2
Leah parked in one corner of the empty patch of pavement and turned off the car. Beyond the windshield that was already clouded with the haze of dried saltwater, the ocean churned gray and angry under wind-whipped dark clouds broken by an occasional glimpse of blue. Gusts of wind off the water blew a fine spray of sand across the beach and onto the parking lot, the sand piling in small ripples along the leeward side. There’s nothing quite so lonely as a beach in winter, Leah thought. Even though it was spring not winter, the scene sure looked and felt like winter. In the middle distance, trapped between the haze of wind-blown sand and the backing of slate clouds was the lone cottage sitting high off the beach on its pilings, looking like a leggy gray heron plodding the shallows for food. She remembered it as being larger and more ominous. Despite, or perhaps because of, the day, it looked to her like an inviting refuge against the cold wind, the only human structure anywhere in sight on this tip of the beach. And as if to affirm her hope, a wisp of pale smoke rose up from the stone chimney and was quickly dispersed by the whipping wind.
“This is what I came three thousand miles for?” Jodie said.
She’d flown into Atlanta yesterday and stayed with Leah and Whitfield overnight. She’d been sullen and angry since arriving, and hardly spoken during the long ride out. Leah accepted that this anger, mixed perhaps with fear, was all about Brooke and her ongoing complicated hold on Jodie’s life despite the separation of distance—a whole continent’s width—and years. Leah felt helpless to begin to address these issues, particularly since she herself had no idea why Brooke had summoned them out here; so she didn’t try. She also hoped that by externalizing some of her anger in Leah’s presence, she might have less to direct toward Brooke. Then again, the opposite could be happening, with Jodie’s anger only deepening with each passing minute. “You came three thousand miles because I asked you on your mother’s behalf, and we both are grateful.”
Jodie faced her. “And you’re sure you don’t know why.”
Leah shook her head. “No idea.”
“And you do whatever Mom says.”
“No.”
“Then why are we here?”
Leah was touched yet again by the vulnerability that lurked just beneath the pugnacity of Jodie’s stare. She owed her niece an honest response; she just wasn’t sure what that response might be. “With Brooke I’ve always followed my heart. And my heart told me to be here.”
“With me in the car.”
Leah laughed. “No, Brooke told me to bring you.”
“And you do whatever Mom says.”
That barb hurt more than Leah would’ve expected, because it was accurate. Her heart may have brought her out here, to what at the moment appeared the end of the world. But it had been Brooke’s forthright command, never really questioned, that had made Leah get Jodie here. Why had she not pushed harder to know why Jodie needed to be here? It was one thing to place herself at the mercy of Brooke’s whims, quite another to expose Jodie, with her train-car-full of resentments and hostility. How could she have been so thoughtless? “I’m sorry if I forced you to do something you didn’t want to do.”
Jodie looked at the churning ocean beyond the windshield. She was again struck by how different the Atlantic, her virtual birthplace and the playground of all her summers till college, was from the Pacific, her adopted home and locus of current meditative retreats. It was perhaps too easy to see in the comparison a metaphor for the upheavals of her youth contrasted with the relative calm (as long as you didn’t look too closely) of her adulthood. But here she was again—in the eye of an emotional storm and beside the Atlantic. “If I really didn’t want to be here, I wouldn’t be here.”
“You won’t blame me?”
Jodie was shocked by these words. She’d never known her aunt to question her decisions, and had always trusted Leah’s wise and careful counsel. “This is Mom’s doing, not yours.”
As if on cue, a lumbering black pickup emerged from beneath the elevated cottage and made its way toward them over a serpentine path between the dunes. Leah had called Brooke from an hour away to alert her to their arrival time, and Brooke had promised to be waiting at the parking lot. But neither Leah nor Jodie had been surprised when they’d arrived to find the lot empty. Brooke was never on time and always had a long list of excuses for her tardiness. “Speak of the devil,” Leah whispered.
“You said it, not me.”
Leah smiled at her niece and patted her hand where it rested idly on her knee. “Just a figure of speech.”
Jodie nodded. “To some.” But her face had lost the worst of its tension. She even managed a half-hearted grin in her aunt’s direction.
