Chapter Two
T
he Dive Inn was the last refuge before the solitude of home.
During the peak of summer, it was as much a tourist trap as the rest of Folly’s Center Street establishments, but today there were plenty of parking spaces around more obvious watering holes and those sitting before the nondescript building were vacant. Jack made a last-minute veer into the unpaved parking lot and went inside, finding the place uninhabited, except for the owner-bartender and an older couple at one of the tables in the back.
“Yo, Jack! Where ya been?”
“Work,” Jack offered as an explanation, but the truth was that he came here mostly when he was avoiding Kelly—which he supposed he was doing right now.
“Keeping you busy?”
“Busy enough,” Jack replied. “How about a Guinness, Kyle.”
“Sure,” the bartender said, and reached into a freezer, grabbed a cold mug and proceeded to pour Jack’s pint from a shiny silver tap that had been lovingly polished. The wooden counter might have years of character dents and scratches but the draft lines were pristine. Kyle slid the glass over the bar to him. “You hear about the Hutto girl?” he asked, making conversation.
Jack shook his head, taking a chug of his Guinness, glad he hadn’t brought up Charleston’s biggest news story—the death of Florence W. Aldridge.
Despite that he hated the habit, he reached for a cigarette, but the image of Caroline’s face stopped him cold. She used to hate it when he smoked, but these days he only did it when he drank. Tapping his pocket, as though to keep the cancer sticks in check, he wondered why he felt compelled to do anything just because Caroline did or didn’t like it. Clearly, she didn’t want anything to do with him.
Apparently, forgiveness wasn’t an Aldridge virtue.
“Thought maybe you had,” Kyle persisted. “They live just a few doors down from you.”
“What about her?”
“Apparently she disappeared off the beach a few weeks ago. Hasn’t been much in the news on account of that newspaper lady dying, but someone came in earlier and posted that—” He hitched his chin toward a homemade poster with the grainy color image of a pretty little blond girl on it.
“Do they think she drowned?”
Kyle shrugged. “Who knows? Seems someone’s always doing something stupid in that ocean out there. Thing is, they aren’t tourists. You’d think they’d know better.”
Jack tried to recall who the Huttos were, but couldn’t place them. Folly Beach was a small, intimate community, but he mostly kept to himself. Things worked out better that way. In fact, it was part of the reason he’d moved to Folly to begin with. He hated lawn work and didn’t enjoy chatting over hedges with neighbors. In fact, he hadn’t worked on his bike for more than a month because he was sick of the old woman across the street coming over to ask if he was still single. He took another swig of his Guinness and reached into his pocket to grab his cell phone. Three missed calls from Kelly. Zero from Caroline.
Then, again, he hadn’t expected Caroline to call. She was as prideful as her mother—damn her! Even ten years later, she wasn’t about to forget a stupid mistake. He set the phone down on the counter and drained his glass, eyeing the cell with some malice.
The bartender eyed him curiously. “Bad day?”
Jack shrugged. “Buried a friend,” he said.
And fought with the woman who somehow still managed to consume his thoughts even after all these years, but he didn’t offer up that part. It was nobody’s business.
Caroline was the sole reason he couldn’t settle down with Kelly, he realized. Every time he’d considered it, Caroline’s face popped into his head—like one of those annoying carnival games. He didn’t think that was the way it was supposed to be—married to one girl, obsessed with another.
There was nothing wrong with Kelly.
She just wasn’t Caroline.
“I’ll take another.”
Kyle nodded and complied.
Okay, so maybe as a description of the past several years, “obsessed” was a bit of an overstatement, because he had pretty much managed to put Caroline out of his head—except whenever life-changing decisions were about to be made. This minute, however, it
was
a full-on obsession, complete with phantom touches that were hijacking his body. Just seeing her had done that to him. It left him with a sense of longing that was acutely disagreeable, and he couldn’t shake it.
