Seashell Season

by Holly Chamberlin

  Then, as I sat there sketching, something occurred to me. I don’t know why. Well, yes, I do. It probably had something to do with my realizing that I want to remember my past. I turned to a new page of the sketchbook, and without making a concentrated effort to see Dad’s face in my mind’s eye, I just started to draw. I’d never tried anything like that in the short time I’ve been sketching, drawing something from memory, especially not something so . . . so intimate and subjective as a human face. The face of someone I love.

  It was a disaster. I got as far as sort of outlining the shape of the head and the eyes, nose, and mouth when I stopped. Not only did the unfinished image on the page look nothing at all like the image of my father in my head, it hardly looked like a human face at all.

  Maybe I’m just not ready to tackle that kind of a project.

  Or maybe I’ve already started to forget.

  Chapter 61

  “She wrote back to my father.”

  Annie and I were sitting at her kitchen table, cups of coffee before us.

  “So?” she said. “Didn’t you say he sent her a card and a twenty-dollar bill? Maybe she just thanked him for it.”

  “I know, but I just didn’t think she would contact him. I told her we aren’t close.”

  “That doesn’t mean she can’t be close to her grandfather.”

  “I know,” I said. “He wrote her back. I saw the envelope this morning when the mail was delivered. That’s when she told me she’d written to him.”

  “Why does this bother you?” Annie asked. “I think I’m missing something.”

  “I never understood why my father remarried so soon after my mother’s death.” I hadn’t planned on saying that. But there it was, an old hurt revealed.

  “Common wisdom has it that people—men, in particular—remarry soon after they’re widowed because they enjoyed being married. In a way, it’s a compliment to the first spouse.”

  I frowned. “I’m not sure I buy that. And to get remarried to a woman so totally unlike my mother!”

  “Is that what this is about?”

  “What?” I know I sounded defensive.

  “Your being upset that Gemma is in touch with your father. Are you still angry with him for having moved on with his life? Doesn’t he deserve to be happy?”

  I didn’t answer right away. I felt embarrassed. Was I really so immature? “I told you what he said to me after Alan took Gemma,” I said then, pointedly not answering Annie’s question. “He asked if I’d done something to make Alan angry enough to steal my child.”

  Annie sighed. “Come on, Verity,” she said. “The man was probably at a loss. I mean, how often is the average person witness to the kidnapping of someone close to him? I can’t really believe he meant anything by it. He was probably just trying to figure it all out, as were you.”

  I thought about that. It made some sense. But I wasn’t—I’m not—ready to reverse my position regarding my father.

  “It’s been how many years since your mother died?” Annie asked then. “Over twenty, right? Let it go, Verity. At least, let your daughter have a relationship with her grandfather if she wants to. Who knows? Gemma might be the one to heal the rift between you and Tom.”

  My first thought was to doubt that Gemma might affect any such thing, but then again, miracles do happen. Gemma had come home. She was no longer in the grip of her crazy father. And that led me to exclaim:

  “How could Alan have allowed her to get multiple tattoos—let alone one tattoo!—when she’s only a kid? Worse, she said she got the first one when she was fourteen!”

  “Are you certain Gemma’s father knew about the inking?” Annie asked.

  “She says he took her to a friend of a friend who did both for a discount. Isn’t that illegal, getting a child marked with a needle and ink?”

  “If it isn’t, it should be. But then again, I’m squeamish. And curious. I’ve seen the heart on her ankle. Pierced by an arrow, no less. What’s the other one she’s got?”

  I winced. “It’s a tramp stamp. Right above her butt. A pair of wings with a heart between them.”

  “Ow. Well, at least it isn’t a skull or a nasty word. And tattoos can be removed, if you want them to be. And I’m not sure we should be using that term, tramp stamp. Women need to respect the choices of other women. Stick together and all that.”

  “Sorry,” I said. “You’re right. Anyway, I doubt Gemma’s going to want her tattoos removed. She’ll probably be accumulating more ink before too long. Not that I’ll give her permission, but that won’t stand in her way.”

