Passing Through Paradise

by Susan Wiggs

  To Providence, not home. Sandra thought it was an odd way to phrase it. She shook her head. “That doesn’t seem far enough.” She couldn’t imagine passing the State House, seeing its alabaster dome glaring down at her like an accusing eye. Never again would she be able to stroll along the brick-paved streets of the state capital without remembering the way they used to be . . . the lie they used to live.

  “To be honest, I haven’t thought that far ahead,” she said. “And you know, I’ve never even tried being on my own. I married Victor right out of college. But I need to figure out who I am when I’m by myself.”

  “Believe me, it’s not too late to learn to live without a man.”

  There was a heaviness to Dorrie’s words that puzzled Sandra. She waited, but her mother didn’t elaborate.

  “You’ll be fine, Sandra. I know you will. The important things are still intact—your good health, your youth, your writing career.”

  Sandra felt a rush of sentiment. “You and Dad always believed in me, even when I was a basket case.”

  “You were never a basket case.”

  “Oh, Mom. I was. You know I was.”

  “Sandra, that was all so long ago. You don’t still think about it, do you?”

  Every time I open my mouth to speak, she thought. But she wouldn’t admit it to her mother. Lord knew, Dorrie had struggled with the problem every bit as much as Sandra had. Dorrie felt a mother’s pain and frustration and helplessness. For years, she’d sat up at night, listening to her daughter cry behind closed doors.

  Lou and Dorrie Babcock had raised a daughter who stuttered—not just the occasional slip of the tongue, but a strangling, devastating affliction that threw a shroud of silence over Sandra.

  With a wave of gratitude, she remembered all the years of patience and repetition, her mother sitting with her for hours flashing word cards at her, and her father staying up late with her to work on diaphragm and breathing exercises. It wasn’t until high school that Sandra had actually trusted herself to speak more than a few words to anyone outside her family, and then did so only when she had to.

  She’d always suspected that she was the only girl ever to make it through St. Cloud High School without having a single friend. She was the original invisible girl, as colorless and nondescript as a manila file folder. The funny thing was, she hadn’t minded her isolation all that much. She liked books and reading, not boys and cars. The adventures in her mind were infinitely more vivid and exciting than any prom date or homecoming game.

  Or so she told herself, firmly and repeatedly, until she believed it.

  “I’m fine now,” she assured her mother, “and I’m going to be fine.” Leaning forward, she gave her a hug, grateful for the familiar softness of her shoulder.

  Dorrie patted Sandra’s knee. Her hand had thin, almost translucent skin and a sprinkling of spots that for a moment made it look like the hand of a stranger. Sandra couldn’t bring herself to see her mother as old. When she shut her eyes, she could still feel that hand gently brushing the hair out of her face, or cupping a palmful of sunflower seeds to feed the winter cardinals, or flashing deftly across a row of knitting.

  “Maybe we should all move to Florida,” she declared, speaking over the thin whistle of the wind. “These New England winters are just too brutal.”

  Dorrie leaned down and picked up her pocketbook. “Actually, dear, I have other plans.” She handed Sandra a colorful envelope.

  “What’s this?” She took out a printed ticket. “ ‘Cruise to a New You’?”

  Her mother’s face shone in a way Sandra hadn’t seen in a long time. “Three months in the Caribbean and South America aboard the Artemisia.”

  “Sounds heavenly.” Sandra scanned the itinerary— Nassau, Coco Cay, Montego Bay, a dozen others—each adventure related in lush, overblown prose. Sandra paged through a glossy brochure depicting sugar-white beaches, palm trees nodding lazily in the tropical breeze, sun shine . . . escape. She checked the departure date. “You’re flying to Fort Lauderdale tomorrow night?”

  Dorrie nodded. “I didn’t want to leave before . . . well, you know.”

  “Before you found out whether or not I was going to be indicted for murder.”

  “I was totally confident in the investigation. What kind of mother would I be if I thought they’d find probable cause? But I wanted to be here for you. In fact, you should come with me. What do you say?”

  Sandra felt a flare of interest, but quickly doused it. “You know I have to stay here, Mom. Because of the house.” Forcing a smile, she handed back the brochures. “What an adventure.”

