Last Light over Carolina Page 3

  Moving down the stairs, she paused at a photograph of herself and Bud aboard the Miss Carolina on the day he brought their shiny new trawler to Jeremy Creek. Oh, what a gloriously happy day that was! The mayor had made a short speech. She reached out to touch the glass, remembering again her dream.

  Beside this was a photograph of their only child. Lizzy was smiling brightly in her third-grade school photo. Lizzy hated the picture because she thought she looked dorky in her uniform, her pale freckles, and her crooked ponytail. Carolina loved it because she saw shining in Lizzy’s eyes an innocence and an unshakable belief that she was special and could be anything she wanted when she grew up.

  “Mama, are you all right?”

  Carolina started and her eyes darted over to see Lizzy standing at the bottom of the stairs.

  “Girl, you scared me!”

  The child had grown into an attractive woman. Once again in a makeshift uniform, Lizzy wore a black T-shirt and jeans for her job as a waitress at a local restaurant. Her strawberry blond hair was pulled back into a ponytail. Searching her face, Carolina wondered what had happened to that light in her little girl’s eyes.

  “Mama?”

  “I’m fine,” Carolina replied with a wave of her hand.

  “You don’t look fine,” Lizzy said, her brows knit in concern. “You look kind of pale and you’re still in your pajamas. It’s not like you to dawdle in the morning.”

  “Daddy didn’t wake me because this tooth’s been bothering me. I didn’t sleep well last night.”

  “You haven’t slept well in weeks. Mama, go to the dentist!”

  “I know, and I will,” Carolina replied, walking down the stairs. “hough how we’ll pay for it, I don’t know.”

  “We’ll manage. We always do.” Lizzy wrapped her arm around her mother. “Come on,” she said gently. “I made coffee.”

  “Mmm…I can smell it.” Carolina searched her daughter’s face, interpreting her mood. At twenty-seven, Lizzy was still young, but she had an aura of worn-out resignation that was beyond her years. That came, Carolina knew, from having her girlish dreams stripped away by a failed marriage and the responsibilities of having to work and raise a child on her own. She placed a kiss on her daughter’s cheek.

  “What was that for?” Lizzy asked with a surprised smile.

  “Can’t a mother kiss her daughter for no reason?”

  Lizzy cast her a puzzled look, then, shaking her head, hurried back into the kitchen to the oven. The heavy iron door creaked as it fell open, releasing a steamy waft of cinnamon into the air. Carolina thought of how Bud liked to call the kitchen the pilothouse of the home.

  Lizzy had moved in with them soon after her divorce from Josh Truesdale. Will had been a toddler and Lizzy needed support. That was a sad, roller-coaster time of tears, recrimination, and blame for all of them. Carolina still felt that the words flung and sins committed then remained unforgiven. But they’d survived.

  The one joy from all that pain was William Morrison Truesdale. Her eight-year-old grandson was sitting at the table, dressed in his school uniform and shoveling eggs into his mouth.

  “Morning, Will,” she said, planting a kiss on her grandson’s cheek. In the nook of his neck he smelled of soap and something that she could only call ambrosia.

  “Morning, Nana,” he said, then squirmed when she kissed his neck.

  “Cupcakes are done,” Lizzy called out.

  “I want one!” Will waved his hand.

  “Just one. They’re for school. Mama, would you frost them for me after they cool?”

  “Sure.” Carolina stepped back to go straight for the coffee, opening the wood cabinet and pulling out a thick pottery mug.

  “Want one?” Lizzy asked her mother.

  “They smell great. Maybe later,” she replied, pouring coffee.

  “Be sure to eat something before you take one of those pain pills.”

  “I know.” Carolina rolled her eyes.

  ‘I’m just saying—’

  “Okay, okay….” Carolina nodded, then took a sip of coffee. Almost instantly she could feel her woozy mind sharpen as caffeine flowed through her veins. Fishing families liked their coffee strong. Carolina’s devotion to her morning brew was a family joke. Once Lizzy had tried to fool her and served her decaffeinated coffee in the morning. An hour later, when Carolina complained of feeling sluggish and headachy, Lizzy had confessed to the ruse. Carolina wasn’t sure if her addiction to coffee could be called a vice or not, but if it was, it was one she could live with.

