Written on My Heart Read online

  A PLUME BOOK

  WRITTEN ON MY HEART

  MORGAN CALLAN ROGERS lived along the banks of the mighty Kennebec River in Bath, Maine, for all of the years of her childhood. With the exception of five years spent in beautiful western South Dakota, bodies of water have always been her compass. She began writing fiction when she was eight, sitting at an old camp table on a screened-in porch in a cottage located near the New Meadows River in West Bath, Maine. She has traveled many paths during her lifetime as an editor, journalist, librarian, actress, grocery clerk, secretary, teacher, and singer. Writing has been the thread running through it all. She has published several short stories and countless articles for regional newspapers and magazines. Morgan holds an MFA from the University of Southern Maine’s Stonecoast Creative Writing program. She is the author of the international bestseller Red Ruby Heart in a Cold Blue Sea, published by Viking in 2012. She lives in Portland, Maine, with her cat, Petula Mae.

  Praise for Red Ruby Heart in a Cold Blue Sea

  “Rendered first-person in confiding, colloquial prose. . . . [Like] the bittersweet coming-of-age movies (see: Stand by Me, The Last Picture Show) that don’t get made much anymore.”

  —Entertainment Weekly

  “Deeply moving. . . . Callan Rogers writes with a superb sense of place and period, delving deftly into true-to-life responses to unexplained loss. . . . A realistic and resonant coming-of-age novel.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “Callan Rogers’s astonishing debut brilliantly illuminates deep loss, impossible longing, and our yearning to hold on to love no matter what, all told in the lake-clear voice of one remarkable young heroine. So rapturously moving, I could barely bring myself to close the final page.”

  —Caroline Leavitt, author of Pictures of You

  “Rich in landscape and character, with regional dialect and phrases that will tip many mouths into grins.”

  —Booklist

  “Refreshing. . . . A piercingly knowing portrait of the complicated thoughts and actions of a maturing teenage girl. . . . With a one-of-a-kind setting and dialect straight from the shore.”

  —Portland Monthly

  “Incredibly detailed, rich, and real. . . . You will find yourself drawn into this book quickly and fiercely.”

  —The Maine Edge

  “The young, prickly, and thoroughly endearing narrator of Red Ruby Heart in a Cold Blue Sea got to me in a big way. I loved spending time with Florine, and I’m still thinking about her. She will break your heart and make you glad she did.”

  —Monica Wood, author of Any Bitter Thing

  “At once very personal and very broad in theme and atmosphere, Red Ruby Heart is a lovely novel, long on heart. Morgan Callan Rogers has a confident, almost playful prose style, and she bears down on this story from the first paragraph, never faltering in her mission to convey her characters and their painful paths with honesty, compassion, and humor.”

  —Susanna Daniel, author of Stiltsville

  “Red Ruby Heart in a Cold Blue Sea spun me deep inside its feisty, honest heroine, Florine. A classic story of paradise lost, this is a beautiful and wise coming-of-age story set on the Maine coast, where grief—harsh as the granite shoreline—is suffered, solaced, and survived. I love this book, with its fresh-baked bread, stars and waves, wind-worn houses, mysteries and truths. A wonderful first novel.”

  —Beth Powning, author of The Sea Captain’s Wife

  “A heartwarming ‘coming-of-age-story’ set in what is arguably the continent’s most beautiful location.”

  —Hudson Valley News

  “Readers who enjoy coming-of-age tales and small-town stories will appreciate this well-crafted debut novel that tugs at the heart without falling into sentimentality.”

  —Library Journal

  Also by Morgan Callan Rogers

  Red Ruby Heart in a Cold Blue Sea

  PLUME

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  375 Hudson Street

  New York, New York 10014

  penguin.com

  Copyright © 2015 by Morgan Callan Rogers

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

  REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Rogers, Morgan Callan.

  Written on my heart : a novel / Morgan Callan Rogers.—First edition.

  pages ; cm

  ISBN 978-0-14-751704-3 (softcover)—ISBN 978-0-698-19861-6 (ebook) 1. Newlyweds—Fiction. 2. Mothers and daughters—Fiction. 3. Missing persons—Investigation—Fiction. 4. Domestic fiction. I. Title.

  PS3618.O4656W75 2016

  813'.6—dc23 2015036700

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Version_1

  Contents

  About the Author

  Praise for Red Ruby Heart in a Cold Blue Sea

  Also by Morgan Callan Rogers

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  For Beth, Joe, and Alessandro.

  Love is all that matters.

