“No. Not near. Emerald Isle.”
“It’s not that far. I didn’t know you liked the beach.”
Frannie interrupted, shaking her head. “I don’t. I’m not a swimmer or a sunbather. I’m helping a relative.”
“I see.” He looked away. “That’s nice of you.”
“Sorry. That was rude.” She took a deep breath.
He shook his head. “I shouldn’t have asked. I didn’t mean to pry.”
He really was a nice guy. Too nice. It was stressful being around someone who could be so easily hurt or cowed. She felt compelled to smooth it over.
“My father’s uncle. He had a stroke and I’m helping to manage, perhaps dispose of, his property.”
“How sad. No wonder you don’t want to talk about it.” He folded his napkin and set it on the table. “If you need anything at all, please let me know. Anything I can do, I’m happy to help. No matter what.”
Joel leaned in closer. She tried to relax, but then caught the approving look from her mother. She sat back and glared at Laurel, ignoring Joel’s look of surprise.
Laurel said, “Your father told me that you are getting a promotion, Joel. That’s lovely and so well deserved. Isn’t that marvelous, Frannie?”
“Wonderful.”
Joel tugged at the front of his sports jacket as if the fit wasn’t quite right. He smiled. “Yes, very exciting. I’m glad of the opportunity.”
That was one of the big problems with Joel. Always correct. Always courteous. Not a bad guy, and maybe someone she could spend an evening with under other circumstances, but a lifetime? Not a chance.
Laurel whispered to Joel’s father and both looked their way. The beaming expressions they bestowed upon her and Joel were blatant.
Anger flooded her. The noise of it roared in her ears and her hands trembled. Frannie folded her napkin carefully.
“It’s been lovely, but I must go.” She pushed back the chair and stood abruptly, pre-empting Joel’s move to assist her.
Her mother’s expression of benevolence didn’t change, but it hardened, and her eyes grew large.
Laurel could be counted on not to make a scene in front of her guests. Frannie didn’t want a diva scene either, but she didn’t have the least problem with a dramatic exit.
Within minutes Frannie heard Laurel’s soft footfalls on the thick carpet in the hall.
Her mother stopped in the open doorway and, in a low voice, she hissed, “How could you do that? What on earth are you thinking?”
“I tried. I really did, but you overplayed it.” Frannie tossed the last, hastily grabbed items, into her duffle bag. Time apart would be good for them both.
“It’s humiliating to make excuses for you. I told them you were unwell earlier today and it might have returned. It’s not too late. Come back to the table. If you must go, do so after dinner.”
“No.” Frannie heard the shakiness in her voice and willed it away. “If it’s any help to you, I’ll leave by the side door so they don’t see me.”
“If you thought it would help me, you wouldn’t do it.” She clenched her fists. “Am I supposed to go back down to our guests and pretend my daughter has taken ill and has retired for the night? All while you’re sneaking out of the house?”
“I’m sure you’ll do a fine job.” She yanked the zipper with finality.
“Then go. Suit yourself. That’s what you’ve always done. You run away.” Laurel placed a hand on the door lintel and leaned against it as if exhausted. “No, please don’t go. It’s too late to drive back tonight. Wait until morning. Don’t put yourself at risk just because you want to hurt me.”
“I’m ready now.” She put the bag’s strap over her shoulder. “A couple of hours or so and I’ll be there.”
“Be where? A house at the beach that means nothing to you? He has no money. All he has is that house.”
She drew in a deep breath and held it, then released it very slowly. “It’s not about money.”
“Well, it’s certainly not about family because I’m here, I need you, and that man is a distant relative you hardly know. That doesn’t make him family.”
Frannie bit her lip. She wanted to scream that it wasn’t about close relationships or blood ties. It was about toxic love. However, some words shouldn’t be spoken aloud no matter what the provocation, no matter how their sharp edges tore her up inside.
