Michaela Thompson - Florida Panhandle 02 - Riptide (3 page)

John James Anders had taken off in 1922. He never came back. He had left behind failed business schemes, angry creditors, and a shell-shocked family. After his lumber and turpentine businesses were sold to meet his debts, his wife, Polly, daughter, Merriam, and infant son, Johnny, were left with the laughably grandiose house and the few acres of swampland surrounding it. That and a blue-and-white porcelain bottle.

The coffee must be ready. Isabel walked into the kitchen area, separated from the living room by a waist-high counter. Merriam must have sold the china. The dishes in the cabinet were pink plastic. Isabel poured a cup of coffee and pushed back the curtains on the kitchen window. There, across an expanse of sandspurs, yucca, palmetto, and coarse calf-level grass, was the house.

The upstairs veranda sagged dangerously and a broad-leaved vine grew out of the tumbled chimney. The columns of the front porch were listing. The downstairs windows were shrouded by curtains, and some had boards nailed across them, as did the front door. The upstairs windows were blank, shaded.

From an artist’s viewpoint, the colors were muted, subdued: dull gray, dull green, dull brown—except for a spot of red on the front steps. A red metal can sat there, a gasoline container perhaps. The single brilliant blob made the overall spectacle even more depressing. Isabel thought of Merriam standing here, day after day, watching the place fall into ruin while she washed dishes.

Today, Isabel would go to the hospital. She would see Merriam. The thought made her anxious, as if she were still a girl who could have a switch taken to her legs if she disobeyed.

She made toast and had another cup of coffee while she ate it with grape jelly. Isabel and Merriam used to eat grape jelly. Isabel never ate grape jelly in New York. She would go to the hospital to see Merriam this afternoon. Tonight, she had been invited to have dinner with E. Clemons Davenant and his sister.

E. Clemons Davenant, the attorney who had written the letter about Merriam, had been a surprise. Although he wore, as he had in her memory, a blue seersucker suit, he was not the elderly man Isabel remembered, but his son. Clem Davenant— as he had introduced himself when he met her at the airport— was in his forties. He had sandy hair, a sprinkling of freckles on his nose and the backs of his hands, and a somber demeanor. He had arranged for Isabel to stay in Merriam’s mobile home and use her car. He had met Isabel at the airport and driven her to Cape St. Elmo. He had made sure the old Ford would actually start. He had done these generous deeds without a flicker of warmth or welcome. Isabel didn’t think he had smiled once during the couple of hours she had spent in his company.

Not that there was much to smile about. Merriam was in bad shape. On the trip from the airport to the Cape, Clem Davenant had filled her in: Merriam had been found wandering on the beach, dazed and incoherent. She had had a slight concussion, and her doctor speculated that she had fallen. Although the physical damage was healing, she continued to be agitated and out of touch with reality.

“She’s being medicated to keep her calm,” Clem had said, his eyes on the road. “I don’t like it much, but they’ve convinced me it’s necessary.”

It was hot in the car. Isabel’s long-sleeved shirt was much too warm. She unbuttoned the wrists and began to roll up the sleeves. She was finding it hard to concentrate. “Where did she fall?”

“Somewhere on the beach, I assume.” He glanced over at her. “She used to take a walk in the mornings. Six o’clock or earlier.”

Yes, Merriam’s morning walk. Isabel remembered her energetic gait, her feet crunching on the crushed oyster shells as she strode up the drive.

After the meager information had been imparted, the drive wasn’t nearly over. Clem, with punctilious courtesy, seemed determined to make conversation if it killed him. “When did you come to live with Miss Merriam?” he asked.

“When I was nine, after my parents died. My father was Merriam’s brother, Johnny. He was ten years younger than she was.”

“Awful shame,” Clem said vaguely.

He could have been referring to the death of her parents with her hell-raising father drunk at the wheel of the car, the general misery of her years with Merriam at Cape St. Elmo, or Isabel’s running away at the age of sixteen with Airman First Class Ben Raboski of Nutley, New Jersey. In any case, she could only agree. “Yes. A real shame.”

Silence. She studied his profile: sharp nose, haggard around the eyes. “I’ve been trying to remember you from school,” she said.

“I was years ahead of you. I was probably already in law school by the time you— left.”

