Seclusion

by Leanne Davis

  The principal at Seaclusion High School kept in close contact with Angie about her progress. As she was finishing up her student teaching, he asked if she’d consider taking a position starting after the semester break in January. She had taken no more than a second to easily say, yes she would be happy to.

  Finally, Angie and Marie Petrovich had decided they were going to stay in Seaclusion as permanent residents.

  Angie walked into the diner after closing, knowing she’d catch Vanessa alone. Angie had vowed to be over Vanessa, but as always, with enough passage of time, her vows began to waver, to waffle, and finally they faded and she came back to Vanessa looking for something she’d been looking for her entire life; her mother’s approval.

  This time Angie was looking for less, hoping maybe she’d gain more, and she did it not for herself, but for Marie. It wasn’t like she hoped Vanessa would become Marie’s long lost grandma. What she did hope was that Marie would have one more person in her life. As Angie was discovering, what mattered to her was what Marie needed and deserved.

  “Hello, Vanessa,” Angie said as she stood just in the doorway of the barely lit diner. She could see Vanessa back toward the kitchen, running a broom over the floor.

  Vanessa stiffened, and then turned slowly. Angie studied her mother, the wrinkled too old face, her small frame, that used to be petite but now seemed broken. She saw a lifetime of disappointment and bad choices, and also, a strange quietness that didn’t used to surround Vanessa.

  Vanessa leaned the broom against the counter, and stepped around it to walk closer.

  “What do you want?”

  “To see you.”

  “Why are you bothering now?”

  “I needed that long to decide to do this.”

  “Do what? Hate me more? Blame me more?”

  “No. Forgive you. Forgive me. Whatever, let the past rest there. Maybe, go from here. Forward. Like we’re family, Vanessa. Be family the best we can. We’ve never been very good at it together, but maybe we could try.”

  Vanessa stepped closer again, within three feet of Angie. Angie towered over her by half a foot.

  “I heard you had another daughter.”

  “Yes, Marie.”

  Vanessa nodded. Angie wasn’t so sure what Vanessa thought, where she was in her head. For all Angie knew the next words out of her mother’s mouth would be vile and rude. Whatever, Angie was braced for it.

  “Amy comes in here a lot. She’s a dead ringer for you. Makes me nearly drop the plates as I’m handling them. She’s a good girl too. Real smart. Real polite. She’s a lot like you were.”

  Angie froze and tried to steady her strangely racing pulse. “You remember what I was like?”

  “I remember. You were a good girl too.”

  “You never told me that.”

  Vanessa shrugged. “I didn’t know what to do with you.”

  “No, you didn’t,” Angie said softly. Taking a breath, she continued, “Do you think you could handle an adult? I’m not a needy little girl anymore. I’m all grown up. I have a daughter I’m raising, and career I’m getting going. I don’t need you anymore. I don’t blame you anymore. But I would like to know you. Do you think you’d want to know me?”

  Vanessa came another step closer. “I didn’t think you’d ever talk to me again, after Sean.”

  “I don’t want to re-hash the past.”

  “You’ve always wanted to.”

  “I don’t want more than you can give me this time.”

  “I wouldn’t mind seeing Marie.”

  “Why don’t we meet for breakfast tomorrow? At the bakery?”

  “I don’t work until noon.”

  “Is that a yes?”

  “Yeah, Angie, that’s a yes.”

  For the first time in a decade she and Vanessa had a conversation that ended with them on better terms than when they started. Angie paused, absorbing the moment, what it meant. Acknowledging things might have finally shifted for her.

  “Angie? Angie Peters? Well, isn’t this a surprise. It’s been just about years since I’ve seen you. Is this little angel yours?”

  Angie turned at the squealing female voice behind her as she shopped with Marie at the small local grocery store, and watched Rachel Winters come up to her. Rachel was the classmate least likely to ever talk to Angie in high school, the girl so long ago Angie had been jealous of at the beach party who she thought Sean had gone off to have sex with. Back when she hadn’t quite admitted she wanted to be the one off with Sean having sex.

  Rachel was smiling, all cheerleading worthy excitement, perfectly aligned teeth and perky hair. She wore a cute skirt, little heeled sandals and tank top. She was pushing a cart, and in it were two children.

  “This is my daughter Marie.”

  Rachel smiled and tickled Marie’s chin, nearly clapping her own hands together in delight. “I didn’t know you had another child. Oh, these are my little angels, Mira, who’s just three and Tory who’s just a month.”

  “You’ve been busy.”

  Rachel beamed more. “Oh yes. After we got married, why we couldn’t wait to start our family. I just, oh I’m so happy, Angie, I never dreamed I’d ever be this happy.”

  “We? Did you marry anyone I know?”

  Rachel blushed; her smile dimmed a smidgeon. “Yes. It’s a little surprising to some, but you see, he just, caught me by surprise. He’s wonderful, kind, he treats me like I’m—”

  “Who is he?”

  “Jerry.”

  Angie didn’t mean to laugh, but the shock of it was startling. “Sean’s best friend Jerry?”

