Blue Moon Bay (8 page)

Business understanding?
My brother? Clay couldn't even be counted upon not to end up stuck out in the middle of nowhere on a bicycle, with pneumonia. “What business?” Maybe Clay thought he was going to somehow arrange a competing offer on the property—something on which he could turn a dime, perhaps. But as textbook brilliant as my brother was, he was out of his league in this situation. There was no better deal out there to be had. “I don't want to ask Clay. I'm asking you.”

Mom stood up, took her coffee cup to the sink, calmly rinsed it out, and squirted a little dish soap into it. “Simply put, we're considering our options, just as I told you on the phone. I know you thought that by coming here you could change things, Heather, but you can't.”

“What
options
? What?” I threw up my hands, shook them in the air like a crazy woman. I have never in my life, personal or professional, met anyone else who could bring out that side of me.

“Well, if you must know, your brother thinks we should keep the place in the family.” She smiled as if I should be happy to hear of Clay's epiphany. “He's interested in living at the old farm. The renter who was staying in the two-story house has moved out. The place is empty and available. Clay adores the old tractors and the feeling of being close to the land. It suits him. I've never seen him so happy.”

“What in the world is Clay going to do to support himself financially, living on what's left of a dairy farm, fifteen miles outside in the country?” A sarcastic laugh tailed the question. I couldn't help it. The idea of any of us living on that farm again made me sick. The little stone house had been locked up since my father's death, and the two-story clapboard next door had been occupied by a series of renters over the years.

Mother shrugged, her shoulders stiff. She hated being challenged. She was accustomed to reigning supreme over underlings and dewy-eyed graduate students. “He is looking into taking over the restaurant and the canoe business. It worked well enough for Uncle Charley all these years. He made enough of a living, and . . .”

My head spun as Mom went on, the insanity growing exponentially, like the 3-D virtual image of a skyscraper, building layer upon layer from the electronic blueprint, the windows and doors filling in, the walls extruding and becoming real. But this entire building was leaning off-kilter. My mother was supposedly considering moving to Moses Lake, too.

“I'm ready for a change,” she asserted. “I've been looking for an opportunity to step off the carousel of teaching and lecturing. I could pursue my writing, maybe teach some classes online. These days there are opportunities, and with my credentials . . . Well, it's perfect, really. Uncle Herb doesn't want to leave his house, and this way he wouldn't have to. I could live here in Harmony House with the uncs, and Clay could live out at the farm. It's crossed my mind that Harmony House would make a lovely bed-and-breakfast. It's already licensed for public occupancy.”

“Public . . . what . . .” I stammered. “You have got to be kidding.” Bracing my palms on the table, I stood up. There are times when, despite all attempts at keeping things at a rational level with my mother, the fact is that if we stay in the same room any longer, a Jerry Springer moment will erupt. Chairs will fly, claws will come out, and hair will be pulled.

I was conscious of some sort of emotional fault line giving way within me, the tectonic plates sliding and making the ground shake. One more nugget of craziness on my mother's side of the divide, and things would break wide open, allowing ugliness of epic proportion to spew forth. The only thing to do in a moment like that is walk away before chaos breaks out, and keep walking for however long it takes.

There is indeed, perhaps, no better way to hold communion with the sea than sitting in the sun on the veranda of a fisherman's cafe.

—Joseph W. Beach
(via Pop Dorsey, proprietor, Waterbird Bait and Grocery)

T
he entire conversation had repeated twice in my head by the time I found myself at the picnic grounds behind Lakeshore Community Church. Doves fluttered from branch to branch overhead, their voices incongruously sweet, waves lapped at the shore, and squirrels dashed about gathering leftover pecans as I paced between the picnic tables, muttering and hissing like an alley cat caught in a box.

The situation with my mother and my brother was crazy, even for them. Mom was hardly suited to running a bed-and-breakfast in the country. Who would want to stay in a former funeral home anyway? And Clay had no way of getting the money together to buy Uncle Charley's restaurant and the canoe-rental business.

Unless . . . unless Mom was bankrolling it with whatever was left of the nest egg that had come from my father's life insurance. She'd hated it when Clay left with the disaster relief team. She was scared to death something would happen to him. Now that he was back, was this her way of trying to make sure he didn't wander off to the far parts of the globe again? Was she going to tie him down with fried catfish and canoes? All the money he'd borrowed and not paid back, all his starts and stops in law school were forgotten, and Mom was ready to take care of him, just like always?

Why was it always so easy for him? Why could Clay do whatever he wanted—consume her funds, consume her energy, wander aimlessly through his life—yet remain the object of her adoration? Why didn't I ever get that kind of consideration? Why did she criticize my life while approving of his, no matter what he did? It had always been this way. From the beginning, I was Dad's and Clay was hers. But Dad was gone, and I was on the outside looking in, while Mom and Clay flitted through life, two birds of a feather.