Isabel suppressed a wry smile and studied her hands. Moths had wheeled in the headlights of the car, splattering on the windshield, as she and Ben Raboski sped away from Cape St. Elmo. They must have been driving eighty-five or ninety, although nobody was chasing them and nobody ever would. “Well, I left in a bit of a rush, and I haven’t been back,” she said.

He looked surprised that she’d mentioned it. “Whatever happened to… to the man—”

“To Ben? Last I heard, he and his brother were partners in a Mercedes dealership in Teaneck, New Jersey.” She sat forward as they rounded a curve. The gleaming bay and a curve of white beach came into view. “There it is,” she said softly. An unfocused sensation rushed through her.
Yes! There it is!
The sand, the water, the dunes. Had she really missed it?

“Not a great deal has changed, really,” said Clem.

“No.”

But of course a lot had, starting with the house, that sad wreck. Clem was already apologizing as they jounced down the drive. “She didn’t have the money to keep it up,” he said. “It was too big for her, there all by herself.” Not for the first time, Isabel sensed his condemnation. Obviously, he didn’t think she had treated Merriam right.

Whatever his opinions, he had helped her unload her bags, given her keys to the trailer and the car, and, a hospitable Southern gentleman to the finish, invited her to dinner at his home. If he could be believed— and what Southern gentleman ever could be?— his sister Eve was eager to meet her. No Mrs. Davenant had been mentioned.

Isabel stood up and put her coffee cup in the sink. Today she would go see Merriam, but not yet. She wasn’t ready. It was still too early. She would reorient herself, go for a walk on the beach.

She put on sandals, stepped out on the concrete block that served as the trailer’s front step, and was engulfed by hot, muggy air. A dirt track led through the weeds to the drive. She walked under the palms up to Cape St. Elmo road, oily ripples of heat rising from its surface. To her right, the black metal frame of the lighthouse rose above the trees. She crossed the road and wandered through the dunes. White sand stretched to pale green water. Far out, pelicans were diving for fish, making mighty splashes.

She heard singing, a child’s voice:

He’s got the whole world

In ’is hands

Not far away, right at the waterline, a little girl, seven years old perhaps, was twirling a baton. She wore red shorts and a yellow T-shirt. She pranced through her routine, tossing her yellow hair, kicking her bare feet with abandon.

He’s got the whole wor-hurld

In ’is hands

The child was good. She tossed the baton upward and caught it without missing a beat. When she finished, she curtsied deeply to the waves and ran away down the beach toward the nearest cottages.

Isabel started to stroll along the beach, but the image of an injured Merriam stumbling beside her was disturbing. After a short while, she turned back.

***

Going to the hospital was not, after all, the ordeal she had expected. Merriam was asleep, motionless, her beaky nose protruding above the curves of the pillow. She looked small, wrinkled, frail. The past fifteen years had aged her considerably, which was only to be expected. “She’s eighty-five years old,” said the doctor standing at Isabel’s elbow. “Remarkable shape, but you don’t come back so easily at that age.”

Dr. McIntosh didn’t look far from eighty himself. His nose was bulbous, his face deeply lined. A sparse brush of white hair was scattered thinly over his scalp. He had given Isabel vaccinations, treated her when she had strep throat at the age of thirteen. He smelled faintly of cigarettes.

Isabel wiped her hands on her skirt. She had had an absurdly difficult time deciding what to wear. “What’s the prognosis, exactly?” she asked.

He shoved his hands in the pockets of his white jacket and studied Merriam’s inert form. “She’s getting better physically, but whether she’ll ever be the same, I don’t know,” he said. “I doubt she’ll be able to live on her own again. She was an accident waiting to happen anyway, out there all by herself. If you’re asking if she’s about to die, well… I’d have to say no. But at her age…” He lifted his shoulders.

Isabel stared at Merriam’s sunken face. Her lips were slightly parted. Here was Isabel’s oppressor, reduced and subdued. “Merriam, it’s Isabel,” she said.

“I don’t imagine she’ll wake up. She’s had her medication.”

“I’ll wait for a while.”

Sitting in a chair beside the bed, Isabel waited. Merriam did not wake up. She did not even move. When it was time to go to dinner at Clem Davenant’s, Isabel left.

