A Beach Wish

by Shelley Noble

  She squeezed his arm. “I’m so glad you came.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Now, let’s get out of here. Dulcie the goat cometh.”

  They made it to the other side of the gate just as Dulcie butted the pickets.

  “No wonder they have to make repairs,” Chris said, and stuck his tongue out at Dulcie. She lifted her head and let out a grating noise.

  “Love at first sight. I knew it.”

  They walked arm in arm down the drive, the puddles left by the rain already receding into the porous ground.

  “What was all that about doing stuff quickly and tears in the wind?” Zoe asked.

  “Shakespeare. Butchered, but the bard nonetheless. Fancy that old dude knowing the Scottish play.”

  “Which play is that?”

  “Didn’t you go to school?”

  “Business.”

  “Oh, right. It’s the play whose name you can’t say.”

  “Oh,” Zoe said, remembering. “Mac—”

  “Jeez, don’t say it!”

  “Sorry.” They’d reached the street and Chris had managed to take her mind off the meeting they’d just had and what they’d learned. There would be time to hear every tidbit. But for now, she could use the time to get used to her new family.

  “So what’s on your agenda?” Zoe asked once they’d been seated in a booth at Kelly’s.

  Chris looked over the edge of the oversized menu. “Audition? Give up my life and move to Chicago where I’ll freeze my tail off while waiting for Timothy to build apartment complexes that I’ll never be able to afford to live in?”

  They ordered New Hampshire burgers and two Cokes.

  “Seems kinda ‘rock and a hard place’ to me. A long-distance relationship, maybe?”

  Chris shrugged.

  “Chris?”

  “It’s that age-old question. The thea-tah or the relationship. Ne’er the twain, etcetera.”

  Zoe blew out air. “Sounds pretty bad.”

  “I’m leaning toward the theater. That can’t be good.”

  “Not for happily ever after?”

  “Not sure that was ever in the cards.”

  “Does Timothy know?”

  “Frankly, I’m not sure he cares.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  Chris huffed out a sigh. “The sad part is I’m not sure I do either.”

  “Are you in a hurry to get back?”

  Chris leaned back while the waitress deposited plates and glasses on the table.

  “Only if my agent calls. Now eat.”

  Eve didn’t bother to knock but walked right into her grandmother’s house. She’d tried to talk herself into slowing down, taking time to get control of her anger and sense of betrayal. Just to stop by the inn and change out of her rain-soaked clothes.

  It was a losing battle. There had been letters. Many of them, according to her mother’s letter to Zoe.

  Why had she never seen any of them? If Floret and Henry only knew about one letter, what had happened to the others? They wouldn’t lie. Her grandmother would. She’d do just about anything to protect what was hers, including her family.

  Had she shown them to her father? Surely he would have said something, if only in a drug-hazed, whining stupor. He denied knowing about them.

  Hannah had to have intercepted them. It was the only word for it. Which meant chances were, she still had them.

  If Eve was feeling magnanimous, she would think that maybe Hannah had been saving them for her until she was older and had just forgotten. Yeah, what fool who knew Hannah would believe that? But Hannah might have kept them for the day she might need them. To use against someone else. Eve? Her father?

  Well, that day had come. Just not in the way Hannah had expected.

  Eve marched across the parlor, defiantly leaving wet footprints on the expensive carpet, and went straight to her grandmother’s desk.

  Now she hesitated. Searching someone else’s desk was something her grandmother might do. But not Eve. No. She’d wait and—

  The door to the kitchen creaked open and Hannah came through carrying a mug of tea with the string of the tea bag hanging over the side.

  With all the money she’d made in her life, Hannah Gordon was still just a working-class girl from the poor side of town. And she had made them all pay.

  “Good Lord, girl, you nearly scared me to death. What is it now? Your father was over last night. Got me out of bed to carry on about Melanie and that boy from the commune.”

  “Melody, Hannah. Her name is Melody.”