Brooke pulled the big-tired pickup alongside Leah’s car. Its running boards were nearly as high as the top of the sedan, and Brooke had to climb down from the driver’s seat using the chrome steps and handholds.
Leah got out of the car and gave her sister a hug and a kiss on the cheek. Brooke’s face looked especially gaunt, but Leah tried to convince herself that was the result of the gray day and the biting wind.
Jodie came around the car and gave her mom a one-armed hug across her shoulders and a fleeting kiss to the side of her short-cropped hair with its mix of natural brown, encroaching gray, and gold highlights at the tips.
“I would’ve been here sooner but that damn fireplace backed up smoke. Every damper I’ve ever used you push away to open. Isn’t that right? But no, not this one. Away is closed, and smoke in your face. Toward you is open, though it’s a little tricky with flames lapping at your arms and smoke all in your eyes and throat. But don’t worry; don’t worry. Brooke has it all under control.”
“Where’s Penni?” Jodie asked.
“Oh, she was a great help! Ran around trying to turn off all the smoke alarms instead of opening some windows. I told her to forget the smoke alarms! Open some windows, the doors, turn on the bath fan and range hood! But she went around pulling batteries out of the smoke detectors! But don’t worry. It’s all under control.”
“So Penni’s at the house?”
“She’s keeping an eye on the fire and airing out the rooms.”
“That’s good,” Jodie said.
“And putting the batteries back in the smoke detectors,” Brooke added.
Leah stepped forward and gave her sister another hug. “Sorry for all your excitement.”
“My middle name.”
Nobody present argued the point.
Leah pulled their bags and supplies out of the trunk and Brooke tossed them into the back of the pickup. When Jodie moved to follow, Brooke intercepted her and pointed toward the cab. “There’s enough room up there for a small army. Climb in the middle and hold on tight!”
Jodie frowned but said nothing. She climbed up onto the seat and slid across to a spot next to the four-wheel-drive shift lever. Leah followed and pulled the door shut, but it closed on her long raincoat. She opened it, pulled the tails of her coat inside the cab, and closed it again, just as Brooke got back behind the wheel and closed the door on her side. The cab was eerily calm after the howling wind and blowing sand.
Leah and Jodie looked at Brooke and laughed. She appeared comically small compared with the spacious cab and the high seat.
Brooke shook her head. “This is Dave’s toy. He says he keeps it to get to the office on snow days, but really he just wants to show off to the neighbors—drives around the block a couple times each weekend with all the dogs barking and everyone trimming their grass pausing to look.”
“I imagine he draws lots of stares.”
“Talk about stares! You should’ve seen me and Penni driving down here! You’d have thought we were in a flying saucer for all the gawking. I kind of liked it, but Penni was mortified. And loud! Those tires on the pavement sound like tank tracks. Had to shout to be heard. Reminded of the time I flew in the biplane on Shawnituck. Remember that Leah? Well, of course not, you weren’t there. That’s the point of the story. I wanted the guy—what wa
s his name? Doug or Donald or something—to fly me home for the day to see Leah who was having a crisis. I kept shouting the request forward and he kept shouting back ‘What?’ and pointing to his ears which were all but deaf with the roar of the engine blowing back over us combined with the wind.”
“He said you’d run out of fuel halfway there,” Leah inserted.
“How’d you know that?”
“You wrote it in one of those letters I saved.”
“I did? Well, that’s right. When I finally got my message across, that I wanted to fly to Charlotte, he said we’d run out of fuel halfway there. So he flew me around Bogue instead, right over this cottage, as a matter of fact, when it still had the lower level.”
“Was this before or after you were pregnant with me?” Jodie asked.
“Oh, way before! I wouldn’t have been accepting free flights from guys twice my age once your dad and I were—how do they say it these days?—intimate.”
“Fucking without protection,” Jodie growled.
Brooke laughed. “Yes. That’s what I meant.”
“But you’ve always said you met him your first day on the island and it was love at first sight.”
“That’s true. But it took a while for us to get around to expressing that love.”
“Giving you time to take free flights from older guys.”
“That’s not another euphemism, is it?”
“Is it?”
Brooke smiled. “I’ll never tell.”
