Firefly Beach

by Luanne Rice

  “Listen,” Joe said. “You want to drink, do it somewhere besides the Renwick Inn. When it’s your turn to bunk there, stay away from Caroline and her sisters.”

  “Sister,” Bill corrected Joe. “There was only one.”

  There are two, Joe thought, remembering Caroline’s letters. He didn’t bother to enlighten Bill.

  “I’ll tell everyone, not just you, but the Renwicks are off limits. Let’s just say they’re friends of the family. Okay?”

  “Gotta respect that,” Bill conceded. “But they’re sexy as all hell. Too bad.”

  “Too bad,” Joe agreed.

  They were nearing the water. The saltier the air got, the easier Joe breathed. Going to sea, he always felt like a freed man. All the bonds of dry land, the problems and worries, slipped away. He loved the movement of waves under his feet, the sense of wind and tides having more power than he did. It had always been that way, since around the time he stopped writing to Caroline. He had escaped life by shipping out.

  The road curved around, the coast grew rocky. In the back of his mind, Joe wondered where it was: Firefly Hill, the place where his father had shot himself. He could locate it on a chart—had done so a million times—but being so physically close sent chills down his neck.

  On the USGS charts, the town was called Black Hall and the point of land, jutting like a crooked elbow into Long Island Sound, was called Hubbard’s Point. Firefly Hill was a dot on the chart, the apostrophe in the name “Hubbard’s Point,” the highest point of land on the shoreline from Branford to Stonington. Firefly Beach was the family’s name for their private beach; Joe recalled Caroline’s story about having fireflies instead of a lighthouse.

  Joe had dived for treasure in five of the seven seas, gotten rich doing it, found artifacts he still couldn’t believe. But the Cambria was his Holy Grail. His Atlantis. Diving off Bosporus, his hold filled with Turkish gold and casks of Russian rubies, he had rocked the nights away in his cramped bunk, plotting his excavation of the Cambria. Finally, he laid legal claim to the wreck and brought his equipment and team and fleet north from Florida.

  Was it just because the Cambria had sunk off the Black Hall shore? Within sight of Firefly Hill? Staring at the foggy road ahead of him, Joe thought to himself: Black Hall should be marked by a skull and crossbones on nautical charts. His reaction might have been less intense if the same name hadn’t made him feel so happy for all those years, seeing it postmarked on Caroline’s letters. He was bitter about the way she had held back the truth. But she had piqued his interest early with her letter about the Cambria, and here he was. In Renwick territory.

  In too many ways, the Renwicks had shaped his life. Hugh had come to paint in Newport. Joe’s mother worked for a lobster company, just a pretty fish lady with rough hands and sore feet, and when the artist with his easel on the dock had asked her to have a drink with him, it had been too exciting to turn down.

  Although the affair didn’t last long, from the very beginning Hugh owned Joe’s mother’s heart. When his father found out, it broke his. She spent her life loving a man she could never have, and the years and events made her bitter. She remarried, had another son, tried to live her life better the second time. But she could never stop loving Hugh Renwick and she had never been accessible to Joe.

  After all these years, no one had ever told him the whole story of his father’s death. Only the Renwicks knew what had happened in that house. Roman Catholic, his mother had kept even the fact of his suicide buried for as long as she could. That, plus the guilt she must have felt over the affair and what it drove his father to do, had turned the truth into a black secret that she had never talked about before her death. Joe felt the bitterness rising. He wanted to turn around and ask Caroline questions. But too many years had passed between them in silence.

  He pulled into the sandy parking lot at Moonstone Point, parked his pickup truck next to the dockmaster’s office. Half the trucks in the shabby old lot belonged to Joe’s crew, and more were pulling in. Most of them were already headed out to the Meteor, the research vessel his guys referred to as “the mother ship.” He used the truck’s CB radio to call the launch.

  “Meteor, this is Patriot One, we’re at the dock. Over,” he said into the microphone.

  “Roger, Patriot,” came the crackling voice. “Coming to get you straightaway. Over.”

  “Make it fast,” Joe said, his chest hurting with an old pressure. “I’m getting land legs, I’ve been here so long.”

  “Don’t worry, skipper. We’re on the way.”

