The Summer Wind (41 page)

D
ora sat cross-legged beside Harper on the four-poster brass bed. The storm and the late hour had brought a chill and dampness, and they were wrapped in blankets. She let her gaze wander over the changes in her bedroom—the petal-pink-and-white wallpaper, the brass-and-mirrored vanity, the Aubusson rug. The physical changes of the room reflected Dora’s taste and were an outward sign of the changes that had taken place within herself this summer.

And for her sisters, as well. Harper’s room was more serene and classic. Carson’s was lowcountry, more shabby chic. In giving them rooms of their own, Mamaw had offered each granddaughter a safe haven at Sea Breeze from the storms they each faced.

Dora looked up to see Carson standing at the window, her arms crossed like a shield in front of her, looking out at the fronds of the palm trees shaking in the wind. The relentless roar
of the surf echoed, and Dora wondered at the changes she’d see on the beach in the morning.

“Carson, come join us,” Dora called.

Carson came to join her sisters on the bed. Harper scooted closer and tugged at the blanket around her shoulders to place part of it over Carson.

“This is nice, all of us huddled together, talking,” Dora said.

“Like old times,” Harper agreed.

“But it won’t always be like this, will it?” Carson asked, her tone depressed. “The thought of losing Sea Breeze is hard enough. But now Lucille?” She shook her head. “Unbearable.”

“But that doesn’t mean we can’t still be together,” Dora said. “Somewhere.”

“Doesn’t it?” Carson asked.

“That depends on us,” Harper answered. “All those years Sea Breeze sat here and none of us came. We have to decide to make the effort.”

“Yeah, well, let’s remember it was Mamaw who brought us back,” Carson said. “What happens when she is gone? When Sea Breeze is gone?”

“Don’t be morbid,” Dora said.

“I’m not. I’m just facing reality. I can’t help but worry now about what’s going to happen to her. She’s eighty. What’s she going to do without Lucille?” Carson asked. “Especially when we all leave?”

Carson looked at the streaks against the window and thought it looked as though even the house was crying.

“That’s
why
Mamaw brought us back,” Dora said. “She knew this day was coming and she wanted us to be close again, as sisters should.”

“Even if her methods were a little Machiavellian.” Harper smiled wryly.

“I feel,” Carson said, her voice low and trembling, “like everything I love is slipping through my fingers.”

“This place has always been the touchstone for all of us,” Dora said, aware of her role as the older sister. “We’re all feeling shaken. I admit, even though Mamaw talked about selling Sea Breeze, it just never felt real. Until today when I saw Devlin come by for an appraisal. I don’t know about y’all, but that brought it home for me. Mamaw’s not fooling around. She’s going to sell this house and we won’t have Sea Breeze to come back to any longer.” She looked at Harper and Carson. “So what are we going to do after Sea Breeze is sold? Are we going to stay in touch?”

“Yes,” Harper readily agreed. “Though, I don’t know where I’ll be or what I’ll be doing. I’ve got a month to figure out where I’ll be going from here.”

“Aren’t you going back to New York?” asked Dora.

“Maybe. But definitely not to live with my mother.” She shook her head, then tucked a copper-colored shank of hair away from her face. “I couldn’t go back to that. I’ve thought about going to England,” Harper added. “Even if for a visit. Just to sniff around a bit, see how I feel. I’d like to visit Granny James for a while. I thought I’d be nervous and scrambling around, handing in my resume to a zillion companies. But I’m not. I’m not in a hurry.” Harper tucked the blanket closer. “I know this sounds a bit out there, but I feel like something’s going to happen to make everything clear.”

“Like what?” Dora asked, intrigued.

“I don’t know,” Harper said with a small smile. “I’m not just
sitting around,” she hastened to add. “I’m looking at my options. Lining up a few things. But, I’m also kind of . . . waiting.”

“Waiting?” Dora asked dubiously. “That sounds so not like you.”

Harper shrugged and looked a bit embarrassed. “I’ll know when it happens. But wherever I end up, I promise I’ll stay in touch.”

“That’s the big question for all of us, isn’t it? It’s like we’re on some ship waiting to dock. I’m not sure where I’ll end up either,” Dora said. She made a face. “By the end of summer I’ll be in the midst of a divorce.
And
selling my house.” She put her hands together in supplication. “Please, God, let someone buy it.” She lowered her hands and began counting off her fingers. “
And
I have to find a new place to live. A job. A new school for Nate.” Dora blew out a plume of air with a soft whistle. “I’ve got more on my plate than I can eat, that’s for sure.”

