The Guest Book

by Marybeth Whalen

  Macy shook her head. “I open myself up every day. To you and my mom and Max and Emma. And now Chase. I mean, talk about taking a risk.”

  “You’re not risking with Chase. You’re biding your time.”

  Macy started to argue but Avis held up her hand. “Stop. Just stop. You can argue ‘til you’re blue in the face, but I know better. You’re waiting for the right one to come along, and you’re keeping Chase on reserve just in case he doesn’t. You can’t fool me.” She eyed her. “True love is rarely found on the path of least resistance.”

  Avis leaned against a table displaying all-natural cleansing products, and Macy knew her hip was bothering her. A lifetime of standing at a cash register had taken its toll.

  “But to find the right one, you’ve got to open yourself up to whoever he is,” Avis added.

  “I’m not sure I can do that,” Macy admitted, her voice softening. She turned back to her painting so she didn’t have to look Avis in the eye. She thought about the parts of her past that waited for her at the house called Time in a Bottle. She thought about how part of who she used to be still waited there for her. The innocent part of her that used to throw her heart’s door open to people, that didn’t know people could take parts of you and walk away forever.

  What Avis was asking was a tall order indeed. But if there was anywhere to attempt it, Macy had a feeling that Sunset Beach was just the place. She looked up at the clock again, willing the hands to go faster around the circle, like the wheels that would carry her to Sunset Beach tomorrow. She pushed down the anxious feelings and let only happy ones bubble up, believing that Avis was right and that something wonderful waited for her in the days ahead.

  seven

  Macy paused before walking out the door. Bright light shone through the windows, yet inside, the house felt gloomy, as if it were raining. The feeling made her want to run outside and feel the sun on her skin. And yet Chase’s gaze held her in place.

  “What?” she asked him.

  He crossed his arms over his chest, his look changing from angry to merely sad, the fight sucked right out of him. “I wish you weren’t going.”

  She lifted one corner of her mouth. “I think the timing’s good. I think we can both use this time to figure out what’s happening, to figure out if this is even what we want.”

  “I don’t think it’s what you want.” He turned to the faucet and flipped the water on and off, on and off, passing his other hand under the stream and staring at it in idle curiosity, water down the drain.

  Macy knew he was waiting for her to respond. In the back of the house, she could hear Emma humming to herself as she gathered the last of her things. Listening to Emma, Macy thought about how every decision she’d made up to that moment had been about Emma, for Emma. A new thought occurred to Macy: What if she took Emma out of the equation? She looked back at Chase and wondered if what she felt for him was affection … or obligation. She thought of what Avis had said about true love and the path of least resistance, the reference to her relationship with Chase.

  She busied herself with checking the grocery bags she had lining the counter. “Once upon a time, I thought you were never coming back. And I got used to that idea. And then you showed up after all that time and—”

  “You don’t want me back,” he finished for her. The water went on and off again.

  She exhaled in a long, steady breath. “What if we say I just don’t know what I want?”

  He walked over to her and gripped her upper arms, his wet hands leaving damp handprints. “Don’t fool yourself, Macy. You’re not fooling me.”

  She frowned. “Why do you have to be so maudlin right now? When I’m leaving? Why can’t you just wish me well and let me go?” She had hoped to make a clean getaway, to avoid all of this.

  He dropped his hands, letting her go just as she’d asked. He pointed to the door, his hand barely raised. “So go.” His shoulders slumped like a man defeated.

  “Emma!” he called before Macy could stop him.

  “Yes, Daddy?” Emma sang, skipping into the room, her bag over her shoulder.

  “Your mommy’s ready to go.” His words seemed to carry a deeper meaning. He left the kitchen and sat on the loveseat in the den, the one that barely held two people. They had bought it together at Goodwill when she’d been pregnant with Emma, laughing at the ugly print, delighted they could afford it. She should’ve gotten rid of it long ago.

  Emma crawled into his lap and wrapped her pint-sized arms around his neck. Emma’s love came without conditions or qualifications.

