The Beach House

“Oh.” Another pause. “I didn’t know Lovie had a daughter.”

Cara rubbed her eyes and waited.

“May I speak to your mother?”

No one had asked her that question in over twenty years. Cara blinked sleepily while she gazed around the living room. The house was as quiet as a mouse.

“She’s not here.”

“But…I’ve found turtle tracks!”

Gauging by the panic in the voice, Cara figured the woman was one of her mother’s novice volunteers for the island’s Turtle Team. “Uh, great,” she replied. “Thanks. I’ll tell her when she comes back.”

“Wait! Don’t you want to know where they are? I’m at the 6th Avenue beach access. What should I do? Should I wait here?”

Cara sighed and woke up a little more. “Really, I don’t have the foggiest idea what to tell you to do and without coffee I couldn’t even venture a guess.”

From out on the porch she heard the footfall of someone trudging up the steps. Thanks heavens, the cavalry, she thought.

“Hold on,” she told the woman on the phone. “I think that must be her now.” Cara stretched the cord of the ancient black phone to peek around the corner. The front door swung open. Instead of her mother, however, she saw a young woman enter the house free-as-you-please. Her shaggy, blond hair cascaded over her eyes as she bent down, struggling with several plastic grocery bags. With a muffled grunt, she kicked the door shut with her heel.

The young woman was hardly threatening in appearance. Pregnant women usually weren’t. She wore a pastel, A-line floral dress that was very short and cheaply made of thin rayon that lifted higher in the front where the fabric strained against her belly. When the woman raised her head she shook her hair back and their eyes met.

Cara ducked her head back behind the corner, tugging down her T-shirt. In contrast, the woman didn’t seem the least astonished to find Cara in the house. Cara leaned against the hall wall listening as the mystery woman moved on into the kitchen without so much as a hello, opening and closing cabinets as though she owned the place.

“Excuse me,” Cara called out with authority. “But who are you?”

“Didn’t your mama tell you about me?” she called back. Her voice carried the drawl of a rural southern accent.

It flashed through Cara’s mind that she’d fallen asleep without a meal or so much as a good-night to her mother. They hadn’t had a chance to talk about schedules or visitors or a girl who might stop by in the morning. Cara assumed she was either a neighbor or someone hired to help with the shopping.

From the phone, a strident voice rose up. “Hello? Hello? Is anyone there?”

Cara called out to the woman in the kitchen. “I’ve got a frantic phone call here about a turtle. Do you know where my mother is?”

“I’ll take it.”

The voice drew nearer and in a moment the face was looming before her. Cara saw that it wasn’t a woman’s face at all, but a teenager’s. The girl had a sexy, baby-doll kind of face, all rounding cheeks and full, pouty lips. Her youth surprised Cara and her gaze dropped to the belly. Instantly the girl’s hand moved to rest on the rounding curve. Looking up again, Cara saw the girl’s pale-gray eyes turn icy. Lined as they were by dark kohl, the challenge she read in them gave her a hardened, tough-girl appearance that set Cara immediately on edge. With a slightly raised brow that was dangerously close to a smirk, the girl returned a cool glance at Cara’s outfit. For a second, no one spoke as they sized up one another.

The voice of the caller rose up between them. “Hello? Hello?”

The girl reached out her hand, palm up, and wiggled her fingers.

Cara narrowed her eyes and handed over the phone. The girl deliberately turned her back to Cara in a snub and began speaking to the woman on the phone, confirming the address and giving instructions with the confidence of someone who had done this many times before.

Why, the little punk, Cara thought to herself, affronted. Then fatigue got the best of her. “Whatever,” she muttered, turning and heading back down the hall. At least the girl, whoever she was, knew what to do with the pesty phone call. En route she noticed that the door to her brother’s old room was open. Peeking in, she caught a glimpse of the rumpled unmade bed and on top of it, a pink, frilly nightgown.

Cara’s heart fell as the mystery was solved. The girl was a houseguest, she realized. So much for plans of a private mother-child reunion. The cottage was barely large enough for the two of them, but with three, it would be crowded. There would be no escaping the recalcitrant teen-mother who appeared equally thrilled to see her. If she’d known there’d be guests…

Grabbing her pillow from the floor where it had landed, she tossed it back onto the bed, then slumped against the pillows. What was she expecting, anyway? Her mother had always put others in front of her—her brother, her father and the guests who always seemed to fill the Charleston house.