Mother was silent. Her face was still, almost resigned. Finally, she said, “Do as you will. You’ll only be hurt and your troubles will start up all over again. Smart people learn from their mistakes. I can’t say that for you. Joel might not be exciting, but a man like Joel won’t hurt you. You might not recover from your next true love as easily as you did from the last one. When you fall apart again, and you need my help, remember I told you so.”
Easily? Recover easily? Had her loving mother really said that? Yes, along with ‘when you fall apart again’ and ‘I told you so.’
“You aren’t going like that?” Laurel looked her up and down.
In this case, Mother was right. She was still in her party dress and heels.
“You wore that jewelry tonight to wound me.”
Frannie touched the necklace again and ignored the last question. She set the duffel bag down near the door, as if that had been her plan all along.
“No, I’m not traveling like this.”
“Good, because the sapphires belong in the safe. In fact, in a better safe than the one you have here.” She nodded toward the closet. “I don’t understand why you insist upon taking such a risk.”
“You’d better get back to your guests.”
Laurel gave her a last, icy look. She slapped the door lintel, but left without another word.
Frannie waited until her mother was out of sight and then grabbed the duffel bag. She didn’t need her mother or anyone else telling her what to do. She was almost thirty-one, for heaven’s sake, and getting older by the minute.
She stopped in the kitchen on her way out, snagged a couple of tins of tea and a steeper, dropping them into one of the shopping bags from the pantry. A maid was cleaning the kitchen and didn’t look up. A new maid. Frannie didn’t recognize her.
“Where’s Hannah?”
The woman shrugged.
Never mind.
It was a long dark road from here to there. From beginning to destination, it was a different trip, a changed landscape at night. The miles raced away beneath her tires, to the rhythm of highway lights or the headlights and red taillights of other travelers. They were her companions. All going somewhere, but separately. Together and forever separate. Alone.
Alone and ungrateful. She had so much. A comfortable life. No financial worries. Yet she felt always alone, trapped, marooned on her own desolate, emotional island.
Keeping the jewelry on was silly and careless. It was jewelry, not her dad, but it felt a little like her dad was here with her.
She’d tried to break away before and failed. Maybe this time she would succeed. It felt possible as she was speeding down the dark road. Many people had worse losses and greater troubles. She should be able to overcome hers, unless Mother was right and the flaw was inside her, along for the ride no matter how far she fled.
Tomorrow she’d drive over to Morehead City to visit her uncle.
When the stroke happened, the attorney had contacted her, and she’d gone to the hospital right away and then again just before and after he moved to the rehab. She blamed the distance for not visiting more often, but honestly, she hadn’t been prepared to see him so weak, so changed by the stroke.
Tonight there were no stars, no moon. She drove over the bridge to Emerald Drive. It was a long, lonely road in the winter, especially at night. She slowed way down to pick out her uncle’s driveway. A blanket of dark covered all, and when she braked, the wind rocked her car. Her headlights cast a glow ahead, into the parking area behind and below the house, until she turned the lights off.
She shivered. The h
ouse blocked the worst of the onshore wind, but the wooden stairs leading up to the side door would be awkward in the dark, and in her heels. She put a finger through the key ring and closed her fist around it.
With her duffel bag and purse hanging on one shoulder, she clung to the handrail. Finally inside, she flipped on the lights, dropped her bags on the chair, stripped off her gloves, and then pumped up the thermostat. She’d keep the coat on for a while.
She’d left this sad place only a few hours ago.
It felt foreign here, alone and at night.
She could pick up that duffle bag and go back down to her car. She could stay in a hotel. That’s where sojourners were supposed to tuck themselves in for the night, right? Where there was a comfy bed and uniformed housekeeping and no clutter of personal objects? In the morning, she could behave like a reasonable adult and go back home.
She ditched her coat and threw it across the sofa. Cold or not, removing it put one more step between her and retreat.
Books were stacked here and there. Luckily, the cable TV would be working for another day or two.
