The Beach House (14 page)

There was an awkward silence during which Palmer downed his glass and Cara took a deep breath. As far as she was concerned, the evening was over.

“I think we’ve tripped down memory lane enough for one evening,” she said. “Mama has decided to stay at the cottage and has chosen this young lady as her companion. And for what it’s worth, from what I can tell Toy is a decent, hardworking young woman and she’s doing a fine job. Her very best, which is more than I can say for myself these past few days.” She turned to Lovie. “I’m sorry, Mama, that I’ve been such a slug lately but this fine meal and repartee seem to have revived me. I’m remembering exactly who I am and why I left here in the first place. Palmer, if you don’t mind my saying so, you’ve become every bit as much of a heavy-handed chauvinist pig as Daddy ever was. I hardly know you.”

Palmer looked temporarily broadsided, then his expression hardened. When he spoke again, his voice turned low and icy despite the charm of his smile. “I’m sorry if your opinion of me has diminished, but the fact is, dear sister, you’ve been out of the picture for some time now, living your own kind of lifestyle, taking care of your own business. It fell to me to take care of our mother.”

“You treat her like a child!” she exploded. “You’re not her husband, you’re her son. Show her more respect. It’s
her
money, after all. Mama is perfectly capable of handling her own finances. I think you enjoy the control you exercise over her. Just like Daddy did.”

Palmer’s face froze for a moment, and despite the truth in her statement, she realized a momentary pang for him, remembering the boy he once was. Then she watched his face ease into a starchy smile.

“I’m just being a dutiful son. Ask her.”

Cara turned to her mother.

“You know that I don’t have a mind for figures,” she replied in a distant voice, appearing to shrink within herself.

“You compare me to Daddy?” Palmer said, returning to the sore point. “Well, maybe I am. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, isn’t that what they say? But
say
what you will, the fact is, while you were in Chicago, I was here, dealing with his reeking alcoholism and his plain cussed meanness. After he died, Julia had to paint the house just to get the stink of bourbon and cigars out of it. I was here with Mama, watching out for her, and we both know I’m not just talking about money.” His eyes glared as he worked himself up into a state of agitation. “He left the business to me, not you. He left the estate to me, not you. Why? Not because he loved me more, we all know that,” he said bitterly. “But because you turned your back on him, on all of this, and shoved it down his throat. He never forgave you for that.”

They stared at each other in a heated silence.

“And I never forgave him for the way he treated us, either,” Cara said at length. “Or the way he treated you, Mama.”

Lovie’s eyes dropped.

Cara couldn’t bear to see her mother shrink inward again. It physically pained her. This meek creature sitting at the head of the table was the mother she’d grown up with, but the woman at the beach house was someone else entirely. When she thought of her mother, she thought of words like
hover
and
subservient.
During family dinner conversations at this same long, polished table, Olivia Rutledge had usually sat quietly and listened, or moved silently from kitchen to dining room to serve. Only when asked a direct question did she participate in the debates that usually raged over some point no one could remember or even cared about. And never did she contradict her husband, no matter how cruel. For Cara and her father, debates were all about firing shots and winning. For her mother and, to a lesser degree, Palmer, it was about dodging the bullets. They thought she was so strong. What they never understood was that, for her, firing back was a means of survival, too.

She faced her brother, the embers of an old, cold fury sparking in her chest. “Let’s not bring up the past.”

“Unfortunately, the past has repercussions into the present,” Palmer continued, all trace of drunkenness gone. “Allow me to bring you up to speed on what’s transpired here while you’ve been away.”

“Palmer…” Lovie broke in.

“Now Mama, it’s clear to me that our Caretta here has no notion of the way things are. There should be no secrets. It’s not right she doesn’t know.”

“Know what?” Cara asked. “We all knew long before he died that Daddy was leaving you the company. Primogeniture or not, in this case it was just. I didn’t want it and you deserved it. You put up with a lot and worked hard for it. I was happy for you.”

Palmer registered this with a curt nod. “But that wasn’t all he left me, which you would have known if you’d stayed around for the reading of the will.”

