Summer at Hideaway Key

by Barbara Davis

  She had been pleasantly surprised when he offered the use of the spare drafting table in his studio. It was an amazing space, with lots of light and a stunning view, much more optimal for working than Lily-Mae’s cramped little writing desk. She had gladly accepted, but it felt awkward at first, encroaching on his creative space, but he assured her that barring any annoying habits, such as humming, whistling, or gum-cracking, he would barely know she was in the room. He had even given her a key, so she could let herself in and out as she pleased.

  Today, however, she was making do with Lily-Mae’s desk at the cottage, as Dean was currently finishing up a rather tricky set of plans for the Newmans of Chicago, and she didn’t want to risk posing even the tiniest distraction. It was just as well. Her to-do list included another attempt to contact her mother, and on the off chance that she was successful in reaching her, she’d prefer to have a little privacy. Sadly, though not unexpectedly, this morning’s call had yielded the same results as all her other recent attempts.

  In truth, she was almost relieved when the answering machine picked up. Yes, she wanted answers, but right now she was more interested in keeping her head down and finishing the preliminary sketches. Anything to help keep Sheila’s mind off Tampa. Which reminded her, she needed to call and firm up what time they would need to leave in order to make Sheila’s appointment.

  Sheila answered after two rings. Lily smiled at her chirpy greeting. “Hey, Thelma, it’s Louise. How goes that list?”

  “Getting longer by the minute. I had no idea there’d be so much involved.”

  “Getting cold feet?”

  “Not on your damned life. My mama didn’t raise no quitter.”

  “Thata girl. I’m telling you, you can do this.” Lily paused, reluctant to steer the conversation onto sensitive ground. “Anyway, I was calling to find out what time we’re going to need to leave next week. I have no idea how long the drive is.”

  “Oh.” And just like that, the chirpiness was gone. “My appointment’s at two, and it’s about a three-hour drive. Maybe ten thirty, to give us a little leeway?”

  “Ten thirty, it is. Let me jot it down.” Lily reached for her planner, then realized she’d left it at Dean’s. “Hang on, let me grab something to write on.” Pulling out the right side drawer, she rummaged for a notepad but had to settle for a rumpled manila envelope instead. “Okay, ten thirty, it is.”

  Lily was taking down directions to Sheila’s house when she noticed the postmark in the upper right-hand corner of the envelope. New York City, NY. July 12, 1960. But what really caught her attention was the return address. Stephen Singer, Attorney-at-Law. Peeling back the flap, she shook the contents out onto the desk. Sheila was still talking, rattling off lefts and rights, but Lily had stopped listening, too busy trying to decipher the neatly typed legalese dissolving the marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Roland St. Claire.

  Lily ended the call as quickly as she could, promising to call back and firm up, then sat staring at the pages in her lap. There was a date stamped in red ink across the bottom. She did the mental math, July to November. Her father had divorced Lily-Mae in July, then married her mother just four months later.

  She was still processing this latest revelation when she noticed the small scrap of newsprint on the desk. It had obviously been in the envelope with the divorce decree. She picked it up, squinting to make out the faded print. It was an article from the New York Globe.

  Billboard Bride Just Another Pretty Face For Wealthy Financier

  If speculation is to be believed, billboard sensation Lily-Mae St. Claire, née Boyle, and wealthy financier husband, Roland St. Claire, appear to be headed for divorce. No word yet on the cause of the split, but rumor has it there’s been more than one blowup about a certain someone closely connected with the couple. The St. Claires married secretly in September, and have been seen together often in public, giving their best impression of wedded bliss, though it now appears all may not be well in paradise. To date, no details are available with regard to the size of any possible settlement, but with Roland St. Claire’s name on the court documents, the price tag is certain to be a hefty one. Stay tuned, readers: this one is liable to get nasty.

  Lily stared at the clipping, the words blurring and shifting behind an unexpected film of tears. What must it be like to have your private heartache splashed across the tabloids, to have your pain used as entertainment for the masses? The article contained no facts, but it offered plenty of speculation and innuendo. Her father, painted as a wealthy playboy. Nebulous hints about a nameless third party. Gleeful speculation about the possible size of the settlement. That the author had been hinting at the possibility of a love triangle was hard to deny. The glaring question was, who was the third party? Given what she’d read in the journals and the haste of her parents’ marriage, it was hard not to imagine Caroline as the culprit.

  Lily sighed heavily as she slid the clipping and divorce papers back into their envelope. Another discovery, and a whole new set of questions. And the only person alive who had the answers wasn’t picking up her phone. Lily was tired of sleuthing, tired of running into brick walls, and clues that weren’t clues at all, just new blind paths down an already maddening maze.

  If only things worked out like they did in Salty’s novels, clues falling into place right on schedule, everything wrapping up all nice and neat by the last page. They weren’t falling into place, though. There were no more journals, no more scrapbooks, nothing left to go on. And with what she now suspected, about her mother and her father, she wasn’t sure she actually wanted to know any more. She hated to admit it, but maybe it was time to take Dean’s advice and let it go.

