The Bookshop at Water's End Read online

  “Sometimes we tell our stories and sometimes our stories tell us,” Mimi said and leaned closer like she does.

  “What does that even mean?” She exasperated me sometimes, like a confusing puzzle that might show me something interesting if I took the time to finish it.

  “So, why did you fail out of school when I can tell, right here, right now, that you are one of the smartest people I’ve come to know in all my years?”

  I bristled, just as I did when Ryan told me that I was gaining weight or that my hair was too frizzy—he was good at pointing out those things that so easily go wrong, those things that mean I am wrong. Anger rose in a short burst of heat. “I failed because I hated it there. Hated every single thing about it.”

  “There.” Mimi smiled. “You told your story by failing instead of by saying, ‘I hate it here and I’m miserable.’”

  “Oh.” There are clicks inside when things make sense, like one of those old twirler locks on our school lockers. “I get it.”

  “But you can’t make your mom or Lainey or anyone else tell their story.” Mimi scrunched her nose in that little way of hers. “Some things can only be told by those who are living it.”

  “Well, I get that and all, but they better tell or it’s going to tell them—like the clouds coming in with a storm fast behind.”

  “But it’s not your storm,” Mimi said.

  “Maybe, but it is if I’m sitting on the porch when it gets here,” I said.

  “Well, then, dear, you are right about that.” Mimi laughed and stood. “Then I guess the best you can do is take cover.”

  The tinkling bell announced a new customer and I heard Ava say, “Hi, Fletch. How are you? How may I help you?” in a parody of Mimi, a young voice imitating an old one with such accuracy. Mimi threw me a knowing look and headed downstairs.

  I closed the book and headed down the stairway myself, meeting Fletch, who was climbing up. At the stairway’s curve we bumped into each other and both laughed, but uncomfortably, at that unexpected skin-on-skin contact. He took a step backward and gazed at me. “Guess you’re ready to run those deliveries with me?”

  With sudden impulsivity, I leaned forward and pressed my hands onto his shoulders and then I kissed him. “I’m ready,” I said.

  He steadied himself with one hand on the banister and one on the wall. I backed away and stood one step up, giving me the couple inches I needed to be face-to-face with him.

  “Almost falling down Mimi’s crooked stairs is a small price to pay for your kiss,” he said.

  I waved my hand. “So full of malarkey.” I borrowed one of Mimi’s words and imitated her voice as I shooed him down the stairs. “Now let’s get to work.”

  His laugh sounded like his kiss tasted—warm and comforting with a little bit of adventure hidden inside.

  “So I have a favor to ask,” I said as I climbed into his now familiar Jeep.

  “Which is?”

  “Can I bring George with us? Lainey wants to take Daisy to the paint-your-pottery place and George would be a nightmare there.”

  “Lainey’s okay with him in the Jeep?”

  “As long as I buckle his car booster seat thing, she’s fine.”

  “Car booster seat thing. Whatever that is, it sounds complicated.”

  “It’s okay. We don’t have to take him . . .”

  “Piper, I’m kidding. Let’s bring him.”

  Fletch’s jam-band music played during the ride out to Mr. Seaton’s house, where we left the deliveries in a cooler on the front porch, and then we were on to Loretta’s house again. I peeked behind me to see that George’s smile never once left his little round red face. He bobbed his head to the music and opened his mouth to the wind of the open-air ride. He spread his hands out like he was flying and laughed at nothing and everything.

  In Loretta’s driveway I unbuckled his six thousand buckles and he bounded out and ran for the garden. “Wait,” I hollered.

  George looked over his shoulder and laughed as if I’d told him to fly or do any other impossible task. He reached the sunflower garden before I could catch up to him. His small body disappeared into the tall stalks. I reached the edge of the flowerbed and crouched to spy his little bare legs. “George,” I said. “This isn’t our house. You can’t just run into her flowers.”

  “Oh, yes, he absolutely can.” Loretta’s voice came from behind me and I turned around.

