Dune Drive

by Mariah Stewart

  Chrissie stretched one leg as close to the water as she could and with her big toe traced her name onto the surface, the way she had when she was a child. The water was cold, true spring being just around the corner, and the chill ran up her leg, but it made her feel alive. Her brother, Luke, once told her that writing your name on the Chesapeake meant you were part of it, would always be part of it. She wondered where Luke was now, and if writing his name on the bay had brought him back from time to time.

  When their parents, Stephen and Dorothy, divorced, Luke went with their father, and one-year-old Chrissie stayed with their mother. As far as Chrissie knew, neither father nor brother had ever looked back. It was as if the earth had opened up and swallowed Stephen and Luke Jenkins body and soul, as far as she was concerned. Chrissie wouldn’t recognize either of them if they stood in front of her. Her father had been from the mainland and had no ties to the island except her mother. Once that bond had been broken and her mother remarried and moved to Pennsylvania, Chrissie figured her father had no reason to return. If her mother had heard from either of them, she’d never told Chrissie, and the few times Chrissie’d asked, her questions were ignored.

  The last time Chrissie had asked, her mother had snapped, “That’s the agreement we made, no contact, and I’m sticking by it. So far, he has, too. What difference could it make now? He’s never been part of your life. He never wanted to be. Leave it alone, Chrissie. Don’t ask me again.”

  To Chrissie, it was unforgivable on the part of both her parents—her mother for not telling her why her father left, and her father for never coming back. Once she’d started examining her life in earnest a year ago, it hadn’t been difficult for her to figure out that being abandoned by her father had contributed to the fact that her self-esteem had been so low she’d permitted herself to be abused. That her mother would never tell her why had only added to her poor self-image: as a child, she’d assumed he’d left because she was a bad girl. What other reason could there have been? Now, as an adult, she realized there’d had to be something other than that, that while children see everything that happens through their eyes as it relates to them, the constant arguing between her parents had probably been about something else. Try as she might, though, her mother would never tell her what that something had been.

  She still thought of her father with a mixture of anger and longing. Had he ever remarried? Was he still alive? And Luke . . . ? She had no idea if he was dead or alive, either.

  It would have been nice to have had a big brother growing up, though. Chrissie had no memory of him, and that made her sad. She’d been barely a year old when Stephen had picked up the then-four-year-old Luke and left their home in Salisbury, Maryland. Over the years, Chrissie had searched for Luke on social media, but she’d never found a trace of him. No Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter accounts that she could find, and nothing for Stephen, either. It was bizarre, she thought, that neither father nor son had left a footprint anywhere. She hadn’t been aware that anyone could fly so far under the radar these days.

  She stood and brushed off the back of her jeans, pulled down the sleeves of her sweatshirt, and picked up her sneakers. She retied the ribbon that held back her dark blond hair, and with one look over her shoulder at the setting sun, she walked the length of the pier and hopped onto the cool grass. Less than seven months ago, the point had been lit up like a thousand Christmas trees, a tent set up down near the road, and chairs had lined the lawn area for Lis’s wedding. There’d been fairy lights in the trees and happy chatter, a string quartet, and later, in the tent, a band. Now there was only a light breeze shushing through the pines and the occasional caw of a gull to break the silence.

  She passed the old cottage that Lis and her new husband, Alec Jansen, had renovated, the house where Ruby and her husband—known to all as Ruby’s Harold—had raised their family. Chrissie’s grandmother, Mary Elizabeth, had been one of their daughters, as had Lis and Owen’s grandmother, Sarah. Chrissie remembered playing there with Lis when they were little girls. The cottage had been uninhabited then, Ruby and Harold having moved to the general store when they took it over after Ruby’s mother passed away.

  Sometimes Lis and Chrissie had pretended to be Mary Elizabeth and Sarah, though they’d never ventured upstairs to the second-floor loft, where the Carter girls had had their dormitory-style bedroom. There were rumors among older folks on the island that the ghosts of the Carter children who’d died young—Gloria, at age eight, and the stillborn son they’d named John—had never left the only home they’d known and came out at dark to reclaim their space. Chrissie wondered if Lis and Alec had made their acquaintance yet.

