The Beach House

by Sally John

“Mom!” Her daughter wailed so loudly Char moved the phone from her ear.

  “Sugar, what is it?”

  “It’s Dad!”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “He won’t let me go to Evan’s tonight!”

  “Well, of course not, dear. It’s a school night.”

  “But he never says no! What did you do to him?”

  Char covered the mouthpiece and laughed.

  Savannah’s voice continued to ring out loud and clear. “He’s a flaming fossil! Grandma and Grandpa were going to take me. Evan’s mom said she’d bring me home. He invited me and Allie. Just us to study algebra, and she gets to go!”

  “You know the rules. Boys and school nights—”

  “Dad doesn’t have to do a thing. Grandma even liked my outfit. Then Dad walks in, takes one look, and laughs. ‘I don’t think so,’ he says. And then he says I’m not going anywhere anyway on a school night at seven o’clock. And then he smiles and says—get this—he says ‘I love you.’ What has gotten into him?”

  “Oh, sugar.” Char didn’t hold back her laugh. “Your daddy had a lesson in verbal communication, that’s all. And he loves you. Do you know how fortunate you are to hear him say that?”

  “I want my couch potato dad back! This dad is ruining everything. Allie will get Evan now. Just wait and see. She’ll move right on in. My best friend and the guy I love! My life is over!”

  Char waited for her daughter’s tears to slow. Evan had been her main crush since August. He hadn’t given any indication the feeling was mutual. An invitation to his house must have excited her to no end.

  “Savannah, sugar, it will work out. Now you just mind your daddy.”

  “Why should I? Grandma thinks he’s being ridiculous. She’ll still take me.”

  “No, Savannah. Your daddy knows what’s best for you and all of us.”

  “You’re no help!”

  “Some day it will make sense. Bye, honey.”

  “Goodbye!” She disconnected.

  Char replayed her advice. He knows what’s best. For all of them.

  Did she really believe that?

  It was so new, the concept of Cam participating in family life, of offering opinions, of setting boundaries for Savannah. What a change! What an incredibly good feeling it left inside of her!

  Char thought she had known best. Where had that taken them? To the brink of disaster.

  Cam knew about financial security, and now he knew about expressing his love, which he thought was synonymous with providing for them. No way was he going to hurt them.

  Of course he knew what was best.

  Sixty-One

  Jo pulled shut the fireplace screen and admired her handiwork. The crackling fire chased away the cool, damp night air and did its magical thing on the environment, which was to make it perfectly cozy.

  The game board was set up on the coffee table between the couch and love seat. Bone china teacups and saucers graced end tables.

  Jo smiled. It was their second to last night together and already she was missing her friends. At least Andie would be staying another week.

  “Hey, everyone.” Jo retrieved a bag she’d placed on a chair and joined the others on the couches. “Before we start, I have gifts.”

  “Jo!” Andie said. “Gifts? After all you’ve done for us? Not the least of which was bringing us together. You shouldn’t have!”

  “They’re just little mementoes to remember our time together.”

  Char clapped her hands like a delighted child. “Well, sugars, hang on. I’ve got to go get mine.”

  “Your what?”

  She only giggled and raced off to her bedroom.

  “Me too.” Molly uncurled herself from the couch and moved in her languid way.

  Andie stood and shrugged. “What’s a birthday—even a make-believe one—without gifts?” She headed to her room.

  Jo said to the empty room, “Guess I didn’t exactly bowl them over with my thoughtfulness.”

  Within moments they were all passing around plain bags to each other, laughing at the impromptu gift exchange, oohing and aahing over each other’s creative keepsakes.

  Char described how she had found colorful scarves at a kiosk the first day she strolled down the boardwalk. Andie gave them boxed note cards from the art museum’s shop, illustrated with French paintings. Molly surprised them with used books, easily purchased right under their noses as they’d browsed separately among the stacks of three shops.

  “But you win, Jo,” Molly said, “for being most surreptitious. How did you manage this? We were all together looking at these things. What was that artists’ colony called?”

