by Nancy Naigle
“No, you don’t look crazy! I’d never say that. Or think it.”
“Paws Town Square recently opened in town. I sat through all the zoning meetings, and they get dicey at times, but it looks like it must be a great place to kennel your pets. As I understand it, they do outreach to soldiers with PTSD and work to reunite military working dogs with their handlers or place them in forever homes after rehabilitation. It’s much more than a pet-boarding business. They find these worn-out vacant buildings—”
“Ghost boxes? I read something about that the other day. There are so many of those big-box stores that have either gone out of business or been abandoned in favor of building new, bigger locations, leaving the old ones to fall to pieces.”
“Yes, well, this company figured out the way to leverage those wasted spaces to a lot of people’s benefit.” Maeve tried to remember the details from the town council meetings. “They update the facade and transform ugly parking lots into dog parks and running trails. I hear it’s really quite beautiful. They have indoor and outdoor walking trails that people can use with their pets for a very fair fee. And locals get a discount. So there you go. You might have an option for Denali.”
“I might. I’ll have to check into that. I probably should take the kids to visit their grandparents. They haven’t seen them since…in a long while.” She lowered her gaze.
“Maybe it’s time.” Maeve smiled. “It’ll all work itself out eventually.”
“Everyone says that.” Amanda shook her head.
“Everyone is different. For me, at first I was in disbelief, then sad. So sad.” She placed the palm of her hand against her heart. “See? All these years later, I still get choked up. Jarvis promised he’d always be there for me. I never expected he might abandon me, and that’s exactly how it felt. With no warning I was left alone. After I climbed out of the pit of devastation, I got fighting mad. At him. At everyone.”
Amanda took in a breath but didn’t say a word.
“I wasn’t pleasant to be around during that time. Intellectually, I knew it wasn’t his doing, but he worked hard. Too hard. I was always telling him that.” She could still picture him so clearly. Sweating under the hottest sun. The way he’d nudge his ball cap up on his head and readjust it. He’d loved working on those boats. One hundred degrees and humidity so high he was wet before the sunrays hit him, or so cold she was afraid he’d get frostbite. That’s why those who earned a living with their boats relied on him. They trusted he wouldn’t let them down.
“He had a heart attack out there working. Fine one minute.” She snapped her fingers. “Gone the next. Just like that.” She looked over at Amanda. “It took me a long time to forgive him. I knew it wasn’t really his fault, but I’d warned him he was working too hard.” Maeve moistened her dry lips. “I was so mad that I sold the house he’d built for me. Not my brightest move, in hindsight.” She turned toward her home, which rose up from the dunes. “That’s how I ended up back in the house I grew up in.”
“So for you there was some solace in going back home, even if it was by way of moving into the house you’d grown up in.”
“Hadn’t really thought of it that way.” She pondered for a moment. “No, it didn’t make me feel any better. Mostly I’d acted out of anger. I regret having let our house go. That was a stupid move on my part.”
“I bet it was beautiful.”
“No, not at all.” Maeve laughed. “Kind of looked like a boat, if truth be told. But then, everything Jarvis built did. He was a shipwright. But he’d built that house with love in his heart, and we were happy there.”
“How long did it take before you felt like yourself again?”
She wished she knew the right thing to say. What kind of friend would I be if I just told her what she wanted to hear? “You’re not going to want to hear this.”
“It’s been over two years. I’m still a mess.”
“In twenty-six years, I’ve never felt like I did with him. I don’t think you ever get over it.”
Amanda blinked, seeming to do the math in her head.
“I’m happy,” Maeve continued. “At peace. I love my life. But it’s…different. At first I blocked out everyone.”
“I can understand that.”
“The ocean was the only friend I let in for a long time. The waves greeted me, and that was all I wanted. Even in hurricanes, I’d come out here. Selfishly, there were times when I was out here in extreme weather, praying the sea would grab me and sweep me away so I could be with him again.” The memory of that desperation washed over her. A tear slipped down her cheek. “I wanted to die so badly that I gave up, believing that if I lay in bed long enough, it would be over. I’m not sure how many days I lay there, still waking up each morning mad at the world.”
“I’m so sorry I didn’t know you then.” Amanda’s hands were at her heart. “I’d have been there for you. My heart aches to think of you broken. You seem so resilient.”
“Broken is exactly how I felt. There was one night in particular. The full moon hung high in the sky, slashing across my face through the curtains. I was worn out, weak from not eating, but that light beckoned me. I walked out to the dock behind our house.” She lifted her hands. “I can still almost feel how shaky my limbs were. I made it to the edge of the dock and sat on those splintering boards. My feet dangled in the water. It was cold sloshing against my toes.” The icy memory made her shiver. “Two of Jarvis’s boats still sat tied up there, ready to go out. Two other boats sat in different states of repair. Out of the thin air on that moonlit night, I took action. I went back to the house and took a special shell down from the mantel, where it had been since we found it one weekend. I held it for a long time, reflecting on all the good times, tears streaming as fast as the memories came.”
Maeve took in a breath. “His foul-weather gear still hung there at the back door. I put it on.” She wiggled her fingers. “The sleeves dangled well past the tips of my fingers, but I marched out to his boat with that shell in my hand as if I were going to war.
