At Last (The Idle Point, Maine Stories)

by Bretton, Barbara

  "She looks like she was born here."

  He was surprised he hadn't felt her presence before he heard her voice. "I was thinking the same thing."

  Gracie cupped her hands around her mouth. "Soooophie!"

  His daughter stopped, perched on a huge rock near the water's edge, and waved.

  Gracie waved back, her oversized coat billowing in the wind like a woolen parachute. "Has she seen a gull open a clam yet?"

  "I don't think so."

  She scanned the area. "I remember the first time you saw that gull drop the clam onto the rocks and break it open."

  "You opened my eyes," he said. The natural world had been invisible to him until Gracie came into his life.

  "You should go catch up with her," she said, wrapping her arms around her slender body as winds kicked up. "Low tide's a perfect time to start teaching her about the shore."

  "Like Gramma Del did for you."

  She peered out from beneath her hood. "You remember that."

  "I remember a lot of things, Gracie."

  She was halfway across the rocks before he realized she was in motion. She ran the way she did everything, with speed and grace. She never slipped, never faltered. This beach, this place, was her heart's home and always had been.

  The rocks fought him as he made his way toward his daughter and Gracie. They shifted and moved beneath his feet. Moss, slippery as ice, threatened his balance. He had been denied whatever gene it was that enabled Gracie and Sophie to navigate these rocks like they were on flat dry land. At least it was still daylight. He wouldn't want to be out there in the dark with the tide rolling in.

  Gracie used to laugh at him during those hot summer nights when he refused to venture too far from the shadow of the lighthouse. She didn't understand because she was born to be part of this place while he had somehow always felt like he was passing through.

  He looked up and saw that Gracie and his daughter were way up the beach already, walking along the shoreline with their heads down. He could see Gracie pointing at various bits of aquatic flora and fauna and if Sophie's body language was any indication, the child was spellbound.

  He knew just how she felt.

  #

  They looked right together, the three of them. Gracie could easily imagine the picture they made as they walked the beach at sunset. Handsome man, hard-working woman, happy child.

  They looked like a family.

  Tell him, Gracie. It's time. Do it for Sophie if you can't do it for Noah or yourself.

  "Ben and Laquita look happy," he observed as they followed the bouncing Sophie up the gilded beach. "What odds do you give them?"

  "I think they're going to make it," Gracie said, bending down to pick up a beautiful striated rock. "They're an odd couple but somehow they work."

  "We would have made it," he said, his gaze fastened on his quick little daughter.

  "Yes," Gracie said, "we probably would have." Tell him, Gracie. Now is as good a time as any. There was no reason for her to keep Simon's secret any longer. It was time to move on.

  "I didn't get it, Gracie. Remember when you used to call me the rich kid? You were right. I didn't get how it was for you... what I was asking you to sacrifice."

  She took a deep breath and dived in. "You're right," she said. "We need to talk about what happened. You deserve the truth."

  His expression held a thousand shades of emotion, all of which broke her heart. "I see us everywhere. The way you looked in the moonlight—"

  "Don't," she said. "We can't—"

  "I didn't love Sophie's mother."

  "I don't want to hear this."

  "I liked her. We enjoyed each other's company." He forced her to meet his eyes. "She reminded me of you. She was ambitious. Focused in a way I've never had to be. I wanted something with no strings, no chance of hurting anyone or being hurt myself."

  "What did she want?"

  "Sex and laughs." He grew quiet for a moment, his gaze returned again to Sophie. "Catherine wasn't one for getting sidetracked."

  "Which would explain why she let Sophie go."

  "I'm not sure anything explains that." A clean letting-go would have given Sophie a permanent home right off the bat, not years of being passed from relative to relative until somebody thought about letting the father know he had a child.

  "You're giving her a good life."

  "I can do better."

  "You will," she said, "but from what I can see you're doing everything right."

  "Which doesn't explain the biting and kicking."

  "She's scared. She doesn't have too many ways to express it."

  "She could try telling me."

