Bulls Island

by Dorothea Benton Frank

  “Boy, there’s nothing like a little development project to get the South to rise again, is there?” I asked.

  “Hmmph.”

  “How come no one complained this loudly about developing Daniel Island or Kiawah?”

  “Dunno. Perhaps they were blissful in their ignorance at the time? Who knows? Listen, you’re walking into the cause du jour and I’m just giving you this stuff as heads-up.”

  “Great. Thanks. Well, maybe someone will buy Capers Island to develop and divert attention from this.”

  Sela shot me a sideways glance that said, Yeah, sure.

  “Well? One can dream?”

  “You’re right. You’re dreaming.”

  We continued chatting away like long-lost girlfriends do. Her business was doing great. Ed was fine, but she worried about his safety constantly. He had just broken a major drug ring that was importing cocaine from the Philippines in tightly wrapped Ziplocs concealed in five-gallon jars of mango puree.

  “How bizarre!” I said. “Mango puree?”

  “Yeah, for ice cream and margarita mixes, I guess. Anyway, there was something funky about the X-rays, so they notified Ed, who notified SLED, who notified, I don’t know, the freaking FBI? Yeah, it was all over the papers. But he scares the hell out of me sometimes.” [SLED was the acronym for South Carolina Law Enforcement.]

  “Scares me, too.”

  “Right? But then, you know Ed! He gets to talking about when he played for the Falcons? God, these men love to relive gridiron glory, don’t they?”

  “All men are boys.”

  “Isn’t that the truth? But he says there’s nothing scarier than a three-hundred-pound linebacker raging toward you, planning to rip your head off with his bare hands. I guess it sort of puts risk and danger in their proper perspective. This stuff was just in a container shipment. To him it was no big deal. But that’s not what I worry about.”

  “What do you worry about?”

  “I worry about guns. I worry about guns a lot. And homemade bombs and stuff like that.”

  “What a world.”

  “You can say that again.”

  I looked out the window at the gorgeous landscape, thinking about what Sela had just said. It was true that Ed didn’t walk a beat or drive a patrol car, but he was in a big enough position that somebody with a grudge and a gun could try to end his life anytime they wanted to. Scary.

  The marsh on either side of the road was so beautiful. I thought about that and the wildlife and was more than a little apprehensive to be involved in its destruction. Although the first shovel of dirt had yet to be lifted, it was clear that the Bulls Island project was going to need a serious PR campaign and the entire project needed a comprehensive review.

  Soon we were pulling through the security gate of Wild Dunes, and within minutes I was dragging my suitcases, bumping up each step to my new home for the foreseeable future. Sela, with a duffel over her shoulder and a rolling bag in tow, opened the front door and tossed me the keys.

  “Welcome home,” she said. “I even bought you some groceries!”

  “Sela? I’m going to have to give you a kidney or something. This is gorgeous!”

  It was gorgeous—for a rental, that is. At the far end of the living room were sofas and chairs, the requisite metal-framed sliding glass doors that opened to a reasonably sized balcony overlooking the ocean. On the close end of the room was a glass-top table with eight armchairs on wheels, and behind that was an open kitchen that was more than adequate for the amount of cooking I would probably ever do. I guessed whoever owned the condo had chosen a decorator’s prefab package because no part-time resident would have been able to find the wide range of Wedgwood-blue fabrics that covered every upholstered surface or so much distressed-bamboo furniture. It wasn’t my taste, but for a temporary home, it was just fine.

  “The master bedroom is over here and there is another bedroom upstairs with a storage room that I guess could have been a third bedroom, but who knows? Maybe they have their old crazy aunt Tillie locked up in there.”

  “Well, this is the South,” I said, and we laughed at that.

  “Actually, Mizzy Betts, we don’t do that anymore down here in God’s country. We Dippity-Do their pin curls, buy them a new housecoat, and send them off to Jerry Springer.”

