Stranger on the Shore (Mirabelle Harbor, Book 4)

by Marilyn Brant

  He laughed. “I have no direct experience with raising kids, but it’s gotta be a damn hard job. Just do the best you can and, please, give me a call later and let me know how it’s going.”

  I agreed and clicked off. What I’d neglected to mention to Gil, though, was just how much it helped to have him as a sounding board. It’d been too long since I’d had that kind of support from a man in my life. Even longer since it had been a man with good judgment.

  And I appreciated, too, that Gil didn’t try to step in and parent. He recognized that I was the one who needed to make the decisions, but he shared his perspective candidly and, even through the phone lines, I could feel he had my back.

  In short, I’d known from the day I met him that he was a man of character, but I hadn’t realized just how much I valued his honesty and trustworthiness. How reliant I’d become on his integrity over the few weeks we’d known each other, and the confidence I placed in the way he reasoned. How I, in fact, trusted myself more when I was with him.

  This reminded me that I needed to be diligent about putting those qualities at the forefront in my own life. In my own interactions with those close to me. Like my sister. And my daughter. I wanted to be just as honest with them as Gil was with me.

  Which was why, after a full day and night of watching my daughter with her significant other and studying his every reaction to her—his body language whenever she spoke or moved or laughed, his facial expressions whenever he glanced her way or vice versa—I couldn’t help but reach the conclusion that, yes, he truly loved her. It was obvious in everything he did.

  And Kathryn, in her more unguarded and less angry moments, projected a similar degree of affection toward Sid. Perhaps without as much mature conviction as I would’ve liked, but certainly her emotions hovered in the general vicinity of “love.” For all of Sid’s slacker-boy façade and the Millennial Generation vibe he radiated to the world at large, he’d been setting a good example for Kathryn. And much as I was loath to admit it, I might have been wrong about them as a couple.

  I’d be interested to hear Ellen’s impressions on the subject after our lunch date. My sister had always had a strong bullshit detector. I imagined if I’d missed some important signal between my daughter and her young fiancé, Ellen might well be able to pick up on it.

  The following day, I drove the three of us over to the Gulf Shores Resort & Spa, where Jared and Ellen were staying, just a few miles down from where we were on Siesta Key. Lovely as the bungalow was, though, this hotel was a whole new world. Gorgeous balcony with decorative iron railings and an unobstructed view of the beach. A spacious and expensively furnished suite with every imaginable amenity. Close proximity to the hospital and dozens of other services, but the kind of place its residents would be reluctant to leave unless absolutely necessary. I felt like I was walking into a brochure that Abby and the Floriday Excursions staff would show to affluent tourists who wanted the “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous” vacation package.

  Jared and Sid grabbed a few sandwiches to go from a platter on the mahogany table, along with a selection of beverages and easy-to-pack desserts, to sustain them for a few hours on the boat. Then the two of them headed off on their fishing expedition, while Ellen, Kathryn, and I relocated to the balcony for a delectable lunch of maple and pecan-encrusted salmon, mashed sweet potatoes, grilled asparagus spears, and slices of Key Lime pie.

  Even my daughter was in good spirits after that.

  For the most part, Ellen was the one who kept the conversation flowing, and she appeared to be at her energetic best. It was stunning how much of a transformation had occurred in just a day and a half. I was dying to ask her about these conversations she’d been having with her husband and what she’d discovered about her panic attacks, but I knew my sister well. She was adapt at strategy, and she was biding her time on the subject for some reason.

  “I like this young man of yours,” Ellen said to Kathryn. “Can’t say he’s a trendsetter as far as metro fashion... ” she joked, and even my daughter laughed at that. “But just these couple of times that I’ve talked with Sid, he seems very respectful of you and goodhearted.”

  “Thanks.” Kathryn shot an arch look at me. “Sid’s awesome. I think even Mom is starting to like him.”

  I acknowledged this to be true. Because it was. But I was surprised by the next words my daughter said.

