Firefly Beach

by Luanne Rice

  “Oh, Mom…” Caroline said, her eyes filling because sometimes she had felt the same way.

  “I don’t know what I’d do without my girls.”

  “We don’t know what we’d do without you,” Caroline said.

  “Skye…” Augusta said, her voice trailing off, her eyes sweeping up the white house to a window where white curtains fluttered in the breeze.

  “I know,” Caroline said, following her mother’s gaze to Skye’s bedroom window.

  “I’ve made so many mistakes,” Augusta said, her voice thick. “And so much damage has been done.”

  “So much good too,” Caroline said quietly, thinking of last night, of Joe helping Skye, of Sam running to the rescue, of Clea and Peter helplessly looking on. “There is so much in our families that’s good.”

  Joe stared at the sea. The waves sparkled. The day was as sunny as a summer day got, but the old anger had closed in like fog in Maine. It hung thick and heavy, and it kept him locked in place. He handled his business, but his thoughts kept returning to the Renwicks.

  Coming here was a mistake. Diving on the Cambria was a success, but the rest left him muddled and fierce. He had wanted to put some things to rest by facing Black Hall. He had stirred them up instead. His hands in his pocket, he felt something unfamiliar. Frowning, he pulled out the cameo.

  Pale and incandescent, the cameo showed the profile of a woman. Her face was noble and proud, with an unmistakable touch of sadness and strength around the mouth. Even on something so old and tiny, the emotion was apparent. Her hair was full, her forehead high. She reminded Joe of Caroline. He scowled.

  “Boy, Mrs. Renwick was one mad old lady,” Sam said, coming across the deck.

  “Yeah,” Joe said, slipping the cameo back into his pocket.

  “She could go on, couldn’t she?”

  Joe nodded. He watched gulls gather on a school of feeding blues, the water choppy and silver with thrashing fish. He glanced at Sam. The kid seemed okay, well-adjusted, not too bothered by what had happened. In fact, he had a big grin on his face.

  “Kinda spoiled a nice party,” Sam said. “Chasing us away like that.”

  “She was right,” Joe said.

  “About what?”

  “We had no business being there.”

  Sam raised one eyebrow. Behind his cockeyed glasses, it had the effect of making his frames look straight for once.

  “Excuse me,” Sam said, “but Caroline invited us.”

  Joe frowned, watching the gulls gulping down pieces of bait fish. He kept his eyes peeled for sharks. There weren’t too many bad species in these waters, but every now and then a mako would come along.

  “Well, she did,” Sam said.

  “I know that, knucklehead. But getting invited isn’t the point. I should have used common sense. We had no place at a Renwick party.”

  “Mrs. Renwick’s just pissed because her husband had a thing for Mom. So what? They had their day, Mom married my dad, Mr. Renwick became the Hemingway of painters, and life went on. What’s her big problem?”

  “Sam…” Joe said warningly. He thought of the bloody details of his father’s death, and stared angrily at the waves.

  “It’s not Caroline’s fault, her mother being so jealous and neurotic.”

  “I know,” Joe said. It was neither one of their faults, his nor Caroline’s, that they had been born to the parents they had.

  “Does this mean you won’t be saying yes to Yale?”

  Joe shot him a look. “I was never going to say yes to Yale.”

  “Shit,” Sam said. “I had big hopes.”

  “Yeah? Of what?”

  “You getting on the faculty. Putting in a good word for me.”

  “You don’t need any good words from me, Sam,” Joe said, a laugh escaping. “You’ve got plenty of your own.”

  “Still, it would have been nice. Both of us living in the area, teaching together. I wouldn’t mind getting to know you a little better,” Sam said, playing with a paper clip he had fished out of his shorts pocket.

  “You know me fine,” Joe said.

  “Yeah, whatever. You left home when I was three. And then the drinking…”

  The blues kept breaking the water’s surface, flashing silver in the sun. The birds were feeding, diving. Joe touched the cameo in his pocket. It felt hot in his hand. He’d go below, look for the gold. Yale. Jesus Christ.

  “You want to dive?” he asked Sam.

  Sam shook his head. He was studying a hangnail that had apparently been bothering him. “Nah, that’s okay. I have work to do. My research…got to get back to Nova Scotia soon.”