“Over the years,” Maeve continued, “Jarvis delivered boats down to Florida or north as far as Massachusetts, and I loved riding with him out into the Gulf Stream. He never was one to putter along the intracoastal waterway. He loved the ocean.”
Amanda’s eyes shimmered. “You shared that love.”
“We did. That night, I boarded the Almost Heaven and stood behind the wheel. The thirty-four-foot center console had been a good vessel for Jarvis. He’d made the money to remodel the house on side trips taking tourists out fishing on that boat.”
“You went out on the boat? At night?”
Maeve nodded with a snicker. “I did. Started it up and eased out into the sound under that full moon. I pushed the throttle forward and let the boat run free. I was crying, but I was going so fast the tears didn’t even hit my cheeks.” She blinked, as if reliving the moment.
“Oh my gosh. Maeve.”
“I know. It was a little crazy.”
“A lot!”
“I finally stopped the boat and drifted until morning when the sun rose. I’ll be honest, a hundred plans came together and fell apart over those hours. Eventually, I leaned over the side of the boat, holding that shell, then dropped it overboard.”
“For Jarvis.” Amanda’s sigh was almost a cry.
“The splash was followed by a gulping sound as the water filled the hollow of the shell and it sank to the depths. I watched it disappear. Gone. Like Jarvis.” Her pause hung with heavy sorrow. “I sat out for hours that day, but late that afternoon I motored back and docked the boat. I packed away the foul-weather gear, opened all the windows in the house, and cleaned it top to bottom. It’s the day I started over.”
“It’s so hard to go on.” Amanda brushed away a tear on her chin. “To know what to cling to, and what things are anchoring me to a past that�
��”
“Grief will tear you out of the frame if you let it, Amanda. Until I got my focus off of me and started looking for my purpose, I was a mess.” She’d almost forgotten she had the journal with her. “I brought you something. It was a gift to me when Jarvis passed. The ladies at the church gave it to me. It has my name on it, but I thought you might still like it.” She handed it to Amanda.
“It’s gorgeous.”
“It is. I never could bring myself to write in it. Isn’t that silly? I use twenty-five cent spiral notebooks instead, and I’ve kept that up. You should see the stack of cheap notebooks on my bookcase.”
“That’s funny.” Amanda pressed the journal between her palms.
“It inspired me to write down my thoughts, so it was probably the best gift I ever received. Sometimes you just have to get the words out into the world. Like talking to the wind, the sea, the sand. Anyway, I hope having it might bring you some inspiration to try that. It couldn’t hurt.”
“Thank you. This is such a thoughtful gift.” She set it aside, her hand resting on top of it as she looked down the beach. “Thank goodness I’ve got those two.” Her eyes seemed lasered in on the children covered in sand, smiling, making memories as if they didn’t have a care in the world. “I can’t figure out how to keep Jack’s death from lingering inside them their whole lives.”
“Be careful, Amanda. Just like my only life purpose wasn’t to be Jarvis’s wife, yours doesn’t stop at being a mother.”
Amanda straightened, a flash of hurt in her eyes.
“It’s a very important role,” Maeve added quickly, “but there’s more to your life. You have to share your gifts, and you’ll do some of that through your children, but we are meant to share them more broadly.”
“Gifts again? I don’t have time for anything but them.” She lifted her chin toward the kids. “I don’t have anything left. No gifts. No energy.”
“Quit looking like I’ve asked you to walk the plank. Seriously, everyone has gifts. We just don’t always see them in ourselves as easily.”
“Well, then it’s a good thing we’ve become friends, because if there’s a gift in here somewhere, you’re going to have to help me find it. It’s likely to be quite a treasure hunt.”
They laughed easily.
“I can do that,” Maeve said. “Challenge accepted.”
Jesse raced from the water up to Amanda. “Mom, we’re starving. Hailey told me to ask if we can please have lunch now.”
“Sure. I bet Maeve is starting to get hungry again too.”
“I am.” Maeve rubbed her tummy, and Jesse mimicked her.
Without another word, he went to get his sister. The two of them ran back, Hailey easily winning the race.
Amanda opened a series of plastic containers.
“Would you look at this spread!” Maeve leaned in taking a closer look.
Hailey’s pigtails bobbed. “We helped make it.”
“You did? What is this?” Maeve pointed to the fruit-and-cheese kabobs.
“Caterpillars!” Jesse sat next to her, so close that he was practically on her lap.
“Ooh. You eat caterpillars?” She scrunched her face. “I don’t know about that. I’m not a bird.”
“Not that kind of caterpillar. It’s really food.” Jesse’s dimples pressed deeper into his cheek when he laughed.
Maeve pretended to be unsure. “Are you positive caterpillars aren’t bird food?”
“Nooo. You’ll like it. I promise.”
Hailey and Jesse started singing the blessing, and Maeve wasn’t sure if she’d ever heard anything sweeter.
Jesse grabbed a caterpillar and bit the grape from the end. “See!”
“I do.” She picked up a skewer and did the same, making overenthusiastic approving sounds. “You’re so right.”