  Joe clicked off, settling back to wait. He listened to Bill talk about the site, what they’d seen earlier that day. The project was exciting; in spite of himself, Joe breathed the salt air and began to relax.

  Lives lost, hopes gone down. With the sunken ship came a hold of old dreams, the very specific lives of a ship captain and his mates. That’s how Joe saw it: Raising a vessel’s treasure was like meeting the dead. Their families, their habits, their fragile old bones.

  He heard the high pitch of the launch’s engine, the slap of its hull. Grabbing his chart case and duffel bag, he climbed out of the pickup truck. The sea was dark gray and choppy; clouds were thick on the horizon. The big mako bounded across the waves, sidled up to the dock.

  Dan Forsythe, the launch driver, wore an orange foul-weather jacket over khaki shorts. “Hey, captain,” he said.

  “Hi, Dan,” Joe said, climbing down the ladder. It was dead-low tide, a long drop from the dock to the water. In his mind, he was already back at work, calculating tomorrow’s tides and currents, thinking of the operation.

  “Water’s rough. Hope that doesn’t work against us,” Dan said. “We going to try stabilizing the aft timbers tomorrow?”

  “If the bottom hasn’t shifted,” Joe said.

  They wheeled away from the dock, through the harbor crowded with pleasure boats, and out to sea. Lights were beginning to come on in the houses along the shore. Joe’s eyes were drawn to them; he couldn’t help it.

  He tried to concentrate on work, but it was a lost cause. Black Hall stole his attention. Which one was Firefly Hill? He brushed the salt spray out of his eyes, gazing at the salt marshes and granite ledges. The houses slid by, and Joe thought of Caroline, of the darkness and trouble in her beautiful gray-blue eyes, her toughness and secrets. Now that he had met her, he couldn’t get her out of his mind.

  But then, he never could.

  “What’s he like?” Skye asked Clea.

  “Can Mom hear you?” Clea asked, wanting to be sure they had privacy.

  They were on the telephone. It was late, but Clea had called Firefly Hill the minute she got home from the Renwick Inn, after meeting Joe and leaving Caroline. The news of Joe Connor dropping into their midst was too crucial to keep from Skye.

  “No,” Skye said, “Mom’s in the other room. Tell me.”

  “He’s all grown up,” Clea said. “Isn’t it weird? All these years have passed, but I imagine Joe Connor still looking like that old picture Caroline always used to carry around.”

  “Six years old,” Skye said, “with that cowlick and his front tooth missing.”

  “He’s handsome,” Clea said, “in a seaside kind of way. Very bright blue eyes, and he’s tall. Strong, the way I guess men get when they go around lugging sea chests up from the bottom of the ocean.” She spoke softly, not wanting to hurt Peter’s feelings. As the hospital chaplain, he didn’t do much heavy lifting. He visited the sick and soothed the bereaved, and Clea loved him more than she believed humanly possible. He was upstairs, reading one last story to Mark and Maripat.

  “What is he, a fisherman?” Skye asked. “Like his father?”

  “No, he has a marine salvage business. You know those boats we can see from Mom’s? Those are his. He’s a treasure hunter.”

  “How did Caroline seem, meeting him?”

  “Well, she…” Clea began, but she was distracted by the sound of clinking ice cubes. “What’s that? Sk
ye, you’re not still drinking, are you?”

  “I’m having a nightcap,” Skye said. “Here I am, in my old room at Mom’s. Thirty-one years old, and I’ve moved back home. What a loser.”

  “That’s not true,” Clea said. Was Skye as bereft as she suddenly sounded? Or was it just booze talking? Clea had watched alcohol work its black magic before on their father.

  “Tell me, Clea,” Skye said calmly. “How did Caroline take meeting him?”

  “She was shocked,” Clea said.

  “Because she loved him,” Skye said in a low and dangerous voice.

  “She didn’t love him,” Clea said. “She was only fifteen when they stopped writing to each other. It was just a crush.”

  “She loved him,” Skye said. “She loved him more than anything.”

  Clea heard the tense edge in Skye’s voice again, and she sat still, listening.

  “Caroline used to talk about him,” Skye said. “I remember. And she didn’t stop carrying his picture. She kept it with her for ages afterward. She took it on every horrible trip, every time Dad left us alone.”