But the beach house had always been different. She’d hoped that here…

Cara’s mouth pinched and she thought herself a fool. She’d learned long before her teens to take care of herself and not to expect anything. In the piercing morning light her room no longer appeared as charming. The colors in her old quilt were sun-bleached and the paint had yellowed on the walls. Although a gentle breeze still fluttered the thread-bare curtains, without air-conditioning, the humidity would be brutal by midday. Cara began to regret her hasty decision to return home.

The beginning of a headache from too many days of stress and too little sleep nagged. Lying back, she punched her pillow a few times, then relinquished her troubled thoughts to a deep, brooding sleep.

Toy Sooner stood at the kitchen sink rinsing out the coffeepot, tapping her foot in agitation. She carefully spooned out six tablespoons of coffee grinds into the filter, then pushed the start button. She knew Lovie enjoyed a fresh cup of coffee when she returned from her turtle watch. Toy had gone to the Red and White to purchase a box of Krispy Kreme doughnuts. There wasn’t much she could afford to do to show Miss Lovie how grateful she was, and Lovie had said a hundred times or more that she didn’t expect any thanks. Things like that just made Toy want to thank her all the more.

Toy wasn’t used to people giving her something without expecting something in return. To live here with Miss Lovie was like a dream come true. This was the nicest place she’d ever lived and she had a room all her own, too. Best of all, there wasn’t any fighting or hollering at her all the time. She didn’t know before living with Miss Lovie that mealtime could be so nice, with a clean tablecloth and napkins and a knife, fork and a spoon—for every meal!

And they had meals regularly. Not an open can of soup in front of the TV or McDonald’s out of the bag, but real dinners with vegetables. Lovie talked to her, too, like she was someone worth talking to and listening to. Not just some worthless, ungrateful kid who was dumb enough to get her self pregnant, like her parents said. They’d stood at the door of the trailer and wouldn’t even let her in when she tried to come back home. “If you was grown up enough to up and move in with Darryl then you’re grown up enough to take care of his kid,” is what they told her. Now what kind of parents is that? They wouldn’t even help when she told them about Darryl hitting her. “You made your bed, now go lie in it.” That’s all they had to say. That and how she ought to go to church, too, and pray hard for the Lord’s forgiveness for being such a sinner.

But Lovie told her again and again that love was never a sin. Not loving, now that was the very worst kind of sin, she said. Miss Lovie was the saintliest person Toy had ever met, and if she said so, then Toy believed it. She always had a way of making Toy feel better about herself instead of making her feel like nothing…worse than nothing. Something to be discarded, which is what her own mother made her feel like.

That’s why it made her so mad to think that Miss Lovie’s own daughter didn’t appreciate how lucky she was to have someone like her for a mother. Just let Cara spend a day with my mother and see how she feels, Toy thought with resentment.

From the moment she heard that Caretta Rutledge was coming home, Toy knew it would be bad news for her. First of all, she heard from Miss Lovie that Cara was some big shot ad executive in Chicago. That figured. Toy knew the type. It wasn’t just that they grew up on the right side of Broad and went to the best schools. Or that they had nice clothes and fancy houses. It was like, deep inside, girls like Cara knew they were better. They didn’t have nothing to prove.

That’s how the rich stayed rich, she figured. It was like some club and they had some secret code that only they knew and that girls like her couldn’t ever clue into. As if she wanted to…She could tell just by the way Cara looked at her pregnant belly that it was a royal put-down. Toy had lots of experience with being looked down on, but it hurt feeling cheap in this house where she’d finally been so happy.

She wiped up the coffee grinds with a sponge. She loved that everything was just so in this house and she actually enjoyed keeping things clean. Growing up, everything was always a mess, with clothes and papers lying all over the place, the laundry never done. She couldn’t ever remember having folded towels in the linen closet or flowers on the table. Living here was like another world. Opening the cabinet, she still got a shiver of pleasure just seeing the neatly stacked sets of matching china.

She’d hate to leave. Lovie wanted Cara to stay the whole summer, but Toy didn’t think Cara could last that long. For Lovie’s sake, she didn’t want to screw things up between them. She didn’t know why, but this time with her daughter was real important to Miss Lovie and Toy would do just about anything for Lovie Rutledge.