  “I wish you could go!” she wailed, adding just the right amount of quintessential Emma drama. The child was precocious and too smart for her own good.

  Chase met Macy’s eyes over their daughter’s shoulder. “Have a good time,” he managed. He didn’t rise from his place on the loveseat. Macy wondered if they’d find him there when they returned, still staring into space with that lost-little-boy look on his face.

  With a shrug, Macy gathered their bags and headed for the door, knowing better than to ask Chase for help. “Come on, Emma. Let’s go.”

  Macy had one bag over each shoulder and one in each hand when she turned back one last time. Emma ran out ahead of them, her attention and intensity already focused on the trip.

  “Maybe I’ll figure things out at Sunset,” Macy offered.

  He pressed his lips into a thin line, his gaze hovering at the top of her head, avoiding her eyes. Without the history between them, she might’ve found him attractive. But she didn’t anymore, not really. Not like she should if they were going to try to build a life together.

  “Hope so,” he said.

  She shifted her weight under the grocery bags, the pink suitcase of Emma’s that said “Going To Grandma’s,” and the large, brightly patterned duffel she’d gotten for high school graduation, back when she thought she’d need such a thing because she was going to see the world. The truth was she’d only used the duffel a handful of times. Single moms didn’t travel much.

  “I used to be a fun person,” she said. “When I was at Sunset Beach all those years ago, I used to be the kind of girl who believed in dreams.”

  Chase shook his head. “Well, you just couldn’t bring yourself to believe in this one.”

  She sucked in her breath. “You’re conveniently forgetting you’re the one who left.”

  “I’m not forgetting that at all. I just hoped we could move forward somehow. Forget the past.”

  She thought of sitting on her father’s shoulders, dreaming of the day she’d learn to ride the waves like the surfers she saw farther out in the water. She’d wanted to learn to conquer the waves instead of get sucked under by them.

  She looked toward the open door, the sunlight shining through. She could almost believe the beach was just outside the door instead of a three-hour drive away. As she looked out at Emma waiting by the car, she felt her heart fill with the kind of excitement usually relegated to giddy little girls.

  “I wish you could’ve known her,” she said. “I think that would’ve made all the difference.”

  “Known who?” he asked. He crossed his arms and shifted his weight, growing bored with a conversation that had nothing in it for him.

  “The little girl I used to be.”

  “Then I hope you find her when you get there,” he said.

  She turned away and took a step toward the door. Then she looked back and said, “Me too.”

  She left him sitting on the ugly loveseat and headed out the door.

  Max turned up the radio, jarring her from sleep as she opened her eyes and looked around. She scanned the highway for a road sign that would tell her where they were.

  “Nice nap?” he asked from the passenger seat. She started to tell him what she’d been dreaming about, but he’d already turned his attention back to Emma, who was trying to teach him the words to some teeny-bopper’s latest hit. The child was a walking Top Forty countdown.

  Macy scoot
ed closer to the window and leaned her head against the glass with a dramatic sigh for effect. Not that anyone heard her over Emma’s relentless chatter and the radio playing.

  She watched the desolate parts of the North Carolina countryside slip by, stalks burned by the heat of summer catching her eye: corn, cotton, soy, tobacco. The green overcome by brown. She tried to visualize the ocean that waited at the end of the journey, but all she could see was the cracked ground, the washed-out landscape. It was hard to believe something beautiful waited on the other side of this.

  “Mace? Where’d you go?” she heard Max ask.

  As she looked up and caught his profile, she almost believed he was her dad sitting there. Could he really be approaching the age her dad had been when she’d sat atop his shoulders and pretended she owned the ocean, when she’d pretended her daddy could give it to her if it was what she wanted?

  “Just thinking how depressing this part of the state is,” she replied. “Nothing but farmland, broken-down tractors, and old men in overalls. I need a mall and a Starbucks no more than fifteen minutes away.”

