Meet Me at the Beach (Seashell Bay)

by V. K. Sykes

  “Yes, she was, and yes, she did deserve a better fate.” Her mom sounded more thoughtful than sad. “But it wasn’t always that way between them, you know.”

  Lily’s mug had been halfway to her mouth, but she set it back down. “What are you talking about?”

  “Well, to really understand about Sean and Rebecca, you need to know that he wasn’t always the sad, broken creature you see now.”

  Lily snorted. “I’d call him an unrepentant asshole, myself.”

  “Language, dear. Anyway, I’m several years younger, but even as a child I knew all about him. And I can tell you firsthand that Sean Flynn was always a wild and impulsive young man. For a girl like me, he was also larger than life too. He was boisterous, fun-loving, handsome, and so very full of himself.” She gave a slight, rueful shake of the head. “A true bad boy, if people still use that term.”

  Lily blinked. It was bizarre enough to think of Sean Flynn as the classic, sexy bad boy and even more bizarre to hear her mother referring to him that way. “Okay, this is making me feel slightly queasy.”

  Her mother waved that away. “He was the best kind of bad boy, one with a good heart underneath all the bluster. Everyone liked him, even your father—though it was grudging, of course. God knows they fought often enough, in the way high-spirited young men sometimes do, feud or no feud.”

  When Lily choked out a disbelieving laugh, her mother shrugged. “It’s true. Rebecca wasn’t the only girl who fell in love with Sean, but she was the one who got him to the altar. I think they were nineteen, maybe twenty, and Sean was working as sternman on his father’s boat. But soon enough—it can’t have been more than a year later—Sean was drafted and sent to Vietnam. I can’t remember many of the details, but I believe he had more than one tour there.”

  Lily froze. Now that was truly a surprise.

  “All I know for sure,” her mom went on, “is that when he finally came home, he wasn’t the same man. In fact, he was a shadow of that man—a ghost, really. Everything bad that’s happened since started at that point.”

  Every muscle in Lily’s body seemed to lock into some kind of weird spasm. Nor was her brain functioning that well, unable to process an image of Sean Flynn that was completely at odds with what she knew about him. Aiden had never breathed a word to her about his father having been in the military, much less slogging through the Vietnam meat grinder she’d learned about in school.

  “God, Mom, what happened to him over there?”

  “No one knows for sure. Not even Miss Annie, and you know how close she and Rebecca became over the years. Sean wouldn’t even talk about it to his family. But Rebecca once told your granny that his nightmares never stopped. He would talk and shout in his dreams about awful, ugly things he must have seen over there.”

  Jesus.

  “It sounds like PTSD.” Lily knew it had afflicted thousands—probably tens of thousands—of Vietnam veterans. “But did people try to talk to him about it? Get him some help?”

  Her mom shook her head. “People went out of their way to try to help, believe me. But Sean hated that, and he lashed out at anyone—and I mean anyone—who even raised the subject. So it didn’t take long before people stopped trying. I guess we all thought it best to pretend that part of his life had never happened. It seemed easier that way.”

  Lily rubbed her jaw because she’d been clenching it hard enough to crack a lobster shell. “It’s difficult to believe that people managed to keep their mouths shut about Sean’s military service all this time.”

  “Well, Rebecca and Sean had other problems, and they eventually came to seem more important.”

  “What could be more important than PTSD?”

  “For many years Rebecca couldn’t get pregnant, and it tore them both up something fierce.”

  Okay, that Lily could understand. Popping out babies had always been really important on the island, especially to the older generation. Hell, it was still important, since so many of the younger residents left for college or mainland jobs and never came back.

  Her mom carried on with the grim saga. “At one point, they went to a fertility clinic in Boston. Sean desperately wanted sons to follow in his footsteps, and Rebecca just badly wanted children.” She gave Lily a grimace that held a world of sadness. “She hoped that having children would change Sean. Give him something to focus on besides the problems with his fishing business, which were getting worse all the time because of his anger and his drinking.”

