Miracle Beach (35 page)

She drove past the wood carvings that dotted the bike trail running along the Old Island Highway—a pelican with sunglasses reclining on a bench, an old man of the sea with a wild beard and fish that seemed to swim in and out of its tendrils, a totem of wolves, a giant eagle holding what she assumed was a salmon in its talons. Some she recognized from years past, their crevasses darkened with salt, wind, and rain. Some held the pale glow of having just been carved at that year’s competition.

She passed Willow Point, where she used to ride with Nash to rent movies, and Stories Beach, where they all went swimming (or in her case, wading) one hot day and lit a fire to cook out over afterward.

In her head Magda knew Nash wasn’t there, but she still felt her eyes scanning the beaches on her left, and the parking lots, yards, and garages on her right. She felt him here.

Magda had forgotten to map her route, but she seemed to be instinctively feeling her way along. Perhaps that was giving herself a little too much credit. After all, the two main roads in Campbell River—the Old Island Highway and the New Island Highway—routes 19 and 19A, respectively—were about the only way one could go south out of town. She had a fifty-fifty chance of getting it right.

By the time Magda turned onto Galley Road—a long, winding dirt road that eventually ended at Macy’s modest ranch home, which seemed out of place next to the immense, immaculate barn that shared the property—the spotty radio signal she had picked up in town had faded, as had that day’s sun.

Magda fiddled with the radio for a second too long and looked up to see a flash of blond curls and pink just off the driver’s side. She veered sharply to the right, coming to rest just inches from a post-and-rail fence that contained four wild-eyed mother horses with babies that were running away from her car as fast as their spindly legs would take them, tails straight in the air like little flags.

Magda turned to find a girl with blond ringlets and jeans with dirt-stained knees standing right where she had veered off, waving her arms wildly.

“Jesus! Watch where you’re going, you crazy ol’ coot!” the girl yelled at her.

But by the time Magda had found the locks (they were manual—something she hadn’t seen in quite some time), gotten the door open, and gotten herself out of the car, the girl was gone. A little flash of white and blond disappearing into the thick woods on the opposite side of the road.

Magda leaned herself up against the rental, still nose-down in the shallow ditch. The horses that had previously run in fear for their lives—and, more specifically, in fear of Magda coming straight through the fence at them (a distinct fear of hers in that split second as well, if she were to be honest)—had seemingly gained confidence and were walking en masse back toward her. Their put-on bravery was betrayed only by their loud snorting and halting steps.

Magda had never understood horses. In addition to their being dirty, she found them to be completely unreasonable. In the time she had spent in their company, mostly thanks to Macy, she had seen horses scared to bits over a blowing leaf, a running child, and a waving hand, respectively. Not to mention that their physical makeup itself unnerved her—all that weight and girth on little sticklike legs. It was unnatural at best. Like a sumo wrestler’s body atop Paris Hilton’s legs. Then God the Creator thought to supersize all those attributes and pair them with a brain the size of a walnut? Usually in awe of all God’s creations and creativity, Magda thought that maybe, when it came to the horse, God might’ve just been having a really, really off day.

And so, it appeared, was she.

Upon inspection of her rental car, she found one long, deep gouge running alongside the passenger-side door, seemingly from a hearty bush located a few feet off the road. And then, when attempting to back out of the ditch, she perhaps used just a wee bit too much force on the gas and bottomed the little car out, snapping something near the rear. The muffler, perhaps? She had no real idea what else might be in danger of coming off on the back end of a car, but it was now too dark to stop and try to figure out what, exactly, that sound could be. So she just shifted into drive and continued up the road, albeit more slowly this time.

Macy and Nash’s house was lit from within, and she could see a shadow moving back and forth past the windows. She could tell it was Macy. The shadow had her height and stature, with hair pulled back into a messy ponytail, as Macy was prone to do. And Magda caught herself, just a second too late, searching for another, bigger and beefier shadow floating beside Macy.