  “I think you need a break from the city life,” he said. “You used to be such a tomboy, couldn’t wait to be outdoors.”

  When he mentioned the outdoors, she thought of Emma’s demand to sleep under the stars with Chase. And where that had gotten her. The outdoors were not her friend, but there was no sense in going into that.

  Max smiled at her over his shoulder before turning his gaze back to the two-lane highway ahead of them. “I think being near the ocean is going to be good for all of us,” he said. Macy was glad he had changed his tune.

  “That’s what I’m talking about!” Emma exclaimed, pumping her fist in the air with a broad grin on her face. She had Chase’s eyes and dimples.

  Macy smiled at her daughter and pulled her into a hug, kissing the top of her head as quickly as a butterfly lighting and flying away again. Max reached his fist behind him, and Emma bumped her knuckles against his, her smile unfading.

  If nothing else, Macy thought, this trip is good for Emma. If nothing else, I can give her some time at the ocean. And maybe I can stop wondering what to do about Chase for five whole minutes. She would be a good mother to her daughter, the way Brenda had been a good mother to Macy.

  She looked over at Brenda at the wheel. Brenda’s sunglasses were slipping low on her nose as she concentrated on the road. Macy resisted the urge to lean forward and push the glasses back to the bridge of her nose. Sensing Macy’s eyes upon her, Brenda glanced over her shoulder and gave her a smile. She thought of the younger version of her mom, the one who used to ride in the passenger seat as her dad drove, in charge of selecting the music the family listened to.

  As soon as Max got old enough, he shut them all out with headphones that piped in his own music selections, loud and angry. But Macy liked her mom’s music —beach music, soft rock, songs about love lost and found. Sometimes Brenda sang along, prompting Macy and Darren to join her in singing the familiar, if overplayed, lyrics. Sometimes, instead of singing along, Macy just listened to Brenda’s voice, which was sweet and clear and blended well with Darren’s deep and resonating baritone. Even at a young age, Macy imagined finding the person her voice would one day mingle with. Her parents had been an example of what love could be. An example Macy had fallen short of.

  Macy wondered if her mom remembered the guest book. They certainly had never mentioned it after they left Sunset Beach. They hadn’t mentioned their past vacations at all, pretending they’d never happened. Macy was still a bit surprised that they were headed back to Sunset Beach at all, that Sunset had been important to other members of her family as well.

  She took out a pad of paper from the little bag of interesting things she had packed to keep Emma busy in the car during the three-hour drive. Then she pulled out the box of brand-new, expensive colored pencils she had purchased with a 50 percent-off coupon in a splurge the week before the trip. Removing a blue pencil from the box, she began filling the top of the paper with what would be a sky.

  “What are you doing, Mommy?” Emma asked, leaning over, her brown eyes narrowing as she peered at the paper.

  Macy gave her a half smile. “Guess.”

  It was a game she had played with her daughter since she was barely old enough to talk. She would start drawing, and Emma would try to guess what it was before it became obvious. Sometimes the little girl surprised her with her ability to intuit what Macy was drawing.

  Macy pulled out a black pencil and began drawing a curved line against the blue background.

  “It’s a bird, flying in the sky!” Emma said excitedly, bouncing up and down with energy only a child could have during a long car ride. She leaned closer as she watched Macy’s every move intently.

  “What kind of bird?” Macy asked, trying to enjoy the moment instead of focusing on Emma’s suffocating closeness in the small backseat. They whizzed by a green sign that indicated Sunset Beach was a mere thirty miles away. Her heart quickened with that same burst of giddiness she’d felt talking about the trip with her mom. With any luck, they’d arrive at the same time she finished the picture. She pulled a gray pencil from the package and began to shade the wings of the bird that appeared to be taking flight across the blue. The ocean below would have to be a different blue, with just the right amount of green blended in to match the color of the Atlantic.

  “It’s a beach bird!” Emma said, as she recognized the markings of the bird. “What do you call them, Mommy?”