  “Yeah, I know the whole engagement thing had to be kind of a shock,” she said. “Especially knowing your history with Dad.” She paused. “But Sid’s really been there for me this year. We were friends first. We met in a lit class my first semester and just kept running into each other around campus.” She glanced over at me. “I didn’t tell you, Mom, but I actually dated a few guys during the year before Sid and I started going out seriously. He’s the only one that seemed like a man, not a boy.”

  I blinked back a little emotion at these words. It was exactly what I’d felt about Gil versus most other guys I’d met, including, of course, my ex-husband.

  So, I nodded. “I know what you mean. And, yes, Sid definitely seems more mature than most college kids his age.”

  This earned me a small smile. “He was especially great after you’d told me about what Dad really did with my gold locket. He helped me understand your point of view better and why you needed to draw the line with Dad’s behavior.”

  “Wait. Are you talking about the locket Jared and I gave you for your twelfth birthday?” Ellen asked.

  Kathryn nodded reluctantly. “It’s a long story, Aunt Ellen, and I’m sorry. I never told you about it because I felt so guilty. For years, I thought I’d lost it, but Mom explained a few weeks ago that this wasn’t exactly what happened.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “What happened?”

  So, between the two of us, Kathryn and I told her about how Donny had pawned it. Ellen already knew about dozens of incidents of Donny’s greed and his many attempts to badger me into giving him more money, but this story made her particularly livid.

  To her credit, though, she didn’t go off on a rant about “that bastard” in front of Kathryn, the way she had with me so many times in the past. She did, however, regard us both with a deep sympathy, as if some of the pain and tension and fear that my daughter and I shared were, somehow, more understandable now.

  “You two are stronger and more resilient than even I realized,” Ellen whispered to us. Then, to her niece, she added, “You’re an incredible young woman, Kathryn, and you’re sharpening your judgment and strengthening your perceptiveness all the time. I’m glad you have someone like Sid on your side. But you also have a tremendous gift in having a mother like yours. She really cares about you. She really listens to you. I know for a fact—because your mother and I grew up with the same parents—that we didn’t have that same gift. Our mother was... well, not exactly the support system either of us needed as teens.” She glanced over at me, reached across the table, and squeezed my hand. “Maybe you can understand now why your mom is a little more cautious sometimes than you might like. Why she tries so hard to have calm conversations with you, even when she’s worried about something you’re doing. She’s trying to offer you the perspective of her experience, which was hard-earned, and give you a gift she’d had to work to attain all by herself.”

  “Not all by myself, Ellen,” I said. “You’ve always been there for me. Even when I didn’t think I needed your help.”

  My daughter turned to face me—her eyes bright with a sheen of tears—and she grabbed my other hand and then reached for her aunt’s hand, too, so that all three of us were connected around the table. A live family circuit, joined by love.

  “I am lucky,” Kathryn whispered. “And I love you both. Thank you.”

  The three of us had dried our tears and were laughing again by the time Jared and Sid returned, slightly sunburned, exuberant, and in possession of a bunch of fish pictures on their iPhones, although, thankfully, they didn’t return with the actual fish—it was a catc
h-n-release experience. After they shared their favorite photos with us, my daughter joined her uncle and her fiancé (it was getting slightly easier to think of him that way) inside the hotel room, while Ellen and I remained on the balcony.

  I observed Ellen watching my daughter as she walked away. It was a peculiar look. Something different. A fierce love, yes, but also an odd brittleness. I couldn’t figure out the reason for it, but it appeared to be some strange mixture of longing, adoration, and fear, and it had frozen on my sister’s face like the expression on a porcelain doll.

  “What is it?” I asked her.

  Ellen met my gaze, paused, and then started babbling on a tangent that seemed completely unrelated to her facial expression from the moment before. At least that was what I thought at first.

  “You know Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s Gift from the Sea?” she asked me. “I have a copy of it on the shelf at the bungalow.”

  I said I’d seen it. That I’d flipped through it and read several passages.

