Chasing Sunsets (23 page)

“How long was she gone?”

“About two months. Eliana stayed with us, took you to see her as often as she was allowed to have family visits, which wasn’t often.”

I had no memory of this, of course. I tried to picture it all. Mom in the hospital. Dad going to work during the day. Eliana taking care of me as a mother would. “I’m surprised Rosa’s father allowed her to leave her baby and him.”

“Rosa hadn’t been born yet, of course.”

“Oh, that’s right. But, still. Mr. Rivera . . . I can’t imagine he was too happy about that arrangement.”

“Hector Rivera was a man driven by money, Boo. You wouldn’t remember much about him . . .”

“Not really. I mean, he was gone before I turned six, I think.”

“He was a burly man who loved to gamble and chase women. Eliana never said for certain, but I think he may have been physically abusive to her. I know he was verbally abusive. I had to call him down more than once.”

“Dad. It’s so hard for me to imagine all of this.”

Dad chuckled. “It is hard, isn’t it, Boo? To think that your parents had lives apart from you. To imagine your old man standing up to a brute like Hector Rivera.”

My father wasn’t exactly a squirt, so I didn’t necessarily have any problem believing he wouldn’t put up with a man—any man—being hurtful to a woman. “Maybe a little.”

“All I had to do was wave money under that man’s nose and Eliana was ours until your mother got home. I paid him—I paid them both—plenty well, let me tell you.”

“Wow,” I finally said. “I didn’t know any of this.”

“Of course you didn’t.”

“Was Mr. Rivera . . . do you think he was ever abusive to Rosa?”

“Hector Rivera wasn’t
anything
to Rosa. Eliana used to say he hardly spoke to her much less touched her. Or hugged her. Or listened to her when she had something to say. Even as a little child.”

I thought back to the days of our childhood . . . how Dad had always given Rosa hugs just as he had the rest of us. Kissed her. Laughed at her silly knock-knock jokes. Warned her about the dangers of boys and such at the same time as he lectured me. “Is that why? Is that why you were always so loving toward her? Toward Rosa?”

“I treated Rosa as I would treat any child. Children deserve to be loved whether they’re your own or not. You’re a teacher. You know that.”

I smiled. “I do.” My back ached enough that I had to lie back against the pillows. “So, when did Mom start to drink again?”

The conversation went still. “Somewhere between detox and getting pregnant with Jayme-Leigh,” he finally said. This voice was laden with regret. “Like I said, she didn’t drink during her pregnancies. She had started back about a month or so when she learned that Jayme was coming.”

“So, Dad, what about Heather? What about now? You sent Mom to the hospital. Don’t you think Andre should do the same for his wife?”

“Your mom volunteered to go . . . Heather is kicking and screaming. I am not completely sure this will work for her if she doesn’t want to go.”

“But you admit, Dad, that she
needs
to go.”

Dad nodded. “My wife and I had a long talk . . . that woman makes a lot of sense sometimes.” He paused. “And sometimes we just have to say the truth out loud, Boo.”

I placed my arm over my forehead and tried to think. After several seconds I said, “Maybe I can get Andre to wait just a day. I promised myself I wasn’t going to try to control this issue . . . and I told Steven I’d stay, but that doesn’t mean I can’t come back to Cedar Key later on, right?”

“Kimberly, what are you talking about? What do you mean, you told Steven you’d stay?”

I smiled. “Steven Granger asked me to stay the summer, and I told him I would.” I spoke the words so quickly, they hardly sounded like English.

“I see. So it’s serious then.”

I wanted to tell my father that I loved Steven, but I knew it was too soon. Even for a man who married again so soon after my mother’s death, I knew he wouldn’t understand. After all, he was one thing; his daughter another. “I know this is going to sound corny, Dad, but it feels like . . .” I searched my heart for the right words. “Like the first time, again.”

I heard Dad’s light chuckle. “I guess maybe it would. Not too many folks get to find their first love and make all those feelings come back to life.”