  “You should do something about that situation before it’s too late. Or you’ll find yourself taking care of her little mistake.”

  “Like you took care of Jenny Bascombe’s?”

  “Show some respect. You were everything to me.”

  “I’ve been hearing that a lot lately. But I have to wonder. Was I really? Or was I just a pawn in your stupid power struggle with Henry and Floret?”

  The mug Hannah had been holding crashed to the floor. Hot tea splashed onto Eve’s ankles.

  They stared at each other while Eve tried not to rub off the burning liquid on her pants leg.

  Then Hannah bent down, picked up the pieces of pottery and dropped them in the wastepaper basket by her desk, leaving the spilled tea pooling on the hardwood floor.

  She sat behind her desk and began scrolling through a page on her computer screen like nothing had happened, probably waiting for Eve to give up and slink away. She had many times before, mainly when she’d asked about her mother.

  Not this time. Eve reached in her pocket for the envelope and letter that was beginning to show signs of wear. She held it up, ignoring the burning tingling of her skin where the tea had splashed.

  Hannah didn’t look up.

  Eve stuck it under her nose.

  “And what is this?” Hannah said dismissively, uninterested.

  Eve pulled the letter out of Hannah’s reach.

  “It’s from my mother to Zoe. It was waiting for her at Wind Chime House.”

  Her grandmother recoiled. But Eve knew it was just in preparation for a strike.

  “Let me see it.”

  Eve shook her head. “I don’t trust you. But listen to this.” She read the part about Jenny’s letters to Eve. “Year after year she wrote me, but she never heard back. Because I never got those letters. Not one. You never read me a letter from my mother when I was too young to read them myself. Never handed me an envelope addressed to Eve Gordon. What did you do with them, Hannah? Run to the mailbox every day to make sure you were always the first one to see the mail? Did you throw them in the trash? Burn them in the Franklin stove? Did you show them to my father? Or did you open them and read them yourself, gloating over your cleverness at keeping us apart?”

  Hannah heaved a sigh. “They’re in the drawer of the credenza,” she said in the same way she might say, “The napkins are in the cupboard.”

  Eve stared. In the drawer, all these years? So close. She whirled around, practically lunged at the old curved credenza against the wall.

  She yanked open the first drawer she reached. Rummaged through it with spasmodic fingers.

  “The middle one in the back corner.”

  Eve stumbled over to the middle drawer. It was locked.

  “Give me the key.”

  Her grandmother looked out the window.

  “Give it to me or I swear I’ll take an axe to it.”

  “Oh, Eve, don’t be so dramatic.” Hannah reached bony fingers inside her blouse and pulled out a key on a chain.

  “You wear it around your neck? It’s been almost fifty years.”

  “Just since that girl came to town.” Hannah carefully unclasped the chain and let the key slide down into her palm.

  Eve tried to breathe. She was so close to going over the edge, she would gladly do her grandmother bodily harm.

  Hannah held out her hand, fingers open. The key sat right in the middle of her palm, looking like a relic
from a fantasy tale.

  Eve reached out her own hand, slowly, so that she wouldn’t react if Hannah suddenly snatched hers out of reach. She didn’t breathe until the key was between her fingers and she’d turned back to the credenza drawer.

  It was one of those old, thick brass keys, the keyhole big and loose-fitting. Even so, it took several tries before she felt the latch give and she pulled the drawer open with both hands.

  She found them almost immediately. A stack of envelopes, tied up with a lavender ribbon. It seemed like the final slap. A mean-spirited, vindictive joke. Lavender’s blue, dilly dilly . . .

  She pulled the ribbon off, turned them over. The first envelope hadn’t been opened. Nor the second or the third. Just as tightly sealed as the day they’d been sent.

  She looked up. “You never read them?”

  Hannah shrugged.

  “Why? What if she wanted to come back? What if she needed us?”

  “She gave up that right when she left.”

  “What is wrong with you? People break up all the time. Break up and sometimes get back together. Live happily ever after. You made sure that wouldn’t happen, didn’t you?”