“You’ve got Devlin in the wings,” Harper reminded her.

“Dev . . . He’s a good ol’ boy with one eye always on the tides. It’s what I like most about him. He’s laid-back where I’m uptight. But he’s also smart, successful. He keeps me grounded. And Lord, he knows how to push my buttons in a good way.” She smiled with a little embarrassment. Dora looked at the empty space on her ring finger. The bruising was gone but the skin remained pale where the ring once lay.

“I’ve made a decision. A big one.” She looked up to see Carson and Harper staring at her. “I’m going forward with my divorce. I can’t go back to Cal. I feel sad,” she admitted. “It’s hard to break up a family. Except, we weren’t much of a family, and I know I can’t live like that anymore. I know we’ll both be happier apart than we were together.”

“I’m glad you made the decision.” Harper reached out to place a hand on her shoulder. “I know it wasn’t easy.”

Carson looked sideways at Dora. “Is it because of Devlin?”

Dora’s cheeks colored. “For sure, my feelings for Dev helped me make the decision. But he wasn’t the deciding factor. Cal had already left the marriage, don’t forget. We were on the way to a nasty divorce when I had that attack. Sister mine, if I learned one thing this summer, it’s that I’m not going back to a loveless marriage. It’s not enough for me.”

Carson tilted her head and studied Dora as a smile eased across her face. “Good for you.”

“But I’m not looking to hitch my star on any man right now, either,” Dora continued. “I think I want to be an unmarried woman for a while.” She glanced up. “This summer is
my
time. I used to think that was selfish, just focusing on my needs and what I wanted. I’ve spent my entire life thinking about other people’s needs—trying to make them happy, seeking approval. I’m heading on forty. It’s high time I start thinking about how I want to spend the next forty years of my life.” She sat straighter and the blanket slid from her shoulder. “You know, I’ve never lived on my own before.”

Harper shook her head in disbelief. “Never?”

“Nope,” Dora replied, yanking the blanket back over her shoulder. “I went straight from my mother’s house to Cal’s house.” She waved her hand. “Not counting college, of course. But I lived on campus with a slew of roommates. That doesn’t count.” She sighed. “I’ve always lived where I was told to. I never rented my own apartment. I’m kind of looking forward to it.”

“Where?” asked Carson.

Dora considered this. “I won’t go as far as New York or England, that’s for sure,” she added with a quick smile toward Harper.

Devlin’s face flashed in her mind, their times out on the boat together, cooking crabs, drinking beer, watching sunsets. She thought of the exhilaration she felt running on the beach, watching the changing tides, collecting shells with Nate.

“I’ll stay in South Carolina, definitely. I want a small house, with a tiny bit of land I can garden that needs little to no maintenance. I see now how I isolated myself. And ate to compensate for the void I was feeling. This time, I’m going to reconnect with old friends, make some new ones, rejoin my community. I think I’ll stay right here in the lowcountry. I love it here,” she admitted with heart. “Nate does, too.” Her son’s smiling face came to mind. “He’s better when he’s near the sea.” She took a breath and looked at Carson and Harper.

“Wherever I end up, I’ll keep in touch. I promise. I’m going to need my sisters to get through this.”

Dora and Harper turned to look at Carson.

“What about you, Carson?” Harper prodded.

Carson only looked down and offered a noncommittal shrug.

“Are you okay?” asked Dora.

“No. I’m not okay,” she fired back, almost as a challenge. “I’m pretty far from okay.” She looked at her sisters, her eyes flashing. “You both have support systems in place, imperfect as they might be. You have families who’ve got your back. For me, it’s only Lucille and Mamaw. This house. And now that’s all being blown away like the sand out there in the wind. Predicting what I’ll be doing in the fall feels damn impossible. Forgive me if I can’t get past next week.”

Dora reached over to put her hand on Carson’s shoulder. “You have us, too. Me and Harper are right here. Oh, honey, we know this is a tough time for you. But we’ll be here for you all the way.
Hey, you can come live with me,” she said with a nudge of encouragement. “It won’t be fancy, but I’ll help you take care of that baby.”

Carson recoiled from Dora’s hand. “Baby? I’m not having a baby.”

Dora looked confused. “But I thought . . .”

Carson went rigid and her voice turned cold. “You thought wrong.”

Understanding flooded Dora’s features. “You’re considering an abortion?”