  "I'm sure she will once she believes you're a sure thing."

  "A sure thing?"

  "That you're not going to bail out on her the way every other adult in her life has."

  "I've told her that from the beginning."

  "So did Ben. Prove it to her and then she'll start believing you."

  Another silence.

  "I'm planning to go back to London after I work out a deal to sell the Gazette."

  "Because you love London?"

  Don't go, Noah. Stay here. Make a life for you and Sophie here in Idle Point.

  "Because being here is too hard, Gracie."

  "I know," she whispered, unable to contain her emotions. "It is for me too." Their dreams waited for them on the corner. Their hopes were still right up the road by the lighthouse.

  "What about you? I suppose you're going back to New York after the wedding."

  "I don't know what I'm going to do after the wedding."

  "I thought you had a big job down there."

  "'Had' being the operative word." She kept her eyes trained on Sophie who was a fair distance away. "I'm on suspension." She told him why in fifty words or less.

  "You haven't changed."

  "I'm not sure how to take that."

  "I wouldn't complain if Sophie followed your lead."

  "She'll find a better way," Gracie said, bypassing the compliment. She hoped Sophie would find a way that wouldn't break her heart.

  Sophie stopped running. They watched as she bent down to inspect something at the shoreline.

  "I've missed you, Gracie," he said.

  "I've missed you too." You're the other half of my heart. You always will be. She whispered a silent prayer then pushed forward. "I want to tell you why—"

  Sophie's scream shattered the mood.

  They were at her side seconds later. Sophie threw herself against Noah, sobbing wildly. A small gull, horribly tangled in fishing line, lay dying on the beach. A barbed hook was embedded in the side of his neck. He had lost a great deal of blood; it puddled beneath him on the hard sand. Gracie knew instantly that it was a lost cause and she shook her head at Noah when Sophie wasn't looking.

  "It's okay, Soph." He held her close while she cried. "Gracie is an animal doctor. She knows what to do."

  Gracie did indeed know what to do but it wasn't something she would tell the child. Sophie had dealt with enough of life's ugliness. She wasn't about to visit any more of it on her.

  "He's hurt!" Sophie cried, turning toward Gracie. "Make it stop hurting him, Gracie! Make it stop!"

  It would only be a matter of a few minutes. Gracie could tell by the gull's shallow breathing, the utter lack of fear at human contact. She was about to shrug off her coat and wrap the bird in its folds when Noah offered up his jacket instead. She thanked him then motioned for him to divert Sophie's attention while she quickly wrapped the dying bird in his jacket.

  "What are you going to do?" Sophie asked, keeping her face pressed tightly against her father's shoulder.

  "I'm going to keep him comfortable," Gracie said, walking the fine line of truth and falsehood.

  "You'll make it stop hurting him?"

  "Yes," Gracie said. "I promise you I will."

  #

  Sophie wanted to follow Gracie around back to find Doctor Jim but Noah wouldn't let h
er.

  "You're cold and wet," he said to his daughter. "Let's go upstairs and get warm first."

  He should have known the quiet afternoon was too good to be true. Her crying about the injured seagull suddenly turned into a mini-temper tantrum. The tantrum fell short of kicking and biting but it wasn't a whole lot of fun for either one of them. Sophie was crying so hard she could hardly breathe by the time he got her upstairs to her room. So much for progress. Every time Noah felt like he'd gotten a handle on fatherhood, he hit another speed bump.

  "Take off your clothes," he told Sophie, "and put on your robe while I start a bath for you."

  "I don't want to take a bath."

  "A nice warm bubble bath will make you feel better."

  "I don't want to feel better."

  "I don't want you to catch cold, Soph."

  She made a run for it. He managed to catch her at the top of the staircase. He tucked her under his arm and carried her back to her room.

  "I want to help the bird, Papa," she said, struggling against his efforts to remove her wet clothes. "I have to find Gracie and help her."

