Castles in the Sand

by Sally John

  “I’m sorry, Suze.” She folded her arms and leaned sideways against the refrigerator. “I just don’t get it. I mean, we’re talking Mildred Murray.”

  “You know saying that much—an unspoken request—was a major concession for me, even to Mildred and the others. It was probably too much. This is such a personal matter. You’re family, but Drake and I can’t possibly open up to everyone else. They’d lose all respect—”

  “That’s absolute gibberish! He’s the pastor, not God. He’s human.”

  “He’s the leader. He has to be strong.”

  “But he doesn’t have to be perfect!” How many times had they had that conversation? Rex thought Natalie an optimistic nutcase, talking as if Drake would ever agree with her opinion. He was unbendable when it came to his view of pastor.

  Susan’s profile sagged. “I appreciate you trying to help, but sometimes we just need your support, a hundred percent of it, without sibling rivalry entering into the picture.”

  Natalie twisted her lips together so tightly her jaw popped. Rex was younger than Drake by five years. Susan chalked up their differences to typical issues of family rank. Drake saw himself as carrying an extra load of responsibility while their parents spoiled Rex rotten. How could Rex possibly understand Drake’s role?

  It was another tired topic, best to avoid it.

  “Natalie, I really wish you hadn’t told them where I was.” Susan rinsed the dishcloth and wrung it out.

  Natalie let the sibling rivalry comment go. It had nothing to do with the issue at hand. “Susan.” She grasped her elbow and steered her around. “I love you. The Marthas love you. You’re hurting. We want to express our love by being here for you in whatever way might help ease your pain.”

  “They were all here for me.” She turned back to the sink, folded the cloth, and laid it over the faucet. “It doesn’t matter that you had to coach soccer practice and couldn’t come until they’d left.” She faced her again. “You’re here now and you listened to what I said about my meeting with Mrs. Carlucci without comment. You ate dinner with me. And just think. The food was all Martha-type gifts of love. We had Mildred’s chicken soup, Emmylou’s veggie pizza, Leona’s brownies.” She glanced at the coffeemaker steaming away. “There’s Tess’ hazelnut coffee for you to drink while I enjoy the new herbal tea Gwyn left—”

  “Coffee.” That was it. “Why don’t you drink it anymore?”

  “Why don’t I—? What? You know why. It affects me adversely. I haven’t indulged for years.”

  “It affects Drake adversely.”

  Susan went to the stove to flip off the burner under the teapot, but she didn’t move to pick it up. “I’m really tired.”

  “I know.” Natalie poured herself a mug of coffee. Why couldn’t Susan accept their love? Why couldn’t she be real with the others about Kenzie? It all kept coming back to Drake. Why? Determined to explore things further, she had to buy time. Rex swore her middle name was bulldog. Speaking of dogs…

  “Suze, let’s go walk Pugsy. Then I promise I’ll leave. Just let me love on you a little longer?”

  Her sister-in-law was clearly exhausted, but a corner of her mouth went up. “I don’t know if I can handle any more being loved on.”

  Natalie chuckled. “I’ll work on my delivery. Maybe a little more tenacity and less belligerence will help?”

  “I’ll get the leash.”

  With Pugsy in the lead, Natalie and Susan strolled through the dark. Yellowy lamplight lit the boardwalk at regular intervals. An overcast sky hid stars from view and kept the temperature mild.

  They walked in a comfortable silence. Natalie thought how they’d been friends since the Thanksgiving Day fifteen years ago when Rex took her home to meet his family. She and Susan had connected instantly, an odd thing considering their disparate personalities. Susan was older, totally feminine, already a mother and married for eight years. To Natalie, she defined “pastor’s wife” in her compassionate ways. On the other hand, Natalie was a high school phys ed teacher and a girls soccer coach and wore shorts all the time.

  They always got along. But slowly and subtly, a wall went up between them. Susan laughed less and less and started wearing her beautiful naturally blond hair in a tight little bun.

