The Color of Light

by White, Karen

  His chest tightened, remembering other nights, balmy nights spent on the edge of the water, toes clenched in the wet sand, his young heart not unbruised but still full of hope and dreams. He wanted to turn away, leave her. But when he saw her rounded silhouette against the sky and the defeated slant of her shoulders, he knew he couldn’t. He cleared his throat. “Still looking for a new star?”

  She turned to him then, her light brown eyes luminous against the purple sky. “Still. There’s a guy in Portugal who found two in a single year. All I want is one.”

  He wanted so much not to feel the need to help her, to talk with her, to make her pain go away. But he couldn’t seem to stop. Without asking, he took the telescope and flashlight from her, for the first time noticing the binoculars around her neck. “I was wondering what the star chart was doing on your kitchen wall.”

  Slowly, she began moving over the dune toward the beach. “I’ve memorized it. So, when the new star appears, I’ll recognize it immediately.” She stopped and stared into the darkening sky. “Do you remember watching the stars with me, Linc? We’d lie on our backs in the sand and stare up at the sky. We’d find constellations and calculate their distances from the earth. Then Lauren would stop us and make us wish on shooting stars.”

  The moon, once translucent against the fading sky, now seemed to take on strength from the growing blackness, showing its power to pull the ocean’s tides across the giant earth.

  She stopped and her voice was soft. “Did you, Linc? Did you ever make a wish?”

  He looked at her, his gaze focusing on her mounded belly, unable to lie to her face. “No. I never believed in wishes.”

  She watched him in silence for a long moment. “I’m sorry.” She moved on, and he followed behind her.

  When she’d found a suitable spot, she stopped and reached for her telescope. He turned off the flashlight and dropped it in the sand to help her.

  She whirled, her voice almost panicked. “Where’s the light?”

  “We don’t need it yet. We’ve got a good ten minutes before total darkness.”

  “Turn it on. Please. I like it to be on when it gets dark.”

  He bent and retrieved the flashlight before flipping it on again.

  “Thank you.” Her relief was a palpable thing.

  “I’m sorry. I’d forgotten.”

  She gave him a feeble laugh. “Most children outgrow their fear of the dark. I never have.”

  He remained silent as she continued to set up her telescope, aiming the flashlight in her direction. Why am I still here?

  He watched as she first scanned the sky with her binoculars and then positioned herself behind the viewfinder of the telescope and peered up at the shining pinpricks of light above. She pulled away, a huge grin on her face. “Nothing’s changed—all stars present and accounted for. I’ve still got a chance.”

  He couldn’t help but return her smile. For a woman who at the moment closely resembled a blowfish, he couldn’t remember ever seeing a more beautiful one. Damn, but she was addictive. But she’s one of them.

  “Do you want to look? You taught me everything I know about the night sky, remember?”

  His smile faded, and he listened to the beat of the surf against the sand for a moment. “I don’t look at the stars anymore. Haven’t for years.”

  Her voice was barely audible above the crash of the waves. “I’m sorry to hear that. I sometimes think that what’s going on up there makes so much more sense than what’s going on down here.”

  Suddenly, Jillian bent over, her hands clenched over her belly and an odd moan erupting from her lips. Alarmed, Linc rushed to her side. “What’s wrong?” He looked back to see how far they were from the dune, wondering if he could carry her through the thick sand and beyond without killing them both.

  She glanced up at him, her breathing seeming to come a bit easier. “I think . . . I think I might be pregnant.”

  He stepped back, shock, surprise and then laughter rushing through him simultaneously. She laid a hand on his arm. “It’s just the baby kicking me in a sensitive spot, that’s all. I’m fine.” She straightened and touched his cheek, sending warning bells throughout his system. “It’s good to hear your laugh, Linc. You’re not as tough as you like to pretend, you know.”

  He moved, making her drop her hand, his laughter gone. “You don’t know me at all.”

  She regarded him through the darkness, and he shifted under her scrutiny. Then she returned to her telescope and peered through the viewfinder again. “Since you’re planning on staying until I’m done to make sure I don’t beach myself like a stranded whale, would you mind sitting over there? And just shine the flashlight on the ground in front of me so I can see where I’m stepping.”

