The Sea Keeper's Daughters

by Lisa Wingate

  “I understand.”

  The conversation ebbed, yet we held our places. The air seemed to wait for one of us to disturb it.

  “How long has Joel worked for you?” I wasn’t sure why I asked, but this being the off-season, Mark could’ve hired more mature help if he’d wanted to. “When I met the two of you, I sort of assumed that Joel might be your brother, or at least a relative.”

  The owner of the Rip Shack wandered a couple steps closer, leaned a shoulder against the wall, and crossed his arms over a well-fitted T-shirt that read Hang Ten. “Not related. My family is in Norfolk—Mom, Dad, brothers, nieces and nephews. I’d always liked it out here, and about six years ago, it was time for a change, so I sold part of a business inland and came here. I was down the block until a space opened up in this building. Joel was one of the little townies when I first moved to Manteo—like those kids you saw on the bicycles the other day—only with Joel, there wasn’t any mama calling around to find him at dark. It was kind of the opposite. She’d kick him out of the trailer while she had guys over, and he’d just have to find a spot to hang out until whenever.”

  “That’s terrible.” I had a new appreciation for Joel. He seemed to be doing really well for himself, considering.

  Mark nodded. “He got a lot of help from the shopkeepers and other folks around here. Manteo is filled with good people. We try to take care of our own.”

  “I remember it that way.” Despite Grandmother Ziltha’s difficult personality, and her penchant for picking fights, the people here had tried to come to her aid. After her death, my mother had cleaned out a freezer full of casseroles. “Well … thanks for filling me in.”

  I turned to the letters again, absently slipping one torn shard under another, piecing together a word. It was time to end this conversation. The newly cordial, conversational Mark was … disquieting. I could literally feel him still standing nearby.

  “There’s a charity down on Hatteras devoted to giving teens and young adults here something productive to do—encouraging them to catch a vision for making good out of their lives instead of getting sucked into drugs and the party scene … and helping them get into treatment if they do have a problem. They call it Seaside House. One of the churches started it after a couple of drug overdose deaths among their young people. Three different members of the congregation had dreams about the kids going into a house on the shore, all within a week of each other. I would like to get something like that started here. Last year, we lost a girl who grew up with Joel. They were running buddies when they were kids. Townies together. You never saw one on a bicycle that you didn’t see two.”

  Guilt tugged at the hair I had just sloppily refastened in my messy bun. I’d been way too quick to judge Mark Strahan. He didn’t like me, but he wasn’t a bad guy. Ever’body got a story, Old Dutch had told me once when I’d complained about what a shrew my grandmother was. Ever’body got a reason for what they do. You eat off somebody else’s plate, drink a their cup, could be, you’d be that same way.

  “I’m sorry. That must’ve been hard … for Joel and for all of you.”

  From the corner of my eye, I watched Mark’s shadow move closer. He craned to see what was on the table. “I’m hoping we can put together something that’ll make a difference. We’ve got a good group of people, along with several civic organizations and churches, working on what kind of counseling and mentoring, substance abuse help, and activities it might offer. As a matter of fact, I’d like to talk to you about the second floor of this building.”

  I dropped a scrap of paper and it floated downward. What had passed for idle conversation was really an agenda of sorts, on Mark’s part. Not that I could blame him. It was a valid agenda. A really good one. But I couldn’t just give away the building, even part of it. “I’m not ready to think—”

  Three swift taps overhead stopped me midsentence, and for the first time I was thankful for Clyde’s unceremonious method of communicating through the floor. “He does that when he needs something. I’d better go check. I gave him a cane I found down here and asked him to keep it with him when he’s moving around. Instead of using the cane, he leaves it by the chair, then pounds on the floor with it when he wants to summon me.”

  The muscles in my neck tightened and twitched, and I felt my heat-ray glare burning a hole through the ceiling. This battle of wills between Clyde and me was exhausting, but he’d win it over my cold, dead body. He may have taken advantage of my mother’s sweet, giving nature—Patricia, where’s my this? Patricia, I need that. What’s for dessert, Patricia?—but if he thought I was going to be his slave, he had another think coming.

