Castles in the Sand (2 page)

“Mom, I love him.” Unlike her flat tone of voice, her eyes pleaded. They were pale blue like Susan’s and outlined in Drake’s deep gray color. Slanted in a curious, almost foreign way, they aided and abetted the elfin image. “He loves me.”

Drake huffed. “Love. What could you possibly know about love at your age? It has nothing to do with one-night stands. You have to be friends first. For goodness’ sake, we don’t even know his family. There are more than a thousand people in the church, and you take up with some stranger.”

“It wasn’t a one-night stand.”

He went speechless again. His face reddened.

“And we are friends.” She turned to Susan. “Give him half a chance. You’ll like him.”

“Does he know?”

“Why wouldn’t he? We’re in this together. He’s totally committed to the relationship.”

“Oh.” Susan twisted a piece of hair dangling loose from the French twist Kenzie had arranged just hours ago, before dinner. They had giggled…

The fire crackled. Rain beat against the windows with a steady staccato sound. Lights twinkled on the Christmas tree in the corner.

Susan could not get her mind around Kenzie’s news. The ramifications were endless. But…the situation was not all that uncommon, even among their congregation. Off the top of her head she counted three couples—good, solid people—who housed out-of-wedlock grandchildren and—

She gasped. “I’m going to be a grandmother!”

Kenzie flashed a smile. “Yeah. Grandma Susan.”

A brand-new knowledge burst inside of her. She loved this unborn soul! Loved him with all her being. Flesh of her flesh…of her flesh. Another generation had begun.

She felt her heart leap across the room, flying toward the grandchild. She longed to literally dance after the feeling and embrace Kenzie and—by extension—the little one. But she hesitated…and then the moment was gone and Drake was speaking.

“Kenzie, I cannot marry you in the church. You know that, right? I do not perform the ceremony for anyone who has had relations.”

“Drake!” Susan sputtered his name. “This is our daughter!”

“I’d look like a hypocrite.”

“But—”

“No, we will not discuss it further. The people know my stance. I have to live out what I preach.”

“You married the Malcolms in the chapel. We could—”

“Perhaps, but I—”

“Mom! Dad!” Kenzie held up a hand. “It doesn’t matter. We’re not getting married.”

“What?” Drake’s low-keyed voice took on an edge.

“Oh, honey,” Susan whispered. The worst of her fears had just become reality. Not only was her child unwed and pregnant, she planned to remain unwed. How had such upside-down social norms taken hold of her?

“Mackenzie.” Drake put his elbows on his knees, laced his fingers together, and hunched forward. The reasonable tone prevailed again. “I don’t like what I’m about to do, but you leave us no choice.”

Susan anticipated his words. She had heard them often enough in his sermons. Time ground into slow motion as she stared at the two people she loved most in the world, sensing that they were about to break her heart.

Drake, always the epitome of a respected public figure, scrambled for control. His shoulders, elegantly nestled in powder blue cashmere, sagged. His long tan face, more handsome at forty-eight than twenty-five, creased with tension. Even his short silver-streaked dark brown hair, moussed in a stylish stand-up fashion, seemed to droop. His mouth worked as if his tongue pressed chewing gum against the back of his teeth, readying it for bubble blowing. It was an old nervous habit, long ago trained away.

Only Kenzie could push the right buttons to make it surface again.

Of course, he pushed her buttons as well. There she sat, her mouth in its perpetual half-open position, giving the impression she was eager to laugh or suggest mischief…or smart off to her dad. She seldom did the latter, choosing instead to express herself with moderation. Like him, she could withstand incredible pressure.

But tonight the button pushing soared to new heights.

Years before, Susan had created a way to diffuse her own discomfort when they went at it like this, fussing at each other. She envisioned teensy, pearly buttons lodged in the identically upturned tips of their noses. In her imagination Drake and Kenzie tapped forefingers against each other’s buttons. The image distanced Susan from the tense situation. Sometimes it even made her smile.

At the moment it wasn’t working.

Drake cleared his throat. “You leave us no choice. If you insist on having a child out of wedlock, you are not welcome in this house.”

Susan lost all feeling in her limbs. Anticipated or not, the words drained life from her, melding her body into the upholstery. Incapable of processing what was happening, her mind shut down as well.

Kenzie uncurled her slender self from the couch and stood. “Well, that was no surprise. I’ll get my things.”

“I don’t mean tonight. We’ll sort through details in the morning.”

“No, Dad. There’s nothing to sort through. I didn’t expect any support from you.”

Drake narrowed his eyes. The button had been pushed too far. “The car stays here.”

“That’s not fair. I paid for half of it!”

“So take half of it.”

“Fine!” With a glance at Susan, she stomped from the family room.

Drake covered his face with his hands. “We had to do that. We had to. How can she learn if she doesn’t suffer the consequences of her choices?”

Burning logs in the fireplace snapped and crackled. A gust of wind slammed a sheet of rain against the windows.

Her baby was having a baby.

Like a robot, Susan stood.

“Don’t go after her.”

“It’s dark and cold and raining.”

“She’ll get a ride to a friend’s. And tomorrow or the next day she’ll come to her senses. We just have to gut this out.”

Susan hesitated. Kenzie was, if nothing else, resourceful. She’d been on her own, more or less, for years. Even as a youngster she spent nearly as much time with friends’ families as with her own. Since working as a babysitter at the age of twelve, she had seldom asked for money. She graduated from high school at seventeen and soon after moved out—

From the entryway came the sound of the front door opening and closing. Her daughter traveled lightly.

Drake lifted a mournful face to her and held out a hand. Tears pooled in his eyes.

She went to him.

Late March, Lenten Season

On a sunny afternoon in late March, Susan trailed behind her sister-in-law through a narrow passageway between two beach houses. Not far beyond the sidewalk’s end, ocean waves rushed toward shore.