  Natalie believed the change coincided with Drake’s ascension in popularity. Not that he didn’t deserve all the kudos and attention. His was a fresh voice in the church. Even now, people still loved him. He still offered God’s truth from the pulpit. Inside of him, though, something changed. Unable to explain why, Natalie and Rex felt their connection with him severed.

  His connections with his wife and daughter had been affected as well, twisted and turned upside down. And now the collateral damage was coming to the surface.

  Natalie said, “Want my opinion?”

  Susan tugged smartly on Pugsy’s leash and he barked. “You always ask that. Like I’d bother to say no.”

  “You can say no.”

  “Would you not give your opinion if I did?”

  “Doubtful.” She paused. “I think this dilemma is not so much about Kenzie. It’s about you and Drake.”

  Susan shivered visibly.

  “Today,” Natalie said, “when you didn’t run plans by Drake and just followed your heart, you met with Aidan’s mother and you learned about Kenzie. The operative phrase is you didn’t run plans by Drake.”

  “I should have, though.” Unmistakable guilt filled her voice.

  “Not necessarily.” She halted and faced her.

  Susan stopped as well. “It’s called submission. He is the head. We agreed not to interfere with Kenzie facing consequences. I went against that.”

  “Where you went was after your daughter, to learn about her welfare like you would any other homeless unwed mother-to-be who walked through the church doors. If that’s anti-submission, sign me up.”

  “Drake says—”

  “My question is, what would you do if Drake were not in the picture?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What if he were dead?”

  “Natalie! What a horrible thing to say!”

  “Okay, imagine him out of the country for an extended period of time. He’s a missionary in some godforsaken Latin American country and a tribe of heathens kidnap him and lock him away in the jungle for months and months. There’s no contact. What would you do?”

  “I can’t fathom such a concept. He’s not a missionary type and besides, we’ve been like one person for more than twenty-three years.”

  Natalie said, “My guess is you would make amends with Kenzie. You would not condone her actions, but neither would you pretend she and her baby do not exist.”

  Susan shook again as if chilled to the bone.

  “Drake screens every jot and tittle of what you do.”

  “That’s not true.”

  Despite her sister-in-law’s unconcealed discomfort, Natalie refused to back down. “He doesn’t even have to be in the same room. You listen to him in your head all the time. Oh, Suze. Imagine listening to your own voice instead! Or imagine God’s voice. He’s sitting there and He’s laughing and saying things like ‘You go, girl. You don’t need anyone else’s permission to do what you think is right. You’ve got Mine.’”

  “The gospel according to Natalie.”

  “I think it’s biblical. God alone is the audience we play to.”

  Susan’s teeth chattered.

  Natalie embraced her and squeezed tightly. She’d said enough. “I talk too much, but just imagine, Suze. Just imagine God right here and now speaking. You go, girl…”

  Ten

  Pepper Carlucci snuggled at her husband’s side as they sat in bed. Mick draped one arm around her shoulders and held a John Grisham novel in his other hand. It was opened to page 85.

  The scene typified their life since the birth of the twins. Reading, hugs, and catch-up on the day’s events occurred only after ten and most often simultaneously.

  “So
in conclusion,” Pepper spoke toward the book, “I’d say Kenzie’s mother is one uptight lady. Not just personality-wise. It showed all the way from her hair wound in its neat little bun down to her business suit, panty hose, and heels.”

  Mick turned the page. “I didn’t know women still wore panty hose.”

  “Real women don’t.” The long-standing joke between them was rooted in her opinion that the struggle to get into the things was not worth the silky result. They were high on her list of torture clothing designed by men.

  He kissed the top of her head and resumed reading.

  Pepper resumed her rendition of the morning’s meeting with Susan Starr. “Mickey liked her.”

  “Hmm. That says something.”

  “I admit, she was good with him. Knew how to communicate. I bet she runs the Sunday school. I would even bet she has run the Sunday school ever since Drake was first hired by a church. I think she’s probably a picture-perfect pastor’s wife.”