  “Good, good. You should read it all. In fact, you should take that copy with you. It’s a beautiful book. So many apt analogies and reflections. Like the way different sea creatures inhabit different kinds of shells, much like we do with our homes. And how a shell covering, which might be perfect for certain creatures during one period in their lives, can grow too small and they need to relocate. Or how the sea itself can help us to find joy in the now. It can teach us patience, faith, simplicity, openness—”

  “Where are you going with this, Ellen?”

  She gulped down half a glass of water. “I’ve been struggling to be open to what life is trying to teach me, Sis. And I’ve been trying to find ‘joy in the now,’ which isn’t exactly my nature. But lately I’ve come to realize that I’d outgrown a mental house—one I’d lived in for a long, long time. A part of my body must’ve realized it before my mind did, which was why I think I was having panic attacks.”

  I nodded at her, encouraging her to continue.

  “I know for years you and I have lived very different lives. I know for a lot of that time you probably thought I had it easier. Maybe, in some ways, that was true. But the deeper truth, Marianna, was that I was jealous of you, too. You might’ve had a lousy first husband, but you also had a beautiful child, who’s grown into a remarkable young woman.” She inhaled, then exhaled. “And I know your relationship with Kathryn hasn’t always been smooth, but I’ve been scared out of my mind that I’ll never get to do what you’ve done. To be a mother.”

  I stared at her, mute. For years she’d insisted that parenthood was the last thing on earth she’d ever want. That the coldness of our parents, especially our mom, had left such a bitter taste in her mouth that she’d vowed never to inflict such a relationship on a future generation. Where the heck was this sudden maternal instinct coming from?

  “I’m forty-four, though,” she continued. “By the ticking of a lot of biological clocks, that’s really pushing it. But I’m not super picky, Marianna. If I can’t get pregnant, I’d love to adopt. And I don’t begrudge anyone else the decisions they’ve made in their lives. For lots of people, having kids will never be something they desire. In my case, though, it was... but I’d just buried the hell out of it. For decades.”

  “I had no idea,” I murmured.

  She laughed. “Me either.”

  “What about Jared? How does he feel about all of this?”

  Ellen pursed her lips and shrugged. “To say he was ‘surprised’ would be a fucking understatement. Honestly, I don’t blame him. And he and I are still in the discussion-slash-negotiation stage of this whole idea. Neither of us are really big lovers of change, but I know my panic attacks scared him. And they terrified me. So, when I was finally able to isolate why my brain and body might be reacting the way they were, that helped a lot. Plus, it’s in Jared’s nature to be supportive. His exact words when I first managed to spit all this out on Sunday night were, ‘I have no real objection to becoming a father. I just have no idea how good—or bad—I’ll be at it.’” She grinned. “So, although it’s definitely more my dream than his right now, it hasn’t been a deal breaker as far as our marriage. And that had been one of my biggest fears, as well as one of the main reasons why I’d stuffed down the urge to face this for so long.”

  “Jared’s always been really good with Kathryn,” I said. “And he and Sid seemed to hit it off pretty well today. He might not realize it yet, but I think he has the potential to be a wonderful dad.”

  “Yeah. I think so, too.”

  “And you—” I got up and hugged her. “You are going to be amazing as a mom. I pity anyone, from preschool age on up, who so much as dares to try to cross a child of yours. You’ll be strong and confident, proficient and fair, and you’ll teach your baby to do the same.”

  “You don’t think I’m too old to do this? To be a first-time mom?”

  She looked really afraid of what I might say, but I could only tell her the truth. “It’s hard no matter what the age, Ellen, but if anyone is capable of handling the task, it’s you. Particularly with a man like Jared by your side. And I’m here for you as well. Always. Whenever you might need me.”

  She nodded. “I know you are. And I’m gonna need you a lot. I mean, seriously. A freakin’ lot. As it is, this still fictional kid of mine will probably be so screwed up that he or she will need to go to therapy every day of the week and twice on weekends.” Ellen mimicked a child on a psychologist’s sofa, bitching about his or her crazy mother. “What if I don’t do anything right?”