  “Don’t make assumptions. You might ask her not to get another tattoo until she’s eighteen. She might say okay.”

  “Or she might run right out and get some particularly sensitive part of her body pierced.”

  “Is she really that reactionary? That perverse?”

  I sighed. “I don’t know. It seems as if she is, at least with me. But not all the time. I’m being grumpy. I should give Gemma the benefit of the doubt. And the space and time she needs to come to terms with the sense of dislocation and loss she must be feeling.”

  “It couldn’t hurt to try.”

  And I am trying. Honestly. I’m trying all the time.

  “Do you know,” I told Annie, “that when Gemma first came home to me, she was so down, so closed off, I was afraid she’d try to commit suicide. So many teens do.”

  “Gemma’s not the type,” Annie stated with certainty.

  “I know that now. At least, I think I do. Anyway, is there really a type to commit suicide? Isn’t it entirely possible that almost every person at some terribly low point in his or her life could be tempted to end it all?”

  Annie thought about that for a moment. Finally she said: “Tempted, yes. But to actually go through with it? No, I don’t think that the majority of people would make that choice. For some it would be because of religious reasons. For others, fear of what might be an even worse existence after life on earth. Some people might just decide that the prospect of a good cup of coffee in the morning was enough to live for.”

  “Or, in Gemma’s case, a good cup of coffee accompanied by a chocolate doughnut.”

  Annie laughed. “The girl does have a sweet tooth!”

  Chapter 62

  Verity had pressed me into going with her to watch the Independence Day parade this morning. I’ve never been into parades. Well, that’s not really true. What I should say is that Dad didn’t like to go where there were crowds of people. He never said why. Now I wonder if it was something to do with feeling exposed, like someone in the press of people would sense his massive guilt, assuming he felt any, and he wouldn’t be able to run away. Whatever the reason, I didn’t grow up going to parades, big or small.

  “It should be fine,” Verity said, and I know what she meant. I’ve been here over a month already, and except for that one stupid woman who accosted us that time, Mirelle what’s her name, no one else has been trouble. Everyone at the parade would probably be too busy cheering on the marching bands and the floats to pay attention to The Little Kidnapped Girl.

  So we went. It was okay. The marching band sounded a bit off to me, but maybe that’s because I’m not big on that kind of music. The float Verity had helped make for the local veterinarians was cool. She had built a huge version of one of those carpeted towers that cats like, and on every level or perch there were papier-mâché models of all sorts of cats. Around the base of the tower there were papier-mâché models of dogs and even a few real dogs, on leashes of course.

  Around eleven we went to the beach. The Strawberries came too, and Marion. Marion was wearing a matching top and capri pants, white with orange stripes. For some reason she looked to me like a soda can, though I don’t think I’ve ever actually seen an orange-and-white-striped soda can. She had this rickety old folding chair that wasn’t even a real beach chair (not that I’m an expert on beach chairs already, but everyone knows an indoor folding chair when they see one!) an
d a bag that was one of those recycled things supermarkets are always trying to get people to reuse. I wondered if she was poor, or maybe she just didn’t go to the beach very often. So there she was, sitting in her chair, her hands folded on her lap (probably because the chair had no arms) and her feet together, with what looked like a really old thermos leaning against one leg of the chair. Anyway, I suddenly had this overwhelming feeling of pity for her, and it annoyed me. Why, I thought, did she have to sit there, looking all tiny and vulnerable and forlorn? But then she gave me this big happy smile and I thought, Stop reading into things! She’s just an old woman enjoying an afternoon at the beach. Just because she’s your grandmother . . .

  “Marni!” It was Cathy. She was wearing a sort of wet suit but with short sleeves and legs. It was for body surfing, she said. I don’t know about you, but I’m not going into the water above my ankles. I mean, the ocean is beautiful, but it’s big and powerful and I don’t swim and I’ve seen now how waves can knock a person down and how sometimes it seems like forever before they can get up. If that means I’m a coward, fine. Hey, Dad’s a coward. I’m just a chip off the old block.

