A Beach Wish

by Shelley Noble

  A crowd was gathered on the sidewalk. There were so many people that they spilled into the street, and as more people joined them, Zoe got a terrible sinking feeling. They were surrounding the doorway to Kelly’s Diner.

  Please let it be a false fire alarm, a patron with chest pains. Anything but . . .

  She crossed the street and saw the professor standing on the fringes of the group.

  Zoe hurried toward him. “What happened?”

  “Morning, Zoe. The health department just closed down Kelly’s.”

  “Bullshit,” said an old guy in a T-shirt with a Dinkins’s Hardware logo stretched over his belly. “I’ve been eating there for twenty years and never had a bout of indigestion.”

  “Damn straight,” agreed a man next to him.

  A roar went up ahead of them.

  Zoe pushed to the front of the crowd.

  Kelly stood at the door of the diner arguing with two men, both of whom were dressed in khaki slacks, ties, and short-sleeve shirts. Summer official wear.

  “You can’t do this!” Jim Kelly yelled. “I know my rights. You can’t just walk into a place and close it down. You didn’t even identify yourselves.”

  The two men ignored his protestations while one of them posted a notice on the window and the other put a lockbox on the door.

  “I need to get back in there, dammit. The grill is still on. You wanna burn down the town?”

  A woman, his wife, Zoe guessed, clung to his arm, trying to restrain him. “Stop, Jim, you can’t talk sense into them. You know who’s behind this.”

  Zoe was pretty sure she did, too. Hadn’t David said Hannah had been threatening the Kellys because they refused to sell her the right-of-way to Wind Chime House? And it was coming to a head now, because Zoe had brought her mother’s ashes and Floret and Henry had given her Jenny’s letter.

  All this over a dead woman’s wishes. She’d heard what Henry had called her. Pandora. Well, maybe she was, and she may not know how to get things back in the box, but she had to try.

  “You haven’t heard the last from me,” Jim yelled as the two men pushed their way through the crowd that was getting louder and angrier.

  “A damn shame,” the professor said. “But I for one am not going to take this lying down. Jim Kelly makes the best corned beef for miles around.”

  “Where are we supposed to eat?”

  “How long is this going to last?”

  “You can’t lock him out of his own establishment.”

  The two men looked straight ahead as if they were alone and kept walking across the street to a white Chevy with county health department imprinted on the door.

  “We know who put you up to this!” yelled the man in the hardware T-shirt.

  “Yeah!” cried several other people.

  “And we’ve had enough.”

  “Yeah!” commented a larger group of voices.

  The two men got in their car and drove away.

  Kelly stood at his front door, his wife clinging to him. The jovial, friendly man who’d greeted Zoe her first day in town was slumped forward. A beaten, dejected man.

  David Merrick appeared out of the crowd and took Jim Kelly’s elbow.

  “Come on, Jim. Floret and Henry will meet you back at your house.”

  Jim tried to pull away. “It’s all we got. This and the cottage. What will we do? She won’t be satisfied until she’s ruined us.”

  His wife burst into tears.

  Zoe hurried over to David. “It’s my fault,” she said. “But I don’t know how to fix it.”

  “You don’t have to,” David said. “It’s time this bullshit came to an end.” He started to lead the Kellys away.

  “Wait, what are you going to do?”

  David didn’t answer. The crowd had broken into pockets and now they began to disperse, keeping a wide berth of one man who stood off to the side.

  Lee Gordon. Their eyes met and he turned away; he was leaving. But not before she had her say.

  Gripping the tote close to her side, she dodged her way between the departing patrons and stepped in front of him, barring his way.

  He stepped to the side; she stepped with him. He moved the other way; she did, too. It was like a bizarre dance, two adversaries, father and daughter, strangers.

  Finally, he stopped. But he looked over her head, gazing down the street as if she wasn’t there.

