Beach House

by Mary Monroe

  When she wasn’t with him, she thought about him. She’d look down while talking on the phone and see that she’d scribbled his name a dozen times. He lent her one of his T-shirts at the beach one day and she kept it to sleep in at night just so she could smell his scent and dream of him. When she heard a love song on the radio, she was sure it was written for them. These feelings were all new for her, and they were all consuming.

  “Sugar, you’re in love,” Emmi told her one night as they sat on the beach together at a nest due to hatch.

  “I am not. This is just the summer fling I never had as a kid. I’m not in love. I’m in fling.”

  “There’s no such thing as in fling. I ought to know. I married my summer fling.”

  “That doesn’t qualify. Your summer fling became a year-round thing. By definition, a summer fling must necessarily end at the end of summer.”

  “Oh, so you know the definition now?”

  “Absolutely. It’s already written in some song. Something about when those autumn winds start to blow. Come on, you know the song.”

  “Okay, okay. Let’s just figure this out.” She stretched out her legs and lifted her hand to count off. “You had the requisite props for a summer romance, I’ll give you that. First and foremost, you had the moon.”

  “Not just any moon, the Carolina moon. And it was shining over a body of water. We have to get the details straight.”

  “Okay again. I agree.” She held up a second and third finger and continued counting off. “You had the sunsets. The boat.”

  “Boats are a plus. Not required.”

  “No bonus points. What next? Um…you had the kisses.”

  “Oh, yes. Definitely the kisses. My God—”

  “Stop it. You’re killing me, Cara. I don’t even want to know.”

  “Sorry. Go on.”

  “Let’s recap. You’ve got the moon, the body of water, the sunsets, the boat, the kisses. What’s missing?”

  “The parent. Or the camp counselor, whichever. I qualify there, too. Mama actually waits up for me, and I’m forty years old. Can you believe it?”

  Emmi tossed back her head and laughed raucously. “Okay, you win hands down. You’re not in love. You’re in fling. Are you happy?”

  Was she happy? Thinking about it, Cara wished she could say that she was. It was mid-August and the tourists were heading home as schools reopened. The blissful summer was moving fast, and the thought of what fall would bring only filled her with dread.

  Cara felt the full impact that her summer was coming to an end the morning she awoke to find her mother gone. Panic swelled in her chest when she saw that The Gold Bug was still parked outside the house. Hurrying outdoors, there was no sign of her mother in the yard, either. Cara raked her hair from her face, revving up her sleepy mind. Lovie was not confused like Miranda; nonetheless, Cara couldn’t imagine where she might have gone. Or when.

  Until she noticed that the red bucket was missing, as well. She quickly tossed her nightgown from her body and slipped into her shorts, a top and sandals. The screen door swooshed as she hurried outside once again. A chorus of birds sang in the trees and the sand in the path was damp and cool as she ran to the beach. She arrived just as dawn was rising over the ocean.

  She found her mother standing at the shoreline, a slight, solitary figure with a bright-red bucket dangling from her hand. Her long, white nightgown was flapping in the brisk breeze. Bathed in the misty pink-and-yellow light, she appeared a ghostly figure looking out to sea.

  Cara approached her mother quietly, not wanting to startle her from what seemed a deep and private contemplation. “Mama?”

  Lovie turned her head slowly and Cara was shocked to see tears flowing down her mother’s cheeks.

  “What’s the matter, Mama?”

  “They’re gone,” Lovie replied, her voice raspy and weak.

  “Who’s gone?”

  “The loggerheads. The mothers. They’re gone now, to wherever it is they go. I can feel it. It’s over. And I miss them already.” Her lower lip trembled as she brought her fingertips to them and tried to control her emotions. “Oh, Cara. I miss them.”

  Cara had no words of solace. What could she say? That they’d be back next year? There was no comfort in that. She knew her mother was feeling the pain of knowing that this was her final season. For her, the loggerheads were truly gone.

