Grayton Winds

by Michael Lindley

  In the morning after a quick swim in the Gulf to clear my mind, I returned to work on my book, sitting at the typewriter on the dining table in the Headley’s cottage. A cup of steaming coffee rested next to a stack of typed pages, sunlight from the kitchen window brightening the room. The story had taken some unexpected turns, as I suppose is so often the case when the work of writing a novel plays out over time. On this particular morning, I found myself writing almost effortlessly, words flowing onto the page, the story unveiling itself before me on the successive blank white pages. There was an underlying excitement in the knowledge that the story was progressing and the uncertainties of where it might lead were becoming more clear. This would be my first novel and I took some encouragement in its future potential from the placement of several short stories in literary journals over the past couple of years. A publisher in New York had actually contacted me after reading one of my stories. While he had given me no certain guarantee of publishing the book, he had been very encouraging through the process when I had sent a few chapters for review. I had no grand illusion of publishing fame or success, only a desire to simply tell a good story.

  I heard some commotion outside and then there was a soft, almost hesitant knock on the front door, as if someone thought I might still be sleeping. As I walked over, I could see through the screened door that it was Sara and Melanee. They were both dressed in short pants and their feet were bare. Sara wore a long-sleeved shirt in spite of the growing heat and I, of course, understood she was trying to hide the traces of her past life, tracked along the veins of her forearms. I opened the door and went out to join them on the porch.

  “Good morning, ladies,” I said. “You’re out calling early today.”

  “I hope we didn’t wake you,” little Melanee said, “but we wanted to help you finish painting that fence.”

  I looked at Sara and we both smiled. My first thought was getting back to the story, but I didn’t have the heart to say no. “I just happen to have a couple of extra brushes, little lady.”

  I brought the paint and supplies out from the shed in the back and together, Sara and I helped Melanee put paint to fence. Even in her sightless world she was obviously taking such pleasure in making the old Headley place look new and shining. Our mockingbird friend, Champ, swooped down and lit on the fence just down from us. He chirped and Melanee jumped up and greeted the little beggar. “Oh Champ, we don’t have time to feed you right now. We have to get this work done.” The bird seemed to somehow understand and bounded away down the tops of the pickets and then turned to watch us, remarkably without further protest or screeching requests for a handout.

  By mid-day we had finished the work and the Headley place stood completely renewed before us with a fresh coat of paint and weeds and shrubs pruned over the past weeks. All of us seemed to have more paint on our hands and faces and clothes than had made it onto the picket fence. Lila and Maggie came over toward the end of the project and they both just shook their heads at the mess we had made.

  Lila took her two girls back to the hotel to get them cleaned up. As they were leaving, I thanked them both for their hard work and promised them I would take them shopping in Panama City to pay them back. Maggie stood with me as we watched them walk away. She put her arm around my waist and pulled me closer.

  “Brother, you’ve done a good thing here,” she said.

  “What, this old fence?” I said.

  She elbowed me in the ribs. “You know what I mean.”

  “How about some lunch?” I offered. She nodded and we went inside. After I had cleaned up I put a spread of sandwiches and fruit on the table, pushing the typewriter and random pages to the side. I noticed Maggie looking out the kitchen window, not paying attention to her food. I asked if she was all right.

  “I need to go home, Mathew,” she said, and the sadness in her voice was clear. “I spoke to Daddy yesterday and there is still no sign of Desmond.”

  “If he’s smart he’s left the damn country,” I said, thinking about the fate that awaited him if my father and his men ever did find my sister’s husband.

  “I need to find him and put this all behind us. We’ll never be together again, but I need to understand what could have led him to do this to the family. He certainly didn’t need the money,” she said.

  “I understand what you’re feeling, but I think it’s best if you just let it go. Get the family’s law firm to do up the paperwork and get the bastard out of your life forever,” I said.

