Firefly Beach

by Luanne Rice

  Sam’s body was healing, but so was his spirit. Because he had convinced himself that Joe had been trying to tell him something. By saying Black Hall he was really saying Yale. He had made a decision to give up treasure hunting, stay in New England, be near Caroline and Sam. Sam felt himself grinning, and he couldn’t stop.

  “When were you going to tell me?” Sam asked.

  “Tell you what?”

  “Caroline.”

  Joe turned red. He tried to suppress the smile, but he couldn’t. He nodded, a wry look on his face. “Yeah,” he said.

  “You’re in love with her? That’s what’s going on?”

  “It’s true,” Joe said, sighing as his grin got bigger.

  “And you’re gonna move in with her?”

  “What?” Joe asked, the grin disappearing.

  “Black Hall.” Sam said, smiling so hard it made his temples burn, his skull throb, his ears ache.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I saw you, underwater,” Sam said, the smile dissipating a little. He wanted Joe to get it out, tell him that he’d changed his mind, decided to stay. That their little brush with death had hastened a conversion that was already under way, that he was finally figuring out what was important in life.

  “Yeah?” Joe asked, waiting for a hint.

  “You said Black Hall. As if you were trying to tell me something.”

  Joe frowned. “When we first went down? Before I entered the wreck?”

  “Yes, then.”

  “I was saying ‘Go over there,’ ‘Wait out here,’ ” Joe said. “Something like that. I didn’t want you inside the wreck while we were bringing out the gold. I thought it’d be too dangerous.”

  “You mean you’re not gonna go to Yale?”

  “I told you, Sam—”

  “But I thought…” Sam trailed off. He stared at the window. Somehow he had imagined that Caroline was going to change everything. He had seen the way Joe behaved around her, turning nicer and acting as if he were finally chucking off the old armor. Finally letting his guard down enough to fall in love. Sam had thought Caroline would keep him here.

  “I told you, I’m not a teacher. You’re the smart one. I’m not cut out for university life, doing research and lecturing students.” Joe paused. “Not even at Yale.”

  Sam pulled his glasses off. His head was really starting to pound; the whales were at it again. Love and a headache, the combination made him think of his sailing accident. He had been in love for the first time, and he had lost the girl. True, he had only been eight. But now, losing Joe, he felt himself going into a tailspin.

  “Sam?” Joe said, his voice too soft.

  “What?”

  “It has nothing to do with you. If I were going to teach, I’d want to do it with you.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I would, kid.”

  “Just forget it, Joe.”

  “We’re going to see more of each other. I promise.”

  “You always say that,” Sam said, sinking into his pillow. He was still weak and tired; he felt it now. He didn’t even have the backbone to act his age, pretend he didn’t care that Joe was going to leave again, go somewhere halfway around the world and see Sam only when Sam made the effort.

  “I’m kinda tired,” Sam tried to say. The words came out garbled.

  “I mean it, Sam,” Joe said. Sam’s eyes were closed, but he felt his brother squeeze his hand. “This time it’s going to be different.”

  Augusta lay in her hospital bed, drifting in and out of sleep. She had a concussion, and had suffered two seizures. An earthquake and two aftershocks, she thought of them. Her head ached terribly, but she refused to let anyone know. Caroline was sitting beside her bed, watching Augusta with that clear, steady gaze the whole family had come to rely on. The sight of her flooded Augusta with such gratitude she gave a big smile even though she had taken her bridge out.

  “Caroline,” she said, the word coming out as a croak.

  “Are you thirsty, Mom?” Caroline asked.

  “A little,” Augusta said. She let Caroline push the button to raise her head, the little motor humming inside the bed. She opened her mouth as Caroline tilted the glass, poured a trickle of ice water into her parched throat. She swallowed, opened her mouth for more.

  Caroline supported her head so carefully. She watched like an eagle, making sure Augusta didn’t dribble on her chin. When Augusta had finished drinking, Caroline wiped her lips with a tissue. Augusta almost couldn’t bear it, the love in her oldest daughter’s eyes. When Augusta had given so little in return.