  “I know what you and your mother are doing. And I know why. I don’t care for myself. But you’re wrecking your family and these good people for no reason. Stop it. I’m leaving. You can go back to your hate and your greed and all the unhappiness you people spread wherever you go. I’d like to say it was nice meeting my father. But it wasn’t. Go make yourself miserable. I don’t care. But leave the Kellys and Floret and Henry alone.”

  She spun around and hurried down the street. Was he watching her? Or had he, too, turned away?

  She didn’t care. She never wanted to see him again. She didn’t care. She wouldn’t care. She had one thing to do and then she would go. Pack up her suitcase and leave the inn before anyone knew.

  She tripped up the curb, grabbed the tote as it slipped from her arm. Damn, she couldn’t. She didn’t have a car. She’d rent one. They must have a car rental in a resort town this size. She’d call Chris and give him a heads-up not to return.

  But what about Noelle?

  Zoe would call them. She’d leave, have Chris drive Noelle back, and . . . what? Face Eve and everyone else by himself? And what about Eve? Could Zoe really walk—run—away from the sister she’d found only a few days ago?

  “Shit,” she said under her breath.

  She reached the drive to Wind Chime and slowed down to make sure David and the Kellys had already reached the house.

  She crossed to the verge and, keeping close to the seclusion of the trees, started down the drive—saw Floret and Henry hurrying toward her, going to the Kellys.

  She stepped into the shadows of a tree, held still, hoping they wouldn’t see her. Hoping that Dulcie had stayed back at the house. Hoping until her chest ached—probably a heart attack, the kind you got when your heart was breaking, the pieces disintegrating into shards of disappointment.

  Once they’d gone into the house, she crossed the drive and cut through the woods to the glen.

  The glen was dark today, as if the trees had closed over themselves, intentionally blocking out the sun. Not the faintest breeze disturbed their branches. Not one faint tinkle of a wind chime. They weren’t singing today. Not for her or Jenny Bascombe. The air in the glen was dead. As dead as the ashes in that stupid green jar. Even the window of blue sea felt like a lie. A fakery. An illusion.

  Fine. She’d do this and leave. She never wanted to hear another wind chime as long as she lived.

  She lifted the urn out of the tote, let the bag drop to the ground. The urn felt cool in her hands. Cool and dead. She gulped back the sob that had found its way up her throat.

  “I’m doing this because you asked me to. I hope you’re happy. The boys hate me. Errol has disowned me and threatened to send me to jail. The feud that started with you is tearing this town apart, all because you wanted to come back. So you’re here. Hope you enjoy your life in eternity.” She twisted the top to the urn. It didn’t budge.

  “What were you thinking? That I would find my long-lost family and we’d all live happily ever after? Did you even think about me? Or the others?

  “I didn’t gain a family. I’m losing both. I bet you didn’t think about that, did you.” Damn, she couldn’t get the top off.

  “Did you?” she demanded. “Grrr.” She dug her fingernail along the rim and broke the seal. Yanked off the top of the urn.

  Dropped the top on the ground. She wouldn’t be saying any inspiring words at this ceremony, words she’d meant to write to send her mother off. No song. No friends. No family, not even an old lover.

  “This is what you wanted. This is what you get. Alone with the ashes of strangers. I�
��ve wrecked any chance of my other family coming together, jeopardized Henry and Floret’s future because of you. Did you even think about them when you left these instructions?”

  The tears dropped off her chin; her nose was running. She ran her bare arm across her face and then her shirt. It seemed a fitting end. “You left Lee and Eve and lived a lie your whole life. Then sprang the truth on your unsuspecting family after you were gone. Did you ever wonder how we would feel?”

  She turned the urn over. Nothing happened. She shook it and stared incredulously. The ashes weren’t free. They couldn’t be tossed into the wind that wasn’t there. She couldn’t even dump them on the ground. They were sealed in a plastic bag.

  “Did you even care? If you loved Eve so much, why didn’t you tell us about her? Why didn’t you tell her about us? She could have been a part of our family all this time.” Her voice cracked; her throat was on fire and she realized she was screaming at someone who wasn’t even there.

