“I think we should get a divorce.” Lou spoke the words haunting her. Not defensive. Arms limp across her lap. Not angry. Eyes straight ahead, though.
Not looking at his.
“Because you don’t love me anymore or because you’re done trying?” David’s voice broke on try, and he hung his head.
No, she didn’t want to try anymore.
And love? She loved their kids with passion that frightened her. For them, she’d let go of who she once wanted to be, so she could become the mother they needed. But her husband of twenty years?
For him, she felt only frustration.
“We could try counseling again.” David spoke through the dark. Ahead the ocean rippled in and out. A refrain of tug and pull with the moon, whose light shimmered on the waves.
Lou understood the ocean. She too surged forward and back, her instinct always constant.
She could not do this anymore. In fact, since she’d decided, she’d been like one of those pelicans cresting up and down with the tide, never moving. Constant.
That’s what she needed.
“We’ve talked ourselves out of this, David.”
He turned his head toward her, but she remained stoic. The pelican on the waves. She could wait him out.
“You have never believed in divorce.”
She turned to him. Just enough so he could see the tears she felt pricking her eyes. So he would know she wasn’t giving up without hesitation. “I’m not sure what I believe anymore. But I know it’s not this marriage.”
He stood then, tall and straight, his profile momentarily blocking the moonlight pooling on this worn back deck of Still Waters.
“I’ll go home in the morning and be out by the time you return.”
He clipped down the rickety steps and crossed the narrow boardwalk with long strides. By the time he hit the beach, he was running.
Away from her.
With clenched teeth, she worked the ring free from her left hand, twisting it over her swollen knuckle. Would she feel free now? To come back here? To pick up the pieces of a forgotten life?
The drops fell, a puddle inside the ring lying in her palm.
Chapter 60
David’s knee hurt.
Lou knew because he kept stretching out his leg and flexing his foot. His long legs weren’t made for the boxy hospital chairs. The waiting room had emptied hours ago, but they stayed, sipping coffee and making small talk.
Every hour they would take turns going back to the ICU, but the hospital had rules about them staying all night in there. Instead, they were in a quiet room off the main waiting area. It boasted one narrow couch and the two chairs. A nurse had brought a couple flat pillows and thin blankets.
At first Lou had sat awkwardly on the couch. It was the same as the one she’d slept on in Cole’s room. Where David had kissed her only that morning.
They hadn’t talked about that.
She’d moved into the chair beside him and resorted to picking at her cuticles. A habit she’d broken in seventh grade.
David would stretch and sit up. Fidget and shake one leg. Stretch again. They’d exhausted all their safe topics, and she was afraid to ask him about the kiss. Likely just a momentary lapse in judgment, despite what he’d said while they danced.
His knee popped this time when his leg elongated. David winced. Lou quit her cuticles and dropped her hands, positioning one just above his kneecap and the other just below. She kneaded.
David’s head lolled back and he groaned. “You haven’t done this in a while.”
“They’re calling for more rain. No wonder you hurt.” She pushed her thumb deeper into the tight muscle. “Did you take something?”
“No.”
She released him and grabbed her purse. Dumped two ibuprofen into his palm. He swallowed them down with the now cold coffee. Lou resumed her massage.
When they were married, she did this after almost every game. At least the ones when she was still awake when he got home. The long hours standing, chasing his runner down baselines, and jumping in victory meant he came home limping. Somehow, her touch always seemed to work.
At least that’s what David said.
She slid one hand below his knee, left the other on top working small circles. A moment later, his hand covered hers. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“I did, you know.” He still had closed eyes, head tilted back against the pale wall.
“Did what?”
“Forgive you.”
Her hand would have slipped if he hadn’t gripped it. Lou passed her tongue over her bottom lip before biting hard. Not because she didn’t want to say the words.
But because she should have said them first.
“I was wrong.”
“No … you were right. I didn’t see you like I should have. I wanted …” His eyes opened. Found hers. “To be a person others could depend on. But I failed to be someone you could depend on.”
