by Grace Greene
Clair touched her forehead, confused or bemused. She wasn’t sure.
“Are you okay?”
Somehow Greg’s arm had come around her as they stood side by side. She was okay with it. Felt steadied by it.
“I’m fine. Merely…amazed. Signs of progress,” she said. “Don’t misunderstand. I’m happy about it and I want to let everything else go…but it doesn’t seem enough. Sean, I mean. Feels unfinished.” She eased away from his arm.
Greg nodded. “Do you really think talking to him will help?”
She went silent. There was no answer to that. She knew Sean. He would either dismiss her, hurting her more, or make her feel ridiculous, or… she couldn’t think of any way in which a confrontation would solve anything. It would more than likely feed his ego.
She whispered, “There has to be some way, Greg. Something….”
“Clair.”
She looked at him. He was holding a pen.
“Write it, Clair. Write it on paper. Tell him what you most want to tell him.” He handed her the ink pen. “Do it tonight. When I come back tomorrow, you can tell me what you want to do with it. I’ll take it back to him if that’s what you want.” He shook his head and made a small noise. “I’ll make him eat it, words and paper, if that’s what you want.”
He could do it, too. She heard the undertone in Greg’s voice and she stared at the ink pen.
“Will you do it?” he asked.
She nodded. “I think so.” She put the pen in her pocket. The breeze caught her, a cool wind, and she shivered. Mallory and Darcy had traveled a few yards further down the wet sand. They were picking up bits and pieces of tidal leavings.
Sea glass from broken hearts? She shivered again.
“I’ll walk you back to the house.”
“Was I stupid, Greg? About Sean? About…everything?”
“Stupid? No. You loved and trusted him. He betrayed that. Maybe that’s who he is or will ever be, or maybe one day he’ll become who he should be, but that’s on him. You’re done with him.”
“I am. But I fooled myself into believing what I wanted to believe. How will I ever trust my instincts, my judgement, again?”
“I don’t know. But I’d like to tell you what I’m grateful for. Something a smart beautiful woman did that may well have changed more than one life for the better. Time will tell.”
“What’s that?”
“I’m grateful you put a note in a bottle with your name on it.” He took her hand and placed a gentle kiss in her palm. “Because when you threw that bottle into the Caribbean, the current, in a roundabout way, brought me to you.”
“The whole idea was silly. I was just going along with the others.”
He continued as if he hadn’t heard her. “One day, I’d like to stand in that same spot on the beach, and see where your new life began before you ever knew you needed a fresh start.”
****
Clair and Greg walked up the path together following Mallory and Darcy. Clair watched her elder sister and her younger sister leading the way and noticed both gals were carrying their shoes.
No red bucket.
It hit Clair almost like a sucker-punch. Darcy hadn’t brought her bucket. No bucket. She was carrying her own shoes, like Mallory.
Clair felt the sob rising from within. Mal and Darcy kept going, not looking back, but Greg was there. He held her while she cried against his shirt. He didn’t ask. He didn’t advise. He waited until she was done, and then they moved forward again.
At the house, Mallory called out the door, inviting Greg to stay for supper.
“You’re welcome to join us.”
Greg gave Clair a long stare and then replied, “Thanks. I’m looking forward to getting to know you, but not tonight, I think.”
Mallory nodded and went back in the house. Clair waited outside as Greg drove away.
Such a short time since they’d met and so much had changed. Perhaps the Bennett family been on the cusp of change anyway. Was Greg the spark?
****
After supper, Mallory went to the shower to wash off the sand and salt. Clair and Darcy settled at the cleared kitchen table. Clair held a blank piece of paper. Crumpled papers were already scattered nearby on the table, and Darcy watched her, her gaze still somewhat askance, but not hiding her interest. Her coloring book and crayons lay unused beneath her slim fingers, as if waiting.
“Am I being silly? Should I write this letter?” Clair asked her.
