The Summer's End (17 page)

“What about your parents?”

“My parents never had a big house. They were lucky and got their house on the water back in the day when they could afford it. But,” he added with pride, “my mother's great-grandfather once had a plantation along the Santee River. It'd been in the family since before the War. That property's been divided up so many times now there's nothing left but a memory.” He shrugged. “Doesn't matter. I like the house they have in McClellanville. It's right on the water. Suits a shrimper.”

Harper put the hat on a high box. “Mamaw said the knobs were in the boxes in the back right. Next to the rocking chair.”

He reached her side. “I see a rocking chair.”

The space was so narrow between the boxes that he couldn't pass her. The air suddenly felt close between them.

“This way,”
she said awkwardly, then turned and led the way single file. The floor under the rafters was nothing more than wooden planks, which wobbled as they crossed the attic. Moving around a table that jutted into the walkway, she stumbled. She flailed her arms, trying to catch herself. Suddenly Taylor's hand shot out and grabbed her arm just in time.

“Whoa.” He pulled her back.

She fell back against his chest, aware that he held her arms while she steadied herself. “Sorry. Clumsy me.”

“Watch out for land mines.”

Her heart was pounding as she brushed away hair from her face. He was still holding her, longer than necessary. Self-conscious, she looked at his hands, so large he could wrap his fingers around her forearms. “Thank you,” she said in a hushed voice.

He immediately released her.

She rubbed her arms nervously. “I would've fallen facedown in that pile of . . .” She paused when she looked to where she'd have fallen.

She squinted and stepped closer to the small, leather-bound trunk. It was so old patches of the dark brown leather had dried and chipped off like bits of paint, exposing the wood. The initials
MC
were carved in a brass plate on the top.
Marietta Colson.
Mamaw's maiden name.

“I know that trunk.” Harper reached for it. Her fingers could just touch it but she couldn't lift it.

“Here, let me get it.” Taylor moved around her as they changed places in the narrow walkway. Their bodies pressed against each other, and the neurons of her body traced each touching point. His shirt was still damp from the rain, and she caught the scent of something musky lingering in the fabric.

“Cozy,”
he said to break the tension between them.

“Yes.” She laughed lightly, glad he'd named what they both were feeling.

Taylor easily lifted the small trunk and carried it to an open space in the center of the attic. Harper knelt before it, her long pants collecting a layer of dust. Taylor went to the nearest window and, grabbing hold of the handles, pushed to open it. The swollen wood wouldn't budge. He pounded the frame several times with the palm of his hand and tried again. This time the old window rattled up the frame, but only halfway. Immediately a cooler breeze blew in that smelled of sweet rain.

“The rain's stopped. At least for a few minutes.” He slapped his hands on his shorts.

“The breeze is nice.” Harper felt the cool breeze cut through the musty air. “This was my grandmother's trunk,” she told him when he returned to her side. He lowered to his haunches beside her. “She gave it to my sisters and me to store our treasures at the end of the summers.” Her expression softened as the memory came alive in her mind. “It was always a special moment when we returned the next year. Mamaw would gather us together and she'd open the trunk in a grand manner.” Harper smiled. “Mamaw can be quite dramatic. She has a gift for making even the simplest thing seem extraordinary.” Harper ran her fingers gently over the top of the trunk. “I haven't seen this since I was, oh, ten or twelve. I can't imagine what's still in it.”

Taylor moved to sit on an old footstool. His legs were so long, his knees nearly touched his chin. “Aren't you going to open it?”

“Okay.” Harper pried open the lid. Bits more of the leather flaked
off in the effort. She gasped in wonder when she discovered the trunk was filled with items from the sisters' childhoods. “To think she kept all this all these years.”

Harper pulled out a yellowed handmade collection of papers filled with cutout letters and clippings of fashion models and teenaged movie stars glued to them. It was all tied together with colored string through the punch holes. On the cover, in big letters, was
Southern Stars.

