The Bridge Between

by Lindsey Brackett

  The Coultrie farm occupied a sliver of the island’s north side, so Lou had no qualms fishing and eating from her own creek. But the vibrancy of life she remembered seemed subdued, even here. Once, her parents had culled all the oysters they’d need for a roast right from their own backyard.

  Her roast had been supplemented with bushels from Charleston.

  Interesting the two rivers could now be so different, having run the same course for so long.

  Lou heaved herself up on the dock and sat for a moment, watching an egret take flight. No different, perhaps, than herself and her siblings. Carolina had carried on their mother’s love for hospitality, and Jimmy developed Daddy’s business far beyond what he had ever dreamed. They’d come from the same womb, and yet, she struggled to believe this may be her place.

  Her father had wanted her to use her gift—her love of science and structure to see their world. To protect it.

  Lou ran her thumb across her carefully documented samples, smearing one a bit. She might be able to help revitalize this creek more effectively than she could reinvent her own life.

  These samples measured the water’s turbidity—its cloudiness due to particles—as well as pH levels and conductivity. Probes, now mounted on tall poles in varying locations along the creek as it ran the length of her father’s land, measured the water in real time. She and the students helped monitor the data, looking for triggers that indicated ecosystem stress.

  If only she’d monitored the stress in her marriage with the same attention to detail.

  Back in the kitchen, Lou made a pot of coffee and frowned at the chuck roast she’d bought on sale. This was David’s weekend and while she’d never disdained leftovers, the idea of three days of the same meal held little appeal.

  She had David’s number half-dialed when she heard tires crunching on the gravel outside. Liam knocked a moment later.

  “Hey, there.” She pushed open the screen. “Come on in out of the cold.”

  He inhaled deeply. “I could smell those Charleston beans soon as I pulled in.”

  She chuckled, appreciating his appreciation for her coffee. “Sure you could.”

  “Thought I’d come check out the week’s work and take you to dinner. I heard The Hideaway has an oyster casserole on the menu this week.”

  Liam presumed and she liked that. David had always waited on her to decide, and sometimes, the thousand decisions of motherhood couldn’t stretch to include whether or not they should eat Chinese or order pizza.

  “Tennessee says it’s delicious, and he should know.” She pulled her coat around her shoulders. “Work first?”

  “Like you read my mind.”

