The Sound of Glass (39 page)

I thought of Owen, out in the storm by himself somewhere. Missing his mother. Maybe wondering where I was and why I wasn’t coming to get him.

“Owen!” I yelled inside my car as the sky went black again. And that was when I knew where he was. I saw him so clearly, standing on the dock watching the dolphin sluice through the water, feeling the ripples beneath my feet. And I heard Owen’s voice.
We should
always find a happy place—kind of like “base” in a game of tag, where you can go and all of your problems and worries can’t touch you.

I immediately turned the car around and headed toward Bay Street. I’d been to Gibbes’s house only twice, but each time I’d spent so much time studying the road that I was sure I could find it again. It was only a few turns, and then a long dirt drive to his house.
And a bridge
. My foot nearly slipped from the accelerator, but I moved it back again, gently pressing on it as I neared the bridge, which was lit up clearly against the night sky.

What if it’s open to let boats go through and I have to stop in the middle?
I pushed the thought away, telling myself I’d think about it later, feeling a little like Scarlett O’Hara.

I thought of calling Gibbes again, and then as quickly as I dismissed that idea, I thought of Deborah. Deborah would come immediately; I knew that. But Owen was my brother, and he needed me
now
.

I flicked on my signal to turn right onto the bridge, hesitating long enough that the person behind me felt compelled to tap his horn. Slowly I moved forward onto the foot of the bridge, my hands gripping the wheel so tightly that I could barely feel them. My body shook while bile rose in the back of my throat.
Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.

The rain had abated slightly, but the wipers continued at high speed, my hand refusing to let go of the steering wheel long enough to change the setting.
Thump, thump, thump.
I hated the sound, hated the way it reminded me of the sound a car made as it slid against the side of a bridge, the sound it made right before the car plunged over the side into icy cold water.

Breathe. Breathe.
I was almost at the midpoint of the bridge, and it was closed, so I didn’t have to stop. Because if I had to, I wasn’t sure whether I could go forward again. There was a lot of traffic on the bridge, moving slowly, but as I approached the second half I wanted to get off
now
.
Move,
I said in my head to the white SUV in front of
me. “Move,” I said out loud, my voice trembling, my forehead drenched in sweat.

You are so much stronger and braver than you think you are.
The sob broke from my throat unexpectedly, my tears hot and sudden on my skin. “Move,” I whispered to the car in front, my foot slipping from the accelerator again and then punching on the brake. The vehicle behind me honked and I wanted to stop then. To park my car and get out and run back the way I’d come.

You are strong at the broken places.
I blinked quickly, clearing my vision, and remembered Loralee saying that to me, remembered how I’d wanted to argue with her. “Move,” I said again to the back of the SUV, but with less conviction this time, my wipers beating back and forth, back and forth.
Courage is doing the one thing you think you cannot do.
The words came to me in a rush, not as if they’d been spoken, but almost as if they’d taken up residence somewhere in my brain.

My breathing slowed, my hands loosening on the steering wheel. I neared the end of the bridge, aware of the lights along either side of me but still not daring to look away from the road directly in front. The traffic surged forward and I went with it, following the cars until we’d left the bridge and were back on solid ground again.

Blood pounded in my ears, and I thought for a moment that I should pull over to catch my breath, to make sure I wasn’t going to do what Loralee had feared and give myself a heart attack. If the muscles in my face hadn’t been so frozen, I probably would have smiled at hearing myself say those words in my head with a soft Alabama accent. But I couldn’t stop. Owen was out there in the dark night, alone and maybe lost, and I was going to find him.

The rain had lessened to a light drizzle, and I finally pried my fingers from the steering wheel and switched the wipers to intermittent. On the back roads of Lady’s Island the dark wedged itself between the trees like a fist, obliterating all light and making it difficult to navigate by landmarks. I flipped on my high beams, allowing my headlights to illuminate a wider path. I tried not to dwell on the
occasional pair of yellow eyes in the underbrush by the side of the road as I looked not only for landmarks, but for a blue bike and a red helmet and a little boy who was too far from home. My only hope was that Owen had managed to make it to Gibbes’s house before nightfall, and that he’d thought to find shelter on the porch.