  And yet the idea of giving up rankled. She had come all this way, spent all this time. What was it Salty said about giving up on a case? Who’s to say you won’t turn a corner tomorrow and find something you missed, something that’s been hiding in plain sight the whole time?

  Hiding in plain sight.

  Was it possible? Had she missed something that was right under her nose? She’d been through most of the boxes, read all the journals, thumbed through all the scrapbooks. But then, those things didn’t really qualify as in plain sight. What she should be looking for was the kind of thing she might have already looked right past, something that blended into the background.

  With fresh determination, she went to Lily-Mae’s room and simply stood in the doorway, trying to see it as she had that first night—a woman’s life crammed into one small room. It seemed wrong, impossible actually, when that life had been so big, so filled with love and loss. She thought of the small box discovered beneath her aunt’s bed, family photos and a battered rag doll, cherished things from childhood, the jar of forty-nine shells, a precious reminder of the only time she had been happy. But the rest of it was different, boxes filled with fragments of a past that was neither cherished nor precious, things she must have been only too glad to pack away and forget. It was the things she kept here, in this tiny bedroom, that Lily-Mae had treasured enough to keep close. If there was something, anything, it would be here.

  Stepping into the room, Lily let her gaze wander. She had already made forays into the bureau, closet, and nightstand, even the steamer trunk at the foot of the bed. There was no need to look again. What she was looking for, if it was there at all, was going to be out in the open, perhaps . . . on a bookshelf.

  Lily held her breath as she stepped to the bookshelf. It filled one corner of the room, six shelves of thick, dark walnut lined top to bottom with an awkward jumble of scarred leather spines. Slowly, methodically, she began scanning titles, some familiar, some not, but all shabby from use. And then she saw it: a single volume in smooth brown calfskin tucked unobtrusively between Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own and Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, its dark leather spine devoid of either author or title.

  There was a little skitter in her chest as she slid the volume free and ca
rried it to the bed. The pages were warped in places, and mottled with a gummy brown substance, as if something had spilled nearby and splattered. Still, the words were legible enough once she managed to tease apart the sticky pages. Her heart leapt at the sight of Lily-Mae’s elegant hand, as familiar now as her own, but there was something different about the writing here, a spidery quality to the lines not present in any of the other entries. Then she saw the date scrawled across the top of the page—June 13, 1993, more than thirty years after the last entry she’d read.

  THIRTY-ONE

  June 13, 1993

  Hideaway Key, Florida

  I’ve been to the doctor again today.

  They didn’t bring me into a treatment room this time, no exam tables or needles. Instead, they led me to one of the consultation rooms, where there was a desk and a pair of armchairs. That’s when I knew.

  I didn’t have to wait long. He told me he was sorry, more sorry than he could say, and that after all he has seen of death he still finds it all so very unfair. I told him not to worry on my account. I stopped taking life personally years ago. I almost felt bad for him as he said the words. And almost relieved for myself. I won’t have to go through that anymore.

  There’s not much left of me now, barely enough to cast a shadow, though I have never mourned the loss of my beauty. It’s been said that beauty is both a blessing and a curse. That has been doubly true in my life. Aside from allowing me to provide for Caroline, it has never brought me anything but trouble and heartache.

  Perhaps that’s why I never cared about the scars, or the bits of flesh the doctors cut away while I slept, or even the ravages that came after, with the drugs and radiation. I did not rail against fate when my hair began to fall out by the handful, or when the flesh began to fall from my bones. It is only the loss of myself that I regret, the start that comes each time I look in the mirror and fail to recognize the woman looking back at me.

  The woman Roland once loved is gone.

  Which is why I would not see him when he tried to come. I could not bear for him to see me this way, to have him look at me as if I were a stranger, wearing clothes that hang on me like a scarecrow, a scarf wrapped around my ruined head like one of those eccentric silent-movie stars.

  There’s been no one to see, no one distressed by my steady decline. Even Jasper is gone now, thanks to the drinking. Not that he ever stayed long when he did come. There’s a kind of freedom in that, in being left alone, allowed to decay without having to be brave. They tell me there are other things to try, other places to go, other opinions to be had, but I’ve said no to them all. I have a year at most, but probably less. If there was a reprieve to be had, the sea would have granted it by now, as it has somehow managed to do at every broken place in my life. Healing, refuge, forgiveness were all to be had here in my cottage by the sea. But not this time. It’s time to make plans, to gather my things about me and wait.

  I’ve been told what to expect, how things will . . . progress. There is no need to suffer, they tell me, no need to be brave when the end draws near. There are pills to dull the pain, pills to ease the way. There are places, too, where one can go to die, lying in a strange bed, surrounded by strange faces. I told them no, of course. The thought of dying anywhere but here is unthinkable. I thanked him then, thanked them all. I will not be seeing them again.

  I’ll need to call Stephen tomorrow, to tell him how things stand. There are affairs to be gotten in order, arrangements to be made, and tales to tell while I can still bear to tell them.

  July 27, 1993

  Hideaway Key, Florida

  My things arrived from storage last week. I forgot how much I left behind when I left New York, and how very little I’ve missed any of it. But it’s here now, box upon box of it, crammed with bits of my past, the good thrown in with the bad. So many things for such an empty life. It took four days of rummaging to finally find what I was looking for, and then another two days to be sure what I meant to do was right.

