The Sea Keeper's Daughters

by Lisa Wingate

  “Now is when Clyde’s health issues came up.” Given my breakdown last night, I wasn’t sure I was in shape to take this step at all … but it was the right thing to do. “I’m fine. And believe me, you have nothing to be jealous of, in terms of the Excelsior building. My grandmother worked us like dogs. Those romantic tales I always told were more fairy tale than reality.” I could imagine what my cousins in Michigan must’ve thought back then. Desperate to defuse the family feud over whether my mother should be taking me to spend time with Grandmother Ziltha at all, I’d concocted wild stories about my gilded summers on the Carolina coast. I’d become so good at invention, I’d halfway convinced myself.

  Denise lifted a hand, forming a dough-covered, five-fingered stop sign. “Okay. All right. If this is what you think you need to do, I’m behind you. I’ll hold down the fort … but I just want you to be careful.”

  “I will be.” But I had no idea what I might be walking into. I’d repeatedly tried the number on the message Mrs. Doyne had given me, and no one had answered. I’d also tried calling the phone number for the third-floor residence—my mother’s old number. No response there, either. The hospital in Nags Head wouldn’t release any information.

  “How long do you think?”

  “A week, maybe a little more, depending on what shape Clyde is in and whether I have any luck in getting some dialogue started with his kids … and on the condition of the storage in the second floor of the building. It could take me a while to figure out whether there’s anything of value left. I don’t want you to think I’m abandoning you, but there is an upside. With me gone, we can give my spot to one of the cooks we had to release from Tazza 2. Every little bit helps. If things go well on Roanoke, maybe we can make it until the state code commission hearing, win our case, and hire the whole crew again. I know it seems like a wild scenario, but at least it’s … hope of some kind.”

  A long sigh, and then, “Maybe Clyde’s kids will come to their senses. I know they were offended when he remarried and sold their mom’s land, but family is family.”

  I went back to measuring ingredients for the morning’s run of marinara sauce as Susan, our baker, wandered in the door carrying mascarpone and ladyfingers for tiramisu. She dropped a receipt on the prep table as she passed by. “Had to pick up a few things at the grocery store. Sorry.” Her gaze strained toward the receipt. We’d started buying some supplies piecemeal because our credit with most of the food service vendors was shot.

  “I’ll get a reimbursement to you as soon as I open the safe and stock the cash register.”

  “I don’t have to have the money back today… .” Susan deposited the supplies, then snagged an apron off the wall and slipped it over her head. “Just whenever.”

  I knew better, of course. Susan’s husband was semi-unemployed after losing his factory job. They lived paycheck to paycheck, like most of our staff. But also like everyone else, she was devoted to Bella Tazza and to keeping it going. Twice recently, I’d found waitress tips piled beside the cash register. No explanation as to how they’d gotten there, and nobody would claim them. Now Susan was trying to pay for our groceries.

  “It’s not a problem, Suz. I’ll get it as soon as I’m up front.”

  Denise shot me a frown, and I saw the same sad, nervous feeling that’d been curdling my stomach for a couple months. Were we doing people a favor by trying so hard to hang on? Or was their belief in Bella Tazza cheating them out of the chance to find new jobs before the inevitable happened?

  I tucked the receipt in my shirt pocket, right behind the custom-embroidered Bella Tazza logo. There was a time when we hadn’t thought twice about ordering fancy embroidered uniforms.

  One step at a time, I told myself as I finished the sauce and left it to simmer in the boiling vat. You can do this. Just take it one step at a time. As much as I dreaded seeing Clyde, the return to the Outer Banks at least opened up new possibilities. Unfortunately, those new possibilities came wrapped in a layer of old pain.