  “The Spanish Village.” Jo smiled, rather pleased with her findings. She had given Andie a glass-blown paperweight for her future office; Char, handmade earrings, the gaudiest she could find; and Molly, a beautiful set of pottery, a child-size cup and bowl for the new baby. She thought someday she’d send gifts to her other four children. As soon as she learned their names and ages.

  Hugs and giggles went round the circle.

  Jo said, “I just want to thank you three for…for everything. For putting up with me all those years and this past week. I have missed you so much. You’ve always been like moms to me. Not that I know from experience what a true mom is like, but I do know I have been mothered by you. Nurtured is the word.” The speech could have gone on, but her vocal cords refused to cooperate.

  Andie said, “We did mother each other, didn’t we? We were ‘Super-girls’ from the very start.”

  Molly nodded. “Yes. We were mature little things. Aware of each other’s needs when we should have been playing with dolls. I distinctly remember at nine years of age receiving laundry tips from you, Andie, and solace from you, Jo, when I failed a spelling test.”

  Char sighed. “I do believe your moms were as unavailable as mine.” She tilted her head, as if waiting.

  Jo perceived she wanted the adjective to sink in. Unavailable.

  Molly responded for the three of them. “You knew we called our moms that?”

  “I overheard Jo say it once.”

  Jo raised her hand. “The big mouth.”

  Char smiled. “We were about eighteen. I’ve appreciated that you never wanted to say it in front of me. The fact is, I think your moms were more unavailable than mine. Even after Mama died, I had those thirteen years to cherish in my heart, thirteen years of something none of you ever had. If she had lived, I don’t think Mama would have lost herself in a career like yours did, Jo. Or been so enamored with society like yours, Molly, that she missed most of my accomplishments. Or been like yours, Andie, so childish and ill-equipped to face the real world. Mama was never self-absorbed.”

  Jo said, “Oh, Char. You are something.”

  She patted her hair and fluttered her eyelashes. “Why, I’m just your everyday Georgia peach.”

  When their chuckles faded, Andie said, “I wish we could have known your mama.”

  “I wish she could have known you all. The three nerds who took me, the blond ditz, under their wings.”

  Molly said, “We were such snots to you.”

  “And you weren’t a ditz, Char,” Jo said. “You were smart and funny and disgustingly charming. Still are, for that matter.”

  Molly and Andie nodded.

  Jo said, “We were desperate for some class in our tight little nerdy threesome. Thank God for your glitter.”

  The others turned surprised expressions to her.

  “What?”

  “Thank God?” Molly smiled.

  Jo shrugged. “I suppose we could thank Babette for every good thing in our life. Shall we play the game?”

  “Sure.”

  As game pieces were distributed, Jo felt the outsider again. Not married, no kids, no church affiliation, no connection with God.

  Good grief. Talk about a tight little threesome!

  “Jo!” Molly’s panicky cry came from the hallway.

  In the living r
oom, Jo dropped the game pieces she was boxing up and raced toward her, Andie and Char on her heels.

  Molly met them outside the bathroom, her face scrunched into a question mark. “I’m spotting.”

  Jo grasped her hands. “How much?”

  “A trace.”

  “Any cramping?”

  “No.”

  Thank God. “Okay. This happens.”

  Molly nodded, returning Jo’s squeeze. The adrenaline surged between them. They both knew it happened, and they both knew it could be a precursor to a miscarriage. Or not.

  Jo clung to the or not. “Let’s get you into bed.”

  Molly nodded again. There wasn’t anything else to be done except stay off her feet for a while.

  Like a swarm of bumblebees, the four moved down the hall and into Molly’s room. They all tucked her in, Andie doing the covers, Char patting her feet, Jo brushing hair back from her forehead.

  “Moll, it’s all right. You know it doesn’t necessarily mean anything is wrong.”

  Char said, “It happened with both my pregnancies.”

  “Let’s pray,” Andie said.

