Magnolia Bay Memories

by Babette de Jongh

  Quinn hurled Georgia’s ball into the gathering darkness beyond the patio lights. Georgia took off like a bullet after it. “Yeah, she will,” he agreed. “She’s obsessed.”

  “I’ll be careful.” Adrian could see how the combo of Georgia’s game of fetch and glass bottles might be a problem. The hot tub and the pool were built-in level with the patio slab and within easy reach of the super-focused cattle dog mix who clearly cared about nothing but playing ball.

  Wolf, the elusive wolf hybrid who’d chosen Quinn as his person, sat at the edge of the patio where the solar lights met the clipped-grass lawn. He seemed to care nothing about chasing the ball and everything about guarding everyone within his domain.

  “Dinner’s in the oven for those who are staying,” Reva said. “And, Adrian, I won’t insist, though the invitation remains open.” She reached for one of the hors d’oeuvre plates and drew it closer. “But meanwhile, this should keep your stomach from thinking your throat’s been cut.”

  “Disturbingly morbid,” Quinn said.

  Adrian wasn’t sure whether his friend was talking about Reva’s comment or the serving dish. He helped himself to one of the toothpicks that stuck out of a sculpted mummy in the center of the dish, then stabbed a tiny sausage.

  “Grayson and I found these serving dishes at some hole-in-the-wall shop in the French Quarter. Can’t remember where, though. It was years ago.” Reva’s voice didn’t sound sad, but Adrian felt her sadness all the same. She and Heather were both widows—that was how they’d met, at a grief support group—and even though they were both cheerful and upbeat on the surface, there still seemed to be an invisible, protective cloak of sadness around them.

  Big reason—the biggest—why Adrian kept reminding himself to stay away from Heather. Even though he regularly managed to forget the fact that flirting with Heather was flirting with fire. He wasn’t averse to some level of commitment to the right woman, preferably someone as driven and success-minded as himself. But Heather was a whirlpool of unacknowledged needs that he could too easily get sucked into if he let himself get too close. And now that he’d witnessed firsthand how messed-up Josh was…

  Georgia brought the ball back to Quinn and dropped it a hair too close to the snack tray. Abby grabbed the ball and dropped it into the hot tub. “Done playing, girl.”

  Clearly not convinced the game was over, the dog dropped to the ground and eyed the ball.

  Adrian looked at Reva as she sipped her wine. Probably about the same age as Adrian’s mother, Reva was young-looking and beautiful, her shiny hair silver-gray but lush and long and pulled back in a barrette.

  Conversation circulated above the bubbles in the hot tub. But Adrian was thinking about the differences between Reva and his mother, who, while still attractive, looked older and more matronly than Reva. Adrian’s parents’ example of what not to do was another reason he needed to keep a distance from Heather.

  Gordon and Eileen Crawford were still in love after however many years, but they had each given up many of their goals and dreams in order to stay together.

  Even after Hurricane Katrina, when Adrian’s parents and younger siblings had moved back into the rebuilt family home, Eileen had prevented Gordon from taking promotions that would’ve required them to move, just as he had prevented her from going back to school and getting a degree once their kids were grown.

  Maybe Hurricane Katrina had been a blessing in disguise, at least for Adrian. Though the storm had torn through his relationships, washed away opportunities, and trashed his senior year in high school, the complete derailing of his life at such a pivotal time had changed him and shifted his priorities. Adrian’s potentially glorious senior year of high school had been sucked up by the storm. He’d lost his girlfriend and the college scholarship that had been all but promised to him as the star quarterback of his high school football team.

  He’d lost everything he thought he wanted and become a castaway in a big city where he knew no one—other than his college-age cousin, who’d been forced by his parents to give Adrian a place to sleep but was under no obligation to make him feel welcome.

  It hadn’t been easy, but Adrian had learned how to take care of himself and depend on no one.

  Every disappointment had been followed by a lesson that made him better off in the long run. He’d become successful by learning not to want or expect anything from anyone other than himself.

