The Sea Keeper's Daughters

by Lisa Wingate

  She paused, waiting for input. I tried to concentrate on the problem, but I felt like someone had wrapped piano wire around my brain and was slowly pulling it tight. “That sounds reasonable. If my meeting tomorrow goes like it’s supposed to, hopefully it won’t be too long before we can take on help again.” But the byproduct of today’s disaster was that we wouldn’t have Mark’s help with the code commission hearing. We’d have to fight the battle ourselves, with whatever money I could get from the museum pieces. Disaster here in Manteo might spell disaster for Bella Tazza, as well.

  Maybe I needed to reconsider what to do with Alice’s necklace. Given that my future and Bella Tazza’s were now hanging in the balance, selling the necklace and the scrimshaw made the most sense. But the idea felt like a betrayal of Alice and Thomas, and even Able, whose story was connected to the Melungeon people Alice was searching for in the mountains.

  “Wait. There’s more.” Denise went on talking, oblivious to my whirlwind of indecision. “Tonight, Amanda tells me that Jason just went to work for Tagg Harper. You know that’s not coincidence. Word is, Tagg’s been all over the place trying to ferret out why we still haven’t started breaking up Tazza 2.”

  Welcome home. “Great.”

  “I’ve got a really bad feeling, Whitney. Jason knows everything about this place. He has all of our recipes. He’s probably even got some idea of our cash flow at Tazza 1. There’s no telling what kind of information Tagg could get from him. On top of that, Grandma Daisy just called, and Mattie’s running a fever. If she’s coming down with a cold, the asthma will kick up… .”

  The tumble-in of issues accomplished at least one thing—it properly reorganized my priorities and put my mind squarely back home where it belonged. Suddenly, I couldn’t wait to get there and help out.

  I would’ve packed my bag and left right then, if it hadn’t been for the upcoming meeting at Benoit House. That was one last appointment I had to keep before leaving the Outer Banks behind for good.

  The lightning and thunder still hadn’t let up. I stood at the window, stared into wind-folded sheets of rain glittering against the streetlamps. If this didn’t stop by morning, I’d be drenched before I got everything loaded in my car. I’d been watching the storm for hours, first from the rooftop, where I’d hidden out with one of my mother’s quilts, curled amid the scents of climbing roses and the sea. The clouds slowly stole the stars, and the lightning came too close, and there was no choice but to go back inside. I was thirsty, and hungry, but the lamp was still on in the living room, which meant that Clyde remained staked out in his chair.

  I’d tried to sleep, but only managed short fits and gasps. Time and time again, I dreamed that I needed to run, but my legs wouldn’t function, needed to get to my car, but the waves were slowly carrying it to sea, needed to find my way out of the Excelsior, but suddenly there were no doors, only hallway after hallway and room after room. I couldn’t free myself, no matter how hard I struggled.

  The dream was a fitting metaphor for this night. It seemed endless. I wanted daylight to come and the storm to stop pounding—both outside the window and inside my head.

  Finally, in the refuge of an old wing chair, I closed my eyes, let my thoughts drift and drift and drift.

  I was on the beach at Nags Head, walking along the tideline, the sea’s foamy fringe caressing my feet, then pulling away. My mother was there, standing on a narrow finger of sand well out into the ocean. I stood and looked at her, in her yellow dress, her auburn hair flowing over her shoulders, the way she’d worn it when I was young. I remembered how soft it had always been against my skin when she’d hugged me. Like satin ribbon.

  I called to her and she turned my way. She was speaking, but I couldn’t hear over the tide. Her hand stretched out, the palm turned upward, the fingers curling and opening, beckoning me nearer. I ran through water that grew deeper and deeper until suddenly there was no bottom and I was sinking, a riptide dragging me out to sea. A hand grabbed mine, pulled me up. The eyes looking down were those of my beautiful mother. My mother with her cheeks rosy, and her hair thick, her smile vibrant. No sign of cancer. No sallow skin over jutting bones. No evidence of all the horror that disease could bring.

