The Summer's End (15 page)

Taylor lifted his brow. “Really?”

She laughed, not surprised that he'd found that tidbit interesting, given that his father was a captain. “Yep. Anyway, there's this story, a legend really, that the Gentleman Pirate—that's our ancestor—buried his gold somewhere on Sullivan's Island. So naturally, Carson and I dressed up as pirates and searched for the buried treasure.”

“Ever find it?”

She chortled and shook her head. “Nope. But we had the best time looking. Mamaw didn't allow television during the day and scooted us out of the house to play. Carson and I . . .” Harper smiled. “What a pair we made. We both loved adventure. I was . . . am . . . a big reader. I loved to come up with plots for our make-believe, mostly from books I'd read.” She looked out over the water as memories played in her mind. “Our imaginations knew no bounds. Day after day we went out, absorbed in our made-up worlds.” When she turned back, she found him studying her face. She blushed and looked at her hands. “You must think that's silly.”

Taylor shook his head. “Actually, I think that's pretty great.”

She flushed with pleasure and turned her head. The shimmering water was racing with the current. “This summer is the first time I've been here in years. Since I was ten or eleven. The first
time all of us have been together since Dora's wedding. It's both strange and really nice to be living under the same roof with Mamaw and my sisters again.”

“I get that. I'm staying with my parents. For a few weeks, anyway. It's nice to visit, but I wouldn't want to stay longer than that. I don't think any of us could stand it.”

She thought about that comment. “A few months ago I would've agreed with you. Back in May I didn't think I'd be able to stand a whole summer with these women I hardly knew. Sure, we're related, but did we
like
each other? Or would we tear each other's hair out?”

“And . . . ?”

“And it turned out we did like each other.” She smiled. “Though we've had our moments of hair pulling, too.”

“Where do you fit in the lineup? Who's the eldest?”

“Eudora's the eldest. Then Carson. Then me.”

“So you're the baby.”

She rolled her eyes. “Please . . . That's a name I've been trying to outgrow most of my life.”

Taylor gave a low whistle. “Hold on. Eudora, Carson, Harper. I see a pattern.”

Harper shook her head. “Yes, right. That's my father. He was a writer and had the idea to name his daughters after great southern authors.”

Taylor leaned back, looking at the sky in thought. “That's Eudora Welty. Harper Lee. Carson . . .”

“McCullers.
The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter.
”

“Oh, yeah.” He nodded his head with approval. “That's cool.”

Harper took a sip of lemonade and shrugged. To this day her mother rued the day she'd agreed to call her only child after a southern author rather than a British one.

“Are you close?”

“Me and my sisters?” Harper pursed her lips. “We couldn't be more different. We each were raised in different parts of the country. Carson in California, me in New York, Dora in the Carolinas. We have different lifestyles, beliefs, style of dress. Mothers. But somehow, when we're together, we all fit, like pieces of a puzzle made whole. Take this summer,” Harper said, warming to the subject. “We've all been in varying states of transition, and it's been like Sea Breeze is our lifeboat and we're all in it together, paddling for shore. We've helped each other along, and in the process, we've become more than sisters.” She looked back at the water. “So yes. We're close. We've become best friends.”

Below, the water slapped the wooden dock, and the wood moaned. After a moment, Taylor said, “Sounds like you've found your treasure.”

Harper turned her head back to look at him, pleased at his perspicacity.

Taylor swallowed the last of his lemonade in a gulp. “I best get back to work. Nice talking with you, Harper.” He touched her shoulder, briefly, then turned and walked away.

Harper put her hand on her shoulder and watched his long, purposeful stride back up the dock to the house.

C
anasta was a card game in the gin rummy family, so Mamaw felt her blood stirring when she pulled out the decks of cards. It was another steamy afternoon in the lowcountry, and feeling particularly thirsty, she poured two liberal fingers of rum over ice. It was almost five o'clock, wasn't it?

