by Nancy Naigle
Stay away from negative people. They have a problem for every solution.—Albert Einstein
From their table she could make out a couple of the other shadow boxes. One shell read, “Happiness comes in waves.” Not all the shells had such poignant messages, though. She laughed as she read the next one. “Sunburn is the way others know you’re a slow learner…and a tourist.”
Suddenly Amanda felt silly for thinking her shell had been special. They were probably mass-produced in China and sold for ten bucks in the souvenir shop.
The waitress came over and poured her some coffee.
“Thank you.”
“Y’all decide what you want yet?” She reached across the table and turned one of the menus over. “Kids’ menu is right here. Mine love the octopus.”
“Octopus?” Hailey looked horrified.
The waitress snickered. “It’s yummy. A big ol’ pancake with bacon tentacles.” She flailed her arms to the side like a sea creature. “Even has a fruit face, and the syrup is blue like water.”
“Mom, can we? Pretty please and thank you?” Jesse asked.
Amanda couldn’t say no to that. After all, she was feeding them caterpillars for lunch. “Looks like we have a winner. What do you recommend for me?”
The waitress leaned back, placing the end of her pen against her lip. “Hmm. Healthy or hungry?”
“Something splurge-worthy.”
“Tug’s sausage milk gravy over biscuits. To die for. How about a couple strips of bacon on the side? We have the best bacon around.”
“Sold.” Amanda stacked all three of the menus up into a pile and handed them to the waitress. “Milk for these two. I’ll stick with coffee.”
“Gotcha covered.”
“Oh, and…” Amanda tried to catch her before she got too far away.
The waitress spun back around, her pen to the ready.
“These shells. Are they part of some kind of local legend?”
The waitress brightened, beginning to talk with her hands. “Oh yeah. Been going on for years. The article down there near the door”—she pointed toward the front of the restaurant—“was from the local paper here, from like twenty years ago. Funny how the shells just show up out of nowhere.”
“It’s kind of nice. I was reading this note. So mostly tourists find them?”
“No. People from around here too. Maybe more locals. I don’t know, really, but it’s been a thing since as long as I can remember.”
“That’s neat.”
“Yeah. I’d like it if I ever found one. People say they are life changing.” She slid her pen behind her ear.
Amanda couldn’t help but peek back at the one about sunburn.
The waitress followed her line of sight and laughed. “Yeah, well sunburn can cause cancer. It was like a PSA. The tourists, man, they get burnt slap up. It’s dangerous. You think people would know better.”
“Touché.”
“I’ll get this order right in. Won’t take long.” She reached into her apron pocket and set two packs of crayons and coloring pages about the size of index cards on the table in front of Jesse and Hailey.
The kids compared pictures, traded, and then started coloring the postcards. Amanda stood and walked over to look at another shell near the glass cases filled with T-shirts and to-go desserts. That shell was really tiny and almost green, the writing in it so precise:
What is your personal gift?
What was the point of a message like that? Gift? She couldn’t sing, paint, or even type. A wife and mother? Anybody could do that.
“What’s yours?”
The voice took her by surprise. She swung around to see Maeve standing there. “Maeve?” She hadn’t heard her walk up. “Hello.”
Hailey and Jesse ran up, squealing hellos to their new best friend.
“Good morning. How did you find my very favorite restaurant?”
“Mommy drove us here,” Jesse stated.
“I heard it was a local favorite,” Amanda offered.
“I’m a local. It’s my favorite. I guess you’d be right. Plus, the owner is a good friend of mine.” Maeve waved over Amanda’s head. “Tug, say hello to Amanda, Hailey, and Jesse. They moved into the house at the dunes.”
Amanda turned to look.
Tug’s eyes lit up. He threw a welcoming hand in the air. “Yes, glad to have you. I heard we had new neighbors.” His white ball cap had the diner logo on it. He had that aged tan beachboy look to him. The kind with the dark, leathery skin who loves the outdoors and never gives up being outside as long as they live. “Nice to meet you. Folks call me Tug.”
“Hi, Tug. Nice to meet you too.”
Hailey said, “I’m having octopus for breakfast.”
“You’ll love it. It’s a crowd-pleaser.”
“I hope it doesn’t taste like fish sticks, because that would be pretty yucky for breakfast.”
“If you think it does, then I’ll fix you something else.”
Hailey raised her eyebrows, liking the idea of being catered to.
“I’m sure it will taste great,” Amanda assured Hailey.
“I see you were catching up on our claim to fame,” Maeve said. “The shells?”
“We fou—”
Amanda twisted Hailey around toward the table. “You and your brother zip on back to our spot. I’ll be right there.” She turned and smiled, glancing back at the shells on display. “Yeah, the stories about the shells are so interesting.”
“So, what’s your gift?”
“Mine?” Amanda sputtered. “I don’t have one.”
“Sure you do. Everyone does.”
She shrugged. “I got nothin’. What’s yours?”
“I’m an excellent listener. Took me a long time to realize that. Turns out it’s a rare gift too. Who knew?”
It was true. Maeve had proved that yesterday. Most people were so busy thinking about their response that they didn’t half listen to a conversation these days.