  “I know.”

  “Kept it in her backpack, one of those waterproof pockets.”

  “Don’t, Skye,” Clea said, feeling her heart start to pump.

  “Joe would understand.”

  “Understand what?” Clea asked.

  “Me,” Skye said. “Caroline. Redhawk. The universe.”

  “He’s a scruffy pirate with holes in his shoes,” Clea said, her anxiety growing. “He’s not an oracle.”

  “Where’s he keep his pirate ship when it’s not off Mom’s?” Skye asked.

  “Meteor, it’s called. I saw the name painted on the side of his truck. At Moonstone Point, I guess. What do you want to say to him?” Clea pressed.

  “That maybe it was an accident,” Skye said. “Maybe his father didn’t mean to shoot himself.”

  “Skye.”

  “It could have been,” Skye said, her voice suddenly thick with tears, drunkenness making her sound maudlin. “You can see why I’d think that, can’t you?”

  “Skye, listen to me,” Clea said. “You’ve had too much to drink. Go to bed, and you’ll feel better in the morning.”

  “I think I could help him,” Skye said. “I really think I could help him.”

  The sound of Skye’s muffled sobs filled the phone.

  Clea put her head down. She tried to gather her thoughts, to say something soothing that would defuse Skye’s contorted grief, make her want to go to sleep. But before she could speak, Skye hung up the phone.

  Clea sat still, wondering what to do. Was Skye going to do something crazy? Go to bed, she prayed. Go to sleep, Skye. Climbing the stairs, she decided to check on her children. For so long, she and her sisters had faced their past by not facing it. They busied themselves to avoid it. Clea had a family. If her family was happy, she could be too. Happiness was so cleansing.

  She tiptoed into her children’s rooms, kissed them each as they slept. Whispering “sweet dreams” into Maripat’s ear, she wished for her daughter’s dreams to be free of all fear. She kissed Mark, wishing the same. Kissing her kids, Clea suddenly knew she had to call Skye back. She felt so frantic, she fumbled the buttons as she dialed the telephone.

  Augusta answered. Clea heard the pleased warmth in her mother’s voice that one of her daughters would call, even this late, even to talk to Skye instead of her. She called upstairs for Skye, and told Clea she must have gone out. Clea felt her heart banging. Her hands felt clammy. “Thanks, Mom,” she said, blowing kisses into the phone as if nothing were wrong. Then she called Caroline.

  “I think I just did something stupid,” she said. “I just spoke to Skye. She’s very upset, and I think she’s gone down to the dock. She’s drunk.”

  “You let her hang up?”

  “What was I supposed to do?” Clea asked.

  “I know,” Caroline said. “I’m sorry, Clea. It’s not your fault.”

  “It feels like it is,” Clea said.

  The town was small. Everyone knew Skye, and Caroline got the phone call. She immediately telephoned Clea to tell her, and sped to the Shoreline General Hospital. All three Renwick girls had been born there. Her heart racing, not knowing what she was going to find, Caroline tried to gain courage from that fact: Skye had come to life in this place.

  “She’s alive,” the policeman said.

  Caroline nodded, her knees going weak with relief.

  “She’s drunk out of her mind. No one’s going to look the other way on this,” he said. “She’s going to get a DWI.”

  Caroline read his badge: Officer John Daugherty. She knew him from around town; sometimes he brought his wife to the inn for dinner. “Did you find her?” she asked.

  “Yes, I did.”

  “Thank you,” Caroline said.

  “She’s a lucky person,” he said. “She really cracked up good, and she could have gotten herself killed.”

  They stood outside the emergency entrance, the summer breeze soft and warm. Police cars had pulled in helter-skelter, their blue lights silently flashing, as if the hospital itself were the scene of a crime. Officer Daugherty had kind eyes and a calm voice, and he spoke with the soft regret Caroline remembered from the officers who had sometimes come to the inn to tell them they had picked up Hugh for drunk driving.

  “Nature saved her,” he said. “She left the pavement going eighty miles an hour, but her wheels hit a bog. There’s a marsh along Moonstone Road, and her tires sank in deep. Even so, she had enough speed going to take down a fence and total her car.”