  “She broke my son’s heart. The only son I have left. She didn’t deserve a second chance.”

  Eve clapped her hand over her mouth. She didn’t know if she was going to be sick, or yell a string of obscenities at the woman who had raised her. Raised and loved. But at what cost to them all?

  Hannah’s expression didn’t change, but she seemed to have grown smaller during the last few seconds, as if the holes left inside her by so much loss, by such unswerving bitterness, were finally no longer able to support themselves, had imploded, sucking the life out of her very soul.

  Eve cared about souls. She nurtured them. But she couldn’t care about Hannah’s right now. Right now, she only wanted to get home and read the letters she’d been waiting for for her entire life.

  Noelle was at the reception desk when Zoe and Chris returned to the hotel.

  “So much for sneaking past,” Chris said as he waved and nodded.

  Noelle came out from behind the desk. “Where is Mom?”

  “She had something to do,” Zoe said. “She should be back soon.”

  “What’s going on? Why is everyone being so secretive?”

  “We aren’t,” Chris said. “We’re going to the beach. Do we need a special card or anything?”

  Noelle shook her head. “Just your room key. Take the elevator down to G. It will let you off on the level below here and right on the path, but you’ll need your key card to get back in.”

  “Gotcha,” Chris said, and steered Zoe toward the elevator.

  Twenty minutes later they had requisitioned two chaise lounges, ordered nonalcoholic Morning Mai Tais—there were two mini bottles of organic vodka rolled up in Chris’s towel—and were lying side by side, eyes protected by designer sunglasses, their faces slathered in sunblock provided by a cute cabana boy.

  “Now this is the life,” Chris said.

  “Hmmm,” said Zoe.

  “Stop it.”

  “What?”

  “Stop thinking. It’s keeping me awake.”

  “I can’t help it. Everything is just so . . . Maybe we should check to see if Eve is back.”

  “No.”

  “But she’s my sister.” She hadn’t quite gotten used to saying the words yet.

  “And my half sister,” said Chris. “She’s made it for forty-something years without you organizing her life. I think she can manage for another couple of hours.”

  “I feel responsible.”

  “Look. Eve will do whatever she is doing and when she gets back and is ready for company, we’ll be all relaxed and ready to lend our shoulders. Trust me.”

  “I hate it when you say trust me—I usually get in trouble.”

  “Not today, so come on. I declare this afternoon a Moratorium on Moroseness. You’re going to get some sun while I’m checking my e-mails and pretending to look for work.”

  “I’ll try.”

  “Zoe, you’re still here!”

  Zoe slid her sunglasses to the tip of her nose. Karen, Elaine, and Brandy stood in a row at the end of her chaise. She sat up. “Hey, guys. I’m here. I didn’t know if you were.”

  “We’re leaving this afternoon, but we wanted to say good-bye,” said Elaine, eyeing Chris, who had taken off his sunglasses.

  “Well, it was wonderful meeting you all.”

  “Looks like you’re having a great time,” Elaine said.

  “I . . . Oh, this is my brother Chris.” She introduced the three women.

  “You should give us your e-mail,” Karen said. “We loved it here and are planning to come back for our next girls’ weekend. Maybe we can meet up.” She fished in an oversized orange-striped beach bag and pulled out a crumpled notebook with a pen attached by a ribbon to the wire spiral.

  Zoe quickly wrote down her e-mail addy. “Have a safe trip,” she said.

  “Thanks, enjoy your stay.”

  “Who were they?” Chris asked as the three women wove their way up the beach. They’d definitely been partaking of a hidden stash of alcohol that afternoon.

  “Some women I met. We had happy hour together at the bar downstairs. It was fun.” She frowned.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing. I just realized it was the first time in a long time I’ve actually sat at a bar just to have fun.”

  “Something you should do more often. I’m an expert.”