“No, Mom; you don’t have to.”
“Well, if you must know—‘free flights’ wasn’t a euphemism for something more with Donald or Douglas or whoever he was. For all his eyes wanted, his hands were total gentleman, thank you very much.”
“Probably first and only with you.”
“Can we change the subject, dear? Lovely weather, isn’t it? How was your drive down? What’s new in Seattle?”
“Was Dad really a virgin the night you conceived me?”
“Jodie!” Leah cried.
“Who told you that?”
“He did.”
“Then it must be true.”
“Did you know?”
Brooke, suddenly calm, looked steadily into her daughter’s flashing eyes, her face not a foot away, their legs separated only by the gearshift. “I was pretty sure, then he told me afterwards.”
“So what’s that make you—some sort of slutty seductress?”
“Jodie!” Leah said again, but neither mother nor daughter looked at her.
Brooke weighed the accusation then said, “Maybe that, maybe worse. It was a long time ago.”
“But the result lives on.”
Brooke nodded. “Yes.”
Jodie turned away, seemed to shrink inward between the two sisters.
Brooke continued. “I loved your father that night and for months before and for months after. Part of me still loves him. And I’ve loved the outcome—the ‘result,’ as you say—of that night for every minute since.”
“You still haven’t said why.”
“Why what?”
“Why you started me.”
“I don’t know why.”
“And you think that’s O.K.?”
Leah said, “I know why.”
Both women looked at her, as if just now recalling there was a third person in the cab.
Leah gave a sheepish grin, startled by their sudden attention. But she completed her statement. “Because she’s Brooke.”
Brooke laughed. “So that’s it!” She started the truck.
“Got that right,” Jodie muttered beneath the engine’s rumble and the wind’s howl.
They unloaded the truck in the sparse protection of the carport beneath the house, screened on two sides by lattice and straight ahead by storage closets. They climbed to the living quarters via a set of outdoor stairs with a landing halfway up. Brooke had insisted on carrying Jodie’s small carry-on but seemed to be struggling and short of breath when she paused at the landing. Leah nudged Jodie from behind, and she quickly stepped forward and took the bag from her mother. Brooke didn’t argue.
Inside the house did smell like wood smoke, but it wasn’t unpleasant. Leah called it “Brooke’s incense.”
Penni suddenly appeared and said, “Like at girl-scout camp!”
Jodie said, “I never got to go,” but followed it with a laugh and a hug for Penni with a kiss on each of her cheeks.
Brooke said, “You refused.”
Jodie said, “I did not. You never asked.”
Leah stepped between the two and paused on her way to greet Penni. “I guess we’re the referees for the weekend,” she said then embraced her younger niece.
Penni said, “It’ll be good to have some reinforcements,” looking at her mother and sister over Leah’s shoulder.
The remodeled cottage consisted of a large open room on the entry level, divided by a built-in dining table at its center with four rough-hewn posts at each corner extending to the ceiling. They’d entered at the large kitchen, with a similarly spacious living room beyond the dining table with a large stone fireplace (Brooke’s fire now burning brightly and throwing warmth all the way into the kitchen) at the center of the far wall flanked by French doors out onto a deck facing the ocean. To the left of the open room were two doors, one leading to a pantry and the other to a half-bath. To the right was an open-sided staircase leading to the second floor.
On that floor were two large bedrooms, one facing the ocean, one facing the sound. Each bedroom had queen-sized beds centered on opposing walls, a generous bathroom with whirlpool tub and walk-in shower, a sliding door closet, and a dresser with mirror centered between the large windows facing the water. Brooke had claimed the ocean-front room for her and Leah (“Elders’ privilege!”) and led her sister in that direction when they’d reached the upper hall, past the spiral stairs that led to a door that opened onto the widow’s walk.
“Does it open?” Leah asked, pointing to that door.
“Oh, yes!” Brooke said.
“It’s the first place Mom went when we got here,” Penni said from her position trailing on the stairs.
“Why?” Jodie asked.
“The fulfillment of her dream,” Leah answered for her sister.
Brooke laughed. “My sister knows me better than I know myself.”
