As the Tide Comes In

by Cindy Woodsmall

  “Goodness.” Julep wiped her brow. “Let’s get out of this heat.” She motioned toward the front door. “Y’all must be in need of a refreshing beverage and perhaps a restroom.”

  Elliott put her hand on her protruding stomach and nodded. “I’d appreciate a bathroom.”

  Dell opened the door, smiling at everyone as they went inside.

  Tara wanted to scream, “Where are Sean and Darryl?” Instead she fell behind the others and went inside. How long did it take four adults with a baby and two children to get situated so a real conversation could take place?

  The old house, its studs where shiplap used to be, echoed with idle chat.

  Goodness! Tara was sure she’d explode soon. Hadley had promised her on the phone last night that they’d talk about where Sean and Darryl were just as soon as she and Elliott arrived. Tara’s news was disheartening—brain injury, pneumonia, and this wasn’t her house. Her skin still burned with embarrassment that this home didn’t belong to her, but the only thing that really mattered was the whereabouts of her brothers. Her pulse raced. Why was no one simply telling her?

  Fear seemed to break free inside her and spread like rushing waters from a dam. Why were her friends acting as if everything was peachy keen?

  “Hello?” Tara’s sarcastic tone couldn’t have been missed by anyone, and the room fell silent. “What is wrong with you?” She looked from Hadley to Elliott. “You know I’m desperate to find Sean and Darryl, and you stand there pretending this is a wonderful gathering of new and old friends.”

  Hadley pursed her lips, looking apologetic as she nodded. “You’re right, and I’m sorry.” She passed her three-month-old to her husband and whispered something. He gathered their two girls and went out the front door with all three little ones.

  Elliott waddled toward Tara, hand held out, sadness etched on her face.

  Tara backed away. “What?”

  Gavin motioned to his mom. “Let’s give them time to talk.”

  “Stop!” Tara hissed. “Someone tell me where Sean and Darryl are!” She looked from one person to another, and what she saw terrified her.

  Hadley moved in. “Tara, sweetie.”

  Alarms rang loud and clear, warning Tara of the lies to come. “No! They’re fine. I got them out!” Tara fisted her hands. “I got them out!”

  Hadley and Elliott stayed close, as if ready to grab her whether she fainted or made a run for it. Tara jerked air into her lungs. “Where are they? What’s happened?”

  Hadley put her arm around Tara. “What do you remember, T?”

  Tara told the events of the morning the storm hit: That she was out for a run. That she saw the storm coming and called her brothers to tell them to get out of the loft. How she ran home as fast as she could.

  “Tara, you tried to call them. Every part of who you are since before you were born strove to reach them by phone or by racing there in time. Something in you seemed to know they were in grave danger, and no one could’ve tried any harder, honey. No one.”

  Tara’s head spun and her legs trembled. “I got them out,” she whispered.

  Hadley held her tight. “As you ran into the cabin, the tree that fell and hit you…killed them.”

  It couldn’t be true. It just couldn’t. Thoughts and memories swirled, a confusing jumble of brokenness amid half-normal behavior. Green grass under her feet. Hadley and Elliott beside her. A sea of sad faces. Two freshly dug graves with a coffin hovering over each.

  A scream like a wounded animal pierced the air, and Tara realized it was coming from her. She sank to her knees, and Hadley and Elliott never let her go. Hadley brushed Tara’s hair. “We’ll get through this. I promise, we will.”

  But Tara felt cold, and her vision turned a reddish brown.

  “Step back.” That was Gavin’s voice, and she felt his hands on her back and her body being stretched out on the floor. Her feet were lifted. Trent said something and hurried from the room. He was a doctor. Where was he going?

  “Tara,” Gavin said, “breathe deep. Come on, deep breaths. That’s it.”

  She could feel herself returning.

  “Now clench your fists. You can do it. Clench them and breathe deep.”

  Trent returned, and a horrible aroma entered her nostrils.