She wasn’t expecting an answer, and she didn’t get one, but Darcy did meet her eyes before turning away and picking up a crayon.
Clair smiled. “It’s okay, little sis. I’ll figure this out one way or the other.”
She dropped the pen on the table, intending to push it all aside. Then, she reconsidered. Levity was called for. To be silly, she picked up a purple crayon and drew an oval then added eyes and a huge nose and a gap-toothed grin. She smiled at Darcy and held it up. “What do you think? Will Sean get the message if I send him this?” Clair laughed. In a softer, regretful voice, she added, “Maybe he’ll come home begging me to forgive him, saying he’s sorry he left me all alone without even a goodbye.”
Darcy’s lower lip shook, then she clamped it between her teeth. This was new. The frown that pushed her eyebrows closer together and deepened that line between them, wasn’t new. Then her eyes filled with tears—and that was new. Clair put her hand to her forehead as if to still the emotion growing inside her. Almost dizzy with joy, Clair dropped the paper and crayon and dashed around the table to put her arms around Darcy. The child turned her face toward Clair’s. The tears on Darcy’s cheek wet her own. Clair watched her sister, surprised, but Darcy pressed her face close again. Clair stopped breathing when Darcy whispered in her ear, “Tell mommy to come home.”
Clair picked her up heedless of Darcy’s height. She hugged her and spun around, and then overwhelmed, Clair knelt, taking them both to the floor. She pressed her hands to Darcy’s cheeks and stared directly into her sister’s blue eyes.
“You know mommy and daddy would come home if they could? They can’t. They don’t want you to wait for them. Not for daddy or mommy. They want you to grow up and be a happy girl. Mommy wants to look down from heaven and see you growing and laughing. Do you understand that?”
“Mommy,” she said again.
Around them, Clair caught the scent of roses, but not with her nose. She perceived their perfume in her brain and in her heart.
“I would bring her back to you, if I could. I can’t. She can’t return to us. But you have me and Mallory. We are sisters. You will always have us, Darcy.”
Darcy burrowed her face into the crook of Clair’s arm and Clair held her tightly. She rocked her while Darcy cried quietly. As she cried, Clair remembered where she had last smelled roses, where she’d most often caught that scent in the past year—and understood there was no way she could grant Darcy’s deepest wish, her heart’s desire, but there was a small gesture she could make. An easy gesture that might mean far more to Darcy than to her.
When Clair sensed the storm was passing, she touched her sister’s hair, caressing and soothing her, and spoke. “Darcy, I need your help. Can you help me?”
Her sister looked up, her face streaked, and she nodded. Direct interaction again. Clair wanted to cry, too, but was afraid Darcy would misunderstand. Her voice sounded rough as she said, “Thanks so much. Come with me and I’ll show you what I need your help with.”
They held hands as they walked to Clair’s room. There was strength in Darcy’s hand, not the usual flaccid grip. When they entered the room, they stopped in front of the closet and Clair opened the door.
“The wedding dress, Darcy. Can you take it from my closet?”
At first, Darcy shook her head. This was a no-no. She always got fussed at for this very thing. Clair said, “It was different when you took it without permission. This time I’m asking you to take it from the closet.”
Hesitantly, D
arcy stepped toward the hanging clothing. She located the garment bag at the back where Clair had stashed it the last time. After another quick glance Clair’s way, and a reassuring nod, Darcy reached up. Standing on her toes and stretching her arms, she was able to lift the crook of the hanger high enough to clear the bar.
Darcy turned back to Clair. The bulk of the garment bag and gown bunched up on the floor. She tried to hold the garment back up high, as high as she could, carrying it toward her sister.
“No, sweetheart,” Clair said. “The wedding gown is yours now. Remember that I was going to wear it at my wedding? Well, now I’m not. This gown—this wedding gown—was our mother’s. Now, I’m giving it to you. It will be in your care until the day you marry. You’ll wear mommy’s wedding gown, if that’s what you’d like. But to do that you’ll have to grow up first and learn lots of things. I will help you and Mallory will help you, but we need your help, too, to make it happen the way it should.”