  “Well, he focused on his children, all right,” Lily said cynically. “Like a boxer focuses on a punching bag.”

  Her mother began to look irritated. “We all know that story, dear. All I’m trying to do is give you some idea why Rebecca stayed with Sean until she died. That’s what you wondered about.”

  “Okay, I get that it must have been complicated. But I still don’t see how she could stand by while her husband abused her sons. If she wanted to take it herself, that was her decision. But she should have protected the boys better, Mom.”

  “By leaving? Where would she have gone?” Her mom shook her head. “I know it was tragic, but Aiden seems to have turned out to be a fine young man, and Bram was on the right track until that accident. Rebecca did a darn good job with them under terrible circumstances. Yes, she suffered and kept quiet, but she was hardly the only woman in her situation to do that. Even here in Seashell Bay.”

  Lily couldn’t argue about how Aiden had turned out, but at what price? No one could know the long-term effects of that kind of abuse.

  Her mother reached over and briefly pressed her hand. “I know it’s hard not to hate Sean for what he did and for what he’s doing now. But your father and I talk about how it’s hard not to feel pity for the man at the same time. Sean’s been caught in a vicious pattern of shame and self-hatred for over forty years, Lily, and he’s probably going to die a lonely and bitter old man.”

  Lily wasn’t nearly as sympathetic as her mother. “Caught because he would never even think about getting help—professional help.”

  “Not many lobster fishermen would,” her mother said.

  Lily sighed. The men here were hard, proud, and stoic. Would they talk about their feelings to anyone, much less a stranger? Not much chance.

  She put down her cup, rubbing her eyes. A few minutes ago, she’d been so eager to get on her boat that she’d been climbing the walls. Now she just wanted to crawl back in bed and hide under the covers.

  Her mother pushed away her empty plate, as if to signal the end of the discussion about Sean Flynn. “But let’s get back to you, sweetheart. You’ve been moping the last few days, and you know it. You haven’t been the same since Aiden came home.”

  Haven’t been the same was mom-speak for “fixated on Aiden.” Her mother had an excellent nose when it came to this sort of thing. Of course, Lily and Aiden had probably been emitting enough pheromones to choke a horse. You’d have to have been in a coma to miss it.

  Lily gave a little shrug. “I don’t know quite what to make of it either.”

  Her mother’s eyebrows lifted in gentle disbelief. “Oh, I think you do.”

  “Do we really have to do this now?” Lily said.

  Her mother simply gave her a polite smile and settled back in her chair. Clearly, she wasn’t budging until Lily gave her some answers.

  Grumbling, Lily got up and grabbed the coffee carafe from the warmer, quickly refilling their cups. “I need more fuel if we’re going to have another of our fabulous mother-daughter talks.” Then she adopted what she hoped was a martyred expression. “Okay, I’m ready. Lay it on me.”

  Her mother laughed. “Oh, stop being so dramatic. I was simply going to say that I think you’re having a little bout of the what-ifs. It’s completely natural when the first boy you fell in love with suddenly shows up again.”

  “Uh-huh,” Lily murmured. Best to remain polite and noncommittal when Supermom was on the job.

  “Don’t forget that I saw how your world revol
ved around that boy for years. And I certainly noticed how you were looking at him Sunday night at the dance. I know you’re now a mature woman and not a love-struck teenager, but the expression in your eyes when you’re with Aiden hasn’t changed a bit. You need to be careful, Lily.”

  Well, that was stating the obvious. “You don’t have to worry, Mom. Aiden will leave as soon as he makes a decision about selling his land. And he won’t be coming back. There’s absolutely no need to talk about us as if we were a couple or something.”

  Her mother’s gaze narrowed. “Nonsense. You’ve been comparing every man to Aiden ever since he left the island. You know it, and so do I. And nobody can ever match up, can they?”

  When Lily started to protest, her mother waved a hand. “Don’t even try to deny it. I know as sure as I’m sitting here that what you two are doing now is only going to make it worse.”