Magda hadn’t thought this through very well. When she had told Jack she wanted to come and meet her granddaughter, she had imagined only how the girl might run up and throw her arms around Magda, or how much she might look like Nash, or even herself and Jack. She had looked forward to burying her nose in the girl’s hair and knowing, intimately, what it smelled like, to buying her books and clothes and ice cream. To taking long walks and talks together on the beach, and to taking her for what would probably be her very first pedicure.

What she had not pictured was the rest of it. Having to greet Macy at the door after their last disastrous conversation, what she’d say—what they might both say. She hadn’t pictured a scenario in which Jack wasn’t there when she arrived, when she’d have to sit in awkward silence at Macy’s kitchen table waiting for him to return from an errand or fishing trip. She hadn’t pictured having to walk up a dark sidewalk with legs wobbling as they were now. She certainly hadn’t pictured all of the ways in which this surprise visit could go horribly wrong.

But she was here, and she wasn’t about to turn around and leave. So Magda raised her fist to the door, took a deep breath, and decided that it was all too late to worry about any of that now.

And there, standing in a slice of light from the now-open door, was the same little girl she had nearly run over. Her granddaughter.

She heard Macy’s voice call out, “Who is it?”

“Worst driver in the entire
world
,” the girl yelled back, leaving the door ajar as she turned and walked away from it.

Magda stood for a moment, contemplating whether she should follow the girl into the house, or knock again. But before she could decide, Macy stood cross-armed in front of her.

“Well, well,” Macy said. “Welcome. We thought you’d be here tomorrow.”

Magda couldn’t have felt more unwelcome.

Macy was already on her way back toward the kitchen. Magda pulled herself up straight and followed.

Even though her eyes were slow to adjust after being thrust from near-darkness into the bright light of Macy’s kitchen, she could clearly see that Jack was not there. Dishes were stacked near the sink. A Tupperware container filled with hunks of steak sat near the refrigerator. A bowl held a wilted-looking salad, half gone. And there was the little girl, sitting at a stool at the island and swinging one leg faster than necessary. But no Jack.

Magda could have kicked herself for catching that night’s ferry instead of laying over in Vancouver, as she had planned. She wished she’d called ahead.

“So, Magda. Nice surprise, you coming to visit, too.” It wasn’t a question. It was a statement. One delivered with edge.

She had always wished that she could be in control with Macy. Be firm with her. And sometimes she could pull it off. Other times, like now, she’d be remiss for not admitting that Macy could be a little intimidating.

“I talked to Jack about it,” Magda said. “I assumed he would fill you in.”

“Oh, he did,” Macy said.

Macy had been wiping dishes dry and tossed the towel onto the counter. She went to work putting the stacked dishes away, leaving Magda standing in a silence that was almost as uncomfortable as their conversation.

“And who is this lovely young lady?” Magda asked, bending at the waist with hands folded between her legs, even though the girl was on a stool and approximately on Magda’s level, and even though Magda knew who she was. She didn’t want to spook Glory by springing on her that she had yet another relative.

Glory rolled her eyes. “Glo-ry,” she said, drawing her name out into two very distinct syllables, as if Magda were hard of hearing, or slow.

Magda fought the urge to roll her eyes in return. The girl needed to learn some manners.

A slow, smug smile crossed Macy’s face. “Glory,” she said, “meet your grandmother.”

“This crazy ol’ coot is my
grandma
?”

Magda fixed Macy with a steely look. She had allowed the girl to become practically feral, running in front of cars and talking that way to adults.

“She’s Nash’s daughter,” Macy said. “Not mine. You can be mad at him.” She laughed.

Magda didn’t see what was so funny. But right then—in the way that the girl jumped down off the stool, wandered to the kitchen table, inspected a peach sitting in a bowl of fruit at the center, and put it back—she saw it. Or, rather, she saw Nash. Magda drew her fingertips to her lips, palm toward her face. Her mouth made the shape of an “O,” but no sound escaped.

“Glory, why don’t you show your grandmom to the back porch. I think she’d probably like to talk to Jack.”

“Right this way,” Glory said, a miniature maître d’, motioning for Magda to follow her.

It wasn’t Magda’s first time in the house, and the house wasn’t big enough to warrant a guide even if it had been. But she dutifully followed Glory.