  1

  The night before my wedding, my best friend, Dottie Butts, and I sat on my side lawn staring up at the sky. The soft blue of twilight mingled with the dark. All was quiet, save for the sound of Dottie sucking down Narragansett beer from a sixteen-ounce can. Beer and I had never gotten along, so I wasn’t drinking. Besides, I was pregnant. The next morning, Saturda
y, June 12, 1971, I would get up, dress in a wedding gown once worn by my grandmother, and walk the short length of this very lawn to meet my husband-to-be, Bud Warner, the love of my life and the father of the baby soon to be born. Bud and I were both twenty years old.

  Dottie said, “Not many people have a baby shower the night before they get married. You made out pretty good.”

  Until just a few hours earlier, the inside of my house had been strewn from hither to yon with baby presents and wrapping paper and ribbon. For almost nine months, I had been collecting what I would need for a girl baby, because I had a strong feeling that she would be a girl and I was going on faith. But the night’s haul had given me enough for three babies of either sex. We were set, no matter what.

  “Thanks for getting everyone together and doing that,” I said.

  “Just doing my maid-of-honor duty,” Dottie said. “Ma’s been keeping me straight on all the things I’m supposed to do. Don’t come natural to me, being a maid of honor. Not much maid to be had in me.”

  “You’re doing fine,” I said. “No reason why you wouldn’t. Besides, you’re my best friend. Matter of fact, you’re my only friend.”

  “You need to get out more, then.”

  “I won’t be socializing much in a couple of weeks.”

  “Guess not,” Dottie said. “You know, I got to thinking. Last time I wore a dress was in high school. Hasn’t come up all through college. Can’t say as I’ve missed it.”

  “You said you liked the dress,” I said. “Your exact words in the store were that you thought it was ‘some pretty.’ You look nice in it.” Suddenly, a lazy movement inside of me touched my heart and brought tears to my eyes. I said to Dottie, “Don’t you want to be my maid of honor? You didn’t have to say yes.”

  Dottie set her beer can on the lawn and sat up on the edge of the chair. “Florine Gilham, you crying?” she said. “Really? You crying?”

  “No.” I sniffed.

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake, of course I wanted to do this,” she said. “Thick and thin. That’s you and me. I’m thick and you’re thin. You’re the only person can get me to put the dress on, so cut it out.”

  “You think it’s pretty, right? Because it is pretty.”

  “It’s the prettiest dress ever made, anywhere, in the history of dresses,” Dottie said. “It ain’t its fault I don’t wear dresses. Don’t get so worked up.”

  We went back to studying the sky.

  Darkness had settled in as we’d been talking, but millions of stars had leaked through it. Three of them contained the souls of my parents and of my grandmother, Grand. One twinkling star contained the spirit of my joyful, lively mother, Carlie, who had vanished when I was twelve. I didn’t know if she was dead or alive, but placing her in the sky with Daddy and Grand made sense to me, as she was as gone to me as they were. Daddy’s star was one of the larger ones, because he had been a big man with a stubborn heart, set in his ways. Grand’s star radiated rays of light. A practical woman, her faith in those on Earth and in heaven had been unshakeable. How I missed those three dear souls.

  “They see you,” Dottie said. How she knew what I was thinking was beyond me, but her ability to do that bound her to me. She and I, born one day apart, were more like sisters than friends. Thick and thin, she’d said. She was right.

  My eyes filled again. “I don’t want to cry,” I said. “It’s the baby making me do it.”

  Dottie laughed. “Mean baby.”

  I said, “I just wish so much they were here for everything.”

  “Well, you and that baby got them inside of you. ’Course, it ain’t the same as having ’em here, I know that, but it’ll have to do.”

  I smiled. “You sound like Grand,” I said.

  “Could do worse,” Dottie said. She hoisted herself out of the chair and reached for my hands. “I got to get my beauty sleep,” she said. I grabbed onto her and she groaned as she pulled me up.

  “I’m not that big,” I grumbled.

  “Oh, yes, you are.” Dottie laughed. “That baby is going to weigh more than my bowling ball. That’s a good twenty pounds, right there.”

  “Oh, stop,” I said, “most of it is water weight.”

  “Water weight, my ass,” she said.

  “Give me the beer can,” I said, “I’ll toss it out for you. Don’t want the path to Pastor Billy strewn with empties instead of rose petals.”

  “Guess not.” We stood there for a minute. My marriage would mark a distance between us. We would always be best friends, but my relationships with Bud and the baby would bump her a couple of notches in my heart. Dottie and I had been through everything together. But our paths, while still joined in friendship, would branch off to include other people and places. I wanted to say, How could I have gotten through the last few years without you? Do you know how much you mean to me? But that wasn’t like us, so instead I said, “Well, thanks. See you tomorrow.”

  Dottie waved good night as she turned to go. “Don’t thank me yet,” she said. “We got to get you two married, first.”