Leah explained. “When we were kids and vacationed at Bogue Beach, at least once each year Brooke dragged me all the way out here—it was a long, long walk—just to look at this cottage at the tip of the island. She always said ‘One day I’ll stay at that cottage.’ And when I asked why, she said ‘To get a look from that widow’s walk.’”
“Was it worth it, Mom?” Jodie asked, her first harmless question since arriving.
“Oh, yes!” her mother replied. “Better than I’d dreamed.”
“Why?” Jodie said, a renewed edge to her tone.
“Because she’s Brooke,” Leah said, hoping to head off a new confrontation.
Brooke turned from where she’d been leading the way and looked at the three women—Leah still in her tailored blue raincoat directly behind her, Jodie paused on the landing in her hooded purple U-of-W sweatshirt, and Penni the youngest a few steps below in her lemon-colored sweater over a turquoise blouse. She gazed at each in turn with a serene and enigmatic grin then said quietly, “Freedom.”
“From what?”
Brooke laughed. “Wrong preposition, Jodie. You’re the English major—try again.” But she didn’t wait for a response as she turned down the hall and said over her shoulder, “Come on, Leah. Let me show you our beautiful room.”
Jodie shook her head then walked in the opposite direction to the bedroom at the back.
Penni caught up just as Jodie entered the room. She squeezed past in the doorway and ran over to the bed she’d claimed with her nightgown and a pillow brought all the way from Boston sitting on the floral bedspread. “I took the right-hand side of the closet and the dresser. I hope you don’t mi
nd,” she said as she sat on her bed.
Jodie noted that Penni’s bed had a better view out the windows and a shorter walk to the bathroom. “That’s fine. I doubt I’ll even unpack my suitcase.”
“You didn’t bring much? Mom wouldn’t tell me what we’d be doing, so I brought clothes for everything—except this cold weather. I’m freezing!”
“That sweater’s nice.”
“I’ve been wearing it since Boston. It’s not supposed to be cold in the South in April!”
Jodie tossed her bag on the bed then walked to the nearest window. Beyond several hundred yards of low dunes with wind-whipped dune grass, the sound churned with as much vehemence as the nearby ocean. Out here, on the tip of the island, the two merged and were as one. Beyond the gray water, maybe a mile distant, the shore of the mainland rose in a thin slate-colored line beneath dark clouds moving fast like a convoy of ships along the horizon. She knew they were facing west; and if the sky cleared, the sunset would surely be spectacular—or maybe even behind the clouds, with glimpses of gold sneaking through. She also noted that the sun would rise on the other side of the house, maybe letting her sleep in, if the others would leave her alone.
When she turned, Penni was inches behind her, making her flinch.
Penni either missed or ignored the reaction and threw her arms around her sister and laid her head on Jodie’s shoulder. “It’s so good to see you. I wish we didn’t live on opposite sides of the country.”
“That’s been the case for years.”
“Yes, but I notice it more since I’ve been married.”
Jodie took a step back, out of Penni’s embrace. She saw that Penni’s eyes were brimming. “We’ll have to try to get together more.”
Penni nodded to the floor then turned, blinking away her tears. “I told Mom I’d help with dinner.” She headed out the door.
Jodie took a minute to duck into their bathroom, noted Penni’s long row of toiletries arranged beside one sink of the double vanity. “At least the toilet doesn’t have a furry seat,” she muttered to herself as she sat down to pee, then wished that it had when the frigid seat hit her thighs.
There wasn’t much to dinner preparations. Brooke had mixed up a big pot of her four-pepper and roasted garlic spaghetti sauce—one of her few specialties, refined years ago to accommodate Jodie’s vegetarianism—and brought it down in one-gallon zip-seal bags stored in their cooler. She also had sliced and buttered garlic bread wrapped in foil and pre-washed garden-mix salad ready to go in the bowl. All they had to do for dinner was heat the sauce, boil the spaghetti, and warm the bread.
But Brooke said, “What’s the rush?” and brought out the wine—both merlot and chardonnay—and cheese—brie and cranberry chevre and smelly Stilton—and three kinds of crackers and seedless grapes and spread it all out with four plates and four wine glasses on the wide revolving server at the middle of the table.