I came up to a road on my right, recognizing a seventies-style ranch house with brightly colored Christmas lights hanging from the sagging front porch. I turned, knowing I was headed in the right direction. I pushed the accelerator down, unaware of my speed, just needing to get where I was going. The long drive at the front of Gibbes’s property loomed ahead, and I pulled in at the metal mailbox I remembered, the relief spreading through my joints and expanding my lungs.

Dirt, gravel, and mud flew from the back tires as I tore down the road, afraid to slow down just in case my car got mired in the muck. A single porch light glowed in the distance and I began to get worried all over again.
What if he isn’t here?

I skidded to a stop in the drive and threw the car in park. Leaving the keys in the ignition and the headlights bright, I ran from the car to the front porch. “Owen? Owen—it’s me, Merritt. Are you here?”

But the porch was empty, the rocking chairs still.
Not here. The dock.
I jumped off the porch, feeling my shoes squish in the mud, then ran toward the dock. “Owen? Owen? Are you here?”

“Merritt?”

Did I imagine that?
I stumbled over something, nearly tripping in the mud, but managed to catch myself. It was Owen’s bike. “Owen?”

“I’m over here. On the dock.”

I turned toward the dock to where the whole creek was illuminated by the soft glow of Beaufort’s lights reflecting off low clouds. I saw Owen then, at least the outline of him, wearing the yellow rain slicker his mother had bought for him, the same one that he’d told me in confidence nobody—especially no boys—wore past second grade.

“Owen!” I cried, running down the dock, then catching him in my arms as he grabbed mine and squeezing him as tightly as I could until I heard him struggling for breath. I pulled away from him, but neither one of us wanted to let go. “Are you all right? Are you hurt?” I went from being relieved to angry to worried, then back again, unable to settle on a single emotion.

“I’m fine,” he said, his voice choked with tears. “I just . . .”

“You needed to touch base. I get it; I do. But I was so scared. . . .” I crushed him against me again, unable to finish my sentence, afraid the fear would return. I knelt in front of him. “Don’t you ever leave without telling me where you’re going; do you understand? Never. I was so worried.”

“I’m sorry, Merritt,” he said, wiping his sleeve across his nose. “I didn’t want to wake you up, and I thought Dr. Heyward would be here and he could call you. When I got here it wasn’t dark yet, but then it was and I was too afraid to go to the porch because I couldn’t see anything. I was just feeling so sad. . . .”

I brushed his soaking hair off his forehead. “I know. Me, too. But we’ve got to look out for each other. It’s you and me, right? Like Thing One and Thing Two?” I’d been studying up on Dr. Seuss, and hoped I’d made the right reference.

“Yeah,” he said, and I felt him smile.

“Promise me you’ll never do that again.”

“I promise.”

Something dropped from his jacket onto the dock and I leaned forward to pick it up. It was a book wrapped inside a plastic bag. “Your mother’s journal.”

He nodded. “I started to read it, but it began to rain and I didn’t want it to get wet. It made me feel better, though. Like she was sitting right here, talking to me.”

I reached up and straightened his glasses. “She’ll always be a part of you, you know. And I know I’ll never replace her, but I promise to do the best I can.”

“I know.” He tugged on my arm, turning around to face the water, and it wasn’t so frightening anymore.
Courage is doing the one thing you think you cannot do.
“You were right about something,” he said.

“About what?” I stood, but held his hand, afraid to let go.

He pointed across the water toward Beaufort, and the glowing lights that softened the darkness on the dock where we stood. “About how it’s never really dark. How there’s always light somewhere if you look hard enough.”

I started to cry again, from relief, and grief, and all the things I had learned in one stormy night. I hugged him to me, still not believing that I’d found him. “I love you, Owen.”

“I love you, too, Merritt,” he said, his voice muffled against my shoulder, but I didn’t let go, knowing that in a few years he probably wouldn’t let me hug him anymore—at least not in public.

Something dropped onto the dock, and when I stepped forward to retrieve it, my toe kicked whatever it was and then we heard the unmistakable sound of something hitting water.

“Was that the journal?” I asked in panic, then realized I still held it.

“No. Just my glasses.”

