I wash my hands for the second time, even though I’ve done nothing to sully them in the first place. The running water distracts me from the inner tidal wave building within my heart. You’re going to learn some things that neither I nor your father had the courage to tell you . . .
My mother’s words burn. Other women in their taffeta and chiffon and strappy shoes roam in and out, and I wonder just how long I can hide in here.
“There you are!” Norma wanders in, chattering. She stops. “You look like you just bit into a slice of bad meat.”
I almost laugh but halt myself, knowing the sound would come out as I feel: sharp and bitter.
“Did you and Josh have an argument?”
I hang my head and shake it back and forth. “Glory’s sitting at our table.”
“Oh . . . oh!” Norma sighs. “And she has more to add about your parents’ problems?”
“The same stuff, really. She suddenly remembered that my father’s . . .” I swallow. “The other woman’s name was CeCe. There’s a woman at our table named Carolyn and . . . oh no.” I tip my chin up and stare at the ceiling. “I think I’m going to be sick.”
Norma places a motherly hand on the back of my shoulder. “I’ve got Pepto-Bismol in my car. Shall I send Mikey for it?”
I shake my head vigorously. “Glory remembered the name CeCe after talking with a woman at our table named Carolyn. All we’ve ever known about my cousin Camille’s mother is that her name was Caroline.” The comparison careens through my mind and lands with a heavy throb. “Is it possible that my father had an affair with Camille’s mother?”
The bathroom door flies open and two young girls hustle in. “Mom’s going to kill me! Shirley Temple juice all over me!”
The older girl rips five paper towels from the roll, sops them with cold water and begins to scrub. “You have to be more careful!”
“I was, but that stupid Collin bumped into me really hard.” She begins to cry.
Her sister keeps wiping and sighing. She stops. “It’s okay. It’ll wash. Please stop crying.”
The younger girl’s tears have been reduced to sniffles, and how I’d like to join her. Mel and I had plenty of similar moments growing up. If only I could go back to dealing with mundane tasks and silly squabbles.
Glory appears in the doorway now, picking her front tooth with one of her dark pink fingernails. “They’re serving the food, ladies! Better get yourself on out there, Tara, before those boys start pilfering from your plate.” She frowns. “You don’t look well.”
Norma puts a hand on her hip. “Glory Sims, you need to stop sharing so much of Tara’s personal business with the whole world!”
The two young sisters exchange glances before making a quick turn to gallop out the door.
Norma continues. “Seriously, Glory, what has gotten into you?”
Glory lays one dramatically placed hand across her heart. “Whatever are you talking about? All I said was that CeCe was the woman’s name. Is it so wrong to tell the truth?”
I pull in a slow, filling breath, my hands still leaning on the countertop, steadying me. I stare at Glory’s reflection in the mirror. “My parents may have made some mistakes, but we never doubted their love for each other. They may have had some tough times, but they stayed married and worked through them.”
Glory fans herself. “Oh, my, yes. They had tough times from the very start those two, what with your mother becoming pregnant even before the wedding.” She pauses. “That must have been with you. Right?”
I whip around, away from the mirror. “What?”
Norma glares at her.
Glory shrinks back, her chin nearly disappearing into her neck. “I-I said that, uh, well, as I recall, your mother—Marilee, is it?—had gotten herself, er, um, pregnant. Oh, dear, you didn’t know this. But don’t worry. Your father did the honorable thing and married her. Even though that CeCe was still hanging around.”
“I don’t understand. Are you saying that CeCe was Dad’s girlfriend before he and Mom got married?
“Hm. Now let me think a moment. Ah! As I recall it, they were sweethearts before your dad married your mom. Then she disappeared and then—oh, I believe it must have been years later—she showed up in town again.”
So much of the mystery is suddenly becoming clear. My parents had a shotgun wedding. Contorted laughter, like a ball of bitter sarcasm, rises in my throat. I traveled across the country just to learn that I was an accident? Is this what Dad meant that day we dangled our feet over the rocks when he mumbled, “she lied,” over and over?