  And soon, so would her mother. Cara felt hot tears flood her eyes. For the past two months she’d denied the truth of what the end of summer would ultimately mean. She’d forced it to the back of her mind as she would any reminder of the cold winter ahead while the sun still shone warm.

  “I wish I could go with them,” Lovie said, looking again out toward the swells. “I want to follow my instinct and swim away with them in the currents. To have it all be behind me. Wouldn’t it be lovely?”

  “Not yet,” Cara said in a broken whisper and wrapped her long arms around her mother, holding tight. “Please, Mama. Don’t swim away yet.”

  Her mother stroked her hair. “My own, dear Caretta. You’re still here, aren’t you? That’s such a comfort.”

  While her mother wept in her arms, Cara experienced an odd reversal of roles, as if she were the mother, strong and capable, and Lovie were the child, small and vulnerable. It was as moving as it was terrifying.

  Mother and daughter stood together on the beach as morning broke around them. The tide was going out, littering the beach with shells, wrack and sea whip. Together, they wept for all the mothers that had left, and for those that were soon leaving.

  After the mother turtles departed on their solitary journey, Lovie’s health declined rapidly. It was as though, in spirit, she had indeed swum off with the loggerheads. She’d been so stoic about her illness that Cara, Toy and the others had fooled themselves into believing that, with a positive spirit, Lovie could live forever. Now, however, her energy waned along with her optimism. She grew more moody and withdrawn. Whenever Cara tried to lure her down to the beach to sit by a nest, she’d just shake her head, claiming that her coughing had kept her up most of the night before and made her too tired. When Cara tried to interest her in the turtle records, or get her opinion on a nest problem, Lovie would lift her slender shoulder, then go to her rocker on the front porch and stare out at the sea. She was drawing inward, swimming in her own currents, and Cara couldn’t reach her.

  As Lovie lost weight and grew smaller, Toy was getting bigger as she entered her final weeks of pregnancy. She was cooking up all manner of healthy recipes to tempt Lovie’s palate. But Lovie only nibbled like a mouse, then turned her head away with an apology. “It’s the coughing,” she’d say again, clearing her throat. “It takes my appetite away.”

  “If it wasn’t for liquid nourishment, you’d waste away,” Toy complained, tears in her eyes. “Look, Miss Lovie, I made a cheese soufflé. It’s nice and soft. Try it.”

  “I’ll try,” Lovie replied as usual, without heart.

  Neither Toy nor Cara could argue with her because the coughing was horrendous. One night they’d both gone running into her room, afraid she’d choke to death on her own spittle. After that night, despite Lovie’s resistance, Cara put her foot down and declared they had to see her doctor.

  “No, he’s so busy,” Lovie complained. “We mustn’t bother him.”

  “Mama, it’s his job. Besides, how can we help you if we don’t bother him once in a while?”

  “He’s not going to tell us anything we don’t already know.”

  Cara could only look at her mother. They were moving into dark, unfamiliar territory—and they needed help.

  The minutes spent dashing from the nest to the sea are very dangerous in a turtle’s life. Ghost crabs tiptoe across the beach to attack the hatchlings. Only one in thousands of hatchlings may survive to maturity.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Three days later, Cara sat in the waiting room of the oncologist’s office located inside the hospital complex. Around her, o
lder men and women sat in a depressed silence reading old, worn magazines, some carting along oxygen tanks that clanked when they moved, a few dressed in those flimsy hospital gowns that were universally awful. Cara wouldn’t touch the wrinkled, curled magazines or the arms of the chair. She didn’t want to touch anything. She tried to compress herself and stared at her hands in a private misery.

  She despised hospitals. They all looked the same, she thought to herself as she shifted her weight in the uncomfortable metal chair. Cold and sterile with long, narrow halls that wound around linoleum floors and passed through double doors like a maze. The worst thing about hospitals was that they were filled with sick people. Cara didn’t like being around illness. She hated flying because, to her mind, it was like being trapped for hours in a giant germ bank. When someone coughed in a theater, she’d lean far away. If someone sneezed in a crowded elevator, she’d hold her breath until she escaped. Which was why Cara was convinced that her mother’s persistent cough, and now the hospital visits, was God giving her a kind of purgatory for sins of the past.