I looked at him, hoping my parenting skills wouldn’t be judged by my actions of a single day. “Great. Do you have an extra pair?”

“No. I had one, but I lost them.”

Keeping my arm around his shoulders, I led him off the dock to my car. “I guess we’ll go see about a new pair of glasses first thing tomorrow.”

“Or I could get contacts,” he said, looking up at me hopefully.

“We’ll see,” I said, sounding so much like my own mother that I almost laughed.

“Merritt?”

“Um?”

“I think we’re going to be okay.”

“I think so, too.” I kissed the top of his head and opened his car
door. “Your bike won’t fit in my car—I’ll ask Dr. Heyward to bring it back.”

He nodded, then tilted his head toward the clearing sky, spotting a single star. “Did you know that when you look at stars you’re looking back in time? That’s because the light from the star takes millions of years to reach the Earth, so you’re really seeing how it looked millions of years ago.”

“Smart kid,” I said, rustling his hair.

He grinned at me, and it was his mother’s smile. Owen slid into the car and I closed the door, looking up just as he had. Loralee had shown us both the importance of looking up, of seeing the beauty and the good in unexpected places. And in ourselves.

The rain had finally stopped, the clouds shifting positions in the sky, making room for more stars that managed to push through the darkness and illuminate the places we were once afraid to see.

MERRITT

OCTOBER 2014

I
stood on Gibbes’s back porch under the newly hung wind chime that Owen and I had made, staring out over the marsh. I wore only Gibbes’s shirt—having not quite adopted Loralee’s belief in wearing an elegant negligee to bed—but I did feel incredibly sexy in it. The heat from the coffee mug I held warmed my hands against the early predawn chill as I took a sip, watching as morning rose over Beaufort.

Dawn wasn’t a bright, sudden event there, but more like a slow exhalation. It was comforting and familiar, the soft gold light now a part of me. It had become home, the gray Maine mornings of my childhood a fading memory. I took a deep breath and let them go, finally setting free the girl who’d once emerged from an icy river and never stopped blaming herself.

The door behind me opened and I smiled. Owen was camping
with Maris’s family for the weekend, returning in time for the fund-raiser, leaving Gibbes and me alone. His warm hands rested on either side of my waist as he pressed his bare chest against me and his lips brushed the back of my neck.

“Aren’t you cold?” I asked.

“Not anymore.” He kissed me again, and I felt his laugh rumbling against my skin.

He rested his head against mine and we waited in silence for the final breath of dark to give way to the light. Autumn in the Lowcountry settled softly on the marsh, painting it with strokes of ochre and yellow from the wind-tossed seeds of the cordgrass. Birdsongs changed as new visitors from up North searched for winter homes, and others sought shelter farther south. The wooden tombstones of upended oyster boats in summer had disappeared and were plying the creeks and estuaries, looking for beds to crack.

It seemed as if I’d always lived there, that the short summers and russet autumns of Maine were from another life. In many ways, I thought, they had been. I was confident now in the boat, and had navigated it by myself enough times to not be afraid anymore. I’d seen one alligator and countless dolphins on my journeys, and had learned the landmarks to find my way back. Loralee would probably have had something to say about that, something about the heart bearing a compass that always pointed toward home. I’d have to remember to write that in my own journal, the one I’d started after the night I’d crossed the bridge. I watched as the horizon trembled with new light, and imagined I was on the boat again, trees parting and the river bending into the liquid mystery of the marsh, its secrets submerged and exposed with the patterns of the moon.

“Did you sleep?” he asked.

I shook my head. “Too nervous. What if nobody comes?”

“Of course they will—I’ve never met anybody who could turn down an invite to a Lowcountry oyster roast. Besides, the Cecelia Gibbes Heyward Women’s Shelter is a good cause. And you’re a local
celebrity. How could they stay away? Don’t forget, too—Deborah Fuller knows everybody in town and will make sure they’re here and bringing donation checks.”

I closed my eyes and leaned back, his arms firm around me, and knew he wouldn’t let me go. It had taken reading Loralee’s journal for me to find the courage to show Gibbes the letter, to admit to him the kind of woman I’d once been, the kind of person who’d allowed herself to fall in love with a lie.
Life doesn’t get easier. We just get stronger.
Loralee was right. I was stronger. I’d crossed more than just a physical bridge that night in the storm. She’d been right about so many things. I only wished I’d realized it earlier.