  “Yeah, I remember those days.” Joe tried a smile. “Got to get the data before your grant runs out.”

  “No shit,” Sam said, trying to smile back. For Sam, it was a weak act. His mouth barely moved. His eyes were bitter with disappointment. He went back to the hangnail. Joe blinked, tried to get interested in watching the birds again, hating himself.

  Black Hall.

  He remembered his last dive with Sam, when he had found the cameo. The kid had been trying to talk him into Yale that day too. He had been swimming around, making Joe laugh, bubbles floating out of his mouth, silently forming the words with his lips: Black Hall.

  What the hell was he pushing. That he and Joe should get a place in town, recreate the family life they never had? Teach together? Discuss their classes on the long commute? Become a team of Ivy League, treasure-hunting brothers? Live in Black Hall so Joe could fall in love with Caroline?

  Joe exhaled, stood up, and arched his back. It was all a bunch of crap. Sam was a dreamer, and he always had been. He thought Joe didn’t know him well, and maybe that was true. But Joe Connor loved his brother Sam as much as he had ever loved anyone—if he even knew what the word meant—and that was even truer.

  Glancing across the sea, Joe faced toward Black Hall. He knew she was there. He had seen Caroline’s face while her mother was carrying on. Those gray-blue eyes, the color of a safe harbor, so wild with love and worry for her mother and sister, things Joe could understand but had never had time to feel. How could he? Finishing grad school, finding treasure, giving lectures at places like Yale?

  Joe had seen. He had looked in Caroline’s face and read it all. But he had been powerless to do anything but the thing he did best: walk away.

  And he did it again now.

  Leaving his brother alone on deck, he turned his back. He touched the cameo in his pocket, and it scorched his hand. The salt wind stung his eyes. It burned the spot where Skye had scratched his face. Black Hall was far away, across the open water. Yale was for academics. Let Sam be the professor. Joe was a treasure hunter, plain and simple.

  And treasure hunters worked alone.

  Caroline waited for Clea to arrive.

  Augusta had taken her needlepoint into the shade, as if she knew her daughters had something important to talk about that did not include her. Or perhaps she wanted it that way. Caroline and Clea climbed the back stairs. The stairway, dark and cool, smelled of ghosts and summer.

  “What are we going to say to her?” Clea asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  Augusta had told Caroline that Simon had not come home last night. His car was still missing. Knowing Skye was alone, they walked into the room and stood at the end of her bed, watching her sleep. Caroline’s heart was in her throat.

  Skye was curled up, a white sheet pulled to her chin. She looked so young. Homer lay at the foot of her bed, curled up in a ball. At the sight of Caroline, he raised his head, eased off the bed, and stretched. His bones were stiff; he moved like a creaky old man. Trudging over to Caroline, he raised his white muzzle to be petted. They looked into each other’s eyes, and Caroline saw his throat vibrating with unuttered sound. Her heart filled with love for the dog, and for the girl he had signed on to protect.

  “Skye,” Caroline said, her voice low.

  “Wake up. It’s morning,” Clea said, in her b
est mother’s voice.

  Skye rolled over. She opened her eyes, saw her sisters then closed them again with a moan. Her eyes looked sunken, her mouth tight. She lay still, a rabbit trying to hide.

  “Come on, Skye,” Caroline said, opening the curtains. “We’re going to the beach.”

  Skye took her time.

  She showered. She fixed a cup of coffee, then felt too sick to drink it. She made some calls from the phone in the library—her sisters assumed she was looking for Simon. They did not ask. Simon was irrelevant.

  Rocking on the front porch while Clea watered the garden, Caroline remembered going to Firefly Beach as children. She and her sisters had simply pulled on their bathing suits, run outside, flown down the worn cliff stairs. Now she sat with Homer, trying to be patient. He lay on his side with his eyes open, watching her rock back and forth.

  But finally Skye was ready, and down the steps they went. Homer went through the garden, smelling all the rosebushes, giving the women a head start.

  “I’m sorry about what happened with Joe,” Skye began. “I feel like it was my fault that Mom—”

  “Stop, Skye,” Caroline said. “It wasn’t your fault. It doesn’t matter anyway. Okay?”