She met her granddaughters in the living room. They were abandoning the porch due to the continuing heat wave. The room was more formal than the rest of the house, filled with what Mamaw referred to as “good” family antiques, which meant museum quality, all early American, with pale blue silk upholstery. Not the usual room for playing cards. The air was festive as they opened the folding card table and chairs, turned on music, and gathered around.

“Girls,” Mamaw called out when they clustered around the table, “before you sit, we have to choose partners.”

The girls eyed each other nervously.

“I hate choosing teams.”
Harper frowned petulantly. “It always reminds me of when I was young and in physical education at school. No one ever picked me for their team because I was too little.” She looked at Carson. “You were probably the first one picked.”

“As a matter of fact, I was,” Carson said with a wry grin.

“No fears, my dear.” Mamaw fanned out a deck of cards across the table. “Pick a card. The closest numbers will be partners.”

Relieved, they all drew a card. Mamaw and Dora were paired against Carson and Harper.

“The South shall rise again!” Dora warned them.

“Here we go . . . ,” groaned Carson with a roll of the eyes.

“It feels weird to play cards in the living room,” Dora said, arranging four glasses of iced tea and a bowl of mixed nuts on the table. “I always felt this was the room we all had to be proper in. Well behaved.”

“A lady?” Carson asked teasingly.

Harper silently mouthed,
Death to the ladies!

Carson chuckled at their childhood mantra. Then her smile fell as her gaze swept the room. “The last time we were all in here was during the storm. In July, remember?”

“Of course we remember, sugar,” Dora said. “It was her last night with us.”

Mamaw was shuffling the cards but paused to look around the room. Frank Sinatra was crooning “Summer Wind” and candles flickered. Mamaw closed her eyes and said softly, “Lucille still is with us.”

Harper smiled then, a sad smile.

Mamaw opened her eyes and, with determination, briskly shuffled the two decks of cards. They snapped in her hands with a croupier's precise movements. “It's better indoors today. I swanny, the weather is positively wilting. We'll expire if we play outdoors. I'm old enough to tell you that I've suffered through plenty of years without air-conditioning—sleeping outdoors on porches, fanning ourselves relentlessly, drinking cool drinks. I might not be a big fan of air-con out here on the island, but on days like this I bless the birth of Willis Carrier.”

“Amen,” added Dora, raising her iced tea in a salute.

“I'm a convert,” said Carson, lifting the long braid from her back. “I used to hate it. Coming in from the water, air-conditioning always made me too cold. But ever since I got pregnant, I can't take the heat like I used to.”

“It's your body heat, dear,” Mamaw told her. “It's warmer now. You're working harder.”

Carson eyed Mamaw skeptically.

Mamaw's eyes widened. “It's a fact! Look it up.” She began dealing the cards.

“It's not the heat that bothers me. It's the humidity,” said Harper. Lifting her hair like Carson, she twisted her shoulder-length hair up into a French twist and secured it with a clip. Then she rubbed her arms, dotted with angry bites. “And the bugs. I got sucked dry yesterday during my run.”

“Summer in the South . . . ,” mumbled Dora.

“The heat riles the skeeters up,” Mamaw said, picking up her cards.

Harper scratched her leg and groaned. “Well, they love me.”

“It's your red hair,” Dora said with authority as she picked up her cards, one by one.
Her blond hair was neatly pulled back in a ponytail with a pink ribbon. “The color red attracts bees and mosquitoes.”

“That's an old wives' tale,” Carson said dismissively.

“It is not,” Dora argued, looking up from her hand. Dora didn't like to be corrected.

Carson skewered her with a look. “It is.”

“Hold on.” Harper grabbed her phone and bent over it for a moment.

Dora wagged her foot with frustration. “I know I'm right.”

“Here it is.” Harper glanced up to smile conspiratorially. “You're both right. Bees don't see color.”

“Told you,” said Carson with a gloating smile.