  “Hi, Ms. Loretta.” A hot, blushing embarrassment filled my face. There I was, I barely knew her, and the unruly child ran into something she’d worked so hard to make nice.

  George popped out of the garden and held his hands to the sky, to the flowers’ tops. “They are so big.”

  “I thought it would be fun to take him for a ride in the Jeep and then run on the empty beach. I didn’t mean for him to bother you,” I said to Loretta and took George’s hand in mine.

  Loretta bent her knees and placed her hands, wrinkled and freckled, on them. Her hair was loose and it caught in the wind, silver and tousled. “Are you George?” she asked.

  “Yes, I am,” he said and stared at her with squinted eyes and intense focus.

  She stood and smiled at me. “I heard you hollering at him. I thought something bad was going on out here, but it’s actually something wonderful.”

  “I’m sorry if we disturbed you.” Apologies poured out of me, another and another.

  “Oh, darling,” she said, sounding just like Mimi. “There is no reason for apologies. What great fun this is.” She took a few steps closer to the garden and George shook free of my hand and followed her.

  Loretta reached the edge of the sunflowers and wrapped her hand around a thick bright green stalk, then bent and twisted until it broke free. The flower’s stem, two feet tall, dangled with ripped green fibers, and Loretta handed it to George.

  His tiny hands wound their way around the stalk and he held it close. “This is mine?”

  “Yes, it is,” Loretta said. “All yours. Sunflowers are rumored to bring you good luck, and their little faces”—Loretta touched the dark inside of the flower—“always follow the sun.”

  “Well, because they look like the sun,” George said. He brought it closer to his face and rubbed the yellow petals across his cheek. “Thank you.” His voice was suddenly deep and grown-up. Then he stepped closer to Loretta and whispered, “What does ‘rumored’ mean?”

  She laughed and crouched to face him again. “It just means that ‘some people say.’ So some people say that sunflowers bring you good luck.”

  “Then you must be the luckiest old lady in the whole world.” He pointed at her garden. “You have one million of them.”

  “I am the luckiest old lady in the whole world,” she said and ruffled his hair.

  Old lady. God, Fletch was never going to let me run errands with him again.

  When she stood to face me, her eyes were moist with tears, and I knew he’d hurt her feelings. I should have left him at home . . . I should have . . .

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  “Yes, dear. I’m completely fine. Sometimes we cry a little bit when we’re happy.”

  “You’re happy?” I asked, feeling the train of my thoughts switch tracks. I glanced at Fletch, who was carrying the cooler and grocery bags into the house.

  Loretta’s gaze followed mine. “Seems as if there is something that makes you happy, too.” She winked at me and it made me laugh. And maybe turn a little pink.

  “George,” I said, “let’s help Fletch bring in the groceries and put them away.”

  “Can I keep this?” he asked, clutching the flower tighter and drawing it closer to his body.

  “Yes, you can,” Loretta said. “It’s all yours.”

  Inside, George sat at her table covered in fabrics and ribbons. While Fletch and I stashed her deliveries and ch
atted about the upcoming summer concert, she dug out some art supplies from a kitchen drawer and set them before George. “I always keep these around for my friend’s grandchildren.”

  No one rushed to leave and Loretta poured us all a glass of lemonade. We leaned against her counter and talked of nothing at all while soft music—fifties crooners—played from a radio on the kitchen counter and the sun fell in honey-colored puddles across the table where George colored and ate frozen grapes covered in sugar. His flower rested on his lap and he bit his lower lip in concentration as he attempted to re-create it with colored pencils on thick white paper.

  Maybe his flower would bring us all good luck, or maybe it already had.

  chapter 23

  BONNY BLANKENSHIP

  The Watersend Summer Block Party was already in full swing when we arrived. The police cars, lights blazing, blocked off Main Street, and music blasted on the street. Daisy and George clung to Piper’s hands, one on each side. They’d attached to her like barnacles, always running next to her and keeping her within their sight. Sometimes it felt more like they were watching her instead of her watching them. I carried a cooler with homemade lemonade—one Thermos for the kids and one (adult version) for Lainey and me. When we walked past the silent flashing police lights, I turned my head away, but still the strobes flashed against the palmetto trees and pink-tinged sea grass. My heart thudded in double time.