  “Are you wearing your bathing suit?” she asked, eyeing my jean shorts and T-shirt.

  “Don’t have one,” I said. “Swimming is not really my thing.” That isn’t entirely true. I like pools, but the ocean is too intimidating.

  Cathy seemed to be giving that some thought. Finally she said: “It must be kind of weird to be living on the East Coast after growing up in the Southwest.”

  “It is weird,” I said. And then I was off and running. “Arizona and New Mexico are so amazing. The desert is the best. It’s way more exciting than the ocean.” I was lying through my teeth, as that old saying goes, probably a skill I picked up from my father without even knowing it. And I was totally aware I was being defensive. I mean, I love the ocean. How many times have I already been down here at the beach on my own since getting my bike? A lot. So what was I doing?

  “I bet you’ve been to the Grand Canyon a few times,” Cathy said, oblivious to or ignoring my perverse mood. “My parents took me two summers ago. It was awesome. The colors of the rocks when the sun was setting on them were amazing. I’d never seen reds like that in my life, except in pictures. And I’d never really imagined that there were pine trees in the Southwest!”

  I wouldn’t know about the reds, I thought. I’ve never been to the Grand Canyon. Dad and I hadn’t ever really gone on what you could call a vacation. I think it was mostly because of the money. I mean, we didn’t have any to spare. I suppose we could have borrowed some camping equipment from someone—lots of people out where I grew up go camping pretty regularly—and we could have set up a tent on the rim of the canyon and cooked our own meals over a small fire, and that wouldn’t have cost a lot. We knew families who did just that. But we, my dad and I, never did. The fact that we never really did anything fun or interesting had never really bothered me; at least, I hadn’t let it bother me. But now, with Cathy looking all smug and content—or my thinking that she looked all smug and content—I felt angry. Why hadn’t I gotten to go anyplace more than twenty miles from wherever we were calling home at any given time?

  I shrugged. “Yeah, the Grand Canyon’s okay,” I said. “But the second and third time you see it, you’re like, okay, I get it.” Liar.

  “Really?” Cathy’s eyes had gone wide. “I don’t think it would ever fail to amaze me. Look who’s over by that purple umbrella! It’s Vera, from school. Wait, you don’t know her yet. Be right back.”

  And Cathy was off, loping along the sand like the soccer player she is. I wonder if I should go to one of her games, you know, just to be nice.

  That’s an odd thought.

  And here’s another odd thought. It dawned on me that this was the first “family event” I’d ever attended, even if “family” means just Verity, Marion, and me. Of course Dad is family too, but it’s different now with three generations together in one place. I thought, too, of Verity’s father, my grandfather, and of how in his note to me he asked me to say hi to Verity for him. So I did tell her Tom said hi, but she didn’t say anything and then kind of turned away from me. I wondered what she was feeling.

  Maybe I’ll ask her.

  I spotted a shell I thought might fit one of the few gaps in Verity’s collections, and stuck it into my pocket. I’d give it to her later. Right now she was talking to Marion, sitting cross-legged on a blanket, her hands on her knees. She looked really young, and I realized she is really young. And Marion isn’t really old, either, not by today’s standards. They could be around for a long time. My mother and my grandmother.

  I turned away and thought about last year and what Dad and I did on the Fourth of July. We were living in a trailer park—it wasn’t as gross as it sounds; this one was actually pretty nice—and the people in the trailers on either side of ours got together and we had a barbeque. Someone had an old grill; one of the legs was gone, so it was kind of propped up on one side with an old metal pole, but the grill part worked fine. Someone else brought sparklers, and I was glad there was nothing bigger or more dangerous than that. A guy we knew in the town we’d lived in the year before got seriously burned on the Fourth because he was stupid or drunk enough to be all impatient and peer into the metal garbage can into which he’d stuffed some fireworks. I remember the first time I saw him after the accident, and I’m embarrassed to admit I felt kind of sick to my stomach when I saw what was left of his hands and what the fire had done to his face.