As Glory slid aside the glass door and waved Magda through, things snapped into focus. In an instant she took it all in, even as her eyes were adjusting. The cigar. The laughter. The woman sitting precariously close to Jack. Her hand on his knee.

“Magda?”

Before Magda could take a closer look—make sure she really had seen what she thought she had—Jack stood up.

“Magda? You weren’t supposed to be here until tomorrow.”

Magda saw the woman, whose hand had been resting on Jack’s knee, look from Jack to Magda and back to Jack. Then the woman put both hands on Glory’s shoulders and pushed her toward the door. “Let’s get you in a bath and to bed, little one,” she said.

Glory protested, but the woman’s hands were fast and firm on Magda’s granddaughter’s shoulders, and soon it was just Magda and Jack on the porch.

“My flight was early, of all things. I made the last ferry. I—I didn’t want to bother anyone having to come and get me. Or . . . interrupt anything.”

Jack motioned for Magda to sit across from him. It didn’t escape her that there was plenty of room right next to him, where that other woman had been sitting moments before.

Magda stood where she was. “Maybe this wasn’t such a great idea,” she said. She felt on the verge of losing her composure.

Jack laughed. “Magda, you haven’t ‘interrupted’ anything.”

She let out a deep breath.

“Listen. It’s just that . . . Look, I’m glad you’re here. I am. And I’m glad we’re going to have a chance to spend some time with Glory and to sit down and chat some. But”—he raised a nearly empty rocks glass in his hand and shook it—“I’m afraid I’ve probably had one too many of these tonight. And it’s getting late and I’m tired. Tomorrow’s just as good a time as any to say whatever needs saying, or do whatever needs doing.”

She just nodded, staring down at her hands clasped tight in her lap.

“Where are you staying?”

“I—” She looked up at Jack, surprised. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t have a reservation anywhere?”

“No. I was hoping that I—I mean, that we—that I could, you know, stay with you, maybe.” She was talking to her husband of forty years, and felt as though she were propositioning a one-night stand. An intimacy that had taken decades to develop had disappeared so quickly.

“Sorry, sweet cheeks,” Jack said. “That’s not going to work.”

Magda’s face flushed red and hot in the dark. “Because of . . .” Magda looked in the direction the woman had gone. Jack followed her gaze.

“No, Magda. Because I’m living on a boat, and it’s pretty tight quarters.”

“A
boat
? But why? What kind of boat? Whose is it? Where?”

“It’s a sailboat. It’s mine. And right now, she’s docked in a marina down the road from here.”

“She?” Magda said. “Oh, my.”

Jack mistook her befuddlement for wonder. “Wait till you see her. She’s a real beauty. Be-a-u-ty!”

“Uh-huh,” Magda said.

“How about this: There’s a little B and B between here and the marina. They still had a vacancy sign out when I headed here for dinner. How about I drop you off there, we’ll both get a good night’s sleep, and then I’ll pick you up for lunch tomorrow, just the two of us. Then we can pick up Glory and cart her around for the afternoon.”

“But I have a car here,” Magda said.

“Well, you can follow me to the B and B, then. We’ll get you settled in, and the rest of the offer stands as is. Whaddaya say?”

Magda nodded and stood.

They said good night to Macy and started down the front walkway. Just before they reached their cars, Magda said, “So, Glory?”

“Oh, she’s something, isn’t she? Just wait until you get to know her, Magda. She is one amazing little girl.”

“So it’s for real? You’re sure?”

“It’s for real, all right. Didn’t you see her? That little blond-haired spitfire is our flesh and blood. How do you like that?”

Magda fished the keys from her purse, unlocked the driver’s-side door, and stopped.

“I’m still figuring it all out,” she said.

 

“Do you have another location—one on the water?” Magda asked the man behind the counter.

“No.”

He was counting change into the till and hadn’t even looked up at her.

“Excuse me,” Magda said, waving at him in an attempt to draw his gaze. “Excuse me, but are you certain?”

“Yes.”

“Well, my husband asked me to meet him here—at Duke’s, the fish place. But he said it was on the water.”