  Waves broke just offshore and raced in white trickles over the sand flats of low tide. The sea air felt fresh and cool on their bare arms and legs as they walked through the shallow water. The Meteor rocked on her mooring, way offshore, and Caroline tried not to look. She felt uneasy enough.

  When they reached a silvery log high above the tide line, deep in the spartina haunted by fireflies, driftwood from many winters ago, they sat down. Sandpipers skittered across the wet sand, and it glistened like a mirror. Skye held her head in her hands. Homer had been making his way slowly down the stairs. The minute his paws hit the sand, he took off in a run, flying down the tide line like a young dog.

  Caroline nudged Skye.

  Skye raised her head. Her dull eyes suddenly brightened. She smiled, watching Homer chase sea gulls away from a dead horseshoe crab. His shoulders were tired, but his face was proud. Tongue lolling out, he glanced at the sisters.

  “Look,” Caroline said. “He wants to make sure we see him.”

  “Good dog!” Clea called. “Scaring all the sea gulls.”

  He nuzzled the crab carapace. It was a large crab, the size of a dinner plate, its stiff tail a foot long. Turning the creature over, he made sure it wouldn’t bite. Then he grabbed the shell in his teeth and carried it, tail swinging like a pendulum, to lay at Caroline’s feet.

  “He’s your dog,” Skye said. Caroline knew without looking that Skye was crying.

  “He loves you,” Caroline said. “He doesn’t want you feeling bad all the time.”

  Skye didn’t reply. She stared at the sand between her feet. She used her index finger to wipe her tears.

  “What are we going to do, Skye?” Caroline asked.

  “Do?” Skye asked, looking up. Her face was flushed, tear-streaked. It bore the brownish remnants of bruises from her car accident.

  “Dad died drunk,” Caroline said. “We never talk about it. We say he had stomach cancer, that he died because the radiation didn’t work, but that’s not the whole truth.”

  “Stop, Caroline,” Skye said.

  “Let her, Skye,” Clea said.

  “You’re in on this?” Skye asked, sounding betrayed. Clea nodded.

  “Remember his last few months? How he spent all his time at my bar? How he wasn’t supposed to have ‘cocktails’ with his medication, but he did anyway?” Caroline paused, but Skye wouldn’t respond. “Drinking made him so mean, and Dad wasn’t a mean man.”

  “He was dying, Caroline.”

  “But he didn’t have to die drunk, Skye. He could have faced the truth, faced us. He could have let us help him. We would have told him it was okay, that we forgave him for whatever he thought we hated him for. Hated himself for.”

  “Don’t say he hated himself,” Skye said.

  “He did. Last night Mom reminded me of something. He stopped painting. Just stopped.”

  “Remember how hard it used to be to get him out of his studio, to come down for dinner?” Clea asked.

  “Even for Thanksgiving or Christmas,” Caroline said. “Whenever he was home, he was painting in his studio. I’d want him to play catch, or to drive me somewhere, but if he had the door closed, all bets were off. Things changed right around the time he started drinking. All of a sudden, he never worked again. He just wouldn’t let himself. And Dad loved to paint.”

  “So much,” Clea said.

  “Maybe he was blocked,” Skye said. “You don’t know how that feels.”

  “It felt like he stopped loving us,” Caroline said. “I don’t know about you, but that’s how it felt to me. Blocked from painting, blocked from loving his family. Drinking all the time. We loved him, Skye.”

  “Maybe he couldn’t help himself.”

  “I’ve never understood,” Caroline said. “To be such a wonderful artist, to be able to express all that—important things—and to purposely lock it inside. That’s what he did. Shut us out.”

  “He had Mom.”

  “He was mean to Mom too. She loved him so much, she’ll protect him forever. But he shut her out too.”

  “Stop it,” Skye said, putting her hands over her ears. Tears were streaming from her eyes. “It’s because of me, I know that. I shot that boy. Dad couldn’t bear it, he felt so guilty for putting the gun in my hand. So if I kill myself, do you think I care?”

  “You have to care,” Caroline said, grabbing Skye’s hands.