  “Marni!” It was Marc. “Any interest in helping me with the hot dogs?”

  Another memory flashed at me then, of Dad at the grill, refusing to allow me anywhere near it because he was afraid I would get burned. For about a second I thought I was going to cry, but I got control of myself and went to join Marc.

  Chapter 63

  I was pretty wiped out, not having gotten to bed until almost two that morning. See, I’d gotten a call from the local veterinarians, a really nice couple I know from around Yorktide, at close to eight the previous night. A fire had totally destroyed the float they’d built for the parade this morning and what with me being a sculptor—in other words, I can wield a hammer and use a blowtorch and a chainsaw without somebody losing a vital body part—Jack and Hugh wondered if I could help them put together a new float. “Not elaborate,” Jack had assured me. “Just something we can be proud of.”

  Not exactly a small task, but the guys are really nice people, so I packed up some plywood I keep in the basement, made a stop at my studio at the college for some tools, and headed out to the gorgeous old farmhouse Jack and Hugh call home.

  I think people liked the float. At least, there was a lot of cheering from the crowd. Then again, maybe people were just happy to see the dogs for adoption Jack and Hugh are boarding, riding along with the papier-mâché models of dogs and cats. (Luckily, the models were in storage elsewhere when the float itself caught flame.)

  Anyway, tired or not, I was happy to be right where I was, spending the day with the people who mean the most to me. Well, all but for David.

  “Hey.”

  I turned to see Gemma coming toward me across the sand. I’d pretty much browbeaten her into putting on sunblock before we left the house. “Trust me,” I’d said. “Even if you don’t usually burn, you can burn at the beach. Something about the reflection off the water.” Honestly, I’m not sure that’s true, but it convinced Gemma to slather on the lotion.

  “I know a lot of people find seagulls annoying,” I said, nodding toward a group of five birds dipping their beaks into the wet sand at the water’s edge. “I mean, they do have a harsh cry and they can be pests when you’re trying to eat, but I like them. I think they’re beautiful, actually.”

  Gemma nodded. “Some of them are huge. Especially the white-and-gray ones. They look, like, two feet tall.”

  I laughed. “One time I was at Jackie’s Too, in Perkins Cove, sitting at one of the tables in the o
pen, and a gigantic seagull swooped down and took a French fry right out of my hand. I can laugh now, but I was terrified then.”

  “They’re scavengers, aren’t they? I mean, they have to eat whatever they can find, right?”

  “Right,” I said. “So it’s hard to be mad at a creature who’s simply being what he’s supposed to be.”

  Gemma had no reply for this, and suddenly I was seized with the desire to reveal to her something I’d never revealed to anyone, not even to Annie and David. I had no idea how she would react to this revelation, but I felt bold. Maybe it was the exhaustion, pulling down my caution and defenses.

  “You know,” I said, “every year on your birthday I come down to the shore just at dawn. I bring with me a little bottle in which I’ve put a note, wishing you well and asking the universe to send you home safely. And I toss the bottle into the sea.” Now, I thought, there was no need for me to perform this ritual ever again.

  Gemma didn’t say anything for a long few minutes, and I began to regret having shared. Then she said, “Is it cold here in March?”

  Her response didn’t really surprise me. I hadn’t expected her to throw her arms around me or kiss me on the cheek and tell me what a wonderful mother I was. “It’s always cold before the sun has been up for a few hours,” I said. “And yeah, it’s not unheard of for us to get snow as late as April.”

  “I wonder if anyone’s ever found one of the bottles.”

  “We’ll never know. It’s not like I put my name and address on the notes.”

  Gemma smiled a bit at that. “Do you go in?” she asked. “I mean, into the ocean?”

  “Not above my knees,” I said. “At least, not when there are big waves. I’m not a good enough swimmer.”

  Gemma nodded and then she went off. I watched her go up to Marion, sitting in state in her folding chair, and crouch down at her side. I wondered what Gemma was saying to her. I saw Marion smile and then actually laugh. Marion doesn’t laugh often.