The Last Train to Key West

by Chanel Cleeton

  “The fiancé?” Sam asks.

  “Yes.”

  “And now you have regrets?”

  “There has to be a better way. I’d leave New York if I could, but my mother doesn’t want to go. Neither one of us is in a position to make enough to support us even if there was work to be had. Her treatments are very expensive.”

  “What sort of treatments?”

  “Oh, all sorts. Baths and the like. Medicines they use that the doctors tell me will shock my mother out of her illness. They make her body quiver, which is terrifying to see, but they say they’ll help. None of it seems to do much good, but it’s better than the alternative, I suppose—putting her in an institution.”

  I went to one of the ones her doctor recommended, and the conditions were so horrific I vowed then and there that she’d never end up in such a place.

  Sam doesn’t respond but instead looks to the ocean. “How was the water earlier?”

  I swallow past the tears threatening. “Surprisingly warm.”

  “Still interested in going swimming?” Sam asks.

  “Right now? With you?”

  He nods.

  My heart pounds. “I didn’t think men like you did things like that. You’re always so serious.”

  “Go swimming with a pretty girl? ’Course we do.”

  I don’t have time for such frivolous things—for emotion, for desire, for complications—but I also can’t resist.

  My hands tremble as I undo the buttons down the front of my dress, slipping it from my shoulders and letting it fall to the sand.

  I don’t wait for Sam to follow suit before pivoting and heading for the water. I wade deeper into the ocean, the water skimming my belly button, higher up, covering my breasts. The ocean floor dips and rises with each indent, and I wait for the moment when I’ll put my foot down and meet nothing but water.

  If Sam knew who I was engaged to, he would likely run in the opposite direction. Frank Morgan isn’t the sort to turn the other cheek while his fiancée engages in an affair with another man. A little flirting kept carefully away from the circles he controls is one thing, but to actually kiss a man, for things to go further, is deadly serious.

  I am bought and paid for, my body no longer my own, a bargain I’ve made to become Frank’s wife in exchange for his financial support for me and my mother.

  And suddenly, a sharp slice of anger cuts through me, filling my lungs, pouring out of me, until I want to throw my arms back and lift my head to the sky, and roar. I don’t, of course—some things are simply inconceivable—but the urge is there, the anger at my father, my brothers, at my mother, Billy Worthington, who “loved” me enough to take me to bed and then cast me aside like garbage when my family lost their fortune, at all of the moves that led to my being in this position, the people who hemmed me into a space where I don’t want to be.

  I don’t want to lie down in a marital bed of my making. I want to fight my way out. And in this moment, for the space of a breath or two, I want to wash the scent of desperation and loss from the camps off me, want to pour the defeat out of me, and do as I wish rather than as others wish me to.

  When I glance over my shoulder, Sam is already in the water, his torso clad in his white undershirt, the waves covering the rest of his body from his hips down. He’s more solidly built beneath those plain suits than I realized, his chest broad and muscular.

  “This seemed a more pleasant idea before I got in the water,” he grumbles, and I burst out laughing.

  “You should see your face.”

  “It’s colder than it appears.”

  “Pssh. It’s like bathwater.”

  “And there are fish,” he complains. “Skimming my calves.”

  I laugh again. “Need I remind you this was your idea?”

  “Folly, more like.”

  I inch closer to him in the water.

  “You needed this,” I say, peering beneath the veneer of surliness he wears like a mask.

  “I did,” he admits. “Those camps—I wasn’t prepared for that. I might have fought alongside some of those men. I know the things they saw and that they can change a man. How far am I from being right there with them, from sleeping in some godforsaken tent, drinking my problems away?”

  “Your work sustains you. Gives you a purpose.” I don’t know how I know, just that I do.

  “It does. Bad luck for them that the Depression came when it did. That men who were already struggling got hit with another tragedy. How many setbacks can a person take?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I felt like I couldn’t breathe back there,” Sam confesses. “I want to help them, but where do you even start when things are that bad?”

  “I know. The camps were the government’s answer to helping, I suppose, even if they failed miserably.”

  “Were they helping? Or were they ridding themselves of a problem? Maybe they don’t want the country to see how badly everyone is really struggling, how they treat the people who were once lauded as heroes. It seems like it would have been easier to pay them the damn bonus. I—”

  The instinct to soothe is there, surprising me, and I close the distance between us, lifting my arms to his shoulders and resting there, not quite embracing him, but holding him steady.

  “I’m sorry.” I’m not sure why I’m apologizing or what I’m apologizing for, only that it’s the sort of thing I’ve been taught to say when someone is hurt or upset, my words and my body the tools I have been given to ease another’s sorrow.

  Sam swallows, his Adam’s apple bobbing with the motion. When he speaks, his voice comes out raspier than normal. “I shouldn’t have brought it up. You must be worried about your brother.”

  A rush of shame fills me, because in this moment, my brother isn’t the foremost thing on my mind.

  I lean into the curve of Sam’s body, the need to soothe transforming into a need to be soothed. I slide my hands lower, his heart beating beneath my palm.