  Liam made this easy. Yet, somehow, she wished mind-reading had worked for her and David.

  ~~~

  Lou let Christy Townsend, The Hideaway’s resident hostess, hug her and lead them to a table with a water view. “Expect Ben to send over an appetizer. He likes to take care of family, you know.” The young woman winked and sailed off to greet another couple entering the cozy establishment on this chilly night.

  “They’re turning quite a business here for the off-season.” Liam observed.

  He seemed so poised, pursing his lips as he perused the wine list, totally at ease with the surroundings of white linen and votive candles. On her first official date with David, they’d gone to Captain D’s because he knew she liked seafood.

  She folded her hands under her chin and gazed around the now-familiar restaurant that Tennessee and Ben Townsend had made into one of the most up and coming destination eats on the coast. “They are smart young men. Hoping some of it will rub off on mine.”

  “Keep them surrounded by good influences, and surely something will stick.” Liam set down the menu as a server approached. He ordered a bottle of Chardonnay, and Lou asked for water. Moody as she’d been lately, she didn’t need more than one glass of wine.

  “Speaking of influences, they’re enjoying your students’ company.”

  “That goes both ways.”

  “They want me to get a dog.”

  He raised his brows. “You didn’t seem too taken with that beast last weekend.”

  “Well, definitely not one like him.” Transparency didn’t need to include her lingering envy of Hank’s owner. She shook her head, tossing off the unwelcome thought. “What?”

  His eyes—dark as the coffee beans they both loved—narrowed. “You have an ulterior motive.”

  She gaped. “I do not.”

  He pressed his lips together again—she had a wildly fleeting thought she shouldn’t be noticing his mouth so much—but the moment broke when Jeanna Townsend set a bottle of wine on the table.

  “Hey there, Lou. They’re short-staffed tonight since that terrible flu is taking everyone out like a tidal wave.” Jeanna, Ben’s mother and Grace’s best friend, twisted the corkscrew deftly. “So what’s a mother to do but come to her son’s rescue? He’s even got Hannah back there in the kitchen.”

  This was a bad idea, coming to a place where everyone knew her and would speculate. David was sure to hear—

  “Oyster casserole’s the special, as I’m sure y’all heard. It’s what’s bringing everyone in here this week, but personally,” Jeanna leaned in again, “I’d get the flounder. Ben and his chef have been perfecting it since Christmas and it will melt in your mouth.” She tossed her sunny smile to Liam.

  An introduction might be needed. “Jeanna, this is my colleague, Dr. Liam Whiting. Liam, Jeanna Townsend.”

  “We didn’t get to meet officially at Lou’s oyster roast. I was on grandmother duty, you know.”

  “Lovely to meet you.” Liam extended his hand. “Your son has quite a place here.”

  “He does, and thanks to Lou’s niece, that darling Hannah,” Jeanna clasped her hands together in giddiness, “it’s getting even better. Now can I bring y’all the flounder?”

  “How about one flounder and one oyster special?” Liam met Lou’s eyes over his glass.

  “Sounds perfect.”

  “All right then.” Jeanna sashayed off, still working the room as both a proud mother and an eloquent hostess. Hannah stuck her head out the swinging kitchen door and beckoned her back, but she caught sight of Lou in the process and waved.

  “Is there anyone left on Edisto you won’t be related to before long?” Liam chuckled. “And people around here make jokes about Alabama cousins.”

  “Oh, hush.” Lou twisted the stem of her glass. “It’s a small community is all.”

  “One your family has made quite an impression upon.”

  “I suppose.”

  He reached across the table and caught her wrist. “Be proud of your heritage, Louisa.”

  She pulled away, but still felt his heat on her skin. “I am.”

  “But you’re still pursuing a doctorate in chemistry.”

  “I thought you said we weren’t going to talk business.”

  “And I thought you said teaching at Charleston would be an honor. Ecology’s a more likely position.”

  “I told you almost thirty years ago why I didn’t want to do that.”

  “Guess I hoped you’d change your mind.”

  She crossed her arms, drawing her thin cardigan close around her body. “It’s cool in here.”

  “I’ll see if we can’t get the heater going.” He rose and crossed to the corner where a tall silver heater promised warmth for her skin but not her memories.

  Chapter 23

  Edisto Island, February 1978

  On the back roads from Atlanta, the drive to Edisto pushed seven or eight hours with stops. Lou reveled as the highway’s pine-rimmed fields, ripe with soybeans, tobacco, or summertime rows of cattle-feed corn eased into narrow roads shadowed by old forest growth. Then the vista broke open, revealing thin ribbons of tidal creeks.