The scent of fresh brewed coffee filled the kitchen. She’d just laid out the doughnuts on a pretty plate when she heard steps on the front porch. She quickly wiped the sugar from her hands and hurried to greet Lovie at the door.

“Hey, Miss Lovie!” she called out, grabbing the red bucket from her arm. “I was beginning to wonder if you were going to stay out there all morning.”

“It’s not that late, is it?” Lovie replied, pausing to catch her breath.

Toy’s brows gathered as she monitored Lovie’s level of exhaustion. “Why don’t you sit down for a spell? I’ll get you some water and a nice fresh cup of coffee.”

“My, that sounds nice,” Lovie replied breathlessly as she lowered herself into a chair at the small wood table just outside the kitchen.

With her eye trained on Lovie’s pale face, Toy brought a tray from the kitchen and set it before Lovie. “Did you find anything today?”

Lovie’s face immediately brightened. “Our third nest! Emmi and I probed and on only the third try the probe sunk right in. You should’ve seen Emmi’s face! One hundred and fifty-four eggs. Isn’t that wonderful? Unfortunately, the mother laid them directly in the middle of the beach access path. That big wide one on 17th Avenue.”

“That wasn’t too smart of her.”

“I’m sure the poor old girl had no idea it was a beach path. So we had to move the nest. The dunes are quite high between 16th and 17th Avenue so after Emmi and I checked around a bit, we found a nice place for the nest. All in all, a good day.”

“But a long one for you,” she amended with a serious look.

“Oh, I’m fine, really. A little out of breath, but not the least bit fagged out.”

“No pain?”

“None at all.”

“And you got that message from the volunteer about 6th Avenue?” she asked, bringing a small bowl filled with pills to Lovie.

“I did, thank you. Flo passed it on to me.” She looked down at the pills and wrinkled her nose.

“Come on, Miss Lovie, you know you got to. See? I bought you a doughnut to help with the swallowing. ‘A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down,’ just like the song says. Now, come on, don’t put it off.”

Lovie grimaced as she faced the mound of pills but Toy remained at her side, arms resolutely crossed over her chest as she waited. She hated to play the heavy but the doctor hadn’t been fooling around when he’d taken Toy aside and told her it was her job to make sure that Lovie swallowed each and every one of the pills. She tried to keep the conversation about turtles going to take Lovie’s mind off the swallowing.

“So, did that call about 6th Avenue turn out to be a nest?”

After a noisy swallow Lovie set the glass down and shook her head. “A false crawl. She came up the beach quite far, then wandered around a bit before turning back. We searched carefully but didn’t find a nest. I suspect she’s the same mother who laid the eggs a little farther down on 17th. The tracks were similar.” She stared at the remaining pills with dejection.

“Come on, now, just a few more,” Toy prodded. She watched as Lovie took a deep breath, grabbed the two final pink pills, then swallowed them with a shiver of disgust.

“There, that’s done.”

“Horrid things. I don’t know why I still bother.”

“Don’t say that. You know why. We want you around for a long time.”

Lovie’s face softened and she looked at Toy with a sad expression. “At least for the summer.”

“Oh, much longer than that. I’m already shopping for your Christmas present. But, yeah, summer is best. You’ve been so happy since the turtles came.”

“And now, my own Caretta is back.”

Toy’s smile fell.

Lovie tilted her head and gazed at Toy speculatively. “You’ve met?”

The legs of the chair scraped the pine wood floors as Toy joined Lovie at the table. She sat in a clumsy flop, leaving room for her growing belly.

“Sort of. She answered that phone call about the tracks and I walked in from the store while she was talking. I think we kinda surprised each other.”

“She fell asleep early last night. I thought we’d all have a chance to meet after you came home from the movies. As it turned out, I didn’t have a chance to tell her about you.”

“I figured that. She looked at me like…Well, let’s just say she wasn’t glad to see me.”

“Cara can be quite formidable.”

Toy snorted. “I swear, Lovie, I can’t believe that she’s your daughter. I never seen two women cut from such different pieces of cloth.”

Lovie chuckled, then said ruefully, “I’m sure she’d agree with you.”