  Will lifted his empty glass. “I want some milk.”

  “Be polite if you expect anyone to help you,” Carolina admonished.

  “Please!” he shouted in an exaggerated tone.

  Pulling out the gallon jug, she noticed that the sandwich lunch she’d packed for Bud was still on the shelf. And the beer was gone.

  “Your father left without breakfast, and now he’ll miss lunch,” she said to no one in particular.

  “Pee Dee will cook him up something,” Lizzy replied from the oven.

  “He did say he was coming back early today,” Carolina acknowledged.

  Lizzy looked out the window. “Good. They say a storm’s coming.”

  Carolina felt a shudder run down her spine. She shook it off as a remnant of her dream and muttered, “He knows what he’s doing. He’ll be fine.” She turned to her grandson. “Will, sit your bottom down in your chair and stop jumping around or you’ll spill your milk.”

  “I wish I could go out on the boat with Papa Bud instead of going to school,” Will groaned, slipping down into the wooden chair.

  “You can get that idea right out of your head. You’re going to school, and that’s that,” Lizzy said, bringing a cupcake and setting it down on the plate in front of Will beside the remnants of scrambled eggs. “For a long time, too, so get used to it.”

  “Aw, Mama, I don’t want to.”

  “That’s too bad, because you’re going all the way through college.”

  Will slumped in his chair and set his chin into his palm like he’d been handed a death sentence. “I don’t want to go to no college. I’m going to be a shrimper when I grow up, just like Papa Bud and my daddy.”

  “Over my dead body,” Lizzy shot back, flipping the rest of the cupcakes out. She tossed the cupcake tin into the big farmer’s sink.

  “Lizzy, let the boy have his dreams.”

  “I do let him dream,” she said defensively. “He can dream about being a doctor or a lawyer or an Indian chief. But not about that. I want more for my son than working on a boat.”

  Will frowned. “Aren’t you happy, Mama?”

  Lizzy exchanged a loaded glance with Carolina.

  “Sure, I’m happy.” She bent down closer to Will. “I’m happy I have you! And Nana and Papa.”

  “And Daddy?”

  Lizzy’s brows furrowed, and she rose and went to the sink. With a twist of her wrist, she turned on the faucet.

  “Daddy said he’d take me out on the boat.”

  “No. It’s too dangerous out there for a boy your age. You could be knocked overboard and I’d lose you forever.”

  “Papa Bud takes Skipper out all the time.”

  “Skipper is two years older than you. But if you ask me, he still shouldn’t go out.”

  “But, Mama—”

  Lizzy stiffened. “I said no!”

  “Will, honey,” said Carolina. “Why don’t you go on upstairs with your cupcake and find your shoes. You’re going to be late for school.”

  Will cast his grandmother a look that told her he knew when he was being shuffled out of the room. “Yes, ma’am.” Grabbing his cupcake, he dragged himself from his chair. Carolina waited till she heard his footsteps climb the stairs.

  “He’s a smart little boy,” she told Lizzy.

  “Too smart. Please tell Daddy to stop offering to take him out on the boat. He knows I don’t like it.”

  “I will. But, honey, he’s a M
orrison. You can’t keep him off the water. Or from his daddy.”

  Lizzy lowered her shoulders.

  “Smart as he is,” Carolina continued, “he’s got to be confused. You’ve been seeing a lot of Josh since he came back to town. Going out to dinner, taking walks. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were courting.”

  “I’m only trying to be nice. After all, he is the father of my child.”

  “Uh-huh,” Carolina said, carrying Will’s dirty dishes to the sink and dumping them into the hot water. “And that’s all?”

  Lizzy began scrubbing the tin.

  “If I’m wondering,” Carolina said, “you’ve got to know your son is, too. And what’s more, he’s hopeful.”

  Lizzy stopped scrubbing and turned to face her mother, her face forlorn. “I know. I can see it in his eyes and it near kills me. His face lights up when Josh walks into the room. And he’s always asking if we’re going to be a family again. Pleading is more like it.” She tossed the sponge into the sink. It landed with a noisy splash. “I don’t see why he cares. I mean, he doesn’t hardly know Josh.”