  “Oh yes. Sean. Gosh, you were even there that night, weren’t you? The beach party the night of Sean’s dad’s funeral? Well, after Sean wasn’t interested in me, I was crying, alone out on the beach, and Jerry happened on me. He tried to back away as if he hadn’t seen me. It was so sweet how he stumbled about me, intimidated by me, where I swear Sean hadn’t even looked at me. The change was so refreshing that I invited Jerry to sit with me. And he was—well he is the most amazing listener. Everything changed that night for us. And here we are.”

  Angie listened fascinated. Surprised to learn a deeper depth to Rachel Winters. One who would give someone like Jerry a chance. And then marry him, have kids with him? Somehow it endeared Rachel to her when nothing else would have.

  “So it looks like our daughters are the same age. Would you like to come over and have a play date? I’m at home with the kids, so I can meet anytime. We’re alone a lot you see. Jerry works at the grocery store here still. But also, on his days off he picks up shifts down at Stillers, to bring in some extra hours, now that I don’t work.”

  Angie smiled. Rachel seemed ready to grab her hand and drag her home with her now. Suddenly Rachel looked different to Angie. She looked happy, yet lonely. In love with her kids, but frazzled, and in need of something. Angie wondered in that moment if it wasn’t the same thing she herself needed, female, peer companionship. And now Angie Peters Petrovich and Rachel Winters Cunnington had something major in common, they were raising toddlers. They weren’t so different anymore. They were, in fact, equals, the same, mothers. She finally fit in with her peers.

  “I’d love to come over.”

  “Oh really? Good. Tomorrow at noon? Here’s my address. I’ll make us lunch; Tory should be napping. Maybe we could distract the little ones long enough to get some time to chat. Oh Angie, I’m really glad I ran into you.”

  Angie watched Rachel go, as Mira leaned over trying to grab boxes off the shelf. Rachel shushed Mira’s screams of “no,” and put the box on the shelf without missing a beat. Angie was surprised, and smiling. Had she just made a play date? She nearly paused to sit down. Her life had come to where she suspected most mothers came to, most women came to—so desperate for adult attention they made dates as if newly dating. She then, crazily, started to laugh, because instead of being tragic, sad, lost feeling over it, she couldn’t wait to see what Rachel was like. What
her house was like, and what Marie thought of Mira.

  Full circle she was learning, somehow life went there even for those who had spent their lives trying to turn and flee backwards around the circle.

  And now this week she had scheduled a brunch with her mother, and play date with the high school head cheerleader. Life was exactly what she never thought it would be. After all these years of not knowing what she wanted, where she wanted to be, Angie finally knew. She wanted to be right exactly where she was, standing in a grocery store cereal aisle, with Marie babbling from the cart in front of her. She was finally happy to be exactly in the spot she was standing.

  And suddenly, she wasn’t running or scared or searching. She was ready. Simply ready to be a grown up, and be in a relationship. And there was only one person who she wanted to share this moment with, and that was Sean. She was ready to be in love and stay with Sean. The peace that settled in her was the acceptance she’d spent half her life searching for.

  It was June before Angie’s life calmed down. She finished up her first semester teaching and they had the summer to themselves. They did nothing. They did everything. They got up whenever Marie decided to wake her. They had long messy meals together. They often went to the beach where they played together for hours. In the sand, in the surf on warm days, they made castles and picked up shells, and finally after a lifetime of living at the beach, Angie started to understand why people so desperately loved, vacationed, and sought out the beach. Simply, Marie showed her it was a fun place to play.

  Strangely, she and Rachel Winters Cunnington became really close friends. Angie found it almost déjà vu. Instead of Rachel turning her nose up at the homely pregnant sixteen-year-old version of Angie, Rachel sought out Angie. For advice, for talking, for play dates, for babysitting. And for Angie whose only close girlfriends usually were those she’d been working side by side on a project for school, found sharing motherhood with another female, strangely liberating, strangely intimate, and strangely she started to like Rachel.

  Vanessa and her created a truce. There was still no denying Vanessa. She was harsh, cold, could be cruel. But she was also, grudgingly, nice to Marie. She seemed to like the little girl in way she never had Angie. They met for brunch once a week, and Vanessa colored with Marie on the menu, ordered Marie her favorite dessert and shared it with her. And it wasn’t long before Vanessa was strangely, part of her life. Not as her mother, but as someone she knew. And finally, that was enough, that was okay for her.

  She saw Scott and Sarah weekly. They had her out every weekend. She shopped with Sarah. Marie played with her “cousins.”

  David asked if he could have Marie the first two weeks in July, and the last two in August. Angie agreed. She had gotten a fair custody and child support agreement, and two years of alimony until she got herself completely on her own feet. She and David had become nothing. Amicable, talking over Marie, and nothing else. And she started to wonder why or how she could have married a man who she so easily could let go.

  In the back of her mind, she always hoped as she came to the Delano’s house that Sean would be there. He never was. He seemed to purposely avoid her. And Angie didn’t know how she felt about that. She had spent nearly two years getting herself and her life together, and Sean didn’t seem to notice or care. Sean didn’t come after her with any kind of intent to be with her now that she was for once, sticking somewhere.