Toy twisted her mouth and began picking at her nail. “I was thinking. Maybe I should go someplace else, just for this week or so while she’s here. Give you two a little time alone.”

“Where would you go?”

“I guess I could go back to Darryl’s for a week.”

“That’s out of the question.”

Lovie’s sharp tone brought Toy’s gaze to her face. Lovie had straightened in the chair and her eyes were shining.

“It’d just be for a week. I know he wants me back.”

“We won’t even discuss the possibility of you returning to that man.”

“He loves me.”

They sat across from each other in a long silence. Lovie reached out and put her hand over Toy’s. “When I invited you to live here, I wanted you to feel that this was your home. I think we’ve managed quite nicely for ourselves here, don’t you?” When Toy nodded she continued. “So what made you think you’d be suddenly booted out when a guest arrived?”

“We’re not talking about some guest. Cara’s your daughter.”

“And you have become as a daughter to me, too.”

Toy lowered her head and fixed her gaze on the small hand over hers. It was a mother’s hand. Though the skin was pale, almost translucent, with blue veins protruding over bones as fragile as a sparrow’s, Toy saw in it so much love and strength she felt her eyes water with emotion.

Lovie said softly, “Tell me you’ll stay? That you’ll try to make this work?”

Toy nodded sharply, embarrassed for her tears.

Glancing at the clock Cara saw through bleary eyes that it was nearly noon. Her head felt groggy, as though she could sleep another twelve hours. But she couldn’t spend the entire day in bed, could she? The thought that yes, she could, was disquieting. Her mouth felt as if it were filled with cotton and a faint thrumming still pulsed in her skull. Swinging her legs off from the bed, she slipped into a pair of boxer shorts and padded down the hall toward the kitchen.

She felt out of place in her childhood summer home, as if she didn’t belong. The beach house even looked different. Her mother had gutted and redesigned the small rooms of the old cottage to create one main, airy room in the center of the house that opened up at the front and back to large, covered verandas. To the left of the house was a small hall that led to the two small children’s bedrooms and a shared bath. To the right was the master bedroom, bathroom and a tiny kitchen. The clunky old kitchen she remembered was a far cry from the sleek galley kitchen with modern appliances she stepped into now.

The only thing she recognized was the dish cabinet. Through the glass-fronted doors she saw the remainders of china sets that had been handed down through generations. Choosing a blue-and-white Meissen cup, she was comforted by something at once familiar on an out-of-sorts morning. The coffee was still blessedly hot in a thermos and someone had thoughtfully laid out a small plate of doughnuts.

Moving at a slow pace, she carried her cup and pastry to the screened porch and slumped into a large wooden rocking chair facing the ocean. Straight ahead, across the empty lot of low-humped dunes and wild, gnarled greenery, the ocean placidly rolled, distant and unwelcoming.

“Well, there you are!”

Jerking her head around, she spied her mother rounding the corner of the house. She looked sporty in khaki shorts, a sage T-shirt with a turtle emblazoned across the chest and a red baseball cap with the state’s palm tree and crescent moon logo on the front. Cara lazily returned a wave.

Lovie gripped the railing and began climbing the short flight of stairs with a labored tread. Her breath came heavy. Alarmed, Cara hustled down the stairs to take hold of her arm.

“Are you all right?”

“Signs of my age,” Lovie said ruefully. “Nothing more.”

“When was the last time you saw your doctor?”

“I’ll have you know Dr. Pittman and I are on the most intimate terms. When I sneeze, he calls to say ‘God bless you.’”

“Seriously, Mother. I don’t recall your ever being so out of breath.”

Lovie stopped on a step and turned her head to look at Cara askance. “Cara dear,” she said, a tone of reprimand in her voice, “you haven’t visited me in quite a long time. Your memory banks are not that recent. These days, I’m frequently out of breath.”

Chastened, Cara quietly followed her mother’s march up the stairs. When they reached the top, Lovie stepped away from Cara’s hold and took a deep breath.

“See? Nothing to worry about. I’m like a turtle, slow but sure. How are you?”

Cara noted the pearls of sweat along her mother’s upper lip but said no more about it. “I’m sorry about last night. I didn’t mean to conk out on our first night, but the bed looked so inviting and with that soft breeze coming in through the window…I lay down for a moment just to rest my eyes and the next thing I knew it was morning.”