Darcy unzipped a few inches of the bag and reached in to touch the gown and pressed her face close to it. She was surely inhaling that last lingering fragrance of roses. The last tears on her cheek transferred to the gown leaving a splotch of wet.
It had never occurred to Clair before—not so that she’d truly understood—what that gown meant to her little sister, and why.
“It’s your job to take care of it now, okay?”
Darcy nodded. Using both arms, she carried it carefully to her room. Clair cleared space at the end of Darcy’s closet rod and her sister stretched on tippy toes to hook the hanger over the bar.
From behind them, Mallory said, “It’s looks perfect there, don’t you think?”
In a voice they hadn’t heard for a long time, a voice that had been only a whisper a few minutes before, Darcy answered, “Yes.”
“You’re welcome,” Clair said.
She smiled shyly.
“Darcy, I’m going to finish that note now. I think I know exactly what to say to Sean Kilmer.”
Mallory didn’t know about Greg’s suggestion. She showed surprise, but moved aside to allow Clair past.
Clair paused in the doorway with Mallory. She was almost afraid to leave, that the moment would be gone, perhaps not to return. But the timing was right. She stood with Mallory and they watched Darcy carefully close the closet door, pat the wood and then rest her cheek against it.
****
Greg
Greg waited on the beach near the path. Clair had called to say that Mallory was taking Darcy for an outing and as soon as they were gone, she would meet him there. It wasn’t long before she emerged from the path onto the beach. The onshore breeze was gentle. It tossed her hair, including the curls that had escaped from the band she used to try to control it. The breeze tossed the curls and played with the skirt of the dress she wore. Her feet were bare and he could’ve sworn he smelled roses.
When she reached him, he reminded himself to breathe so he could ask, “Did you figure out what you want to do?”
She held up a piece of paper. It was folded like the sheet he’d carried in his pocket. Like the photocopy Sean Kilmer had given him.
Disappointed or not, he meant what he’d already told her, and he repeated it. “I’ll take it to him. I’ll deliver it into his hands myself.”
“This?” She waved the paper. “No. This isn’t for Sean.”
He was caught by the expression on her face. He searched, but could find no anger or resentment in her eyes. In fact, there was a difference, perhaps a lilt in the set of her lips. A teasing….
“I tried to write to him, as you suggested. It made sense. But each time I put that pen to the paper, I went blank.” She shook her head. “I’m sure if he was here in front of me, I’d find plenty of things to say…angry words, hate-filled words, maybe words that would make me feel pathetic…but nothing that would uplift me. Nothing I could walk away from afterward and say I was better off than I was before all that venting.”
He accepted the paper from her. It was folded in quarters, exactly like the paper the client, his former client, had given him.
Clair continued, “Instead, I realized a couple of things. First, I understand now how much Darcy and I have in common.”
He shrugged. “You’re sisters….”
“In how we handled our losses. Darcy couldn’t let mom and dad go. She might find comfort in being at the beach where she spent so much time with them…but that’s where they left her. I can almost hear my mom calling to dad, “Help!” and dad saying to Darcy—she was only six—wait here. Don’t leave the beach. I’ll be right back.”
He could imagine the scene playing out in exactly that way.
“She did as she was told. And me? It wasn’t that I wanted Sean back, but I kept replaying it, reliving it. I wanted to understand, as if that would make it right, or at least it would make sense. I wouldn’t keep questioning and second-guessing. Then, I realized, Sean didn’t have the power to release me. Only I could do that.” She stood taller. “I’m doing that.”
Her stance, the set of her shoulders and her strong, sure voice grabbed his heart. He never used to be impulsive, but this time he couldn’t help himself. He put his hands on her arms and pulled her forward into his embrace. How would she respond? His lips touched hers gently.