  “Here we are,” Augusta said.

  “You and me,” Caroline said, smiling.

  “Toothless and bald,” Augusta said. She was too tired to feel vain. They had shaved her head to stitch the cut, and she didn’t have the energy to wear her bridge. All she wanted to do was sleep.

  “You’re still beautiful, Mom,” Caroline said.

  Augusta shook her head, but she felt better to hear it.

  “How is Skye?” Augusta asked. “Have you seen her today?”

  “She’s fine,” Caroline said.

  Augusta nodded, looking away.

  “What, Mom?”

  “I almost feel…I don’t have the right to ask,” she said. “We turned you over to the universe a long time ago. Why should I think I can get you back now?”

  “‘We’?”

  “Your father and I.”

  “Oh, Mom,” Caroline said. “You didn’t pawn us.”

  Augusta waited for her to sav more, but she didn’t. Why should she? Caroline just didn’t want to hurt her mother by agreeing with the truth: that Augusta had been a selfish mother, unwilling and unable to go through the hard parts of life with her three daughters. Wanting only the art and the parties, the love and the fun and their father. Augusta blinked, to focus her blurry vision.

  “Mom, get well,” Caroline said, such warmth in her black-pearl eyes. “Don’t think about bad things right now. We need you at home.”

  “Have you ever needed me?” Augusta asked without rancor. “I can’t see why. I was a terrible mother.”

  “That’s not true,” Caroline said, her smile growing wider. She meant it, Augusta could see. She felt tired, nearly exhausted from the effort of simply staying awake. Sleep was coming, she could feel it deep inside herself.

  “Do you know, I’ve been lying here, thinking about it all. They’re giving me medication that makes me so drowsy. But I think about you girls, and your father and me, and I keep trying to figure it all out. How it all turned out so wrong. As if there’s one little piece missing, and if I can just get to it…”

  “It didn’t turn out all wrong,” Caroline said.

  “Our messy lives. We loved you girls so much. That much I know. He wanted so desperately to protect you. And when he couldn’t, he turned away. There wasn’t anything I could do to stop him.”

  Caroline touched her mother’s forehead, soothing the worry out of it.

  “What good does it do?” Caroline asked. “Thinking of that? It’s over, Mom. Just get better.”

  “One little piece,” Augusta said “I just want to put it all together.”

  When the time came for Joe to leave the hospital, he didn’t really have anyplace to go. He had chartered the Meteor out to a group of physical oceanographers from Woods Hole. They intended to record wave anomalies in the Atlantic Ocean—measure the heights and periods of standard waves, hoping for the occasional rogue. They were willing to pick up the Meteor in Black Hall and drop it off in Piraeus, doing their research as they crossed the Atlantic.

  Fine with Joe. He felt relieved to have the Meteor on her way over. He had to be in Greece by the first of October, Mykonos by the seventh. The weather would be favorable then, the water clear. His operation was a joint venture with an archaeologist out of Marseilles. Their permit covered thirty days, and the Greek government was not known to be flexible with extensions.

  Carolin
e had invited him to stay with her until he left.

  Joe had hesitated. Not because he didn’t love her or want to spend his last days in New England with her, but because he didn’t want to hurt her. He knew he would leave Black Hall as soon as Sam was better, as soon as they let him out of the hospital. He had told that to Caroline. She had listened, taking it all in, then said she knew, she didn’t care, she wanted him to stay anyway. Skye was staying at her house too. Not wanting her to return alone to Firefly Hill, Caroline had convinced her to stay in the guest room.

  Joe and Caroline sat on her porch glider. The night was warm, and haze hung low in the marsh. Caroline wore a white cotton dress. Joe was slouched down at one end of the glider, and Caroline leaned against his chest, away from his sore arm. Homer lay at her feet, his head resting on folded paws, utterly content to be with Caroline.

  “It’s so quiet,” Caroline said.

  “It is,” Joe said, playing with her hair.

  “Sam looked good today. He liked the brownies Clea made him.”