Tears came out of nowhere, and I sank onto one of the picnic benches. Trish was right—I'd be better off if I could stop expecting things from my mother. But no matter how old you get, no matter how hard you try, you can't give up wanting your mother to love you. Somehow, though, I had to find a way to let go of that hope, that expectation. It was hollowing me out little by little, like water dripping on stone.

Taking a breath, I swallowed hard and pushed the tears away. Our family relationships were complicated, confused, upside-down—and they always would be. I had to learn to work from that basis of knowledge. Given a little time, Mother would come down to earth and see that Clay running the restaurant and her turning the funeral home into a bed-and-breakfast was a pipe dream. Surely, I could find ways to help open her eyes and get her to Seattle before the broker offer on the property expired. I could still salvage this thing and save the uncs from certain disaster. . . .

“A little brisk out here for a picnic.” A voice from behind startled me, and I jerked upright, feeling like I'd been caught someplace I shouldn't be. But I knew why I was there. I felt close to my father in this place. One of the last things we'd done together was go to Sunday morning service. I was cranky about it, of course. The pastor was boring and the music old-fashioned. There were no projection screens. There was no five-piece band rocking out modern worship music, like we had in our church back home. In tiny Lakeshore Community Church, there was only the pastor droning on while babies made noise, the casserole ladies gave me disapproving looks, and Mama B sang off-key, her voice crackling high above the rest.

I glanced over my shoulder, expecting the pastor I remembered, the one who'd tried to placate me with the usual platitudes as I struggled to comprehend the loss of my father. Instead, a thirty-something man, tall and lanky, with a thin, hawkish face, was headed down the hill.

“Want to come inside?” he asked, thumbing over his shoulder with an amiable smile.

I stood up, the back of my legs now fully chilled from sitting on the frosty stone bench. “No, I'm fine. I just . . .” His gaze met mine, and for an instant I had the weirdest urge to tell him everything. He seemed like the sort who would listen. I wondered if he knew my brother and my mother. Maybe I could gain some information about how long Clay had been hanging around town. I wiped my eyes and introduced myself. “Heather Hampton. I used to live here. I was just taking a walk around town, remembering.”

His face brightened, and he held my hand captive between both of his for a moment. “Reverend Hay. Good to meet you. Any relation to the Harmony Shores Hamptons—Charley and Herbert?” I noted that he didn't mention my mother or my brother.

“My great uncles,” I answered.

“We're sure going to miss them around here. Moses Lake won't be the same without the Hampton brothers. Tell your uncles I'll get by to see them before they go. I'm a little behind. Been gone three weeks on a mission trip with my fiancée's church.”

He flashed a quick smile that was somewhere between giddy and bashful, and I decided two things: I liked him despite the preacher suit, and he knew absolutely nothing about what was going on with my family. As far as he was aware, the uncs were packing up and leaving. So . . . all of Clay's Moses Lake connections and his plan to live here permanently had developed in the last three weeks?

A horn honked up the hill by the road, and both of us turned to look. Uncle Charley's Ford pickup, Old Blue, was rolling along the shoulder. The window cranked down, and he waved us closer. “Hey, there you are!” he called, and Reverend Hay and I started up the hill. “Been lookin' for you, Heather. Your mom said you went out for a walk. C'mon, I'll take you to breakfast. You, too, if you want, Hay.”

“Got a building committee meeting in twenty minutes,” the reverend answered as we walked toward the road. “Promised Bonnie I'd pick her up at the office in Cleburne and take her to lunch, so I'd better stay here and get everything set for the committee, try to keep things moving along. When lunch hour hits, Bonnie's ready to get out of that counseling office and go somewhere else for a while.”

Uncle Charley smacked his lips and shook his head as we traversed the ditch. “Well, sorry I can't be on the buildin' committee. They get things set with Blaine Underhill about the loan for the new addition?”

New addition.
Glancing over my shoulder, I winced. I hoped they found someone who could design the add-on space in a way that would preserve the historic character of the building. So often, these little jobs out in the middle of nowhere were poorly done architectural eyesores.

I noted that Blaine Underhill was involved here, too.

“For the most part,” Reverend Hay answered. “Blaine can't make the meeting. Said he'd be back in the bank about eleven, so I'll take everything by there for him before I head for Cleburne. He's gone to an appointment this morning.”

Appointment?
A sardonic scoff passed my lips as I circled the truck to get in on the passenger side. Blaine Underhill was out on the lake with my brother. Fishing. On a workday morning. I couldn't imagine taking off fishing while the rest of the world was at work.