  “Think about those poor people. Disgusting.” There was a desk in the living room and I was already unpacking and hooking up my laptop and the chargers for my BlackBerry and my digital camera.

  “Seriously. So tell me, did you ever talk to your dad?”

  “Nope. He never called me back. Can you believe that?”

  “No kidding,” Sela said, and shook her head. “What a sin.”

  “I know. That tells me a lot.”

  “Maybe. Or maybe your crazy sister picked up the message and never even told him you called.”

  “Possible. Why in the world would Joanie do that?”

  “Well, let’s see. There are two possibilities. One, she’s the one with dementia, or two, she didn’t want him to know you called.”

  “I’ve got a hunch that I should go with knucklehead,” I said, knowing in my heart that she hadn’t told him I called.

  “Good choice. Just call him again, then. If you run into him without him knowing you’re here, it would be very embarrassing for both of you.”

  “You’re absolutely right. I’ve been in a petulant funk about it, but unfortunately I think you might be on to Joanie.”

  “And, FYI? Your sister? I’ve seen her around town with much older companions lately.”

  “Oh Lord. She just can’t get that daddy-worship thing of hers under control, can she?”

  “Who said they were men?”

  “Holy crap. Sela? You think she’s gay?”

  “I think she’s a lonely dowdy frump who would be grateful for any and all attention.”

  “I’ll add her to my list of puzzles to decipher. Good grief.”

  “So when are you going to see himself?”

  “You mean J.D.?”

  “No, I mean freaking Kaptain Kangeroo. Yes, I mean J.D.!”

  “After I get my hair completely flat-ironed and find some makeup that won’t melt. That will probably be Wednesday.” Two days from now. I said it as though seeing J.D. would be nothing of consequence, but Sela knew better. We had been reading each other’s mind for over twenty years.

  “Umm!” she said in a cautionary tone, and wagged a finger at me.

  “You said it. You know it’s so funny because part of me can’t wait to lay eyes on him and another part of me is dreading it.”

  “I’m sure. Small prediction here…”

  “What?”

  “Your hormones and your conscience are about to get a workout. Come on, drive me back to the city.”

  On the way to the island, Sela insisted that I use her SUV during my stay, saying she and Ed had four cars that just sat around all day and it was stupid to blow the money on a rental. I didn’t want her to know that I had an expense account the size of our national debt, so I accepted. It was another very thoughtful gesture. I would send her flowers for the restaurant every week.

  We talked constantly on the short ride back to the city, trying to squeeze everything into the short time we shared. Topics were skimmed over. Like how did I really feel about J.D.? Hard to say. Was I ever going to be emotionally prepared to see him? No. We both knew that to be true.

  When I dropped her off in front of her restaurant, I got out to give her a hug.

  “Thanks for everything, Sela. Really.”

  “Ah, it was nothing. Why don’t you come back for dinner?”

  “Oh, gosh. Thanks for the offer, but I want to get unpacked, check my e-mail, call Sandi and Dad, and start bracing up.”

  “Well, you’re welcome here every night, if you can stand the fare! The food’s about the same as it’s always been.”

  I got back into the car and closed the door. “It’s the company and the seal of the conf
essional I’ll be needing,” I said in my best Irish brogue.

  “Anytime!” She waved, blew me a kiss, and disappeared through the doors of O’Farrell’s.

  All the way back to the beach, I sort of blanked out and let myself fall under the spell of Charleston and its natural grandeur—the smells of the marsh, the clusters of snowy egrets, the sparkle of the Cooper River. Charleston was the quintessential chameleonic dowager queen of cities if ever one existed. Over three hundred years old and every bit as beautiful as the day she was born. In fact, she was more interesting for all she had seen and all she knew. She was sultry, determined, cultured, and wise beyond any other American city because the sons and daughters of Charleston knew what mattered—taking care of their mother. Mother Charleston was going to tan my hide if I allowed the Bulls Island project to turn out like some others had.

