Folly Cove (10 page)

•   •   •

“So how did it go with Uncle Gil? He's a doll, right?” Rhonda said, cornering Sarah in her office late on Monday afternoon.

Sarah had returned from lunch yesterday and ducked into her office
until Rhonda left, knowing she'd be asked exactly this question. How could she tell Rhonda that she wasn't interested in her dear uncle without hurting her feelings? That even if she were interested in dating someone, which she certainly wasn't, her uncle wouldn't make the cut, with his bearish build and boatbuilding? She'd gone out with him twice. She'd done her part.

“He certainly knows his own mind,” Sarah said.

Rhonda laughed. “Oh, yes. My mom calls him the Truth Teller. Then Gil always quotes some writer—Orwell, I think—and says, ‘In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.'”

“Very profound,” Sarah said agreeably, thinking,
So
annoying
.

“Did he tell you about the boat he's working on?” Rhonda crossed her arms and leaned on Sarah's doorway, beaming. “It's really something.”

“Oh, yes. He told me all about it. Rhonda, darling, you know that I'm still married to Neil,” Sarah said gently. “I went out with your uncle as a favor to you, but I'm in no position to be seriously dating anyone.”

“Your husband has been gone for thirty years!” Rhonda said. “Aren't you divorced by default?”

“No, dear. Nor would I want to be,” Sarah said. “I explained this to Gil.”

“Oh.” Rhonda's face fell. “Well. That's too bad.” She wandered away again, her normally tall, slim figure slightly hunched with disappointment.

Well, it couldn't be helped, Sarah thought. Her life was nobody's business but her own.

An hour later, she met with a couple about their golden wedding anniversary party. Fifty years! Sarah marveled at this, wondering how on earth people managed to stay together that long. Perhaps it was lucky Neil had disappeared; maybe that was the only reason
she
was still married.

This evening's celebratory pair had dined in the inn's restaurant at five o'clock, taking advantage of the early-bird special—prime rib for the man, salmon for his wife—and now Sarah sat with them over dessert and coffee (on the house, of course) to discuss party arrangements. About fifty people, they said, holding hands across the table.

“A delightful size for an anniversary party,” she said when the woman
expressed doubts about the guest list. “Big enough to be festive, but small enough to feel intimate. Besides, not everyone will come,” she added reassuringly, when the woman still looked panicky around the eyes.

The husband, Rick, was gray-haired, and so was his plump little wife. They looked like a pair of pigeons mated for life: he wore gray knit pants with a light gray sweater, and she had on a deep gray knit dress that made her look round as a tick. The wife kept tugging the tunic down over stocky thighs encased in black leggings.

Maybe some people fit together so naturally that they could never imagine being anything but a pair, like these two. Sarah wondered what Neil looked like now. He'd once been so handsome that women would turn around to watch him walk down a street.

Neil had completely disappeared after she kicked him out of the house. Bad enough that he'd been drinking, but the drinking wasn't what had done them in. She could have lived with that. But not with his belief that she'd betrayed him.

Over the past thirty years—a time frame she still couldn't wrap her mind around, despite the arthritis in her fingers and the vague aches plaguing her knees—she'd received intermittent letters from him. There was never a return address, so she had never written him back.

The postmarks were from different cities, most of them in Florida, where she supposed it was possible to live on the street. His letters were never maudlin or angry, as hers to him might have been, but simply truthful and occasionally nostalgic. She had never told the girls about this correspondence because she didn't want to get their hopes up for any sort of reunion. She'd learned the hard way that their father was unreliable.

Then, a year ago, Neil had sent a letter she'd reread so often that she'd memorized most of it:

There are such wide spaces between us, dear Sarah, both of geography and of the heart. Yet I find myself wanting to leap the miles, to swim the rivers and fly across the canyons that separate us. You have always held my heart in your hand. I know now that you were telling the truth about some things, but not others. Trust me when I say that
things are different for me now, yet my love for you and our daughters remains an unbroken river, flowing as strongly as ever and always in the direction of Folly Cove.