  “I’ve got my passport, my bikini and my Zyban tablets all packed.”

  “Zyban tablets?”

  “A prescription for quitting smoking. I’m going to cruise to a new me, I guess,” her mother said, tucking the ticket away in her purse. “Quitting smoking. That’d be new.”

  “Twelve weeks. That’s a long time. And a lot of money,” Sandra said.

  Her usually frugal mother lifted her shoulders in an elaborate shrug. “It’s an investment in myself. I’m going to take Spanish lessons, learn to play blackjack, dance the macarena, get a new hairstyle, new makeup . . . new everything.” Dorrie lifted her teacup. “To adventure,” she said, touching her cup to Sandra’s.

  “To adventure.”

  Dorrie stood up. “Would you like to take a walk?”

  Sandra sent a knowing look at her mother’s voluminous purse. “I guess you haven’t started the tablets yet.”

  “Exactly.”

  While her mother went outside to light up, Sandra grabbed her jacket from a hook by the mudroom door, jammed on a hat and gloves and hurried out. Dorrie headed north on the lonely gray beach, walking along the uneven wrack line where seaweed and debris flung up by the North Atlantic lay in a thick, untidy chain. In the summer, tourists came out early to scout for unbroken shells and bits of opaque beach glass, tumbled by the waves. In winter, the treasures lay unclaimed by foragers, and the sea would take them back.

  Weathered ridges of sand rippled in motionless waves from the beach. The damp, yielding surface slowed Sandra as it shifted beneath her. Dorrie kept her gaze trained straight ahead at the big craggy point crowned by the lighthouse. The icy wind was making her eyes tear up; the moisture blew back against her temples and dried there, leaving a faint film of salty white.

  “I won’t miss the winter,” Dorrie said, tugging her coat closer around her.

  “I’ll miss you,” Sandra said, but quickly added, “This is going to be fabulous. You and Dad must be so excited.”

  “Your father’s not going.”

  Sandra frowned, certain the howl of the wind had made her hear wrong. “Did you just say Dad’s not— “

  Her mother nodded.

  Sandra nearly stumbled over a clump of seaweed. “I can’t believe you’re taking a cruise by yourself.”

  Dorrie gave a strange laugh. “I can’t believe it, either.”

  “Dad didn’t want to go?”

  Her mother hesitated. “After thirty-five years of business travel, he’s not interested. Getting him to go anywhere is like prying a snail off a rock.”

  “You’ve never been away from Dad before.”

  “He’s been away from me.”

  “That was different. It was business. Talk to him, Mom. Convince him to go with you on the cruise. The two of you would have such a great time.”

  “He’s not coming.” Dorrie’s voice was firm but expressionless.

  “How can you be sure he wouldn’t want to? He’s never been fond of traveling, but I bet he’d love— “

  “Sandra, I need to tell you something.” Dorrie stopped walking and found a seat on a pale driftwood log. The black scar of a dead bonfire marred the sand in front of the log, and old beer bottles lay strewn in the salt grass. “Sit down.” She patted the spot beside her. “I’ve been trying to find a way to bring this up, but I’m not doing a very good job.”

  San
dra felt a cold, hard squeezing in her chest, her throat. She sensed something different about her mother—it was subtle, but perhaps her eyes gleamed brighter; her hands moved nervously, clenching and unclenching. It was so unlike her practical, plan-ahead mother to book a lengthy cruise, a dream vacation, or to plan anything at the spur of the moment. Dorrie never used to spend money on frivolities. It was the sort of thing people did when they won the lottery . . . or learned they only had six months to live. “Mom?” Sandra’s voice broke as she sank down beside her. “Mom, are you sick?”

  Dorrie shook her head with a hint of impatience. Dropping her cigarette butt in the sand, she buried it with her heel. “Don’t be silly. I’m healthy as a moose. If I look a little peaked lately, it’s probably from everything that’s been going on.”

  The past year had been hard on her parents, Sandra reflected guiltily. “Then the cruise sounds like the perfect escape. But Dad probably needs to get away just as badly as you do.” She forced bright enthusiasm into her tone. “Would you like me to talk to him?”