  “Mom!” I sobbed. She was sun-warmed and strong. Here by this sea, she was alive again. Well again. “I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I’m sorry I didn’t stay. I’m sorry I wasn’t here when you were so sick. I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I didn’t know. Mom, I’m sorry.”

  “Ssshhhh.” I felt her lips close to my ear, her chin cradling my head as I stood at the edge of the water and she on that glittering shore where the disease could no longer conquer her. “Don’t cry, Whit. There’s so little time. Stop running from things and to things. Be happy where you are.”

  Then something was pulling me away. A wave. A wave of sound, a flash of light, a rumble beneath my feet. I clung to her dress, clutching fistfuls that only slid through my fingers as if she were draped in sand.

  Her garment slipped away from me, and then her arm, wrist, hand.

  “Mom, no!” I cried out, afraid I’d never see her again this side of heaven. Her gaze caught mine in the last instant our fingers touched, and without speaking, there were words. Her words. No tossing everything in the closet, Whitney. Sort things out. Don’t let them pile up.

  How many times had she said that to me over the years when she caught me stuffing messes in corners, to deal with them later?

  What was she trying to tell me now?

  She was gone before I could ask, and I was whirling away like a Chinese kite, traveling skyward, and then spiraling down and down and down, into noise and light, and then utter darkness.

  My phone was ringing when the thunder died. The room was as black as pitch, the power out. The only source of light was the call flashing on the screen.

  Denise?

  The vague anxiety of the dream’s ending turned sharp. It stabbed inward, finding tender flesh. My cousin was already babbling out a story when I answered.

  “It’s gone, Whit … burned … it burned.”

  Horrible images overtook me—Denise’s small brick house consumed by flames. “Denise. Is everyone okay? Is everyone out?”

  “No … yes, we’re all right.” The words ended in a sob. “There was no … nobody was … Thank … oh, thank God. Eric almost spent the night. He lost his apartment and he didn’t have anywhere …”

  “Eric was spending the night at your house?”

  She sniffled, took a breath. Coughed and wheezed, pulled in air again. “No. The restaurant. The restaurant is gone. They call … called me, and b-by the time I got here there was nothing … nothing left.”

  “Wha … what?” The flame leapt across the miles and ignited inside me. All I could think was, Tagg Harper. Tagg Harper did this. “What are you saying? The mill building burned? They burned Tazza 2?”

  “N-no.” Denise’s voice was only a scrap of sound. Hopeless. Thin. “Not the mill, Whitney. Tazza 1. It’s … it’s gone.”

  The words didn’t make sense. I couldn’t form the image. “Denise, what do you mean it’s gone?”

  “I got … I got a call a little after 3 a.m. The police. They told me … they wanted me … to come. That there’d been a fire at the restaurant. I thought … at first they meant Tazza 2. I went to … to the wrong place, but the mill building was fine. I was so … relieved. I thought … maybe … maybe a prank? Then I thought maybe they were trying to get me away from my house. I panicked. Then Melissa called. Her husband had caught it on police scanner. They were already here at Tazza 1. I just got here. Oh, Whit … we … this just can’t be happening.”

  Denise echoed my thoughts. I stared into the darkness outside the Excelsior window, closed my eyes against it, told myself, It’s only the dream. This is just part of the dream. This is not real. It can’t be. It can’t.

  “Whit, I have to go. I’ll call you back in … when I know something more.”

  “Denise, wait. I’ll head f
or the airport. I’ll get a flight as soon as I can and …”

  “Just … just stay put, okay? Let me find out what I can. I need … I need everyone safe where they belong. Just … give me a little time. I have Melissa and Doug here, and Eric just sh-showed up. Whit, we’ll have to lay off the whole crew. Amber’s dad lost his job two months ago and she’s helping to pay the house payment and the bills, and …” The sentence trailed away half finished. “I need to go. Just stay there by the phone.”

  She couldn’t have made a more difficult request. Everything in me wanted to grab my things and run. My suitcase was already packed and ready for a quick departure.