  Grunting, and not sure where he’d left his backbone, he lowered himself in the sand, the flashlight cutting a pie slice of light out of an entire island of darkness. When she was finished, he helped her pack up her things and walk back to the house.

  “Thanks, Linc. I think from now on I’ll just watch the sky from my porch. It’ll be a lot easier.”

  He just nodded, and then, before he turned, he asked the question that had been niggling at the back of his brain. “Why does Grace call you Jilly-bean and not Mom?”

  “It . . . it sounded better to me. She doesn’t know any different.”

  He understood. He had known her parents and her relationship with them, and understood. But he didn’t say anything. Small gossamer strands made a formidable web if enough were tossed together. He wanted nothing that would tie him to her.

  “Good night,” he said, and turned away to walk toward his house.

  “You never asked about your socks and how I knew.”

  He faced her again, the distance between them comforting. “I didn’t have to.”

  A silent creature flew overhead, its eyes focused on prey in the sea oats below, its steady wings stirring slowly in the night above them as if the air had become too thick. Linc thought she would say more. Instead, all she said was, “Good night, Linc.”

  By the time he said good night, she had already closed her front door, leaving him alone on the dark dunes, his way illuminated by the moon, and all his ghosts following closely behind as he made his way back to his car across the sand.

  CHAPTER 6

  JILLIAN SAT ON THE EDGE OF THE BOARDWALK, WATCHING THE retreat and approach of the waves and Gracie dancing on her toes as she raced to avoid the salty foam, her arms thrown wide as if to embrace the wind. The tide was low, leaving in its wake the ocean’s debris and a child’s treasure. She twisted the gold ring on her finger as she watched. Ebb tide, flood tide. Her grandmother had always said that each life would have a bit of both, each to even out the other. But even at ebb tide, when the dried, packed sand seemed to gasp for water and the ocean seemed so far away, there would be things left behind to comfort you until the ocean returned with the flood tide.

  A part of her wanted to join her child and dance in the sand, to race with the wind and tease the sea. Instead, she stayed where she was, studying her child and wondering where Grace had learned to laugh and to sing and to dance.

  Grace stopped and squatted down to pick something out of the sand, then squealed as she held up her prize. “Jilly-bean—look! It’s a sand dollar. And it’s not even broken!”

  Sensing her excitement, Jillian met her halfway on the beach and cradled the treasure in her hand, feeling the sun’s warmth transferred to her skin. “It’s beautiful, Gracie.” With her fingernail, she traced the pattern on the front. “Look here. This is supposed to be the Easter lily, and this, in the middle, is the star of Bethlehem.”

  Grace’s eyes widened. “Ohhhh. That’s so neat.”

  Jillian smiled and flipped the sand dollar over. “They say if you break it open, five doves of peace will fly out.”

  “Really?” Then Grace’s face closed in alarm. “We don’t have to break it if we don’t want to, right?”

  Her voice soft,
Jillian reached to smooth back the fine blond strands off Grace’s face. “Never, Gracie. Never.”

  “Look what I brought back, Mama. Me and Grandma found them on the beach, and we made jewelry.” Feeling suddenly shy, she tucked the bag of shells and sand dollars behind her. “I made you a necklace.”

  Her mother looked up from the glass menagerie she’d been dusting. Gently, she replaced a pink-colored swan and turned to Jillian. Her eyebrows were raised and she wasn’t smiling. “May I see that?”

  Jillian took a hesitant step backward, bringing the bag out in front. “I . . . I made you a necklace. With a sand dollar. Grandma showed me how.” Very carefully, knowing how delicate it was, she lifted the necklace out of the bag, beaming at the beautiful white roundness of the perfect sand dollar. She’d spent hours combing the beach for just the right one.

  Too late, she heard the spattering of sand spilling on her mother’s freshly swept hardwood floor.

  She looked up and saw her mother’s face. She wasn’t looking at the necklace, but at the mess on the floor.