  “Why?”

  “Because we need you. We love you so much—”

  “You don’t need anyone,” Skye blurted out, jumping to her feet. “You’re a bitter woman, Caroline. Listen to you! Attacking Dad like this!”

  “I’m not attacking him. I—”

  “You should feel sorry for him, being unable to paint. That must have felt like death. Worse than death, for Dad. You’re so selfish, all you care about is your own agenda. Making me feel bad. I tried to apologize before for what happened with Joe, and do you even give a shit?”

  “Skye!” Caroline said, stunned.

  “You’re so high and mighty. Miss Perfect. Simon always says it about you, and he’s right. I agree with him.”

  “Cool down,” Clea suggested, touching Skye’s arm.

  “I’m not perfect. I never said that—” Caroline said.

  “You’re more like Dad than I am. So what if I drink? At least I feel! You’re so closed off, so steel-plated, you won’t even accept an apology.”

  “You don’t owe me—”

  “Owing has nothing to do with it. I feel awful about what happened at the ball. Horrible! But what’s it to you? What do you care if Joe walks out of your life? So what if he takes off? He’d find out soon enough how cold you are. You don’t care. You’re too busy living my life.”

  “I don’t want to live your life,” Caroline said.

  “You act like you do. Trying to control me all the time…”

  “Skye—”

  “Why wouldn’t you rather have my life?” Skye asked, weeping. “I’m the one who does things. I took the chance of falling in love with someone, marrying him. You just try to get me to leave him. You’re like a frustrated saint. Martyring around all over the place. I killed Andrew Lockwood, not you, Caroline. You held his hand, you walked me out of the woods. But I killed him.”

  “Skye,” Caroline said, struggling to keep her voice steady. “I never said—”

  “Get mad, Caroline. React! Jesus Christ! Don’t stay so calm, don’t be so fucking afraid of upsetting me.”

  Paralyzed with shock, Caroline could neither speak nor move.

  “And stop trying to take over my life,” Skye said viciously. “You don’t know how I feel about anything.”

  She ran down the beach.

  January 2, 1980

  Dear Joe,

  It’s been so lo
ng since I’ve heard from you. Please write back. I miss you. I still love you.

  C.

  April 30, 1980

  Dear Caroline,

  This is my last letter to you. You knew, didn’t you? All that shit about trust, about best friends, about our families, about LOVE. And you knew.

  You were there. My dad died in your kitchen. I know the whole stupid story now. Your family’s not the only one with a gun. Did you hear the shot, C? Did you watch him die?

  It sucks, you knowing all along. Did you just think I was a jerk? Were you and your sisters laughing at me? Or did you just think I wouldn’t find out?

  Well, I found out.

  Don’t write back. I hate you, your father, that house of hell you call Firefly Hill.

  Joe Connor

  May 12, 1980

  Dear Joe,

  Please don’t hate me. I kept it secret because I didn’t want to hurt you. Your father came here, it’s true, you knew that already. I knew, but believe me, Joe: I never, never wanted to hurt you. The opposite.

  I’m so sorry. If I could take it back—all of it, any of it—I would. Please, please don’t hate me. You don’t know what your friendship means to me. If you can’t love me anymore, I understand. But don’t hate me. I’m only sixteen, and you’re only seventeen. I can’t stand thinking of all that life waiting for me if you hate me.

  Love,

  Caroline

  P.S. Please write back, Joe. Anything you want to know, I’ll tell you. I’m here, and I always will be.

  EVERY YEAR SKYE AND CLEA HELPED CAROLINE CLEAN up after the ball. It was a tradition, something neither of them ever missed. Skye was half dreading it; she didn’t want to face Caroline after the scene on the beach the day before. But when Skye walked into the inn, Michele said Caroline had called in sick. She had asked not to be disturbed. Skye was on her way over, to knock on the door of her cottage, when Clea intercepted her.

  “Hello, my little storm cloud,” Clea said, kissing her.

  “Is she really upset?” Skye asked.

  “She’s really tired.”

  “I want to talk to her—”

  “She’s sleeping late. Just let her rest,” Clea said.

  “Is it because of me—?”

  “Even if it is, just leave her alone right now.”