  Adrian didn’t want to be in the kind of relationship that caused both partners to get beaten down by life. And the only way he knew to avoid that was to avoid falling in love.

  Luckily, that wasn’t difficult. He had perfected the art of enjoying close relationships while still keeping his distance.

  “Adrian,” Reva said, “can I get you another beer?”

  “No thanks. I’m good.” He’d be driving back home to New Orleans—just an hour from here—soon.

  A low, moaning yowl in the distance escalated into a hair-raising scream. Adrian sat forward and looked out over the rolling hills behind Reva’s house and the big red barn. But all he could see was a gorgeous violet-streaked sky over the bay that glittered just beyond the fenced pastures. Another, deeper yowl echoed from a different location nearby. “What in the hell was that?”

  “Feral tomcats,” Reva said.

  “You think one of them is the black-and-white one I caught today?”

  “Pretty certain of it,” Reva answered. “That’s why I was so disappointed when you didn’t manage to hold on to him.”

  “We’ve been trying to trap both of them,” Abby added. “But those old tomcats are wily. They know better than to be fooled by the smell of canned tuna.”

  Quinn chuckled. “I think the cats around here have told them they’ll be relieved of their testicles if they fall for the old tuna-in-a-trap trick.”

  “We’ve caught a bunch of raccoons though,” Reva said. “I think at least a few of them were disappointed when we let them go. They wouldn’t have minded a small surgical procedure if it led to a lifetime of luxury.”

  The yowls and screams eventually clashed in the crescendo of a truly vicious-sounding cat fight. “How far away do you think they are?”

  “Sounds carry a long way around here,” Quinn said. “We can easily hear boats on the bay, and it’s, what? A mile down the hill?”

  “That depends on whether you count the marsh between here and the bay as land or water,” Reva answered. “But yes, it’s about a mile from here to the bay.”

  “The sound carries, though,” Abby said, “because there’s not much to absorb it. Just the marsh grass and that big oak tree in the pasture.”

  The catfight broke up, and the sound of crickets and bubbling water took over again. “That sounded seriously violent,” Adrian said. “I wonder if they both walked away.”

  “Yeah,” Reva said. “They probably left a significant amount of fur on the ground, though.” Her phone chirped, and she stood. “That’s my cue to check on dinner and make the salad, which gives everyone about a half hour before it’s time to mosey back inside.”

  “Need any help?” Abby asked.

  “No, thanks. Y’all finish your drinks and come on in when you’re ready. Adrian, even if you decide not to stay for dinner, I hope you’ll come inside and say goodbye before you leave. There’s something I want to give you.”

  Nobody else jumped up, so Adrian relaxed and enjoyed his beer. The violet-and-lavender sky turned to pearl gray, and a few stars emerged in its cotton-soft depths. The little pond under the oak tree glowed dimly with reflected light. “It’s peaceful here,” Adrian decided out loud.

  “Catfights notwithstanding,” Quinn agreed. “Not quite so peaceful during school days, though. I’m not looking forward to the beginning of field trip season.”

  Abby put a hand on Quinn’s shoulder and patted lightly—a there-there-honey pat. “Field trips will
be few and far between until October.”

  Adrian knew that Bayside Barn was a field trip destination for schoolkids as far away as New Orleans. It was essentially a petting zoo, though Reva and Abby used a more highfalutin term: animal-assisted education center.

  “Thank God we’ve nearly completed the Great Wall of China between the shelter and here.” Quinn’s description wasn’t much of an exaggeration. What had once been a hedge-covered chain-link fence between the two properties was now a nine-foot-tall concrete-block wall. The imposing edifice was broken only by a sliding drive-through gate and a smaller walk-through gate.

  “If you hadn’t gone so far overboard on that wall, it’d be long since done by now,” Abby said to her fiancé with a slight tone of I-told-you-so in her voice.

  Quinn scoffed. “It’ll be worth it. Kids screaming and yelling next door all day every day couldn’t possibly be good for the shelter animals’ mental and emotional health.”