“I don’t feel right about this.” Susan’s thoughts were not on the surroundings.

Natalie Starr, wife of Drake’s younger brother and confident to an almost annoying degree, halted her brisk steps and turned. “Which part don’t you feel right about? Five days at the beach in hopes of preventing a nervous breakdown? The feeling that you’ve abandoned Drake? The fact that you sent your daughter packing? Or that you lie to people at church concerning her whereabouts?”

“I don’t exactly lie. I just tell them she returned from the band’s European tour excited as a puppy—which she was—and is living with friends again. Which she is, I assume, since she hasn’t come home.”

Natalie cocked her head and pursed her lips. Sunbeams shone in her dark curly hair, highlighting reddish tones.

Susan diverted her attention to her little pug dog gaily crisscrossing the walkway, sniffing flower beds on both sides, oblivious to any tension. Pugsy, fawn colored and chubby, had originally been Kenzie’s dog that short season she attended college and lived in a pets-allowed apartment. Somehow, somewhere along the way, responsibility for the dog fell to Susan. She didn’t mind.

“Come on, Susan. Spit it out.”

There was no escaping Natalie’s prodding. “Well, in truth, I guess all of the above. A few days here without Drake, sending Kenzie off, and keeping her situation a secret from the congregation, from friends. I don’t feel right about any of it.”

“That’s what I thought. You know, wallowing in guilt is overrated. Confess the sending and the lying as wrong and forget the rest. You need some R and R. It was Drake’s choice not to come. Smell this salt air, listen to the beat of those waves. Give your mind a break.” She sighed. “And call the boy’s parents tomorrow.”

“The gospel according to Natalie.”

“Yep. I’m going to give my brother-in-law heart failure yet.” She turned and resumed pulling the suitcase alongside the beach house. It clickety-clacked over the uneven concrete.

Susan called to the dog and followed, carrying a large shoulder bag. Although Natalie’s opinions drove Drake up a wall, for Susan they often shed light into tunnels of confusion.

They rounded the corner of the house and stepped onto the cobblestone patio, which served as the beachside front yard. A low picket fence separated the patio from a broad public walkway. Beyond that was the sand and then, a mere stone’s throw away, the Pacific.

Natalie paused again, this time gazing at the house. She snorted. “This place always cracks me up. I mean, look at it. A squished red chili pepper of a cottage still holding its own against progress. It probably looked exactly the same in 1940.”

Susan couldn’t help but smile. The place was an anomaly in a neighborhood of large million-dollar-plus homes. A three-story white stucco towered over one side of it. At the other, three stories of phenomenal engineering rose with curved glass instead of corners.

The humble abode appealed to both women. Natalie and her husband, Rex, had been renting it for themselves every August for some years now. They treated Drake and Susan to a week at it every spring after Easter.

A feeling of peace washed over Susan, the first since Kenzie left two months, three weeks, and five days ago. Except for one brief, explosive phone conversation on the fourth of January—Day Three of that first heartsick week—Susan had not talked with her daughter. Kenzie called for the sole purpose to let Susan know she was okay and with friends. She offered no address, no phone number. Her stinging blast against her father and against her mother for siding with him still echoed in Susan’s ears.

Guilt avalanched her now like a load of rock crashing all around her from an upended dump truck. She sat down on the suitcase.

“Hey, Suze,” Natalie said. “You okay?”

“No.”

“You will be. Come on. Let’s get you settled.”

While Natalie put away groceries in the kitchen, Susan took the suitcase into a bedroom and thought again at how odd the situation was, her being there without her husband.

Drake’s prediction had not come true. Kenzie did not “come to her senses” and return home.

On Day Two after hearing the news, Susan thought she would drown in her despair. Natalie called. Aunt Nattie, as Kenzie referred to her, wanted to speak with her favorite niece and hear all about Europe. The story poured from Susan.

Drake was not a happy camper. His sister-in-law always told his brother everything, and Rex withheld little from their sons, Eric and Adam, who in turn had friends in the youth group at church. Word would get out.

On Day Six, a Sunday, Susan’s capacity for “gutting it out” peaked. That morning Drake calmly declared he would remain mum on the subject; he had no idea how to spin the news to his congregants. Unable to mask her pain, Susan skipped church and spent the entire day in bed. Drake comforted her as best he could.

On Monday though, Day Seven, he reached the end of his own rope. He announced a moratorium on the topic—even with his wife.

A curtain dropped between them.

Adept at hiding real emotions, Susan got by…for a while…up until last week.

She was in a large outlet store on some errand and inadvertently walked through the baby department. Whatever the thin thread was that held her together unraveled right then and there. Slowly at first, then faster and faster, spinning her in a circle.

She found her way to a pay phone and called Natalie, who immediately picked her up.

That night her sister-in-law and brother-in-law convinced Drake that Susan needed a break, at least a week’s worth. Drake said a retreat for five days was acceptable, perhaps even a good idea. An entire week was out of the question. Had she forgotten? There was the Hathaway wedding rehearsal Friday night and then the wedding Saturday afternoon. Not to mention Sunday church. He needed her on Sundays. She was his anchor on Sundays.

Susan acquiesced. She liked the Hathaways immensely. Her work as coordinator of their daughter’s wedding had been a joy and not nearly the stress of many she did. It had probably been what held her together the past couple months.

The vacation rental was located less than an hour’s drive from home, but Drake said he simply could not get away. It was the Easter season. His flock needed him and counted on his availability until his official vacation date after the holiday, three weeks from now. He promised to make excuses for her at meetings she normally attended. He would forward wedding-related calls to his capable director of women’s ministries.

So many lives disrupted. All because of her.