  Jo and Char looked at her; she looked back at them. An unspoken “uh” hung in the air. Even with Andie’s gallant efforts in the boutique dressing room, Molly was the prayer woman.

  Jo tried not to think of Molly’s half-formed thought the day she’d heard the news, that a part of her almost hoped for another miscarriage. She hadn’t meant it. She really hadn’t meant it. She didn’t, God.

  Andie turned to the patient. “How do we pray?”

  Molly’s facial features were still wrinkled together. “I want this baby.” The furrows unknit themselves a centimeter at a time. “Three hours ago I could not have said that. In all honesty, I’ve been a totally unavailable mother. When I finally prayed, all I could ask God to do was change my heart.” Her eyebrows rose, the only movement in her now smooth, peaceful face. “I guess He did.”

  Andie nodded and reached out to hold hands. The others did likewise until the circle was unbroken.

  “We praise You, God, for changed hearts. Please keep Molly and her baby safe.”

  Jo tucked herself into the twin bed on the other side of the nightstand from Molly’s.

  “Jo, you don’t have to sleep in here.”

  She smiled at her and turned off the lamp. “Who said anything about sleep?”

  “Don’t you dare stay awake!”

  “Then I’d better stay put. There’s a better chance of me sleeping in here than across the hall.”

  “Jo.” Molly sighed. “You know there’s nothing you can do for me. I promise not to get up and go jogging on the beach.”

  “Ha-ha. Go to sleep.”

  “You too.” She yawned noisily. “My goodness, you are one hovering hen of a doctor. Scotty will have a fit over your bill.”

  “I’m sure we can work something out. Like you could name the baby Josephine.”

  “Or Joseph.”

  “That works too.”

  “Betsy’s named after you, remember?”

  “Mmm.” Betsy? Elizabeth?

  “You don’t remember.” Molly had the grace to chuckle at Jo’s memory lapse. “‘Anne’ is her middle name, you dork.”

  Anne. The same as Jo’s. “Really? Wow. Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome. I never could work in ‘Wentworth’ so I didn’t even attempt ‘Michelle.’”

  She thought of how she herself had used the others’ middle names for her miscarried baby. “That’s okay. I took care of those.”

  “Yes, you did.”

  Silence hung between them, interrupted only by the surf’s constant whishing sound through the open window. Jo recalled how Molly had always raised a window at night, even in the dead of a Midwest winter or in summer’s ninety humid degrees. No matter blazing furnace or overworked air conditioner, she craved fresh air.

  Jo loved that earthiness about Molly. It added to her aura of solidity.

  “Hey, Jo.”

  “Hmm?”

  “Jesus loved children. I think the unborn ones who don’t make it here go to be with Him. If that’s true, then I have one with Him and so do you.”

  Jo stared into the dark.

  “Who knows?” Molly’s tone carried a smile. “Maybe they’re playmates. Maybe mine is a girl too.”

  “Hmm.”

  “Maybe. We can hardly begin to imagine what God has in store for any of us.”

  Jo continued staring into the dark. After a time, she heard Molly’s breathing pattern deepen. The doctor could go to sleep as well.

  But the almost-mother heart beating in her chest could not.

  Jo’s eyes remained wide open, yet images danced about in her imagination. Two chubby toddlers frolicked in a meadow. Both girls. One with black hair, one with light brown. Giggles echoed in her mind.

  Ridiculous.

  But it felt…nice. Good. Wholesome. Complete. Downright precious.

  Childhood had been too painful of a passage for Jo. She vowed to never be a mother. Even as a little girl playing with dolls, she had cast herself as doctor, never as mommy. No one needed to point out the obvious. She simply imitated her own mother.

  Whenever her best friend, Molly, envisioned the future, it always involved kids. Kids by the hundreds in the classroom and a couple of her own, one boy and one girl. The girl, of course, would be the best friend of Jo’s daughter. Sometimes Jo played along just to humor Molly.