  Not that she was complaining. Her love for her mother was more powerful than any aversion to illness. So she quietly sat hunched over in the metal chair while Lovie underwent multiple tests. She waited, thinking every minute what a saint Toy had been for so long. While Cara was oblivious in her career in Chicago, Toy had driven Lovie to her radiation treatments and waited like this, pregnant and tired, probably having to get up to pee every ten minutes. Cara fervently believed there was a special place in Heaven for caregivers.

  After two and a half hours, the nurse emerged to ask if she’d join Dr. Pittman in the examining room. Cara practically sprang from the chair to follow her through the very narrow hall. When she entered the room, she found her mother sitting on the examining table still wearing the papery green robe and chatting away with an unnatural cheerfulness.

  “Look who’s come to join us!” Lovie exclaimed, her eyes feverishly bright.

  Lovie was trying too hard to be cheerful and Cara immediately felt on edge. She looked over to the doctor, a young, bookish man with heavy eyeglasses and a long, serious face. Dr. Pittman was writing in the chart but managed to look up briefly and smile. They’d spoken on the phone at length when Cara had first learned of her mother’s illness, but this was the first time they’d met.

  “Take a seat, Miss Rutledge,” he said, indicating another metal chair.

  “Thanks, but I’ll stand,” she replied, walking to her mother’s side.

  “So, what’s the verdict?” her mother asked, again with a forced optimism.

  Dr. Pittman’s silence spoke volumes. Lovie’s balloon of cheer deflated as his expression turned somber.

  “I didn’t like what we found today.”

  When Lovie turned her head, Cara saw that the fevered cheerfulness was, in fact, fear. She reached out to hold her mother’s hand.

  “The cancer has spread more rapidly than we’d anticipated. In particular, it has moved into the trachea, which would explain the coughing.”

  “Is surgery an option?” Cara asked.

  “The trachea is inoperable. The mass is…everywhere.”

  Cara’s stomach tightened but she tried to maintain calm. “Surely there’s something we can do, Doctor.”

  He sighed. “We could consider initiating another round of radiation therapy.”

  “No.” Lovie was adamant.

  Dr. Pittman looked at Lovie and smiled weakly. He closed the chart and looked at Cara with compassion. “We’ve entered the final phase of the disease.”

  Cara heard him clearly and returned his gaze unflinchingly, grateful for his honesty. She couldn’t have stood it if he was evasive or tried to mask the harsh realities. “I understand.”

  “Your mother understands that the best we can offer at this point is palliative treatment.”

  Lovie patted Cara’s hand. “What he’s trying to say is there’s nothing he can do.”

  To his credit, he smiled. “That’s right, as far as treatment goes. However, there is a great deal we can do to make certain you are comfortable, Mrs. Rutledge. There is absolutely no reason for you to suffer. Since you’ve decided to remain at home, I’ll arrange for a visiting nurse to set up regular appointments and for oxygen to be delivered. It just makes it a little easier when you feel like you’re not getting enough air. Use it. Don’t be shy. We can also discuss at length the use of morphine.” He glanced at Lovie. “But there’s no need to do that today.”

  To Cara he said, “This is a process that needs to be understood so you can best help your mother. It’s time to be practical and realistic as to what treatments you can manage at home and what you might need help for. Time to gather together a support group. Is Miss Sooner still around?”

  “Yes. She’s a great help.”

  “Good. But she’s having a baby soon, isn’t that right?”

  “She’s due September 15.”

  “I see.”

  “Cara can handle this,” Lovie said. “She’s very competent, you know.”

  Cara didn’t miss the pride in her mother’s voice and felt a chink in her self-control.