  “He knows he’s his daddy. That’s enough for a boy.”

  “It’s not enough for me to marry him again.”

  “Of course not.” Carolina grabbed a towel from the counter, picked up the tin, and began drying it. “Why? Is Josh asking you to get married again?”

  “Not in so many words. But he wants us to spend more time together, and I can see where it’s all heading.”

  Finished with the tin, Carolina folded the towel neatly into thirds, forming her words. “And what do you want?”

  “I don’t know what I want,” Lizzy replied soberly. “But I know what I don’t want.”

  Carolina looked up, narrowing her eyes so as not to miss any innuendo.

  “I don’t want to be a shrimper’s wife. I’m done with that life.”

  “It’s the life I chose.”

  “That was your decision,” she snapped back. “I’m never getting up at four in the morning to cook grits for a man again.”

  Carolina suddenly felt so much older, so much wiser than Lizzy. Calmly, she asked, “What if you love the man and he’s a shrimper?”

  “Then I’ll just have to find myself another man to love.”

  That sounded so naïve. As if one could direct the heart, Carolina thought. “Lizzy, honey, the heart doesn’t work that way. First, there’s the matter of commitment. Second, you can’t pick who you’re going to love.”

  Lizzy’s face fell, and she said softly, “Maybe not. But I can pick who I’m going to marry. Burn me once, shame on you. Burn me twice, shame on me.”

  “Is that why you’re dating Ben Mitchell?”

  “Ben’s a good man. Smart. From a good family. And he has a steady job with a good salary. I’m looking at my future. Will’s future. I want a man who can provide for Will, give him a nice life. What’s wrong with wanting security?”

  “I suppose there’s nothing wrong with that.”

  “You say that but you don’t mean it. Mama, I have to decide what’s going to make me happy.”

  “Are you thinking of marrying Ben?”

  Lizzy threw up her hands with an exasperated sigh. “Why do you always have to see things in terms of my getting married!”

  “I was just wondering, is all.”

  “Well, don’t. It makes me mad.”

  “I don’t see why. I’m your mother. It’s my job to wonder. After all, Lizzy, you have been dating Ben for a while now.”

  “One year.”

  “I was engaged to your father before six months was up.”

  Lizzy rolled her eyes. “Please spare me the story of how you took one look at him and knew he was the one.”

  “But I did. It was Cupid’s arrow, straight to the heart.”

  “Mama,” Lizzy said, turning around.

  Carolina’s smile fell at her daughter’s change in tone. Lizzy’s eyes moistened and her lower lip trembled.

  “Don’t you know it’s hurtful to me to hear you tell that story? It makes me worry that if I don’t feel that, then I haven’t found the right one. Maybe it’s not like that for everyone. Did you ever think of that? Maybe the rest of us have to settle for good enough.”

  “Never settle,” Carolina said. “Not with love. It’s hard enough to make a go of it.”

  Lizzy turned away.

  Carolina pursed her lips. She’d never meant to be hurtful. She’d always thought her story would shine like a beacon for her daughter, so she’d know such things could happen. So she’d not sell herself short. At some point since her divorce, the light in Lizzy’s eyes had dimmed. Carolina only wanted her daughter to be happy.

  “I seem to recall you telling me you felt that way about Josh when you first met him.”

  “I was eighteen. I got married right out of high school. You should’ve stopped me.”

  “Darlin’, there was no stopping you. Your mind was made up.”

  “I was a fool.”

  “Oh, Lizzy,” she sighed. “You were in love. You just were so young. Both of you.”

  “What did I know about love? About life? I should’ve gone to college.”

  Carolina bit her tongue. Oh, the fights they’d had back then over that very subject. Carolina had begged Lizzy to wait, to go to college, but she wouldn’t. Lizzy could be strong-willed, like her. She was hell-bent on marrying Josh. Bud often said that the apple didn’t fall far from the tree.

  “Lizzy, you still can go to college, if you want.”