  Now it was Abby’s turn to scoff. “Yours, you mean. Funny, since we’ll be living on the Bayside Barn side of the fence once the shelter opens.”

  “Only until after the wedding,” Quinn said. “Then we’ll start looking for our own place.”

  Abby gave Quinn another there-there pat. “Whatever you want. Meanwhile, we’ll have fun playing house in the little cabin you’re building behind Bayside Barn.”

  The lovebirds weren’t kissing or even sitting up against each other, but without Reva’s balancing presence, Adrian started feeling claustrophobic. “Welp…” He finished his beer in one gulp. “It’s been fun, y’all.” He stood and wrapped a towel around his waist. “But I really need to get home.”

  He changed into his clothes in the guest bathroom at Reva’s house, leaving the towel and borrowed swim trunks hanging on the shower curtain bar. Then he found Reva in the kitchen, where she stood with her back to him, fiddling with something on the counter.

  “I’m about to head out,” he said.

  She turned around with a covered dish in her hand. “For you to heat up later.”

  “Thanks.” He took the warm container. “I’m glad I stayed to visit. I enjoyed it.”

  “I hope you’ll hang out with us after these shelter meetings more often. You have a standing invitation.” She linked her arm in his. “Let me walk you out.”

  “There’s no need.”

  “I have to lock the gates anyway.” She took a flashlight off a hook by the door and led the way from Bayside Barn to the shelter. “I also wanted to talk to you about that cat.”

  “What about him?”

  “He seems to have bonded with you.” She opened the gate between the dogs’ play yards and the parking lot, then held it open for him. “I believe that he will come to you again if you work to regain his trust. Would you be willing to do that?”

  Adrian walked beside Reva toward his car, its black surface appearing gunmetal gray in the glow of the flashlight’s beam. “What exactly does work to regain his trust mean?”

  “I know it’s asking a lot.”

  “Just ask. I can always say no.” Though he hadn’t been very good at that lately.

  “I know you’ve been donating your time for this shelter project once a week. But if you could see your way to come more often, maybe twice a week—just for an hour or two each time—he’d sense your presence, and he’d be more likely to come back to you. You could call out to him, leave treats by your car, let him know you want to make a connection with him.”

  “I don’t see why I’m the one who needs to do this. What makes me so special?”

  “You’re special to all of us for helping us get this project off the ground.” She patted his arm in a motherly fashion. “But there’s something about you that makes this cat feel safe. I don’t know what it is, but I think that together, we can figure it out. I think we need to try before he gets hurt more than he already has been.”

  Adrian had noticed the cat’s many injuries.

  And hell, it wasn’t like Adrian couldn’t spare the time. He worked from home 90 percent of the time. He could bring his laptop, pull up a chair, and sit by this fence a few hours a week without it touching his bottom line. Even the hour-long drive here and back wouldn’t be wasted because he could use the time to make phone calls from the car.

  “Okay, fine.” He took the keys from his jeans pocket and clicked the unlock button. “I’ll be here Wednesday afternoon.”

  ***

  Heather woke just before dawn on the morning of Dale’s birthday and watched the sky outside her bedroom window lighten from gray to lavender to pearly pink to pale blue. Though she had made plans to commemorate the occasion in the afternoon, she resolved not to tell the kids that today was anything special until then. The twins definitely wouldn’t remember the date, and Heather hoped Erin wouldn’t either. Heather didn’t want a sense of loss to sabotage their school day.

  The plan, Heather decided, was to drop everyone off at school, then make a grocery store run to get a birthday cake—that wasn’t weird, was it?—for the family to share after dinner as a way of remembrance. After school, they’d stop by the cemetery to put fresh flowers on Dale’s grave. If everyone felt okay afterward, they might swing by the animal shelter on the way home, just to see how things were going. It would be fine. They’d get through the day together. And maybe next year, it wouldn’t be so hard.

