by Leanne Davis
Sarah studied her, her gaze traveling from Angie’s hastily swept up hair down to her bare feet. She frowned and put a hand on Angie’s arm. “What’s happened? You can’t hide it from me, not anymore, not like you used to be able to.”
“Nothing. Just been working hard,” Angie said, opening the oven to pull out the homemade lasagna. “I got the postcard about Seclusion. He did it? He opened the bed and breakfast?”
Sarah nodded. “Yes, Sean finished the house; the first three months are booked for every weekend. He lives there now too.”
“From the pictures it looks incredible.”
“What’s more incredible is that he got my mother to move into the house. She is helping Sean run the bed and breakfast. She’s like a different person. Finally she has something to do, something she can do. She’s become happier, smiles more; it’s like a new lease on her life.”
Angie froze. She forgot to close the oven. That was it! That was why, at twenty-three years old Sean had bought the old decrepit Seclusion House, and fixed it up. He’d done it for his mother. The knowledge stopped
Angie cold. At the age of twenty-three he’d bought that old house, fixed it up, and committed himself to running a bed and breakfast simply to give his mother a point to her life. Sean had done it for his mother. The thought humbled Angie, yet too, she knew it was true.
“How did he do that? Get your mother to switch houses?”
“I don’t know. He never gave up on Mom. Not like I would have. He just kept at her. Begged her. Finally blindfolded her for the move, moved her, so when she opened her eyes she was just there in Seclusion. She has her new prison. But at least Sean’s there. At least people, actual living people come and go. And she can see the beach. He gave her a front bedroom, and I know she loves to look out at the beach, the horizon, at life around her.”
Angie closed the oven, set the hot lasagna down, put the pot holders away and she began to cut the steaming dish into pieces. The doorbell rang, Marie was up scrambling around the living room with Sarah’s girls. David finally came out, through the kitchen checking on Angie. He nodded to Sarah. Sarah turned to leave the kitchen. As she passed Angie, she said into her ear, “Come visit Seaclusion. Please. Scott really wants to see you. So do I. I think you could use the break. Think about it. Come anytime. Day or night. Just come.”
Angie watched David as he swung Marie up, then down to the ground and back up. Marie squealed in delight, smiling with dimples at her father. Marie adored David, he was a good father. He played and cuddled and cared for Marie. He was charming and giving. He was everything to Marie, he’d first been with Angie. Angie didn’t understand how he went from being so good to Marie, to being so rude, so cold, so condescending with her.
Angie always felt torn in two. When the three of them were together it was like the version of the family Angie always wanted. But when Marie was gone, or busy in her own world, David was completely different to her. And that’s where the indecision came from. If David was awful to Marie, she would have left him the first time that David strayed.
But as much as he was a terrible husband, David was a good father. Angie didn’t see how she could tear Marie apart from the father she so adored.
Angie’s life, her marriage, was less than she’d longed for. It wasn’t all bad. It wasn’t good. But it wasn’t all terrible. And so Angie stayed. She dealt. She forgave David, ignored David, and catered to David. She ignored herself, her dreams, and what should be, to live with what was.
And she did it all for Marie.
Sometimes she was glad to not see Scott and Sarah. They had everything together she had wanted with a spouse. They saw everything between her and David. They didn’t like it, and often tried to get Angie to come visit Seaclusion. A place David didn’t like her to visit because of its proximity to Sean Langston.
Unfortunately, this time, Sarah’s invitation kept replaying through Angie’s head. For some reason it called to her. Seaclusion. Home. The place she used to hate, suddenly seemed like the place she could go to relax, go be herself, go be happy, if only for a few days. David had been moody, grumpy since the birthday party. He knew she knew about the current student he was screwing. It was unspoken, but there. And this time Angie couldn’t muster up the feelings to be hurt, to be angry, or to even care, because she was tired. So incredibly tired of it all.
Chapter 21
Sean came down from his second story room, to find his mother had made coffee and was starting to fry up bacon, omelets, fresh biscuits, and orange juice. Seeing his mother cook actual food, in a different setting from his childhood home was still jarring. But somehow, it was helping. Tina never ate it, but it gave her something to care about. Tina was still desperately anorexic, but now she smiled more, she talked more, and she seemed almost happy. The interaction with other humans had become wonderful in its restorative power for her.
It was why Sean had built the house. It was why he had fought her so hard, pushed her so hard to make the greatest change, and accomplishment Tina had made in over twenty years; she changed houses. But she’d done it. For him.
He had worked every week night and weekend for over two years to gut, clean, and then rebuild each room of his house. He had re-done electrical, plumbing, roofing, and interior work to create the house he now stood in. It had turned out far beyond his imagination. The once rotten, dirty, falling down house was three stories of rebuilt shiny newness and history. It’s six thousand square feet was repainted, re-floored, and redone from the attic to the porch. It had turned out exquisite. And now it was the bed and breakfast he’d pictured it. Seclusion was looking to become a real success for him.
