“You were? What do you mean?”
“Lydia, it’s hard to hide. Jack is so much like his father it’s not funny.”
“You think?”
“Yeah, and I’m starting to think you’ve come for more than just a vacation.”
“You’re right. We’ve come to talk with you.”
“I’m big enough to catch a shark,” Jack interrupted. “Hey, man,” he called out to Josh. “Will you take me fishing?”
“Sir, Jack. It’s sir, not ‘man’ and ‘excuse me’ not ‘hey.’” I snickered nervously at Josh. “I told you he warms up.”
“Four years old,” stated Josh. “Has it really been that long since I saw you last, Lydia? Since you and I went fishing?”
“Yes,” I said again. “It has been. You’re exactly right.”
Josh shook his head and looked down at the dock, then back up at me again and into my eyes, then over at his son, then up at the sky and back down at his feet again.
“I wanted you to meet him. I’m sorry I’ve kept this from you.”
“Why now? Why after four years have you finally decided to introduce us? Looks like you’ve been doing a fine job on your own, without me knowing.”
“I don’t know,” I said, grabbing hold of the words Ava had used on Jaden. “I’m a woman, not a man-chaser.”
“What the …?”
“I didn’t feel right hunting you down. That’s not what a lady does. It’s not proper.”
“Maybe for most ladies it isn’t, but you? ‘Proper’ isn’t exactly the word I’d ever use to describe you, Lydia.”
“Thanks,” I said, trying to take it as a compliment. “Maybe it had more to do with me wanting to do everything on my own. But not anymore! I was hurt that morning when I learned you had left. I regretted horribly what we had done, and I questioned whether I meant anything at all to you.”
“You meant something. You meant more than you’ll ever know, but what was I to do? You yourself were talking all about the life you were returning to and never mentioned a word about any relationship or feelings for me whatsoever. I wasn’t going to complicate your ambition, and since you were leaving yourself that day, I never got around to telling you that I was too. Part of it was that I was still thinking of calling off the entire Peace Corps thing. I had wanted to do something, but as it got closer, I didn’t want to leave the life I loved. It’s like, what was I trying to prove? I considered not going that day, but I’d have to live with that sense of ‘should have’ all my life, so I went. And finally, after my two years were up, I returned home only to go to war a couple of months later. I’m back now, and I live a good life here, simple. I never told you this, but since we’re both telling all, I’ll let you know that my mother walked out on my father when I was a boy. I’m looking at you now wondering whether you’re leaving in an hour. Tell me, Lydia, what are your intentions, exactly?”
“I’m not your mother,” I said. “But I am the mother of your son, and it’s not about me anymore and it’s not about you. It’s about him now. How do you want to go about this? He could come visit once a year, more if you like, or not at all. I’ll do as you like.”
He lowered his voice. “You’re just laying this all on me. I haven’t absorbed any of this yet.”
I reached into the flap of my purse and pulled out a lollipop. “Here, Jack, catch,” I said, then tossed it onto the dock. “Sit down while you eat it and keep quiet so you don’t choke.”
I knew I had exactly seven minutes. That was the time it took Jack to lick, then bite and chew that particular kind of lollipop—the things a mother knows. I stepped closer to Josh and lowered my voice. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to dump it all on you like this, but that day you left, I tried catching up with you on the causeway. I had planned on telling you that I’d stay in Florida, write for the paper here, and see if maybe you and I could pursue a relationship. I made that decision before ever knowing I was pregnant with your child. I made it because my feelings for you were strong and I didn’t want to let a good thing slip by. And now, the only reason I’m back to tell you all of this is for Jack’s sake. You are his father, and it wouldn’t be fair to him if I didn’t at least try to pursue you, or investigate the possibility of you and me maybe getting back …”
“Lydia,” he said, placing his finger softly over my lip to stop my speech. “I’m engaged.”
The words hit me like the rain that was now starting to fall. The thought of him dating someone else or being engaged or married had crossed my mind, but I ignored it and failed to prepare myself for both that and the rain, and so now I stood there in front of him, my insides cold and drenched from the dark news. My outsides were getting wet too, but I didn’t mind that as much.
“Oh my God,” I said, putting my hand to my face. I closed my eyes a second, and when I opened them I wished he were no longer standing close. “I feel like a fool. When? When are you getting married?”
“We haven’t set a date yet. I’m letting my fiancée choose that.”
I wanted to cry. The word “fiancée” struck me like a bolt of lightning. I could only hope she was a good, strong, loving woman, or marriage would be the end of him. Josh was the type to mate for life, good or bad, like the scrub-jays and the American bald eagles. They all mate for life. I laughed at my own stupidity and at the fantasy world in which I lived for having believed that the man I loved would be anchoring out in a boat waiting all these years for me to return, something that only happens in a movie, not in real life. “You must at least have a month picked out.”
“We were thinking July,” Josh said and then reached for an umbrella. “No thanks,” I said. “Jack loves holding umbrellas. Here, Jack.”