  Luckily, the kids didn’t notice anything different about the morning, and the school drop-off happened without a hitch. Jasper’s feelings were hurt when he didn’t get to come along. But the summer heat didn’t allow him to wait in the car while Heather shopped, so he had to be left behind. Erin exited the car with a breezy goodbye, and five minutes later, Heather waved goodbye to the twins.

  She turned up the volume on her Happy Music Spotify playlist and sang along to “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.” The gaiety was forced, sure. But fake-it-till-you-make-it was a baked-in component of her personality. She had made the cheerleading squad that way. She had started out her adult life that way, masquerading as an adult until she became one. And when Dale died, she pretended to be able to cope until she figured out a way to cope for real.

  That afternoon, when Heather parked outside the middle school, Erin was one of the first kids out the door. She breezed up to the car and hopped in, tossing her backpack on the floor. “Hey, Mom.” Leaning across the seat, she kissed Heather’s cheek, then buckled her seat belt. “How was your day?”

  “Fine, thanks.” Heather merged into the line of cars leaving the school. “You look happy today.”

  “I got invited to join the yearbook club. They’re meeting at Sierra’s house tonight; she said her mom would pick me up and bring me back home after.”

  “Oh.” Heather hoped Erin’s opportunity didn’t interfere with her afternoon plans. “What time?”

  “Five. They’ll have pizza, so I won’t have to eat first.”

  Cutting it close, but still doable. “That’s wonderful, sweetie.” They would still have time to go by the cemetery. She drove a few more miles debating how to break the news that they’d be going to visit Dale’s grave today. She wasn’t sure why she expected a blowup from Erin, but she did. Better to get it over with before the twins got out of school. “I have a surprise for you too.”

  Erin looked up from her phone with an excited smile. “Yeah?”

  “After we pick up the twins, we’re going to have a special little celebration, just the four of us.”

  “What are we celebrating?”

  Heather took a breath. “Today’s your daddy’s birthday, so I thought—”

  Erin drew back as if she’d been slapped. “We’re…celebrating? Mom, that makes absolutely no sense.”

  “I thought—”

  “I was having a great day, the first great day I’ve had in ages, and you just had to go and ruin it, didn’t you?” Erin’s cheeks
stained red with anger. “You can’t stand that I’m happy. I’m finally just a regular kid at school, not that girl whose daddy just died.” She flung up her hands. “Daddy is dead, Mom. Get over it already.”

  “Well…but…” Heather sputtered. She had expected some grumbling from Erin, but not such a vitriolic attack. “I thought it would be nice to commemorate his birthday. It’s not a big deal.”

  “It’s not? Well, good.” Erin flounced around in her seat, crossed her arms, and stared out the window. “Because I don’t want any part of it. You and the twins can do whatever stupid thing you’ve cooked up, but you can take me straight home. I need to take a shower and change clothes and get ready for tonight.”

  Heather clutched the steering wheel. Dale would’ve probably pulled the car over and…well, she didn’t know what he would’ve done because Erin had never stood up to either of them the way she’d done just now. But Dale would have known how to handle it. Heather didn’t. Should she force Erin to go along? That would ruin the whole afternoon for everyone and defeat the purpose of remembering Dale in this small and meaningful way. But if she let Erin stay home, she would be rewarding a tantrum. “It won’t take more than an hour…”

  Erin cut a sideways look of fury toward Heather before responding. “I have homework to do too.”

  Heather felt a headache begin to throb behind her left eye, and she realized that her teeth were clenched, her shoulders tensed, her whole body geared up for a confrontation. She forced herself to relax.

  She drove the rest of the way to the elementary school in silence. Erin fumed silently, her fingers flying on her phone’s touch screen. Probably texting a friend to say how horribly she was being treated.

  Outside Magnolia Bay Elementary School’s red-brick building, the twins piled into the back seat. Caroline sat quietly and buckled her seat belt, while Josh filled the car with his loud chatter and the smell of little-boy sweat and playground dirt. Erin sighed, rolled her eyes, and took a pair of headphones from her backpack, pointedly plugging herself into her phone.