He still worked with Scott. But he spent most of his time at Seclusion running it, fixing it, adding on to it. It was a full time job in and of itself. But the turnover of guests was quickly increasing, covering the mortgage of the house which he’d rolled all the restoration costs into. He was well on his way to becoming his own business, his own boss, and having money to burn, something he’d dreamed of, getting ahead, but he never really believed he’d accomplish it. Turned out his crazy idea seemed to be working.
He was tying in the electrical from the main house to the small guest cottage he’d recently built along the side of the main house. He hoped it was the first of many cottages guests could rent.
He had plans, years’ worth of plans for Seclusion. Someday it would be a highly sought after private retreat for people. He would have miles of trails added to the few he’d already groomed. He’d already landscaped the yard with a natural, groomed beauty that was incorporated with walk ways, driftwood, outdoor lighting and a brick courtyard overlooking the view toward the ocean. There was a hot tub, a fire pit, and various gaming equipment that guests all had access to.
He was always working on Seclusion. If not physically, then planning what to add next. It had become his retreat, his accomplishment, everything that physically showed what he’d made of himself and his life. Seclusion was proof that he had not drifted along doing nothing, he hadn’t become a regular at The Oyster, who put in his hours at his job, then drank away his paycheck on pool and darts. He was more, his life was more, and he had the physical space to prove it.
He sat back on his haunches, inspecting the spot he’d just run electrical wires through. It was October, the weather was cool, and turning to gray and rain, with only a few days left of startling clear skies. Today it was half overcast, with sun filtered over the land. He glanced at the ocean, the tide was out, and so the beach below was long and deep toward the waves. Birds flew off into the horizon. The air was salty, crisp, cool. It never ceased to calm him. He had not grown used to the view here. He loved it the longer he lived here. It was becoming almost like a person in his life. A place to belong, to think, to retreat.
Sean paused, and slowly stood when he saw a figure walking the beach. Toward Seclusion. There was something familiar about the way the person walked. Was it one of the guests? Must be. But the way the woman’s
long hair was billowing out around her looked familiar; the tall form, the strong walk, the long curves, the long hair all looked so much like Angie. But no way. Angie never came to Seaclusion.
Sean suddenly jerked. He climbed the ladder to the roof of the cottage. It was Angie. It had to be Angie. Sean’s heart nearly stopped. What was Angie Peters doing walking down his beach at three o’clock on a Sunday afternoon in October?
His thoughts couldn’t seem to process what he was seeing. He hadn’t seen her in nearly three years, and suddenly here she was? Angie Peters. Angie Petrovich.
Angie all alone.
When he had heard she’d married the professor, he’d left Seaclusion for a month. He’d gotten drunk for an entire weekend. He’d traveled down into California, with no real place to go, or real purpose. Just to get away. Forget Angie, forget the bitterness in him over the fact that she had moved on from him, and married David Petrovich.
He’d come home after and been determined to put Angie behind him. He’d thrown himself into Seclusion and that had become his life. Not Angie. Not longing for her, worrying over her, even considering her. He’d sent a gift to her when Marie was born. Then he’d made it his life purpose to have no reaction to the casual gossip or comment about Angie from Scott or Sarah.
Sean descended the ladder, and threw off his tool belt. He jogged down the short trail to the stairs that led to the beach, newly rebuilt so that Seclusion guests could safely get to the beach below. He hit the sandy beach. And there she was. Not three hundred feet away, walking toward him.
Sean froze. He didn’t know what to do. His heart sped up as her face came closer, became in focus and it was everything he remembered. She was everything he remembered. She stopped walking too. They stared at each other, across the barren beach, neither moving, neither smiling, neither seeming to register the other. Finally, she smiled a small, sweet smile. She walked toward him. And then, she held out her hand to him as if to shake his hand.
He strangely lifted his own arm and their hands were touching, shaking, in a casual, polite hello.
“Hi, Sean.” They stared into each other’s eyes, after they stood shaking hands for far too long. Sean let go of her. He stepped back.
“What exactly are you doing walking this beach? Or for that matter any beach?”
She tilted her head back, smiled, and laughed softly. “You remember. I left my daughter with Sarah. I parked down the road, and decided I wanted to walk here. I wanted...well I’m not sure, a few moments to myself I guess, before I saw you.”
Her honesty had him frowning in surprise. She was admitting she’d come looking for him? That she needed to prepare herself to see him? Why? And why was she here after all these years?
“You’re visiting Scott and Sarah? They didn’t mention it.”
“They didn’t know.”
He didn’t answer. He tilted his head in response. Did she remember the last time she’d snuck into town? What now was going on with her? What was she hiding? What was she running from?
She stepped back, tilted her head back to see over the bluff behind him, up to Seclusion that stood as a regal castle over its perch above the ocean.
She stared at it silently for a long moment, and then she turned to him and smiled. He forgot how deep her eyes took in her smile, how pretty and slow her teeth showed from her lips. He forgot how his heart nearly stopped at her simple, honest smile.
“It’s incredible. I mean it. Sarah sent me the opening invitation, so I had an idea what you’d created. But in person, it’s not a house; it’s a piece of art. You did this.”
“Yeah. Took a while.”
She shook her head. “I always tried to picture what you saw in that skeletal wreck that I first saw here, but I have no imagination for it. You’re really gifted, you know, to have seen this and created it from the near rubble it once was.”
