by Karen White
I started to cry again, from relief, and grief, and all the things I had learned in one stormy night. I hugged him to me, still not believing that I’d found him. “I love you, Owen.”
“I love you, too, Merritt,” he said, his voice muffled against my shoulder, but I didn’t let go, knowing that in a few years he probably wouldn’t let me hug him anymore—at least not in public.
Something dropped onto the dock, and when I stepped forward to retrieve it, my toe kicked whatever it was and then we heard the unmistakable sound of something hitting water.
“Was that the journal?” I asked in panic, then realized I still held it.
“No. Just my glasses.”
I looked at him, hoping my parenting skills wouldn’t be judged by my actions of a single day. “Great. Do you have an extra pair?”
“No. I had one, but I lost them.”
Keeping my arm around his shoulders, I led him off the dock to my car. “I guess we’ll go see about a new pair of glasses first thing tomorrow.”
“Or I could get contacts,” he said, looking up at me hopefully.
“We’ll see,” I said, sounding so much like my own mother that I almost laughed.
“Merritt?”
“Um?”
“I think we’re going to be okay.”
“I think so, too.” I kissed the top of his head and opened his car door. “Your bike won’t fit in my car—I’ll ask Dr. Heyward to bring it back.”
He nodded, then tilted his head toward the clearing sky, spotting a single star. “Did you know that when you look at stars you’re looking back in time? That’s because the light from the star takes millions of years to reach the Earth, so you’re really seeing how it looked millions of years ago.”
“Smart kid,” I said, rustling his hair.
He grinned at me, and it was his mother’s smile. Owen slid into the car and I closed the door, looking up just as he had. Loralee had shown us both the importance of looking up, of seeing the beauty and the good in unexpected places. And in ourselves.
The rain had finally stopped, the clouds shifting positions in the sky, making room for more stars that managed to push through the darkness and illuminate the places we were once afraid to see.
chapter 35
MERRITT
OCTOBER 2014
I stood on Gibbes’s back porch under the newly hung wind chime that Owen and I had made, staring out over the marsh. I wore only Gibbes’s shirt—having not quite adopted Loralee’s belief in wearing an elegant negligee to bed—but I did feel incredibly sexy in it. The heat from the coffee mug I held warmed my hands against the early predawn chill as I took a sip, watching as morning rose over Beaufort.
Dawn wasn’t a bright, sudden event there, but more like a slow exhalation. It was comforting and familiar, the soft gold light now a part of me. It had become home, the gray Maine mornings of my childhood a fading memory. I took a deep breath and let them go, finally setting free the girl who’d once emerged from an icy river and never stopped blaming herself.
The door behind me opened and I smiled. Owen was camping with Maris’s family for the weekend, returning in time for the fund-raiser, leaving Gibbes and me alone. His warm hands rested on either side of my waist as he pressed his bare chest against me and his lips brushed the back of my neck.
“Aren’t you cold?” I asked.
“Not anymore.” He kissed me again, and I felt his laugh rumbling against my skin.
He rested his head against mine and we waited in silence for the final breath of dark to give way to the light. Autumn in the Lowcountry settled softly on the marsh, painting it with strokes of ochre and yellow from the wind-tossed seeds of the cordgrass. Birdsongs changed as new visitors from up North searched for winter homes, and others sought shelter farther south. The wooden tombstones of upended oyster boats in summer had disappeared and were plying the creeks and estuaries, looking for beds to crack.
It seemed as if I’d always lived there, that the short summers and russet autumns of Maine were from another life. In many ways, I thought, they had been. I was confident now in the boat, and had navigated it by myself enough times to not be afraid anymore. I’d seen one alligator and countless dolphins on my journeys, and had learned the landmarks to find my way back. Loralee would probably have had something to say about that, something about the heart bearing a compass that always pointed toward home. I’d have to remember to write that in my own journal, the one I’d started after the night I’d crossed the bridge. I watched as the horizon trembled with new light, and imagined I was on the boat again, trees parting and the river bending into the liquid mystery of the marsh, its secrets submerged and exposed with the patterns of the moon.
“Did you sleep?” he asked.
I shook my head. “Too nervous. What if nobody comes?”
“Of course they will—I’ve never met anybody who could turn down an invite to a Lowcountry oyster roast. Besides, the Cecelia Gibbes Heyward Women’s Shelter is a good cause. And you’re a local celebrity. How could they stay away? Don’t forget, too—Deborah Fuller knows everybody in town and will make sure they’re here and bringing donation checks.”
I closed my eyes and leaned back, his arms firm around me, and knew he wouldn’t let me go. It had taken reading Loralee’s journal for me to find the courage to show Gibbes the letter, to admit to him the kind of woman I’d once been, the kind of person who’d allowed herself to fall in love with a lie. Life doesn’t get easier. We just get stronger. Loralee was right. I was stronger. I’d crossed more than just a physical bridge that night in the storm. She’d been right about so many things. I only wished I’d realized it earlier.
Gibbes had gone with me to the police station with the suitcase, the plane model, and the letter. And never once had he regarded me with Cal’s eyes, making me wonder how I’d ever thought he would. He’d been the one who’d figured out that Cal had wandered California for more than ten years before he went to Maine. An entire decade during which he’d fought his demons, tried to forget his need for retribution. But in the end he’d lost the battle, and had come to find justice and found me instead. I had been an easy substitute target for the rage he felt toward my grandmother and an unpunished crime. A rage that had been twisted and complicated by the unexpected love we’d found together. I held Gibbes closer to me. Edith had sent him away to save him, to make sure he had a happy life. In that one respect, she’d done the right thing.