“You did try, David.” He had. After Pat’s accident, but the trauma of that one year had consumed their family. “I shut you out.” She laid her head on his shoulder. “But I’d like to let you back in.”
His lips grazed over her forehead and she turned into them, hoping—
A soft knock sounded on the door.
They broke apart, and David said, throat a bit raspy, “Yes?”
“Mr. and Mrs. Halloway?” A young nurse had opened the door. “We thought you’d like to know, his temperature has been normal for almost an hour. The antibiotics are working. Likely we’ll transfer him back upstairs later today.”
David pulled her to him, hugging her tight, the taste of desire not gone, she imagined, from either of them. Merely shifted aside by this even sweeter moment.
Chapter 61
The garden at MUSC reminded Grace of Annie. Azaleas neatly pruned and budded, paths sculpted and lined with pavers. The glory of roses climbing the trellises overhead. Come summer those blooms would intoxicate the whole place, shielding those who might sit here, heavy with worry.
She thought about the miracle of modern medicine and how those machines pumped purification right into Cole’s blood. How they all lived with that need to be cleansed.
“Hey there.”
Grace looked up at the sound of Lou’s voice and scooted over on the wrought iron bench. “Hey yourself. How is he this morning?”
“He’s awake, but not himself. Still, it’s good to see his eyes open.” Lou crossed her ankles and folded her hands in her lap, every bit still a girl raised to be a debutante, whether she’d wanted that life or not.
Next to her Grace sat one knee over the other, lazily swinging her foot, grateful the warm weather meant she could wear sandals most of the year. The morning sun warmed their faces. Grace turned hers toward the light.
Lou shielded her eyes. “It’s nice out here.”
“You’ll never guess whose donation made this possible.”
“No …” Lou’s dark hair brushed her cheeks as she swung her head.
“She protects herself with ice, but Charlotte has a few secret projects that betray her.”
They sat silently again, and Grace marveled that they could. The evening they’d met on the pier, she’d told Patrick she and Lou would never be friends. Then, when Annie and T.C. took him under their wings, inviting them over for Sunday dinners and family reunions, she’d been sure the awkwardness would never pass. They’d sidestep around one another, and Grace knew now she bore a responsibility for retreating. How long had she waited for Louisa to come to her—to accept her? When she could have done for this fellow mother what she’d done for Cora Anne. Lived up to her name.
“Thank you for all you’ve done.” The words didn’t seem forced, but Lou pressed her hands against her knees as she spoke them.
“We’re family,” she covered Lou’s hands with her own, “and we have to look out for one another.”
Lou nodded, and then glanced at the sidewalk leading to the
hospital entrance. Grace followed her gaze. Tennessee and Cora Anne strolled, hand in hand, but before they got to the entrance, he said something to make her laugh. She tipped her chin to the sky, peals of joy obscuring the fear—if for only a moment. Tennessee slipped his arm around her waist and pulled her close, kissing her without a care for the busy sidewalk in downtown Charleston.
“All things for the good …” Lou murmured.
Grace turned to her. “What?”
“Something David said to the boys. All things work together for the good. Like them.” She nudged Grace’s shoulder. “Like us.”
~~~
“The boy will need a good bit of therapy, then?” Charlotte dabbed her lips and rang the bell to signal Chloe they were ready for dessert.
“No doubt.” Grace folded her linen napkin. “His brothers are praying for a miracle, hoping he’ll be able to play ball again.”
“Might be simpler to ask for basic function.” Charlotte shook her head. “A break like that can set a body back. I always wondered …” She sighed. “No matter.”
But these weekly dinners they’d been having, this dance to finally understand one another, gave Grace the courage to probe. “Who was hurt?”
Charlotte looked to the mantle. They’d had an informal—at least for her mother-in-law—dinner beside the fireplace. A picture of her brother in his Navy uniform had occupied that corner for all the years Grace had known her.