  “Oh, yeah? How, Mama? How can I afford to go to college?” Her voice grew strident. “I haven’t one dime to rub against another. And I’ve got Will to take care of. Josh is struggling to make his child-support payments, and you know this summer’s shrimping is bad. He can barely keep the boat afloat, and I can’t afford to get my own place on what I make waiting tables. I’m twenty-seven years old and I’m still living with my parents. So tell me, how can I go to college?”

  Carolina looked into her daughter’s eyes and saw the desperation of a trapped animal. Once Bud had caught a raccoon in the attic with a Havahart trap. He’d carried that critter out to the back, intending to kill it. Lizzy was nearly hysterical begging her daddy to let it go somewhere far off, and in the end, Bud had relented.

  Lizzy’s plight was common enough in their community. Folks were hanging on to their jobs and houses by their nails. Shrimp boat captains were juggling days at sea with “off-boat” jobs. Wives worked, too. Often two jobs to make ends meet.

  Carolina had always worked. She’d been a deckhand for Bud, then the office manager for the Coastal Seafood Company, and when that ended she went back to teaching at the local primary school. On the side she did the books for Bud’s business and babysat for Will so Lizzy could work. In a stroke of bad timing, right before this school year began she’d been laid off from her job as a teacher. She was on the list of substitutes and she’d been looking for work elsewhere, but jobs were scarce.

  Her face flushed as she absentmindedly rubbed her aching jaw. “Things will be all right, don’t worry. I’ve got an interview tomorrow. There’s a new housecleaning service in Pawleys Island.”

  “I’m sorry, Mama,” Lizzy said softly. “I didn’t mean—”

  “No, of course not.”

  The words they were exchanging sounded false in her ears, just meaningless platitudes to avoid hurt feelings. Carolina was confident she’d find a job. Hard work never frightened her. Her worry was that at some fundamental level, she’d failed as a wife and mother.

  “What I mean to say is,” Carolina said, looking at her daughter with deliberation, “we’ll find a way if you want to go to college. I could sell the house.”

  Lizzy’s eyes widened slightly. Everyone knew what White Gables meant to Carolina. “No. It’s too late for me. But my boy is going to college, that’s for sure. He’s not going to grow up to be a shrimper like his daddy.”

  Carolina wanted to scream at her tha
t she was still young, with so many possibilities, that she had to stop thinking her life was over. She wished she could tell her daughter that a day would come when her son was grown and she’d feel old and worn-out and wish she were twenty-seven again. But she didn’t, knowing that was a wisdom earned only through experience.

  “Ah, Lizzy, as long as Will grows up to be a good man, that’s all I care about.”

  “Like I said—”

  “Josh has changed. He’s going to church regular, and I hear he doesn’t drink anymore.”

  “Oh, yes, he’s a God-fearing man now,” Lizzy added with sarcasm.

  Carolina cringed at the harshness in Lizzy’s tone. “It can happen. We prayed it would.”

  “Maybe.” Lizzy shrugged, then said more sincerely, “I hope so. For his sake. I care about him…loved him once. But he’s still a shrimper, and I’m not going back to that life.”

  “Here we go again.”

  “Mama, don’t pretend you don’t know how hard it is to live with a man who’s gone from before the sun rises till after the sun sets. Then when he’s home again, he’s too tired from working like a slave under the hot sun all day to talk. Josh would just sit there like a zombie and his eyes would be all red and he’d barely have enough strength to shovel food into his mouth. Most nights he’d fall asleep in front of the TV. He’d never even say good night.”

  Carolina knew Lizzy was blending the histories of both Bud and Josh. “He’d have to be up again before four,” Carolina said in both men’s defense.

  “Oh, I know that. But it doesn’t change anything. It didn’t get any better when the season was finally over. What did they do? They packed up the boat and followed the shrimp to Florida. We wouldn’t see them for months at a time, and we both know they were up to no good down there.”

  “Lizzy,” Carolina said tersely. “Don’t go back there.”

  “You asked me, so I’m just telling you. We both did it—stayed home, keeping house, minding a child, working our jobs, looking out the window, waiting on them to return. Some life.” She dried her hands with the towel, then tossed it back onto the counter. “Thanks, but no thanks.”