  "Gracie is an animal doctor," he reminded Sophie, "and so is Doctor Jim. They'll make sure the bird doesn't hurt anymore."

  "But I am the one who found him. He'll be looking for me."

  "He's being cared for, Sophie. I'll bet Gracie will be up here by the time you finish your bath and put on your nightgown." How did you draw the line between the painful truth and a comforting lie?

  Sophie didn't seem convinced but most of the fight drained out of her. He wasn't above taking advantage of that fact.

  #

  "There was nothing we could have done, Gracie." Doctor Jim put an arm around her shoulders and gave her a swift hug. "He didn't have a chance."

  "I know that," Gracie said. "I know all about the food chain and the ways of nature. Believe me, I've dealt with that and more down in New York." She knew the difference between a lost cause and convenience. In fact, knowing that had cost her her position at the hospital where she'd worked. "It was the look in Sophie's eyes..."

  "The little one's been through a lot," he said. "It's natural you'd want to protect her."

  "She's not mine," Gracie said. "I don't know how Noah wants to handle this." Every parent treated the topic of death in a different way. She only knew she didn't want to lie to Sophie.

  "Seeing you and Noah together took me back a lot of years," Doctor Jim said. "I always hoped you would end up together."

  "So did I," Gracie said with a soft laugh.

  "So what's stopping you? I saw the way you looked at each other over Rachel's turkey. It's clear nothing has changed."

  "A lot has changed, Doctor Jim."

  "Nothing essential."

  She had to stop this now before it went too far. "I'm hoping we can find a way to be friends again."

  "And that's your polite way of telling me to mind my own business."

  "I'd never tell you that."

  "No," he said with a smile. "You wouldn't but I'll do it just the same."

  They stood together in silence for a few minutes, watching the sun slide behind the hills.

  "There's a place for you here, Gracie," he said as they hugged goodbye. "I meant what I said at the dinner table."

  "I know you did," she said, "and I love you for it."

  She lingered a few moments more than stepped back into the house where Laquita found her a second later.

  "Your father's getting tired," Laquita said, "and I'm working midnight shift. If you don't mind, I think it's time to head home."

  Gracie hesitated. She had finally worked up the nerve to tell Noah what had happened the day she left him and the right moment kept slipping between her fingers. "Why don't you two go ahead without me." She told Laquita about Sophie and the injured bird. "I think I'll stay and see if Sophie wants to talk."

  "How will you get home?"

  "I hadn't thought of that."

  Laquita pulled her car keys from the pocket of her bright red down jacket. "Here," she said. "Use my car."

  "What about you and Dad?"

  "I have ten siblings," she said with a grin. "If I can't bum a ride off one of them, it's a sorry world."

  Gracie thanked her then Laquita rushed off to find someone to drive her and Ben home. That was part of being a family, this kind of give and take. Here, take my car... hey, how about a ride down to the corner... it's cold... you'd better borrow my sweater... do you remember when we used to...

  She could have that and more if she moved back to Idle Point. It was there for the taking, almost everything she had ever wanted from life. A big loud loving family, even if most of them were imported by marriage. A relationship with her father. The chance to work with Doctor Jim. She could even have Noah in her life—and Sophie, too—although not in the way she had always dreamed. All she had to do was say the word and it was hers.

  "Do you know where Noah is?" she asked Rachel who was putting away the last of the dishes.

  "He was looking for you," Rachel said, closing the glass doors to the china cabinet. "Sophie wants you to give her a bath."

  Second floor, third door on the left.

  Gracie flew up the stairs. The signs were all there. She had motive and she had opportunity. She was tired of living only half a life and she wished for more for Sophie and Noah. This wasn't the happy ending she had dreamed about but it was more than she had believed possible these last eight years. Tell him tonight. Tell him before you leave this house. They couldn't be lovers but they could be part of each other's lives. She could be his friend, grow old with him, watch Sophie grow up. And even though it hurt more than she sometimes believed possible, it was so much better than being without him.

  She tapped on the door to Sophie's room. "I hear somebody needs a bath," she called out.