Tug leaned out over the counter. “She doesn’t forget anything either. Ever.”
Maeve shot him a look. “Don’t mind him. We’ve been friends forever. He was the best man in my wedding.”
“Still am the best man, if you ask me.”
“No one asked you,” Maeve said as she and Amanda walked toward the table where Hailey and Jesse sat pushing sugar packets around the table like cars. From somewhere beyond the room came a voice, “Who asked you, Tug?” followed by a cackling laugh.
“What was that?” Hailey raised up in her seat.
“That’s The Wife,” Maeve said with a look over her shoulder toward Tug. “Tug, you want to introduce them to her?”
He wiped his hands on his apron, then came around the counter. “I’ve got a minute. Let me take you to meet The Wife.”
Hailey and Jesse looked at Amanda and then Maeve as they all fell in line behind Tug and headed toward the back door.
“The Wife is a parrot,” Tug explained as he led them out to the deck.
There sitting in a cage in a gazebo, a dark-gray-feathered bird with a bright-red tail stared at them, then followed up with a resounding, “It’s about time. Where’ve you been?”
The kids’ mouths dropped wide, and then they scrambled toward the cage.
Tug said, “Say hello to our new friends.”
The bird bobbed her head up and down and made a car-alarm noise.
“That wasn’t very polite,” Tug reprimanded her.
“Hello, cuties.” The parrot lifted her black beak in the air, seemingly pleased with herself.
Amanda watched as Hailey and Jesse interacted with the bird. They were having a whole conversation. Tug treated The Wife to french fries for being playful, and the kids loved it.
“What’s a dog say?”
The Wife let out a series of barks. Jesse chimed in. “Bowwow. Woof.”
The parrot laughed—which only made the kids laugh more—and then imitated an ambulance before yelling, “Help! They turned me into a parrot!”
Tug led the kids to the end of the porch and let them throw fries into the air for the seagulls. The birds swooped in, bringing more over until there had to be twenty of them angling for a snack.
“He shouldn’t do that,” Maeve said. “Those seagulls will quickly become a menace.”
“He looks like he’s having fun.”
It was comical to see the old man leap into the air and spin around, tossing taters in the air. Even funnier to see Hailey and Jesse trying to copy the moves.
“He is. Silly old bird himself is what he is. Then again, who am I to judge? He talks to the birds.” Maeve shook her head. “Me? I got so lonely after Jarvis died that there for a while I talked into a recorder every day just to have someone listen. It was ridiculous.” Almost as if she meant to be musing to herself, she said, “I wonder where all those tapes are. I should get rid of them. It could be embarrassing should I die and someone come to clear out the house and find them. I might have rattled on about people in this town. The good and the bad.”
Amanda doubted that anything on those tapes could be bad. “Seems to me like everyone just wants the best for the town and their neighbors.”
“You’re right. For the most part, that’s about it summed up. We need some uplifting hearts like yours among all us old beachcombing curmudgeons.”
“Oh, stop. You’re not a curmudgeon.”
Tug walked over with a big grin on his face.
“I was referring to him.” Maeve shot him a look.
“She loves me,” Tug said as he led the group back inside to their table. Maeve didn’t take a seat but stood nearby.
“Someday she’s going to admit it.” Then he added, “Meanwhile, I just keep slinging hash. Feeding her breakfast and hoping she’ll tell me.”
“No luck yet?” Amanda watched the two of them. The banter was easy and fun. She wasn’t sure if it was more like brother and sister or a romance brewing, but either way it seemed to be in good fun.
“Not yet. But I’m not giving up.” Tug adjusted his ball cap.
Hailey motioned to Tug and curved her finger in the air. “C’mere.”
He leaned down where she was sitting, and she cupped her hands to the side of his head and whispered—well, it looked like a whisper, but darn near everyone in the place heard her—“If you like her, you’re supposed to give her flowers and chocolate.”
“That’s what I’ve been doing wrong? Guess that’s why it hasn’t worked.”
Hailey nodded, quite sure of herself.
“Don’t waste your money buying me flowers,” Maeve said. “Never was a fan of them.”
Tug lifted his brows and smirked. “I’d have gotten her if old Jarvis hadn’t asked her out first,” he said to Amanda. “I’m way more charming.”
“No one was more charming than my Jarvis,” Maeve said.
“Your order’s up,” the waitress called out from behind the counter.
“Y’all better eat before it gets cold,” Maeve said. “I’ll see you over on the beach later.”
“You’re still going to meet us for lunch, aren’t you?” Amanda asked.
Maeve walked over to the back door. “Absolutely.”
“We already made a fun meal and packed it,” Jesse shared.
“I can’t wait.” Maeve waved and said goodbye to Tug on her way out.
Next time she and the kids would find a safe route and walk here to eat. The exercise would do them all good.
13
When Maeve got back to her house, she pulled out her journal. Not a decorative one with a lock and key like the diary she wrote in as a child, just a simple spiral notebook she bought when school supplies went on sale. She had a mess of them stacked on the bookshelf. As she scrawled the date across the top line of the page, she noticed the last entry. It had been a while since she’d written.