  She nodded as if accepting my advice, but I knew Maggie was not one to just walk away from something like this. She had a quiet, inspired tenacity in most everything she did, from school to the volunteer work that she kept busy with after college, to her fierce competitiveness on a tennis court.

  The next morning, I said goodbye to my sister as she left Grayton Beach for the long drive back to Atlanta. Again, she asked me to come home soon to be with the family. I gave her little encouragement.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  The days and nights seemed to run endlessly together, a rhythm established in the routines of a life now edged in soft focus between new possibilities and the old realities of home and family back in Atlanta. It was mid-June in Grayton Beach and the days grew hotter in succession; the only relief a bath in the cold well water or a swim in the Gulf during early morning before the sun brought the temperature back up. In the back of my mind was an ongoing reminder that soon I would have to take some new direction in the affairs of my life. Certainly, I would not be able to stay in the Headley’s place forever, nor was that ever my intent.

  The writing life could perhaps take me off to New York or some far city, but any possible hope of subsistence from such a course was still only a slim prospect. Returning to Atlanta seemed the last of all options, though my sister had managed to finally plant just the smallest seed of guilt in my mind regarding my hesitance to come back to help the family through difficult times. I had enough money from a family trust fund established when I was quite young and set to begin paying a steady allowance when I had turned twenty-one. My sister had helped to arrange for checks to be sent to my account at a small bank in Panama City. It was certainly enough to be comfortable, regardless of the direction I took with my life, but I had never planned to be satisfied with such an easy existence and I cared little if my father chose to cut it off.

  My sister Maggie had been gone for a couple of days. I had been able to keep the momentum of my writing going, rarely venturing out since she had left. It was late in the evening when the sun had fallen below the western horizon and darkness filled the small rooms of the Headley’s cottage. I sat at the little table reading over the work I had completed in the past hours by the light of a kerosene lamp, dressed only in a pair of paint-stained khaki shorts, trying to find some relief from the heat. I heard some low voices out on the street and walked to the door. Light from the moon cast a soft glow over the town and I could see people coming down the road from the hotel. When I went out on the porch I could see it was Lila coming up with Sara and Melanee. Lila walked through the gate and I met her out in the front yard.

  I was surprised that she spoke in almost a whisper. “You need to come down to the beach with us. Melanee is certain the turtles are hatching.”

  “The turtles?” I asked, with some confusion.

  “Yes, the loggerheads. There were tracks to a nest up in the dunes a while back and now Melanee is sure they’re hatching and the little turtles are trying to find their way down to the water.”

  I walked with her out to the street. Sara was standing there holding her daughter’s hand.

  “Mathew?” I heard Melanee ask.

  “I’m right here, kid.”

  Melanee was whispering too, like the turtles might be able to hear us all the way up in town. “Mathew, we have to go down to the beach. The little turtles are trying to get back to the sea.”

  I could see her mother Sara’s face in soft outline and s
he smiled at me with a knowing look.

  “What are we waiting for?” I said, and we all started off down to the beach. We walked in the sand, avoiding the boardwalk to be as quiet as possible. Lila told me as we walked that the tracks up into the dunes had been down the beach a few hundred yards to the west. When we got to the waterline we stopped and looked in both directions. The big moon was rising over Panama City to the east and sending a bright reflection across the water.

  “We have to be very quiet,” Melanee said, again in nearly a whisper. “We can’t frighten them away from the water.”

  We started down the beach slowly, looking ahead for any sign of little turtles scurrying about. Lila told me they would be smaller than my hand and many might never make it to the water with shore birds often having their way.

  Lila walked out ahead of us and back up toward the dunes. We walked on in silence and then I saw her hold up a hand to get us to slow down. She kneeled down as we walked over carefully, Sara and I both holding Melanee’s hands. We all got down next to her and then she pointed into the soft darkness, the white sand showing starkly against the night. I felt Melanee squeeze my hand more tightly and then she quietly said, “They’re coming, aren’t they?”

