fast.”