  Chrissie skirted around the marsh where red-winged blackbirds guarded their territory on swaying dried fronds of last summer’s cattails. She wrinkled her nose at the first faint whiff of decaying organic matter—crabs, seagrass, a fish dropped by a gull and forgotten—and turned her face to the bay for a deep inhalation of salt air. As the days grew warmer, she knew the scent would intensify.

  Across the sound, the pleasure boats had been put to bed in the marina, the stragglers easing into their berths before the sun set and darkness settled over the bay, but up and down the uneven coastline, fishing boats had been moored at private docks for hours. Chrissie knew they’d be leaving before dawn to get a jump on another workday.

  She’d watched that same scene for as long as she could remember, and it had never varied—unlike Cannonball Island, which showed signs of change, something Chrissie thought she’d never see, but it was obvious that a new day was coming. Houses that had been boarded up during her last visit were showing signs of life. Owen’s new wife, Cass, was an architect whose father had bought up most of those abandoned places, and Cass was redesigning them for modern living. Chrissie and Cass had discussed it several times, and Chrissie’d been fascinated by the fact that almost all the locals had been on board with the idea.

  Ruby’d been 100 percent behind the project, Cass had confided, so pretty much everyone else on the island had followed suit.

  Chrissie climbed the worn wooden steps leading to the wide front porch of the Cannonball Island General Store and pushed open the decrepit door. Inside, an ancient Coca-Cola sign hung over the door, and an old metal bait cooler stood off to one side. There were rows of wooden shelves that supplied the islanders with paper and cleaning products, canned soups and meats, cellophane bags of noodles, bottles of soda and juices, jars of condiments—everything the locals needed on a daily basis, it seemed, except meats and fresh produce. One small freezer held ice cream and some frozen vegetables, and just yesterday, she and Ruby had talked about maybe bringing in some seasonal local produce.

  The wide-planked wood floor showed the wear of more than two hundred years where countless feet had left their mark, and on the far side of the room stood a round oak table with claw-and-ball feet that dated from the 1870s. Placed next to a window on the sunny side of the building, it was Ruby’s favorite place to sit and read, drink a cup of tea, or pass time with a friend. It was there that Chrissie found her, the day’s newspaper open in front of her and an empty mug at her elbow, her stark white hair pulled back into a tight, neat bun that sat low at the nape of her neck. As usual, Ruby had dressed in one of her favorite outfits, a skirt the color of cotton candy that reached her midcalf and a white blouse with a round collar, a look that never failed to remind Chrissie of her mother’s high school yearbook photo. On her feet she wore white tennis sneakers. Chrissie couldn’t remember her ever wearing any other footwear.

  Ruby looked up when the door opened, and asked, “You have a good walk?”

  “I did.” Chrissie stepped back onto the porch, wiped sand from the soles of her feet, and slipped into a pair of flip-flops she’d taken to leaving by the door. She came back inside and asked, “Are you hungry? Want me to start dinner?”

  She walked to the table and checked the contents of Ruby’s mug. Finding it empty, she asked, “Want another cup of tea?”
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  “Tea might be nice.” Ruby handed her the empty mug. “Dinner be a little late, maybe. Might be we have company.”

  “Oh? Who’s coming?” Curious, Chrissie thought. Except for Lis and Alec, or Owen and Cass, Ruby hadn’t had dinner guests since Chrissie had come to stay.

  “Might be my friend Grace stop by ’fore long.” Ruby turned the page of the newspaper. “Might’a told her there could be oysters for dinner tonight.”

  “You know I picked some up in town this morning.” Chrissie smiled. She liked Grace Sinclair, a kind and thoughtful woman whose family owned the famous Inn at Sinclair’s Point in St. Dennis, just a mile over the bridge. “How would you like them done up?”

  “Whatever moves you be fine with me. You be clever that way.” Ruby’s attention had turned to an article in the paper, thereby effectively dismissing her great-granddaughter.