  “You okay?” Lainey asked.

  “I hate it,” I said. “Flashing lights make me feel queasy. It brings back that night in the ER and I don’t know how to stop the panic that comes with it.”

  “How can I help?” she said.

  “Nothing you can do about it.”

  “What if there is? I can teach you some meditation skills and there are some crystals that are really grounding for this kind of thing.”

  “Listen, I’ll take a lit stick of incense and put it up my nose if it would help. Anything. Honestly. But I think it just has to pass.”

  Lainey tossed her arm over my shoulder and laughed. “No. I know you’re the doctor and all, but panic doesn’t just pass. You have to get it out of your body. Do something to get it out.”

  “Well, I’ll do whatever it takes. When they say I can return to my job, I won’t be able to go back to it if I freeze at flashing lights and blaring sirens.”

  “We’ve got time. Deep breath, my friend.”

  “God, Lainey, do you know how many times I’ve said that to patients freaking out? And not even believing it would help but just to say it.”

  “Well, now it’s your turn, Doc. Do it.”

  We entered the tent, where Piper had already found an empty picnic table and dropped the kids’ toys and coloring books on top to save it. Wildflowers filled vases on every table and exposed lightbulbs strung under the tent lent a festive atmosphere, like a wedding reception for the town itself. A wooden dance floor—just pieces of plywood laid end to end—was empty. The single guitar player sang a James Taylor song that hadn’t yet brought out the dancing crowd.

  Piper stood at the picnic table grinning at the stage and I glanced at the singer. “Oh, that’s that boy from the Market.”

  “Fletch,” she said.

  “He’s really good,” I told her.

  “Yes, he is.”

  “So much for Ryan.”

  “Way to mention his name, Mom. Perfect.”

  “As usual, not quite as funny as I meant to be.”

  Daisy pulled at Piper’s T-shirt. “Come on, let’s do the face painting, Piper,” Daisy whined. Piper rolled her eyes and took George’s hand as the three of them hustled off to the face painter in the far corner.

  I should have known better. I know how just a single name can throw me off balance. And there I’d gone and tossed out Ryan’s name as if I didn’t know the pain Piper felt. Lainey sat at the table, unscrewed our Thermos and poured the spiked lemonade into two plastic glasses. We toasted, “Here’s to us.”

  The tent slowly filled, family by family, until every picnic table was full and another couple sat at the end of ours, too intent on each other to notice us. “Do you miss Tim?” I asked Lainey with a slight nod to the nuzzling couple.

  “All the time,” she said. “But I also really want to be here, and I’m happy here and the kids are having such a great time. So it’s mixed.”

  “It’s nice that you can miss him without being miserable.”

  Up on the stage, Fletch was introducing the upcoming band and we both paused to watch him. “Do you miss Lucas at all?” she finally asked.

  “Not even one second. I miss the idea of our family.” I pointed at a young family seated at the table next to us. “And I miss what I wanted it to be, but I don’t miss him at all. Lainey, he never wanted me. He wanted the image of what he wanted me to be. I was . . . never enough for him. It’s such a disheartening, sinking feeling that each time I dwell on it, I feel like I’m falling.”

  “God, that makes me so sad. You”—she leaned forward and took my hand—“are a wonder. You are a bright light and a full heart. You are enough and more all the time. I don’t get why you even stayed this long if that’s true.”

  “Family.”

  “Yes, that. I get that.”

  A high screech emanated from the stage and we both covered our ears as the sound system malfunctioned. A quick panic rose and settled in my chest. Just a microphone. Just a microphone.