  “That’s going to happen. Come hell or high water,” I called as she walked off into the dark. I listened to the steadiness in her footsteps as she covered the short distance down the hill to her parents’ house. The screen door squealed open, and then shut with a bang. Someone in the house spoke to her and she answered, but I couldn’t hear the conversation.

  My ears pitched themselves toward the sounds in the harbor. The water exhaled in a continuous sigh as it traveled out with the tide. Small waves shushed themselves against the rocky beach. I closed my eyes and let the sounds come into me before I looked up at the stars again. “You hear me?” I said to the three that were listening. “Come hell or high water, tomorrow, I’m marrying Bud. Put a good word in for us.”

  When I looked down, I got dizzy. I pulled on the handle of the screen door that opened into the hallway of what had once been Grand’s house. It was mine, now—mine and Bud’s, and soon, our baby’s house too.

  The women and girls who had attended the baby shower had cleaned and stacked everything so that I wouldn’t have to deal with any of that. It made me grateful for the way we took care of one another. I hauled myself up the stairs to the bathroom and had a long pee.

  Afterward, I looked at my face in the mirror over the sink. Usually, my features were sharp, all bones and shade, but my weight gain from carrying the baby had filled in the angles. I looked young and soft, something I’d never thought about myself. I smiled, and the tired, violet half-moons under my hazel eyes disappeared. A pinpoint of light glowed in the center of my pupils.

  “Mrs. James Walter Warner,” I whispered. “Mrs. Bud Warner. Florine Warner.”

  As if he had heard me, Bud walked through the front door and whistled his way up the stairs.

  I met him in the hall and blocked him so that he had to pause on the top riser. We stood face-to-face. The residue of beer and cigarettes from his bachelor party clung to his clothing. His eyes shone from the booze. A crooked smile inched up the right side of his face and he gave me a slow wink.

  “Hey,” he whispered.

  “Hey,” I whispered back.

  Bud put his hands on my belly, leaned forward, and gave me a soft kiss. Then he said, “Back up so’s I can get to the bathroom. ’Gansett’s gone right through me.”

  I stepped back to let him pass and I went into the bedroom. I pulled the two window shades down against the night crowding in. I almost split myself apart with a belly-deep yawn and suddenly I was so tired I couldn’t move my arms to take off my clothes.

  Bud came into the bedroom.

  “Will you undress me?” I said.

  Bud grinned. “That’s my girl,” he said.

  He used his gentle, warm hands to tug and pull, unfasten and unhook, as I stood there, drunk with exhaustion and with the way he was touchi
ng me. Soon, I was naked but for my panties, which rested in a soft cotton puddle on top of my feet.

  Bud stepped back and took me in, top to bottom.

  “What?” I said.

  “Just checking out my work,” he said. He stripped down and I got to admire his thin body. When he saw me taking him in, he shyly looked at the floor. “So much for not seeing the bride the night before her wedding,” he mumbled, trying to turn my attention somewhere else. He thought he was too skinny.

  “I like it this way,” I whispered. I took his hands in mine and we looked into each other’s eyes. A rare blush of tenderness wrapped itself around us. No jokes, no rushing to bed, no wisecracks. Bud raised a hand and ran it down my full-moon face. “I love you, Florine,” he said. “Whatever happens, I love you.”

  “I love you too. We’re in this, together.”

  As far as I was concerned, that was our wedding ceremony. The next day would bring the formal vows with everyone cheering us on, particularly my soon-to-be mother-in-law, Ida, who was overjoyed that Bud and I were going legal. But in that moment, I had heard everything I needed to know.

  Bud slipped into bed and I slid in after him. He spooned me and, like that, he fell asleep. The tickle of his breath against my neck was as comforting as a cat’s purr, but as was so often the case these days, I went from sleepy to awake.

  I made the best of the hour I was up by thinking about Bud and me and how we had arrived at this place in our lives. I had loved him before I had even known what that meant. I had grown up on the hill above his place.

  Four houses stood on The Point, houses built on slabs of granite by generations of fishermen almost as tough as that rock. Grand’s house had been the first one built. Daddy’s house stood across the road from it. Dottie’s house set across the road and below Grand’s house, halfway down the hill. Bud’s house hunkered down on a wide level ledge directly above the wharf and beach.

  The Point was one of several fingers of rocky land carved by glaciers and the ceaseless pounding of the North Atlantic. Little harbors, such as the one in The Point, held boats relatively safe from most of the action. Independent types who loved the sea had settled this place. They could have lived in the town of Long Reach, about ten miles up the coast. Life might have been easier that way. But something in their natures chose the elements, and the freedom and challenge of hard work. Daddy, Dottie’s father, Bud’s father, and their ancestors had driven the prows of those boats into the roughshod sea day after day. If nothing else, we were resilient.