Harper remembered, “It's Dora's magazine! She created lots of these magazines every summer. She spent hours working on them. Whenever Carson and I tried to help, she'd shoo us out of the room. She was the older sister, you see. She saw us as pesty girls and made a show of not wanting to play with us. We were mad at the time, but in retrospect it was a blessing. Carson and I bonded and we created games of our own.” Harper smiled wickedly. “One of which was to spy on Dora.” Harper opened the magazine. “She was so proud of these things. She boasted that someday her magazine would be a national hit.”

“Creative.”

Harper refrained from replying as she began leafing through the pages while Taylor bent low to look over her shoulder. The carefully cut out photos of teenaged stars of the nineties included Winona Ryder, Marky Mark, the cast of
90210,
and others, mostly country-music stars. When they saw Dora's head shot superimposed on the bodies of blond teen stars, they both howled. Harper leaned against Taylor's legs, laughing till her sides hurt.

“She never let me see that part.” Harper wiped her eyes. “This is priceless. I've got ammunition for years. No wonder Mamaw kept them.”

As the laughter subsided, Harper became aware that her hand was resting on Taylor's knee and his hand was on her shoulder. When she turned to look at Taylor, he was still smiling, totally relaxed. Laughter had broken the ice between them at last, she thought, looking at his sparkling eyes.

Reluctantly she set aside the other four
Southern Stars
magazines, vowing to share them with her sisters later. Returning to the trunk, she next pulled out several swimming trophies and award ribbons. “These were Carson's. Of course. She was really proud of them. That girl is more fish than human.” Harper handed them to Taylor, then looked back into the trunk.

She spied a black bandanna and two eye patches. “Oh. My. God.”

“What are they?”

“Carson's and my pirate patches! I can't believe it.”

“Maybe there's some of the lost pirate gold in that trunk?”

“Fingers crossed.”

Harper rummaged through the remaining contents, pulling out a few old shells that had broken over time, a troll doll with neon-green hair, a pale blue My Little Pony. She handed them to Taylor, who chuckled at each one. Then her hand went still and she felt a sudden chill. Four small square booklets made of cardboard fronts and paper were stacked on the bottom of the trunk. Like Dora's magazines, these had holes punched into the edge and were bound by yarn.

“What are those?”

She wanted to cover the box from Taylor's view. To hide them. “Books I wrote. When I was a little girl,” she said softly. She reached in and pulled one out. The square of cardboard had been painted blue and had faded over the years. On this was a child's
drawing of a whale, smiling and spouting water. Written in a child's script was
Willy the Wishful Whale.

In a flash, Harper was eight years old again, sitting across the desk from her mother in her elegant apartment in Manhattan. Harper had thought she'd been called in to be complimented for creating her first book. Something she was sure her mother, who worked with books, would be proud of. She'd preened with excitement, her heart fluttered with anticipation. Pleasing her mother was paramount to her.

Instead, her mother had been furious. Her anger was visceral, and though she never lashed out at Harper with physical abuse, her words could sting far worse. The scars, though not seen, were carved on Harper's soul. That afternoon Georgiana accused Harper of copying the idea from something she'd read in other books. Worse, she compared her lack of talent to her father's. To be like her father in any way was the worst insult her mother could bestow.

“Your father wasn't a writer,” Georgiana had spat out, her eyes glittering with anger. “He didn't have talent. And”—she'd dropped Harper's book from her fingers as if it were trash—“neither do you.”

That day Harper had felt all her pride and enthusiasm for writing wither in her chest. Her mother had extinguished Harper's dreams at eight years of age as brutally as she did the cigarette in her hand. It was months before Harper ventured to write again, and then only at Sea Breeze, far from her mother. Where she felt safe.

Then one day the following summer Mamaw had called Harper into her sitting room. She found Mamaw with her feet resting on the chintz ottoman. Sunlight poured into the room, lending Mamaw's
soft, white curls a golden glow. Harper had entered smiling until she spotted the ill-fated book in Mamaw's hand. Harper shrank back, sure she was again in trouble.

“I found this under your pillow.” Mamaw lifted the small, cardboard-covered booklet in her hand. “Harper, did you write this little book?”

