Swimming Lessons (23 page)

“Yesterday. And he’s back again today?”

“Uh, yes. He came all the way from California.”

“How long is he staying?”

“I don’t know.”

“Is he staying with you?”

She felt his gaze boring into her, mining out the truth. “Oh, no. It’s not like that. He’s just here for dinner.”

“I see. And you forgot that I was coming for dinner.”

It was a summation but to her ears, it sounded like an accusation. “It all happened so fast. I wasn’t thinking clearly.” She saw a small muscle twitch in his jaw. “He got here, he wanted to see Lovie, and I…”

“And you said yes.” He exhaled a breath. “Of course he wants to see her. It’s only natural.”

Moments earlier he’d spoken in an entirely different tone. Then, his voice had been warm, sharing, excited. Now, he spoke with cool indifference as though he were trying to get the situation straight in his mind. He looked off for a second, his withdrawal palpable.

“This is for you,” he said, raising the cooler. “I stopped at Cherry Point on the way back. My father wanted you to have this shrimp. They’re right off the boat.”

“Oh, uh, thank you. Won’t you join us for dinner?” She cringed after the words slipped out. It was a stupid, stupid thing to ask. She was relieved when he replied like a knee jerk reaction.

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Why don’t you keep the shrimp? For your own dinner.”

“I’ve got plenty. You take them.” He held out the cooler.

She backed away, refusing the cooler. It felt too significant, like the passing of a parting gift. “Ethan, just wait. Please.”

His gaze flicked up to the porch and she saw his lips tighten in annoyance, or was it embarrassment at being watched in this awkward moment?

“Just take the damn shrimp and I’ll shove off,” he said, thrusting the cooler at her.

She grabbed it stunned.

“I’ll call you later,” he said.

She watched him turn and walk with purpose to the door of his pickup truck. He opened the door but before getting in he looked her way once more. She felt the intensity of his gaze, as though he were taking a final snapshot of her with his mind. Her vision blurred. A moment later she heard the roar of an engine and she saw the rear of his truck, plastered with SC Aquarium bumper stickers, disappear around the bend in the road.

Toy was devastated but she rallied for Little Lovie’s sake. She returned to the beach house with the cooler of shrimp, not knowing where she was going to find the energy to prepare a meal and get through the evening. All she wanted to do was go to her room and cry.

Darryl was sitting on the sofa watching a baseball game on the television. Lovie sat beside him, leaning against his shoulder as he tried to teach her the rules of the game. Lovie kept asking which team was
their
team. Toy knew Lovie didn’t know the first thing about baseball but she wanted to be on her daddy’s team. He turned his head when she came in.

“There you are,” he said as he pulled up from the sofa. He came directly to her side and took the cooler from her arms.

“It’s not heavy,” she said.

“Don’t matter. Where do you want them?”

“In the kitchen, thanks. You can just set them down on the counter.”

He set the cooler down then leaned over it to get a closer look at her face. “You look tired,” he said in a low voice.

“I am,” she said, leaning against the counter. “It was a very hard day. Everything that could have gone wrong did.” Despite her effort, her lower lip began to tremble.

He glanced out the window at the driveway, then back at her. Ethan was on both their minds, but he refrained from mentioning his name.

“Hey, you don’t want to go peeling all that shrimp. In fact, you shouldn’t have to cook tonight at all,” he said in an upbeat tone. “I seem to recall I invited a little girl to Shem Creek for dinner. There are lots of different restaurants down there. Why don’t we try out another one? With a window smack on the water so Lovie can see a dolphin? Heck, we can try a different one every night. What do you say?”

Lovie came running into the room. “Can we? Please say we can?”

Darryl swooped down to pick her up in his arms. When they both smiled back at her, waiting for her answer, her breath was caught by how their eyes were exactly the same color blue. Why had she never noticed that before?

“Just give me a minute to freshen up,” she said, then laughed as they both whooped loudly.

L
ater, when they returned home from Shem Creek, Lovie was half asleep and Toy was limp with fatigue. Darryl carried the child to the door, and while Toy unlocked it, she warred with herself whether or not to invite him in. The lock clicked. She pushed the door and held it for Darryl to walk through.

“Which room is hers?” he asked in a whisper.

Toy led the way down the narrow hall to the pink bedroom. “Just set her down on the bed. Poor thing, she’s had a full day. Meeting her daddy was a pretty big deal.”

“Ditto. I thought it went pretty good.”