  The long drive always gave her the right amount of time to steady her heart and remind herself, one couldn’t live off nature’s raw beauty. Especially when one strong
storm could bring it all down.

  For David, however, the drive’s novelty had worn off.

  As she coasted down Highway 174, Jimmy Buffet on the radio, she forgave him his antsy behavior. Reminded herself he’d been raised among traffic that snarled like the branches of the live oaks over their heads.

  Driving home through this tunnel felt like a baptism sometimes, anointing a welcome return. On others, she only remembered the sense of captivity. Lovely as these old trees were, they held her to this place, rooted her here in this soil born of pluff mud and blood.

  Much as she longed for a taste of her mother’s table and a gruff embrace from her father, today’s drive felt like a cage. The realization this remote farm may be the only place she’d ever belong weighed heavy.

  Beside her David shifted, trying to fit his long legs into the little VW Bug’s space. “You want to talk about what you’ve been chewing on this whole drive or should I just keep pretending I don’t notice?”

  She cut her eyes from the road over to his. Usually that dimple in his left cheek was deep in a smile, his easygoing, loping grin his most prominent feature. She was a sucker for a man with a lazy smile, no doubt.

  David scrubbed his hand through his blond hair, now cropped short to match his teaching persona. Likely this would be his last trip to Edisto for a while. Baseball season would start soon as they returned from this year’s oyster roast.

  When she still said nothing, he held up his palm so she could see the scar. “C’mon, Lou. I took a knife for you.”

  “Trust you’ll put on a glove this time.”

  “Only if you tell me what’s wrong.”

  “I’m not sure that’s an even trade.” She slowed the car into the line of traffic waiting on the Dawhoo Bridge to close itself back down. Along the Edisto River a shrimp boat chugged beneath the bridge, nets raised high.

  In the small confines of the car, he leaned over, his face next to hers, his aftershave tickling her nose. She leaned her head back and let him nuzzle her neck. He didn’t stop there, feathering small kisses up her jaw line to her ear. “David … we’re in the car in the middle of the day…”

  Even Patrick Watson hadn’t undone her composure like David Halloway could with nothing but a simple kiss.

  “Guess if you don’t want to do this while we wait half our lives for that bridge to close, you’ll just have to talk.” David sat back, arm still slung behind her shoulder, smugness tipping his chin.

  Lou groaned and laid her forehead against the steering wheel. “You’re a horrible person.”

  “Frankly, my dear, you’re no picnic yourself, even if you were raised a stone’s throw from the ocean.” David held a persistent belief about her longevity in decision-making and her slow response to even the most mundane of questions. When it takes an hour to get to civilization, he’d say, you can take an hour to choose.

  She scrunched her nose at him now, irritated and aroused, annoyed and relaxed. He wanted her to be more than this sleepy island, and she liked that. Had believed in herself until yesterday.

  “I didn’t get the job.”

  “At the CDC?”

  “No, at the high school.” She rolled her eyes. “Of course at the CDC.”

  “There’s other jobs.”

  “No, there’s really not. Know why I didn’t get it?”

  He arched a brow and slid his fingers under her ponytail to knead the tension in her neck. “Why?”

  “Because I’m a woman, and while there are a limited number of opportunities available for women in the medical research field, they have already decided to fill this position with one who is less qualified—but prettier—than me.”

  David’s hand stilled. “They said that?”

  “In not so many words.” She sucked in her lower lip. The committee of doctors who interviewed her had all been men about her father’s age, pompous and arrogant with wing-tipped loafers and pressed collars. One of them had crossed his arms and sniffed her direction. As she gathered her things to leave, she heard him tell his colleague a box of KFC had bigger breasts than her.

  She shook off David’s touch. He withdrew his hand and placed it over hers. “Lou, they’re all fools. I’m sorry.”

  “So am I.” She sniffed, willing the tears back. “There aren’t many other options in Atlanta right now.”

  “So do something else.”

  He didn’t get it. She didn’t want to do anything else. A lab ensured a controlled, safe environment. Quiet and methodical, research wasn’t a job that could be rushed. It required thoroughness and attention to detail. She bore those traits well. Something else would mean she’d have to cultivate different tendencies.

  Traffic lurched forward, the bridge having smoothly and slowly lowered back into place.