  “Sam’s in love with Clea,” Joe said. “If Peter weren’t such a good guy, I believe Sam would try to steal her.”

  “Everyone loves Sam,” Caroline said.

  “Even you?” Joe asked.

  “He’s my buddy,” Caroline said. “I like that, the way our families go—”

  “Go what?”

  “I was going to say together,” Caroline said quietly.

  Joe nodded. His chest felt tight, the way it did when he stayed underwater for too long. That afternoon Peter had asked him about Greece, and Joe had felt the tendons in his shoulder start to throb as he thought about leaving.

  “I like your family too. Skye and Clea.” He grinned. “Your mother…”

  “She’s very polite about you staying here,” Caroline said, smiling. “But I think it’s because she knows it’s not going to be for very long.”

  “It’s not?” Joe asked, surprising himself by the way his voice lifted at the end.

  “Is that a question?” Caroline asked.

  “I guess not,” he said. “Too bad you have your business to run. Otherwise I’d tempt you into coming to Greece with me. You keep telling me you love to travel.”

  Caroline lifted her eyes. Her expression was direct and sharp, not soft at all. She didn’t smile. “Don’t tease me,” she said.

  Easing out of Joe’s arms, she lifted their empty water glasses. She walked barefoot into the house, and he heard her moving around the kitchen. He sat very still, wondering how it would feel to live there. To not be planning the next treasure hunt. His shoulder throbbing, he shifted on the glider.

  The old dog looked up at him. Reaching down, Joe petted his head. Homer leaned into his hand, making friends. They had a lot in common, loving Caroline. Joe stroked the brittle fur, gentle and rhythmic.

  “Should we go find her?” Joe asked. Homer struggled to his feet, limping into the kitchen.

  Joe paused behind Caroline. She stood at the sink, rinsing the glasses. He could tell by the way she stood that she was upset, that he had hurt her.

  “Caroline,” he said, “I’m sorry.”

  She didn’t move. She stood there, the water running over her hands. Joe put his hands on her shoulders and turned her around. Her cheeks were wet and there were tears in the corners of her mouth. Her eyes were stern.

  “You have nothing to be sorry for,” she said. “I’m just a little sad, okay? Aren’t I allowed to feel sad?”

  “You’re allowed,” Joe said. Because he felt sad too.

  Homer stood beside Caroline. He gazed up at her, sensing her mood. As if he understood her need for comfort, he nudged her thigh with his head. She reached down to pet him, then lowered her head to his. Joe watched for a moment, realizing there was something eternal in the relationship between them. Homer was very old, past the age most dogs lived, and it hurt Joe to think he would soon die.

  “Have you had him since he was a puppy?” Joe asked.

  Caroline stayed where she was. Lovingly Homer bumped her head. When she stood, she wiped her tears.

  “Not quite,” she said. “I got him when he was about a year old.”

  “He must have been a beautiful young dog,” Joe said. “Why did his first owner give him up?”

  “He died,” Caroline said.

  “Oh, no,” Joe said, petting Homer’s back. His spine was visible through the reddish coat, and he arched into Joe’s hand. Caroline reached for something on the table. It was Skye’s hospital bracelet. She had cut it off her wrist earlier, leaving it on the kitchen table before going to her room for a rest.

  “Skye killed him,” Caroline said quietly.

  “God,” Joe said.

  “We were hunting. She was only seventeen, and she thought she was shooting a deer, but it was a man.” Caroline bowed her head.

  “I’m so sorry,” Joe said.

  “She’s never gotten over it,” Caroline said. “It was just an accident, but that doesn’t matter.”

  “No,” Joe agreed, stunned.

  “I was with her. She was beside herself—couldn’t believe what she had done. I sat with him while she stood there. Poor Skye,” Caroline said.

  “He died there in the woods?” Joe asked.

  “Yes,” Caroline continued on. “I held his hand. He had such bright eyes. He was lying there, on the trail, and I remember thinking he looked so nice and bright. That’s the word I kept thinking. So bright.”

