The Sea Glass Sisters (5 page)

“I have to go.” Somehow I manage to thank her for letting me know. Then I’m walking across the deck. And then I’m running, down the stairs, across the lawn of wispy salt grass and weeds, down the path through the scrubby bayberry bushes, toward the dunes and over them onto the thin strip of sand that hasn’t been overtaken by the storm-swelled tide.

I run and run, shoes sinking into the sand, the weight of it pulling and tugging, slowing me down, not letting me get away fast enough. The waves claw the shore, and tears blur my eyes. Far out to sea, the first hints of a change in the weather blacken into a formless darkness.

I pant and I scream, but other than quiet, shuttered houses, no one hears me. As far as I can see down the beach, there’s not a sign of another living soul. Nothing to stop me from running, except myself. My own weakness.

Eventually I can’t go any farther. I can’t put any more distance between myself and that phone call. My lungs burn and my legs go numb, and all I can do is collapse into a dune and watch the waves violently strike land, and feel myself going out to sea with them, piece by piece.

I’m chilled to the bone by the time Aunt Sandy finally finds me. Overhead, the sky has narrowed, the clouds closing in. The waves have taken out the beach, the water already brown and churning with a mix of sea foam and debris. There’s only a few feet now between the shoreline and the dunes. Aunt Sandy is driving on it in the little ragtop Jeep she uses to run around the island.

The vehicle slides to a halt, and she hurries toward me in a stocky shuffle as I rise from the dunes. I have no idea how long I’ve been here, watching the storm slowly work its way toward us. That is the beauty of the ocean, even when it’s angry. It steals all perception of time. Right now, I need to lose myself more than anything.

But as I catch my aunt’s frantic look, I realize how selfish I’ve been, and guilt strikes me like a cold splash in the face. Undoubtedly they’ve been looking for me all this time. I’ve kept them from last-minute hurricane preparations. By default, I have probably sacrificed any possibility of talking them both into leaving. If Aunt Sandy is really having as many health problems as my mother indicated, she doesn’t need to stay here.

“Where have you been?” She grabs me and rubs her hands up and down my arms. The sweatshirt is wet, stiff, and practically icy. The spray is so cold now.

I like the numbness it has created.

“I’m sorry.” I think I’ve gotten myself together. I intend to say that I had a call this morning with bad news. Instead, I manage, “The call . . . the call . . .” and then the flood wall bursts. Sobs come rushing forth, and I cry, bent over her shoulder for who knows how long. Against me, she seems strong, her feet spread a distance in the sand, bracing to hold back each strike of wind. I huddle on her leeward side like a clump of sea oats, seeking to ride out the storm.

She does me the favor of not asking for more information, here and now. The surf is so loud, it isn’t a place for talking. Finally she guides me to the Jeep, buckles me into the passenger seat like a child, continues up the dunes until we find a place to cross through, then motors between beach houses and down the highway. In the distance, the cylindrical black-and-white stripes of the old Hatteras lighthouse stretch skyward, seeming to promise that it is possible for something well built to survive the storm.

I wonder if I have what it takes. I don’t feel as solid as that lighthouse.

Instead of taking me home, Aunt Sandy steers toward the Seashell Shop. She lets us in and calls my mother’s cell phone from the landline. The service is patchy right now, so the call ends abruptly.

“We need to get you out of here, and you need to take your mother with you,” she says, suddenly all business. The storm comes first, and I’m glad of it. I don’t want to talk about the news from work. I don’t want to think about it. “There’s probably still time for you to get off the Banks and over to the mainland, at least if the traffic cooperates. But you need to go
now
. Just let me check everything and get the shutters in place on the door. And then we’ll hurry home.”

She walks around the room, muttering to herself, reviewing a mental checklist that makes me realize how many times she must have been through this procedure before. “All the furniture up . . . glass cutters and saws at the house . . . inventory on the high shelves . . .”

How does somebody do this—face storm after storm as if it’s to be expected? Why hasn’t she just given up?

She stands in the center of the shop, her hands braced on her hips, her face partially hidden by a baseball cap she has grabbed and pulled over her short blonde hair. “You might want to get one off the rack,” she says, motioning to the hat. “It’s about to be a bad time for hair around here. And depending how far inland you two make it—which, like I said, is all about the traffic—it may be a while before there’s a hot shower.”