Her uncle wasn’t much for knick-knacks or bric-a-brac. A few framed family photos hung on the wall. One was of her dad as a boy with his Uncle Will. Another showed Will and his brother and sister in black and white, including starched white shirts for the boys and a starched white dress for the girl. He’d pointed them out to her, telling her about his brother, Marshall, and his sister, Penny. All gone. Long gone.
Most of Will Denman’s literary taste ran to non-fiction. Navy stuff, naval history. Books lined the top of his roll top desk with heavy metal bookends to hold them in place. She slid one out noting the dust that marked its place. She thumbed through it and a slip of paper fell out.
The scrap of notebook paper was long and narrow, neatly torn from a larger piece. A hand-written note was penciled on it. She squinted to read the words.
“And he said, I called by reason of mine affliction unto God, And He answered me; Out of the belly of Hell cried I, And Thou heardest my voice.” Jonah 2, verse 2.
Well, that was grim. She looked around the room. Not exactly in the belly of hell, thank goodness.
Frannie folded the slip of paper and slipped it back into the book—a book about the USS North Carolina. The verse about Jonah and the whale tucked into a book about a battleship? Really? Was it intended or a coincidence? She smiled, wishing she could ask her uncle whether it was a joke or a confession.
There were three bedrooms. Two had beds. Frannie pulled the coverlet back in the guest room and examined the sheets. They looked clean. The idea of sleeping here felt strange, but not as odd as sleeping in her uncle’s bed, as if he were already past tense. That felt rude.
Frannie pulled the drapes across the sliding doors and closed the window blinds. She got her pajamas and robe from the duffel bag and told herself this was no different from a hotel room, but it was different.
She undid the catch of the necklace and removed the earrings. The sapphires glittered on her palm. She really was foolish.
The dresser in this small room had some of Will’s overflow clothing. She found a pair of white cotton socks and carefully dropped the earrings and necklace into one of them. She added the ring, too. She twisted the sock and folded it back over itself, then hid it between the mattress and box spring.
She left the lights burning in the living room and the bedroom door cracked open. She huddled under the blanket and bedspread. In the silence, the house rattled and the ocean boomed. She buried her face in the pillow and tried to shut out images of blown-in windows and collapsing walls. Was there a hurricane she hadn’t heard about? This was wrong time of year for that, but not for winter storms.
Frannie checked the doors and locks one last time, then climbed into bed. She held one pillow down over her ears and pulled the blankets up so far they came untucked, but that didn’t matter because she was curled up into as small as form as she could make herself.
****
She awoke at dawn, groggy and bleary-eyed. She eased herself upright and stretched. The blankets had fallen to the floor during the night. Her pajamas were twisted and wrinkled.
She pulled on her robe and headed toward the kitchen. She fit the tea holder into the steeper as the water heated. As she waited, she noticed the silence. The bluster and buffeting had ceased. The house no longer shook.
She shuffled over to the front window and grabbed the drawstrings. She tugged and the blinds opened.
Dawn. Puffs of clouds and a lighter shade of dark mixed with threads of morning color near the horizon. She went to the sliding doors and pushed the drapes aside.
A group of large seabirds was flying by. They skimmed the water, diving for breakfast.
She fumbled the lock open and slid the glass door wide.
The air, fresh from the Atlantic, rushed in, cool with a promise of better to come.
The rough wood of the handrail had been a sponge for the night and the deck boards were cold and damp. Sand peppered the rails and planks. She walked along the wooden crossover, over the dunes and wild grasses, to its end where the public beach began. A bench was built into the crossover near the stairs to the beach, but the seat would be too chilly and damp this morning. It would be better when spring arrived.
The rough waves no longer sounded angry, but natural, as if saying Yes, we’re loud. We’re the ocean.
Facing the east end of the strand, waiting for the full sunrise, the chill crept up through her bare feet. When the sun broke the horizon, it highlighted walkers coming her way. She pulled her robe closer about her and scurried back up the crossover and into the house.