Gibbes had gone with me to the police station with the suitcase, the plane model, and the letter. And never once had he regarded me with Cal’s eyes, making me wonder how I’d ever thought he would. He’d been the one who’d figured out that Cal had wandered California for more than ten years before he went to Maine. An entire decade during which he’d fought his demons, tried to forget his need for retribution. But in the end he’d lost the battle, and had come to find justice and found me instead. I had been an easy substitute target for the rage he felt toward my grandmother and an unpunished crime. A rage that had been twisted and complicated by the unexpected love we’d found together. I held Gibbes closer to me. Edith had sent him away to save him, to make sure he had a happy life. In that one respect, she’d done the right thing.

I tilted my head, breathing in the scent of him. “Thanks for letting me use your house for the roast. I just had no idea how long it would take to paint the outside and inside of a house.” I thought about my newly painted porch overlooking the bluff, each wind chime rehung as soon as the paint had dried according to Owen’s numbering system, which he’d devised so nothing was hung in the wrong spot. Fall flowers shot up from the pots and planters that lined the refurbished brick steps and illuminated the front door with bright splashes of color. Remembering Loralee’s love of gardening,
I thought it was a little bit like looking at her smile every time I approached the house.

Gibbes nuzzled his morning stubble against my temple. “I promised Owen that I would never sell this house, because of the dock. And you’ve made all those nice curtains and slipcovers and pillows—although why so many pillows have to go on a bed, I have no idea. They just get knocked to the floor.” I felt him smile. “So I guess we’re stuck with two houses.”

“What are you saying, Dr. Heyward?”

“Well, Loralee did say that if you married me you wouldn’t have to change the monogram on any of your linens.”

I turned around to face him. “Funny, she said the same thing to me.” I tilted my head. “Was that a proposal?”

“Not yet. I need to get Owen’s permission first.”

I kissed him gently on the lips. “Good. That will give me time to think about my answer.” I placed my head against his heart, the strong beat thrumming against my ear, and thought again of paths and compasses. About how our paths had crossed long before we were born, our stories as tangled and meandering as the waterways that had brought us both back to the starting point.
Everything happens for a reason.
I smiled, thinking of Loralee.

“I’m proud of you, Merritt. I know none of this has been easy for you.” I felt his kiss on the top of my head.

The story of the crash of Flight 629 and my grandmother’s role in it had made the local news, which had brought it to the attention of a national magazine. I had expected recrimination about what my grandmother and Edith had done, but there hadn’t been any. There was nobody to prosecute, no more bodies to bury. At least there were no more questions for those still living, no more wondering. In the deepest parts of the night when I lay awake, I found solace in that.

The story had somehow propelled me into an unwanted spotlight as a sort of spokesperson about abusive relationships. I was
uncomfortable there, knowing I hadn’t found the courage at the time to walk away from my own personal hell. I’d be more comfortable in my role of sewing instructor at the shelter as soon as the funds were made available. Until then I shared our stories—Edith’s, my grandmother’s, mine—to let others know they weren’t alone. That there was help. That they all possessed within themselves the courage to do the one thing they thought that they could not.

“Thank you for being there for me. I couldn’t do any of this alone.”

“You could,” he said softly. “But I’m glad I’m here.”

I looked up at the wind chime and watched the glass twist and twirl, thinking about Edith, Cecelia, and my grandmother. I studied the mottled surfaces of the sea glass, seeing not dull glass but weary travelers who had learned to absorb the light and reflect it outward.

It is in darkness that we find the light.
I itched to write the words in my journal, to fill the pages with everything I’d learned, how we are all tumbled about by the waves of life, earning scars that show where we’ve been. And we learn. With each scar we learn. With etched faces we turn toward the light, unbending and unbreakable, strong at the broken places.

Gibbes kissed me, his lips hard and searching, and when I opened my eyes I saw only Gibbes, his brother’s ghost now laid to rest. I had found Cal after all, in the waterways of his boyhood, and it was here that I’d finally learned to let him
go.