  “Caroline,” Joe said, moved beyond words. She had seen both his father and that young man die. He loved a woman who was so kind and sensitive, and all these years he had resented her for not telling him faster. Her father had sent them hunting because of something his father had started. “What was his name?”

  “Andrew Lockwood.”

  “Homer was his dog?”

  “Yes. It was a beautiful day, and they were just out for a walk. Homer was kissing him. Licking his face all the while, trying to make him better. When Andrew’s eyes closed, Homer just licked his eyes. He never wanted to stop.”

  Joe looked at the dog’s white face. He could see him kissing his dying master, and knew why Caroline loved him so much. And why the dog loved Caroline.

  “How’s Skye?” Joe asked.

  “I don’t know,” Caroline said. “It’s with her all the time.”

  “Do you think she’d go to an AA meeting?”

  Caroline paused. She glanced from Joe to Homer in that blank way of someone who had lost hope that a tragedy could be averted. She shrugged. “I don’t know,” she said. “I doubt it.”

  “It helps me,” Joe said.

  “I wish…”

  “What?” he asked.

  “That it could help her,” Caroline whispered.

  “Caroline,” Joe said. Something was building inside him, and he had to get it out.

  “What?” she asked.

  “Come with me.”

  “To a meeting? But—”

  “No, to Greece.”

  She looked shocked. Did she think he was teasing her like before? He pulled her into his arms. He said it again, looking straight into her gray eyes. “Come to Greece with me.”

  “Don’t joke,” she said.

  “I’m not. Tell me one reason why it wouldn’t work.”

  “My family,” she said, “I can’t leave them. And I have an inn to run.”

  “You love to travel, everyone knows it. Michele knows how to run the inn. And your family—”

  She waited. She wanted him to finish the sentence: will be fine. But they both knew such predictions were impossible, that fate played tricks on people, that keeping watch was just an illusion. You could be standing right beside your sister, and she could kill a man. You could be ten feet away, and something terrible could still happen.

  “Your family knows you love them. You’ll be back.”

  “I will?”

  “Yes. I’ll talk to the guys at Yale. Not this fall, but maybe next year. I’m thinking o
f Sam too. Watching you with your family makes me want to do better with him. I’ve been on the run for a long time.”

  Caroline stepped away from Joe. Homer had retreated to an old blue blanket in the corner of her kitchen, and she leaned against the counter, watching him. He hadn’t taken his eyes off her, and her sudden attention made him raise his head, bang his tail on the floor. Caroline leaned over to pet him, and to reach into a fold of the blanket. She pulled out a small towel, battle-scarred from many play sessions. Homer bit one end while Caroline held the other.

  “My father started this,” she said, tugging on the towel.

  “With Homer?”

  “Yes. When we first brought him home, he was so upset. He cried all the time, and he wouldn’t play with any of the toys we gave him. Balls, bones. Then my father gave him an old towel. It was soft, and I guess it smelled like us.”

  “Homer liked the game?” Joe asked, wondering what this had to do with going to Greece.

  “Yes. Homer loved it. He carried the towel everywhere, and when the first one got all chewed up, we gave him another. He’d always want my father to play with him.” She paused, standing to face Joe. “My father liked it too. Till he got so sick. Then he stopped everything.”

  “His cancer, you mean?”

  “No,” Caroline said. “The kind of sickness that made him drink and turn away. Like Skye now. I’m afraid to leave her.”

  Joe walked over to her. He felt his heart pounding. He had never wanted anything as much as this. He wanted her with him, but at the same time, he needed to help her. She was caught in a trap, trying to save someone who had to help herself. He took a deep breath, than held her face gently between his hands.

  “Do you know what the opposite of love is?” he asked.

  “Hate? Joe, I could never—”

  “Fear.”

  “The opposite of love is fear,” she said, frowning.

  “We could be so fearful, we could let this go.”

  “I don’t think I’m afraid—”

  “You just said you’re afraid to leave Skye.”

  Caroline nodded, seeing his point.

  “And your father,” Joe began. Talking about Hugh Renwick wasn’t easy, especially when what he had to say was so filled with the understanding of one flawed man for another.