  The first thing I did when I got back to the condo was call Sandi. She was at her brother’s in Summerville. I had grabbed Sandi from Human Resources for two reasons. She understood everything like a true psychic and, by coincidence, she was from South Carolina, the land of my people.

  “Ah! So you’ve arrived,” she exclaimed. “Great! We have about a bazillion and one things to go over!”

  “I’m sure! But I’m just as sure you have it all under control. I’ll see you first thing in the morning…unless you need me now?”

  “Nope, I copied you on some e-mails, but not to worry, just get yourself squared away because the work’s not going anywhere.”

  “What’s on top of the agenda?”

  “Gatorzilla and trying to catch the sucker. Ever since the Department of Wildlife guys began looking for him, he’s been hiding. But they’ve already moved over a hundred alligators to Capers. And a mess of cougars or bobcats or some kind of killer cat.”

  “A mess of? You’re acclimated!”

  “Still! Who wants that job? Can you imagine trying to humanely capture critters who would just as soon eat you for lunch?”

  “Nope, but well, it’s a noble beginning. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  I hung up wondering if the natural habitat of Capers could sustain the alligators and made a note to check it out. It probably could, but I wasn’t sure, and should their numbers begin to decline, that was the kind of detail that would kill the project. Alligator lovers would unite and come after us with a vengeance. Worse, what if they could walk back to Bulls Island at low tide like you could walk from DeBordieu to Pawleys? I wasn’t even going to bring that up to anyone.

  I opened my hanging bag and began to put my clothes in the closet, shaking them out, as the incredible humidity had crept its way in between all the zippers, turning every piece of linen into a slightly damp dishrag. Suddenly I could smell all the dry-cleaning fluids in my clothes and it made me gag. It couldn’t be healthy to have all those chemicals on your skin, I thought. I wondered then if I would even wear any of the clothes I had brought because they all looked wrong.

  Next my curiosity took me to the pillows, the linens on the bed, and the towels in the bathroom. I threw back the bedspread—blue swirls on beige with nylon batting to provide backing for the quilting. The backing was covered with picks and pulls. Not okay. The sheets were so thin you could read a book through them and the pillows were lumpy fiberfill foam, slept on by a thousand heads. I knew even before I tried one that the bath towels couldn’t cover the backside of a four-year-old. It was no surprise that there was no soap dish, bathroom glass, or tissue-box cover. Renters have a reputation for stealing everything, so what is usually supplied is of the lowest reasonable quality. And everything wears out so quickly because who’s there to tell them not to take the bedspread to the beach or to use the pots to make sand castles?

  If not tonight then tomorrow, I was headed to Bed Bath & Beyond to drop a few dollars because I freely admit that at this point in my life, I wasn’t going without some basic creature comforts. Rental linens were not even remotely as nice as hotel linens. Besides, when the job was all over, I could give whatever I bought to Dad, assuming he would even accept a contribution from me, or I could ship a box home.

  I wasn’t fooling myself. It was already after six o’clock and I was doing everything in the world to avoid picking up my cell phone and calling Dad. But on reconsidering the possibility that my sister was the cause of his silence, my warrior gene became inflamed. I dialed his number. He answered right away and my anxiety dissolved. I was thrilled and relieved to hear that his voice sounded so robust.

  “Dad? It’s me, Betts. The prodigal daughter?”

  Gasp and then silence. Not a good sign, so I just plunged ahead.

  “I know you probably don’t want to see me, I mean, I knew that when you didn’t return my call—”

  “What? What call?”

  “I called you a couple of weeks ago.”

  “I never got any message from you. I…I mean, you say you called a couple of weeks ago?”

  “Yes. I did.”

  The silence that hung between us told him that there may have been other occasions when I had tried to reach out to them. Of course there were. Anything else would have been unnatural.

  “Betts, I don’t know what to say…”

  Without uttering a single word, we knew it was Joanie who had thwarted my efforts to reach him. Then I thought with a rush of nausea, What about his side of the story? Had he given Joanie birthday cards over the years to mail to me that she had simply thrown away? Christmas gifts? Letters? Had she denied knowing my cellphone number or my office number? What kind of despotic megalomaniac had she really become?