  She opened her eyes. Trent flashed a light in her eyes and checked her pulse. Gavin was above her too, his blue eyes boring into her. He’d known. Everyone in this room had known the truth—the pretenders who’d kept their mouths shut and her friends who’d rushed here to set her straight. Humiliation joined forces with the overwhelming grief. How was her life now void of Sean and Darryl? Was Gavin relieved that she finally got it so he could go back to his life unimpeded? Were Hadley and Elliott already weary of dealing with her?

  “Just remain still, Tara,” Trent said.

  She could feel the weight of the loss settling inside her body, and she didn’t have the power to sit up or stand. Eyes bore down on her, and she turned her head. The live oak she could see through the window, with its weeping Spanish moss, seemed to cry with her.

  Voices murmured, probably about her, but Tara no longer had it in her to listen or care. Trent and Gavin rose and backed away. Hadley and Elliott knelt on each side of her and grasped a hand, saying words of hope that sounded foreign and impossible.

  Those in the room talked among themselves. Tara’s dizziness eased even as the finality of her loss continued to gain strength and beat against her. She tried to sit up, and her friends helped her.

  Julep held out a glass of water. “Sip on this.”

  Tara had no strength to decline anything, so she took the water and sipped it. Her cheeks were wet. Her mind muddled. Her body weak.

  “This isn’t my area of expertise,” Trent said. “I do research on children with apraxia. But pneumonia is serious business for anyone, but especially someone who’s under this kind of emotional stress.”

  “There’s one more thing,” Gavin said. “I counted the pills in her prescription bottle, did the math from the date it was filled to see how many she was supposed to take, and she’s been taking two to three times the amount prescribed.”

  “We’re lucky she’s still alive,” Trent said.

  Hadley brushed hair from the side of Tara’s head, looking at the incision. “I want to get her home and take care of her.”

  “But home isn’t a warm or inviting place anymore,” Elliott said. “We want her there because it feels right to us, but to her it’s a nightmare on steroids. I think rushing her into a new environment could be a mistake.”

  “My home is just right there.” Julep pointed through a window toward the garden.

  Tara longed to refuse, to say she was fine, and to stand, ready to at least head north and find a hotel for the night. But while her thoughts and emotions raged, her body seemed captured in a straitjacket, and she couldn’t find the strength to voice anything.

  “A few days of bed rest would go a long way, I think,” Elliott said. “Then she’ll be decently ready to take her own steps toward going home.”

  “It’ll be tight quarters with all of us,” Julep said, “but you’re welcome to stay as long as you like.”

  Hadley and Elliott helped Tara stand. They slowly walked across the yard, humidity bearing down. It was still daylight when Tara was given her meds and tucked into bed. When the door closed and Tara was alone, she cried herself to sleep.

  19

  Gavin pried another cabinet from the kitchen wall. He was making progress, both in removing goods and selling them, but not concerning the stolen shiplap. He’d done all he could, but there was simply no proof who took it. The whole money issue was on his mind, but mostly what held his thoughts captive was Tara.

  Because of her memory and health issues, maybe he’d caught only a glimpse or two of the real Tara, similar to the fir
st time he saw her that night on the beach. It was dark and rainy, but he saw her. And she was unforgettable.

  At breakfast time Hadley had walked over with a plate of food, and he’d asked how Tara was. “Much better,” she’d said. “Our evidence is that she’s grumpier than a trapped bear at the end of winter.”

  Of course she was, but that was a good sign.

  He heard a noise and glanced out the window toward his mom’s house. Tara. She was dressed and rushing from the house. She went to a lawn chair and plunked down. This was his first real glimpse of her in five days. He wasn’t at his mama’s very much, but when he was, he saw Elliott and Hadley going in and out of her room, taking food and medicine. He could hear muffled voices when they talked to her or read to her, trying to nurse her mind and soul back to health.

  Elliott flew out the back door, her hands under her round belly, holding it as she went to Tara, voice raised. Tara looked up at her, responding. He couldn’t hear the words, but the movements said they were in a heated argument. That’s what trapped bears did—growled and jerked about.