That much was true. And there really was nothing to add to it, except that I didn’t want it to end as it had ended the first time. But I couldn’t share that. Not with my father. “Dad, enough about Steven and me.” I smiled. “At least for now. I want to talk about Heather.”

“Boo . . .”

“I’ll come tomorrow,” I jumped in before he could finish. “I’ll talk to Heather and then I’ll go up to Atlanta to see Ami’s performance. Then I’ll come back here and . . . and we’ll pick up where we left off.”

Dad was quiet again before he answered. “First, I think you should talk to Andre before you go making any plans. Second, if you want to go see Ami’s performance, Anise and I are going. You can ride up with us.” He chuckled then. “And third, why don’t you just stay and let Andre deal with his wife and you see if you can’t find the happiness you deserve in Cedar Key, okay?”

“But, Dad, Heather needs—”

“No. Andre’s right. Goodness knows between him and your stepmother . . . it’s all I hear. Heather may go kicking and screaming—as I said—but Andre believes that once she gets there . . .”

“Maybe, Dad . . . maybe you should go and talk with her. Talk to her about Mom like you just talked to me. Be brutally honest. Maybe it will make a difference.”

“Maybe so.”

“Will you think about it? For me, Dad?”

He didn’t answer right away but then said, “I will. I’ll think about it.”

I heard a knock at the door. I bolted upright and said, “Oh, Dad. There’s someone at the door. Probably Luis and his sister . . .”

“Make sure they dust under the beds,” he said.

“Oh, Dad.” I laughed as I swung my feet to the floor. “What do you know about dust under the beds?”

“Nothing. But that’s what your mother always said to Eliana so I figure it must be important.”

I hung up, walked to the door in my bare feet, and opened it, expecting to see the handsome new business owner and his sister. Instead, Rosa stood on the other side of the threshold, finely dressed in a white linen Capri set, spiky high heels, her back arched and her shoulders straight.

April 1969

The day she met Joan Claybourne, Eliana Rivera wore white Grable shorts, a butterfly-sleeved whispery blouse, a pair of wide-strapped, clunky-heeled platform sandals, and sported a hand-shaped bruise around the richly tanned flesh of her left arm. They were standing at the same table during the annual Cedar Key Arts Festival, and they simultaneously reached for the same piece of jewelry.

Twenty-three-year-old Eliana quickly drew her hand away from the elaborate trinket crafted by one of the local artists. “I’m sorry,” she said. She peered into the almond-shaped eyes of the woman who could have been no more than a few years older than she and yet looked so much more sophisticated. She wore her hair in a Gibson-girl puff; wayward ringlets framed her square face. She wore a long silk and chiffon empire-waist dress that grazed the tips of her pink-painted toenails and the leather of expensive white, flat sandals. Eliana thought she must be some sort of fashion model or movie star.

“No, no,” the woman said. Her voice was as soft as a melody, so different from her own, which was husky and still held traces of the island where she’d spent the first ten years of life. “I was only looking.”

“Me too,” Eliana said. She smiled. “I’m Eliana Rivera.”

The woman extended her hand and smiled back. “Joan Claybourne.” She shifted her weight and cocked her head. “Do you, by any chance, live here in Cedar Key?”

“Sort of. My husband—Hector—and I live in Gainesville during the week, but we come to Cedar Key on the weekends. My husband, he is a singer at one of the restaurants.”

“A singer? Oh, how exciting for you to be a part of something so . . . artsy.” She reached for the trinket again. This time Eliana noticed her hands; they were narrow, the fingers long and delicate, the nails polished a shimmery baby pink matching her toes. She looked up, her eyes searching for the artist. Spotting her at the other end of the linen-draped table, she said, “How much?”

“Five-fifty.”

Eliana blinked as Joan Claybourne reached into a small, white patent shoulder purse hanging by a long gold chain she’d not noticed before. She pulled out a ten and handed it to the artist, who said, “Give me a second and I’ll have your change for you.”

“Will you wrap it in tissue paper, please?”