  Dorrie braced the heels of her hands on the log, leaned back and stared straight out to sea. “I ‘m going alone, dear. You see, I’ve left your father. I’ve been staying at Aunt Wanda’s in Woonsocket the past couple of weeks.”

  A dull buzz of shock hummed in Sandra’s head. “I don’t understand.”

  “We’re getting a divorce.”

  Sandra shook her head as though she had water in her ears. Divorce. The word sounded odd, foreign, something she didn’t recognize, the name of an exotic food she would never dare to taste. It was just too bizarre. She couldn’t wrap her mind around it. Divorce was not something that happened in her family, or in Victor’s, either. But most especially, it didn’t happen to her own parents, who had been married thirty-six years.

  Agitated, she got to her feet. “Mom, no— “

  “This decision was a long time coming.” Her mother’s voice was dispassionate as she went on. “I won’t pretend it was easy, but it’s the only solution I can see. Your father and I want you to know that we both love you— “

  “Oh, come on, Mom.” Stooping, Sandra picked up a rock and flung it as far as she could, not looking to see where it landed, not caring. “That sounds so . . . rehearsed. It’s the sort of thing people say to seven-year-olds. Couples who are getting divorced like to pretend it doesn’t affect their kids. But you know what? Even a seven-year-old knows the truth. It still hurts. It always hurts.”

  “Life hurts,” Dorrie said. “So far, no one’s found a cure for that. We all have to deal with it in our own way.”

  “The way you are? By running out on Dad?”

  “Just because I’m the one leaving doesn’t mean I’m the one doing the running out.” Dorrie stood and started walking again.

  With panic knocking in her chest, Sandra fell in step with her. “I wish you would tell me what went wrong. And why you believe it can’t be fixed.”

  Dorrie stuffed her hands in the pockets of her old car coat. The camel wool garment appeared with the regularity of the seasons, unwrapped from the dry cleaner’s mothproofing each November, then retired to the basement each March. Sandra’s mother didn’t even change her coat, and here she was wanting to change her whole life.

  “Sandra,” she said, “a thirty-six-year marriage doesn’t end simply because something went wrong. It’s just that there were too many years during which nothing went right. The difference between then and now is that I’ve finally decided to do something about it.” Dorrie veered around a foamy wave that came rolling toward them. “You see, your father and I always had this vision of our lifestyle once he retired. The trouble was, we never compared notes. I assumed we would do things together—learn a new language, see the world, take dancing lessons, go to a ceramics class, try new adventures. It was so obvious to me that I naturally assumed your father was on the same page.”

  “So what was Dad’s vision?”

  Dorrie made a little explosive sound of disgust. “Golf or fishing every day with his buddies, while I continue doing all the housework, all the errands, all the groceries, all the cooking, all the bills. Same as I always have. So he gets to retire, and I ‘m in for life without parole.”

  “You two should be able to work it out.” Sandra couldn’t believe how frightening this felt to her. It was a blow in the dark, another loss, another death. Something vital had vanished from her life, and she could never get it back again. “Get him to help more around the house.”

  “I’ve tried. He’s hopeless.”

  “Then learn to play golf so you can go with him.”

  “I’ve tried that, too. I’m hopeless.”

  “This is not rocket science, Mom. People who love each other should— “

  “Maybe that’s just it,” Dorrie said, pulling up the hood of her coat. “Maybe, somewhere in the middle of all those years, the love got lost.”

  Her mother’s words made Sandra feel a deep and aching sadness. Love couldn’t be that way, she thought. It just couldn’t fail like that. Then she remembered Victor, and her conviction faltered. Maybe secrets haunted her parents’ marriage, too. Who could really know someone else’s intimate relationship?

  Sandra stared at the restless sea, glossy gray beneath a brooding sky. The whole world was sliding out from beneath her feet, and she had no idea how to pull it all back into its proper place. She was beginning to question her own judgment about everything. The foundation of her family was crumbling. Things she believed to be true turned out to be lies.

  “You can’t let this happen, Mom,” she said, raising her voice above the wind. “You and Dad have to try harder, go to counseling, work this out—”

  “We’re not characters in one of your books, dear,” Dorrie said gently. She slipped her arm around Sandra. “I’m so sorry. But this is my life, or what’s left of it. I have to take this step. It’s really happening, and nothing you say or do will stop it.”