  Scooping up the lost piece of Alice’s letter, I set it on the table, scooting the stacks a little closer together, where hopefully nothing would fall off when the hallway door was opened and the air shifted.

  “I’ve got some folding tables downstairs that I use for sidewalk sales in the summer. I’ll have Joel run them up to you tomorrow.” Mark retrieved a shred of paper that had blown his way, then brought it back to me.

  “No. That’s okay. Don’t bother.” Favors between us weren’t a good idea.

  Three more thuds on the ceiling demanded attention.

  Mark squinted upward. “Does he do that often?”

  “Only when he feels like it. The rest of the time he pretends I don’t exist. He’s hoping I’ll disappear.”

  “Do you plan to?”

  “Not today.”

  Upstairs, Clyde was in an especially foul mood. Even Ruby recognized it, and after trotting into the dayroom, she quietly retreated to the kitchen. Safer territory.

  “Where’s supper?” Clyde’s voice shredded the peaceful afternoon air with the effectiveness of an invisible cheese grater.

  This was why he’d called me up here? I’d left him a ham sandwich before going downstairs. The plate was empty now, piled on the collection of newspapers beside his chair. “It’s only five thirty, Clyde. And it looks like you ate your lunch.”

  “My stomach’s growlin’. Where’s my pretzels? You’re gonna pretend you come here to take care of me, you can at least gimme my food. I’ll call that social worker, tell her you make off with whatever you can git your hands on. Eat all my food.”

  Don’t react. Don’t give him the satisfaction.

  I pulled the cell phone from my pocket. “Well, that’s good, because I talked to the boy who works downstairs in the Rip Shack. His girlfriend, Kayla, is the social worker who tried to help you at the hospital. Kayla would love to chat with you some more. I think we should call her. Let me get her number real quick. Maybe you can also tell her what happened to the sandwich I left for you and the banana that was in the fruit bowl this morning and the potato chips that were in the bag the dog just grabbed. Did somebody come by and take those, too?”

  Clyde’s nose scrunched up as if the air had gone foul. “Close the door. All that wind comin’ in the screen. Run up the electric bill. Get my service to where I can’t pay it. That your plan?”

  Breathe, breathe, breathe. Don’t go ballistic. That’s exactly what he wants. How did my mother put up with this insufferable lout? Why did she? What did she ever see in him? Was she that desperate for someone to take care of after she retired from teaching? “Oh, Clyde … I think you’ve got plenty of income from my mother’s rentals downstairs. In fact, I’m a little surprised the building isn’t in better repair. There are squirrels getting in. The shopkeepers have been trapping them in self-defense.”

  “Why’d you think I brung that dog? Thing’s part hound. Had a dead snake in her mouth, first time I saw her.”

  My stomach clenched. Mental image. Gross. “That’s disgusting.”

  A snort. “You quit feedin’ her up on dog food, she’ll hunt. Rats, squirrels, snakes. Whatever comes in here, she’ll root it out.”

  “Up here, you mean? On the third floor?” All I could think was, Rats, squirrels, snakes. Rats, squirrels, snakes. Rats …

  “Stinkin’ nutr
ia rats. All over the place. Too big for the stray cats to kill, even. Come right up the sewer. Ten pounds, some of ’em.”

  My poking around downstairs quickly came to mind. I’d seen mouse droppings, heard a little rustling in the walls. Was something larger lurking in the Excelsior? Surely I would’ve run across evidence. “Clyde, you know that’s not true.” Right? Tell me I’m right. Then again, if a squirrel can get in …

  “Some tourist jumped in the river, swam out to rescue one, thinkin’ it was a drownin’ puppy. Nutria rat. Bit the fella and he had to git rabies shots. Was in the newspaper.”

  The balance of power in this war of systematic unpleasantness was slowly turning, and Clyde seemed to know it. I couldn’t compete with snakes and ten-pound mutant ninja rats.

  “When was it in the paper?”

  “Couple weeks ago. Don’t believe me, look it up. Rats so big, the stray cats run away from ’em.”

  “You know what, Clyde, I haven’t got time for this. And I can’t come rushing upstairs every time you decide you want something. Stop thumping on the floor. You’re wasting your energy, trying to get rid of me.” So there.

