At Last (The Idle Point, Maine Stories)

by Bretton, Barbara

  #

  The loud voices were what woke Sophie up. She tried to cover her ears with the pillow to keep them out but it didn't work. Papa's angry voice found her anyway. She thought she heard Gracie too but Gracie didn't sound angry. She sounded scared and very sad, like she was about to cry.

  Sophie hated loud voices unless they were hers. She didn't like the way grownups shouted at each other and then made the children pay the price. She lay there for an awfully long time, listening to the sounds. Her mind danced all over the place. She thought about all the people she had met today. She thought about how much fun she had playing outside with Sage's and Morocco's children. She thought about the food and the music and Gracie and the poor bird she had found on the beach. She didn't want to think about the bird but every time she closed her eyes she saw him lying there, scared and cold and alone on the rocky beach.

  What if there were other birds on the beach who needed help too? There could be lots of them all tangled up in fishing line, hoping somebody would come along and save them. The more she thought about the birds, the sadder she felt, until there was nothing left to do but go down to the beach and see for herself.

  At least at the beach she wouldn't be able to hear Papa and Gracie fighting.

  #

  Ruth had been about to retire for the night when Noah and Gracie burst into the room. Their clothes were wrinkled. Gracie's hair was decidedly untidy. She would have thought they were fresh from a romantic encounter if the air between them hadn't sizzled with anger.

  "What is it?" she asked, trying to seem her usual calm and placid self. "Is something wrong?"

  "We need to talk," Noah said. He didn't sound like her son. The fierceness of his tone made her uneasy.

  "Noah has some questions," Gracie began and Ruth could see the fear in her eyes. "If this isn't a good time..."

  "It's about my father and Mona Taylor," Noah interrupted.

  Ruth's eyes closed for a moment. Just hearing Mona's name brought back so many memories, both painful and sweet, that she felt overcome with emotion. She drew in a deep breath then looked at her son. "They dated in high school," she said, "but you probably already knew that."

  "I don't give a damn about high school," he said. "I want to know about after."

  "There is no 'after'," she said quietly. "Mona married Ben the year after graduation. I married your father three months later. There isn't much to tell."

  You're a coward, Ruth. He deserves better than this... they both do.

  "Is that what you wanted to know?" she asked.

  Gracie pulled at his sleeve. "This isn't a good time," she said. "Your mother's tired."

  "Not at all," Ruth lied. "It's just a very old story. I'm surprised you're interested."

  "He loved Mona, didn't' t he?" Noah persisted. "He loved her enough to leave you for her."

  Ruth laughed nervously. "Where on earth did you hear such a thing?"

  "That's how Gracie's mother died. She was on her way to meet my father... they were running off together—"

  "No!" Gracie broke in. "That's not true. Simon was lying. My mother was on her way back home from taking me to the pediatrician for a checkup. She had a quart of milk in the car, Noah, and donuts for Ben. She wasn't running off with Simon. She was going home."

  "Gracie's right," Ruth said, taking another step toward releasing her burden. "I saw Mona at the convenience store just before the accident and she had laughed about those donuts with Willie Sloane who was at the register that day. She said Ben's belly was bigger than hers had been at nine months along. She saw me standing near the newspapers and we just looked at each other across the store for what seemed like the longest time, then she gathered up her change, grabbed her groceries, then left." It was the last time Ruth saw Mona alive. "I always wondered if I could have stopped it somehow... if I had said something to her... delayed her for five or ten seconds... maybe—" What was the point? Mona was gone and Ruth was here and there were days when Ruth wasn't sure which woman was the luckier.

  Gracie cried softly. Ruth's words had found their mark deep inside the young woman's heart. It was her mother, after all, who had been at the center of the drama. It was her mother who had died. Noah, however, hurt too much to hear what she was saying. Ruth had lived with the truth for so long now that she had almost forgotten the way unbearable pain obscured everything but the source. It was a lesson she had prayed her son would never have occasion to learn.

  See what you've done, Ruth? It's all catching up with you...

  Noah grabbed Gracie by the shoulders and spun her around to face Ruth.

  "Look at her!" he demanded. "Take a good look and tell me she's not Simon's daughter."

  Gracie was a grown woman now but Ruth could still see the child she had been, that needy little girl who had reached up to hold her hand as if Ruth could somehow make it all better. She looked at the child and saw the mother, gone now almost thirty years, and it almost broke her heart in two.

  #

  Hope was a painful emotion. For the space of three or four seconds Gracie believed they might have a happy ending, but then Ruth's eyes filled with tears and she said, "I'm so sorry, Gracie, I wish I could—" and the ocean roared in Gracie's ears and she ran blindly from the library.

  She'd been a fool to believe they had a chance to be together. Tonight had been a terrible mistake, one she would pay for, for the rest of her life. It was easier to live with the absence of happiness than it was to lose it again. They had come so close, so painfully close, to making their dreams come true at last. If only she hadn't let herself believe they could bend reality to fit their needs, then maybe this wouldn't hurt the way it did.

  She was halfway to the door when she realized her coat and the car keys were upstairs in Noah's room. She didn't want to see him again or his mother. She wanted to run out the back door and disappear. I understand why you do it, Sophie. Sometimes there's just no other way.