  Lila pointed out ahead and then I could see this slow mass of tiny dark bodies moving slowly across the light contrast of the sand. We inched a few feet closer, being careful not to interfere with their course, and then we could see them more clearly, dozens of little scurrying critters using their tiny flippers to push through the sand toward the water. I looked around and was pleased to see none of the pesky seagulls that were constantly hovering above during the day were anywhere to be seen. It would have been pure carnage, but the little things kept on in their instinctual path to the sea and we were all blessed to be there to see the magical migration.

  Sara was speaking quietly to Melanee, describing the scene of the loggerheads to her blind daughter. I watched as the little girl sat there sightlessly, a beaming smile on her face. I seemed to be the only one who was utterly amazed that Melanee had this intuitive notion the hatch was underway. She reached down every few seconds and picked up a handful of sand and then let it all run slowly through her open fingers, as if she was sharing the feel of the texture of the beach with the turtles. “Momma, can’t we keep just one?” she pleaded.

  Sara hugged her close and explained we needed to let all of them make their way to the water, allowing as many as possible to survive at least this first step of their journey. The water was calm enough that as they began reaching the shore their little fins flapped harder and they splashed out into the gentle surf and away into the darkness of the Gulf of Mexico. When the last little turtle was at the shore break we walked over closer. A small wave came in and swept over it, knocking it onto its back. We waited for a few moments for it to right itself, but it continued to struggle. Sara walked over with Melanee and they both kneeled by the foundering turtle. She took her daughter’s hand and helped her gently pick up the little loggerhead and hold it for a moment near her face and then she kissed it on the top of its shell before placing it down into the water. And then it was away. We all stood and looked out at the moon-sparkled surface of the water as the turtles made their way out into the current.

  Back at the hotel, Melanee had finally been put to bed after what seemed like hours of excited conversation about the turtles. I sat on the porch with Lila and we sipped a cup of tea together, feeling the slightest breath of wind on our faces as the late evening cooled. The scent of gardenias from the bushes beside the porch was lingering in the air and even this late there were bees buzzing around the blossoms. Sara had gone up with her daughter and now I asked Lila how her recovery was continuing.

  “Helen, our nurse, has been wonderful and she helps Sara through each day,” Lila said. “There are some difficult times and I’m still frightened to death she could run away again looking for the drugs.”

  “She seems so much better,” I said, trying to be comforting, but also honestly expressing the improvement I had seen in Sara since she had been back in Florida.

  “Mr. Palumbo has arranged for Helen to stay with us through the summer and he told me longer, if necessary. I still can’t believe what a saint that old bastard is at times,” she said, and shook her head, smiling.

  “He’s an interesting sort, isn’t he?” I replied.

  “Helen confided in me the other night and told me Sara will always be haunted by this terrible addiction and her mind and body will never be totally free of the craving. It just makes me so sad to think her life may never be truly free from this poison.”

  I sat there thinking about the times ahead for Sara Dalton and hoping her love for her daughter would overcome the sickness that pulled her in other directions. There would be many more difficult challenges ahead for her trying to raise a daughter who would never be able to see and totally able to take care of herself. What a burden for a young woman who would have to struggle so hard to keep her own life on track.

  We both heard a car off to the left and I looked over as the headlights illuminated the Headley cottage. It was Palumbo’s car and one of the back doors opened. In the light, I could see a woman get out and walk through the gate up to the house. From the striking white hair, I could tell it was Eleanor. I said goodnight to Lila and walked down the steps and back toward home. She seemed somewhat disturbed about my sudden departure.

  Palumbo’s car pulled up in front of the hotel, Anthony at the wheel and Willie in the back. He leaned out of the open window. “Brought you a little surprise. Eleanor’s been wondering where you’ve been.”