Eyeing the phone again, he considered calling her—just so he could stop thinking about her—and it dawned on him that she was probably the reason he had never changed his number. That thought had never even entered his brain before this moment, but he was pretty sure it was true. He wasn’t over her. Worse, he was afraid he was never going to be over her, and the thought of living his life in limbo made him feel like chain-smoking half a dozen packs of cigarettes right in front of her.
His cell phone rang and his heart thumped hard. Then he saw the number and felt the letdown: Kelly.
He couldn’t avoid her forever.
Draining his glass once more, he took out his wallet, paid the tab, grabbed his cell, and almost as an afterthought, reached into his pocket, digging out his last pack of cigarettes, still half full, and tossed them on the bar, then walked out. The phone stopped ringing, but he would call her back. Now that it was all clear in his head, he realized holding on wasn’t fair.
It was time to let go.
With the last of the guests gone, Caroline joined Savannah and Sadie’s son Josh out on the back porch while Augusta remained upstairs, packing for the flight she’d arranged the moment she’d confirmed a reschedule for the reading of the will. Now the reading was set for ten
A.M.
Monday morning. Augusta’s flight was at three. Somehow, that fact left Caroline feeling gloomier than watching her mother’s casket being lowered into the ground this morning.
Once the three of them left . . . once the house was sold, the last “t” was crossed and the last “i” dotted . . . where would home be then?
Enjoy the moment, Caroline.
The moment was all they really had. That was a bitter lesson she had learned after Sammy. The last words Caroline recalled him saying were,
“Yo ho, yo ho—look at me, Cici! I’m a pirate—just like Blackbeard!”
Indeed, he was.
Just like Blackbeard.
Nothing left but a ghost.
That afternoon, Flo had been sunning farther up the beach with a margarita in hand. Flo never heard him, and all three girls had continued drawing pictures in the sand, oblivious to the danger their brother was in. As it turned out, Caroline was the last to see him alive—something neither Caroline nor Flo had ever learned to forgive.
They surmised Sam had floated out into the channel in his little inflatable boat, and from there, there was no telling what might have befallen him . . . a fishing boat that didn’t see him in time, a speedboat with a beer-drinking weekend warrior behind the helm, a hole in his raft . . . it could have been anything. The currents could have carried him out to sea.
Once he was gone, nothing was the same.
And no one ever called her Cici again.
On the horizon, a thin ribbon of pink held the descending darkness up high. As it lowered, the creek lost some of its glimmer, fading to black.
She had forgotten how beautiful spring and summer could be on the island.
Oyster Point Plantation sat on the southwest end of a finger of land that crooked toward Clark Sound and the sea. The house itself was built so it offered a view of the salt marsh from the front and back verandas. Already, the marsh grasses were tall and verdant, permitting little more than glimpses of the water that glittered like diamonds beneath a mantle of green. A quick breeze bent the spartina grass . . . like rows of bowing performers. At the end of the dock, the last rays of sun glinted off the tin steeple of the boathouse roof. Caroline inhaled the familiar scent of the salt marsh into her lungs, filing it all away for later.
Savannah sighed. “I can’t believe she’s leaving on her birthday.”
It was impossible to control Augusta. Caroline accepted that. “Maybe she has other plans?”
“This is a time to be with family,” Savannah argued, “even if you’re just going through the motions. But if you ask me, I think she needs us more than we need her.”
That was probably true, but Caroline was pretty sure this was Augusta’s way of showing the world how little life and death affected her. She made it a point often to say how lucky they were when so many others were not—that any second spent breathing should never be wasted wallowing in sorrow. Considering how abruptly their mother’s life had ended, Caroline thought Augusta had a point.
“How can we make her stay?” Savannah persisted.
Josh actually laughed at the question. “Might as well forget that!” He took the fork out of his mouth long enough to wave it at her. “If Augie’s set on leaving, she’s leaving. That’s all there is to it.”
For all intents and purposes, Sadie’s only son was like a brother to them, but he was much closer to Augusta than he was to Caroline or Savannah. Only months apart in age, as children, the two had spent pretty much every waking moment together.