  But I did plan to ask the Rip Shack guys about nutria rats the first chance I got.

  “Busy stealin’ everything you can get your hands on.”

  We’d been to this very street corner and around the same block before. “You can’t steal what you already own.” No wonder Clyde’s sons wanted nothing to do with him. If he was this horrible to them, why would they bother?

  “You took her necklace. The gold cross with the pearl in it. Well, you can just put it right back on her dresser, missy. Told you not to touch a thing up here. Not ’til I’m dead.”

  I blinked, my head snapping back as if he’d slapped me rather than pointing a finger. Did he know? Did he remember, or was he only accusing me of this to cause maximum impact?

  I couldn’t imagine my mother without that tiny gold cross around her neck. One of my earliest memories was of sitting in her lap in church, my head resting on her shoulder, my fingers toying with the cross as I compared it to the one in the stained-glass window. In place of the light radiating from the crown of thorns, my mother’s necklace held a small, shimmering pearl.

  Every night, she set the little cross by her bed. Every morning, she awoke and fastened it around her neck. One of the first Mother’s Day gifts I’d ever bought her was a thin, gold chain to replace the one that was kinked and pinched in a dozen places.

  She’d hugged me until I almost couldn’t breathe, kissing my hair as she told me I shouldn’t have spent my raspberry-picking income on her.

  Tears, the hard and unexpected kind, struck me now, a blunt-force blow. “She was buried in that necklace, Clyde. You know that.” My voice trembled, and I hated the weakness of it. I hated that it had happened in front of the enemy. I hated him for bringing me to it.

  Ruby slunk past me, whimpering, and rested her nose on the armrest of Clyde’s chair, her head pressing so lightly that she didn’t even compact the fibers of a furniture protector my mother had woven from fluffy brown yarn.

  “Sent it home to her from Vietnam,” Clyde muttered, his body sinking into the cushions, almost disappearing as his gaze turned away. Absently, he laid a hand on the dog’s head. “Got it at the PX. Didn’t cost much.”

  I felt sick. My mother had been wearing that cross in her wedding photo, the day she’d married my father in a chapel not far from her college campus. Just the two of them and a couple of her girlfriends as witnesses. They hadn’t wanted any interference from either side of the family, which, no doubt, would’ve come. My mother’s parents thought a four-month whirlwind relationship wasn’t a long-enough trial period, especially considering their fourteen-year age difference. My father’s mother, of course, wouldn’t have been in favor of my mother’s sort under any circumstances.

  She’d been wearing Clyde’s necklace on the day she gave herself to my dad? How could she? Why would she?

  My dad was the love of her life. My dad. She’d fallen for him at first sight, in the performance hall at his concert. Between musical scores, a theater student had recited a poem from Lord Byron, and my parents’ gazes met.

  There chiefly I sought thee, there only I found thee;

  Her glance was the best of the rays that surround thee;

  When it sparkled o’er aught that was bright in my story,

  I knew it was love, and I felt it was glory.

  After the performance and the seminar that followed, she’d made it a point to linger, and he’d made it a point to shake loose his admirers and meet her. They’d gone to dinner, stayed long after, not parting until she was forced to leave for dorm curfew.

  And yet all the while, she’d been wearing Clyde’s necklace?

  Who was my mother? Had I never known her at all?

  The emotions overwhelmed me, and all I could do was turn and rush up the hall, not stopping until I was out the door and down two flights of stairs, walking the Manteo street and gulping in cool, salt-laden air.

  I ended up on a park bench, staring at the sound through a haze of tears, watching the boats come and go from the marina. In the bay, a pod of dolphins rolled and frolicked, and a bird ventured from its hiding place to see if all the people had gone home yet.

  Gulls called. Live oaks twittered. A bullfrog sang a lazy bass somewhere nearby. Familiar sounds. The sounds of summer here with my mother, who now seemed like a stranger to me … as if, in keeping her secrets, she had negated the life we knew, made it invalid. Had she spent all those years dreaming of Clyde Franczyk? Wishing he would come back? Wishing she’d never met my father, but instead had waited for Clyde to return from Vietnam?