  “Seagulls,” she answered, thinking of the last time she was at the beach, the last picture she had drawn and left behind. A smile crossed her face as her hand froze with the memory.

  She looked out the window again and let herself remember— and hope, as ridiculous as it seemed to do so. She thought of a verse her dad taught her years ago. He was always getting her to memorize verses, rewarding her with scoops of ice cream from Baskin-Robbins every time she got one right. Even now she could taste mint chocolate chip as the last few words of a verse she hadn’t thought of in years crossed her mind: “Hope does not disappoint.” Maybe this trip that verse would prove true. She quit drawing and closed her eyes for a moment, daydreaming as the road carried her closer to Sunset.

  eight

  Macy lugged her mother’s unwieldy suitcase up the stairs, bumping it against each step as Emma hopped eagerly ahead of her and Max opened the door with a flourish, holding his hand out with a sweeping motion and a bow. “Ladies,” he said in a false bass voice. “Entrez-vous.” Below them on the driveway, Brenda hoisted luggage from the trunk like a woman half her age.

  Emma giggled and sashayed past Max while Macy struggled up the last of the steps leading into the house. Just as she made it up the steps, Max took the handle of the suitcase from her.

  “Allow me, Sis.”

  With a smirk he pulled the suitcase into the house, leaving Macy to blink and sputter, “Oh, sure. Now!” before turning back to get more supplies from the line of items Brenda had created in the driveway.

  Emma was already running from room to room exclaiming, “I can’t believe we get to stay here for two whole weeks!”

  Macy knew it sounded like a long time now, but she feared it would go by in a flash.

  She grabbed Emma’s portable DVD player, pillow, and small suitcase from the trunk and started up the stairs again. Who needed an elliptical after this kind of workout? As she trudged up and down the stairs, Emma darted in and out of her path like a cat, hollering at anyone who would listen over this new discovery and that new thought:

  “Uncle Max said we can go fishing on the pier!”

  “Did you know there’s a roof deck and you can see for miles? When can we go up there, Mommy?”

  “Grandma said we have to go to the grocery store today. Right away!”

  “Can we get ice cream after dinner tonight?”

  “Is it true you have to eat fish for dinner every night when you’re at the beach? Uncle Max said you d
o.” This exclamation was laced with fear and punctuated by a jutting lower lip.

  “Max! Don’t get her all riled up!” Macy hollered in the direction of Max’s room before turning back to Emma. “No, honey, you can have all the regular foods you love, just like at home.”

  Max poked his head out of his room. “What did I do?” He narrowed his eyes at Emma. “You selling me out, girl? Don’t go busting on me to your mom, or I won’t tell you all my secrets.” He smirked at Macy. “Or your mom’s secrets either.”

  Emma ran off to inspect Max’s room, and Macy rolled her eyes before turning back to the box of food staples she was unloading in the kitchen. She pulled out a half bag of something unrecognizable and squinted at it, wondering why on earth her mother had packed it and what it was.

  “Mom?” she yelled over the noise of Emma’s laughter coming from Max’s room.

  Her mother didn’t answer.

  With the package in her hand, Macy went in search of Brenda, checking the master bedroom first. Her mother wasn’t there. She peeked out of the window at the car parked below, but her mother wasn’t unloading the last few items. She pursed her lips and squinted her eyes as she left the bedroom. As she passed the back door, she caught a glimpse of something white, the color of the knit polo Brenda was wearing. She stuck her head out the door and studied her mom, who was standing at the railing of the back porch, staring at the tiny strip of land that served as the backyard.

  “Mom?” she ventured, slipping through the crack of sliding glass door and going to stand beside her mother. She inhaled deeply, savoring the smell of the air and wondering how anyone ever got used to the rich scent, the way even the air teemed with life here.

  She placed one hand tentatively on her mother’s shoulder, the mystery food bag swinging from her other hand. When her mother turned to look at Macy, there were tears in Brenda’s eyes. Brenda tried to smile despite them.