  Sandra saw pieces of her life like bits of colored glass through a kaleidoscope—scattered and splintered, constantly changing. “How long have you been planning this?” she asked.

  “It’s been a long time coming, but we wanted to wait until the business with Victor was over before telling you. Now we’ve all got to move on.”

  The wind whipped up gritty dervishes of sand on the beach and battered at the dune grasses. Another storm was coming in fast. Sandra tasted it with each breath she took, felt its heaviness pressing at her.

  Dorrie started back toward the house. “It’s cold out here, and I have things to do.” She put her gloved hand on Sandra’s arm. “I have a plane to catch.”

  Sandra turned to the house, the falling-down house she was so eager to sell, and walked beside her mother in silence. Above the dunes, the big Victorian hunched like a shorebird in a storm. Overgrown sea roses and lilacs nearly obscured the bow-front window, and the gray, weathered siding matched the drabness of the thunderheads rolling down from the north to wallop the coast with another winter assault.

  The place had stood for more than a hundred years. Now it teetered on the verge of collapse. Mike Malloy—a regular guy who drove a pickup truck and fixed things — claimed he could restore it, and suddenly that promise meant everything to her.

  Chapter 4

  The storm struck when Mike was fifty feet off the ground, clinging to the catwalk on the Point Judith Light. The winter barrage chugged like a locomotive, hurling all its energy at the old brownstone tower. Wind and stinging sleet lashed at his shoulders and back as he struggled with a sheet of marine plywood. It caught the wind like a kite in a gale, pitching and thrusting him to the edge of the catwalk.

  Archie Glover had called from the Coast Guard station to report that one of the windows had blown out, putting the room-sized, antique French lantern at risk. He needed help, right away.

  Mike jammed his leg against the iron rail to keep from going over. From inside the beacon, Archie shouted something, but Mike couldn’t hear. Wishing he�
��d taken time to strap on safety gear, he wrestled the plywood against the broken window, bits of glass grinding beneath his boots.

  With numb, slippery hands, he screwed a series of stout iron clamps in place and hoped the temporary repair would hold until the weather cleared.

  Archie held open the door, and Mike shoved himself inside to the relative quiet of the beacon. He wiped a sodden sleeve across his cold-stung face. “When I said I was looking for restoration work, this wasn’t quite what I had in mind.”

  “For a minute there, I was afraid we’d lost you.” Archie headed down the spiral staircase. “There’s coffee on.”

  “No, thanks,” Mike said, his teeth chattering. “I’d better be getting back.”

  Archie handed him a check. “Keep this high and dry.”

  Leaving the lighthouse, Mike drove along the debrislittered road to the marina. The storm skirled to the south, leaving a restless, tossing sea in its wake. A single light burned in the harbormaster’s office and others glimmered from some of the larger fishing vessels, but the docks were all deserted.

  Mike still didn’t think of the boat as “home,” but since he’d come back to Paradise, he’d been living aboard the cabin trawler Fat Chance, docked with the fishing fleet at the tiny port.

  Beamy but well appointed, the boat became Mike’s when his father retired to Florida. Years ago, Mike and Angela used to spend nearly every summer weekend aboard, taking leisurely runs out to Block Island, anchoring in private coves, fixing soup and crackers for dinner and making love to the hushed rhythm of the waves. Angela hadn’t set foot on the boat in a long, long time.

  Zeke leaped to greet him when he boarded and stepped into the main saloon. He paused to scratch the dog behind the ears, then headed for a quick, scalding shower in a bathroom so compact he could barely stand up straight or turn around.

  When Mike emerged from the bunk in dry clothes, Zeke thumped his tail, eager to go out for his usual evening rounds of the Paradise docks. “All right, all right,” Mike muttered, pulling on a jacket.

  His gaze fell to the pages of notes and sketches on the chart table, which now housed a computer and printer as well as his father’s sea charts. At the top of his stack was one of innumerable letters from Loretta Schott, his divorce attorney. The family court judge had doubts about a guy who lived on a boat.