  Instead, I sat in the darkness, feeling hollow and sick. Outside, the wind howled and lightning outlined the rooftops of Manteo, illuminating the shape of a cross atop the bell tower of the old Methodist church. How? I wondered. How can this be happening? Just when we’d finally found some hope … to have it snatched from us, to have hope become disaster …

  The storm inside me raged again, as violent and defiant as the one beyond the window, as filled with angry rain—enough to extinguish any spark of faith. If this was part of the plan, it was the wrong plan. The good people got hurt, and the bad people won? Not in my world. Not if I could help it… .

  I sat, waited, allowed the anger to boil. I made plans, let the metallic taste of revenge galvanize everything. If I could’ve gotten to Tagg Harper in that moment, I would have made him pay, but before this was all over, I’d find a way to even the score.

  The electricity finally came on, and outside, the clouds separated from the horizon, traveling inland over the marshes. With enough light to see by, it was time to gather my things and go home, where I should’ve been in the first place.

  The meeting. The museum.

  I’d have to call as soon as it was late enough, let Tandi know what had happened. Maybe I could phone in for the meeting, or come back once things were straightened out in Michigan. When would things be straightened out? If Tagg Harper was willing to burn down my restaurant, how would having money to fight our case at the state level make any difference? He could just set fire to the other building, destroy it as well.

  When Denise called back, her mind was on much the same track. “Whit, they’re saying it looks like it started in the range hood. The one we just had cleaned, serviced, and inspected.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  Frenetic anger rose and buffeted me from all directions. “I just want to wrap my hands around … I want to find Tagg Harper and … Why don’t you tell them that Tagg Harper has friends who would know a whole lot about setting a fire and making it look like an accident? He fishes with a fire marshal.”

  “Whitney, you know we can’t just come out and say that. There’s no proof. And we’re going to tell one fire marshal that another one helped burn down our building? The next thing, Tagg will be hauling us to court for slander, and he’ll drain us dry that way. We can’t give him any more ammunition. Believe me, I’ve been thinking this through as I’m standing here looking at our life in ashes.”

  I took a deep breath, tried to see reason. “You’re right. I know you’re right, but I just want to … I want it so bad I can taste it.”

  “I know. I know. Me too. But we’ve got to be smart. We have to get Tazza 2 through the code commission hearing. Whatever it takes. Otherwise, none of us will have jobs. You and I both know that the insurance company will drag their feet, investigating the fire. And even if they cut us a check tomorrow, it would take too much time to rebuild. There’s no choice. We have to save the second store, but for now, maybe it’s best if we let Tagg Harper think he’s gotten away with it.”

  “You’re probably right.” Accepting the truth was like swallowing poison. I wasn’t sure I could keep it down without killing myself. “I’m headed home this morning. I need to be there. I’ll figure out some arrangements with the museum after I’m on the road.” But I was exhausted from an entire night of no sleep. I wasn’t sure how I was going to make it through the trip.

  I wasn’t sure of anything.

  Denise and I said good-bye, and I tried to find my feet in this alternate reality—to locate some reference point that still made sense. There were none. I’d never felt so completely, utterly lost, so broken and hopeless. So shatteringly alone and defeated. Movement was the only solution—movement toward … someplace else. Throwing the last of my belongings together—clothes, phone, computer, chargers, the box filled with Alice’s letters—I tried to scroll logically through the rest of the details.

  There were still things on the second floor I’d planned to hang on to, and keepsakes from my mother I’d intended to gather this morning, whether Clyde liked it or not. Should I take the time now? Should I leave them and trust that they’d be here whenever I could come back?

  The davenport desk. I wanted it. Moving it by myself would be impossible, and it wouldn’t fit in my car anyway. It’d have to wait until next time. Everything here would have to wait.

  Loaded down with as much as I could carry in one trip, I opened the door as quietly as I could and started up the hallway. In the living room, Clyde was mercifully absent, but Ruby lay curled in my mother’s chair. Lifting her head, she whimpered. What about her? Should I take her with me? Leave her behind and trust that Clyde would make arrangements for her? After I was gone, would Joel move in here as planned?