Sarah would have answered him if she'd known where to write. She might have even told him to come home, despite her doubts that Neil had truly made a recovery and was no longer drinking. But that was the last letter she'd ever received from him. Now she was glad she hadn't told the girls anything.

The woman across the table had stopped talking and was looking expectantly at Sarah, who realized she'd dropped out of the conversation entirely.

“I'm sorry, I'm going to have to ask you to repeat that,” Sarah said. “I was deep in thought about flowers.”

“Oh.” The woman looked confused. “I thought we were discussing the menu.” She was petulant now. Her mouth, already small, pursed into a tiny red berry.

“I really am sorry,” Sarah said. “Your anniversary is of the utmost importance. I want to give every detail of your party the attention it deserves.”

Just then she noticed a young woman hovering in the dining room doorway. A tall blonde, very striking despite her casual clothing. It took a moment for Sarah to recognize her.

“Elizabeth!” Sarah said, and leaped from her seat, startling the older woman out of her pout and causing the man to stand up and turn around to stare. But of course he would. Her daughter was beautiful.

Sarah had heard from Laura that Elizabeth—who now called herself “Elly,” such a dreadful nickname, like something out of a children's book—was planning to visit. Laura had made it clear that she had invited Elizabeth to stay with her. It had cost Sarah to agree gracefully, because of course she'd prefer to have Elizabeth stay in her apartment. But Laura had been struggling—Sarah had been afraid to delve too deeply into why—so naturally she'd want her sister's support.

Sarah smiled at her daughter now, proud to claim this elegant creature as her own. In her view, every family had one child that stood out
as superior to the rest, and this was hers. Elizabeth was her most beautiful, talented daughter.

This wasn't only Sarah's opinion. It was fact: Elizabeth was the one with the golden hair and the golden voice, the girl whose legs were shapely and whose height made her look regal even in jeans.

Elizabeth had an easy personality, too. She was never stubbornly methodical like Laura (which, admittedly, made her competent at many things, and reliable) or furiously, cheerfully defiant like Anne. No, Elizabeth always listened to her mother, and because of that, she'd won nearly every singing contest in the region and earned roles in some of the North Shore's top theater productions before moving to Los Angeles.

Sarah hadn't wanted to let her go west. Or, if she were truthful, what Sarah had really wanted was to go
with
Elizabeth and help manage her career. Of course that was unthinkable. She couldn't leave the inn. Still, she thought of Elizabeth every day, usually when she first woke up, imagining her daughter going to auditions and singing on stages all over Los Angeles, just as Sarah would have done, given that chance at her age.

She went to Elizabeth and embraced her, then released her to have a better look. Elizabeth looked well, very tan and as slim as ever. She was dressed in stylishly snug jeans and knee-high boots, a short black leather jacket and scarf. Her blond hair fell in soft waves around her shoulders. Sarah's own Hollywood girl!

“You look absolutely wonderful,” Sarah said, then turned to the couple. “Rick and Jean, I'd like to introduce you to my daughter, Elizabeth Bradford. She's visiting from Hollywood, where she's a singer.”

“I'm a production designer, mostly,” Elizabeth said.

Sarah waved this off. “My girl has talent dripping from her fingertips.”

“Work with movie stars, do ya now?” Rick asked. Red-faced and jovial, he looked like he enjoyed a good Scotch. “Gonna get your name up there in lights?”

Elizabeth smiled at him. “Someday, I hope.”

“Oh, she will,” Sarah promised. “Elizabeth sings like an angel. Why, I bet she'd be happy to do a little song for you right now.”

“Mom,” Elizabeth said. “No. Please, let's not do that. I know you're busy. We can visit later. I'm looking for Anne, actually.”

“Anne? Oh, honey, I'm sorry. She's not here.” Sarah felt a flush of irritation creep up her neck. She didn't want there to be any talk about her daughter choosing to stay in that mossy little cabin by the water instead of the inn. “She's living in Aunt Flossie's cottage for now. She wanted a kitchen of her own.”

“Oh,” Elizabeth said, frowning. “All right. I'll walk down there.”