  I couldn’t help but chuckle. “Oh, please. Don’t you know that every mother worries about that at some point, and some of us worry about it constantly?” I hugged her again, even harder this time, and she held onto me with a tightness that reminded me of Kathryn as a toddler, frightened and clingy after she’d had a nightmare. “Hey, it’ll be okay, Ellen. Really. Don’t be scared.”

  “Well, if you’re wrong, I’m going to blame you—for years—for encouraging me during this vulnerable time.” Then she kissed my cheek and whispered, “Thanks, Sis.”

  “You’re welcome.” And then I told her something I’d been mulling over for a while, especially during these past few weeks. “Maybe our mom did the best she could with what she knew about parenting, Ellen. It wasn’t what we always needed, but I don’t believe she set out to try and mess up our lives. Even so, I think you and I are both capable of doing better. And, really, that’s all our kids can ask of us.”

  “I hope so. I will say that Jared found the silver lining in this immediately.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The sex, Marianna. Lots and lots of extra sex. He’s already enjoying that bonus. It can take a ton of tries before a woman my age gets pregnant. Although, we can’t know our fertility level until we test it, right? It might happen sooner than we think.” She pointed at me. “And you’d better watch yourself as well, especially with that stud muffin of yours.”

  “Ellen! I’m not planning on having another bab—”

  She cut me off. “Never say never. Plus, I suspect you’re going to spending a lot of time in bed with Gil before you leave Florida. Don’t try to deny it.” She crossed her arms and struck that know-it-all big sister pose that I remembered so well from our childhood. “I saw the way he looked at you, Marianna. And the way you looked back at him. The two of you practically steamed up the living room windows and you weren’t even touching. So don’t act like it couldn’t happen to you, too... ”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Expanding the Circle

  While I wasn’t about to deny that Gil and I had remarkable chemistry, discussing the intimate details of my sex life with my sister was so not going to happen. At least not this soon into my relationship with Gil. But there was something else I was willing to share—not just with Ellen, but with Kathryn, too.

  The following day, Jared flew home, but I promised him as he got into the taxi to head to the airport that I’d keep an eye on my sist
er. That she and my daughter would be spending the entire day with me... and with my friends.

  “Joy, Lorelei, and Abby have been working tirelessly on the B.E.A.D.S. project and have been struggling to get enough bracelets made for the Art Gala, which is coming up at the end of next week,” I told them. “Since I’ve been AWOL for the last several days and couldn’t work on it with them, I think it would be wonderful if we had a ladies’ day today and chipped in to help them catch up. Are you two game?”

  They were.

  So, immediately after we waved goodbye to my brother-in-law, the rest of us went to The Beaded Periwinkle, dropping Sid off at nearby Lido Beach for him to explore that area, along with the Circle, at his leisure. He was invited to join us all later in the day for dinner at Joy’s shop, though, which satisfied Kathryn. And Ellen confessed that she was looking forward to getting in a little more time with my friends before she, too, had to return to Connecticut. Her flight home was this weekend, and she said she was ready for it.

  “A two-week vacation once every few decades is plenty for me,” she joked. “God knows what other major life changes I’d make if I had more time off.”

  “Yeah, it’s definitely safer for you to be a workaholic,” I replied.

  “I know you’re mocking me, but it’s kinda true.”

  “If you’re a fan of working hard, Ellen, trust me, you’ll have a chance today.”

  My friends whooped with delight when Ellen, Kathryn, and I walked into the shop and demanded to make ourselves useful.

  “I’ll give ‘em a quick lesson on how to use the tools, “Lorelei offered. “You go join Abby and Joy.” She grinned at me. “It’s great to have you back, Marianna.”

  “It’s great to be back,” I said. And, oh, how true that was. If I felt such a strong sense of missing them after an absence of only four days, how hard would it be to be away indefinitely?

  But I pushed that thought from my mind, grabbed a handful of beads and charms, some nylon string, and my pliers and got to work.