There’d been a time when journaling had been her lifeline. An outlet for the words she wanted to convey about her emotions and health. It all went down in here—times in her life when she desperately needed strength, and prayer didn’t seem to be enough. She’d spoken the prayers, then recorded them in these journals. She wasn’t entirely sure why she kept them around. It wasn’t like she wanted to go back and revisit those days.
Then again, the notebooks were full of everything that had ever made her who she was. The best and worst moments of her life.
She’d sat down today to simply write one sentence about having met Amanda, Hailey, and Jesse. What she ended up with was three pages about it. She smiled as she wrote each memory, right down to the drip-castle building and their reaction to meeting Tug and The Wife.
She closed the notebook with a sigh, then tucked it into the end of the stack on the bottom shelf of the bookcase. All the rest of the volumes were spiral in, only the page edges showing, tattered and wavy from the changing humidity in the house through the seasons. It didn’t matter, though, because those pages represented time. Someday when she couldn’t remember, maybe she’d read them all again.
The ladies at the church had been the ones who’d inspired her to start journaling again. They’d given her a beautiful leather-wrapped diary. Long leather laces tied around it. Her name had even been embossed in gold on the front.
Of course, she’d never written in that one. It was too pretty to use. It still sat there on the end table as decoration, but seeing it had willed her to write sometimes.
She picked it up, the fine leather supple in her hands. So much had come as a result of this gift, yet no one would ever realize it by looking at it. She unwrapped the leather laces and bent the journal between her hands, thumbing the empty pages. Softened gold lines and the brown outline of a compass in the top corner skittered as the pages flipped.
Still carrying the leather journal, Maeve gathered a couple of things from the backyard, then opened the side gate and set out across the sand to meet with Amanda and her kids for lunch.
The sun warmed her shoulders. She was still a good hundred yards off when Hailey and Jesse screamed out her name.
“Miss Maeve!” Their hands in the air, they sprinted toward her like they’d been waiting forever for the reunion.
Choking back a joyful sob, she crouched to catch them as they flung themselves into her arms. “My goodness!” She laughed as Jesse tangled in her skirt. “That is a greeting.”
“We’ve been watching for you.”
Jesse’s hand clung to hers. His skin was as soft as the leather-bound journal she still held tight against her body.
Hailey slipped her arm around Maeve’s waist, tugging on her until she knelt down. Hailey hugged her neck, the young girl’s fingers gently patting Maeve’s skin at the pace of a tiny heartbeat. The sudden outpouring of love made her almost lose balance for a moment, as if the surrounding air had become so light that they swirled.
“Wow. I was excited to see you too!”
“I’m sorry.” Amanda had come over in the midst of the welcome. “They can be a lot of energy sometimes.”
“No. I’m not complaining. It was so sweet.”
Maeve watched as Amanda looked at her children like they were a miracle. She’d said she wouldn’t ask or push, but she wondered about all the details between Amanda and Jack.
“We’ve been collecting shells. We’ll bring them up to show you,” said Hailey. The brother and sister fled back to their sand fort to play.
Amanda and Maeve walked up to the sheet tucked in the sand.
“I hope you don’t mind if I ask, but how long ago did you lose your husband?” Amanda asked as she sat down.
Maeve sat, too, and pul
led her knees up. “I lost him in 1995.” She looked at the beautiful young woman sitting there. “We were married longer than you are old.”
“Jack and I were only married for five years when he…when he didn’t come back.”
“The length of the marriage doesn’t make it hurt any less.” Maeve clamped her hand to her wrist around her knees, leaning back. “Jarvis was a good man. Everyone liked him. He worked on all the boats around here. Back then Tug was a commercial fisherman. That’s how the two of them became friends.”
“Must be neat to live in one town your whole life.”
“I wouldn’t know any different.”
“My parents can’t understand why I don’t want to move back to Ohio now. I haven’t lived there in years. It’s not home anymore.”
“I’m sure they’re worried.”
“They think I need the support system I’d have there.”
“They might be right.” Maeve shrugged. “Only you can make that decision. Honestly, having been through it, my experience is nothing makes it easier. It’s a process. Sometimes a very long one. Everyone is different, and you can’t shortcut it.”
“I try not to get frustrated with them about it, but if they’re really all that worried, why don’t they come here and help me?”
It wasn’t Maeve’s place to answer that question, if indeed it were one. “You could visit them to reassure them. You don’t have to move there to do that.”
“It’s hard to travel with two kids, and then there’s Denali. What would I do with the dog?” She took in a breath. “I’m being hardheaded, aren’t I?” She closed her eyes for a moment, drawing strength. “Maybe because it’s the only thing I can control.”
Maeve nodded slowly. “Well, traveling with two young ones could be a challenge, but they seem well behaved. I think you could do it if you wanted. Just a short visit. Not long enough to regret it.”
Amanda shot her an I-can’t-believe-you-just-said-that look.
“And as for your dog—”
“No, I’m not leaving Denali with you. He’s a huge handful, and he’s so strong.”
“Oh, honey, I wasn’t about to take that on.” She threw her hand in the air. “Do I look crazy?” She wagged her finger in front of Amanda. “Do not answer that.”