As Josh opened it and steadied it in his son’s little hands, I thought back to the letters he had sent me way back, the ones in which he described the seasons on Sanibel at a time when I badly wanted to be standing in those seasons with him. “What about the daily afternoon thunderstorms in July? Wouldn’t you worry about lightning?”
“I hadn’t thought of that. She also mentioned September.”
“Florida’s lovebug season? They do fly united until parted by death. I guess it could be romantic.”
“How about winter?” he asked with a grin.
“Passing cold fronts.”
“She prefers a spring wedding anyway.”
“Alligator mating season? Don’t hold the ceremony near a swamp, unless you want gators bellowing as you walk down the aisle.”
“They do have rhythm. Can’t take that away from them,” he said. “For someone who doesn’t live in Florida, you sure know a lot about its seasons.”
“I read your letters over and over again. You write beautifully, you know. I think you’ve got a talent. Those letters read like a novel.”
He smirked and looked away. “I think she mentioned spring as when she wants to have it.”
“Tell her the water might still be brisk in April and lovebug season returns again in May.”
“Good thing you’re not her wedding consultant.”
“If I were, I’d be sure she gave it serious thought, when to have it, that is.”
“And when would you have it?”
“Hmmm,” I said, smiling. “I’d go with fall, probably late September or early October, when the bald eagles court up in the sky.”
“I didn’t know you’re a bald eagle fan,” he said.
“They pair for life. Who wouldn’t be a fan of that?”
Just then Jack handed me his empty stick. I was glad he was done, for now he could better hold the umbrella steady. “Is he a fisherman, Mommy?” he asked, standing on his tiptoes and trying to cover me from the rain. “I want to be a fisherman when I grow up.”
Josh looked away and then turned his back to us, and I wondered what he was looking at. “What now, Lydia?” he asked, his back still to me. “What do you want from me? You think you can just show up here like this after four years and …”
I then lowered my voice and walked up close to Josh. “I understand if you want us to leave. We’ll return to our life and you can return to yours. You can forget about us if you’d like to. I certainly didn’t come here to ruin your life, and I don’t regret telling you, or at least trying for his sake, but it’s up to you now. What do you want us to do?”
“Son,” he said a moment later, taking his hat off and putting it on Jack’s head. “Would you like to go fishing tomorrow morning? I’m leaving at around eight o’clock and I sure could use help.”
The rain moved, I noticed. It was still raining several yards away and I could see it beating down on the bay, but where we were standing it had now stopped. I could see the sun shining down on both my son and his father.
“Hey, Lydia,” Josh said to me. “You’ll never believe what I found just the other day.”
“What?”
“A Junonia shell, of all things.”
“You did not! It’s not fair,” I said. “You know I’ve been looking for years now and even in downtown Chicago, I’d keep my head down every day as I walked along Michigan Avenue, hoping … anything is possible, right?”
“Yeah, and I’m going to get my picture in the paper for it. Tomorrow, maybe.”
“I hate you,” I said, laughing.
“Too bad,” he said. “Because I was about to ask if you wanted to share that Junonia with me, so we could both get our picture in the paper together.”
I stopped laughing. “I love you,” I said and ran into his arms.
It would be the most newsworthy story I took part in ever!
XLVII
SANIBEL ISLAND
1969
ONE YEAR LATER
Marlena
So many steps a woman takes in her life will not be remembered. And most of her tracks will be erased. But there will always be those certain steps she’ll never regret, the ones she’ll never forget—those glistening steps she took for herself.
IT WAS THE SEASON in which the bald eagles take to the sky for courting that both weddings took place. And the migrating songbirds were lining the trees and the Roseate Spoonbills were nesting on the island and the sea grape leaves were turning red and falling to the ground.
I had never been to a barefoot wedding before, where the aisle was a sandbar in the Gulf of Mexico and we only had twenty minutes of low tide and then the sea would wash over the patch of sand we were standing on. It was early fall, so the water was still warm from the summer months as I stepped out of the anchored boat and waded onto the sandbar. And just as I glanced upward I witnessed a pair of eagles catching each other’s feet in mid-flight and our small group marveled as the birds then dropped close to the earth, as if they might strike, parting just in time. The enormous sun would soon be setting behind the bride and groom, and it was coloring the sky orange against the turquoise water. It reminded me of my own mother’s wedding to Jaden years before, only they got married in a church and held their reception on the beach, not a sandbar.
As the ceremony began, I dug my toes into the sand and felt as grounded as one can standing on a sandbar during low tide. I glanced around at the others, barefoot beside me, and wondered whether they had ever gone as far as I. For there had been times when I soared higher than the eagles and other times when I crashed deep down into the depths of the ocean.
“On this special day I give to you in the presence of God and his creations my sacred promise to stay by your side as your husband,” the groom said.
I closed my eyes and quickly said my own prayer to the Lord, thanking him for the life I’ve lived.
“To love you in the spring as the shorebirds arrive with their crisp colors and feathers freshly molted.”