As quickly as they’d become hungry, Hailey and Jesse were full and excited to go play some more.
“How do you keep up?” Maeve couldn’t imagine being surrounded by that much energy all day, every day.
“I don’t. Believe me.” Amanda blew out a short breath. “My financial situation is forcing me to go back to work this fall. I’ll get a little break once in a while then.”
“What will you be doing?”
“It wasn’t the original plan, but I’m going to teach. It’ll allow me to keep the same hours as Hailey while she’s in school. I need to start looking for a day care for Jesse since the school doesn’t offer pre-K.”
“What was the original plan?”
Amanda managed a shrug. “Well, I was going to start selling herbal salt. It’s something I’ve done for a while, as a hobby, but we’d saved money for me to start a business. Nothing fancy. Online. Anyway, I thought I was going to do that and regulations got me all twisted up. It just isn’t feasible right now.” Her words were riddled with disappointment.
“I’m so sorry,” Maeve said. “Well, don’t give up. It’s all about timing. Things have a way of working out at the right time.”
“Good advice. Thanks.” Amanda rocked forward. “Right now I’m focusing on getting used to the idea of being separated from Hailey and Jesse while I work. I’ve never left them with anyone.”
“Never?”
“Not since Jack.” She shrugged. “Well, except for yesterday when you were down with them on the beach.”
“Honey, trust someone. You need the break. They do too. You can’t do it all alone.”
“I can if I have to.”
“But you don’t have to. There’s always someone in the wings who can help.”
Amanda didn’t argue, but she didn’t look convinced either.
Maeve studied her. “Have you ever said you needed help?”
“To who?”
“Doesn’t matter. The wind. The water.” She picked up a handful of sand and let it fall. “The sand.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. I’d think admitting it would be a start. Try it.”
Amanda’s brows pulled together. “You want me to say it right now?”
“Why not?”
Tentatively, she spoke the words. “I need help.” She felt her forehead wrinkle in protest. “No I don’t. I take it back. My kids are great. Okay, yes, once in a while some help would be nice.”
“You need a break. That’s why families have two parents. It’s not a one-person job. It takes a village and all that. Listen to me acting like I’m the authority, and I’ve never even had children. Even my dog I got when I was an adult and he was already housebroken. I haven’t raised anything.”
“Well, the advice seems sound. It is exhausting.”
“If nothing else, why don’t you at least let me give you…let’s say an hour.” The sudden burst of excitement inside her surprised Maeve. “Let me visit with them to give you time to read or think or nap while you are out here on the beach once in a while. Just a chance to not pay attention at all.”
“A whole hour? That does sound nice.”
“Then we’ll give it a go. I’m not trying to get in your business.” Or maybe I am, and I don’t even know why. “I just think…” How could she articulate it? “I’ve been alone a long time. I’m not complaining. Once I figured out how to live again without Jarvis, my life changed. I still love and miss him every day. Our reunion someday will be so wonderful. My heart soars when I think about it, but his time wasn’t my time. If I can help you find that peace more quickly, save you even a bit of that struggle, then I’d consider that quite a gift.”
“A gift.” Amanda’s lips pulled up at the corners. “Oh yes, that would be a real gift.”
“Good. I’m going down to teach your precious angels how to defy gravity. Your hour of freedom starts now. Enjoy.” Maeve stood and walked away, hoping she dragged some of Amanda’s baggage along with her.
The next four days were sunny and clear. All three of them were getting so tan. We don’t look like tourists anymore.
Amanda couldn’t say for sure if it was the escape Maeve had treated her to or the extra exercise from walking the beach every day now, but she’d never felt more at peace.
That night as she walked through her house locking doors and turning off lights, she realized she wasn’t sad.
Tears, happy ones for a change, tickled her lashes. She tipped her chin to the ceiling.
I’m grateful for all the things we’ve found joy in right here in our backyard.
I’m thankful that I had the strength to uproot my precious children and move here.
Thank You for bringing Maeve into our lives.
I do need help sometimes, and I’m ready to accept that.
Other than the day she and Jack had gotten married on the beach, she had no ties to this place, but already she felt more stable here.
I thank You for the continued blessings.
She’d been driven here by a need to survive, and now the days were filled with good things and new possibilities. The kids were eager to make friends, and Hailey was excited about starting school in the fall. For the first time, Amanda wasn’t afraid to let go of them for a few hours each day.
It’ll be okay.
* * *
—
On Sunday morning she woke up knowing Sundays would be different from now on. Since the week after she laid Jack to rest, she’d steered clear of church. It was time to correct that. This morning she got them all dressed in their good clothes and went to the church that was a short two blocks away. Rather than explain why they hadn’t been to church in so long, Amanda acted as if this was part of the plan. To her relief the kids didn’t ask a single question about it.
They slid into the end of a row near the back only a minute before the service began. Jesse squirmed a lot, and Hailey was so quiet at one point that Amanda thought she’d fallen asleep. When Amanda leaned forward to check on her, though, Hailey’s eyes were focused, almost trancelike, on the cross on the wall. The look on her face was so sweet. Whatever was going on in Hailey’s mind at the moment, it was soothing.