Augusta was eleven months younger than Caroline and Savannah was nearly two years younger than Augusta. Their parents’ relationship had already begun its toxic decline by the time Augusta was born and by the time their baby brother had come along, their parents had barely spoken to one another—even less to their bewildered brood. It was a mystery to all how Sammy was even conceived.
This trip, however, Augusta had barely spoken to Josh—to any of them for that matter.
Savannah’s brow furrowed. “Why does she have to be so damned contrary?”
Josh shook his head. “After all this time, you two still haven’t learned to deal with that girl. You can’t tell Augie what to do, and you can’t give her ultimatums.” His blue eyes gleamed. “You sure as hell can’t make plans for her.” His tawny skin was flawless—like his mother’s, except that Sadie’s was at least ten shades darker. Caroline had long suspected he had a mixed heritage, but Sadie had never been very forthcoming about her son’s paternity and Caroline was sure Josh just didn’t know. It didn’t seem to bother Josh. Nothing did. In all her life she didn’t recall Josh ever having shed a single tear—not that she could say she was much different. Emotions didn’t come easily for Caroline either.
“Who wants ice-cold peach tea?” Sadie called out. With her hip on the door, balancing a tray laden with sweating glasses, she pushed the screen open. Before anyone could stand to help her, she carried the tray over and set it down on the table next to the rocking chair where Josh was seated. She picked a glass up, handing it to Savannah.
Caroline frowned at her. “You don’t have to serve us anymore, Sadie.”
Sadie turned those soulful black eyes on Caroline. “Enough of that, eah me!” she demanded, shoving a glass of iced tea at Caroline’s face. “First of all, your mama took good care of me, but if you think I am doing this because it’s my job, you are mistaken, young lady!”
Josh laughed nervously. “Better take it . . . or you’re going to wear it.”
Caroline reached out to take the glass. She hadn’t meant to hurt Sadie’s feelings. She was simply aware that Sadie was mourning, too. “At least sit with us,” she appealed to their longtime housemaid, surrogate mother and friend.
Sadie grabbed a glass, leaving one remaining on the tray, and seated herself in the rocking chair facing Josh. “I intend to,” she proclaimed and began to rock gently as she sipped her peach tea.
Silence punctuated their conversation.
Crickets chirped mournfully and Caroline sighed, giving in to a moment of self-pity for the relationship she no longer had any chance to repair. Flo was gone forever.
Like Sam.
Augie suddenly appeared behind the screen door, pressing her face into the mesh.
Caroline was careful not to betray her disappointment. “All packed?”
“All done.”
Sadie raised her glass. “Good. Come on out and grab yourself a cold glass of tea, eah.”
“I’m fine,” Augusta replied. She slid her tongue out, smashing it against the dingy screen and rolling her eyes. Savannah laughed at the faces she made.
Josh reached back and tapped the screen door where Augusta’s tongue was propped. “Get out here, Augie!”
“Blech! Disgusting!”
“You realize how many mosquito eggs have been laid in that screen?” he countered. “That’s what’s disgusting!”
Augie pushed the door open, swiping at her tongue. “Point made. Where’s the tea?” Spotting the remaining glass, she reached for it and took a hearty swig, then exhaled a self-satisfied sigh.
“Now take a seat,” Sadie demanded.
Without further protest, Augie did as she was told. She sat on the floor next to Josh’s rocking chair, drawing up her knees. “Sorry to disappear on you guys earlier. I’m not so good with the chitchat, you know.”
Savannah snorted. “That’s an understatement!”
Augusta slid their youngest sister a dark look. “We can’t all be quite so agreeable, now can we?” There was an edge to the compliment only the deaf would have missed.
Savannah averted her gaze, staring out at the marsh, and Caroline was conscious of Savannah’s darkening mood. It was evident in the slump of her shoulders, and she wondered why Augusta couldn’t see it and give their sister a break.
Just once, she wished they could come together and be a normal family.
“So now that we’re all together,” Sadie ventured, steering the conversation, “maybe you girls will humor me with a teensy favor?”
There wasn’t much any of them would deny Sadie, but with a preface like that, Caroline had a feeling her favor wasn’t all that teensy.