  Noah was in so much pain. She remembered how it had felt when she first discovered that there could be no future for them. The enormity of it, the finality, had been devastating. How do you come to terms with the fact that nothing you could do, nothing you could say, could ever make things right again. Not even love was powerful enough to change this central fact of their lives.

  "Oh, it's you, Gracie." Darnell poked his head into the hallway. "I heard the back door slam and I was wondering."

  She struggled to regain a degree of composure. "I wasn't anywhere near the back door, Darnell."

  He frowned. "That's strange. I could've sworn I caught sight of someone running by, then heard the door slam shut. Must've had too much white zin with dinner."

  "Didn't we all. That's part of the Thanksgiving—" She stopped. "Oh my God," she said. "Sophie!"

  She tore back through the hallway, past Noah and Ruth, and ran upstairs to Sophie's room. The door was ajar. Her heart was racing with apprehension. "Sophie," she whispered, pushing the door open wider. "Sophie, are you asleep?"

  The bed was empty.

  She flew back downstairs to Noah and Ruth. "Sophie's gone. Her bed is empty. She's not in the bathroom." She told them about Darnell and the sound of the back door slamming.

  "Call the cops," Noah told his mother, "then call Sage and Morocco and ask if they'll help."

  "Get some flashlights," Gracie said. "I'll tell Darnell and Rachel and the others to start combing the house and the yard."

  "She's a little girl," he said, aging before Gracie's eyes. "She couldn't get very far."

  Gracie didn't have the heart to tell him how wrong he was.

  #

  Storm and two of her siblings began searching the house from basement to attic for Sophie. In a big house like that there were a thousand places where a little girl could hide. Ruth was in the kitchen talking to one of the local policemen while Rachel brewed pots of coffee. Darnell had gone out in his truck to search the local roads while his sons headed off into the woods. That left Noah and Gracie to check the
yard, the garage, the tool shed, and the carriage house.

  "She can't have gone very far," Gracie said. "We'll find her very soon."

  "I should have seen this coming." Noah paced back and forth in front of Gracie. "You did."

  "Where does she usually go when she runs?" Gracie asked.

  "No place special. For the most part she just runs." He struggled to corral his thoughts into something useful. "Whatever caught her eye earlier: the bridal shop, Patsy's—"

  They looked at each other.

  "Jesus," he said. "The beach."

  #

  Sophie followed the path that twisted and curved behind the garage and led down the slope to the beach. The closer she got to the beach, the rockier the ground became until she found herself stopping from one slippery perch to another. She wished she had put on her shoes and socks and maybe even a heavy coat. There wasn't a single bird out tonight. In fact, the water seemed to be coming closer, lapping over her ankles and sliding up her legs.

  She felt very small out there alone in the dark. The world was bigger here than it had been in England. Even the smells were different. During the day she didn't mind so much but now all of those things seemed to be lurking in the shadows, laughing at her.

  She wished she had stayed in her nice warm bed in the pretty pink room with the Barbie Dream House. It was scary being out there all alone. Even the moon looked spooky as it slid behind some dark clouds. She didn't like the slithery feeling under her feet or the way something long and feathery kept brushing up against her legs. There were lots of strange things lurking about underwater, eels long and skinny as snakes, big ugly sharks with jagged teeth and dead eyes, even dead bodies like she had seen on the telly.

  Maybe she should go home and come back tomorrow when the sun was shining and the seagulls were awake. That sounded like a good idea. She turned to retrace her steps when suddenly her right foot slipped a little and she tried to stop herself but it was too late. Her foot slid down and wedged itself between two rocks. She tried to wiggle her way out but each time she moved the jagged edge of the rock pressed deeper into her ankle.

  She cried out for her father and then she called for Gracie too but there was no answer except for the shrieking sound the ocean made as it rose higher all around her.

  #

  You couldn't miss the fact that high tide was rolling in, but only Gracie realized they had no more than ten minutes to find Sophie before the thin strip of remaining rocks vanished altogether. She knew this stretch of beach well. In many ways, it mirrored the beach by the lighthouse where she and Noah had fallen in love. It was great for sunbathing at low tide when the receding water revealed hidden stretches of smooth sand, but once the water started rolling back in, you could get in trouble in the blink of an eye. If the rocks didn't get you, the currents would.

  She didn't say any of that to Noah. He knew the realities of Maine beaches. She saw the way his eyes darkened when he realized the tide was rising.

  "I don't see anything," he said into the wind. "The place is deserted."

  She cupped her hands around her mouth and for the second time that day she screamed, "Soophiiiie!"

  Noah did the same, louder still.

  "Wait!" Gracie motioned for him to be quiet. "I hear something."

  "I don't hear—"

  "Papa!" The sound was soft, so soft it was almost lost in the rush of wind and sea. "Papa, help!"

  "I see her!" Gracie pointed farther down the beach. "She's lying across the rocks. Stand up, Sophie! The tide's coming in."

  Sophie tried but failed and a chill ran up Gracie's spine.

  "Stay here," Gracie said to Noah. "I'll get her. I'm better than you are at walking on these rocks."