  Until this point, my relationship with Frank has been entirely platonic. Perhaps he believes I’m an innocent and doesn’t want to push my boundaries. Much more likely, given his reputation, he has more experienced women for such matters and has no need of me for his urges. I am a doll to be displayed on a shelf, never played with, rarely touched, only to appear expensive and pretty, and more than anything, enviable.

  But the second I touch Sam, the desire that has been coiled inside me rears its head, and I’m filled with so much want, it leaves me breathless.

  Sam sucks in a deep, ragged breath, his expression hooded. He sweeps my hair over my shoulder, skimming the line of my chin, a tremor in his touch.

  “Elizabeth.”

  My name sounds like the loveliest thing of all falling from his lips.

  Triumph surges through me, and I tilt my head into his embrace, relishing the gentleness of the caress of his fingertips against my cheek.

  I’ve been carrying other people for so long. Since when has someone touched me like this? As though I was something breakable to be cherished or protected?

  Billy certainly never did.

  With him, I was expected to be the one to lead, as though I was Delilah to his Samson.

  But here, Sam has taken over with the assurance of a man set about getting what he wants, and a thrill runs through me at the notion that I am the one being pursued rather than the one doing the pursuing.

  Sam leans forward, closer, closer, his mouth inches from mine, his breath against my chin, pulling me toward him, my skin on fire, our lips about to meet—

  A loud buzzing noise sounds overhead.

  I jerk in his arms. “What’s that?”

  Sam moves quickly, stepping in front of me, our embrace broken, and I see a flash of the man who was once a soldier and is now a federal agent.

  He tenses. �
�It’s a plane.”

  A moment later, the little object comes into view, dancing between the clouds, something fluttering behind it.

  We both glance up at the sky as the plane glides past us, the words printed on the banner trailing after it fully coming into view:

  Hurricane Warning.

  “It’s probably one of the Coast Guard’s planes,” Sam says.

  “Should we be worried?”

  He’s quiet for a beat too long, the silence dragging out between us, a damper on the moment between us earlier.

  “I don’t know.”

  I see what it costs him to be filled with indecision, to not have an answer.

  It’s the same expression he wore a few minutes earlier when he nearly kissed me.

  Something that might be regret.

  Coldness fills me, the water no longer welcoming, everything wrong suddenly.

  And like that, with those two ominous words flitting in the sky above us, this little stretch of beach is no longer paradise.

  Fourteen

  Helen

  It’s nearly four in the afternoon when the ferry finally arrives on Matecumbe Key, the trip taking three hours longer than it should have due to the broken propeller. The seas were rough, the weather bad, an utterly interminable journey, my stomach unsettled.

  Is Tom out fishing in this weather? Or is he in our cottage in Key West realizing I am not coming home? Or is he already on his way after me?

  The ferry landing is connected to a small harbor where fishing boats are docked. A chill slides down my spine as my gaze runs over the dilapidated vessels, as I stand next to John, waiting to disembark, and scan the boats, searching for the Helen.

  A line of cars is parked at the landing, passengers trying to board the ferry.

  “Will they be able to get out?” I ask John.

  “Between the propeller and the weather, not likely.”

  “Do you really think the storm will hit us?” I can’t forget Tom’s earlier conviction that we’d be fine. For all his flaws, he’s always known the sea.

  “I don’t know. But for everyone’s sake, I hope they’re cautious about it. They’ve been pumping men into the camps these past few months, and many of them have no idea what it’s like down here, have never been through a hurricane. Hell, even rainstorms flood the camps.”

  “What will they do with all of you if the storm hits?”

  “There’s supposed to be a train that will take us north.”

  His tone makes his thoughts on the matter clear.

  “You don’t think it will work?”

  “It’ll be a disaster. Any semblance of order in the camps is difficult on a good day. In a crisis, it will be impossible. Not to mention, if you can’t get people out of the Keys entirely, where would they go? There’s no high ground here. Just the water.” He hesitates. “If it gets bad, promise me you’ll head north. Go to Miami or farther up. In your condition, you don’t want to take the risk of getting caught in one of these storms. At least you’re closer to the mainland than you would have been in Key West.”

  “I will,” I reply. “Hopefully, the storm will miss us entirely.” I understand his concern, and the baby certainly changes things, but it’s hard to explain to someone who isn’t from here what it’s like. You develop a healthy respect for Mother Nature—after all, you coexist mostly peacefully, and she directs your fortunes more often than you’d care to admit—but life goes on down here in fair weather or foul. When you’re trying to survive, you don’t have the luxury to leave when things are difficult. You dig in and make the best of it.

  But I have left.

  I’m still not sure of what to make of it. It’s as though someone else got into the car, and onto the ferry, and sailed away from her husband, baby in tow.

  What will I tell my child when it asks how I could have left? What would I have told my child if it asked how I could have stayed?

  I give John directions to my aunt’s inn, the wind from the open car window alleviating some of the nausea in my stomach as we drive down the highway. Motion never used to make me sick like this—another gift pregnancy has bestowed upon me.