“Don’t give it another thought. I figured you must’ve been exhausted after your long drive and there’s plenty of time to catch up. You did exactly the right thing. Did you wake up feeling refreshed?”

“No, sadly not. I still feel draggy. I think I’m just slowing down from the rat race.”

“Island time. Many of my guests from the north seem to need a few days to unwind. Give yourself time. I know, why don’t you come on down to the beach tomorrow and join the Turtle Ladies? Walking in the fresh air and sun will do you good.”

“I used to love sunbathing but not anymore. I’ve read all about skin cancer and wrinkles. These days, I like to admire the sunshine from indoors, thank you very much. Besides, did you forget that I don’t want anything to do with the turtles?”

Lovie waved away the sentiment. “Come down for the company then. Do you remember Emmaline Baker? She’s joined us now and she’s just dying to see you.”

“Emmi’s here?” Cara conjured up an image of her dearest friend growing up.

“She still comes for the summers with her boys. She’s been asking about you.”

“I’d love to see her, too. But not today. Maybe later,” she hedged. The thought of chitchat was beyond her.

Lovie cast her a sidelong glance, then walked inside the screened porch. She slid into a rocker with characteristic grace. “Sit down, Cara. We can talk a bit.”

Cara followed her into the porch. Lovie removed her cap and fanned her face as she rocked. Watching her, Cara suppressed a shudder. Her mother’s hair, once thick and the color of spun gold, was now so thin and white that in the harsh light her scalp could be seen. Cara licked her lips, shaken. “Can I get you some water?”

“No, I’m just about to go in and fix lunch. You must be famished.”

“Don’t go to any trouble for me while I’m here,” she said, grabbing her mug and sitting beside her mother. “I never eat regular meals anyway. My body is used to the abuse.”

“You’re far too thin. And pale.”

She laughed. “I was just thinking the same about you!”

“Oh?” Lovie’s blue eyes widened. “Well, who cares about me? I’m an old woman. But you’re in your prime!” Her gaze eagerly traveled across Cara’s face to her disheveled, shoulder-length brown hair cut in a blunt style. She wore the same wrinkled T-shirt that she’d arrived in over baggy, blue men’s boxers that exposed long, thin legs crossed at the ankles. “You always do find the best hairdressers,” she said. “But you look tired. And stressed. Especially your eyes. They’re all puffy and a bit bloodshot.”

“Charming,” Cara muttered as she sipped her coffee. She moved her hand to apply pressure to her forehead where she could feel tension building up.

“Are you ill? There’s been so much early summer flu going around.”

“No. It’s just an annoying headache.”

“Ahhh…So you still get them?”

“Unfortunately.”

“Mmmm-hmm. See? It is the stress. When you were little you used to get them whenever you had a test, do you remember? Or when…” She stopped midsentence.

“When Daddy blew his top,” Cara finished for her.

Her mother smiled weakly and an awkward silence reigned.

“Oh, I forgot to tell you that you got a call while you were out.” Cara reached for her doughnut. “Some lady found tracks.”

“What time was that?”

“Hours ago. That girl inside took the call.”

“Oh, yes. That was the false crawl.” Then she asked pointedly, “That girl? I assume you mean Toy Sooner?”

Cara couldn’t keep her opinion from her face. “Toy? Is that her name?” She bit into the doughnut, sprinkling bits of glazed sugar down her chest. “We didn’t get that far,” she mumbled, chewing and brushing away the crumbs. “We snarled at each other like cats for a few minutes, then I left before any damage was done.” She reached for her coffee cup and took a quick sip. “Who is she, anyway? And isn’t she a bit young to be pregnant?”

Lovie studied her daughter’s face with the same expression she had worn when Cara was young and spoke with her mouth full. “Yes, she is young. Very young, poor dear. But these things happen, you know. Even in Charleston.”

Cara rolled her eyes and dabbed a napkin at her mouth. “Mother, I’m hardly shocked. I’m just curious what she’s doing here. Now, of all times.”

“During your visit, you mean?”

“Frankly, yes. It’s not like I come that often. What? Once every twenty years?” She bit into her doughnut and chewed. Swallowing hard she added with pique in her voice, “You led me to believe you wanted to spend some time with me. Fool that I was, I assumed you meant just us.”