  Angie realized as summer progressed, it would be, as usual, up to her to make the first move. Sean had loved her for over a decade, and yet, he never quite figured out how to make the first move.

  Chapter 27

  Sean had assumed when Angie came back to Seaclusion it as always would have an expiration date. Angie never stuck anywhere, not willingly. She had left Seclusion and had turned into a virtual stranger. He’d ran into her coming and going from different spots in town. She sometimes stopped to talk, other times she and Marie only waved as they passed by. He saw her one day at the beach and had stopped to watch her, nearly dumbstruck because Angie was playing at the beach. She was laughing, throwing her head back in delight as waves lapped at her feet. Marie clapped with delight in Angie’s arms. And Sean refrained from going closer to them. For whatever reason Angie was treating him as if he were a stranger to her. And for once, Sean was determined to be just that. He had two broken hearts at the hands of Angie Peters and he didn’t intend to collect another one. No matter how pretty she looked splashing on the beach with her daughter.

  Sean had thought, after the whole friend talk at Seclusion that Angie might seek him out after she moved. But apparently, she could leave town, leave him, as easily as she could live beside him and not acknowledge him.

  He had to admit the news around town about Angie was surprising. He had been sure, at some point David would show up on his white horse, charge into Angie’s life and take her and Marie out of Seaclusion. But David didn’t show up. The divorce was final sometime that spring Sean had heard from Sarah.

  It was all killing Sarah, Sean knew, to see how far he and Angie were from even being friendly. Sarah kept pointing out that neither one of them was dating anyone else, why didn’t he simply ask Angie out on a date and see where it went?

  He had dated plenty, but it always fizzled after a few dates. He left town for women, finding women as far off as Portland in hopes one of them would interest him half as much as Angie did, even when Angie was doing nothing more than pissing him off. Or ignoring him. But none of them held his attention.

  But how could he open his heart to Angie Peters again? She did nothing but break it. He wasn’t so sure he could face that again. So, he did the first smart thing he’d ever done with Angie, he did nothing but wait for Angie to leave town so he could finally get on with his life once and for all. Without her.

  So, one day in late June, when Sean was hammering a loose roof shingle onto the second floor of the main house, he almost smashed the hammer head into his finger when a voice called below him. Angie’s voice.

  “You should be having a gigantic potluck, open to all, to really draw people from all around out here.”

  Sean looked down to find Angie standing just at the bottom of his ladder, wearing black running shorts, tennis shoes and a white tank top. She looked as fresh and young as she once had at fifteen. She put a hand to the bottom of the ladder, and then pulled herself to the second rung. Why was she was climbing his ladder?

  “What the hell are you doing here?”

  She made it to the roof. It was slightly pitched, enough to make her gulp and think twice about swinging her body off the ladder to the roof. She grabbed the edge of the gutter, pulled herself unceremoniously from the ladder to the roof like a fish suddenly thrown on the beach she landed with a flop.

  “You could put out a hand to help me. Chivalry never was your thing.”

  Sean eyed her. He didn’t trust himself to touch her. And he definitely didn’t trust why Angie was there, crawling on all fours to him, over his roof.

  He wasn’t bothered by the fourteen foot drop. But she obviously was. Why then, was she crawling on his roof? When she finally got close enough to him, she flipped over and sat on her butt panting crazily. She glanced over at him.

  “As I was trying to say, you need to have some kind of annual picnic thing here. You should do it on the fourth of July to kick off the tourist summer season here. You could really do it up right by having a huge fireworks display out over the ocean, and all the trimmings.”

  He stared at her. “What are you talking about?”

  “Marketing. Marketing Seclusion. It’s not my only idea. I have tons which I’ll tell you about, and you’re going to have to keep a more open mind.” She paused, her gaze scanning the beach. “Wow, look at that view from up here. It’s as if we’re flying like the sea gulls in the breeze.”

  Sean wasn’t following. First, she was talking about picnics, and now the view from his house, all after joining him on the roof? It wasn’t making any more sense in his
befuddled brain than Angie had made since she’d shown back up to make a home in Seaclusion.

  “What are you doing?”

  She finally glanced at him and continued, “I got on at the high school teaching history, so I’ll have every summer off. That will come in handy that being the busiest time of the year and all.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  She grinned. “You told me a while ago, to learn to complete myself and only then to call you. Do you remember that? Of course, you remember that, you can’t have forgotten that kiss in the bathroom. No one could forget a kiss like that. Anyways, I have completed myself, I’m not married, and so, here I am.”

  Sean suddenly stood up. He threw his hammer down. It started to slide off the roof to catch on the gutter, he was oblivious if it finally fell to the ground or not.

  “So, you’re what? Calling me? What do you want to do, go on a date?”

  She smiled happily up at him. “That’s a start.”

  “You haven’t talked to me in four months. It’s been over a year since you moved back to town, and you look through me as if I’m not there.”

  “I’m talking about the fact you told me to get a life, do something new with it. And I have. I think I’ve proven I can and I have. So now—”

  “Now what?”

  “I’ve been searching my whole life and I ended right back up where the search started. Here with you.”

  “Why now? Why some random day in June, after I haven’t seen you in months, do you show up here to do this?”