  Should he intervene? Right now no one was home except Tara and Elliott. Hadley’s and Elliott’s husbands had flown home yesterday to get back to work, leaving their wives the vehicle. Hadley had taken her girls to a water park, and his mamas were at their shop, working. They should be free within the hour, and all of them were coming to his mom’s house to cook a meal for everyone. He wasn’t sure why other than they were enjoying being good hosts, but he was glad to see an improvement in his mom’s attitude.

  Tara stood, said something, and then walked off, heading for the road. A minute later Gavin’s cell phone rang, and Elliott’s name was on the screen. He accepted the call. “Hey.”

  “She ran off, and I’m too pregnant to keep up.”

  “I see her cutting through Sapphira’s driveway going toward the road. I imagine she’s ready for a little space to herself.”

  “Yeah, she says we’re smothering her.”

  She’d been sharing a bedroom with Hadley’s family, all five of them. She and Elliott were sharing a room now that the husbands were gone. But with Elliott and her husband in the medical field, they’d taken the most stringent, cautious path to healing—mandatory bed rest.

  “But we’re arguing.” Elliott drew a deep breath. “It started last night when we told her we have to go back home in two days—all of us. We can’t stay any longer. She accepted that, but then we told her she has to go with us.”

  Gavin was sure the notion of going home was agonizing to Tara, but Hadley and Elliott had missed a lot of work since the incident. Odd as it seemed, he would miss her, but everyone had to be realistic. “She’s better. I know she is, but her emotions are bound to surpass her ability to reason just yet, and you can’t change what needs to be done because of her reaction.” He went out the front door and watched as she walked toward Gould’s Inlet.

  “Thanks, Gavin. That helps. Maybe she does need a little time without Hadley or me breathing down her neck. But she left her new phone here.”

  “If she’s not back in thirty minutes, text me. I’ll come get her phone and take it to her. It’ll be easy to find her in broad daylight.” He was watching her as she got to the end of the road where it connected with sand that led to Gould’s Inlet. She ducked under tall shrubs on the back dunes and would probably follow the footpath until she came out the other side of shrubs and beach grass onto the sands of the beach.

  “Thank you.”

  * * *

  Tara sat on a large piece of driftwood. If Hadley and Elliott needed to return to North Carolina, they should go without insisting she leave with them. She focused on her surroundings. Maybe that would calm her.

  There was nothing but sand between her and the edge of the ocean, but that distance was the length of a football field. The ocean gently rolled onto the beach. Sunlight sparkled on the unceasing tiny ripples. Beyond the inlet the vastness of the water stretched way beyond her ability to see where it led or where it ended.

  Several families and pets played on the beach and in the water.

  What should be an endearing thing to watch now ripped her apart.

  What did Tara have? Memories. And each one broke her heart anew.

  Everyone she knew had family. She could hardly look at Elliott and Hadley without crying. Their lives were filled with love and happiness and expanding families.

  What had she done so wrong in life that she was once again left without family? What had any of them done so right that their lives were filled to abundance?

  Her heart thudded with pain that never let up. Sean and Darryl were gone, now and forever. How would she survive? Emptiness had taken root, and it was growing with each passing day, painfully so, forcing her heart to make room for it just as Elliott’s womb made room for her growing child.

  “God?” she whispered again, and with every mumble of His name, she felt more betrayed and less comforted. How could He let this happen? Why would He ask her to raise her brothers and then snatch them away like this? She lifted her chin, staring into the heavens. “It’s too much. I’m broken. Is that what You wanted?” She looked at the horizon. “Was I an experiment of some kind? Let’s see what this one lonely girl can take throughout life and still be able to breathe?”

  She continued to pour out her pain in silence, apparently to the One who’d caused it. When a shadow fell across her, she turned to see why.

  Gavin…with a bottle of water, a woman’s straw hat, and her silk scarf in his hands.