“Let’s not get into that now,” she said.

“You need to know he left me the lion’s share of his wealth.”

Cara looked at Lovie for confirmation. She felt disgust at her father’s final abuse against her mother. “You didn’t get at least half? But, Mama, it was your money to begin with.”

Palmer answered. “By the time he died, it was all in his name. Even the house.”

“No.” It came out on a breath. Cara’s face stilled and she looked again at her mother uncomprehendingly. Lovie sat looking at her hands. How could she have been so weak as to let him take everything away from her? The several odd comments Palmer had made about the house earlier in the evening suddenly made sense. Cara swung her head back toward Palmer and her voice rose.

“You took Mama’s house?”

Fury streaked Palmer’s features. “Hell, no. What do you take me for? Of course I didn’t take it. The son of a bitch gave it to me in his will just to spite her. I tried to give it back.” He faced Lovie for confirmation. “Didn’t I?”

Lovie nodded and tears moistened her eyes.

“I don’t understand,” Cara said.

“He—” Palmer began.

“Let me explain,” Lovie broke in. Her voice was quiet but level. “I wouldn’t take the house back. I gave it to Palmer, lock, stock and barrel.” She looked into Cara’s eyes. “You never wanted any of it, Cara. You made that point crystal clear over the years. Palmer did want it. He wanted it for Julia and the children. They took care of the house, loved it and deserved it. And they’ve been very happy here. Ultimately that’s what I wanted, too. For happiness to return to this house. For a family to laugh again in these rooms.” Her blue eyes, paler with age and illness, gazed around the room in a bittersweet sweep. “For whatever his reason, your father set this decision into motion. But in the end it was my decision. Not Stratton’s. Not Palmer’s. Mine. And mine alone.”

Cara looked into her mother’s eyes. The hurt struck harder and deeper than she would have imagined. Not that Palmer had inherited the house. She heard her mother’s reasoning and it made sense to her—and more, it felt just. But not to even have been considered? That hurt. In her heart she blamed herself. She was honest enough to know it was all her own doing. Sure she’d been young and headstrong when she left. Who wasn’t at eighteen? But to have been ignored…? She knew her reasoning was emotional but she couldn’t help it. When her father died, she had been secure in her career and strong enough to walk away from everything. But she was on soft ground now. In less than two weeks she’d been fired from her job and dumped by her boyfriend. Now, coming home for solace, she found her family had discarded her as well.

Her mother’s eyes were filled with concern. “If there is something you want from the house, a piece of furniture, a painting, whatever…”

“Why sure, Cara,” Palmer interjected. “Just tell me what you want.”

She glanced at him, unable to respond to his offer of a small afterthought that represented her worth in the family. Cara felt a deadening inside that she recognized as a time-tested self-defense mechanism. It was as though a steel wall dropped down between herself and them, one that had saved her from spears many times in the past. The first time it dropped was at this very table twenty-two years earlier. She was just eighteen and had informed her father she was going to Boston University. Her father was sitting where Palmer was now, drunk again, his eyes seething. Her mother sat at the opposite end, where she sat now. As usual, her eyes were cast down at her plate. Palmer was frozen across the table from her, begging her with his eyes to be quiet and to just go along.

“Who the hell do you think you are, little girl?” her father had roared. “You’ll do as I say. And if you step one foot out of this town—out of this house—that’ll tear it between us, you hear? You are not going north and that’s final. I’ll not tolerate this arrogance. Especially not from some blunt mouthed teenage girl who won’t act like the lady she’s been bred to be. You’re an embarrassment to your mama. And to me. Where do you think you’re going? Come back here! Caretta Rutledge! You leave and you’ll not get one dollar, not one stick of furniture, not so much as a nod of the head when you pass the street from me, hear?”

Instinct reared now as it did then. She knew that no matter how much she’d admired, even treasured, the family antiques, if she took one piece it would be like a heavy stone tied around her ankle, dragging her under. As much now as then, she needed her freedom.

