Firefly Beach

by Luanne Rice

  Focusing on such glamorous activity, she was able to forget the fact that her youngest child was in the hospital. Not forget precisely, but set aside. She had seen Dr. Henderson in the hall outside Skye’s room. They had circled each other warily. She mistrusted him. That eager voice with its phony warmth made her shiver.

  Standing at the picture window, Augusta tried to see what the men on the boat were doing. Bending over something, raising it to the light. Must be something exciting, she thought. She adjusted the eyepiece for a clearer look.

  That tiny act, the slight movement of her two hands as she twisted the spyglass, took her back twenty years: She had taken this very same shooting scope with her to spy on Hugh and one of his women in a glade north of Hawthorne, and she felt a rush of shame and fury. She had taken the girls with her. They had been young: nine, seven, and four. She hadn’t told them what she was doing, but she suspected they knew.

  Her girls were cursed with exceptional powers of perception.

  She narrowed her eyes, focusing on the ship, but the thrill was gone. That flash of guilt from the past had destroyed it. What kind of woman took her daughters to spy on their father?

  Maybe she should have a cup of tea. She walked into the kitchen. A cool breeze ruffled the white curtains at the windows. The air smelled fresh, of the sea and herbs from the garden. Augusta set a kettle on to boil, then walked out the screen door to the small, sunken herb garden. Homer followed her, panting.

  Set in a circle, the garden had plants that dated back one hundred years. Augusta had taken snips and cuttings from her mother’s garden in Jamestown and her grandmother’s garden in Thornton. Whenever she came out to pick rosemary, sage, or thyme, she felt the endless love of those two wonderful women. Augusta had had no sisters of her own. She was an only child, and when she had borne three girls, she thought it was the most amazing blessing possible.

  That she had daughters, and that they could be sisters to each other in a way that Augusta had never had sisters of her own, had made her feel so happy, as if she had provided something for them beyond measure. Sighing, she sat on a stone bench. She reached down, letting her fingers trail through a clump of mint. The stalks were dark red, the leaves fuzzy green. When she smelled her hand, she went back in time to her grandmother’s garden, with all the love and comfort any child could ever want. The feelings she had wanted to give her daughters and their children.

  She heard a car coming up the driveway. The sound broke the spell, but Augusta stayed where she was. She knew from the sound it was Caroline’s old Jeep. Augusta might have walked around the house to meet her, or gone into the kitchen to set out an extra teacup, but she didn’t. She knew that Caroline finding her in the herb garden would be a good thing. It would make Caroline sympathetic to her. The herbs themselves would be an unspoken connection to the good past, to Caroline’s beloved grandmother and great-grandmother.

  Homer bounded off on the trace of Caroline, and Augusta knew he would lead her back.

  “Hi, Mom,” Caroline said.

  Augusta opened her eyes. She seemed startled, as if she had been sleeping. She sat on a bench in the garden, wearing her pearls and a straw sunhat, holding a handful of herbs. It touched Caroline to see her mother sitting there in the grandmothers’ herb garden, enjoying the sun and the breeze.

  “Caroline!” she exclaimed, smiling.

  “I thought I’d take a swim,” Caroline said. “Do you feel like putting on your suit and coming down to the beach?”

  “That would be great,” Augusta said. “Just let me turn off the teakettle.”

  Caroline went upstairs to change. She used the bedroom that had been hers as a girl. It faced the beach, and from her window she could see Joe’s boat. Putting on her black tank suit, she walked barefoot through the back halls of Firefly Hill. It was bare and dark in this part of the house: The floors were dark oak, the wainscoting nearly black with age. The bedrooms and living rooms were bright and overflowing with pictures and furniture. But back here, this section intended for servants, had always been spooky; walking through it had always made Caroline and her sisters feel nervous of what lurked in the shadows.

  She ran down the porch stairs and met her mother outside. They walked across the lawn, through the tall grass and wildflowers. Caroline preceded Augusta down the long flight of stone steps to Firefly Beach, one hundred feet below. A quarter of the way, she heard her mother stop. “You coming, Homer?” Augusta called.