“You will come back and visit me tomorrow, though, won't you?”

“Of course.” Elizabeth leaned down to kiss her mother's cheek before leaving.

Sarah turned back to the couple and flashed a smile. “All right. My apologies for the interruption. Let's talk about flowers for your big day,” she said. “Have you thought about a color scheme?”

Things would be all right now, she thought, as she paged through a photo album of floral arrangements. Elizabeth was home. She would cheer up Laura and bring some excitement into their lives.

•   •   •

Elly hiked down through the gardens toward the shore. There was still enough light for her to admire the tall white birches, their green leaves already turning a warm gold. She'd forgotten how New England autumns carried such a sense of possibility. She inhaled deeply and hoped she was clearing her lungs of toxic Los Angeles smog.

She reached the beach and followed the crescent of hard-packed buttery sand to her aunt's house and the little cottage on the ledge beside it. As kids, she and her sisters had always called this tiny cottage “the Houseboat.” Against their mother's wishes, Flossie had stocked the Houseboat with snacks and drinks and encouraged them to use the place as teenagers, free from parental supervision.

“Every girl needs a room of her own,” Flossie had declared.

Once, during a discussion about virginity at the Thanksgiving table, Flossie had blown up at their mother. “For heaven's sake, Sarah!” she'd cried. “You keep telling your girls to save themselves, but for what? Your daughters should sample what's out there and learn what pleases them before they decide who to love and how to live.”

“What do
you
know?” Sarah had responded, tossing her napkin onto the table like a gauntlet. “You were a
nun
! Pretty flawed reasoning coming from a woman married to
God
!”

Flossie had rolled her eyes at that. “For the millionth time, get it straight. I was a
Buddhist
nun. I never believed in any authoritarian creator God, thank you very much.”

Laura was the only one who hadn't taken Flossie's advice. She had met Jake in college, gotten pregnant, and married him within a year despite losing the baby.

“You don't have to get married now!” Elly had said when Laura told her about the miscarriage.

But Laura had shaken her head. The invitations had gone out, she told Elly. Most important, their mother approved of Jake. And Jake loved her.

“I can't back out now,” Laura had said. “It would break Jake's heart. And Mom's. This is her wedding as much as mine.”

“Even more reason to cancel it!” Elly had shrieked at her sister.

Now she was ashamed of herself for not being more supportive. The only thing Laura had ever been guilty of was trying too hard to make other people happy.

She continued up the rocky ledge along a natural staircase of boulders and paused to catch her breath just below the scrap of lawn surrounding the Houseboat. The grass was tall and yellow around the little house and made a sound like a crowd whispering, audible over the surf because the sea was calm and flat today.

Anne was seated cross-legged on the porch with her back to Elly. What was she doing out here in the near-dark? Yoga?

After a moment, Elly realized that her sister was singing. She moved closer and recognized the song as an old sea chantey: “What shall we do with the drunken sailor?” She and her sisters used to make up verses to entertain the guests at the inn, inviting them to sing along. People loved it.

Elly had always loved that song, too. As silly as they could get singing it, a haunting melody lay beneath the song, which had originally been sung on whaling boats. It was easy to imagine those ships
just off Jeffrey's Ledge here, as she stood below the cottage listening to Anne's sweet alto drift out to sea.

She was tempted to surprise her sister by joining in. Then Anne abruptly stood and bent over to pick something up off the porch and wrap it in a blanket. What was that thing?

A baby! A tiny foot came loose from the blanket. Anne had a baby! Elly clasped a hand to her mouth to keep from crying out in shock.

Elly had imagined countless different scenarios for her little sister. From their most recent flurry of Skype calls a few months ago, she knew that Anne was excited about some guy. A writer. She'd moved in with him. They'd stopped communicating soon after that, but Elly hadn't thought much of it; she'd been busy and assumed Anne was, too.

During that span of silence between them, whenever Elly did spend a few minutes wondering what Anne was doing, she'd imagined many things. Maybe Anne would move with her writer to a Brooklyn brownstone. Or to Paris, where she and her lover would scribble in journals and drink cheap red wine.