The Guest Book

by Marybeth Whalen

  He looked at her for a moment, and she shifted under his gaze. “Mom asked us here,” she said.

  “Ah. I guess they told you their plan.” He spun the wrench he was holding, nearly whacking the lamp he was standing beside.

  She smiled as he stilled the wrench. “Yes. I’m happy for them. She’s happier than I’ve seen her in years.”

  He nodded. “My dad too. I guess it just goes to show what can happen when you carry a torch for someone long enough.” Macy tried to gauge if the look he gave her was meaningful or not. “So I guess you might end up being my stepsister.”

  She laughed in spite of herself. Put in those terms, her memory of his kiss sounded downright icky. “Umm. I hadn’t thought about it that way but … yes, I guess that sounds like a very real possibility.” All of a sudden she could feel that something had changed between them. Even before he’d uttered the words aloud, a shift had taken place that involved last night and the unveiling of the sculpture today and their parents. And all those things added up to … nothing. “So that means whatever we had, or have, or however you want to put it … well. I mean, it can’t happen. Agreed? It would just be too weird?”

  She thought of all the things she’d been prepared to say to him about the guest book and Dockery, all the explanations and versions of breaking it to him gently that she’d been rehearsing. And none of it was going to be necessary. She nearly sighed with relief.

  “So … that sculpture today. That was of you, right?”

  She looked down at the table and busied herself with wiping up the ring of water her glass had left. “Yes.”

  “And the guy from the mini-golf place—Dockery—he was the sculptor?”

  Finished with the water ring, she moved on to wiping off all the condensation on the glass. “Yes.”

  “Did you talk to him?”

  “For a minute. He was swarmed with people, and it was … crazy. I had to leave. I thought we needed to get on the road.” She looked at him. “And you disappeared.”

  He looked back, not avoiding her pointed gaze at all. “I was giving you room to say what you needed to say.”

  She thought back to the day Wyatt had sung the John Mayer song. She knew now that he’d had some things he needed to say, and she wondered if he had let the music fill him with the courage to do just that. With a pang, she wondered what might have been between her and Wyatt had things been different.

  “I don’t say what I need to say nearly often enough,” she said. She hoped he found the regret hidden in her statement. That was all she could manage, seeing how things were turning out.

  “Well, I think you should.”

  “That’s a great idea in theory. In practice it sounds …”

  “Risky? Daring? Scary?” He smiled, and she saw the glint in his eye that told her he was teasing her and enjoying it. Something about the way he looked at her took her back to the moment they’d met, to a place where things were still safe and playful and not laden with meaning.

  She smiled. “All of the above.”

  He walked over and took the tea pitcher out of the fridge, pouring a glass for himself before placing the pitcher back in the fridge. He took a long drink, draining half the glass. “Is the sculptor the guy who’s been drawing pictures for you all these years?” He turned to face her. “The guy you hoped I was?”

  “I didn’t—”

  He held his hand up. “Look, siblings are honest with each other. If you can’t be honest with your future stepbrother, it’s all over for you.” He drained the last of the tea in his glass.

  She gave him a sheepish half smile. “Then I’ll just say yes.”

  He put the empty glass on the counter and took the tea pitcher from the fridge again to refill it. As he poured, he started to sing the words to the song she’d just been thinking about. “Say what you need to say,” he sang, winking at her as he walked back to wherever he had come from. “Say what you need to say.” The front door opened before she could say anything, and she heard Emma’s voice.

  Emma flew into her arms, talking a mile a minute. “Guess who’s at our old house?” she asked, her cheeks red from the heat, her skin smelling like sunshine.

  Macy inhaled her daughter’s scent. “Who?” she asked absentmindedly, thinking instead of how ready she was to leave. Almost as ready as she’d been the year after her dad died.

  “Dockery! Buzz is outside talking to him!” She pulled on Macy’s arm. “Come see him!” Before she knew it, Macy was on her feet, traveling toward a conversation she wasn’t ready to have. But this was an opportunity to say what she needed to say. And she only had a few feet to figure out exactly what that was.

  She crossed the yard with Emma pulling her every step of the way. “Here’s my mom! I told you I’d get her!” She was hollering at Dockery as they walked. Macy felt as though she were moving underwater, her movement slowed by the resistance of her own pride and conflicted emotions, everything appearing hazy and surreal. She saw Buzz and Dockery talking on the front porch of Time in a Bottle. She wondered if he’d come there to find her, but he must’ve known she wouldn’t be there. She couldn’t figure out what was happening, or why. For once she didn’t dwell on it. She let herself get pulled along by life instead of fighting against the current. She didn’t know what she needed to say, but she trusted the words to be there when she opened her mouth. Just jump.

  Dockery turned and waved at her, the corners of his lips turned up into a resigned smile.

  She climbed the stairs, passing Buzz, who was on the way down. Buzz took Emma’s hand and winked at Macy. “Emma, let’s go show Grandma those shells we found.”

  “Yeah!” Emma cheered. She stopped suddenly and looked up at Dockery. “But don’t you leave without saying good-bye.” She waggled her finger at him like a teacher scolding a naughty child.