  I wanted to wash the thought away. To make it be gone. But no amount of tears could dilute its potency. It burned like acid, the tears of protest blurring my view of the water. Not far offshore, a man in a red kayak paddled close to the dolphins, then stopped to take pictures as they cavorted. I wanted to be the one in a boat. I wanted to row and row and row until I was far out at sea, where there was no question about right and wrong, where there were no hidden secrets.

  The kayaker made an aft turn, gracefully moving toward shore, gliding along with an expert lack of effort.

  I closed my eyes, tried to get my head together, to stuff the pain down and bind it tightly.

  A pinprick in my arm made the pain tangible, brought it to the surface again. I slapped, felt the warm spill of blood. The mosquitoes were coming out. I couldn’t stay here. Letting my head sink into my hands, I wiped my eyes, tried again to think, to prepare to go … someplace. I wasn’t even sure where I was headed. I couldn’t stand to return to the Excelsior and my stepfather.

  Maybe I’d take a page out of Clyde’s book and hide out in a hotel in Nags Head for a few days. Run away from everything.

  But the truth was, I couldn’t afford the price, or the time. Aside from that, Nags Head now seemed tainted too. Who could say if my mother’s story about her idyllic lovers’ day there with my dad was even true? Maybe it was part of the lie. A figment of the mist my mother had woven like one of her tapestries. Without her here to sort out the threads, I’d never know which were false-dyed and which ran through to the core, which were artificial and which were true colors.

  Something buzzed around my ear. I swatted at it, hissing, “Leave me alone!”

  “You look like you could use some bug spray.” The kayaker had come in for a landing while I wasn’t looking. Standing on the dock, he smiled good-naturedly, then reached into his backpack and offered a mini bottle of Off! repellant.

  “I’m fine. Really. Thanks.” I wasn’t in the mood for company, even the friendly kind. I needed time alone to lick my wounds and decide what to do next. I wanted to get in the car and drive back to Michigan, but what would I be going home to? The death of Bella Tazza 2 and the tenuous struggle to rescue the first restaurant from overdue bills? Surrender to Tagg Harper? Watching Denise debate whether she could afford
to take Mattie to the hospital for a breathing treatment or should wait this one out and save the money?

  I couldn’t do it.

  “Bad day?” the kayak guy asked. He was still standing there with the bug spray, offering it up, if I wanted to take it.

  Swiping away moisture and mascara trails, I sniffled and nodded and hugged my arms tight over the torn-off sweatshirt sleeves, taking a breath and then slowly letting it out. “Not the best.”

  “Getting a little cool out here now.”

  I realized that my elbows were welded to my sides, my hands rubbing up and down. “Guess I’d better go in.” Where? Go in where?

  “Hungry at all?”

  I turned then, taking him in more carefully, slowly moving upward past a nice-fitting pair of gray Gore-Tex boater pants, a Legend dry top with a color-coordinated hem strip and a bright sunburst that arced over a broad chest. A gold-nugget cross hung there, along with what looked like a pricey long-lens camera and a pair of Oakley sunglasses. The Hobie ball cap had been tipped back far enough that I could see his face in the mix of waning sunlight and overhead security lamps.

  Blond and blue-eyed, clean-shaven, with hair close cut over his ears, he belonged on a billboard for upscale outdoor adventure in the Outer Banks. He also looked slightly familiar. Maybe I’d run across him in one of the restaurants here?

  Hungry at all? What exactly did he mean by that? Was this a … pickup? Between managing the first Bella Tazza and starting Tazza 2 and then battling Tagg Harper, I was out of practice at gauging this kind of thing. I hadn’t been anywhere near a random pickup line in forever.

  Back in the day, opening corporate eateries in tourist meccas and resort towns, that kind of thing was the norm. Visitors and staff members were frequently looking for love. If you were young and female, you learned to handle it almost out of reflex—reject the creepy ones, maybe date the nice guys a little. Realize that, where business is seasonal, the help is all there for the same reason—because everyone comes and goes and that’s the way they want it. That’s why you’re there too. By silent, mutual agreement, there are no long-term attachments, no painful good-byes. The beginnings come with endings already implied.