Toy had to agree. She had been amazed all evening at his tireless attentiveness to Lovie and could only believe he was being sincere. During dinner, their conversation was smooth and easy, and it had dawned on her that they didn’t have to go through those excruciating early stages of a relationship trying to discover tidbits of each other’s past, finding out what the other liked or disliked, their habits, their choices. For all the pain they’d gone through, tonight brought back memories of the better moments when they were friends.

She pulled down the blankets then he gently laid their child on the bed. Lovie groaned as she curled up on her pillow. Toy leaned over to begin untying Lovie’s sneakers.

“Do you want me to wait in the other room while you get her into bed?” he asked. “I could make us some coffee.”

“Actually, I think it’s best we call it a night,” she said, straightening slowly. “Lovie has school in the morning and I’ve got a full day at work.”

He nodded his head but his disappointment was clear on his face. She’d been impressed all evening that he’d not once lost his temper, despite her egging him on, testing him from time to time.

He bent to kiss the top of Lovie’s head. “G’night, sweet baby. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Okay, Daddy,” she murmured sleepily.

Toy’s head snapped up. “Tomorrow?”

“I can come by whenever you say,” he said, his face all innocence.

“Mama, what time do I get home from school?” Lovie asked on a yawn.

Toy didn’t know what to say. She removed one of Lovie’s pink shoes with sparkly laces. She paused and looked at it in her hand. It was so small.

“Why don’t you come by at six again? We can cook up the shrimp with some grits.”

“Darlin’, that’s an invitation I can’t say no to.” He was buoyant and pointed his finger at Lovie, “And you…Lemme hear you say it one more time. Who am I?”

Lovie lifted her face to him and she smiled. “Daddy.”

“Right.”

“Lovie, get in your jammies,” Toy told her. “I’ll be right back to tuck you in.”

Toy walked Darryl to the door, acutely aware of his
nearness behind her. She opened it and felt a cool ocean breeze. Breathing in, she turned to find him only inches from her. The intensity of his gaze was disarming.

“She’s a great kid,” he said. “You did a great job.”

“Thank you. And thanks again for dinner. We both had a nice time.”

She tensed, thinking he’d make a move, but he walked around her and headed out. Before he left, however, he turned. His face was backlit by the porch light.

“I meant to tell you that you look real pretty. And I don’t mean just tonight. You have a new look to you.”

She snorted, “I should. I’m five years older and a mother now.”

“There’s that,” he agreed. “But it’s something else. You’re, I don’t know, grown-up. Wiser. You’ve become a woman any man would be proud to call his own.” He looked at her with his blue eyes shining with sincerity. “Good night now.”

“Good night,” she said softly. Closing the door, she knew she’d be lying if she didn’t admit she’d been moved.

The sky was inky black when Toy made her way home from the beach. A heavy cloud cover obscured any glimmer of light from either moon or stars, creating a ghostly sky filled with ominous shapes. She followed the narrow beam of light from her flashlight as she walked along the narrow beach path to the street. In the surrounding field, a scuttling noise followed by a chattering high in the palm tree hastened her pace.

She’d walked to clear her mind and set her priorities after the emotional roller coaster of the past few days. Unlike the cloudy sky, her mind felt clearer now and she
had to follow the course of her decisions. She undressed quickly, climbed into bed then brought the phone close. She dialed the number she knew by heart. Chewing her lip, she listened as the phone rang once…twice…

“Hello?”

“Ethan? It’s me. Toy.”

“Hi.”

His voice didn’t sound like he’d been asleep but there was a coolness to it that put her on edge.

“I was out walking on the beach and I wondered if I’d missed your call.”

“No, I hadn’t called yet.”

“Oh. Okay. I wanted to talk to you about tonight.”

“How did dinner go? Was the shrimp okay?”

“Well, actually we didn’t eat it. We went out to dinner after all. I was pretty nervous so I’m glad I didn’t have to cook. I would have burned water.”

“What were you nervous about?”

“Everything. Ethan, I haven’t seen or heard from Darryl in five years. And now he comes back to meet Lovie for the first time. Isn’t that enough?”

“I didn’t realize you hadn’t heard from him. I guess I thought you did.” He paused. “I really don’t know much about him. You rarely mention him.”

“Why would I? He’s not part of the life I have now, and honestly, I’m not very proud of the part of my life that includes him.”

“So why do you want to see him?”

“It’s not that I want to see him. He wants to get to know his daughter.”

“And how do you feel about that?”

“At first I was against it. Of course I would be. I’m still so angry at him. But now…I realize Lovie needs to
know him and, for what it’s worth, I’m glad she’s having the chance.”