  “Ssshhh,” I whispered. “It’s okay.” Please. Please don’t bark.

  But she simply watched me go, then come and go again. Her soft, low, sad sounds followed me in and out as I made trips to my car.

  For once, Clyde hadn’t gotten up at promptly four thirty, thank goodness. Maybe all the emotion last night had tired him out. Maybe, if we talked this morning, he would stop accusing me long enough to listen to what I had to say.

  I didn’t have it in me. Not right now. I just wanted to be home, fighting for what was mine. Finding some way to summon a phoenix from the ashes … and to serve up a dish of vengeance, when the time was right.

  On the last trip, I stopped in the living room, scratched Ruby’s head and kissed her, then laid my cheek against the corduroy cushions of my mother’s chair, took in her scent, thought, Bye, Mom.

  Tears prickled, and I clenched against them, then straightened my back, walked out the door, and left the Excelsior behind.

  On the side street, the rain had finally faded to a drizzle, the pavement glittering in an eerie, wet hush, as if Manteo were holding its breath, waiting for something.

  Perhaps waiting for me to leave?

  The door slammed hard behind me, knocking me forward. I stood for a moment under the metal awning, listened to the drip, drip, drip of water splashing into a pool and the tiny rain-river of a gutter burbling farther away. Beyond that, a cold wind whipped froth off normally placid Roanoke Sound.

  Go. Don’t think about it. But something seemed so … strange. So wrong. Perhaps it was the news about Bella Tazza, but this felt like forever—as if I’d never see this place again. Things here were so unfinished. Once again, I was running away, leaving a mess behind, doing exactly what my mother had cautioned me against in the dream.

  I had to go. Over the harbor, the sky was brightening toward a new day. If I didn’t get out of here now, the town would come to life. I didn’t want to see anyone. There wasn’t enough fight left in me. I could call Joel from the road and tell him to go check on Clyde and Ruby. Maybe sometime today, I’d get in touch with Kellie from the jewelry shop, just to make sure things were taken care of upstairs. Hopefully she would be willing to help, as a kindness to my mother’s memory, if for no other reason.

  In the alley, a stray kitten perched atop my car—half-grown, cinder black, bone thin with one ear drooping sideways. It shivered and mewed as I unlocked the doors.

  “Better get down. Unless you want a ride to Michigan.”

  The stray inched closer, the sad characteristics of rejection and he
lplessness painfully evident.

  “Shoo. Now go home.” I pulled the door latch, set an overstuffed box on the backseat.

  The kitten only whined, wrapping its tail over its paws for warmth and casting soulful green eyes at me. I thought of the dream, of my mom standing by the ocean, beautiful and free, fully healed.

  My mother would never leave a shivering kitten in an alley. It’s one of God’s creatures, she’d say.

  “Come here,” I sighed, finally. “I’ll let you into the stairwell.” I could call Joel later and ask him to figure out something about the cat. With any luck, it was just lost and someone would come looking for it. For now, at least I could give it shelter.

  Quickly. The sun was rising. Monday was rushing in.

  The kitten mewed, rubbing its wet head under my chin and shivering as I snuggled it against my jacket. A ragged purr chugged out, like an engine starting after sitting idle too long, the sound intensifying as we went inside. The vibration was soothing and pleasant, something normal in an otherwise-upside-down morning.

  Maybe I could find an old blanket or a painting tarp or a box in the porter’s closet—something for the cat to curl up in and warm itself.

  Unfortunately, the closet door was locked, the keys upstairs, so I settled for grabbing a sweatshirt from my duffel bag and bundling it on the floor. The kitten purred happily as I set her in the middle and wrapped the sleeves around her. “You behave. I’ll call somebody about you after a while.”

  Rubbing her head, I waited until she relaxed wearily against the fleece. Mom would be proud.

  “Gotta go,” I whispered into the quiet stairwell, then gave the kitten one last look before walking out the door.