  “Try saying that five times fast. ‘Picture-perfect pastor’s wife.’ Better yet, ‘picture-perfect pastor’s partner.’”

  She ignored his suggestion. “Kenzie said a strange thing. She said her father must have allowed her mother to go stay at this beach house. Allowed. Isn’t that awful? It sounds like a nightmare version of submission.”

  “Mmm.” He turned the page.

  Pepper hadn’t finished reading it, but multitasking was not within reach tonight. “It spells trouble, Mick. If Kenzie grew up observing a screwy version of marriage, that’s exactly what she’ll bring to her own marriage. Semi-marriage.”

  “You’re going negative.”

  “No, I’m being realistic. She believes she’s tossing out that version of marriage by simply not getting married. But mark my words, their relationship will look like her parents’ before everything is said and done. Kenzie will kowtow to Aidan. I see signs of it already.”

  “Why would she do that?”

  “Because that’s what her mother does. Susan does it because that’s how she gets her identity. Kenzie will try to get hers in the same way.”

  “Baloney. She has an identity. She’s a lovely young woman, fun, great with Mickey, helpful around the house here, a musician who speaks the same language as our offbeat son. In all his twenty-five years, we haven’t met one female who comes even close to what she’s like.”

  “Do you think she got pregnant on purpose?”

  “It took both of them.” He slid a marker into the book and closed it. “You remember how it works.” Mick used his deepest voice.

  The one, Pepper was convinced, that directly accounted for her own six pregnancies.

  He set the book aside and shifted his weight in order to make eye contact with her. “You’re getting huffy. What’s really going on here?”

  A few years older than her own forty-five, Mick wore the extra pounds that usually came with age. But the biceps and pecs that caught her attention twenty-eight years before remained muscular, a consequence of his lifelong work in road construction. Gray had woven itself through the black hair he still preferred to wear nearly to his shoulders and in a ponytail. Only in California. Though he shaved less than an hour before, a five o’clock shadow colored his jaw. Warm topaz eyes softened his features.

  “Hmm, Pepper Sprout? What’s really going on?”

  She melted into him. He smelled of fresh-scented soap. The man was her best friend.

  As she turned her face sideways against his chest, he wrapped his other arm around her.

  “Aidan and I had one of our exchanges.”

  “That’s not new.” Mick had witnessed their odd rapport often enough.

  “But it was nonverbal. We couldn’t say it out loud.” Her lower lip whipped outward, all by itself. Mickey Junior’s would do the same.

  “Are you sulking?”

  “Yes.”

  He gave her a quick squeeze. “Talk to me. Why did you two go nonverbal?”

  “Because Kenzie was there.”

  “Ah. That intruder. How dare she!”

  “Don’t make fun.”

  “Never. What did our son say without words?”

  “At first I thought he said to back off and give him some space. But then I realized he was telling me to back off and give her some space. Or them.”

  Mick chuckled.

  “Don’t.”

  He only laughed louder. “Oh, come on. Remember? I told my mother the same thing. Several times, as a matter of fact, and it wasn’t nonverbal. It was a few decibels above a shout. She was not hard of hearing and she understood English perfectly well by then.”

  “She was upset because I don’t have Italian ancestors.”

  “No, she was upset because you changed the dynamics between her and me. You stole her son.”

  Pepper’s bottom lip moved outward again.

  “We’ve talked about this since you were pregnant with Aidan, about the fact we would have to let him go someday.”

  “Yeah, and we have let him go.”

  “But not until now to another woman.”

  “Well, I don’t like it.”

  “Nobody said you had to like it.” Mick turned off the nightstand lamp. “It’s just the way it is, Pepper.”

  She wriggled down and under the covers with him, still within the confines of his arms.

  He kissed her. “Goodnight, you hussy, you.”

  “What?”

  “Hussy. My mother’s favorite name for you.” His laughter ended abruptly in a snore.

  Since the time he first relayed that tidbit years before, Pepper thought he teased. Now she wasn’t so sure. She might easily replace the name “Kenzie” with the derogatory noun.