“Do you think he’ll be a good father to Lovie?”

Toy had to reflect on that question. An image of Darryl kissing the top of Lovie’s head shot through her mind. She thought of Darryl’s tenderness to Lovie, his eagerness to please. “I think so. I hope so. But good or bad, he’s her father.”

“I’d hate to see her hurt. She’s a good kid.”

“I can’t stop her from getting hurt,” Toy said evenly, having given this a great deal of thought. “But I will be there to help her through. I’ve been a single mom since the day she was born and I’ve had a lot of practice. And I have my village, which has helped raise Lovie since she was born—Cara and Brett, Flo, Emmi. We’re all here for her. And for each other.”

“Darryl may change the balance, you realize.”

“I know,” she replied. “He already has.”

“Oh? How so?”

“My village isn’t so keen on my decision to let Darryl back in.”

“For what it’s worth, I agree with them.”

Weary, she sighed and leaned back against the pillows, knowing she was moving into the part of the conversation that would be tough.

“Darryl coming back into my life now is very intense,” she tried to explain. “I think I need some time on my own to work this out.”

He skipped a beat. “You need some time? What does that mean?”

“I mean…” She clutched the phone tightly. “I think we should stop seeing each other, just until I settle this with him.”

“Do you still love him?” he asked sharply.

“No.”

“Then what difference does it make?”

“It’s confusing,” she stumbled out.

“Why is it confusing if you don’t love him?” An undercurrent of anger sounded in his rising voice.

“I don’t know! It’s just too much for me to deal with. I just can’t see you, is all!”

There was a strained silence where no one spoke for several seconds. Then she heard his voice, calmer and deliberate.

“Despite what you say, you seem to still have a lot of unresolved feelings for this man.” His voice was low with tightly restrained emotion. “I can understand that. He’s the father of your child, after all. It would be wrong of me to get in the way now. I don’t want to make things more difficult for you, or for Lovie.”

She wished she could explain the myriad reasons why she was compelled to isolate herself from distractions and focus on settling this one area of her life so she could move on. Except, she couldn’t speak lucidly about her feelings at the moment. She only knew that if she didn’t get closure on this chapter of her life she’d never heal her old wounds and be able to move forward in her life.

“Please believe me. I didn’t expect him to show up like this.”

“It was bound to happen sooner or later.”

“As you said, he is Lovie’s father. I want…I feel I should give her a chance to know him.”

“Are you sure that’s all that it is?”

She sighed, feeling extraordinarily weary. “I’m not sure of anything anymore.”

“Well, I am sure of my feelings.”

She paused, questioning his meaning.

“I’ll respect your wishes,” he said succinctly. “You know where to find me.”

Toy heard a click. She stared at the phone in her hand until the high-pitched beeping told her the connection was broken.

Medical Log “Big Girl”

S
ummer was coming to an end. The sea oats were turning gold and crisp. They rattled in the cooler evening breeze. Cara took Lovie to the beach one last time to check on Big Girl’s nest.

Cara’s back was aching something fierce so she sat in the beach chair and watched the girl’s willowy form rake the beach in a sweet waltz of preparation for the small nest’s hatching. Such hope and joy the young had!

They’d come to this nest each of the past five nights and she had to admire the little girl for her dedication. All season, Lovie had shown up at the nest inventories with Toy, and if her mother was busy, she begged Cara or Flo to take her. The child had heart.

The trouble was, Cara knew
this
nest was not going to hatch and it fell to her to dash the child’s hopes. She let her play at catching ghost crabs for a while before cupping her hands and calling out, “Come on back, now. It’s getting dark!”

Lovie kicked the sand but obliged and came to sit by Cara’s side.

“Don’t pout, sugar. You have school tomorrow
morning. Your mama wants you home on time. She’ll have my head on a platter if I keep you out late.”

“I don’t care.”

“What’s the matter? Don’t you like school? First grade is a big step. You’re in big girl school now.”

Lovie rolled her eyes, having heard that many times before. “Mrs. Cryns is teaching us to read. But I can already read.”

Cara tried not to smile. “Well, sure, but there’s still a lot to learn, you know.”

“I guess. At least she’s real nice. “

Cara paused but felt compelled to ask, “Do you think Darryl is nice?”

Lovie lifted a handful of sand and let it sift slowly through her fingers. “Daddy? Sure, he’s nice, too. He plays me songs on his guitar. He’s teaching me how to play one, too. I like it. It’s fun. He told me I have a pretty voice and maybe I’ll grow up to be a singer, like him.”