  Jillian’s right knee started trembling first, and then her other leg and arms, and she hated it for the way it made her voice shake. That always seemed to make her mother even madder. “I’m sorry, Mama. I didn’t mean to. I’ll clean it up myself. I’ll . . .”

  She wasn’t allowed to finish her sentence. Her mother jerked the bag out of Jillian’s hand, making her drop the necklace. She heard the snap of the sand dollar breaking as it hit the floor, but she didn’t look down.

  Her mother pointed at the sand that lay scattered on the floor like tiny tears. “Look what you did! Look what you did! And you won’t clean it up—you never do. You just make a bigger mess. You think I’m your servant, waiting on you hand and foot just to clean up your messes. I’m sick of it. Do you hear me? Sick of it!”

  Her mother’s voice was higher now, almost a scream but much, much scarier. She wished her daddy were home. Her mama was never this bad when he was home.

  “I’m sorry, Mama. I’m sorry.”

  “I’ll show you sorry.” With a tight grip that made Jillian yelp, she grabbed her by the arm and dragged her into the hallway.

  “No, Mama. No. Don’t. Please don’t.” She was crying now, knowing the tears always made it worse, but she couldn’t stop. But she couldn’t go in there again. She couldn’t. She knew she’d die if she had to go in there again.

  With her free hand, her mother opened the door to the crawl space. “We’ll see how sorry you are now.”

  Jillian screamed and threw out her hands to grab ahold of something, anything, but her hands slipped over the painted wood of the doorframe as her mother forced her into the crawl space and locked the door. Fear choked her as the dark swallowed her like a monster’s mouth, and she thought she could see faces in the swirling blackness. It was like a wind that she couldn’t see or hear, but she felt it up close to her skin, touching her up there on the back of her neck and the curve of her spine.

  When she couldn’t scream anymore, she closed her eyes. She fell asleep pressed against the door, the skin on her hands worn and raw, and dreamt of light and of the sun dancing on the ocean’s waves.

  A small hand touched her cheek, bringing Jillian back to the present. “Why are you sad, Jilly-bean?”

  Jillian took Grace’s hand and held it, trying to find her voice as she forced a smile. “I’m not, Gracie. I think I’m just tired.” She stood, brushing sand off her knees. “Come on, I’ll show you where to find more sand dollars, and then we’ll make sand dollar necklaces. Maybe we can make one to give to your new teacher.”

  Grace stared at her mother with steady eyes, and Jillian once again had the feeling of role reversal. She brushed Grace’s hair off her forehead. “You’re an old soul, Gracie. And maybe one day I’ll tell you what that means.”

  Tugging on her daughter’s hand, Jillian led Grace back to the beach, where the sand met the water and treasures waited to be discovered.

  The sound of buzz saws and hammering punctuated the warm morning with their odd music. To Linc, there was no better symphony, and no better smell than the scent of freshly cut wood. It made his fingers itch to watch the workmen on the roof joists, wishing that he could be using his hands to do the actual building. The love of creating something out of nothing, to see something of beauty emerge from his own hands, had been the undertow of his life; the pulling force that led him to pursue his dreams and study architecture.

  It was the one thing in his life he’d always been sure of—the one thing he’d allowed himself to believe in. And now it had made it possible for him to reach his other dream—his dream of owning this house, of making it his. But as he stood back and looked up at its old and graceful lines, he frowned. He was so close to the realization of his dreams, yet he still felt far, far away from them.

  Rolling up his sleeves, he grabbed his tools and boom box and entered the house. He had custom designed the new kitchen, allowing himself the luxury of handcrafting the cabinets in his workshop and having them shipped to Pawleys. He’d finish them himself, too, staining the cherry wood to a dark, rich finish—just like the original cabinets had been sixteen years ago.

  As he set up his boom box and flicked it to a local station playing Carolina beach music, he surveyed the wreck of a kitchen, much like he supposed an artist surveyed an empty canvas. He was lucky his business partner was understanding of his need to spend so much time down here on the island. Maybe all builders were artists, and it hadn’t been too much of a stretch for George to allow Linc all the time he needed to oversee this project.