  “What about teaching?”

  She tapped the break—hard. At David’s suggestion, the VW had surged forward too quickly for the car in front. “I’m not a teacher.”

  “But you could be.” Excitement mounted in his voice, the timbre of it rising as it did anytime he hit on what he thought was the best idea. “Lou, there are never enough science teachers. You could run a department someday—teach upper-level classes, maybe even college.”

  “I don’t want to teach. I want to research.”

  “Then teach until you find a research gig. At least then”—he slipped his fingers into hers—“we can be on the same schedule. Think about it—summers off to travel, always plenty of time at the holidays to visit family…”

  His voice tripped only the tiniest bit on the word, and she knew what he was thinking. Her family would always be in the same place. Who knew where his parents would land next?

  “Especially since it takes half a day to drive out here.” Voice steadied again, he waved his hand at the river sparkling in the setting evening sun.

  The offer tempted, no doubt. But she couldn’t commit to that kind of decision, staying on with him in Atlanta, unless—

  “By the way, I asked your dad if I could take him out to lunch tomorrow.”

  Her hand slipped on the wheel.

  “Since I know you take forever to make decisions, that’s all I’m going to tell you, all right?” David squeezed her fingers, his teasing smile returning, his eyes alight with hope.

  She blinked to clear her vision and nodded, wondering how long was too long when it came to making a decision meant to last a lifetime.

  Chapter 24

  First thing Saturday morning Tennessee called. David fumbled the phone when the young man asked if he and Lou might join him for brunch after church tomorrow.

  “Cora Anne will be tied up with the museum all day, you know.”

  David did know.

  A moment later, the doorbell rang. “Dad, Mom’s here.” J.D. and his brothers thundered up the stairs, then back down again.

  He met Lou in the hall and took the grocery sack out of her arms.

  “Morning.” Under the sunglasses on her head, strands of her dark hair billowed, reminding him of the way she’d looked at Emory. “I think I’ve got everything we need so you can learn to make an actual Sunday dinner.”

  He began unloading contents. “Let’s make it Saturday supper since we have a brunch invitation tomorrow.”

  “I know. He called before I left.” She smirked. “Told you this was coming.”

  “Doesn’t mean I have to like it.” What he did like, however, was the idea of spending the afternoon with her. “Amazing how some things work themselves out, huh?”

  Lou creased her brows, studying him as though his words carried a heavier implication. Maybe they did. He held his breath. Did she feel the tension that hovered around? The kind that didn’t spark anger—but possibility.

  Her face smoothed back out and she rolled her shoulders, easing into the distance between them. “Yes. Amazing.” She reached for a bag of carrots. “Let’s get this meal going.”

  Washing potatoes and carrots put them hip-to-hip in his small kitchen. She seemed rig
ht at home as she searched his drawers for a knife she liked. “I might get a dog.”

  “You hate dogs.”

  “I do not.” She snapped the narrow end of a carrot, and he raised his brows. She shrugged. “Bad spot.”

  “You don’t like dogs.” He wasn’t going to be distracted by wilting carrots or the fact that this close, he could tell she’d switched back to her old standby Dove soap.

  “I don’t like messes,” Lou clarified. “Dogs, in and of themselves, are not the problem.”

  “Dogs make messes.”

  “So do boys. And boys like dogs.”

  Ah, now they were coming to it. “Are you jealous of Hank?”

  “David James Halloway.” She pressed the knife against the pockmarked skin of an innocent potato. “I am not jealous of some animal.”

  He thought maybe it was the dog’s owner she envied, but didn’t think that statement would be safe in the vicinity of the knife and all. “So you want to get a dog?”

  “I’m not sure why you aren’t following this conversation.”

  Because it made no sense. He tried a new strategy. “What kind?”

  “Mama always liked goldens. Beau was the exception.”

  A golden retriever. He could see that actually. “Would be good company for you when the boys are over here.”

  She dropped the knife and wheeled on him—or into him, rather. The kitchen was very small and he’d had to stand nearly on top of her to share the cutting board. “You are not listening. A dog for the boys. So they’d bring it when they come over. Because it would be their dog.”

  “Our dog.”

  “Excuse me?” She picked up the knife again and the carrots were on the receiving end of frustration he truly couldn’t follow.

  He stepped back. “Our dog. If it travels with the boys, it would be our dog. Just like they’re our kids.”