  I still don’t know, but I’ve sent them just the same, with a note for Stephen that they are to be forwarded on to Roland. It was more of a job than I thought it would be, more . . . emotional. I thought I had made my peace with all that happened back then, but I find I have not, and will not, until the truth is told at last. I must trust Stephen to help me with that.

  I’ve told him how things are with me, that I’m not long for this world. And by now he has surely told Roland, though I suspect he’s known of my illness for some time. Why else would he have tried to see me after so many years of silence? I don’t blame Stephen for being indiscreet, or if I do it’s only a little. He never could keep anything from Roland.

  It’s too late to change anything now, to unravel the mess we’ve made and fill the empty places we carved in each other’s hearts. But perhaps it’s not too late to tell the truth and to forgive. Before I leave this world I want him to know why I left him—why I had to leave him.

  Perhaps I’ve left it too late, but I cannot leave this world without at least trying to set things right. My anger has burned to ash, the wounds closed, if not quite healed. I would do the same for Roland, if I can. It’s not pity I’m after, only understanding.

  October 24, 1993

  Hideaway Key, Florida

  The end can’t be far off now; a bit sooner than expected, perhaps, but there it is. And what does it matter? There is nothing to keep me here. I’ve heard nothing from Roland, no word that he received the package I sent, no word of any kind. I suppose it was too much to hope for after all that has passed—too much time, and too much pain.

  Still, I did hope.

  I have tried not to take the pills they gave me, but the pain is so much worse now, and they help me sleep. And when I sleep I forget. I dream sometimes, of Caroline and me, of the little pond behind our house and the tire swing in front where we used to play together, back before Mama took us to Mt. Zion. I dream of Mama, too, and wonder what kept her from coming back for us, or if she ever really meant to come back at all.

  I was angry with her for so long, angry with all of us, if truth be told, at Mama, at myself, at Roland and Caroline. But now, at the end, I see what a waste it has all been. The hurting and hating, the bleeding and blaming, has all been for nothing—has changed nothing. Neither will forgiveness. But it’s time to forgive.

  It doesn’t come easily, though, this forgiving business. It is not the heart’s way to turn a blind eye when it has been dealt a sharp blow. Instead, it nurses the wound, and guards against the next, always, always remembering. Forgiveness, then, is a choice we must make, with hearts exposed and eyes wide open, for the sake of our souls, for the sake of peace. It is only Zell I cannot forgive. Zell, and perhaps myself. There is much I regret from those earlier days, but little I would do differently. One thing only, in fact. But I cannot think of that now.

  Memory can be a cruel companion, regrets crashing over us like waves, flooding in, pulling back, until the sand shifts beneath our feet, and we’re left staring at our truths, bloated and terrible after so many years.

  Each night I close my eyes, wondering if it’s for the last time—hoping it will be. Death will be a mercy when it comes, the blank relief of that other world, where the soul goes dark and memories are no more. But each night, while I toss and dream, the moon changes place with the sun. Another blue sky. Another day of heavy heartbeats. Another day of waiting. And yet there is just a little relief.

  How strange this tug-of-war is, between living and letting go, when the soul longs for relief but the body clings to the pain, clawing for one last breath even as the water is closing over our heads, the seductive pull of freedom, the stark terror of loss.

  In truth, it is only the cottage I’ll regret leaving. It has been my refuge for so long, and is even now, despite its long decline. It is like me, I suppose: shabby and spare, wearing thin after years of neglect, but lovely still, if
you don’t look too closely and the light is just right.

  I unearthed some of my things from the boxes and put them out. It’s good to have one’s things about, like old friends come back after a long journey. It pains me to think of it all being shut up when I’m gone. As I write this I’m looking at my jar of shells, each one precious still, tangible proof of those perfect days, and that perfect summer. I meant to fill it once, with more shells and more days, but life has a way of putting up detours, throwing you so far off course it becomes impossible to recover one’s way. And so my little jar will remain unfilled. The time for collecting shells is past.

  Soon I will take my leave, my heart quiet at last. But beyond my window the sea will go on beating, keeping its secrets and mine. It won’t be long now.

  THIRTY-TWO

  1995

  Hideaway Key, Florida

  Lily brushed away the tears that had been falling steadily for the last half hour, still shocked by the sight of the blank page glaring up at her from her lap. Her heart had broken open as she read about Lily-Mae’s last days, steeped in sadness, and at war with her memories, struggling to forgive and be forgiven. But it was nothing compared with what she’d felt when she turned the page to find that the entries had abruptly run out. The implication of the remaining blank pages had been too terrible to ignore. So glaringly final.

  It wasn’t the fact of Lily-Mae’s death that had rocked her. She’d been prepared for that. Rather, it was the manner of it, the fact that she had died alone, and with such a heavy heart. She had written of secrets kept and lies told, of a longing for forgiveness, but never once had she named her crimes, as if even in her final days she couldn’t bear to commit them to paper.