“My brother, Andrew, caught a bad break during the war. Healed nicely, but he didn’t have the dexterity he once did. He’d talked about designing his own buildings, but he could no longer draw. Instead, he took charge of the business’s finances. I’ve thought before it was the … deformity… that made Annie leave him.”
In the silence Chloe set down dishes of ice cream with fresh berries. Grace offered thanks as was her habit, and Charlotte dismissed Chloe with a wave, as was hers.
Grace picked up her spoon, trailing it through the glaze drizzled on top. “I don’t think Annie was that shallow.”
Charlotte savored a raspberry, then lay down her spoon. “I don’t either…. and I wish I’d told her so.”
Too little, too late. How often had that been the price for burdens carried? Grace ate her dessert, but in her mind, she recalled her last moments with Patrick. He’d gotten up early and brought her coffee in bed before he headed out for the day.
“I’ll be gone till dark, likely. Got to get all the new windows installed in that place next to Still Waters. Good thing Tennessee can help. Going to take the whole crew to get it done before the storm blows in tonight.”
“Be careful. I’ll keep supper hot.” That was what she’d always said, the same words nearly every day. A code of sorts for all she didn’t take the time to voice. I love you. I’ll miss you. You’re my whole life.
She swallowed, the cold searing her throat. “Charlotte?”
“Yes?”
“You should tell Lou. And Carolina and Jimmy. About Annie—what she was like growing up.”
Charlotte’s eyes widened. “Do you think they would want to know? She was different, then.”
“No, she wasn’t.” Grace smiled. “The spark that made her give up everything for Thornton? I bet it was always there.”
A small smile started, just barely, at the corners of Charlotte’s mouth. “You mean, like it was for Patrick as well?”
Grace lifted the silver coffee set and poured. First for Charlotte, then herself. “You really knew I was more than a whim?”
“Oh, my dear. I knew the moment I met you, this was no fling or retribution. He could’ve married Louisa, and they’d have been happy, but they’d never have been,” Charlotte delicately wet her lips as she lowered her voice to say, “passionate.”
Grace chuckled into her coffee, watching as mirth—an emotion she’d never seen from her mother-in-law—danced in Charlotte’s eyes.
The older woman laid her hand, blue-veined and adorned with jewels, atop Grace’s. “Tell me, how is your mother?”
Grace pressed her lips together, the answer always heavy, but her mother-in-law’s touch light and hopeful. Perhaps, like the ground outside now covered over in evening dew, Charlotte was warming with the spring.
Chapter 62
Edisto Island, August 2006
Lou slid a clean pillow behind her mother’s head, the casing trimmed in embroidered handiwork. Pulled from the back of the linen closet where Mama stored items more precious than generic ones plucked from the K-Mart shelves.
“Thank you.” Her mama’s voice shook, weak as transparent tea.
Lou’s chest pinged and the pain of grief radiated through her limbs. “You’re welcome, Mama. Anything you need, we’ll get it.”
The hand lying across her mother’s stomach lifted. Beckoned. Lou leaned closer to hear. “I need you to come home, now.”
“I am home. We brought you to the farm, remember?”
Mama’s hand turned and her eyes tracked the sunbeams through the window. Dust danced in the slight breeze from the ceiling fan. “I know where I am. Where are you?”
Lou choked down the fear rising like bile in her throat. “I’m right here, Mama. Carolina and Jimmy, too. Should I get them?”
“No …” She blinked and tears leaked from the corners of her blue eyes. “Louisa. You need to come home. It’s time.”
“Time for what, Mama?” Constriction bound her torso. Shallow breaths barely filled her own lungs, much less her mother’s. Surely Mama couldn’t predict her own death to the moment.
“Time to find where you belong. Your daddy’s waiting.”
The doctor said her mind would wander. Lou nodded. “All right. I’ll go see Daddy in a minute.”
“No, baby. You can’t see him. You just have to feel him. Down by the creek. He wants you to help.”