  I glanced toward the far wall, where the sweet aroma of barbecue flowed toward us. “Remember Billy’s?” I asked. “Your dad went there at least three times a week to bring back ribs. He was obsessed.”

  “I do.” Lainey took in a long breath as Piper returned with the kids. Daisy’s face was orange and black, a lion, she told us. George’s face was black and white, a panda.

  Lainey drew her children close to her and squeezed them tight. “My little animals. I always knew you were wild.”

  “Mommy,” Daisy said, “come make animal balloons with us. Come on.”

  When they’d reached the far side of the tent, where the clown made balloons into animals and flowers and dogs on a leash, Piper sat next to me. “They are exhausting. But adorable.”

  She reached for my glass and I held my hand over it. “Nope.”

  She laughed. “I tried.” Then she pointed across the room. “Mimi’s here. And I think she has a beau.”

  “How sweet,” I said.

  “I’m getting us all some food.” Piper stood up and walked away as the band started to warm up, a clashing sound of guitars, violins and a keyboard. We settled into the music and Piper returned with a plate of barbecue and Fletch by her side. Mimi headed our way with a tall, gray-haired man. Something about the way he moved and the color of his hair brought the panic bird to life and its wings flapped against my ribs, trying to get out. Nicholas Rohr.

  Of course this man looked nothing like him, other than that he was tall and gray haired, but I’d never even seen Nicholas stand. He’d never stand again. I closed my eyes and took a long, deep breath. Held it for four and exhaled slowly. When I opened my eyes Mimi stood in front of me. “Darling, are you okay?”

  I nodded and stood. “Oh, yes.”

  “I want you to meet my friend Harrington.”

  “Nice to meet you,” the man said and reached out his hand. My breath caught below my chest as he took my hand, and then I knew why: it wasn’t this gray-haired man who had set the bird to flight; it was Lucas. He stood five feet away, watching me, and my peripheral vision must have seen him and known. My body knew before I did.

  I rudely dropped Harrington’s hand without a word of greeting. Mimi and he glanced at each other and stood by silently as Lucas approached the table and faced me.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked in a voice so quiet I felt I hadn’t spoken at all.

  “Dad,” Piper said and moved a
step away from Fletch.

  He greeted her first with a hug and then turned to me. “I need to talk to you.”

  “Nothing good ever begins with ‘I need to talk to you,’” I said.

  “You’re right.”

  He took my arm and led me away from Mimi and Harrington. Piper took one step forward and one back. “Dad, don’t.”

  “Bonny?” Mimi asked.

  “It’s okay,” I said.

  But it wasn’t. It wasn’t at all.

  “How did you . . . know where I was?”

  “I saw the festival as I drove in, and when I found the house empty, I assumed . . .”

  “Got it.” I held up my hands as I backed away. “I don’t want to talk about us now or here.”

  “Well, you don’t have much choice, now, do you? I’m here to give you these.” He held out two manila file folders I hadn’t noticed in his hand. “The first are the papers I’m serving you for divorce. The second are contracts to sell the house. I already put it on the market. The MLS listing goes up tomorrow.”

  “What?” Which was what patients said to me when they understood me but didn’t want to hear the diagnosis.

  “I think you heard me. And I told you this would happen if you left. This is obviously what you want. So here.” He held out the folders, but I didn’t lift my hand to take them. A breeze came by to join us and my sundress lifted and billowed around me like a parachute. I pressed on my dress and refused the folders. “No.”

  “It’s what you wanted,” he said. “So take them.”

  It was what I’d wanted, of course. But not with an ambush. I shook my head and then his lecture began—the long and arduous one about my lack of commitment and wasted money and not answering the phone. And it all ended with an assumption that I would have, by now, gotten over this ridiculous notion that staying the summer in an old family home would help me. It appeared, to Lucas, that I was beyond help.

  “You ran away, Bonny. Now you’ll have to learn words like ‘summons’ and ‘complaint’ and there are financial worksheets and affidavits . . .”