“I’m not going.” The words come out in a rush as if I’ve just discovered them myself, but I’ve known for hours that I couldn’t bear to return home. Not right now. Suddenly, riding out a hurricane seems like the lesser of two evils. I can’t watch the discovery of Emily’s small body as it’s broadcast on TV. The confirmation that it’s her. The pictures of her sobbing mother clutching her baby brother. The interviews with the grandparents, who have stood rock solid through this entire process, their faces stricken with grief. I can’t bear to hear the behind-the-scenes details coming out bit by bit. I can’t go back to work. I can’t take another call. What if I screw up again, cost someone else the time that’s needed to save a life?

“Oh
no
 . . . ,” Aunt Sandy begins, but when her survey of the store turns her my way, she catches my face, studies me a moment. I feel like she’s reading everything inside me. “All right,” she says then. “Okay . . . but let’s just hope this one passes on by without being anything like Irene was.”

I nod, and then she hands me the phone and adds, “You’d better call your family while you can. Tell them not to worry if they don’t hear much from us for a few days. You never know about communications after one of these things.”
For a few days
slides past me, plucking a disquieting note. “And take those suncatchers out of the bay window, would you? I forgot those were there. Wrap them in bubble wrap and tuck them in one of those boxes with the egg-crate slots. Put it up high somewhere. Two dozen suncatchers are worth some money, and if, heaven forbid, we get any damage out of this storm, we’re gonna need it.”

The ominous tone should scare me—I think she means it to—but instead it produces one last burst of determination. I find myself slipping into my mother’s role. Maybe Aunt Sandy will listen to me. She knows I’m not trying to take over her life. “I understand how much this place means to you. But listen, I was talking to Mom this morning, and she’s legitimately worried about your health.”

She turns away with a quick shake of her head. “Don’t start on me. Just help me do these last few things and get the doors shuttered, okay? I’ve heard everything your mother has to say. I’ve already promised her that I’ll get checked out and see what I can do about finding a medication that doesn’t put me flat on my back,
when there’s time
.” A backhand hatchets through the air in a maneuver so like my mother’s, it’s scary. No wonder they drive each other crazy.

I hope it’s not genetic, this ridiculous determination to ignore all the people around me and answer a concern with a laissez-faire flip of the hand.
If I ever catch myself doing that, I hope I smack myself upside the head in the process.
“Okay, okay . . . but how about if we just go inland and get a hotel for a few days? All of us. I’ll drive. I’ll help you shutter up before we leave. It really doesn’t seem like a good idea for you or Mom to be here during this storm, just in case it’s . . .”

A look comes my way, and it aborts the rest of the sentence. There’s no point. Mind made up. Those blue eyes say it all. “Elizabeth, storms are part of living on an island. Every decision you make in life has benefits and consequences. Sometimes you just have to go on faith, and even that comes at a price. It means you have to give up the idea that you’re the one in charge of the universe. This old house and I have been through all the storms before, and we’re going to get through this one. Whatever I need, whether that’s provisions or friends to help in the aftermath or the kindness of strangers, like the volunteers who helped after the last storm, God’s going to bring it my way.”

I don’t have an answer for that. Aunt Sandy is the expert in this area. She’s the Bible study teacher. But I think,
What if the provision this time is a sister who’s telling you to get yourself to the doctor?

I don’t say it, though. She won’t hear me anyway, and I’m so ragged right now, I don’t have any more energy for arguing. Instead, I take the phone outside so I can call Robert and tell him I’ve decided to stay for a hurricane.

I catch him in the office, and I know he’s busy or he wouldn’t be working on a Sunday. Aunt Sandy’s cordless-phone battery is low, so I should make it quick, but there’s a part of me that yearns for some form of normalcy, for a touchstone. I want to run through the list of kid issues: Micah’s calculus-teacher problem, Jessica’s cheerleader tiffs, signing up for another SAT test.

I want to talk. Just talk about all the normal concerns. Pretend there are no such things as storms and sad ends to troubling missing-persons cases.

“What’s up?” he asks. I’ve let the line hang too long.

“Well, there’s been a little hitch in my plans. . . .” I start into the saga of my aunt’s health concerns, my mother’s insistence on staying, and the fact that I’m afraid to leave them here alone. I downplay the hurricane reports, basically intimating that there’s no chance it will actually hit full force here. “Just a lot of rain and thunder, and maybe flooding in low-lying areas, but Sandy’s house is up high and fortified, so it shouldn’t be any problem.”

Robert is distracted but sympathetic. “Sounds like the O’Bannion commotion continues,” he says in a tone that indicates he doesn’t want the details or have time for them right now. Generally he tries to sidestep the family wrangles. “I have to travel early next week. Four days. A test track out in Arizona.”

“I’m sure we’ll be home by then.” I run some quick mental calculations. Next week is seven days away. With any luck, we’ll be through the storm and have convinced my aunt to make a doctor’s appointment by then.