The Davenant house, just inside the St. Elmo city limits, was red brick, two-story, magnolia-shaded. A rangy, freckled woman with a toothy smile answered the door. She said, “Hi, Isabel. I’m Eve, Clem’s sister. He’s out back getting the coals on.” Isabel followed her through a dim, cool interior to a back patio where Clem, looking buttoned-down despite his cotton slacks and sports shirt, was emptying coals into a barbecue pit. His greeting to her was only slightly less formal than it had been when he met her at the airport, and by the time the coals were lighted and gin and tonics provided, he had fetched his briefcase and was sitting opposite her in a lawn chair, broaching the subject of Merriam’s condition.

“Let Isabel have her drink before you get down to business,” Eve protested.

A furrow of displeasure appeared between his eyes. “I expect Isabel would like to get this out of the way.”

Eve raised her eyes to heaven. “I’ll go make the salad, then.”

Clem plowed on, taking papers from his briefcase. “I imagine Dr. McIntosh told you Miss Merriam will need constant care, at least for a while. I’ve applied for a place in Sunny Haven, a facility in Bay City, but they’re full at the moment. What I propose is this—”

What Clem proposed, it developed, was that Merriam be released from the hospital and live at the home of a local practical nurse until space became available at Sunny Haven. As he talked, Isabel realized that his plan was less a proposal than a fait accompli. “Miss Merriam will have individual care, and Bernice Chatham has provided this sort of service before. Miss Merriam can afford it, at least for a while.” He droned on, filling her in on details of Merriam’s modest financial situation.

Isabel took a swallow of her drink and wondered why he was bothering to consult her. She had given up the right to any say over Merriam years ago, and vice versa. Isabel ran away; Merriam disinherited her. That’s all there was to it.

When she got a chance to put in a word, she said she thought Clem’s idea was fine. He gave a brisk nod, wiped his brow, and got up to put the steaks on.

Eve Davenant was easier to talk to. As smoke billowed above the barbecue pit, she asked Isabel questions about her life in New York and how she was managing at Cape St. Elmo. Eve, it developed, was a schoolteacher. She stretched her legs luxuriously. “School’s out, and am I glad,” she said. “I’m exhausted. The first year on a new job is so hard.”

Isabel had pictured bachelor brother and spinster sister as longtime fixtures here, growing into middle age together. “You just started teaching?”

“Oh, I taught for years in Atlanta. I moved back to St. Elmo last summer. To be here and help Clem.”

To help Clem? Clem, standing over the steaks, seemed a capable, if taciturn, grown-up. Why his sister should give up another job to move back home and look after him was not immediately clear.

Thanks mostly to Eve, dinner, which they ate at a backyard table, passed pleasantly enough. Clem, Isabel noticed, occasionally zoned out of the conversation. His eyes became fixed, his expression melancholy. When this happened, Eve would raise her voice, or direct a question to him, and alertness would return to his face.

Mosquitoes drove them inside to have coffee. By this time, Eve and Isabel had discovered a common interest in children’s literature, and Isabel had warmed up enough to confide that she was working on a picture book. “I brought it with me. I’m planning to finish it this summer.”

Eve was glowing. “How exciting! Tell me about it.”

In the warmth of Eve’s reaction, Isabel’s enthusiasm began to stir. Maybe it had been worth digging out her sketches, after all. “It’s a retelling of a French fairy tale. I had to revise the original story drastically.”

“Why was that?”

“It was really gory and violent. I toned it down, and I think it has possibilities now.”

“What’s the title?”

“The Children from the Sea.
It’s about twins, a brother and sister named Marin and Marinette. They’re castaways. They nearly drown when their ship sinks, but they wash up on a beach where—”

Something was wrong. Eve’s smile had faded. In the shadows, Clem sat motionless. “It sounds just great,” Eve said in a strained tone. She stood up. “I’m going to have more coffee. Anybody?”

Isabel dropped the subject of
The Children from the Sea.
Silence fell. It was, in any case, time to leave. She asked where the bathroom was and escaped down a hall, fleeing the uncomfortable atmosphere.

She stayed in the bathroom longer than necessary, staring in the medicine cabinet mirror, fiddling with her hair. She would give Clem and Eve time to regain their composure and then say a swift good night.

When she emerged, a light was on in a room across the hall. Clem was standing inside the door, gazing at something. Here was her chance to take her leave. She stopped in the doorway. “Thanks. It was a lovely evening.”