“Of course I am,” Carson said, clenching her fists under the blanket. “I’m unmarried, without a job, without a place to live . . .”

“Carson,” Dora said, leaning forward and slipping off her blanket. “What about Blake?”

Carson’s voice trembled with raw emotion. “Don’t go there.”

“Carson, I—”

“Dora,” Harper said in a warning tone. “Can’t you see she’s struggling? This isn’t your decision. Let it go.”

Dora stared at Harper, letting her words penetrate.
Let it go
. Letting things go without a fight was what she’d been trying to do all summer. But this was so important. She had things she should say to stop Carson from making a decision she might live to regret. Like how hard it was for her to conceive Nate. How she’d suffered one miscarriage after another, staying in bed for months at a time and gaining fifty pounds in the process. How Carson should keep the baby.

Dora looked at Carson, sitting straight, bowed up for a fight, tears flashing in those blue Muir eyes. Then it hit her. She thought of her mother and how she always had a
should
at the ready at moments like this to keep her daughter in line. Dora
didn’t want to tell Carson what she
should
do. That hadn’t worked out well between them in the past.

Dora wanted a relationship with her sister, one based on love and trust. She thought again of all the phone calls they’d shared while Carson was in Florida and how they’d talked about everything and nothing. Dora wanted her sister to pick up the phone and call her after they left Sea Breeze.

Dora pressed her fingers to her eyelids. Harper was right. Her opinions were not what her sister needed to hear now. Dora’s life might be a shit storm at the moment, but she was beginning to see the light breaking through the clouds. That’s what Carson needed now. Just a sliver of luminosity to give her hope.

Dora looked at Carson and spoke in a calm voice without contention. “A few months ago, I might have told you what I thought you should do.” She laughed in a self-deprecating manner. “I wouldn’t have been shy to tell you my opinions, either.”

“I think I can guess what you’d say,” Carson said flatly.

“Probably. Those are
my
opinions,” Dora said honestly. “We’re so different. We share the same father, but we haven’t had the same upbringing, the same religious beliefs, culture, lifestyle. The list goes on and on.”

“Even if we grew up in the same house,” said Harper, “we’d all be different.”

“Well, yeah,” Dora conceded. “Honey, I’m stuck in my own mud pile right now. I don’t need to be flinging any of it around. I’m the last person who should give you advice.”

She stopped when she saw the stunned expressions on Carson’s and Harper’s faces. It was slightly irritating, but gratifying at the same time—their shock confirmed for Dora that she had done the right thing.

“What I’m trying to say,” Dora pressed on, needing to get the words out, “is I don’t really know what you’re going through. When I got pregnant I didn’t have to make a choice. I was married. I wanted a baby. And yet I still had problems.”

Carson’s face lost its belligerence, and Dora saw that she was listening.

“I had miscarriage after miscarriage. Each one broke my heart. I wanted a baby so badly and I just couldn’t carry one. I felt I’d failed. And then I had Nate. My sweet, darling boy.”

Tears came to her eyes, and Dora wiped them away. She didn’t want to be emotional now, just honest.

“Being a mother is hard.” She took a long breath and exhaled. “Okay, I’m just going to say this. I’ve never said it before, at least not aloud.” She clenched the blanket tighter around her shoulders. “I was brokenhearted when I got Nate’s diagnosis of autism. At the beginning I didn’t know how bad it was going to be, if he’d learn to speak, to communicate at all, even go to the bathroom. I was told I was being selfish, that I had to think about my child and not myself. I tried. I really did.” Dora swallowed hard, feeling the old emotions well up.

“But deep inside I grieved over the loss of the child I’d planned on having. The perfect child . . .” She shook her head. “I know that sounds awful. That’s why I could never talk to anyone about those feelings. Not even Cal.” She snorted. “Especially not Cal.”

Dora looked up to gauge her sisters’ reactions, sensitive to criticism or judgment in their eyes. Not finding any, she continued. “I’ve been on a long journey since then. I know now there is no such thing as a perfect child. I love Nate for who he is, just the way he is. I may have to teach him about emotional cues, but he’s had to teach me, too. Sure, I know it will always
hurt when I visit my son at school and find him eating alone, or when he’s not invited to a birthday party. Or when I can’t take away his anguish when he’s trapped in the throes of a tantrum. But any mother feels this when she can’t make life perfect for her child.” She smiled tremulously and shrugged. “It’s not easy being a mother. But this is the part I want you to know. I’ll be thankful every day because I thought I’d never be able to have a child and now I have this amazing gift.”