Harper was so nervous, she couldn't speak. She hovered near the chair and could only nod, eyes wide.

Mamaw gestured for her to come closer.

Harper took reluctant steps to Mamaw's side, where she reached out an arm to hold Harper close.

“What a wonderful book!” Mamaw gave her a squeeze. “Absolutely charming. Tell me, dear, did you make it up? All by yourself?”

Harper couldn't believe what she was hearing. Was it a trap, like the one her mother had sprung? She simply shrugged noncommittally.

“You did, didn't you?” Mamaw's eyes shone with pride. “Clever girl. It's wonderful. So creative. Imagine, a whale wishing to find his family, searching the sea. You have a real talent, do you know that? And you drew the pictures so well. You might be a writer when you grow up.”

Harper could only stare back in awe and wonder, confused.

Mamaw's face shifted and her smile became bittersweet. “Your father wanted to be a writer, you know.”

“I know.”

Mamaw reached out and with her fingertip gently lifted Harper's chin so that she looked deeply into her eyes. “I am very, very proud of you.”

Harper had felt her chest swell with relief and pride and
love for her grandmother. Uttering a soft cry, she reached out to wrap her thin arms around Mamaw's neck. She couldn't help the tears that began to flow.

“Why, whatever is the matter, child?” Mamaw pulled Harper up into her lap and held her against her breast while stroking her hair until the tears subsided.

“Mummy told me that it was bad for me to write the book.”

“Rubbish.”

“She said that I was a bad writer. Like Daddy.”

Mamaw's hand stopped moving. “Did she?”

Harper, ashamed, buried her face in Mamaw's breast.

Mamaw said in a huff, “I've never agreed with your mother on any other topic before, and it is no surprise that I do not agree with her now.”

“Mamaw, was Daddy a bad writer?”

Mamaw began stroking her hair again. “Oh, child, honestly? We'll never know for sure. Parker never finished his book. He tried, you see, but he just couldn't manage it. And here you are, his daughter and only eight years old, and you finished a book! That in itself is very important. A triumph! Talent is only a part of writing a book. An important part, true. But the other part is putting in the hard work. That's the part your father had a difficult time with, I'm afraid.”

Mamaw gently shook Harper in her arms. “But you listen to your Mamaw now. You
do
have talent. This is a wonderful story. Your mother is wrong, hear? So keep writing, Harper. Write your little heart out. And I'll happily read anything you write.”

So Harper had started writing again. Story after story all that summer, and the summers after.

Harper looked at the four small cardboard-bound books in her hand. “She kept them.”

“From the little I know about your grandmother, I'm not surprised. Can I see them?”

Harper shook her head no. She couldn't bear to hear him laugh at her books, the way he had at Dora's magazines. “They aren't very good.”

“Says who?”

“I know I'm not a good writer.” She retracted the books.

He dropped his hand, not pushing her. “Does it matter?”

“Of course it matters.”

“I don't know that I agree. Not if you enjoy writing. It's a way of communicating. Of sharing a part of your soul with the world. Maybe you won't get published, but that's not the end all of writing. Writing is a process. When I write, I do it for myself.”

“You write?” she asked, surprised by this admission.

He nodded and looked at her askance. “You didn't expect it from me, did you?”

“Well . . . ,” Harper stumbled.

“It's okay. Most people don't.” He snorted. “They expect to see the long hair, the turtleneck, and the pained expression. A Marine? Not so much.”

Harper met his glance and felt a blush rise. “When you put it like that, I'm embarrassed. Of course there's no one kind of writer.”

He didn't seem the least perturbed.

“I'd think you'd have a lot to write about,” she said.

He nodded.

“What do you write? Memoir? Novel?”

“Poetry.”

The man never failed to amaze her. “Really?” she asked, more a comment of being impressed. “I've always thought that poetry was the highest form of writing.”

“I don't know if it's any good. Don't care. But I know it's good
for
me.” He looked at his hands. “Writing poetry helps give me clarity. Life can be pretty confusing sometimes.”