I wanted to focus on the wedding ceremony, but my mind often did its own thing. There had been times in my life when my mind was like a burrowing owl, active both day and night, and when anyone tried stopping me I became agitated and probably bobbed and bowed and made clucking noises like an owl. Other times my thoughts were still and stagnant, like a swamp, and I treated people like Lydia, and others who cared, like floating debris headed my way.
“To love and protect you in the summer as the sea turtles crawl ashore to nest.” The bride had tears strolling down her cheeks.
There are things passed on in families that go unrecognized until we really talk and share stories, or research our family trees. The illness the doctor recently diagnosed me with I believe my mother had, and based on what she wrote in her journals, perhaps Abigail had, and poor old wandering Milton also may have had a form of it. There are different types of depression—situational, hormonal, chemical, and seasonal having to do with lack of light.
“To love and cry with you in the fall when the feathers of the birds are tattered and faded and their once-sharp colors diminished from sun and rain.”
It was spine-tingling at times to relate to the symptoms my ancestors had as described in the journal, but comforting to know I wasn’t alone in my own suffering. None of us are.
“To love and comfort you through passing winter cold fronts.”
I am glad I took that simple glistening step long ago. The doctor’s appointment I made for myself led to a diagnosis and, eventually, treatment and medicine that made a difference.
“To love and laugh with you year-round like the blooming Florida wildflowers.”
I wiped tears of joy from my eyes, thankful that God gave me a daughter, not one I gave birth to myself, but in the form of Lydia, and every bit a daughter in the true definition of the word. She, like my mother had once done, was marrying the man of her dreams, and it was as thrilling to me as the spacecraft Eagle landing on the moon. And it made me realize more than ever that anything is indeed possible—with God.
“I promise to love and cherish you vibrantly as you so deserve, as we live our lives passionately according to the seasons on Sanibel.”
The bride and groom were now kissing and behind them the sun had just vanished below the horizon, and the guests were anxious to get back into the boat and sail off before the water washed over the sandbar, but we didn’t want to interrupt their kiss.
Just then, little Jack bent down where the water meets the sand and scooped up a handful of water, then splashed it toward his mother and father, and the intimate gathering of guests broke out into laughter and applause.
There was just enough time for us to quickly sip champagne before getting back into the boat. And as I took my seat and looked back, I noticed the water had already rushed over the sand we had been standing on, and the shoes I had slipped off my feet and forgotten back there were gone.
But isn’t that what happens to our lives? We look back and before we know it a new generation is washing over us. If they’re fortunate, they might find a pair of our old shoes, and without knowing, walk in our tracks from time to time. But mostly they’ll make new ones of their own.
THE END
PORTION
of the
SEA
READER’S GUIDE
1. MARLENA believes girls should be challenged to look ahead and imagine who it is they want to become and what sort of life they’d like for themselves. She says most girls don’t give this any thought until they’re grown up and are disliking their lives. Do you agree? She also said if women could look back to when they were younger and recall the things they loved to do, they might get ideas for change. Is this true?
2. SOCIETY AND ROLES. Ava and Lydia were from two different historical periods—Ava, the late 1800s and Lydia, the fifties—yet they had much in common and would probably be friends had they the chance. What similar struggles did they both face with regard to society’s expectation of women? What pressures did Ava get from her mother? What about Lydia from her father, as well as her civics teacher? Are men still that way today?
Tootie tells Ava’s mother that outspokenness will serve Ava
well, that girls are trained to be perfect little ladies and then enter the real world and don’t know how to stand up for themselves or be rude to a rude person or strong in a bad situation. Do you agree? How did each woman rebel?
3. MARLENA tells the young Lydia that she believes in her and one day she will become a success. How can such words influence a girl’s life?
4. GEOGRAPHY AND OUTLOOK ON LIFE. How does living in Kentucky in the winter affect Abigail’s internal weather? How does moving to Sanibel affect Abigail’s spirits? How can geography influence people’s moods, dispositions, and outlooks?
5. WISDOM. Ava wants her own wisdom to pick up where her grandmother’s left off, but senility has grown roots around Dahlia’s wisdom, strangling it. And her mother always shuts the grandmother up just as she’s about to say something wise. Is wisdom something women admire and want for themselves today? Is it something younger women can possess, or is wisdom something that belongs to older women only? What use does wisdom have? Is it recognized and appreciated within families? How does one attain wisdom?
6. TOOTIE TELLS AVA to keep reading and writing because those things can change a girl’s world. Ava wants a new world for herself. How does the world that Ava wants compare to that which Lydia wants? What sort of world do women want for themselves today?
7. THE DREAMS A WOMAN HAS FOR HER LIFE. Ava lies in bed thinking maybe there’s an oasis of hidden beauty deep within her own self, waiting to be discovered. She then tells her grandmother that she one day wants to be a writer. Dahlia tells her: You sound like your mother. She said that once, too. She also said she wanted to be a ballerina. Look at her now. She married your father and that was the end of that. But Ava’s ambitions are gusty strong and they’re not going to be blown over by negative words. How can every day life get in the way of accomplishing our dreams? What does Ava do right after her grandmother discourages her?
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