  “What we’re doing is lobster fishing. Hauling and setting heavy, stinking traps. It’s hardly the setting for torrid romance, Mom.”

  “You’re just dodging the question.”

  Lily wanted to pull her hair out with frustration. “Look, Aiden won’t stay, and I won’t go. That’s the bottom line for us, same as it was fourteen years ago.”

  Obviously reacting to her tone, her mom pushed back in her chair. “If you say so, Lily. I should get going now.”

  Crap.

  She didn’t move as her mother went to the door and crouched to tie her sneakers.

  “I just want you to be happy,” her mother said, straightening.

  And there it was, the final mom arrow to the heart.

  Sighing, Lily got up. “I know you do. And I know you think I’ve been… wasting opportunities to meet someone.”

  “It’s just that—”

  “I get it, Mom, I do. But do you really think I want to keep living alone in a little cottage at the back of my father’s trap lot? Spending more time with my parents than with friends, much less a boyfriend? Of course I want to get married and have a family. But I can’t just snap my fingers and have a genie pop out of her bottle and make it happen. I’m not going to settle just because my biological clock is ticking. You don’t want me to either, and you know it.”

  Her mother wrinkled her nose, looking rueful. “All I was trying to say was that you need to be careful. You and Aiden are worlds apart and always have been. Don’t expose yourself to that heartache again.”

  “Aye, aye, Mom. Message received,” Lily said in a firm voice, escorting her onto the little porch.

  This time it was her mother rolling her eyes before she gave Lily a quick peck on the cheek and headed up the drive, eventually disappearing into the mist.

  Her mom, bless her heart, was just being her protective self. But Lily was all too aware of the danger, despite her denials. That night on the beach after the dance, she would have gone anywhere with Aiden and done anything with him, regardless of the consequences.

  And, scarily enough, she knew she still might.

  Chapter 15

  Saint Anne’s-by-the-Sea hadn’t changed much since Aiden’s mom had been buried in its small, oak-shaded cemetery, although he’d been too wrung out on that shitty day to take much notice of the white clapboard church where Flynns had been ushered through the various milestones of life since the 1880s. He’d spent a hell of a lot time here as a kid, when his mother had dragged him and Bram to Mass every Sunday and religious holiday without fail. The gray shingle roof tiles had been swapped out for red, but other than that everything looked the same—the steeple topped by a plain bronze cross that rose over the church, the stained-glass windows of biblical figures that graced the sides, the one-story church hall that parishioners had built themselves several decades ago.

  Aiden had spent hours in Saint Anne’s when he was young, desperately praying for his dad to change and for his mom to be happy. Now he had to shake his head at how naïve he’d been.

  As he skirted the church on the flagstone path overgrown with grass, heading to his mother’s grave, he could see that the church cemetery had greatly expanded. The island’s live population might not be growing, but the dead contingent sure was.

  Leaving the path, he strolled between the headstones. The fog had long ago dispersed, and the early evening gave Aiden a perfect view of the vibrant sunset over the bay, blurred bands of red and orange fading into a dusky pink swath that cut across the sky. He stopped for a moment and gazed back over Island Road toward the channel, glimpsing a couple of Lily’s neon-bright orange buoys. They’d hauled and reset that particular trap line twice this week, with damn good results too.

  But they’d stayed off the water today, which didn’t mean Aiden hadn’t been obsessing about Lily pretty much all day. Instead of feeling relieved that he could head back to bed after she’d called him, he’d tossed and turned for nearly an hour before going for a punishing run through the fog. When he’d passed Tommy Doyle’s property, just barely able to glimpse Lily’s red Jeep behind stacks of old traps and other lobstering gear, it had taken a considerable amount of willpower not to knock on her cottage door and… well, who knew what might have happened if he had?