  The Chairmen of the Board came on the radio singing “Carolina Girls,” causing an involuntary smile to cross his lips. It made him think of dancing barefoot in the sand, with the scent of salt and sea and sweat and coconut oil heavy in the air. And it made him think of a girl with hair the color of the sunset and skin a honey brown from baking in the sun. He could almost see her, standing in the kitchen. If he reached out his hand, he sensed he could touch her.

  “Hello, Linc.”

  Startled, he jumped as he turned around and spotted Grace standing in the doorway to the kitchen, a threadbare bunny held in her arms and a necklace strung with shells and a large sand dollar hanging from her other hand. There was something about her face; although the features were soft and small and round like a child’s, her light brown eyes and the set of her mouth were almost those of a full-grown woman. It was arresting and unsettling at the same time.

  “Hello, Grace.” He smiled and squatted in front of her. “Who’s this?” He pointed to the stuffed bunny.

  “It’s Bun-Bun. Jilly-bean gave her to me when I was born.”

  He looked at the scratched eye buttons and the matted fur. “I can tell she’s been loved a lot.”

  She gazed at him with those bright brown eyes. “It’s not so easy to tell with real people, is it?”

  Disconcerted, he stood, touching her head lightly. “No, it’s not. And it’s too bad, really.”

  Giggling, she turned around to survey the kitchen. “I guess we’d look pretty silly with all our hair rubbed off and our noses missing.”

  She began humming to the song on the radio. “I like this song.” She continued humming as she looked around at his tools and the cabinets that now sat crowded together in the middle of the kitchen floor. “Lauren liked to dance to this song. And she told me that Jilly-bean has the thing you’re looking for.”

  His breath lurched. “What thing?”

  Grace shrugged and bent to blow a pile of sawdust off the counter.

  Completely unsettled now, Linc moved to stand in front of Grace. “I’d love to visit with you some more, but I’ve got a lot of work to do, and besides, this is a dangerous place for a little girl. There’s open electric wires, sharp tools, and nails all over the place.” He looked down at her pink-polished toenails peeking out of bright yellow flip-flops. “I’d hate to see you get hurt.”

  With a bland expression, Grace sai
d, “You don’t like it when I talk about Lauren, do you? She said you wouldn’t.”

  He pretended he hadn’t heard her, and bent to pick her up. “I’m going to carry you back to your house, okay? We don’t need you stepping on any nails.”

  She allowed him to lift her, and when she was at eye level to him, she said, “I made this for you.” She held up the necklace, the mismatched shapes of the shells reminding him of something Wilma Flint-stone would have worn.

  Touched and somehow pleased, he said, “It’s beautiful. Thank you,” and ducked his head so she could slip it on. “Come on. Let’s go find your mother.” He carried her out of the house and across the sand to the house next door.

  Jillian stood in the backyard, hanging laundry in the sun. She was reaching up to clip something large and white to the line when they rounded the corner of the house. He saw her necklace first, the sand dollar a bright white against the dark blue of her sundress. He stopped in front of her, gently putting Gracie on the ground.

  “Nice jewelry,” she said, holding up her matching necklace.

  He smiled, and he saw her face warm to him. “It sure is. And here I thought I’d been given an original.”

  Jillian looked down at her daughter. “And where have you been? I thought you were reading upstairs in your room.”

  “I was. And then I saw Linc and I wanted to say hi.”

  She opened her mouth as if to scold her, but Linc touched her on the arm. “I already explained to her how a construction site isn’t a good place for a little girl. I’ll be happy to show her around another time when the workers aren’t there, though.”

  Mollified, Jillian nodded. Her gaze settled on his hand where he’d been patting Grace’s head as he spoke. She smiled and squinted up at him. “Thanks for bringing her back.” She turned away to put the other clothespin up on the line, and he dropped his hand.

  He didn’t notice when she faced him again, as his attention had focused on the clothes flapping in the breeze behind her. His eyes were widened slightly, trying to register what he was seeing.