Eliana couldn’t help but notice the way the woman spoke. As though all the class in all of society had found its place in her voice box. She smiled sweetly as the request left her lips, then turned back to Eliana. “I’m absolutely parched. Why don’t I treat you to lemonade at the hotel? Maybe you can help me a little. My husband and I are looking at getting a little place here. You know, for weekends, holidays, the summer?” She smiled again.

Eliana couldn’t imagine having a place just for the weekends. She and Hector rented a room from one of the locals every Friday and Saturday night . . . those make-believe two and a half days that became her reprieve from her husband’s brutality. When others were around, like Mr. and Mrs. Travers, the couple they rented from, Hector Rivera was a gentleman. A Latin lover. But when they were alone . . .

“That would be nice,” Eliana said, feeling hopeful. Perhaps, she thought, she and Joan Claybourne would become friends. Perhaps she would have someone other than her sister—one of the artists displaying her paintings at the festival—to talk with. Perhaps she would not be so lonely here in Cedar Key anymore.

When the wrapped trinket was placed in Joan’s hand, she turned to Eliana and extended it. “For you,” she said.

“Me?”

“You liked it, didn’t you?”

“Yes, but . . . you don’t even know me.”

Joan shrugged. “So? I like giving gifts.” She fanned herself with her hand. “It’s getting wicked hot. So, how about that lemonade?”

Eliana soon discovered that Joan Claybourne and her husband Ross were in need of more than just a house. They’d actually already found it, Joan told her. They’d pretty much made up their minds to put a hefty down payment on a new piece of waterfront real estate. She’d even purchased furniture for it and had torn out pictures in magazines that were perfect for what she hoped to do.

Joan Claybourne was a nice enough lady, but as they spoke over two large pink lemonades, Eliana decided that perhaps she and the pretty lady would not be such friends after all. They had little in common. Joan was a rich doctor’s wife; she was a poor lounge singer’s punching bag. Ross Claybourne had reached success even at a young age. He was able to buy his wife two houses already. It would take Hector two lifetimes to afford such a place as the waterfront property out on 24, much less to buy it as a vacation home.

“You have to come see the house sometime,” Joan said. “When we get it all set up, I mean. Maybe give me some ideas for it.”

Eliana fingered the trinket-gift she’d received earlier. “I’d like that,” she said. “My sister, she is an artist. If you’d like to see some of her work, she’s here at the festival. She can make your home here look very much like a beach house.”

Joan smiled a half-smile. “I think that would be lovely,” she said. “I’m a photographer myself and I was thinking . . . perhaps I could take some pictures around the island. Have them matted and framed. If I like your sister’s work—what is her name, by the way?”

“Ariela.”

“What an amazingly beautiful name.” Joan Claybourne lifted her chin. Her eyes scanned the room’s pale blue ceiling; her left hand fluttered around her face. “Like a whisper in the wind or a . . .” She looked back at Eliana. “A fairy.”

Eliana swallowed hard as she eyed the jewelry gracing Joan’s wedding finger. “Your rings are very beautiful.”

“Hmm?” Joan Claybourne seemed truly taken aback by her expression. Then, as though her wedding set were an afterthought to her life, she flattened her left hand into the palm of her right and took notice of the cluster of diamonds resting there. “My Ross is quite adept at buying the perfect . . .” She looked up. “Everything.” Then she laughed. To Eliana, it sounded like the tinkling of little bells.

Eliana thought to say something—anything to ease the oddity of the moment—but just then heard a cool baritone say, “So there you are.”

Joan Claybourne’s face lit up. Eliana peered over her shoulder to see a man—a handsome man with sandy brown hair swept toward his face, the sideburns fashionably long, and his eyes the color of a robin’s eggs. His skin was bronzed by the sun, his smile white against it. “Ross! I want you to meet my new friend.”

Eliana didn’t know whether to stand or remain seated. She settled on the latter. “Eliana,” she said, extending her hand. “Eliana Rivera.”

Ross Claybourne took it. His hand was cool and smooth. “Ross Claybourne.”

“Sit. Sit, darling,” Joan coaxed. “I want you to join us. Eliana’s husband is a singer here on the island, and her sister Ariela—have you ever heard such a lovely name?—is an artist. Her work is on display. Here, at the festival. I say we look at it, possibly for the house. What do you say?”