  Something about his statement made Zoe a little sad. Of her three brothers, she was closest to Chris. He was really the only one she’d lived with for any length of time and they’d always been simpatico. She wished he would find success and happiness. Hell, she wished the same for herself.

  She slipped her sunglasses back on. There would be time for success and happiness when all this was sorted out.

  Eve awoke with a start. Blinked against the lamplight. And bolted upright. She had fallen asleep. She’d come to Mike’s to read the letters in peace.

  She took in the bottle of wine, half empty, the letters spread out on the coffee table before her. Mike had made it himself from an old fallen tree.

  A door opened. The sound of footsteps across the oak floor.

  Eve hurriedly checked the time on the cable box. It was almost ten o’clock. Mike must be home. Crap, what if he wasn’t alone?

  She didn’t ordinarily take advantage of their open relationship. But she’d been so upset, she hadn’t even thought to ask him if she could use his house. Hadn’t even told her daughters where she was. She hadn’t meant to stay.

  She made a grab for the letters as if she could escape unseen. Unembarrassed.

  Impossible.

  She bolted to her feet and her knees buckled, stiff from the couch and the fetal position she’d been lying in, and quickly ran her fingers through tangled hair. She turned to face the door.

  Just explain and slink away. Hopefully he wouldn’t be with anyone she knew. And she was confident that he would never cross the line with one of their guests.

  The footsteps continued past the living room. To the kitchen? The bedroom.

  Eve held still. No creak on the stairs. The stairs always creaked.

  She glanced toward the door and the hall. No way could she make it out of the house without being seen.

  “Mike,” she called. “Sorry. It’s me. Eve. I just had to borrow your living room for a bit. I’m leaving. Sorry.” Damn, she sounded like a blithering idiot. Like someone who had no business being where she was.

  A shadow appeared in the doorway. Followed by Mike and a beer.

  “Who else would it be?” He came into the room. “No one else would leave all the lights on.”

  “Are you alone?”

  He chuckled. God, she loved that about him. It was a big rumbly sound that complemented his personality and his build.

  “Just me and this microbabe.” He held up a bottle fr
om a local brewery.

  Eve sank back onto the couch. “Thank God. I fell asleep. And I was afraid I might have interrupted—”

  “It’s Sunday night. Restock night. Order night. Ain’t-got-time-for-love night.”

  “I forgot.”

  “I can see you’ve had other things on your mind,” he said, taking in the littered table and the open wine bottle. His gaze moved up to her face and went all soft, something else she liked about him. He was jovial, but not clueless.

  She didn’t need a mirror to know what she looked like. She could barely open her eyes, swollen and raw from crying.

  He glanced at the table. “Taking up scrapbooking?”

  Eve shook her head. Held out her hand.

  He came over to sit beside her. He ignored the letters, though anybody else would have at least been tempted to take a peek. They covered the surface of the coffee table. Maybe thirty in all. She’d read each one. Then read them again.

  “From my mother,” she said.

  “Wow.”

  Still, he didn’t move to touch them.

  “She wrote to me for my whole life.”

  “I take it you just got them tonight?”

  “This afternoon.”

  “Zoe bring them?”

  She shook her head. She couldn’t make herself say the truth. Her grandmother had confiscated each one as it had arrived, never bothering to read them, but keeping them hidden from Eve for her entire life.

  She sorted through the envelopes, found one of the square ones. Handed it to him. Watched as he opened it.

  “‘Happy first birthday,’” he read aloud.

  The card had pink balloons on the front. “Open it.”

  She watched as he read the printed greeting then squinted as he reached the lines her mother had written in a neat, sloping script.

  He gently slid the card back into the envelope, set it on the table, then leaned back and put his arm around her shoulders.

  She leaned into him. She didn’t need to hear his words; she didn’t have to tell him anything. They just were. As if they knew each other so well, they could read each other by osmosis.

  Of course it wasn’t true. That was just her commune upbringing talking. But they’d known each other most of their lives, and they knew each other pretty well.