  He sat on the log and held out the bottle of water. She didn’t want anything from him, but rather than tell him what she thought, she took the bottle.

  “Thanks.” She opened it and guzzled more than half of it.

  He held out the hat and scarf.

  She took them. “I keep wishing I could go back to not knowing.”

  He stared at the water. “It’s an unbearable thing, and I’m sorry.”

  Words came easily for him. Sounding sincere and thoughtful seemed second nature. She should be grateful for all he’d done, but she didn’t care that he’d provided food and a safe haven in his home or that he’d held the secret until Hadley arrived. Did the pain inside her have her numb to every other emotion? “Why are you here?”

  “Elliott’s concerned.”

  “We’re fighting.”

  He nodded.

  She took a sip of water. “I’m not wrong.”

  “You may be. I’m not sure you’re well enough to tell yet, and you’re not either.”

  Maybe he was right. “Could you go away now?”

  He put his hands on his knees, looking as though he was going to spring to his feet, but he didn’t get up. “I can. Don’t forget that the Glynn Girls are fixing a big meal tonight for you, Hadley, Elliott, and the kids. It’ll be ready in less than an hour.”

  “It’s a goodbye dinner, but I…I can’t go back to North Carolina. I’ll go crazy if I have to see all the places where Sean, Darryl, and I went together. The three musketeers—that’s what Darryl called us.” She chuckled, but fresh tears broke free. “They were so full of life and love and goodness and kindness. Why did they have to die?”

  Gavin sighed. “I’m sorry.”

  “Yeah, sure,” she mumbled. He wanted her out of his house and life, but that was no reason to be snide. The need to apologize hung thick between them. While fighting with herself, she wove the scarf through the holes at the crown of the straw hat and tied it. But she still didn’t have it in her to say she was sorry.

  She rose. “Look, I’m in no shape to be civil to anyone, so I’m going for a walk…alone. And I’m not coming to the dinner.”

  He stood. “I assured Elliott I would find you, and I have. If you insist on time alone, do it in a way you can be reached.” He held out her phone.

  “I need time wit
hout people or a phone.”

  “Can’t have both. Not yet.”

  “If I take that, I’ll feel tethered to my past. Something in me starts waiting to hear from Sean and Darryl.” She didn’t take it. “I’m doing well, and I promise I can handle a night on my own.”

  “A night?” His eyes held disbelief.

  “I need to walk, think, try to sort through things. I can’t breathe with Hadley and Elliott hovering.”

  “This conversation is circular, Tara. Bottom line, it’s too soon for you to be wandering around by yourself for hours without a phone. And a night is entirely out of the question.”

  “Did my staying at your place and eating your food brand me as your property or something?”

  He studied her, and his eyes reflected sincerity. “That’s not what’s going on here, and I think you know it.”

  “Look, you’ve been generous and kind. I know you have, although my emotions seem incapable of feeling gratitude. Still, my mind grasps it, so thank you. But I’m leaving now. That’s the end of it.” She started to leave. “Don’t follow me.”

  He sighed and nodded.

  She put on the hat and walked off, no clue where she was going, but the longing to disappear into nothingness was overwhelming. She could feel his eyes on her. Where could she go to disappear from the few who knew her?

  20

  Luella pulled the last of the meat off the cooked chicken as Julep stirred the roux for the chicken potpie. Dell had her hands in biscuit dough, because piecrust just wasn’t nearly as good on top as buttermilk biscuits. Sue Beth was cutting fresh, steamy corn off the cob.

  Elliott was the only one at Julep’s so far. Hadley and the children hadn’t yet returned from the water park, and Gavin had gone to find Tara. Surely everyone would be here by the time supper was ready. It wasn’t Tara’s last evening. Tomorrow night was, but not all of them could get together tomorrow night.

  Luella spread the meat into a large baking dish and washed her hands. The tension in the house tonight wasn’t much better than last night. Tara didn’t want to return home just yet, and apparently she and Elliott had argued about it again today.