“Thank you, but no,” she said in a steady voice. “It was given to you and Julia. I don’t want anything. Thank you for explaining things to me.”

All she wanted now was not to humiliate herself further. The oppression she’d always felt in this house closed around her, choking her, and she was afraid lest she lose control and release either a bitter laugh or a painful cry.

She ended the labored silence and stood up. She woodenly went through the usual polite motions and mutterings of a farewell. Toy was called, Julia came down to join them, and flanked by Lovie and Palmer, Cara walked blindly through the house. At the door, Palmer bent forward to kiss her cheek.

Before the door closed behind her, she heard the sudden gust of wind as the mocking howl of a ghost.

If the site doesn’t feel right or she encounters a root or rock, or if she senses an intruder, the loggerhead will return to the sea without laying her eggs. This is known as a “false crawl.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

T
hey rode home in silence. Perhaps because too much had been said already, or perhaps because not enough. In any case, no one felt compelled to talk as they drove back over the rivers and across the still marsh and Sullivan’s Island to the Isle of Palms. The clouds were low and thick and few house lights pierced the velvety blackness.

Lovie sat in the back seat with Toy and saw the silhouette of her daughter in the dim car. Cara’s shoulders were back and she held the steering wheel with a tight grip. Lovie knew this pose so well. When she was upset as a child Cara would become quiet and rigid, thoroughly unapproachable. Palmer used to cry and make a fuss, but if anyone asked Cara how she was, she’d simply look away and reply, “Fine.”

When they arrived at the cottage, Cara politely opened the door for her mother, then moved quickly into the house, avoiding any discussion. By the time Lovie was inside, Cara had a glass of water in her hand. With a quick “Good-night” and a wave of her hand, she slipped into her room and closed the door.

“Well, I guess I’ll go to bed, too,” Toy said, cool and distant.

“Are you all right?”

“I’m just tired,” she replied, but kept her eyes averted.

Lovie watched her leave, saw the sway of her hips under the increasing weight of her growing baby. “Good night then, dear girl.”

Toy only nodded and went to her room.

Lovie walked slowly to the kitchen stove to light a kettle for tea. She laid out two mugs, spooned out the herbal tea into the pot, then she wiped her hands on the towel. When done, she leaned them against the counter and lowered her head with a ragged sigh. Her heart was breaking. These silences between herself and Cara were no good. There had been enough silence between them over the years. Too much, if truth be told. She couldn’t be weak any longer. Flo was right that they needed to talk. And there was no more time.

With new resolve she walked across the sisal rug directly to Cara’s door and knocked once. “Caretta?”

There was no answer.

“Cara?”

She heard the sound of footfall, then the door opened. Cara appeared in pale-blue silk pajama bottoms and a cotton camisole top. Her face was scrubbed clean and her dark hair gleamed from a good brushing. Behind her on the bed Lovie saw a suitcase spread open. It was half-packed. Cara ran her hands through her hair, then let them drop with an exasperated sigh.

“What is it, Mama?”

“I thought we might have that chat.”

“Now?” She paused, looked up at the ceiling, then shook her head. “I couldn’t. I’m too tired.” But, seeing the disappointment on Lovie’s face, she added more gently, “You must be, too. You look exhausted.”

“I am, rather. But I won’t sleep a wink unless we talk.”

“Talking has never been our forte.”

“No, it hasn’t.”

“Why now? Why tonight?”

Lovie’s gaze moved to the suitcase. “I should think it’s obvious. Besides, better to start late than not at all.”

“Maybe it
is
too late.”

“It’s never too late as long as there is breath in us to speak. Come. I’ve got a kettle on.”

They carried their mugs of steaming tea to the living room. Lovie turned on two small lamps that created soft, yellow pools of light and made the room feel cozy. Cara went to the sofa and eased onto the plump upholstery, curling her long, slender legs under her catlike in the corner. Her beautiful, dark eyes were watchful and wary. Lovie took the armchair across from her. Sinking into the cushions, she suddenly felt the weight of her fatigue and yawned.