  He held up his hands. “I promise,” he said.

  Macy stood in front of him and watched them go. She couldn’t believe she was back here, back at Time in a Bottle, coming full circle to finally stand in this place with this person. She thought of her prayer on the beach. She’d tried to excuse it, to dismiss it, to believe that it wasn’t real—or that the answers that followed weren’t possible. And yet, here she was. God was not a genie in a bottle. But sometimes, miraculously, He was able to bring about the most amazing set of circumstances. She took a deep breath, savoring the moment, not wanting their talking to ruin it. They’d never needed words before.

  “I promise I didn’t follow you here. I had to come by as part of my regular Saturday morning rounds.” He reached out to pick up a stray piece of sea oat from the porch railing. He picked the fuzz from the stem. He was wearing the same shirt he’d had on last Saturday morning when he’d stopped by. The name on the shirt said Caldwell Cleaning. She recognized the name of the cleaning company from a magnet on the fridge in the house.

  “I am pretty surprised you’re here.”

  He held up the now-naked sea oat and blew it from his palm, watching it fly off the porch and land on the ground below. “Not half as surprised as I was to see you.” A hurt look crossed his face. “I thought you were gone. Like before.”

  “No. I mean, I was going to run, but then we came back here to … never mind. Too long of a story to explain.”

  He studied her face for a few seconds. “Well, however it happened, I’m glad you didn’t leave this time. I want to answer any questions you might have about earlier.”

  She laughed in spite of herself. “That’s an understatement. I have nothing but questions!” She was relieved that Rebecca, in all her perkiness, was nowhere to be seen.

  He sat down on the porch swing and patted the space next to him.

  She wondered if he, too, was thinking of the last picture he’d drawn for her, life imitating art.

  “Then have a seat,” he said, “and I will answer them all.”

  She sat down beside him and took a deep breath. “So I’ll take a guess.” She pointed at his shirt. “Your
family owns a cleaning company, and that’s how you found the guest book.”

  He nodded. “My parents own the company. We’ve cleaned this house for years. I always had to go with them when I was growing up. Every Saturday was spent at a series of houses cleaning up after the tourists. I would get bored, get into trouble snooping in the houses. I would always read the entries in the guest books — try to find out who had just stayed in the houses we were cleaning, what they’d loved about their trip. So one day I was looking through the guest book here, and I saw your picture. I loved to draw—art was my favorite subject in school—so I sat down and drew a picture back to you. We had some recently developed pictures in the truck, and I snuck out and got one to leave for you so you’d know what I looked like. And then the next year, there was another picture from you, kind of like a reply. And before I knew it, you and I were corresponding through drawings. We were having this” —he looked over at her for the briefest moment before dropping his eyes to the porch floor — “conversation. That lasted for years.”

  They sat in silence as Macy wondered what to say in response. Then Dockery spoke again. “That conversation somehow became the most important one I’d ever had. And I dreamed of having a real conversation with you, in person. So I asked you to meet that last year. But you didn’t show … and … I thought that was the end.” He looked at her. “I thought I’d lost you. I didn’t know your last name. Didn’t know where you lived. I just had this one moment every year that I knew I could find you. And then it was gone.”

  “Why didn’t you ever tell me who you were? Leave your name — some clue — something other than that one photo?”

  He shook his head. “It’s stupid really. I wasn’t supposed to be touching things in the house. So I would never include my name on the drawings. When I was little, I was afraid of getting caught because I knew if my dad found out what I was doing, he’d make me stop.” He gave a chagrined smile. “I never even thought about him finding my photo that first year, but then you took it with you, so it didn’t matter …” His voice trailed off, and his smile turned sad as he shrugged. “He died a few years ago.” He paused. “Now I help my mom with the business, and I always make sure Time in a Bottle is on my rounds.”

  “Does Rebecca know about any of this?”

  He nodded. “Let’s just say she does now.”

  Macy gasped. “She didn’t?”

  He shook his head. “It’s not the kind of thing you go around telling people. I didn’t think you were ever coming back, so why talk about it? Why wait my whole life for you to resurface? I’d moved on, was starting the life I thought I was meant to live.”

  “And then I showed up.”

  He laughed in spite of himself. “And then you showed up just as I was completing the sculpture. And I couldn’t believe the timing. But then I could. Because all along, as I was shaping the metal and creating this image of you, I could feel you closer than I’d ever felt you before. I knew you weren’t gone from my life yet and that if I just had faith, you’d come back to me.” He looked away again. “I prayed a lot while I created that sculpture. Prayed for you, wherever you were. Prayed that somehow we’d meet. Prayed that if I ever did come across you again, I’d have the courage to say what I’ve always wanted to say.”

  “And what was that?” she asked. A knot was forming in her throat, making it hard to swallow. What if they’d been praying to find each other at the exact same moment?

  “That I’m in love with you. Always have been.”

  She closed her eyes, wondering if it were possible. Could you really love someone you’d never met, someone who only knew you through drawings?