  I tried not to overanalyze as I went up front to stock the cash register. Meanwhile, the hot-line crew was trickling in to do the day’s kitchen prep. Soon enough, the front-end crew would straggle through, and the usual organized chaos would ensue, its white noise and immediate needs eclipsing all else. Bella Tazza 1 had been busy since the day we’d remodeled an old café building and introduced our midpriced Italian menu to the community. With ski slopes, a manufacturing plant, and a massive retail distribution center nearby, there were plenty of hungry mouths to feed, and in this county, no political issues barred the way of good business.

  Standing at the register, I counted cash to reimburse Susan for the groceries, then dialed the number from Mrs. Doyne again. The more I could learn ahead of time about what I’d be driving into, the better.

  When he answered, Joel Coates sounded friendly and laid-back in the way of Outer Banks full-timers. He also seemed really young. Almost like a teenager.

  I heard a door chime in the background as I explained who I was and why I was calling.

  “Morning. Welcome to the Rip Shack,” he said.

  “Pardon?”

  Joel chuckled. “Sorry. Had a customer come in. So, yeah, the old man doesn’t get out a lot. But the dude never skips the Saturday buffet down on the corner. Like, he’s there every week. Table by the window. Orders two meals. Eats one. Brings one home in a box. Usually hangs in Creef Park awhile, sits on the bench, scopin’ the boats and stuff. Jamie down at the bookstore says that was, like, their thing, back before his old lady died.”

  The flow of conversation stopped suddenly. I felt a sting behind my eyes, realized I was just standing there staring at a handful of dollar bills. I couldn’t remember how to count them.

  “Awww, man, that was rude. I’m sorry. That was, like, your mom, huh? I remember her a little from before my boss started the shop here. She was real cool. She had lights on the Excelsior building at Christmas and a reindeer sleigh thing on the roof and stuff. At Halloween, she always set up a big ol’ table at the curb and gave out candy. Even if you were, like, too old for trick-or-treat, she was super cool with it.”

  “She loved kids. She was a teacher … a music teacher,” I choked out, unprepared for the sudden flood of emotion. You never get over losing your mother. The emptiness has ebb and flow like a tide, but it’s not controlled by the phases of the moon or anything else you can predict.

  Joel filled the void with more information. “Well, listen. I don’t got a whole lot else to tell ya. I was workin’ here solo Saturday ’cuz it’s off-season and it’s slow. When the old man missed the buffet down the street, I figured I better just go upstairs and see, so I did. Doors weren’t locked, and I thought, Man, if he went outta town or somethin’, he wouldn’t leave the doors like that. So I, like, hollered and I heard somethin’, so I went in. Dude was in a heck of a mess. You can kinda guess what somebody looks like after layin’ on the bathroom floor four days. He was pretty out of it, but the really whacked thing was, he didn’t want an ambulance to come. I called my girlfriend. She works with the hospital, and she was like, ‘Get the ambulance now.’”

  “It sounds like you did the right thing.” I tried to imagine the man my mother had reconnected with and married only four years before her death, now frail and old. I couldn’t. At the funeral, he’d been in good enough shape to yell at me in front of everyone. His full head of white hair had been neatly combed, his suit crisply pressed, his posture straight, unyielding, testifying to a long military career. He and my mother had dated when she was just in high school, before he went overseas with the Army.

  I couldn’t picture him in the condition Joel was describing, but I didn’t dwell on the image either. As horrible as it was for anyone to be left lying injured and helpless for four days, I still wanted—needed—to keep the walls of resentment in good repair. It wasn’t hard. Clyde was the reason I wasn’t there when my mother died. It was his fault I’d had no idea how serious the return of her cancer was.
He’d helped her keep secrets. He’d supported her in refusing further treatment while there were still options available. He’d taken her home to just … give up. Which wasn’t like her. My mother was a fighter. She loved life.

  She loved me.

  But she’d been under Clyde’s control, somehow. I’d never understood why, after being single since I was five years old, she’d married in a whirlwind, so late in life.

  Joel Coates knew none of that, of course. He sounded concerned and sympathetic toward Clyde, as anyone would be, observing the situation from the outside.