  I’m sorry, Lord. This is more than I signed up for when I said Aidan was Yours. Letting him go is one thing. Welcoming this almost stranger into my family is another.

  Exhausted as she felt, she wasn’t sure sleep would come easily.

  I find it best to be okay with things I can’t possibly change. I sleep better at night.

  Famous last words, full of bravado cleverly disguised as faith.

  Yeah, right. She was as pathetically inauthentic as Susan Starr.

  Was that mother able to sleep tonight?

  Eleven

  Early Wednesday morning, a storm whipped the tide far up onto the beach. Furious whitecaps nearly obliterated the sea’s pewter color. Rain fell steadily, a persistent drumming against the windows.

  The wet weather did not stop Susan from going through the motions of her everyday routine. Shower, two soft-boiled eggs, lightly buttered toast, tea, prayer—which hadn’t progressed beyond “Lord” and one minute of sitting still in case more words followed—and walk the dog.

  They went south. Pugsy loved the rain. Traipsing briskly along at the taut end of his leash down the concrete boardwalk, hood tied firmly beneath her chin, she wondered how on earth she’d had the presence of mind to pack rain gear. She doubted any presence of mind remained whatsoever within her grasp. Between Pepper Carlucci’s comments the previous morning, the Martha Mavens’ prayer time, and Natalie’s late-night prodding, her head spun like a whirligig.

  “Good morning!”

  She squinted through raindrops and recognized Julian approaching. He wore a drab fisherman’s hat pulled low over his ears and a windbreaker.

  “Morning.” She called above the wind and tugged the leash to halt Pugsy.

  Julian reached her. “Perfect day for reading in front of a fire, eh?”

  The whirligig cruised into slow motion. “Yes. Perfect.”

  “I noticed the tarp has blown off the woodpile behind your house. The logs are probably too wet. I’ll bring some dry stuff over if you like. Have you built a fire yet this week?”

  “No, though it has been cool enough,” she shrugged.

  “Not to sound chauvinistic—I’m quite sure women can build fires—but perhaps you’d like help?”

  What was it about Julian that made her feel safe enough to admit
she needed help? “Actually,” she said, “the gas starter thing terrifies me. Pretty silly, huh?”

  “Not in the least. Why don’t I get a cozy fire going for you? Then all you’ll have to do is add wood.”

  “I don’t really need a fire.”

  “Of course you do. It’s in the rule book.”

  The man was full of imaginary rules. She said, “Is this the same book with conversational rules?” She turned and together they walked toward their houses.

  “No, totally different. This is the Life at the Beach House Rule Book. Hundreds of rules are listed. I believe this one is number one-zero-seven. Quote, ‘A fire must be built on rainy March days. Hours and hours must be spent relaxing in front of it with a book. Only fiction or outlandish biographies are allowed to be read.’ Unquote.”

  “And what’s the penalty for not doing so?”

  “A very grumpy attitude.”

  She laughed out loud. “I think I’ve already got that.”

  “Well, now you know the fix for it.”

  A day of leisure was probably not the primary fix. Her first morning thought had been of the two people she loved most in the world. Overnight they took on jumping monkey qualities, one for each shoulder. Drake weighed down one, Kenzie the other. A children’s rhyme sang in her head. Five little monkeys jumping on the bed. One fell off and bumped his head. Mama called the doctor and the doctor said, “No more monkeys jumping on the bed.” Four little monkeys…

  Maybe she should call a doctor to settle them down. Or at least call Drake.

  “Julian, do you mind if I use your phone?”

  “Of course not. I’ll get a fire built for you while you make calls. Since you’re here on sabbatical—By the way, have I mentioned I’m a sabbatical expert?”

  “No.”

  “I am. It’s what the beach is all about, you know. Especially Faith’s house. As I was saying, since you are here on sabbatical, you might want to let the world know you are totally off limits for the day.”

  “Tucked away at the beach, miles from home without a phone—isn’t that off limits enough?”

  “I noticed you had company yesterday. A true sabbatical means totally, completely off limits to long conversations.”