Chasing Sunsets (5 page)

I waited until I heard car doors shut, the engine hum to life, and tires crunch over a fine layer of sand scattered atop the brick driveway. I pressed my back against the hard edge of the door frame. I slid down—inch by inch, hurt by hurt. By the time I came to rest on the floor, I had reasoned that as difficult as this separation was for me, it would be even more so for my sons.

And for them, I cried.

An hour later I was lying on top of my bed, wrapped in a cotton robe, my right hand clutched around a mug of warm milk while my left loosely held the television remote. For a half hour I flipped channels, never staying past the first two minutes of whatever show was on. A commercial was an automatic “flip.”

I had just taken a sip of milk when my cell phone rang. I jumped, thinking it might be one of the boys.

It was Heather.

“How are you holding up?” she asked, as though my sons had both tragically died.

“It’s only been an hour, Heather.” My voice held a lilt so as not to just break down and cry some more. Still, this was Heather. My best friend. I could be honest with her. “I hate divorce, Heather. Hate it. Look what it’s done to my children. Five weeks away from their mother.”

“Awful.”

“It’d be one thing if Charlie lived across the country. But, he doesn’t. He lives across town. You’d think the judge would understand that being separated from a parent—especially a loving mother—for weeks on end is an emotional wound that’s just not necessary.” I fingered the wide sash of my robe. “I feel like I’ve lost an arm without them here. Knowing they’re just down the hall . . . or the block. Or in the kitchen making a late-night snack.”

“I’m sorry, Kim.”

I shrugged. “It’s not your fault.” It’s Charlie’s . . .

“I talked to Dad today,” she said as an obvious change of subject. “He says you’re heading for Cedar Key tomorrow.”

“No,” I answered. “Not tomorrow. Tuesday.”

“Oh, good! Then let’s spend the day playing tomorrow.”

“I can’t. I have to get this house in order. I need to wash clothes. I don’t want to come home to piles of laundry.”

“How long are you staying?”

“I don’t know. Days? A week maybe.”

From the other end of the line I heard the clinking of ice against glass, the sound of my sister taking a sip of her drink. Her first of the night? Her third?

“What about Max?” she said then. “Want to leave him here?”

“No, I’ll take him with me. Max loves the water; he’ll have a good time there.”

“And he’ll be company for you.”

Thank you, Heather . . . thank you for reminding me I am alone.

“Yeah.”

“Ami’s got an opening coming up in two weeks. I thought you and I could fly up to Atlanta for that. How does that sound?”

“Sounds good. Do you want to go ahead and book the tickets or shall I?”

“I will. Or, if you’re up for the adventure, we can just drive.” She giggled. “I’ll let you know what I decided.”

Another clinking of ice against glass. I wanted the call to end; I hated talking with Heather during this time of the day. “Heather, I’m tired. I’m going to get a good night’s sleep so I can get it all done in the morning.”

“All right. After I finish my Coke I’m going to wash dishes. Sounds like a fun night, doesn’t it?”

Her Coke . . . “Nothing like it.” A thought came to me and I said, “Heather, do you want to go get those manis and pedis tomorrow?”

“Meet me at the day spa at 1:00.”

“I’ll be there.”

“Perfect. When you get back from Cedar Key, we’ll go shopping for our trip to Atlanta.”

Already a plan. I liked it. Spa days, shopping, traveling to Atlanta, the ballet. And, of course, Cedar Key. Somehow I’d get through these five weeks. “Sounds good.”

We said our good-byes. Ten minutes later, I was sound asleep.

The television remained on.

By 10:00 Tuesday morning I had loaded the car with luggage filled with enough clothes and other necessities to keep me covered for two weeks—just in case things didn’t go as well as I’d hoped—a cooler full of food that might go bad before I returned, and a large bag of dog food I’d purchased the day before.

“Come on, Max,” I called into the house from the garage door.

Faithful Max strolled into the mud room, smiling. He paused momentarily, then—seeing the car’s back door left open for him—darted past me. He positioned his seventy-seven pounds of muscle and golden fur onto the seat, then peered through the front windshield, looking anxious.
Where we going, Mom? Where we going?

The drive to Cedar Key—though I had not made it in years—had not changed. The trip to the island had always been nearly as wonderful as the being there. When I was a child, the farther away from the city Dad drove, the happier I became. Life was good in Cedar Key. Mom relaxed more. Lethargic in a princess-amongst-the-pillows kind of way. Dad slipped easily into his role as her Prince Charming. They laughed a lot. Kissed a lot. Loved each other and their children with wild abandon. My sisters and I played with little conflict amongst ourselves. Rosa was there too. Always. She and her mother added a new dimension to our relationships with one another.

Dad and I always woke first. We’d meet in the kitchen. Dad would pour two mugs of coffee and one of hot cocoa. He’d tell me, “Grab a seat, Boo. I’ll run this up to your mother and be right back.”