  Chrissie picked up the cup and took it into the kitchen, where she prepared another cup of hot water for Ruby. She carried it into the store along with a fresh tea bag. God forbid anyone but Ruby should dunk her tea bag in her mug—Chrissie’d made that mistake many years ago and hadn’t repeated the infraction since.

  “Here you go, Gigi.” Chrissie set the mug in the middle of the table and handed the tea bag to Ruby. “What time would you like dinner to be ready?”

  “By and by,” Ruby replied.

  Chrissie looked at the clock that hung over the counter where the old cash register stood on the other side of the store. It was almost seven.

  “What time might Grace be stopping over?”

  Ruby glanced at the door as if waiting seconds before it opened. A spry, tiny, birdlike woman with white hair caught up in a bun atop her head and wearing a light green polo shirt and a short skirt patterned with tropical leaves entered, waving and smiling as if she were Ruby’s best friend. Which, in fact, she was.

  “Am I late?” Grace Sinclair closed the door behind her.

  “Right on time,” Ruby told her. “Chrissie be just about to start dinner. Come in and set for a few.”

  “Chrissie, dear, you’re starting to get some color in your face. Before long, you’ll be sporting a tan.” Grace hustled across the store and joined Ruby at the table.

  “I’ve been spending some time outside,” Chrissie said. “Mostly helping Gigi get the garden ready for planting in another month or so.”

  “I meant to say how nice it looks out there,” Grace said as she pulled up a chair and sat. “Your beds along the front porch look good, and the garden out back looks so nice and tidy.”

  “That be Chrissie’s doing. I be too old for all that bending and weeding and tilling. Chrissie got a nice feel for the earth. She’ll do fine.” Ruby nodded. “We been planning a nice herb garden.”

  “I should have the grounds crew at the inn do the same. The chef and his staff use a ton of herbs in the kitchen, and it would be nice to have freshly picked. Oh, we do buy from the Madison farm—my daughter does most of the kitchen gardening over there, Clay’s so busy with the brewery—but there’s nothing like picking your own. I’ll have to look into that.” Grace patted Ruby on the hands. “Now, let’s catch up since the last time I saw you . . .”

  “I’m going to go on and get dinner started.” Chrissie headed for Ruby’s private living quarters in the back half of the store’s first floor.

  The kitchen, sitting room, bedroom, and bath were all new since Chrissie’s last visit. Alec had reclaimed unused storage areas and fashioned the space into new rooms for Ruby, who, everyone agreed, should not have been hiking up to the second floor every night to her bedroom. Her new apartment was perfectly suited to her needs, and she’d been more than happy to move into it.

  Chrissie loved working in the kitchen, and she’d come to look forward to preparing meals for herself and Ruby, and occasionally Lis and Owen and their spouses. Within a few miles, there were organic farms where vegetables were field-grown in the summer and grown in greenhouses in the winter. There were farms where chicken and organic eggs could be purchased inexpensively, and of course there was the bounty from the bay—rockfish and oysters and blue claw crabs in their season. Chrissie enjoyed shopping for herself and Ruby in the mornings, then using her purchases to re-create dishes she’d learned from Rob or dream up new ones of her own.

  When she first arrived on the island, she’d started out baking on Sundays and Wednesdays, so Ruby could sell fresh baked goods to the store’s customers. It was her way of paying back Ruby’s kind offer of an indefinite home and making a contribution. Early mornings, when the watermen crowded in for their coffee and snacks and lunch provisions, she’d set out a tray of whatever she’d baked, and most days by 7 a.m., the tray would be empty. At the request of their customers, she was now baking almost every night of the week: brownies—chocolate and blondies—muffins, scones, cupcakes, cookies, and various kinds of cakes that she sliced into large wedges and wrapped in cellophane. They all sold out by the time the watermen left for their boats. Ruby’d seemed more pleased by Chrissie’s initiative than by the unexpected income.