  “So, Kayla, my girlfriend, does social work counseling. She tried talkin’ to him yesterday, but dude wasn’t into it. He wouldn’t give her anyone to get in touch with for him. That’s when I went upstairs and found your number and called. Kayla says that this morning, the old dude, like, ordered himself a cab and busted outta the hospital. I would’ve gone and picked him up if he needed it. Anyway, that’s all I know. Guess he’s comin’ back here sometime, but he didn’t show up yet. No idea how he’s gonna make it up those steps, though.”

  Joel paused to help a customer, while my thoughts and emotions swept in and out rapidly and randomly, like waves rushing ashore, depositing flashes of color and shape only to sweep them away again.

  “So … you’re gonna come see what he needs … or get him somebody … or somethin’, then? Kayla was worried.”

  “Yes. I’m leaving later today to drive out. I’ll be there sometime tomorrow. Joel, would you do something for me? Could you call me if you see Clyde come back?”

  A strange pause held the other end of the line, and then, “Well … ummm … I can write a note for my boss, I guess. I’ll be gone taking the surf wagon to a trade show for a couple days. Hope you can talk some sense into the old guy.”

  “I hope so too.” But everything I knew about Clyde told me that he wasn’t a man to be talked into anything by anyone. Especially not by me.

  A seventeen-hour drive with only a short stopover for sleep gives you plenty of time to think. By the time I wound my way down the last finger of the mainland to Point Harbor and then crossed the Wright Memorial Bridge onto the Outer Banks, I’d cycled through every possible version of the upcoming conversation with Clyde. For some reason, it hadn’t occurred to me until I was over the glistening waters of Albemarle Sound that I should’ve asked Joel Coates not to tell my stepfather I was coming. By now, Clyde might be locked and loaded.

  The traffic was surprisingly light on the highway that traversed the Outer Banks end to end. I cut over to the beach road before Nags Head and took the slow way along the narrow two-lane, passing rows of aging saltbox houses that clung doggedly to the dunes.

  Maybe in a way I was stalling for time, but it was more than that. Mom had always told me that these particular beaches were special. My father had rented a cottage for the two of them here, years ago. He’d brought her home to meet his mother, but he’d wanted to have her all to himself first. Instead of traveling directly to Roanoke Island, they’d come to Nags Head. Perhaps he was afraid, even at almost forty years old, to deal with his mother’s reaction to a hasty four-month courtship and a sudden marriage, particularly considering that his bride was fourteen years his junior. My father had given a benefit violin performance at the University of Michigan and taught a music theory seminar afterward. My mother had been involved in both. He’d noticed the pretty grad student with the thick auburn hair and big brown eyes. The rest was history.

  On their first trip to the Outer Banks, they’d shared an idyllic spring day along the shore. An off-season day like this one. The type of afternoon when the water was cold, but the sand was warm and the sky a pristine, clear blue.

  Heaven, she’d told me. I thought I’d stepped right off the map and into heaven. Of course, I was crazy in love too… .

  But as evening set in and they traveled to Manteo, the story had taken a darker turn. There, my grandmother quickly ferreted out that her son’s surprise guest was not only much younger, but descended of factory workers and farmers and housewives who did their own cooking—men with grease under their fingernails and women with dishpan hands. It became clear that my mother wasn’t the right sort. She wasn’t welcome in the Excelsior or in the family.

  I’d always had a feeling, reading between the lines as an adult, that the objections only made my dad more determined to finally stand up to his overbearing mother. Perhaps he shouldn’t have. Perhaps, after a lifetime of dealing with my father’s intense mood swings, Grandmother Ziltha had a right to fear that my mother’s innocent infatuation with him would end in disaster. Mom had never said it, but in so many ways, the two of them were like sun and moon. She was gritty, tough, practical, determined, passionate about having a teaching career. The first in her family to even attend college. He was contemplative, wildly artistic, reckless. A violinist of no small repute. A composer. A dabbler in the art of watercolor. Completely unprepared to live outside the insular world of privileged music schools and concert venues.