I pictured Mom propped in bed, dressed in her pink cotton Eileen West nightgown, waiting for her prince to return. After Diana became Princess of Wales, I pictured Mom wearing one of the beautiful tiaras I’d seen the British beauty wearing in photographs and on television. If it was good enough for the future queen of England, it was good enough for my mother.

Picturing Mom was all I was allowed to do; we weren’t allowed in the master bedroom until after Mom had gotten ready for the day. Dad cautioned us to be “extra special quiet” in the mornings so Mom could take her after-coffee nap. After becoming a mother, I wondered how my mother managed to have four children, play at the beach most all afternoon and late into the night, wake at eight to Dad’s coffee, then slip under the covers to nap until ten or eleven o’clock. Even after Ami came along, it was more Jayme-Leigh who took care of the baby than Mom. A premonition, perhaps, of my sister’s future as a pediatrician.

Children were one of the two passions Jayme-Leigh has always possessed. Not her own children, of course, but rather those belonging to others. Her relationship with Ami mirrored that of Heather’s and mine. In a unique sort of way, our family of six lived divided by twos. Mom and Dad, Jayme-Leigh and Ami, Heather and me.

But in Cedar Key, we added Eliana and Rosa.

Eliana. A woman of Hispanic heritage who lived in a modest house near the cemetery and worked hard at keeping other people’s houses beautiful. A woman with a quick laugh and eyes that twinkled when she spoke. A woman totally dedicated to my mother and father.

It was Eliana, I now realized as I turned onto SR 24—that long stretch of two-lane blacktop leading from civilization to the island of my young summers—who provided Mom the time to play with her husband and children and to sleep until nearly noon. It was Eliana who cooked and cleaned and made sure our clothes were washed and dried and pressed crisp. It was Eliana who stayed late after supper to load the dishwasher and wipe the counters, and it was Eliana who, early the next morning, unloaded the dishes and returned them to their proper places in the cabinets. So different from Nell, who came twice a week when we were at home. Nell helped Mom; Eliana was a mom.

And then there was Rosa, the little tagalong child dressed in our hand-me-downs, who played with the Claybourne children as though there were no differences between us. Rosa . . . I wondered now where she might be living, what she was doing, and how life had turned out for her.

I watched the sun slide toward the horizon in the west. The foliage, thick on both sides of the road, allowed sunlight to wink between the quaking leaves of the soaring trees and the sleek green vines that wrapped around the trunks and branches and then slithered between them like snakes in the grass.

It was a tunnel that led to the marshlands of another world.

Cedar Key.

I turned off the highway and onto the bumpy dirt road leading to the house. Green vines and trees had given way to miles of marshes, which then gave way to ancient live oaks. Their branches dripped with the silvery-gray strands of Spanish moss so thick they formed shimmering veils behind which the houses stood between the road and the water. As my father had done with his car on the weekends and summers of my youth, I turned my Honda along the short driveway leading to the house. I shoved the gearshift to park and sighed.

I had returned to Cedar Key.

“Come on, Max,” I said.

If his panting was any indication, Max was more than happy to exit the backseat.

After liberating the dog, I grabbed my medium-sized suitcase from the trunk. Even though the suitcase had wheels, the ground was thick with sand and crushed shells, so I heaved it up then walked to the z-shaped cypress board stairs. I took the steps one at a time until I’d reached the front door, which was actually at the side of the house. Max was not far behind me.

“Ready to see our home?” I asked him. I dropped the suitcase between us, then added, “Well, for the next few days anyway.” I fished the key my father had given me from the deep pocket of my capri pants, slid it into the keyhole, and flipped it to the right.

The door to our temporary home opened. Max bounded in as though he’d been coming here every summer of his seven years.

I turned to look out over the landscape as I inhaled the salty air. The blended fragrances of fish and grass sent memories rushing through me faster than I could reel them in. In that moment I knew more than I’d known up until then that there were things here—within this house and on this island—that I was not ready to meet. Recollections of my parents, my sisters, and of our lives as they dovetailed. Thoughts of my mother and me traipsing along the Gulf coastline, photographing scenes of wildlife and people and the places they lived and worked and played. Memories of Dad, young and tan, relaxing—albeit in the scorching sunlight.

I leaned against the door frame and turned fully toward the water, watching the sleek grasses bend with the breeze. An osprey’s nest perched high above the ground was empty. A few yards away, gulls flapped their gray and white wings over the movement of blue and green below. They formed unique angles and they called me to the water’s edge.

I whistled for Max, who quickly joined me on the landing. I closed the door and we bounded down the stairs then walked to the platform where, just a few nights before, I’d dreamed of my father sitting, waiting for me to join him before we went to the city park.