“Bring in some shrimp for supper? I will.”
“No …” Mama’s voice strengthened. “Listen to me. He wants you to come home and take care of his creek. Like you promised.”
Lou winced. She’d never told Mama about that conversation. “Daddy’s gone, and I took a different path.”
“And now it’s time to take the one that comes back home.” Mama’s chin dipped and her exhale deflated her narrow form.
Lou waited until her mother’s chest rose again with breaths of uneven rhythm, but regular all the same, before she slipped out of the room and down to the dock. There the creek shimmered under the August harvest moon, hanging low and golden round in the sky.
Water brushed the pilings, murmuring waves of long-forgotten times. Whispers of the might have been—and maybe the meant to be.
Chapter 63
The puppies yipped in the backseat even though Mac and J.D. held them gentle as babies.
The male, his head really almost as big as J.D.’s, lunged across the seat and licked David’s ear as he turned onto the dirt road. “Hey, I’m trying to drive here.”
J.D. reined him back in. “We gotta name ’em, Dad. Can’t we at least tell Mom we got the boy?”
In Mac’s arms, the girl with the honey coat wiggled. David hoped his gut was right this time.
“It’s a surprise. You can’t tell.” Mac admonished as he stroked her between the ears.
“Just for today, guys. Once Cole’s home and settled tomorrow, we’ll all be together and we’ll name ’em then.”
J.D. whispered something into the dog’s ear probably only intended for him, Mac, and their new acquisitions. David pretended not to hear, but his heart quickened anyway with his son’s quiet plea that they all be together, all the time.
They got the pups settled in the barn—he wasn’t crazy enough to bring them in the house without Lou’s permission—and he left the boys under Cora Anne’s watchful eye. She and Hannah were on the porch with glasses of tea and a folder full of wedding plans that needed finalizing.
In less than six weeks he’d give away his only daughter. He dropped a kiss on her forehead when she looked up to tell
him bye.
“You’re only going to be gone a few hours, Dad.” But the smile tugged up the side of her mouth. With the wall she’d built as a teenager, he stopped offering fatherly affection. Now he had to make up for lost time before Tennessee Watson stole the last of her attention.
His gut tightened. He liked that boy, really did, but his daughter deserved to know her father loved her first. “Hannah, will you fix me some of that tea in a thermos to take Lou? The hospital’s is all syrupy and she complains.”
“As she should. Tea’s not hard to make, so I don’t understand these people who have trouble.” Hannah strode into the kitchen, catching the screen door before it banged shut behind her.
“Listen, Cor,” he moved the folder from under her hands so she’d focus on him. “I need to tell you something.”
“You’re kind of scaring me. Is Cole not getting better?”
“No, it’s not Cole …” He searched her eyes for any trace of resentment. But her wide irises, blue as her grandmother’s hydrangeas, stared back. Unafraid and unencumbered. “I’m sorry I wasn’t the one who saved you that night.”
She blinked rapidly. Tears came easily for his stoic daughter these days. For her mother, as well, come to think of it. “Daddy … you weren’t there.”
“I know. But I could’ve been. And after, I definitely should have been.”
Her breath came out slow, as though the words she wanted to say required all her strength. “I forgave you—and Mom. Finally. None of us need to carry that anymore. We washed it out with the tide, remember?”
Those old Edisto superstitions.
“Can I ask you something?” She pressed her lips together and eyed him suspiciously—like when she was a little girl pleading for a stop at the Krispy Kreme hot sign. “What’s up with you and Mom?”
David shrugged, but heat crept up his neck.
Cora Anne giggled. “Oh, Daddy. You’ve got it bad.”
He wagged his brows at her, the moment suddenly light as one of Grace’s angel food cakes. “Think she feels the same?”
“I’m praying.”
“Me, too, baby girl.” He wrapped her in his arms while he still could claim her solely as his. “Me too.”
The Bridge Between Page 23