She almost kissed him back. Her arms made it up and over his shoulders. Her fingers pressed into his hair, his neck, and her lips met his…but then she stopped. He stared into her eyes, the question unspoken. She stayed in his embrace, but broke away from his gaze as she ran her finger along the side of his face tracing his temple, his cheekbone, his chin, his lips, with her eyes memorizing each line and curve of his face.
With a shock, he realized he felt found.
Found. Seen.
He shivered. How had he never felt that before? He didn’t know he hadn’t, or that it was something he could feel, until now that he…that he’d been found and accepted.
It wasn’t Kansas or California, or any of the stops between. But it might be home.
This time, she pressed her lips to his and within that kiss, along with the salt air and a world of scents borne onshore by the Atlantic Ocean, he believed he was tasting a promise of forever.
Clair
Wasn’t he almost a stranger? She hadn’t known he was out there living his life, moving about the world the same as she was, and he hadn’t known about her. Yet she felt like destiny’s fingers were at work here, bringing them together.
If that were true, then instead of blaming anyone or anything for what had happened with Sean, she owed gratitude to a number of people, including her little sister.
Rose-colored glasses? Maybe Clair wore them sometimes. A romantic? Yes, definitely. How else could she believe in love almost at first sight?
What was it that Greg had said? About being grateful to that beautiful woman who’d put these last few days into play by tossing a bottle into the turquoise waters of the Caribbean almost a year ago?
When the kiss was done, done at least for the moment, Clair said, “It started on Enchanted Island.” She touched her hand to his cheek. “Everything was going wrong and I didn’t know it, not until after I returned home.”
Inadvertently, she’d begun fixing the unknown, impending heartache while on Enchanted Island by putting that message in the bottle. If not for that, if not for the bottle washing up for Sean to find, he wouldn’t have hired Greg. He wouldn’t have sent Greg to her. She laughed.
“I’m glad you’re happy, but what’s so funny?”
“If I were to send Sean any message at all, it should be a thank you note.” She smiled. “But I won’t.” She touched the folded paper Greg was still holding. She took it from him, unfolded it and held it for him to see.
“It’s blank?” he said.
“You bet. This message is for you and I prefer to deliver it in person.”
Clair slid her arms around him, and she kissed him again.
Chapter Six
Jun
e ~ At Emerald Isle, NC
One could never know the truth of a person’s heart or the secrets they might hide. If those secrets were revealed, exposed to the light of day, most folks would wonder why the person had ever bothered to go to the effort of hiding them in the first place. Daylight often steals a secret’s power. The same with fear and hurt. Their dark power wilts when faced and dealt with.
Clair wondered what secrets and fears were on Sean’s mind when he sent the check that arrived in May? It repaid that undocumented loan with interest. It didn’t cover all her losses from their time together, but it fixed an awful lot of the remaining hurt. She hadn’t had to say the ugly words, and Sean had voluntarily made good, perhaps showing she hadn’t been totally wrong about who she thought he was when they were together.
Mallory scoffed. She said, “You are truly a romantic. More likely, he couldn’t shake the fear that you might show up and contest his rights to that patent.”
“You know I wouldn’t have a ghost of a chance of winning that.”
“True, but investors don’t like uncertainty or the dirty laundry that creates it. I think Sean is gambling that you’ll take the money and leave him to pursue his new life with Mr. Woodhurst and his darling daughter.”
Clair said, “You’re probably right. Either way, I’m cashing the check before he has a chance to back out on me again.”
One thing Mallory was right about. Clair was a romantic at heart, through and through.
She said it aloud for all the world to hear. She had fallen in love with a man, a stranger for all intents and purposes, somewhere between day one and day three. And, luckily, Greg, no longer a stranger, had returned the favor.
Clair intended to live in the sunlight and sleep soundly at night, even if her older sister scolded her for wearing her heart on her sleeve and making silly, rash decisions. It was far better to share one’s heart and risk breakage than to hide it in that dark place along with all those pesky secrets and fears.