“Be careful on the way back home.” This is Robert’s way of ending the conversation nicely, but also letting me know he has other things to attend to.

I feel issue-creep coming on, and before I can stop myself, I’m unloading a laundry list of questions. Really, I’m just not ready to let go of the lifeline yet. I want Robert to ask for a few more details about Aunt Sandy and the storm, help me make sure I’m doing the right thing by staying here. I want him to act like they miss me at home. “Did Jess get signed up for the SAT test again? You know, I was thinking that really both kids should go even though Micah’s last score was pretty good. Oh, and I think I forgot to tell you—Jess found a leak below her bathroom sink. I stuck a bowl under it, but we better get a plumber in before it springs loose and floods the second story . . .”

“Got it under control,” Robert bites out.

“I wasn’t trying to nag. I was just wondering. You know, I’m nine hundred miles from home, and I’m stuck in the middle of this stupid fight between my mom and my aunt. I’m not there to take care of things at home. I just want a couple minutes of your time to find out what’s going on there.” My voice trembles at the end, but I harden myself against it. There’s no room for a breakdown right now, but there’s a part of me that wants him to pick up on the emotion and ask what’s wrong. I want to tell him everything—the 911 call, Emily’s mother, the wasted minutes . . . everything.

That little girl on the news,
I want to say.
I took the call. I made assumptions. I botched it.

“If you’re going to leave me in charge, Elizabeth, then let me handle it,” he snaps, and I’m stung.

I stand there gritting my teeth, my lips tightening against the swell of emotion—anger, irritation, disappointment, sadness. Loneliness. When did we get to this point, always brushing by each other in a rush or taking our frustrations out on each other?

He hates his job. I hate what our lives have become. We’re both stretched so thin that neither one of us has a soft place to fall. I wonder again if he’s seeking solace somewhere else. He wouldn’t . . . would he? Robert is one of the most honest people I know, which is why some of the things going on at work drive him crazy. There’s a lot of cutting corners in the auto industry during these times of economic pressure.

“I’m sorry.” He sighs into the phone. “It’s just been a bad day here, and I wasn’t planning on being out of town next week. I’ll miss the homecoming game.”

“Homecoming,” I mutter. “I’d forgotten about homecoming. . . .”

“Are you okay?” This time he seems like he’s really asking. I realize I’ve been wiping my eyes and sniffling.

“Yes . . . yeah . . . fine.” He doesn’t need any extra pressure today. I know how he is when things aren’t going well at work. “I’d better sign off. I’m trying to help Aunt Sandy get the shop closed up before the storm. She’s hoping the water won’t come in this time.”

“Listen, keep in touch.” His note of concern gives me comfort. Then I tell him what Aunt Sandy said—communications could be spotty.

We finish the conversation, and I call into work, explain that I may be off a couple more days than I’d planned. Fortunately, no one else is on vacation right now, so it’s not a problem.

All the bases are covered by the time I go inside to help Aunt Sandy finish up. I do as I’ve been asked. It feels good to have something to occupy my hands, a manageable task. I can save these little glass hummingbirds. They are beautiful things, my aunt’s creations—hummingbirds and flower vines, captured in colored glass and leaded metal.

“There’s one extra.” I hold it up after I’ve filled the box of twenty-four. The straggler dangles from its green ribbon, suspended in flight.

Aunt Sandy smiles at me as she crosses the room. “Must be that one’s for you. We’ll take it home with us, and you can tuck it in your suitcase. Then when you hang him in your window, he’ll be a reminder of an ocean of possibilities.” She spreads her arms like she’s Vanna White offering up a prize package, then looks at the pile of goods in the center of the room and adds, “Although my ocean’s a little bit of a mess right now, sorry. I wish you could see this place on a regular day.”

“Me too.” I’m one half inch from saying,
I’ll come visit again, maybe bring the kids after graduation,
but I stop myself. We’re supposed to be persuading her to give this place up, after all.

So I follow her from the shop instead.

I help her work the hurricane shutter onto the front door and tap the sliding latches into the brackets with a small hammer. By the time it’s done, we’re both sweating and Aunt Sandy has called her husband an ugly name or two. Uncle George designed and built this special door covering after the last hurricane flooded and decimated the shop. He calls it the floodgate. It is weather-stripped to death around the lower edges, in hopes of preventing water from seeping into the building if it comes up that high. The guys from the surf shop helped Aunt Sandy install the ones on the back door after the hurricane party. It never occurred to her that she and I might test the limits of our strength to put the front floodgate in place today.