The morning sun followed her inside in bright, but dusty streams that shone through the glass door and the windows. In this light, the furnishings, though old and plain, gained a little dignity, and then her cell phone rang.
She picked it up reluctantly. “Hello?”
“Frannie?”
“Mother. Good morning.”
“Is it good? You didn’t really drive all the way back to the beach last night?”
“I’m at Uncle Will’s house. You know that.”
“You have a sharp way with words, Frannie. I wish you’d pause to think before you bite my head off.”
She ‘paused to think’ but couldn’t come up with anything helpful to say, so she didn’t.
“Now the silent treatment.” Laurel’s tone softened. “Sweetheart, you’re all I have. All that I have left of your father. You’re my daughter. I love you.”
Frannie drew in a breath and held it for a moment attempting to reset the day. Beyond the sliding doors, the morning, serene and looking almost mystical as light picked its way through the water and the morning mist, called to her.
She breathed out slowly and said, “I’ll tell you my plans when I know them.”
Laurel was silent. After a long pause, she said, “Whatever you say, but please, keep me informed. Don’t leave me to worry until I have no choice but to track you down.”
“Bye, Mother.”
She clicked off the phone and went back to the kitchen to enjoy her tea.
Mother. She certainly knew how to take the shine from the morning, but this morning, Mother Nature had the better hand.
****
Showered and dressed, Frannie boiled an egg and steeped more tea. She was more than a little apprehensive about going to see Uncle Will.
As she settled at the table to enjoy her little breakfast, she felt a noise more than heard it. It was only a slight vibration, but on this quiet morning, it was enough to get her attention. She threw her coat over her shoulders and stepped out onto the porch. She bypassed the white rockers and looked over the end of the porch.
A man was down below, kneeling by the lattice at the end of the porch. He was wearing a hooded sweatshirt under a leather jacket, but the hood was pushed back to show sandy-colored hair. That was all she could see clearly from above. The jacket and sweatshirt rang a bell.
He pulled and pushed against the latticework and, apparently satisfied, grabbed his tool bag. He started to rise, but then put one hand against the side of the house. It seemed to take him a while to stand. He was tall and moved stiffly.
“Hello, down there.”
He stepped backward with a slight limp and looked upward. “Good morning.”
“Are you the handyman? You got my message?”
He paused before answering. “I’m Brian Donovan. You’re the niece, right?” He motioned toward the lattice. “Yeah, I got your message.”
“I’m Frannie Denman.” She crossed her arms and hugged them close. He had a nice face, but the stubble on his cheeks bothered her. It seemed a less than professional appearance, but then again, he was the handyman. “Were you out here yesterday?”
He nodded. “Checking around after the storm.”
“I see. Well, you’ll send a bill? I’ll see that it’s taken care of.”
“Yes, ma’am. No problem.”
The timbre of his voice was calm and sure, but his blue eyes grabbed her. She sighed. Blue eyes and a nice smile had led her astray before. Not again. Never again. No third strikes for her.
“Thank you, Mr. Donovan.” She nodded and moved out of view.
****
Will Denman had always been a lean man, but his legs and arms seemed outrageously thin. His bristly white hair defied combing. She sat in front of this man she hardly knew, perched on the edge of an awful padded chair with pink vinyl upholstery, and he sat in his wheelchair. His head was tilted to one side, almost in a questioning pose, but he couldn’t vocalize words she could understand, except three: take me home.
Faded hazel eyes drilled those words into her. She didn’t have any good answers for him.
Did she think he’d ever come back home? No, but he did, so she smiled and nodded. “You’ll be better soon.”
She stared at the half-eaten lunch sitting on the rolling table next to him. A cloth, like a large bib, was tucked inside his pajama collar. What was she supposed to do? Pick up that spoon? Offer him assistance? He wasn’t making any effort himself.
A smell flooded the room as a woman entered. That anti-bacterial dispenser attached to the wall acted like an air freshener every time someone tapped it. Air freshener? Not unless you liked the smell of hospitals and illness.
Beach Winds Page 2