  "C'mon in," Noah shouted from inside the room. "You're not a minute too soon."

  She opened the door and stepped into the bedroom she wished she'd had as a little girl. Open and airy. Pink and white. A window seat. A nightstand piled high with Madeleine and Harry Potter and the Complete Dr. Seuss. Paradise!

  Sophie, naked and highly annoyed, stood in the middle of the room.

  Noah, fully clothed and completely at a loss, sat on the edge of her bed.

  They both looked toward Gracie as if she were the answer to their prayers.

  "Barbie's Dream House!" Gracie couldn't believe her eyes. There it was in all of its plastic pre-fab glory to the left of the window seat. "Sophie, you have Barbie's Dream House!" She knelt down in front of the pricey piece of real estate and admired each detail.

  "Did you have Barbies when you were a little girl?" Sophie asked, clearly skeptical.

  "I sure did," Gracie said. "Mine was one of the beach Barbies. She carried a surfboard and had a year-round tan."

  "They had Barbies when you were little?"

  "Prehistoric Barbie," Gracie said with a straight face. "Ken came with a loin cloth and a club."

  "I have two Barbies and one Ken." Sophie lowered her voice and leaned closer to Gracie. "They pulled his legs off."

  Gracie met Noah's eyes over the top of Sophie's head. He was trying hard not to laugh out loud.

  "Sounds like they're Biker Barbies," Gracie said, inspecting the two innocent-looking blondes for signs of aggression. "A pair of tough chicks."

  "They didn't mean to do it. Sometimes these things happen."

  "Ken better watch his step," Gracie said, matching Sophie's serious tone.

  "Oh yes," said Sophie, "or something bad might happen to him."

  That did it. Both Noah and Gracie burst into laughter. Sophie looked at them with annoyance at first and then she started laughing too, obviously pleased to be the source of such good-natured amusement.

  "Okay, Soph.." Noah stood up. "Time for that bath you've been putting off for the last half hour."

  Sophie looked toward Gracie. "Will you wash my hair for me?"

  "I've never washed a
little girl's hair before," Gracie said. "Are you sure you want me to do it?"

  "You really never washed a little girl's hair?" Sophie asked.

  "I shampooed a cocker spaniel," she said and Sophie giggled. "I shampooed poodles and Dalmatians. I even shampooed my cat once and he sneezed soap bubbles all over me."

  Sophie tugged at her sleeve. "You can't shampoo a cat."

  "Sure you can," said Gracie, taking her hand. "I didn't say he liked it but you can do it."

  "I had a cat named Fred when I lived with Aunt Sarah and Uncle Hamish. He wouldn't go out in the rain."

  "Uncle Hamish?" Gracie asked, wide-eyed with pretend innocence.

  "No, silly!" Sophie was overcome with giggles. "Fred!"

  They kept up the silly banter while Noah ran the tub and filled it with fragrant bubbles. They tried to imagine Gracie's Pyewacket swatting the bubbles with a lazy paw and that only made Sophie laugh even more.

  If this was all Gracie could have of Noah, it would be enough.

  #

  Ruth was engrossed in the newest Dick Francis when Doctor Jim stepped into the library to say goodnight.

  "Thank you for opening your home to me, Ruthie." He sat down on the edge of the sofa next to her chair. "You made my first Thanksgiving without Ellen much easier."

  "There's no need to thank me, Jim, even though I loved your company. Rachel put everything together. I was nothing more than a party crasher."

  Jim's smile always made Ruth feel the world was a better place. "And some party it was," he said. "I feel like everyone in town dropped by at some time or another."

  "Rachel and Darnell are lucky people.”

  "That they are. They raised themselves a fine group of young men and women, didn't they?"

  They chatted for a bit about Laquita and Ben's upcoming wedding then talk turned quite naturally to Noah and Gracie.

  "If ever a man and woman were meant for each other, it's those two," Jim said with a shake of his greying head. "I never could figure out what's been keeping them apart."