  The ferry landing is at the southwest end of the island next to the camp where John says he lives. We drive north, the highway and railroad covering the length of Lower and Upper Matecumbe Key. I haven’t been up here since I was a little girl, but I have fond memories of playing in the water with my aunt, catching fish, chasing lizards, and building castles in the sand.

  “It’s not quite what I expected when they said there were jobs available down in the Florida Keys,” John comments.

  “What did you expect?” I ask.

  “An island paradise, I suppose. A place to get lost, certainly. But nothing so desolate, so wild, so stark. There’s no pretense to it, and while there are moments of beauty, there’s also a deadly edge that sort of overshadows all else—the weather, the water. I can’t decide if I like it or not.”

  “I can see what you mean. When I was a child, it felt like paradise because there was so much open space and it wasn’t as busy as Key West. You could go a whole day without seeing another soul if you wanted.”

  “That does sound like paradise when you put it that way,” he says.

  “Don’t you ever get lonely?”

  “I do and I don’t. I had friends, good friends, before I went off to war. And when I was there, there were men I considered to be brothers, men I would have sacrificed my life for. I miss that, I suppose. There are good men down here. But I told you, I’m not in a place to be much of a friend to anyone.”

  “What utter nonsense. What is this if not evidence of you being a good friend? You helped a complete stranger when many would have looked the other way—when many did look the other way.”

  “Not a complete stranger. I saw you at Ruby’s for months.”

  “We never spoke about anything besides me taking your order.”

  “Maybe not, but you smiled at me. At others. It was nice. You always brightened my day even if you never realized it, and I’m sure I’m not the only one who felt that way.”

  Tom always said I talked too much to my customers, that I was too friendly with them, too familiar, but the truth is, I like talking to people, learning about their lives. You can live a fair share of adventures in other people’s stories.

  “I like waitressing,” I admit. “It’s hard work, and you certainly get some rude customers, but I enjoy being around people. It keeps things interesting. It’s easy to get involved in your customers’ lives. I actually met a girl this weekend and told her about the inn. She’d come down on the railroad and planned on traveling up here and visiting the camps. I wonder if she ever made it.”

  “The camps aren’t any place for a young girl.”

  “I told her that, but she seemed pretty intent. Hopefully, Aunt Alice was able to help her out.”

  “Is your aunt your mother’s sister or your father’s?”

  “My mother’s. My mother and Alice didn’t really get along,” I confess, feeling guilty for talking about my family like this, as though my mother is sitting in the car with us, capable of overhearing my words. “Alice did as she pleased. Mama believed the highest duty a woman could serve was to God. The second highest to her husband.

  “They loved each other, of course—I mean, they were sisters—but they couldn’t have been more different. Alice owned the Sunrise Inn with her husband, and when he died young, she took it over. There were rumors about Alice during Prohibition. You get some smugglers in these parts, and I suppose Alice offered them lodging when they needed it, didn’t report them to the authorities.”

  “I take it your mother didn’t approve.”

  “Hardly. Alice doesn’t care much whether anyone approves of her, though, which only bothered Mama more. Alice has this way about her—she’s lived lif
e on her own terms. I admire that about her.”

  “And you never thought about confiding in her?”

  “It’s complicated,” I reply.

  The truth is, I’ve considered coming to Alice a hundred, thousand times. Every time I found a reason not to.

  But now there’s the baby.

  John slows the car, pointing up ahead. “That’s it.”

  The Sunrise Inn is on the southern side of Islamorada, past the point where the highway crosses Mr. Flagler’s railroad track. It’s nothing fancy, and in her letters, my aunt has mentioned that many guests prefer the larger Matecumbe Hotel.

  I have the vaguest memory of the building—my impressions of our visits here are more sounds and textures and the sensation of sand beneath my toes. It’s a pretty enough structure—a bright white that suggests a recent coat of paint and cheerful blue shutters a few shades darker than the color of the ocean. The inn is two stories tall with an inviting front porch; chairs are arranged to give guests a place to sit and converse. There’s no one sitting out there now, only two cars out front.

  The baby is awake and kicking my belly as John parks the Plymouth and helps me out of the passenger seat.

  I stop in front of the inn’s entrance, doubt gnawing at me. “I haven’t seen her since I was eighteen, since my mother’s funeral. Now I show up like this. What will she think?”

  “It sounds like she loves you from the way you talk of your time here with her. She’ll want the best for you.”

  I stare up at him for a moment, overcome by emotion. “You know how to be a good friend. Don’t ever think otherwise. Thank you for what you’ve done for me. For us. I will never forget it.”

  His cheeks flush. “It was nothing.”

  “It’s not nothing.”

  I give him a shaky smile and we walk up the steps to the inn’s entrance, John trailing behind me.

  The inn’s interior doesn’t appear as new as the exterior, but it’s neat and clean, the living area also doubling as a reception space. A man stands behind a desk near the staircase. I don’t recognize him from my earlier visits, but he greets me as I walk toward him.