  “Just tell me that I can come see you, Daddy. I want to see you.”

  I could hear the whole truth in his long sigh of surrender and disappointment.

  “Of course you can. I have missed you, girl. Missed you with all my heart. I thought you had…I thought you stopped loving me.”

  “Oh, Daddy! No! And I thought you had stopped loving me.”

  “Never.”

  The hourglass had turned over and the sands were now running in my direction. It was my time to receive my father’s love again. But regaining his affection and trust was not going to happen with the snap of my fingers or his. I hadn’t been available for all those years. Had he tried to find me? Ever? I did not know. Maybe he had. Perhaps he had given up when his efforts to find me were met with no response. It was clear that we were going to have to confront Joanie.

  Joanie. The family terrorist. Perhaps Daddy had developed some minor version of the Stockholm syndrome, but now in this conversation, from one second to the next, I could feel his defenses coming down like a house of cards that was waiting for a strong wind and would have settled for a breeze.

  “Are you in Charleston?” he asked.

  I told him yes, I was, and that I would be for a month or two or maybe longer. I could hear him sigh again, but it was a sigh of possibilities. He asked me when I wanted to get together and I suggested dinner at O’Farrell’s the following night. He said he would be there at six and then he started to cry. He was silently admitting that he knew Sela had always known where I was. The ugly truth was that he had made no effort to contact me through her and had allowed Joanie to take over his life. But in deference to the many unknown facts, I said nothing. What was the point?

  “I thought I had lost you forever, Betts. Those damn good-for-nothing Langleys and all the heartbreak they have caused. I hope they all burn in hell.” He had conveniently shifted the blame to the Langleys and I did not argue the point. We would sort out the truth at a later date…somehow.

  I choked up and then sniffed loudly. “Well, Daddy? I hope they all don’t burn in hell, but I’ve got a short list of candidates if the Lord wants to know.”

  He sniffed, too, and then he sort of chuckled. “Starting with that no-good Louisa, am I right?”

  “Yes, sir. She’d scare the hell out of the devil himself. Daddy? I can’t wait to see you.”

  “Me, too, sweetheart. Me, too.”
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br />   “Want to bring Joanie?” Loaded question.

  “I’ll ask her and we’ll see.”

  We hung up and my mind was racing. Had he become so dependent on Joanie that he would have gone to his dust without ever asking Sela to tell him where I was? What possible motivation could he have for such inaction? Once more, I decided to put it all aside.

  Tomorrow night, I would start by telling him that I loved him and that I wanted him back. Those words had not been a part of my plan because, first of all, I had no plan and, second, that statement would probably lead to other painful revelations. But I had not expected him to become so emotional or so accepting when we spoke. Hearing his voice crack—just hearing his voice at all after so long—nearly made me fall to the floor with weakness. Joanie aside for the moment, he was all I had left, and just as important, he was all I had left of my mother.

  How could we have let this terrible separation happen? Had we been so overwhelmed by the drama of the moment? Yes, I had been, but how could I have let so many years go by, years of my stupidity, my fears, my frustrations…no, it didn’t matter anymore because the most important step had been taken—the first one, the one where I did battle for myself.

  Joanie or no Joanie, Langleys be damned, he was still my father and we could redraw the terms of a new relationship without anyone’s permission or approval. I burst into tears and sat down on the ugly worn comforter that covered the lumpy bed, the one where I would doubtlessly struggle to find sleep. I wept. But these were tears of relief. The first major obstacle had been cleared—maybe not like an Olympic champion, but cleared nonetheless.

  Finally, I got up and continued putting things away, but I stopped when I opened the closets and smelled the musky scent of salt in wood. Nice for a candle, not so great in lingerie. I added shelf paper to my mental list. I emptied as many suitcases as I could until I could no longer ignore the growling of my stomach. I was famished.