  The rangy old dog stood on the top step. His head was big and proud, the sun casting golden lights on his thinning coat. From this angle he looked young and magnificent. Caroline remembered how he had loved to run on the beach his first summer there. Born a mountain dog, he soon learned to love the beach.

  “Homer?” Augusta asked again. She hesitated, looking up at the golden retriever. Her pose was tense, urgent. She seemed to be willing him to move. “He’s tired, Mom,” Caroline said gently.

  “I suppose he is,” Augusta said. Without another word she followed Caroline down the stairs.

  These swims were precious to both of them. Caroline made time at least two or three times a month in the summer to spend a late afternoon on the beach with her mother. They dove in together. The water was cold and salty, and Caroline swam out to the big rock and back. She felt the sea caress her body, giving her that feeling of rebirth she got when the tide was high and she was swimming with her mother. They’d been doing this for thirty-six summers, and every time she came to Firefly Beach for one of their swims, she prayed that they would have another: another swim and another summer.

  Back on the sand, they lay in the sun on separate towels. It was nearly five o’clock, but the day was still warm, the light gilded. It glistened on the sea and made the tiny pebbles, wet from the waves, look like beads of amber. Caroline watched her mother open a book and start reading. Caroline looked out to sea. There was the Meteor, rocking on the waves. She’d be having dinner out there in just a few hours.

  Caroline took Clarissa’s diary out of her bookbag. It was the actual book Maripat had given her, so she held it carefully, away from the sand.

  August 1, 1769

  Today counted seven schooners and one brig and one barq. Found twenty-two red starfish. Ate two joe froggers after lunch. Saw three eagles, twenty osprey, and more than a hundred herring gulls. More than a thousand herring gulls. More than seven thousand herring gulls. But no friends! No little girls to play with. Only Mama and Pa, when he’s not too tired. Tomorrow morning we’re going for quahogs.

  August 4, 1769

  Pa got four geese. The bang from his gun scared me, and I was crying, but I couldn’t find Mama. She wasn’t there. I found her near to dark, by the south shore where we found the whale. The last place I looked, I came upon her. Mama as sad as when Grandmother died and we had to travel to Providence to bury her, but today no one is dead. She said she wasn’t crying, but I know she was, and when I kissed her she tasted like tears. I told her about the geese, thinking she would be happy because we always cook one for Christmas, but it only made her cry more.

  “What’s that?” Augusta asked, curious.

  “An old diary,” Caroline said slowly. “A little girl writing about her life. This part is about her mother.”

  “Does she love her?”

  “Very much.”

  “Good,” Augusta said happily.

  Caroline thought of how strange it was, Augusta asking whether the girl had loved her mother. What an odd thing for a mother to ask.

  What made her so insecure? Had Augusta felt that way long ago, when the girls were young? Caroline took it as an explanation for the way things happened, the fact that their childhood had been so fragmented. The hunts, the fights, the separations and reconciliations between Augusta and Hugh. Caroline’s heart ached for her mother, then and now.

  “The diary was written by Clarissa Randall,” Caroline said. “The daughter of the woman who died on that shipwreck.”

  “Right out there
?” Augusta asked, shading her eyes as she stared at the ships on the horizon.

  “Yes.”

  “Dear, how fascinating!” Augusta said. “I’ve been keeping my eye on them. They seem to be making great progress. They work night and day. Oh, I have a great idea….”

  “What’s that?”

  “You should send the captain a copy of the diary! Wouldn’t that be fun? And I’m sure he would find it extremely helpful. Maybe there’s some secret code in the diary, some key to where the treasure is buried!”

  “Mom,” Caroline said.

  “Darling, I’m serious. The captain would love you for it.”

  Caroline wanted to tell her mother the captain was Joe Connor. She felt it so strongly, the desire to explain that Joe was the ship’s captain, that she had already sent the diary to him, that he was diving on the Cambria because of Caroline’s letters from long ago. But Skye was in the hospital and her mother hated the Connors. In Augusta’s mind the Connors were the enemy.