He shrugged, glanced back at his house. “It’s just a house. I thought real estate, houses weren’t really your thing.”
“No. But this is impossible to not be impressed by.”
“I bought another wreck in town; I started gutting it about a month ago. It’s nothing like this place, just a modest rambler. I hope to finish it in about three months, sell it, and see what I can make of it.”
“You flip houses?”
“Yeah. This will be my fourth one.”
“Along with working on Seclusion?”
“Yeah,” he said, reaching into his pocket for his wallet. He pulled out his business card and handed it to her. He had set up his solo limited liability company a year ago when Langston Homes was born.
“Your own a business? I didn’t know. Congratulations. It shouldn’t surprise me; you always were a hard worker.”
“I thought you disdained business.”
She laughed, turned and sat on a log near them. He followed suit and sat next to her. They stared out over the water, as they’d done so many times before.
“I did. I thought, well, I wasn’t exactly practical, was I? Things change, people grow up. Realize a person has to make a living, buy food and rent, and it becomes a lot harder to save the world. I guess that’s for college students.”
He sighed. “I almost hate to hear you talking like everyone else. I thought maybe it would all stay lost on you, that your head would stay in the clouds. I liked that about you. Someone’s got to be there.”
She shook her head. “It’s hard to do with a two-year-old. You know ignore them, they could drown, or fall or a million other possibilities.”
“Motherhood did it, huh? Finally made Angie Peters practical.”
She nodded. “Yes, Marie changed everything.”
He agreed. But refrained from saying so. “So how is she? Your daughter?”
“She’s amazing, healthy, learning words by the day and I swear you wouldn’t believe how smart she is. You don’t want to hear all this, do you? It’s hard to remember with those that don’t have kids; they don’t want to hear everything about mine.”
He shrugged. “It’s all right. You can tell me. What’s she like?”
Angie talked for ten minutes about Marie. From her first days, to now. To how she knew her colors, and could remember entire words to books Angie read her. Angie’s face became animated, alive, and rosy with obvious love and adoration of her child. As Sean had known she’d always be with a child. It was how Angie would have been with Amy.
After she quit talking, she laughed self-consciously.
“How come you didn’t come home sooner?”
She looked at him, and then out at the beach. “You. I didn’t come back here because of you. I didn’t know how to be around you.”
He should remember this; Angie wouldn’t simper and waste words, direct to the point of embarrassment.
“And now? Now you do?”
She shrugged. “It’s been three years. Kind of a lifetime for me has happened since. I imagine for you too.”
“Yeah, me too,” he answered wishing it were true. Wishing he didn’t feel like he was right back three years ago, watching her disappear from Sarah’s beach, right before his eyes.
“So, you married David?”
“Yes, I married David.”
“And you’re happy? It all turned out how you wanted? The family you wanted to have? Marie has her parents together?”
“Yes. Yes, that’s what I wanted.”
“I’m glad then, really I am.”
“And you? Is there someone serious in your life? I’m assuming Sarah would have mentioned if you got married.”
“I’m sure she would. But no, there isn’t anyone particularly serious.”
“Including my mother?”
“Including your mother. I see her around town now and then but nothing more. I kept my promise to you.”
She nodded, suddenly looking serious. “I know you did. I think I always knew you would.”
“Have you seen her yet?”
“No. I was thinking though, maybe I’d go see her.
After all these years of longing for her to be different, why stop now, right? Why grow up and get over it like I vow every time she hurts me? Enough time goes by and I go back for more.”
“She’s your mother. It makes it complicated. It makes it hard to give up on. Believe me, I understand.”
“Look at you though; you and your mom had a breakthrough. I don’t know how you did it.”
“Neither do I. It’s been good though. Good for her, easier for me. She doesn’t leave this house, but at least there are people for her, and things for her to fill her days with. Real things, that need to be done. At least here she has a point to her life.”
“You’re a good son. Always were.”
“You’re a good daughter; you just had a bad mother.”
“Thanks for saying that.”
They glanced at each other; understanding hung between them. Almost three years of separation seemed to evaporate. He looked away, cleared his throat. He slowly stood up.
“I want to finish wiring this cottage before nightfall, in case rain comes in.”
“Of course, I didn’t expect to actually see you. I was snooping. I wanted to see Seclusion. I didn’t want to drive up out of nowhere. I’m glad you saw me though. It was nice to see you.”
“Nice to see me?”
She nodded. “Yes, very nice to see you doing so well.”
He grunted. “Well fuck, aren’t we the nice, friendly exes now?”
Her face froze. She let out a startled laugh. “I missed that.”
“You missed what?”
“You. Your ability to cut through bullshit. Besides don’t we have to be civil? We don’t have any reason not to be, do we?”
“No,” he said quietly. “We don’t.”
Then he watched her walk away down the beach.
Chapter 22
Angie recognized her pattern. When things went wrong, she ran, she hid, she avoided. Nearly three years ago she’d come running to Seaclusion to avoid facing David, avoid facing she was pregnant, and most of all avoid facing her own disappointment in herself. She’d run to Seaclusion. She’d run home. The one place she never felt at home in.