  “Moonstone Road?” Caroline asked.

  “Yes. Heading for the docks. I can’t help knowing she’s married to Simon Whitford, but that’s not the name she was saying when I got to her.”

  “What name was she saying?”

  The officer lowered his voice, trying to be discreet. “Joe,” he said. “She was calling for someone named Joe.”

  Caroline found Skye in a private cubicle in the emergency room.

  Skye Renwick Whitford looked like an angel in white. White bandages, white sheets, pearlescent white skin. Except for the bruises’ purple, black, wine-red. Her light lashes rested on high cheekbones. She was so thin, so small, she looked more like a child than a woman. The sight of her filled Caroline with such powerful love, she shook her head and had to take a step back.

  Love expanded Caroline’s chest and made her heart hurt. She stood at Skye’s side, gazing down at her. She lay so still. Was she even breathing? Caroline watched for her chest to rise and fall. Skye’s small mouth was open slightly under the cool green oxygen mask, her upper lip gashed and swollen. Her bruised eyelids twitched with dreams.

  Caroline gently took Skye’s hand. It was a sculptor’s hand, rough as a workman’s. Her fingernails were dirty with paint and clay. Bringing the tiny hand to her lips, Caroline smelled turpentine.

  “Skye,” she said. “Can you hear me?”

  Skye didn’t reply.

  “You didn’t mean this one, did you?” Caroline asked. “You didn’t drive off the road on purpose. You were on your way somewhere.”

  “Skye?” Caroline tried again. “Why did you want to see Joe?”

  The sight of Skye’s face made Caroline stop. Her eyes were closed, but tears were sliding out of them, down her cheeks. Were her lips moving under the mask? The rushing oxygen sounded loud, a little unreal. Skye reached up and pulled the mask away.

  “I didn’t get to the dock,” she said.

  “No,” Caroline said.

  “It sounds stupid now,” she said. “But it made sense at the time.”

  “Tell me anyway.”

  “I hate sobering up,” Skye whispered. “My head hurts, and I feel like an idiot. Will you get me out of here?”

  “I can’t,” Caroline said. “Not right now.”

  “Maybe his father made a mistake,” Skye said, touching her bruised face. “Shot the wrong person.”

  �
��The wrong person?” Caroline asked, feeling sick. “Who would he have shot instead?”

  “Me,” Skye said.

  “You weren’t born yet,” Caroline said. “You were still in Mom’s womb.”

  “I wish he had,” Skye said. “Then I wouldn’t have been born.”

  “If you hadn’t,” Caroline said, putting her face right beside Skye’s “I wouldn’t have had you for a sister. Clea and I wouldn’t have known you at all. Don’t say those things.”

  “I wouldn’t be a killer,” Skye said.

  “Oh, Skye,” Caroline said, her eyes filling with tears. It always came back to this. How could she think it wouldn’t?

  Skye twitched, from pain or vodka or Demerol. Her voice was choked, her words hard to understand. Caroline wished her father were there. She wanted him to see Skye’s agony, soothe her head with his rough, kind hands, tell her to forgive herself. His mistake had brought her here. Caroline squeezed Skye’s hand. She searched her mind for something to say, something wise and comforting, but she felt too churned up herself.

  “Joe,” Skye said.

  “Why are you calling for him?” Caroline asked. “What do you want him for?”

  “We’re connected. Don’t you feel it?” Skye asked, her eyes wide open.

  “I used to,” Caroline said.

  “More than ever now,” Skye continued, almost unhearing.

  Caroline held her hand and didn’t answer.

  Later, in the waiting room, she bowed her head so no one could see her face. How had they gotten here?

  Six-feet-three, Hugh Renwick was a large man, and very strong; his ideas were huge to match.

  He had been a great outdoorsman, as excessive in his sport as he was in his art and life, and he had wanted to teach his daughters the things other men taught sons. He gave them compasses and Swiss Army knives. He taught them to read the sky and mountain trails, to hunt for food.

  His home had been violated by a stranger. The reason didn’t count. Hugh, thinking that dangers lurked in every corner now, wanted his daughters to be able to defend themselves. Even if his affair with James Connor’s wife was the cause of the attack.