Cara tried to keep her voice cheery. The thought of Lovie calling that man daddy, much less growing up to be like him, was galling. “Do you want to be a singer? Like him?”

She shrugged. “It’s cool.”

Cool? That was a new word for her and Cara didn’t have to guess where it came from. “Is he nice to your mama?”

Lovie turned to look at her like she was crazy to ask such a stupid question. “He took us to the movies on Saturday.”

“Ah, well, yes,” Cara replied, struggling for seriousness. “That certainly is treating a lady nice.”

It had been weeks since Darryl appeared on the scene and according to Flo, Darryl had been at the house several times each week, though
just for dinner
, she was
careful to point out. Cara had told Flo it was a shame she’d never volunteered her services to the CIA. Admittedly, no one was happy about his coming and going, but Cara had been watching, too, and both Toy and Lovie seemed well enough. And Toy wasn’t asking for her advice. Toy was a woman, a professional and a mother. Cara had to respect her decision, even if she didn’t agree with it.

“I don’t think any ghost crab will dare to come near your nest tonight,” Cara said.

“They’d better not or I’ll smoosh ’em.”

Toy had carefully dressed Lovie in a pink, long sleeved shirt and leggings to keep the mosquitoes at bay. Lovie stretched out on the sand beside the nest and put her ear to the ground. “I don’t hear anything.”

Cara chuckled. “You wouldn’t hear anything, even if there were a hundred turtles in there, not just six.”

“When do you think they’ll come, Auntie Cara?”

“You know we can’t say when a nest will hatch. We count the days and look for signs, but it’s up to the turtles.”

“But they’re supposed to come tonight, right?”

Cara sighed, choosing her words. “Lovie, you know that this isn’t a normal nest, don’t you? Big Girl dropped these eggs in the tank and your mama and Ethan put them in the sand with a prayer.”

Lovie smoothed the sand around the nest. “I know that. But Mama says she thinks it will hatch on account of it’s here on Miss Lovie’s dune.”

Oh, Toy…

“Auntie Cara, if Mama put the eggs in here, how do the other turtle eggs get in the sand?”

She stroked Lovie’s silky blond hair. Even though the
child had seen many turtle nests and hatchlings, she’d never seen the rare sighting of a loggerhead laying her eggs on the beach.

“You remember Big Girl, of course? Well, months back, some little voice in her head, we call it instinct, told her it was time to swim home to lay her eggs in the same sand she hatched in. So she swam and swam such a long way to get here. By the time she was ready to come ashore, she had five, six hundred eggs inside of her, not just these seven eggs.”

“This is her home?”

“Well, the turtle’s home is the sea, not the beach. All she knows and loves is in the ocean. So to lay her eggs, the mama has to leave her home and safety and all she knows to crawl out onto land. This is scary for her. She must be very careful. She waits until night so the darkness will hide her, then she sits in the surf a while to scout things out. If she spots a person walking or a dog, or if some bright light frightens her, she’ll turn right around and go back to the sea. That’s why we keep the lights off on the beach at night. When she’s done, at last she goes back to the sea, one very tired mama.”

“What does she do then?”

Cara shrugged lightly. “Then she goes off to find something to eat. The turtles don’t eat during nesting, so she’s very hungry.”

“You mean, she doesn’t come back to the nest? To take care of her babies?”

“No. The mother does her best to hide her eggs. Then she lets Mother Nature take care of them.”

“And the turtle ladies.”

Cara laughed. “Yes, and the turtle ladies.”

Sensing the moment, Cara drew nearer to Lovie and
spoke in a solemn voice. “Remember that these eggs were put into the sand by your mother, not the turtle mother. Honey, this nest is overdue. That means we have to face that this nest is not going to hatch. There are no babies in there. It just wasn’t meant to be.”

“But Mama said it would hatch.” Lovie’s lips began to tremble.

“No, honey, your mama
hoped
it would hatch.” She brought Lovie into her lap and held her close. “Sometimes, we hope for things, but that doesn’t mean it will happen.”

“But that makes me sad.”

“I know. Me, too. It’s just nature’s way.”

She kissed Lovie’s cheek. “Okay?” When the child nodded sadly, Cara helped her climb from her lap. Then she carefully pulled herself to her feet, careful to keep pressure off her abdomen, and offered her hand to the little girl. “Come on, honey. Let’s go home.”