  “Why, Mom?” She scrabbled at the plastic, dug her fingernails into it. The plastic stretched but refused to break. “Why?”

  Why couldn’t she get the damn thing open? It was the most ludicrous thing in the world. She was here, she was ready to let go, and she couldn’t get the damn thing open. To hell with it. She raised the urn over her head.

  It was snatched from her hands.

  “Not in anger.”

  The voice was low, gravelly, not Henry’s.

  Not Henry, but someone she knew. Didn’t know, but whose voice she recognized.

  She turned on him. And stared up at the stern face of her father.

  “Give that back. This is none of your business.” She grabbed for the urn, but he held it out of reach.

  “Don’t send her into the afterlife in anger.”

  “What? Why do you care? She’s been gone for days. And where do you get off lecturing me about anger? You’re the most bitter man I’ve ever met. And for that matter, we haven’t even met. Give me the urn back.”

  “You’re right. I’ve lived most of my life in anger.”

  “Give me the urn.”

  “Once anger gets you, it won’t let go. You think you’ve bested it, then it just rears its ugly head when you least expect it. It comes back stronger and meaner than it was before. Something out of your control just sets it off. And it’s terrible.”

  Her arms dropped to her side. “Like the night you saw me in the doorway of the bar.”

  “Yeah, like that.”

  “Thanks for sharing.” Zoe wiped her face with both hands. “Now give me the urn.”

  “I was angry at her, not you.”

  “It doesn’t matter. I don’t care. I thought I did, but after seeing you and Hannah in action, I don’t want anything to do with you.”

  Lee swayed slightly.

  Zoe fought the reflexive stretch of her hand. Snatched it back.

  “What about Eve?” he asked, looking around as if he was going to sit down. “It will break her heart if you leave so soon.”

  “She managed her whole life without me, she’ll manage now.”

  “You don’t mean that.”

  “Don’t presume to know what I mean or not. Give me the urn. You win. I’ll take the ashes back to my brothers. They are going to sue me to get them back anyway. Fine. They can have her.”

  He turned from her, searched the ground, then leaned over to pick up the top to the urn.

  Here was her chance. She could grab the urn and run. To where?

  He carried the urn and top over to a fallen tree, motioned to it.

  “Sit down.”

  Zoe shook her head.

  “Please.”

  “It’s because that girl came here. Isn’t it?” Jim Kelly said. “The reason Hannah’s doing this now. There are rumors all over town that she’s Lee’s daughter.”

  David shrugged and looked at Floret and Henry, who sat on either side of Jim like a pair of benevolent but useless guardian figures. Jim sat slumped on the couch between them, his head lowered.

  “I’m sorry, Floret. Hannah’s got me against the wall. We’re about to lose everything.”

  Floret took his hand gently in hers.

  His wife, Sheila, turned to David. “Isn’t there anything you can do?” She cast a painful look toward her husband, then lowered her voice. “It will kill him to lose the diner. And the house. We’ll lose it, too.”

  “Don’t you have some, I don’t know, savings?”

  Jim shook his head. “I had to take out a second mortgage back in two thousand eight. We lost a bundle in the market, and I’ve never been able to get ahead since.”

  “Well, when you open back up, just hike the prices a dollar or so. It’s not like you’ve raised them in years.”

  Jim shrugged. “People expect us to stay the same.”

  “They’ll understand.”

  “If they let us reopen.”

  “They can’t just close you down.” David frowned. “What were the violations?”

  “Damned if I know. Everything was the same as it ever was. They never complained before. They didn’t even give us a chance to rectify whatever was amiss. They just came in, posted a bunch of gobbledygook on the door, and closed us down.”

  “They can’t do that. Unless it’s life-threatening, they have to give you time to fix the offenses.”

  “It’s Hannah’s doing, I tell you. She’s forcing us out of our house and business.”

  “Where will we even go?” Sheila said, twisting her fingers in the apron she was still wearing from the diner.