I push myself away from the damp counter, straighten up, and tuck stray hair behind my ear. “Norma, Glory, I have to go.” I take my purse and leave, having no idea what to say to Josh as I set out to find him. All I know is I need to think and I hope he’ll understand that.
Chapter Twenty-nine
The party’s in full swing as I return in body, yet not in mind. Guests feast on garlic-infused meals and conversations flow all around as I weave between tables and frenetic food servers, not caring that my less-than-jovial facial expression surely stands out.
I can’t find Josh anywhere.
There’s a line at the no-host bar, where servers circulate with appetizer trays. Norma’s husband, Mike, looks like he’s been captured in conversation by a woman with much to say on the subject of mushroom caps. Behind the bartenders, off in the distance where a rock wall meanders along a winding stream, I spot Josh, his father and mother, along with a small gathering of people on the other side of a stand of pines, their branches serving as a wide canopy to stroll beneath.
Surprisingly cool air gives me a chill as I step outside the tent’s protection. I wrap my arms about myself and carefully step across the damp lawn. My heels sink into the earth, taking my heart with every step. No one seems to notice me struggling to approach.
Voices ricochet against each other, yet Pete’s rises above them all. He’s telling a story and laughing more than the rest. I strain to make out what’s being said and notice how Shirley bends toward him, her posture admonishing.
“I hate you!” Beth’s voice startles me from behind. I stop and whip a look over my shoulder. Beth and her ex-husband have just emerged from the tent and are headed down the other side, away from me. I watch as she charges after him, showing more moxie and emotion than I’ve ever seen from her.
Gordon, the ex, swivels around to face her, and she jerks to a stop. He throws back his head, mockingly, but she doesn’t back down. She’s shorter than he and he seems to revel in looking down on her. I’m standing unhidden on the gracious lawn, riveted on the spectacle of two people, once so in love, now enemies.
More laughter emerges from the group in front of me and I turn to see that Josh’s father continues to be the center of attention. Yet behind me, Beth’s tears grow stronger and her voice thicker and more desperate.
“Why?” Beth grabs Gordon’s lapels, but he’s unmoved, with one hand casually in a pocket and the other holding a martini. “Tell me!”
He says something in a low tone, something that only serves to cause her more anguish. Norma steps out of the tent just then and rushes to Beth’s side. She shakes her index finger at Gordon, who laughs her off, just as Beth abruptly makes a dash toward the parking lot. My heart clenches for all the pain she carries—and for Billy, who I fear is on the road to a broken heart himself.
Norma follows quickly after Beth and I nearly join them. My hopes had been so high for this day and I suspect that Beth’s had been too. But the past has a way of nosing its way into even the happiest of occasions and I only hope that mine carries no more secrets.
Reluctantly I pull my attention away from them and continue on across the wide lawn, suddenly longing for the comfort of Josh’s embrace. Sharp words have begun to punctuate the silence. I pause beneath the stand of pines to check my heels, which no longer sink into mud. Instead, dry dirt and pine needles line my path and the wet spots on my shoes.
No
one seems to notice me.
“Freshen me up, now Jimmy, will ya?” Pete holds his glass up to a friend with rosy cheeks and a sparse crew cut.
Josh’s face smolders with something I’ve only seen a hint of before. When he tries to take his father’s glass, the other man clamps his fist around it.
The pitch in Pete’s laughter rises, like a young boy’s. “Hoo-ey, you’re a feisty one today, sonny.” He cracks himself up and bellows, to no one in particular. “My sonny boy needs a good woman to loosen ’im up, if you know what I mean.”
Cackles break out and I freeze, unable to move from beneath the pines.
“Now Pete . . .” Shirley’s voice unrolls soothingly.
Pete stands and puts a hand on Josh’s shoulder. He attempts to say something in mock-seriousness, his mottled red face shaking. Before he can utter a word, he squeezes his eyes shut and giggles, his large hand still pressing down on Josh.
Shirley rubs her husband’s back. Pete takes her hand in his then and kisses it roughly. “Now this, this, is a good woman!” He swipes a glance at the group, still not noticing me.