Actually, that brought up the question of why, if my brother was in such a hurry to relocate to Moses Lake and take over Catfish Charley's, he was out fishing. Shouldn't he be at the restaurant, learning the ropes from the manager there, and getting the place ready to open for lunch? A little greasy spoon like Charley's wasn't exactly the kind of high-profit place where the owner didn't have to put in hours. Until his health had declined, Uncle Charley had worked from morning through lunch, taken care of his cattle at the family farm for a few hours in the afternoon, then returned for the supper rush. His wife, Aunt Fea, had worked every day at the restaurant until shortly before her death. They'd lived on a houseboat docked behind Catfish Charley's, and between the restaurant, the canoe business, and the cabins, they were always busy.

Yet Clay had time to spend the morning fishing with Blaine Underhill?

Then again, maybe there was more to the fishing friendship than just dropping a line in the water. What had Amy said earlier? Something about my brother and Blaine becoming friends after talking so much at the bank.

Hmmm . . . How does a guy with no life plan and no money take over ownership of a restaurant? He makes friends with the banker.
When Clay was on fire about his latest plan—whatever it happened to be—he could be incredibly alluring. He didn't even have to work at it because his beliefs were genuine. The problem was that Clay's focus was like a butterfly—bright, intense, beautiful to look at, unbelievably compelling . . . but likely to flit off at any moment. Blaine Underhill had no idea what he was being sucked into. Someone needed to clue him in, and it looked like that someone would be me. As much as I loved my brother, I couldn't let him create a situation that could leave a financial mess behind in Moses Lake.

Uncle Charley and Reverend Hay continued their conversation as I climbed into the truck. Uncle Charley suggested that the church should hire me to design the new fellowship hall, since I
drew up buildings and such
. Rather than telling them that this project was too small for our firm, I wrote my email address on a feed-store receipt from the mound of dashboard clutter and handed it out the window. Maybe I could do the job pro bono—a gift to my father's hometown. It would be worth it to see the church building, with its European lines and the decorative stone masonry of the original German pioneers, properly preserved.

Uncle Charley and I discussed the new fellowship hall as we wound our way around the lake, headed, I surmised by the direction we were driving, to the Waterbird Bait and Grocery. The local crowd of fishermen and retirees had been gathering there to sip coffee and solve the world's problems since shortly after the lake went in. I found myself picturing the Waterbird now, remembering my father taking me there when I was little. We bought lemon drops, cartons of squirmy worms, and dips of ice cream. Scoops of ice cream and scoops of worm-filled dirt came in the same white waxed-cardboard containers, so when you reached into the sack, you had to be careful which one you grabbed.

A laugh tickled my throat as I remembered squealing and tossing dirt all over the car once when I opened the wrong container. I was twelve or thirteen then, a sophisticated city girl, convinced that worms were not for me, but the lure of an afternoon alone with my dad was irresistible. We were visiting my grandparents for some holiday—Easter, maybe. The bluebonnets were out, the roadsides everywhere awash with sprays of vibrant azure that rivaled the water in the lake. My brother must have stayed home, because it was just Dad and me.

“Somethin' funny?” Uncle Charley asked as we rounded the corner and I saw the Waterbird's tin roof peeking through the cluster of overhanging live oaks ahead. For an instant, I heard my dad.

“I was just thinking about coming here with Dad,” I answered, and I was surprised that, for once, the mention of him didn't trail dark threads behind it.

Uncle Charley chuckled. “Your dad liked this old store. Used to be when he was little, if I ever passed by here with him in the truck, he'd beg me to stop, so he could get at the penny candy counter. That boy did like his sweets.

“Wasn't too many years after that, he would've hung around here all day long, if he could've. It was where the young folks went to look at each other, and all them girls liked your daddy. Back when your granddaddy was farmin' cotton at the old place, if we ever had a tractor or a truck break down and we made the mistake of sending your dad to town, it'd be an hour later, and we'd say, ‘Where in the world is Neal?' Sure enough, we'd call up to the Waterbird, and he'd be there—stopped in for a Coke and ended up flirtin' with some girl.”

“Really?” I said, trying to imagine that side of my dad. He'd always been the responsible one when I was growing up. He had to be.

“Oh, sure.” Uncle Charley chuckled as we drifted off the shoulder into the gravel parking lot. “Your dad was a corker. Gave his mama and daddy more than a few gray hairs. I ever tell you about the time he and some other boys found a little ol' possum curled up in a dead tree during the cold weather? They put it in the choir closet at church on Sunday mornin', thinking they were gonna get it later and use it to play a joke on somebody. That thing got all warmed up durin' service and went to growlin' and thumpin' around in there, and you never seen a bunch of boys sitting so straight in the pew, trying to look like they didn't hear a thing. Ended up, those boys had to work the rest of the winter to pay for a new set of Christmas choir robes.”

Uncle Charley and I laughed as we exited the car to go into the Waterbird. Suddenly I was glad I'd come. I'd never heard that story about my father, never known that side of him. When we'd come to Moses Lake to visit my grandparents during my childhood years, my mother had poured on the guilt long-distance, until we felt bad for enjoying anything.