I tilted my head, breathing in the scent of him. “Thanks for letting me use your house for the roast. I just had no idea how long it would take to paint the outside and inside of a house.” I thought about my newly painted porch overlooking the bluff, each wind chime rehung as soon as the paint had dried according to Owen’s numbering system, which he’d devised so nothing was hung in the wrong spot. Fall flowers shot up from the pots and planters that lined the refurbished brick steps and illuminated the front door with bright splashes of color. Remembering Loralee’s love of gardening, I thought it was a little bit like looking at her smile every time I approached the house.
Gibbes nuzzled his morning stubble against my temple. “I promised Owen that I would never sell this house, because of the dock. And you’ve made all those nice curtains and slipcovers and pillows—although why so many pillows have to go on a bed, I have no idea. They just get knocked to the floor.” I felt him smile. “So I guess we’re stuck with two houses.”
“What are you saying, Dr. Heyward?”
“Well, Loralee did say that if you married me you wouldn’t have to change the monogram on any of your linens.”
I turned around to face him. “Funny, she said the same thing to me.” I tilted my head. “Was that a proposal?”
“Not yet. I need to get Owen’s permission first.”
I kissed him gently on the lips. “Good. That will give me time to think about my answer.” I placed my head against his heart, the strong beat thrumming against my ear, and thought again of paths and compasses.
About how our paths had crossed long before we were born, our stories as tangled and meandering as the waterways that had brought us both back to the starting point. Everything happens for a reason. I smiled, thinking of Loralee.
“I’m proud of you, Merritt. I know none of this has been easy for you.” I felt his kiss on the top of my head.
The story of the crash of Flight 629 and my grandmother’s role in it had made the local news, which had brought it to the attention of a national magazine. I had expected recrimination about what my grandmother and Edith had done, but there hadn’t been any. There was nobody to prosecute, no more bodies to bury. At least there were no more questions for those still living, no more wondering. In the deepest parts of the night when I lay awake, I found solace in that.
The story had somehow propelled me into an unwanted spotlight as a sort of spokesperson about abusive relationships. I was uncomfortable there, knowing I hadn’t found the courage at the time to walk away from my own personal hell. I’d be more comfortable in my role of sewing instructor at the shelter as soon as the funds were made available. Until then I shared our stories—Edith’s, my grandmother’s, mine—to let others know they weren’t alone. That there was help. That they all possessed within themselves the courage to do the one thing they thought that they could not.
“Thank you for being there for me. I couldn’t do any of this alone.”
“You could,” he said softly. “But I’m glad I’m here.”
I looked up at the wind chime and watched the glass twist and twirl, thinking about Edith, Cecelia, and my grandmother. I studied the mottled surfaces of the sea glass, seeing not dull glass but weary travelers who had learned to absorb the light and reflect it outward.
It is in darkness that we find the light. I itched to write the words in my journal, to fill the pages with everything I’d learned, how we are all tumbled about by the waves of life, earning scars that show where we’ve been. And we learn. With each scar we learn. With etched faces we turn toward the light, unbending and unbreakable, strong at the broken places.
Gibbes kissed me, his lips hard and searching, and when I opened my eyes I saw only Gibbes, his brother’s ghost now laid to rest. I had found Cal after all, in the waterways of his boyhood, and it was here that I’d finally learned to let him go.
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
1. Discuss the effect of the plane crash in 1955 and the effect on Beaufort. How does it affect the lives of the characters in this story for generations? How did it recast Edith’s life?
2. Of all Loralee’s maxims found in her Journal of Truths, which rings the truest to you? Do you carry around any of your own “truths” to guide your thinking?
3. Even after her husband’s death, why does Edith keep her “secret project” under wraps, even though it helps and inspires the police community?
4. Why do you think Edith makes the sea-glass wind chimes so devotedly? And why do you think Merritt chooses to leave them all in place? What do they come to represent, and why might they be called “mermaid’s tears”?
5. Why does Merritt blame herself for Cal’s death? How does she transform herself over the course of the book? Is she finally at peace with her journey at the end of the story?
6. Discuss the tragic connection between the women in the book. How did each survive her circumstances? Do you think a predisposition for domestic violence is a trait you can inherit?
7. Were you shocked by the “beloved” letter’s contents? Or by Merritt’s ties to the letter?
8. Do you think Edith was right to keep the letter writer’s secret? Was she justified in any way?
9. Did Cal’s personal struggles and rationale for seeking out Merritt surprise you? Was he sensible in feeling wronged by Edith’s secrecy?
10. Do you believe in fate or coincidences? Are there such things in your opinion? Do you think Merritt and Gibbes were ultimately meant for each other?
11. What is Loralee’s legacy for her loved ones? Do you think she successfully “built” a family or guidebook for Owen?
Photo by Claudio Marinesco
Karen White is the New York Times bestselling author of eighteen previous books. She grew up in London but now lives with her husband and two children near Atlanta, Georgia.
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Table of Contents
Also by Karen White
Title Page
Copyright
Contents
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Epigraph
prologue
chapter 1
chapter 2
chapter 3
chapter 4
chapter 5
chapter 6
chapter 7
chapter 8
chapter 9
chapter 10
chapter 11
chapter 12
chapter 13
chapter 14
chapter 15
chapter 16
chapter 17
chapter 18
chapter 19
chapter 20
chapter 21
chapter 22
chapter 23
chapter 24
chapter 25
chapter 26
chapter 27
chapter 28
chapter 29
chapter 30
chapter 31
chapter 32
chapter 33
chapter 34
chapter 35
Readers Guide