Josh gestures for his mother to move aside. “Let’s get you home, old man.”
“Old man? Old man!” Pete rises up like an angry grizzly. He seems to tower over his son, only to crumble into a spitting laughter. “Did y’all see my son’s face? Sonny boy, you better go and find that spicy thing you brought here . . . what’s her name, Shirl? Tessa . . . Tata . . .”
Shirley gently takes her husband’s arm and whispers into his ear.
He jerks his arm out of her grasp. “Well, whatever her name is! You go find her, son, and have her give you what you need. You’re too uptight.”
Josh rushes his father, his back to me. My good sense tells me to leave, now, but I don’t. Instead, I approach Josh as he faces off with his father. “You’ve got everyone here snowed. The whole town thinks you’re a hero, but I know better.”
My chest tightens.
Shirley takes hold of Josh’s raised fist. “Joshua, stop it.”
He yanks it away. “No, Mother. You stop it. Dad’s been lying to us, to this town—to everybody.” Josh glares at his father, his eyes larger and more round than I’ve ever seen them. “You’re nothing but a lousy drunk, you know that?” He shakes his head, both hands clenching at his sides. “Hear me loud and clear on this: I am no longer your son.”
“Now, Joshua, you take that back.” Shirley turns to her husband who’s begun to cry like a tired toddler. “He didn’t mean that, sweetheart. Josh, tell him you did not mean what you just said.”
But it’s too late. Josh has already stepped past his parents and their dwindling band of celebratory friends. His mother continues her attempt to console his weeping father, when Pete rises up as if overtaken by a sudden presence of mind. He marches past his friends and after his retreating son, until his foot collides with a large root protruding from the ground. He stumbles forward and reaches out to Josh, but Josh wrenches away, nearly stumbling himself as his father tumbles to the ground.
I swallow a gasp as Shirley and one other man rush to her husband’s rescue.
Josh stands still, a mixture of shock and anguish and grief marring his handsome face.
His father stretches his neck upward. “See that boy? Almost lost some footing yourself. You’re just like your old man.” He drops his head down to the earth again. “Just like him.”
Josh’s shoulders and chest rise and fall with his silence. He moves closer to his father, whose eerie grin shines from below. “You”—pain radiates from every word—“are dead to me.”
Anguish and confusion mar Josh’s face. Overcome by all I’ve just witnessed, I attempt to take a step backward, but stop just as Josh turns and looks straight into my eyes.
MY DATE WAS OFFICIALLY over. Unable to express the tumult of thoughts careening in my head, I left Josh there to tend to his family crisis and found my own ride back. An elderly couple I recognized from Coastal Christian drove me home in their late model Buick, the vast back seat swallowing me up into its wideness. Actually, I asked them to stop at the end of my block, down near the water and they obliged.
I just can’t go home yet.
Instead, I slip off my sister’s pumps, the ones that already need a good washing from the elements, and tiptoe in my bare feet down the weathered stairs built into the cliff. The tide’s high and deep, but a narrow strip of beach remains exposed. I attempt to walk, but the moonstones are piled up all around me, making it difficult to make my way without shoes.
What would Eliza do at a time like this? The thought tickles my mind, but no answers come to the surface. Once she screamed at an old lover, “Your absence makes my heart grow happier!” But somehow that little witticism does nothing for my fragile state at the moment.
That’s because this is real life, gritty pain.
The thought sears, even as the tide wraps itself around my ankles. It’s as if I’ve been pushing against that tide for years and for what? I’m more confused, more crippled by my modus operandi—fooling myself I’m in control—than ever.
Then maybe it’s time for real answers—and not just some lines written by a handful of daytime-soap writers.
I’m stricken by the thought. Almost as stricken as Josh just an hour ago when he realized what I’d witnessed. We stood in that meadow, silently watching each other as Shirley and Pete’s friends tended to the fallen man. “I know what you’re thinking,” Josh said to me, his voice deep and patchy.
But he couldn’t have any idea.