Ross Claybourne chuckled. “Slow down, silly girl,” he said to the woman he clearly adored. Eliana felt a pang of jealousy pass through her. Ross and Joan Claybourne had such tenderness between them. There had never been much gentleness between her and Hector. Even their lovemaking was tinged with more aggression than passion. Ross Claybourne looked at his wife as though she were the most costly of assets. Precious and valuable. Hector only viewed Eliana as a possession he’d been stuck with since they were eighteen and sixteen years of age.

“I would be happy to show you where she has her paintings,” Eliana said, more to stop her mind from rambling than anything else.

Ross Claybourne smiled at her. “That would be very nice of you, Eliana. And, may I say, that your name is just as lovely as your sister’s.”

Eliana couldn’t believe the compliment. “Thank you. Gracias.”

“De nada.”

A waitress came to their table, pad in hand and pencil poised. “Can I get you anything?” she asked the late arrival.

Eliana watched how Ross moved with ease. He picked up his wife’s glass, took a sip, and said, “Pink lemonade?”

It seemed to Eliana that Joan Claybourne turned as rosy as the drink. “Of course.”

Ross looked up to the waitress. “I’ll have some sweet iced tea if you have it.” The waitress nodded and walked away. “Eliana,” he continued, “where are you from? Originally, I mean.”

“Puerto Rico. I moved here with my family when I was ten.”

“Do you miss it? Puerto Rico?”

“Sometimes. Very much so.”

The waitress returned with a tall glass of iced tea and asked if the “ladies need a refill.” Joan nodded and Eliana did the same. “Be right back,” she said as she swept the two near-empty glasses from the linen draped table.

“And your husband is a singer?” Ross continued.

“Yes. But only here on the weekends. He has another job during the week on the mainland.”

“Children?”

Eliana shook her head. “Not yet.” And, she thought, if Hector had his way about it, not ever. “You?”

Ross and Joan smiled at each other. Joan placed her hand against her flat stomach and said, “In about eight months. Right after the first of the year.”

Eliana watched as Ross leaned over, took his wife’s hand in his, and kissed her gently on her lips. “Congratulations,” she said.

Joan Claybourne kept her eyes on her husband and smiled broadly. “Thank you, Eliana.” She kissed her husband once again, then turned back in time to greet the returning waitress with a word of gratitude. She picked up her glass and took a sip. “As soon as we finish, let’s go see your sister’s paintings, shall we?”

Eliana nodded. Then again, she thought, maybe they could become friends.

Eliana would never forget the night, just over a year later, when she told Hector she had decided to go to work for the Claybournes. That she would take care of their house after they’d left to return to Orlando and would ready it before they arrived. Her reason, she told him, was to help with their finances. Hector had gambled nearly every penny they had; they were barely getting by. Not that she mentioned that part to him. He would have slapped her to the moon and back, in spite of their being at the Traverses’ at the time she broke the news.

He had taken her by the hand and dragged her out of the house by her wrist. It was two in the morning, so he’d been quiet in doing so. He towered over her small frame, told her through gritted teeth that if she put up a fuss she’d live to regret it. If she lived. She whimpered as he pulled her in her nightgown and bare feet across the rough gravel on the road, toward the Gulf, lying flat in the moonlight. With each sob he jerked her hand harder and squeezed her wrist tighter.

At first, she thought his plan was to drown her. For a moment, she didn’t know whether to fight back or to simply let it happen. But it was soon clear that this was not his plan at all. He intended to discipline her, as he called it, outside of the earshot of the elderly Mr. and Mrs. Travers.

He pushed her to the wet sand along the water. Her palms pushed hard against the broken shells, and she felt the skin tear. Droplets of blood—rich and red—dotted the white of her cotton gown as she raised her hands to see the damage. She looked up. Hector blocked her view of the moon; his face was dark, he was nothing but a shadow of anger and fear. “Why would you embarrass me like this, Eliana?” he spat. “Why do you make me feel less of a man, making it look as if I cannot provide for you?”