  “Remember the treasure we found, honey? The gold chain?” Augusta asked, changing the subject herself.

  “Yes, the one Dad gave you,” Caroline said, trailing off.

  “Are you going to Scotland?” Augusta asked after a long stretch of thinking about Hugh. “Didn’t you say something about a quick trip?”

  “Yes,” Caroline said, suddenly wishing she were leaving tonight, “but I’m not going just yet.”

  “You pick up and go like no one I know,” Augusta said, shaking her head. “Half the time I call Michele, she says you’re on a plane to somewhere.”

  “Not half the time,” Caroline said.

  “I’m relieved, Caroline. That you’re not going now. Skye needs you too much. I try to be there for her, but I know it’s you she wants.”

  Caroline heard the pain in her mother’s voice. She wanted to tell her it wasn’t true, that she was a great mother, that Skye needed her more than anyone. But she knew Augusta wouldn’t believe her, that the lie would only make her feel worse.

  “She loves you, Mom,” Caroline said, telling the truth.

  “I know, dear. But I wish I’d done more earlier. That I hadn’t missed my chance.”

  The words hung in the air, reminding Caroline of the failures of love. People tried so hard, but they often missed the most important connections. Slowly she looked out to sea, toward the white boat shining in the sun. She thought of Skye drunk, wanting to see Joe. Their tragedies were linked, there was no getting away from it.

  Not even by taking the night flight to Scotland.

  “This is lovely. Thank you for coming over to swim with me,” Augusta said.

  “It was my best swim of the summer,” Caroline said, wishing she could give her mother something bigger, something more.

  “I’m tired,” Augusta said, gathering her things. “It’s been so nice, sitting on the beach with you. Being together. That’s all that counts, Caroline. When all is said and done, being together is the only thing that matters.”

  Augusta struggled to stand. Her feet slipped a little in the sand, but she caught her balance. As Caroline reached out her hand to help her to her feet, she was filled by a surge of love for her mother, for the way her mother lived, for the fears her mother tried so hard to bury, for the things her mother would never know. Caroline felt such tenderness for her mother, growing old, she bit her lip.

  Homer must have seen the women approaching. He was on his feet, and he let out a joyful bark. Standing on the top step, atop the ledge, he was the sentry of Firefly Hill. He barked again and again, full of greeting and expectation.

  “He must be hungry,” Caroline said.

  “No, dear,” Augusta said, smiling as she checked to make sure her black pearls were still around her neck. “He’s just happy we’re on our way home.”

  Caroline didn’t say anything, and the expression on her face didn’t change. But walking along the beach, she felt strangely joyful. Soon the fireflies would come out, begin their nightly dance. There was the Meteor, across the sea to her right; she had no idea what tonight’s meeting would be like. But the sand felt cool under her bare feet, walking just below the tide line, and she had to hold herself back from taking Augusta’s hand. She was thirty-six years old, but it still made her feel so happy when her mother sounded like a mother.

  July 7, 1978

  Dear Joe,

  I know we keep wishing for treasure from the Cambria to surface, but yesterday something great did happen. My mother and I went swimming, and I saw some gold glinting in the sand. Just as if a firefly had dropped down! I ran to pick it up, and it was a bracelet. Not from the Cambria, but from my very own family! My father had given it to my mother a long time ago, and she had lost it last summer. So it sat under the sand all winter, safe and sound, waiting for us to find it.

  Don’t give up hope, Joe: next time it’ll be gold coins, and I’ll send you one.

  With love,

  Caroline

  July 15, 1978

  Dear Caroline,

  That sand is keeping more than your mother’s bracelet safe. Those old ship spars are probably still in perfect condition. It’s really great about the bracelet though. I wish I could go walking on a beach and find my father’s gold watch. He always wore it, and sometimes I wish I had it.

  Things are weird. If you’re not careful, you can start missing things you barely remember.

  Take care, C.

  Joe

  P.S. You really do have magic fireflies.