Later that month, Darryl sat in the beach house at the dining table with a yellow paper clown hat on his head. Little Lovie sat at his side wearing one in pink. They were making music together on their kazoos, laughing and tooting and having a great time. Toy listened and chuckled as she stood at the table cutting into the two-tiered birthday cake adorned with yellow and pink roses, six candles, and the scrolled words,
Happy 6th Birthday, Lovie!

This is what is must be like to be a family, she thought to herself as she sliced a piece of yellow cake for the daddy, then the mommy and finally the child. She joined her family at the table, smiling yet feeling more like an observer at this party for two. Lovie was utterly and
completely besotted with her father. From the moment he walked in the door till the teary goodbye, her face was alight with joy at being with him.

And he’d been a fabulous father these past weeks. No one was more surprised than she was at this turn of events. He didn’t know much about nature but he followed Lovie from shell to shell on the beach and listened dutifully while she shared with him their names and little tidbits of knowledge, some correct, others not.

What he did know was music, however, and he was teaching Lovie how to play the guitar. His early birthday gift to her was her own instrument and every time he came by he gave her a lesson. Toy was amazed to discover her daughter had inherited Darryl’s musical ability, because Lovie sure didn’t inherit that talent from her. Already Lovie could pick out a few songs.

As summer turned into fall, Darryl became a fixture at the house and in their lives. Toy didn’t know how she felt about that. Naturally she was happy that Darryl and Lovie were getting along so well, but as each day passed, Darryl’s hints at reconciliation were growing more pressing.

She looked at the man across the table. He had his lean arm stretched across the back of Lovie’s chair and was whispering something in her ear that sent Lovie into squeals of laughter. Ah, Darryl… He always could please the ladies. He was handsome enough. She used to swoon over his soulful eyes and the way he could melt her heart with a slow smile.

But she didn’t swoon anymore. She didn’t even sway. She just didn’t feel the same for him and she was sorry for it. It would be so much easier if she could still be in love with him. Now she was stuck trying to rationalize
whether a life with him was as good as a girl in her situation could expect.

“What are you doing by your lonesome over there?” Darryl asked with the devil in his eyes. “You’re thinking too much again. Go on and get a kazoo and be crazy like us.”

“Yeah, Mama, be crazy.” Lovie giggled, tickled by the way her daddy teased.

Toy picked up the kazoo and blew hard. It sounded more like she was giving them the raspberries than a musical note and they burst out laughing. It worked…Toy started laughing, too.

“Mama, you
are
crazy,” Lovie said in way of a compliment.

“I guess I am,” she replied, and tooted the kazoo again.

On the other side of the island, Cara and Brett sat on the sofa watching the weather report on television. A Category One hurricane was hitting the state of Florida on the Atlantic side and that prompted worry that the storm would travel up the coast to South Carolina. The advance winds were shaking the palms and heavy rains were forecast. Brett had already carried in the porch furniture and any small objects that might get tossed in the wind.

“I hate this, hate this, hate this,” Cara said, clutching his hand. “Our living room looks like a warehouse.”

“Honey, you’re wringing my hand clear off.”

“I’m sorry, Brett. These hurricanes freak me out.”

“You shouldn’t get so worked up. First off it’s only a category one hurricane. Second, we don’t know yet which way the storm’s going to turn. It might head straight north and miss us completely or fizzle out after it hits land. There’s no point with second guessing these things. Third, the doctor told you to take it easy.”

“She also told me that spotting is normal. Especially at the end of the first trimester. I’d say you were the one getting worked up about that. “

He sighed and pulled her closer to him. “I know.”

She rested her head on his shoulder and put her feet up on the ottoman. She knew he was being stoic for her sake. They’d both been spooked by more than a hurricane today. When she saw that first spot of bright, red blood she’d panicked, sure that she was having another miscarriage. Her hands had trembled when she called Brett on his cell phone.

Lord, she was embarrassed now for the fuss she’d made. Brett had been out on the tour boat. Robert raced from the dock on a wave runner to the boat to relieve him of command. When Robert later called to check on her, he told her not to blame him if the motor was ruined because he’d raced flat out to the tour boat, he was so worried Brett was going to jump ship and swim back to dock before he got there.

The doctor had assured them that all was well and in the aftermath both Cara and Brett were trying to play the role of believer. They’d had a simple dinner of carry-out and had stayed in and watched television all evening.

A vicious gust of wind sent the hurricane shutters creaking and the skies opened up, dumping sheets of rain that beat against the windows like bullets.

“I’m afraid,” Cara said against his shirt.

Brett tightened his arm around her and Cara knew that he understood she wasn’t talking about the force of wind. When he didn’t say anything, she knew that he was afraid, too.