  During the days, Chrissie worked in the store with Ruby, checking invoices when deliveries were made, stocking the shelves, helping customers carry their purchases to their cars—whatever needed to be done. She was infinitely grateful to Ruby for giving her time to heal from her five-year ordeal with Doug, and though Ruby had never asked, it was as if she’d known what Chrissie’d gone through.

  Of course Ruby had known. Chrissie heard it in her voice when she’d called to say she was coming back for Lis’s wedding, and she’d seen it in her eyes when she’d stepped out of her car when she arrived on the island in the wee hours of the morning after having driven since ten the night before. Chrissie’d eased into the parking lot at the store very slowly, her headlights off, intending to stay in her car until the morning rather than awaken and very possibly frighten Ruby at such an hour.

  Chrissie should have known better.

  The light over the porch was lit, and a figure sat in one of the rocking chairs. Chrissie hadn’t had to think twice about who it was.

  “You be done with him and all his nonsense” were the first words Ruby’d said when Chrissie came up the steps.

  “I am done, Gigi.” She’d wanted to ask Ruby how much she knew, but she didn’t have the strength. That would be a conversation for another time. Growing up, she’d heard the stories about Ruby’s “eye.” For years she hadn’t wanted to ask, fearing it might be considered bad manners to ask someone if they had psychic abilities, where they’d come from, and how did one manage such a thing, if in fact it could be managed. And since family legend held that Mary Louise, Ruby’s mother, had possessed such a gift, was it hereditary?

  Ruby’d opened her arms and, in an uncommon show of affection, held Chrissie while she cried and soothed her with whispers. “You be home now, Chrissie. No harm be coming to you again. Not while there be life in me.”

  These days, Chrissie woke early so Ruby didn’t have to, put the coffee on in the store, and took care of business until Ruby made her way from her apartment to the counter, and did whatever she could think of to make Ruby’s life easier. In return, Ruby gave her a home and enough time off during the day for Chrissie to wander the island and reacquaint herself with the place her ancestors had helped settle. The homes of her Blake and Singer relatives were among those that had been sold to Cass’s father’s construction company for renovating, and the small private family graveyards commonly found next to the old homes still held the remains of many of Chrissie’s kin. She walked among the gravestones, reading the names of those who were long gone, and even helped Cass tend the plots that had been overgrown and forgotten. Her life on the island was simple, and in its own way, productive, but most of all, it was healing. The bruises on her body had disappeared months ago, but the bruises to her psyche had taken longer to heal.

  She had motivational tapes and books about finding oneself and one’s best life. She listened and she read, and o
ver the period of months since she arrived on the island the previous fall, she’d grown stronger. Why it had taken her a full five years to find herself she still wasn’t certain. She was pretty sure she’d loved Doug back when they first started out, but she was hard-pressed to remember what it felt like.

  For Chrissie, part of the healing process involved cooking. That she could cook every day in a beautiful new kitchen made her happy. She had time to experiment and time to re-create dishes she’d watched Rob make at the restaurant, and to create dishes of her own with all the wonderful ingredients that were available to her. Sometimes when she’d made something especially delicious, she’d send a photo to Rob, no text, just the photo. Though she’d tossed her old phone the day she left so Doug couldn’t trace her whereabouts, she knew that even without recognizing her new phone number, Rob would know instinctively whom the texts were from. His return message would always be something simple, like Wow! or So proud! or Go, you! Always with the exclamation, never a name.

  Oysters were on the menu for Ruby and Grace, and Chrissie was happy that something had moved her to buy a few extra that morning.

  Maybe I inherited the eye from Gigi, she mused as she took the bowl of shellfish from the refrigerator.

  Since arriving on the island, she’d experimented with any number of ways to prepare the oysters and crabs that were so bountiful. Tonight, she’d sauté the oysters in butter, some herbs, and white wine. She’d serve them over buttered toast next to fresh bright green asparagus spears she’d bought that morning, and some roasted cherry tomatoes with garlic and onion. She’d stopped at a nearby farm that grew greens all winter long in a greenhouse, and she’d picked up avocados and grapefruits at the market, and from those ingredients she’d make a salad. There were red onions in the pantry and leftover vinaigrette in the fridge.