Secrets Whispered from the Sea - Emma St. Clair Page 0,5
surprised to see the doors on and the top up. I could picture Nana behind the wheel, her white hair escaping the knot she’d tied it into. What did it say that Nana’s car was cooler than mine? At least my Honda made it across the country. Her jeep would probably never make it off the island.
More tears as I dragged a hand over the spare tire on the back of the jeep. I didn’t know how I had any tears left at this point. Hopefully, I’d use them all up tonight. I would much rather cry in the dark by myself than to lose it tomorrow at the meeting with Ann and the lawyer. Or at the funeral, which would be in three days’ time.
When Mom died, my eyes had stayed dry. I had been shocked more than sad. And guilty, because of why she was out driving that night. Guilty because a not-so-small part of me felt relieved that she was gone. When someone died who both loved and wounded you in equal measure, grief didn’t come in a straight line.
As much as Mom drove wedges between us all, without her, the bottom fell right out of our family. It seemed like Mom’s last cruel word, pushing us all apart after her death. Or maybe we’d never been that close after all. Our family felt like an illusion. Someone snapped their fingers and we all disappeared like smoke.
Weeks after her death, I burst into tears in the drive-thru line for a coffee shop, scaring the poor barista making my latte. I didn’t stop crying for three days, which was when Dad made me to go to therapy. I was eighteen, so technically, he couldn’t force me, but he swore that he wouldn’t pay for my college if I didn’t talk to someone. He didn’t make Ann go, but then it hadn’t been her fault that Mom died.
I slowly made my way up the stairs, my suitcase bumping every wooden step. I’d had a key to the cottage on my keychain since college, a gift from Nana. “Anytime you need it, you have a place,” she had said, dropping the key in my palm. I remember how my cheeks hurt from the wide smile that stretched across my face. That moment, maybe more than any other, felt like the moment a grown-up acknowledged that I was no longer a child. I had arrived.
Despite the significance of it, I had never needed to use the key before. Nana seemed to have a sixth sense about my arrivals and was usually grinning and flying down the stairs to meet me before I could get out of my car. She never locked her door until after dark anyway, even when she went out.
She’s really gone.
I walked the length of the deck, noting torn screens on the screened-in porch that jutted off the side of the house. It faced the beach, looking directly over the empty lot next door that still remained a tangle of low shrubs and trees. I was surprised that no one had bought the property over the years. The price of land had skyrocketed as tourists finally discovered Sandover the way they had Nag’s Head and Duck and Corolla.
The house on the other side was evidence of this new growth. It was a giant monstrosity that dwarfed Nana’s cottage. In fact, as I glanced along the street, there were only two other smaller, old beach cottages like this one. The rest had been torn down and built over. Probably like Nana’s would be. The thought of it made me ache.
I leaned as far as I could over the railing without putting my weight on it. The new, giant homes along the beachfront blocked the view Nana used to have of the dunes. Nana had always said she couldn’t quite see the ocean, but the view of the sea oats swaying in the dunes was view enough. I never told her that if you climbed up to the peak of the roof, you could see a slice of the deep, dark green-blue of the Atlantic.
I closed my eyes, letting the breeze lift my hair and listening to the night sounds. They were different from the ones in Houston, or even Raleigh where I’d grown up, some unique combination of insects and frogs. I slapped at a mosquito that had bitten the heck out of my arm. Speaking of night insects.