  “You’ll not go anywhere,” Henry said. “Sell her the right-of-way if you need to. We can keep the station wagon somewhere else or David can sell it. We can always walk out when we need to get to town.”

  “I think it’s a little late for compromise,” David said. “I think the old broad has gone over the brink. She tried to run down Zoe Bascombe with her car yesterday.”

  “Oh, heavens,” said Sheila. “What did any of us ever do to her?”

  Three pairs of eyes turned unconsciously toward Floret and Henry.

  “We don’t know,” said Henry. “We’ve never known. One day she came home from one of her real estate conferences, said ‘I know what you’re up to,’ told Eve to pack, and they moved out that afternoon.”

  “We were never up to anything,” Floret said. “We’ve asked, guessed, racked our brains for years to no avail. It’s been over thirty years and we still haven’t learned why she was so upset with us. I don’t even think she remembers.”

  Henry sighed in a way that set off alarm bells in David’s head. “Perhaps . . .”

  “Yes, my dear,” Floret finished, as if she knew what he was going to say next.

  David sure as hell didn’t. This was not the time for them to go into one of their personal communion bits. Things were coming to a head.

  “What?” Jim asked. “Perhaps what?”

  “It’s time for us to go,” said Henry.

  “We’ll have to find a place for the professor,” Floret said. “Where he’ll be among friends. Among his good memories.”

  Both the Kellys and David stared at her in disbelief.

  “Hell, no,” David said. It was a pure knee-jerk reaction on his part. “Sorry, Jim, Sheila, but that’s not an option.”

  “No, of course not,” said Jim.

  Sheila shook her head.

  “It will not end until the source of her pain is removed,” Henry said. “And we must be that source.”

  “Bullshit,” David said.

  Henry smiled. “Poor woman. One’s pain is never cured by causing another.”

  David stood. “What the hell does that mean? If you leave, she’ll just find another victim. Some people are like that. You can’t fix things by always accepting whatever happens.”

  The others gave him their full attention. Henry nodded slightly. And David felt a sudden sinking feeling that Henry had just taught him a lesson he didn’t want to learn. There were some
things in life—and death—that David refused to accept.

  But, hell, they weren’t responsible. It was a sickness in Hannah, one that no one had thought about trying to curtail until it was too late. Well, it wasn’t too late. He didn’t know what to do, exactly, other than starting a GoFundMe page to help support the Kellys until they could see their way clear. And he knew they were too proud to allow that. But he’d be damned if he’d sit by any longer and let Hannah Gordon wreck more people’s lives.

  “Besides, maybe it isn’t about Zoe Bascombe at all. At least not totally. She’s also angry about her great-granddaughter Mel seeing my nephew.”

  “That’s crazy,” Sheila said. “Eli’s a lovely young man.”

  “Do you really think that’s what it is?” Jim asked.

  “Possibly. And I went to see Hannah to tell her to lay off the kids. I might have pushed her one step too far.” He was grasping at straws. That didn’t explain why she’d lashed out at Zoe.

  “You did what anyone would do to protect their kin,” Jim said.

  “They’re just children,” Sheila said. “They shouldn’t be dragged into this.”

  “No, they shouldn’t.” Henry stood. So did Floret. “I believe I may be able to end this once and for all.”

  “It’s time,” Floret agreed.

  Jim pushed to his feet. “You’re not going to sell because of us. I’d never be able to show my face in town again.”

  “Not to Hannah, no. But I have an idea.”

  “Don’t do anything rash,” David said. “I think she may have met her match this time.”

  “How so?”

  “This town expects breakfast, lunch, and dinner at Kelly’s. From the looks of things this morning, they won’t stand by to see it closed down permanently.”

  “Yes, indeed,” said Henry. “And I will attempt to take care of the rest.” He walked calmly toward the door.

  Floret lingered only long enough to cast her calming smile over the other three.

  David bolted from his chair. “Wait, what’s he going to do?”