“But”—Harper pointed her finger in an arresting motion in the air—“it's true mosquitoes tend to go for clothing in black, dark blue, and red.
And
”—she giggled as she pointed to Carson—“pregnant women.” Then with a laugh: “
And
drinkers of beer.”

Dora and Harper burst out laughing. Mamaw held her cards up to cover her smile.

“Well, damn,” Carson said, in typical self-derisive fashion. “In either case, I lose. I stopped drinking, but now I'm pregnant.” She rolled her eyes. “Figures.”

Harper eyed Mamaw's rum drink skeptically. “Speaking of drinking, when did we relax the rules about alcohol around here?”

Mamaw raised her glass to her lips and took a prim sip. “Since I discussed it with Carson.”

Carson shrugged. “Why shouldn't Mamaw have her nip of rum at night?
The smell of alcohol makes me sick, so no temptation. Seems wrong to punish her. It's her house, after all.”

“You mean, I can have a glass of wine?” Dora asked eagerly.

“Be my guest,” Carson said.

Dora smiled like a Cheshire cat. “For medicinal purposes only, of course.”

“Enough chatter,” Mamaw announced. “Let's play cards.”

Time flew by as they played canasta and the relaxed chatter floated in the air. “Mamaw, your color is back,” Harper said as she looked over her cards. “You look, I don't know, happier.”

“Why, thank you, dear.” Mamaw arranged her cards. “I was just thinking how I feel better.”

Dora looked at her cards and asked nonchalantly, “Been outdoors much? Say, on the water?”

Mamaw knew this was coming. She discreetly looked over her cards to deliver a squinted-eyes warning at Dora.

Dora ignored her and blithely continued as she picked a card from the pile, “You know, when I was out on the boat with Devlin and Nate earlier today, we passed this small johnboat with two people fishing together. A man and a woman. They were just as cozy as could be. Why, Mamaw, I could have sworn the woman was you. Didn't you hear me call out to you?” Dora's voice sounded innocent but she held her cards over her mouth to conceal her grin.

Mamaw simmered as Harper and Carson first looked with astonishment at Dora, then at Mamaw.

“Okay.” Carson lowered her cards. “What's going on?”

Mamaw sniffed and took a sip of drink. She then sighed as if a long-suffering soul who had to put up with the antics of a child. “Tempest in a teapot.
Girard Bellows and I went fishing,” she declared as if it were the most natural thing in the world. “We've been friends forever. He saw me sitting on the dock and no doubt took pity and invited me out on his boat. I had a very nice time, thank you very much. End of story.” She tapped her cards on the table. She made a show of arranging them. “By the way, Dora,” she said archly, “you should use more sunscreen. You're burned as red as a boiled lobster.”

“You went out with Old Man Bellows?” asked Carson incredulously.

Mamaw lay her cards on the table. “First of all, we didn't go
out.
We went fishing. Secondly, he's not Old Man Bellows. He's
Mr.
Bellows to you.” She gave Carson a no-nonsense glare. “And we most certainly were not being cozy.” Mamaw picked up her cards. “It was a small boat.”

Dora leaned over the table and said in a stage whisper, “They were shoulder to shoulder. Canoodling.”

The girls started snickering.

Mamaw looked at her cards. “I'd say I've found the jokers in this deck.”

Carson hooted. “And you're the wild card!”

Mamaw relented and joined their laughter, relishing the first sounds of merriment in Sea Breeze since Lucille's death. Even if it was at her own expense.

The late afternoon stretched on into evening as they played hand after hand of canasta. It was so hot no one was very hungry, and since the kitchen was out of order, they nibbled crackers and cheese, leftover quiche, and raw vegetables. While they played, the talk never ceased. They discussed ways that they could each help an anxious Nate prepare for his new school.
They spent a long time coming up with possible names for Carson's baby, which ranged from family names to silly ones. Harper was leaning heavily toward Poseidon, but Carson only rolled her eyes. Eventually the conversation turned to the progress of the kitchen's makeover.