  But fantasies of early morning sex with a naked, sleep-mussed Lily aside, Aiden still couldn’t figure out what to do about her. With every hour they spent together, he wanted her more and more. Hell, his body literally ached for her—certain parts of it, anyway. But he still couldn’t get his head around what would happen if they gave in to what they clearly both mutually desired. He’d had sex for the sake of sex, and he knew exactly how that felt before and after. And also he knew that sex with Lily could never just be that kind of emotionless physical gratification. It would leave a mark on him, one he wasn’t likely to forget.

  Knowing Lily, he seriously doubted she’d be able to treat it as just a quick hop in the sack to scratch an itch either.

  Damned if he didn’t go to bed every night looking forward to morning, just so he could be with her again—even though that meant long, punishing hours on a lobster boat, his least favorite place in the world.

  Which simply reinforced the idea that Lily was driving him batshit crazy.

  Aiden gave his head a shake and turned back to the cemetery, focusing on why he was here in the first place—to pay his respects to his mother. Tomorrow would have been her sixty-seventh birthday, had her heart not failed her. He’d taken the ferry into Portland this afternoon and gone to the best florist to track down long-stemmed white roses. His mom had loved white roses, and he now carried eighteen of them, his age when he left to pursue his baseball career with his mother’s full blessing.

  He knew exactly how much he owed her—everything, really, because she’d always encouraged him to follow his dream and had done all she could to support it. If not for her, Aiden would probably still be stuck in Seashell Bay, following in his father’s footsteps in more ways than one.

  Treading carefully around the old gravestones, he made his way to the family plot, a slightly sloped area of about a hundred square feet enclosed with a low fence of misshapen rocks and mortar. His mother was buried in the southwest corner, with places both on the granite headstone and in the grass-covered earth for his father to join her. Sean Flynn’s reserved space was the last unused piece of ground inside the low walls. Aiden presumed that would be it for the long line of Flynns of Seashell Bay, unless Bram were to suddenly get his act together and start a family.

  His mom’s grave looked surprisingly well tended, with the grass around the stone carefully trimmed. Such was not the case with the other graves in the plot, where long grass and weeds crept up the sides of the markers. The church took care of cutting the grass in the whole cemetery, but clipping around the headstones was left up to family members.

  Frowning, he stopped abruptly just outside the three-foot gap in the wall. Someone had left a spray of wildflowers in front of his mother’s marker—the kind that grew in the fields at the south end of the island. And on top of the headstone itself were a coupl
e of small items glinting in the waning light.

  Pieces of sea glass?

  Slipping through the gap, Aiden crouched down and carefully set the roses beside the wildflowers and read the inscription on the polished gray and black memorial he was seeing for the first time.

  REBECCA C. FLYNN

  BELOVED WIFE AND MOTHER

  BORN 1948 DIED 2013

  Rebecca Flynn had certainly been a beloved mother, but a beloved wife? The inscription was probably standard, but if that sentiment reflected his father’s true feelings, he’d certainly managed to keep them under wraps. From Aiden’s perspective, he’d seen very little affection and regard between his parents, at least from his dad’s end.

  He reached out to pluck the two smooth pieces of sea glass from the top of the headstone. One was almost circular and in a green so sea-washed it was almost colorless. The other piece, sort of rectangular, was a translucent white. His mother had loved sea glass, and she used to spend hours on the beach with him and Bram looking for prime specimens. Gazing down at the small, delicate pieces, he wondered who could have left such a tribute.

  His brother? He doubted it, especially when Bram had made it plain he didn’t much like visiting the cemetery. It was probably Miss Annie. She and Mom had been thick as thieves, despite the difference in their ages. Then again, the old gal was friendly with every soul on the island other than Sean Flynn.

  “Hullo, Aiden,” said a familiar voice. “It’s good to see you, son.”

  Aiden stood and turned. “Hello, Father.”

  Father Michael Malone was making his way through the grass to the Flynn plot, stopping just outside the low wall. He wore his Roman collar and a black long-sleeved priest’s shirt with a pair of faded blue jeans. His hair was mostly white now, and he’d developed a bit of a gut, but he still looked healthy and surprisingly young for a man who’d been ministering to Seashell Bay folks for years.