  “Good,” he said emphatically. “But don’t take it all on yourself. Too often I see a competent daughter or wife feel she can manage it all and in the end she suffers burnout. There’s no need for that. A good caregiver takes care of herself. Remember, it’s important to have a two-pronged support system. The first is your medical support staff. We’ll get you lined up for visiting nurses, social workers and hospice. The second you have to arrange yourself. You’ll need a support group that will provide a caring atmosphere for both Mrs. Rutledge and yourself. A group of good listeners who can be counted on to help when needed.”

  Cara and her mother exchanged a glance.

  “The Turtle Team,” they said in unison.

  The phone began ringing off the hook as word leaked out about Lovie’s illness. Volunteers asked if they could bring over a covered casserole, soup, anything at all from the four basic food groups. Brett did all the lawn work. Emmi called every time she left her house just to make sure some errand didn’t need to be run. Miranda came by just to sit beside Lovie on the bed and keep her company while they watched TV. Flo briskly walked in twice a day full of enthusiasm and energy, talking loudly and bringing along something fun or interesting to read that she’d painstakingly searched out. “Got to keep her spirits up,” she said with a knowing look to Cara each day before returning home.

  Cara couldn’t keep count of all the turtle paraphernalia that arrived each day from well-wishers. Turtle jewelry, shirts, candles, wind chimes, hats, cups, flags, key rings—Cara didn’t know where folks found so much turtle stuff. Lovie was moved and grateful for it all and tried to take the time to speak to everyone who stopped by or called. On occasion, the visitor would break down into tears and it was Lovie who had to offer comfort. Before the week was out, Cara saw how her mother’s energy was sapped and she began restricting visitors. Word was sent out that Lovie needed her rest and, gradually, peace was restored at the beach house.

  Lovie’s bedroom looked increasingly like a hospital room, though. It couldn’t be helped. The oxygen tank and cart took up a lot of space beside her bed, and the bedside table was covered with a tissue box, a water glass and several small pill bottles. A TV had been moved in as well as a bookshelf. Cara tried to order a mechanical bed that moved position but Lovie was horrified at the thought. She wanted to sleep in her own four-poster bed, the one her mother had slept in, and her mother before her. She refused any discussion on the matter.

  Thus, in short order, the house went topsy-turvy. Lovie spent a good deal of time in her room resting, reading, watching television and organizing the photo albums that had become an obsession. She tried to keep involved with the household decisions and turtle affairs, but it was a struggle.

  Cara also began preparing more of the meals. Toy helped but her advanced pregnancy made her slow and cumbersome in the kitchen a
nd she had to put her feet up frequently because of swollen ankles. Several nights a week she grew antsy and said she had to get out of the house for a little while, too. Toy began going to the local movie theater on a regular basis.

  That was how Cara became the official gatekeeper, cook, laundry woman, housekeeper and chauffer. She managed the meals, the medication and the complaints. She scheduled medical appointments, did the shopping and paid the bills. She had several offers to help but was reluctant to accept. She didn’t like to bother folks with her problems. Besides, in her mind it was easier and quicker if she just did the job herself. There was, however, one person she felt should step up to the plate.

  Palmer opened the door of his home and his face broke into delighted surprise. Then, as if catching himself, the warmth iced over and his smile turn stiffly polite.

  “Hello, Cara.”

  “Hello, Palmer.”

  He looked healthy and tanned in his pale-blue polo shirt that brought out the color of his eyes. Cara guessed he’d been boating or golfing, or both. She was dressed in plain khakis and a madras cotton shirt that made her look almost girlish compared to his sophisticated casualness. She regretted not dressing up more for the discussion.

  “What brings you here?”

  “I thought we’d chat about Mama.”

  He thought about this a minute while she shifted her weight. He wasn’t going to make this easy for her.

  “Come on in, then,” he said with reluctance, opening wide the door.

  She entered the house with a firm stride to disguise her nervousness. This was only the second time she’d visited her old home since her arrival. There had been no more invitations to dinner nor had there been any more visits to the beach house from Palmer since the Fourth of July party.

  “Where are the kids?” she asked as she passed through the marble-floored foyer.