  THAT NIGHT, JUST BEFORE EIGHT O’CLOCK, CAROLINE sat in her car at the dock waiting for Joe to pick her up. The evening had turned cold and crystal-clear, the sea flat calm without a whisper of wind. The sun had just gone down, and the horizon was deep red and purple, the sky darkening through shades of silver to violet to jet. The ocean was a sheet of onyx.

  Caroline watched the launch approach fast, its running lights glowing against the sunset. She walked down to the dock, feeling nervous. The chill stirred her blood, heightened her awareness. Her father had taught them to pay attention to fear, to rely on their instincts. The back of her neck tingled, but it could have been the night air.

  Wary, she raised a hand in greeting. Joe reached up to help her down from the dock to the skiff, and she handed him the bottle of wine she had brought. She wore jeans and a soft beige cashmere sweater over a silk tee-shirt; she slipped on the thick navy wool jacket she had carried from the car.

  “Good idea,” he said, nodding. “It’s cold out on the water.”

  “Thought it might be,” Caroline said.

  “Clear and fine,” he said, looking at the sky.

  “Clear nights are sometimes the coldest,” Caroline replied, wondering if they’d be talking about the weather all night. She tried a smile. “Thanks for inviting me.”

  “Thanks for sending me the diary,” Joe said, smiling back.

  He gunned the engine. The eighteen-foot skiff took off so fast, it nearly knocked Caroline off her feet. She hung on to the side rail, maintaining her balance. She was not going to let Joe see her hit the deck. She had a sailor’s pride, and she made note of the fact he was driving like a jerk.

  Spray flew back from the bow, tickling Caroline’s face. The loud engine made conversation impossible. Joe stood at the console. All his concentration was on driving the boat. She found herself staring at his wrists. He was wearing a dark green chamois shirt with most of the nap worn off, and he had pushed back his sleeves. His wrists were bare, sturdy, covered with curly blond hair. They were safer to look at than his face. Glancing across the water, she spotted Firefly Beach, its grasses glowing with green-gold irridescence.

  Several larger boats appeared in the distance. Bright lights illuminated the stem of one, and the plume of sand Caroline had seen from Firefly Hill was arcing out of the sea. People milled about on deck. Joe throttled back, said something she could not hear into the microphone. Someone replied, more static than human voice. Joe slowed down even more, so their approach was
a quiet slap, slap over the small waves.

  Red-and-white diving flags dotted the surface in two places. Joe steered the long way around to avoid them. He made the skiff fast to a ladder in the stern of the smaller boat. They climbed aboard.

  The scene was exciting, the aftermath of chaos. A compressor thumped like a steam engine; the force of sand and seawater spitting twenty feet into the air rasped like a geyser. Divers in scuba gear lined the boat rail. Others swam between the boat and the flags, their sleek black heads glossy, like seals. Two people sat on deck, using soft brushes to clean sand off what looked like barnacle-encrusted baseballs.

  “Hey, skipper,” one of the men called. Motioning for Caroline to follow, Joe walked over. He bent down to hear what the guy was saying. He nodded, replied. Reaching down, he handed one of the balls to Caroline. Small enough to fit in the palm of Joe’s hand, it appeared to have been underwater a very long time. Barnacles and mossy green seaweed covered its entire surface.

  The ball weighed more than a barbell. It tugged Caroline down, she nearly lost her grip. Joe spoke, but she couldn’t hear him over the compressor. She shrugged. Joe was grinning, possibly at how she had nearly dropped the weight on her toe.

  “A cannonball. We found it today,” Joe said, his lips against her ear.

  “Wow,” Caroline said, excited in spite of herself. She bent down for a closer look at the objects. There was a pile of coins, similarly covered by sea growth. Joe picked one up. He slid the coin into her hand. The barnacles were sharp and felt rough against her palm.

  “From the Cambria,” she said. It wasn’t a question.

  “Yes.”

  She turned it over, examining it. She tried to give it back, but Joe closed his hand around hers, giving it a rough push. His grip was so hard, it made the barnacle dig into her hand.

  “Keep it,” he said.