  I could smell the whiskey on his breath. I looked inside and Anthony peered calmly ahead, a man of very few words. I thanked Willie for his thoughtful gesture and continued on down the road. Eleanor was up on the porch sitting in one of the chairs. When I walked up the steps she came over to me slowly and reached out her arms. We held each other for a while without speaking. I hadn’t seen her since returning from New Orleans, but she was often on my mind and a distraction from my work on the book. I had purposefully stayed away from Panama City to keep my mind focused on the story and my energy up for the work. She was dressed in a simple sleeveless light dress buttoned up the front. As always, she was a comforting reassurance there was someone in the world who cared for me simply for the person she knew me to be in Grayton Beach, not my family or their position, or anything else.

  Then she spoke quietly in my ear, “Mathew darlin’, I thought I was never going to see you again. Did I do something to chase you away?”

  We moved over to the chairs and she sat down on my lap, her arms around me and her hair hanging in my face. I told her about the trip to New Orleans and the work I had been doing on the book since returning. Then I told her about the turtles earlier that night. She wanted to see for herself so we walked down to the beach together and along the shore until we came to the tracks in the sand. We followed them back up to the dune line and found the big hole that all those little turtles had crawled from. Looking around in the moonlight there were pieces of egg shells littered about. Eleanor was kneeling beside me and she reached down into the hole and felt around for a bit and then she pulled another egg from the sandy nest and held it up for us to examine. It was cracked a bit and then it moved in her hand and she yelped in surprise. I placed it down in the sand and we moved back and watched as it continued to twitch and then crack open a little at a time. Eventually the tiny turtle freed itself and lay in the sand, almost seeming to rest and catch its breath as it considered the next leg of its journey; then it was off down the gentle slope of the dune toward the water.

  Eleanor took my hand. We sat there quietly watching the turtle move off into the darkness. When it was out of sight, she turned and kissed me and I was caught up in the scent and closeness of her. All thoughts of turtles and books and family dilemmas seemed to drift away on the night air.

  In the morning, I made breakfast for us and then
we made love again, this time on the sofa in the front room, the heat of the day soaking us in a dripping sweat when we lay together at the end. Eleanor had grown accustomed to the unsightly scars and disfigurement of my bad leg. When she asked me about the time away at the War, I had shared very little.

  She had brought a small bag with her with a swimsuit. We got dressed and went down to the beach. The wind had come up in a steady blow from the southwest and the waves had grown to several feet overnight. I thought to myself how fortunate the turtles had made their way last night during the period of calm seas. We walked arm in arm out into the surf and the cool chill of it was wonderful as we fell together into the waves. We both came up from under the clear surface of the water. Eleanor's hair was smoothed back away from her face and tiny droplets of salt water hung on her eyelashes. I kissed both of her eyes. She laughed and pushed me away and dove out into the next coming wave. I followed her and we swam out to the first sand bar. The water was then only up to our waists so we walked into the coming waves, holding on to each other so we wouldn’t be knocked over with each rising swell.

  The beach was deserted in both directions as far as we could see and the sun was now up an hour or so over the horizon. We made our way back to shore and sat together just beyond the water’s break in the wet sand from the high tide. Eleanor rested her head on my shoulder and shivered some from the chill of the wind. I had my arm around her waist. No words were needed at that point. There was just a moment and a morning to be shared.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Sheriff Lucas Crowe came into town later that day. I saw him walking with Lila Dalton down to the beach as Eleanor and I were heading back to the house. When they came up to us in the sand I said hello and introduced Eleanor Whitlock to both of them as my friend from Panama City. I noticed she squeezed my arm a bit more tightly and looked at me with an annoyed expression that she clearly would have liked to be introduced as more than a friend. Crowe was friendly and cordial in the presence of this beautiful woman, but Lila was again cool and distant. It was clear she disapproved of my relationship with Eleanor. Lila had become a good friend and we had been through a lot together in a very short time, but I was getting close to telling her that none of this was any of her damn business. I explained to Crowe that Eleanor worked at Palumbo’s club in Panama City and the sheriff looked at her with an even greater interest.