I realized that no matter what my parents had done in the past, I could never hate them—nor worse, wish death on them. Yet there was still so much to come to terms with in my life. Like hidden secrets. Past indiscretions. Lies. No matter what label they wore, they all conjured distasteful images.
“You left me with this, Dad!” I say into the sky. Now I have to live with all his regret. “If only you’d have come clean, all this would be old news instead of something that your eldest has to deal with!” A whimper escapes me, my voice just a whisper. “Was I just an accident, Dad? Did your problems begin with me?”
Yelling at my father when he can’t answer back doesn’t bring me the closure I’m looking for, nor do I feel any sense of relief from it. Just more anger.
“And thanks a bunch, Mom, for whatever your unspoken part was in all of this.” The thought that maybe my mother suffered silently for years nudges me, but I shove it aside.
Water lands on the shore just a short distance from me, a shallow remnant passing over my feet. Staring at the water for hours as a type of therapy comes naturally to me. I sniffle. You taught me that, Dad. Long after we left Otter Bay—whatever the real reason—his passion always seemed to be built around water: fishing, canoeing, even the three fountains he installed around our home in Missouri and tended to on his days off.
Glory’s revelation filters through me and yet, as I replace her words with real, breathing memories of the man who left us all too soon, all my anger dissipates. Which makes me wonder, could Eliza let go this way? And if not, why would I ever want to emulate someone like that?
Pastor Cole made a reference to “living water” in a sermon he preached recently and the phrase has lingered in my mind ever since, as if it carries with it some kind of faraway connection with my father. While he left so much undone here in Otter Bay, Dad did love God in his own way. He told us girls about Him, for one thing. Though I’m not sure of all the pastor meant by referencing that verse, I am sure of this much.
Never again thirsting for things far out of my reach sounds awfully appealing.
Chapter Thirty
Tell him I can’t talk.”
Camille holds the phone receiver against her jeans. “Well, he’ll know that’s a lie, Tara, ’cuz everybody knows you can talk.”
I roll my eyes. It’s been three long days since the wedding and, thankfully, Josh has been away, conquering fires. This is the first I’ve heard from him, bu
t I could have waited longer.
Mel smirks. “You really can’t come up with an excuse that’s less lame?” She sighs and holds out her hand. “Give me the phone, Cam. I’ll talk to him.”
I contort in a silent protest.
“Hey, Josh. Yeah, it’s Mel. She can’t talk right now. Uh-huh. Yeah. Okay, I’ll tell her.” She sets the cordless phone onto the end table, while I plop into the couch with a suppressed grunt.
“What are you supposed to tell me?”
“He says you’re to meet him at the top of the Empire State Building at midnight on Valentine’s Day.”
Camille gasps. “Oh, that’s so romantic of him!”
I slap her on the leg. “That’s a line from a movie! Let’s not talk about this anymore, okay girls? I’d rather forget the whole, ugly day.”
Camille collapses onto the floor into a cross-legged position. “Then can I ask you about something else?”
“Great. Yes. Anything.”
She pulls a curved and round swath of crocheted fabric from her bag. Turquoise, gold, and specks of red run throughout. “What do you think of this?”
I take it from her. “Well, hm, what is it?”
Her forehead wrinkles. “You mean you can’t tell?”
I see Mel holding back a smile in the background. “Wait a sec. Hm. It’s a coffee-mug cover. Right?”
Camille grabs the fabric from me, exasperation on her face. “It’s a beanie, Tara.” She examines it again, fingering the design. “Guess I’ll have to work on making that more obvious.”
“A beanie—yes, yes, I see that. It’s pretty. Really.”
The phone rings again and I dart a glance at Mel, who looks up toward the ceiling and sighs. “I’ll take it in the back and I get it—you’re not here.”
Across the carpet lay some of the most vibrant colors in yarn. Camille’s been preoccupied lately with her crocheting hobby and it’s good to see. I glance up and Mel is standing in the hall doorway, holding the phone out to me. “You need to take this.”
Sweet Waters Page 20