  "The hell I'll stay here. I'm going with you."

  She would have been disappointed if he'd said anything else.

  They struck out over the rocks, scrambling, slipping, swearing under their breaths. Even Gracie found it tough going. The sky melted into the sea; the rising tide obscured the rocks and made each step a leap of faith.

  Gracie cried out suddenly as the bottom dropped out beneath her and she found herself in at least ten feet of murky, icy water. "Stay there," she warned Noah as she dogpaddled fiercely to stay afloat. "One of us has to be able to go back for help if something goes wrong."

  She did a quick crawl toward Sophie, who was shivering uncontrollably. The child looked in Gracie's direction, but there was no recognition. Hypothermia, Gracie realized. She was well on her way to unconsciousness.

  "C'mon, Sophie!" Gracie cried out. "Stay awake! Don't give up on me!" Her arms were lead weights slicing through the water. Her mind was oatmeal. She peered into the darkness but Sophie's tiny form blended in with the rocks and the water, appearing and disappearing at will. "Wave to me, Soph!" Move, scream, anything to give her something to aim for, a focal point in all of the sameness..

  Thank God, Sophie somehow registered her words and lifted her hand. Gracie fixed her sights on that slight movement, narrowing her concentration until there was nothing left in the universe but that faint back-and-forth movement.

  A little more... just a little more... don't be distracted... don't look toward the horizon or you'll never get back on track... you're almost there... almost...

  Moments later Sophie threw her arms around Gracie's neck and clung to her as if she'd never let her go.

  "Don't leave me here," Sophie cried. "Don't let go!"

  "Don't worry," Gracie promised as the current swirled around them. "You're safe with me now, Sophie. Everything's going to be alright."

  Gracie tried to strike out toward shore but the second she moved Sophie let out a cry and Gracie realized with horror that the child's foot was stuck between the two rapidly disappearing rocks.

  #

  Ruth paced the driveway, calling Sophie's name, praying, trying not to cry. Her granddaughter. Her one chance for redemption. They had had so little time together, a handful of weeks to make up for the five years she had missed. God wouldn't be so cruel as to take Sophie now when she was so tiny, so vulnerable. Sophie had been through so much in her short life. Was it asking too much that she be allowed to have a home and family to call her own?

  The thought that she might lose all three of them—Sophie, Noah, and Gracie—hit Ruth like a blow. She sagged against the side of Laquita's car and choked back a sob. She felt old and useless, trapped by time and infirmity, unable to get out there and join in the search.

  She had made up her mind to tell Noah and Gracie everything but Gracie had jumped the gun and leaped to the wrong conclusion and see where it had led them. Sophie had run off, Noah and Gracie were at odds, and Ruth was more alone than ever before.

  Simon and Mona were long gone. Ben had finally found happiness. And there was Ruth, keeper of secrets, with the chance to set things right if she only could. Just give me one more chance to do this, she pleaded with God, not for my sake, but for theirs.

  Her time was over but theirs had yet to begin.

  #

  Noah dived deep, trying to leverage his body weight and use it to pry the rock off Sophie's foot but the natural buoyancy of the salt water worked against him. Three times he dived and three times he returned to the surface, gasping for air and cursing his failure to free his daughter. Gracie, kicking furiously to stay afloat, used her body as a prop for Sophie to lean against. Their margin for error was quickly disappearing. Even with Gracie helping to keep Sophie's nose and mouth above the water line, it wouldn't be long before the water enveloped the child and they would lose her.

  Everything else dropped away from him. Anger. Pain. Sorrow. All that mattered was Sophie. He filled his lungs with air then went down again. He used his legs this time, summoning up every ounce of strength and ingenuity at his command, then kicked hard. The rock slid away, freeing Sophie's foot at last.

  "You did it!" Gracie cheered when he rose, sputtering, to the surface. "Noah, you did it!"

  Sophie clung to Gracie and re
fused to let go.

  "Can you make it back with her?" he asked and Gracie nodded.

  "Try and stop me," she said.

  He had never loved her more than he did at that moment. She was brave and strong and when she loved, she loved with everything she had to give. She was his in every way except the one that really mattered. She could never be his wife, never be the mother of his children. They would watch Sophie grow up from opposite ends of town, watch each other grow old, watch each other grow lonelier as the days grew shorter and there was nothing in heaven or on earth that could give their story the ending it deserved.

  Gracie's legs caved underneath her when she reached the rocky shore. She tried to stand but the combination of icy water and terror had done a number on her and she collapsed on her side, careful not to hurt Sophie who was clinging to her like a baby monkey.

  "I'm c-cold," Sophie whimpered, burrowing closer to Gracie.

  "So am I, honey," she managed, hugging her tightly. "We'll get you home as fast as we can and get you into some warm clothes."

  Noah took Sophie from her and the exhausted child fell deeply asleep almost immediately with her head resting against his shoulder. The sight of Noah and his daughter standing there on that rocky beach was almost Gracie's undoing. They looked right together, as if all that had happened between Noah and Gracie, the years of loneliness and despair, had found their purpose in the little girl who slept soundly in his arms.