  “I’m not sure that’s possible,” she replied, giving voice to the feelings swirling inside her. The words were hard to form around the knot in her throat. “You don’t even know me.”

  He reached over and put his hand over hers on the bench of the porch swing. “How can you say that? I may not know what your favorite color is or who your prom date was or what your first job was. But with us, none of that mattered. I know what’s in your heart. I know what moves you. I know what occupies your thoughts. I’ve watched you grow up.” He paused. “And you’ve watched me grow up — as an artist and as a man.”

  “So you’re an artist? Not a volunteer or a house cleaner?” She wanted to move the conversation toward safer territory while she processed what he’d just confessed to her and assessed whether she could say the same to him.

  He grinned. “Yes. I volunteer at the community center and help my mom with the cleaning business. But my ‘real job’ is being an artist. I have partial ownership in a studio over in Southport, and I sell pieces to tourists and do commission work. That’s the bread and butter.”

  “And you make money doing that?” Macy thought starving and artist were synonymous.

  He shrugged. “I’ve been blessed by commissions for businesses, cities, things like that.” He grinned at her. “It pays more than you might think.”

  She looked away. “You really did it.”

  “Did what?”

  “Became an artist.” A seagull flew over their heads, making its screeching call.

  “You don’t become an artist. You are an artist. Look at me.”

  She kept her head turned away from him. She didn’t want him to see her tears. She was so far from being what she’d once dreamed of being. He cupped her chin with his hand and turned her head to face his. With his thumb he wiped away her tears, an amused smile on his face. “Why do you think I asked you to help out in class? Because you are an artist.”

  She looked down. “But I just paint signs in a grocery store. It’s not the same.”

  He shook his head and put his hand over his heart. “You and I both know that art is in here.” He patted his chest for emphasis. “It always has been, since you were a little girl.” He stood up. “Hang on! I’ve got something to show you!” He disappeared into Time in a Bottle and returned moments later, clutching what looked like a note card in his hand. He sat beside her again and held out the paper. As she looked down at it, she realized it wasn’t a note card but a photograph. Of her. The one she’d wondered if he had kept. The edges were worn and the paper was wrinkled, but she could still make out the image of her throwing bread to the birds: his inspiration. “Recognize her?” he asked with a sly grin.

  “Barely. She looks familiar. Like someone I once knew.”

  “Well, I know her.”

  She turned to face him as the sun appeared from behind a cloud. She felt the warmth of its rays and watched as it lit up Dockery’s face. This time she put her hand over his, and her heart clenched as he laced his fingers with hers. This was someone she could trust with her future, just the same as she had trusted him with her past. “Oddly enough, I believe you do,” she said.

  He looked into her eyes and smiled. “Allow me to introduce myself. I’m Dockery Caldwell, and I’m the one who drew you all those pictures.”

  She rested her head on his shoulder. “It’s nice to meet you, Dockery. I’ve been waiting to all my life.” Next door she could hear Emma shrieking as Max chased her, growling like a monster; Brenda and Buzz laughing; and from an open window, Wyatt’s music all making one oddly concordant symphony. She closed her eyes and listened to the sounds of a life she loved with all the people she loved best surrounding her. It felt like a miracle, a fairy tale. Dockery squeezed her hand and she squeezed back.

  And then she imagined the next picture he’d draw for her in the guest book: fingers intertwined on a weathered porch swing, a new beginning in the place where it had first begun.

  the story behind

  the sculpture

  The sculpture that is referred to in this novel is based on a real sculpture — one that inspired me every time we drove past it on our many vacations. When I decided to make it part of this story, I had to first find the person who had created it and ask his permission to take some creative license with the story behind the sculpture. He graciousl
y agreed, and as I heard his story about the sculpture, I asked if he would share it here. He graciously agreed to that as well. Below is the story of “Lillah,” the real sculpture at Ocean Isle Beach, North Carolina, that will greet you just as you cross over the bridge, written by the real person who created it, Thom Seaman:

  LILLAH

  In 2003, I was approached by a select committee representing the Ocean Isle Property Owners Association about creating a public sculpture to commemorate their twentieth anniversary.

  It made me think: How do people enjoy the beach? Little children holding buckets or digging in the sand or running in and out of the water would be possibilities. But with a limited budget, casting was out of the question.

  I reflected on my times at the beach with my children or grandchildren, and I remembered one afternoon on Sullivan’s Island outside of Charleston. The sun was setting, we had finished eating, and there was some bread left over. My granddaughter, Lillah, age ten at the time, spotted some seagulls and left us to feed them.

  The image was compelling. This delightfully happy young girl feeding an overeager flock of gulls, throwing the food high into the air lest they fly too close. The evening light was quickly dissipating. I had to take a photograph to capture the moment.

  This was ancient times, pre-digital. I used a 35-millimeter camera. When I took the shot, there was no time delay. I had pre-focused. She was leaving the ground when she let go her prize, her feet completely off the sand. And I got it!! Lillah, suspended in air for that brief second, captured forever.

  That photograph became the basis for the sculpture “Lillah.”