  Never fool yourself into believing that love conquers all, Grandmother Ziltha had told me when I was thirteen and sweeping sand off hotel balconies in the summer heat while watching local teenagers pass by on their bicycles. Those without the proper commonalities will only destroy one another. Do not marry out of your sort, should you decide to marry one day. She’d always made it clear that, as the poor relations, we were to live by different rules.

  The insults stung, even though Mom had encouraged me to make allowances for my grandmother. It was no secret that, despite her wealth, Grandmother Ziltha’s life had been hard. Her long-ago marriage to Girard Benjamin Benoit Jr. had been short and had ended in tragedy. Benjamin had died at sea the year my father was born. My mother was sure that the losses in Grandmother’s life were the reason for her constant frown and unwelcoming personality, and that it was important for me to come to know her as a way of remaining close to my father.

  But my grandmother seemed disinterested in forming bonds of any kind. She made polite acquaintance with the hotel guests and the members of her social circle but maintained no intimate ties. She’d raised my father in the finest boarding schools, and the walls in her cavernous library, filled with his certificates, awards, and concert photos, were evidence that she’d made certain her son had the best of everything. His dark hair, blue eyes, and soft features had marked me since birth, but that didn’t seem to endear me to Grandmother Ziltha. By all appearances, she tolerated my mother and me because she felt it was her duty to do so. Or because we were all she had left. She’d long ago cut off communication with her own relatives in a dispute over inheritance. She’d managed to alienate herself from the family she’d married into as well.

  Thinking of her now brought to mind the hot, vibrant Outer Banks summers, when tourists came searching for a haven in which to leave the world’s troubles behind. As a child, I’d always arrived here filled with anticipation and determination. Each year, I’d spun fantasies of finally doing something to make my grandmother like me better. Inevitably, the season ended in disappointment and the ultimate conclusion that I just wasn’t good enough to love.

  The islands had changed over the years, but in all the ways that mattered most, the Outer Banks was still the same. The spring air flowing in the window grounded me, swept away the sense of being exhausted and out of body. Anticipation sprinkled through the car like salt spray, tickling my senses as I made the turn at Whalebone Junction and crossed the causeway onto Roanoke. Maybe it was just adrenaline, but I felt almost giddy as I pulled into Manteo and passed by the grand old houses there. To my right, Shallowbag Bay peeked between buildings, and a squatty, rebuilt version of the old Roanoke Marshes Lighthouse waited to greet tourists and boats arriving at Manteo’s historic waterfront.

  Only when I pulled up to the Excelsior building, its elaborate facade and lurking stone gargoyles softened by early evening light, did I recognize my budding anticipation for what it was.

  I’d expected,
for that brief span of time while passing into Manteo, to find my mother here. I’d imagined her on the Excelsior’s third-level balcony, leaning over the scrollwork railings that faced the bay, waving just as she had during my final visit here. That day, she’d tied a bright scarf around her short, cancer-ravaged hair and put on makeup and a colorful sundress. It was all a disguise, an act contrived to hide the truth of how sick she was.

  She’d smiled and told me she was excited about the success of the new restaurant in Dallas—the first place I’d ever opened that actually belonged to me, not the corporation. She was delighted to see me settling down at thirty-three and finally giving up the traveling life for something of my own. She understood how hard it was for me to get away to visit, especially now that there was no paid vacation time. I shouldn’t worry about it. She was done with the chemo, her hair was even growing back a little… .

  If only I’d realized, at the end of the visit, that I was sharing a final hug with my mother, I would’ve held on longer, come back sooner, stopped rehashing our family’s concerns about her marriage and Clyde’s insistence that they move halfway across the country to live in Manteo.

  If you could know—if you could always know—when the lasts in life are coming, you’d handle them differently. You’d savor. You’d stop. You’d let nothing else invade the moment.