The other three stood by helplessly and rolled their eyes at each other as Brooke declined any assistance and bustled about.
“Now sit,” she commanded. “Eat, enjoy, loosen up!” she cried, even as she scurried off to throw another log on the fire.
Each of the women sat at a side of the table, free to see each other and also safely far apart. Brooke returned and took a seat at the open side of the table, nearest the kitchen, and poured herself a full glass of red wine. She made sure the other three had full glasses—Leah and Jodie had chardonnay, Penni water poured from her plastic bottle—then raised her glass. “To the Fulcher girls, all together again.”
Jodie said, “I’m Howard. Penni’s Redmond.”
“Now Coulter,” Penni corrected.
“And Leah’s Monroe,” Jodie continued.
Brooke frowned. “Out here, we’re all Fulchers.”
“Down deep,” Penni granted.
“At the bottom,” Jodie conceded.
“In our hearts,” Leah said.
“And genes,” Brooke said.
Jodie looked under the table and laughed. “In our jeans!” She laid one leg on the edge of the table, showing her frayed jeans.
“Jodie!” Brooke scolded with a voice from long ago, or maybe not so long ago.
Leah winked to Penni across the table; and they joined Jodie by each raising a jean-encased leg to lie on their respective side of the table. “In our jeans,” they announced in unison.
“Oh, what the hell,” Brooke said as she added her leg, and designer jeans, to the mix. “To the Fulcher girls, in our jeans!”
All four reached toward the middle of the table, with some difficulty given their awkward posture, and tapped glasses together.
Then they lowered their feet and settled in to sharing the cheese and crackers and fruit.
“So what’s news?” Brooke asked after a short spell of silence punctuated only by the fire’s crackle and the wind’s low moan.
The others looked quickly around the table.
Penni took a deep breath and blurted out, “I’m pregnant!”
Brooke beamed.
Leah’s mouth fell open.
Jodie said, “Fuck!”
Penni looked at her sister, started to say something but couldn’t find her voice, jumped out of her seat and ran across the living room and out onto the deck. The roar of the ocean and the wind grew briefly loud as the deck door stood open until Penni reached back and slammed it shut.
Brooke glared across at Jodie. “Why did you have to say that?”
“I didn’t need to fly three thousand miles to hear Perfect Penni tell me she was starting her Perfect Family with her Perfect Doctor Dick husband. A postcard would’ve sufficed!”
“That’s not why you’re here. I had no idea!” Brooke exclaimed.
“Yeah, right.”
“I didn’t! This is the first I’ve heard. I didn’t even know they were trying to get pregnant.”
“But you couldn’t be happier.”
“Give me at least thirty seconds to figure out what I feel before pronouncing judgment, please.”
“I’ve given you twenty-five years, Mom.”
Brooke stared at her elder daughter, weighing the merits of refuting again this long-simmering and baseless allegation. She finally turned to Leah and asked, “Would you please go and bring your other niece in from the cold.”
Leah nodded and stood. But before heading toward the deck, she came around to Jodie and hugged her from behind, laying her mouth against her right ear and whispering, “Be patient, please.” She turned and took a step toward the living room.
“No hugs for the offended party?” Brooke said.
Leah stopped and sighed, then came back around to Brooke.
“I thought Penni was the offended one,” Jodie said, though without much conviction.
When Leah reached Brooke’s side of the table, she didn’t hug her sister but did kneel to her seated height. She waited for Brooke’s eyes to come around then said directly into them, “You know full well who loves you more than anyone in the world.”
Brooke nodded without a moment’s hesitation. “I know. I’m sorry.” She brushed Leah’s nearest hand with light fingertips. “Now please get Penni before she turns into an ice cube.”
Leah smiled and headed for the deck.
Behind her, Brooke said, “Tell her that Jodie was just expressing how she got pregnant, not her sentiment about the news.”
Leah laughed. “I’ll make sure she knows.”
“Jodie’s sentiment about the news is pending fuller reflection; but I’m sure it will ultimately resolve itself into joyful support.”
“Yes, Brooke,” Leah said, just before opening the door to the deck lurking in gray late-day light, the roar of ocean and wind like a formal pronouncement.