  As a doctor she did all she could to ensure healthy beginnings for parent and child, but her participation ended there. She cared for women with biological clock issues, but she never heard the ticking of one until she became pregnant. When the heartbeat of her in utero baby chugged like a minuscule train in her ears, a primal wave of intuition flooded her.

  She would have been an okay mommy.

  Why did You take her away from me?

  Jo bit her lip until the cry sank back down into her chest and dissolved there.

  The two little girls jumped into her mind’s eye again. They laughed and ran through wildflowers, hand in hand.

  You are not fair!

  Scarcely conscious of her movements, Jo got out of bed and slipped to her knees. As a child, that was how she addressed God. It was just the way things were done.

  God, You are too full of fire. But I am tired of fighting and I want to see my daughter. I want to see Catherine Michelle Wentworth. Cathy. Jesus, if You are real and You love me like Molly says, give me the faith I need. I’m sorry for all the terrible things I’ve done. Please forgive me or just burn me up right now.

  And please, oh please, don’t abort Molly’s new one. If You are the Great Physician, keep this baby safe. Please, God, please keep the baby safe.

  Jo remained on her knees for a long time, wrestling and bargaining with God. She told Him everything, exhausting her supply of thoughts and emotions and promises to care for poor people if only He would keep Molly well. When there was nothing left to say, she stopped.

  Amen.

  The images of prancing toddlers were gone.

  But that nice feeling lingered. It grew into a peace unlike anything Jo had ever experienced. She climbed into bed, almost asleep before she laid her head on the pillow.

  I prayed. I really did.

  What is it about this beach house?

  Sixty-Two

  Andie awoke with a start. The bedroom was middle-of-the-night dark. Except for the rhythmic swish of ocean, everything was quiet.

  It must have been the chocolate. Until dessert that evening, she hadn’t eaten sugar for some days. Her body was simply reacting—

  Like a black fury out of nowhere, her conversation with Paul the previous morning rushed at her. It whirled, a funnel cloud inside of her, stirring up fear and anxiety. You have a week to end it and make an appointment with a marriage counselor. I’m spending another six days out here.

  What had she done?

  She had drawn a line in the sand and dared him to c
ross it.

  The sinking sensation was not an unfamiliar one. If she’d been standing, she would have had to sit down as the loss of feeling crept through her limbs.

  Paul would not cross that line. He was not on his way to California on a red-eye flight. He would remain on his own side and do as he pleased and drag her back across because that was where he needed her.

  She would go because they shared two sons and a home and church and friends. How could she jeopardize all of that? If she didn’t go back, what irreparable damage would she inflict upon Jadon and Zach? What would people think? How would she pay bills? Keep up the house?

  Marriage was for as long as they both should live. For better, for worse.

  Panic bubbled in her chest and cut off air to her lungs. She gasped. Sheer terror roared, a dragon flinging itself about the small room. She couldn’t breathe.

  “Lord Jesus!” she cried aloud.

  Instant calm enveloped her, as if a door had been shut against a raging thunderstorm. Peace filled the room. She struggled for a breath. And then all was quiet.

  Was He that near? That real?

  She climbed from the bed, went down on her knees, and bowed her head on the quilt.

  “I am terrified by myself,” she whispered. “Are You here? Will You take care of me?”

  Her eyes were closed but a scene developed before her, not exactly within her imagination but somewhere beyond it, in some undefined territory between dream and reality.

  She was on the beach, walking along the ocean’s edge. Cool water tickled her feet and ankles. Salty humid air filled her nostrils. Someone moved along beside her, a taller, masculine presence. She could not see a face, but the arm brushing against her left one felt solid as a rock.

  She could not hear a voice but, without aid of an eardrum, words imprinted themselves upon her mind. “Andie, I am so fond of you. There is nothing to fear. I will always take care of you.”

  As if a curtain dropped, the scene vanished. Her left arm tingled, nerve endings remembering a touch.

  Joy engulfed her then. Unspeakable, uncontainable, incomparable.

  Laughter and grateful tears spilled from her.

  Sixty-Three