Firefly Beach (31 page)

“Watch your mouth, tough guy,” Joe said, calmly prying Simon’s fingers off Skye’s arm.

Simon was high. Skye could see it in his eyes. They glittered with violent rage, but he was too shocked by the rebuke to reply.

“Well, thank you,” Augusta said properly, restoring decorum to the situation. “For helping my daughter. Mr.—?”

“Joe Connor,” he said.

The name hung in the air.

“Connor?” Augusta asked.

“Yes,” he said.

“Connor.” Augusta repeated the word, the cold truth dawning in her eyes.

“That’s right.”

“Not James Connor’s son?” Augusta asked with disbelief.

“Yes. He was my father.” Joe sounded tougher than ever, as if he were ready for a fight. The anger was back in his eyes. Caroline stepped forward, trying to head off the confrontation, but Joe looked past her.

“Good God,” Augusta said, her eyes filling with pain.

“Mrs. Renwick,” Sam Trevor said, drawing himself up to his full height. He adopted the tone of peacemaker, firm but kind. “The past is the past. You have great daughters, we’re just getting to know each other. Joe and I are friends of Caroline’s. She invited us here.”

“I did, Mom,” Caroline said kindly. “Please, they’re my friends…”

Augusta gave her a strange look, as if she had just betrayed the family and did not even realize it. She glanced at Sam, trying to make sense of what he had just said. Then she put her hand on Caroline’s wrist.

“Do you remember what happened? I know you do…how terrible it was. His father hurt us all so badly. Please, walk away with me. Right now.”

“Mom, listen,” Caroline said, throwing a look at Joe, stepping forward to stop her mother from going on.

“To what?” Augusta asked desperately. “Words don’t matter. They can’t take away all the damage he did. I was a mother with young children, and he came into our house to kill us.”

“But he didn’t, Mom,” Caroline pleaded.

“Murder in his heart,” Augusta said.

“That’s my father you’re talking about,” Joe said, holding her gaze.

“Your father…” Augusta said.

“Joe,” Sam said calmly.

“I’m sorry he threatened your daughters. But I can’t have you talking about him that way. Do you understand?”

“What I understand,” Augusta said shakily, “is that I don’t want you anywhere near my daughter.”

“Come on, Sam,” Joe said, turning.

“Joe, hang on, man,” Sam said, still thinking there was a chance for peace.

Joe kept walking. He did not apologize to Augusta. He did not say good-bye to Clea and Peter, did not wait for his brother. He did not throw Simon a final look of disdain. He did not remind Skye of what he had said earlier. But mainly, even through Skye’s drunken haze she could see he did not say good-bye to Caroline.

Caroline watched him go. Her hand on her breast, darkly elegant with her hair upswept and her white dress wrapping her long legs, she stood in the center of her family with an expression of total despair in her eyes, watching Joe Connor walk away.

November 1, 1979

Dear Joe,

I’ve never felt this way before. When I opened your last letter, I was ready to laugh because you’re always so funny, or learn something new about you, or hear something about Sam.

But I didn’t expect to read what I’ve been feeling. I love you too, Joe. I know we’re young, we hardly know each other, we’ve never even met. Why don’t any of those things matter to me?

Paintings are so strange. Sometimes I’ll stand in a gallery, looking at a picture of a girl. She’ll be sitting in a chair, or looking out a window, or walking on a beach, and I’ll get a funny feeling in my throat. Somehow I’ll know she’s in love. I’ve always wondered how I knew that, because I’d never felt it before.

Now I do, and I know I was right all along. When I see those paintings, look at those girls, it’s like looking in the mirror. It’s like seeing myself, thinking of you. In love with you, Joe. I am.

C.

“H
OW COULD YOU
, C
AROLINE
?” A
UGUSTA ASKED
.

They were in the herb garden at Firefly Hill, the scent of verbena strong in the salt air. Waves broke on the shoal, rolled into the beach with a gentle rush. Offshore, the
Meteor
glistened and the blue water sparkled in the bright sun. Caroline couldn’t bear to see it. She turned her back, facing her mother.

“I don’t even know what you mean, Mom. Joe’s my friend now. I wanted him there.”

Augusta shook her head. She wore a long muslin dress and a straw sun hat. She huddled on the garden bench, fidgeting with her black pearls. Bending over, she pulled weeds from the bed of thyme and burnet. Then she stopped and rearranged a small cluster of scallop shells.

“Inviting him to the ball…” Augusta went on as if Caroline had not spoken. “Making him welcome when his family is responsible for so much unhappiness. So much unhappiness.”

“His family?”

“You know what I mean,” Augusta said, pulling off her dark glasses, gazing at Caroline with injured eyes. “His mother seduced your father. It’s so ugly. It hurt me so much. Your father had an affair, honey. It broke my heart, and it drove her husband crazy. Literally crazy. He came here to our house,” Augusta said, pointing at the kitchen door, “and killed himself in front of my babies.”

“How long ago, Mom?” Caroline asked sharply. “How many years ago did that happen?”

“It doesn’t matter how many years. We’re still feeling the aftershocks. I came close to ending my marriage over it, Caroline. Your father took it into his head to teach you and your sisters to shoot, and your sister killed a man. Violence begets violence, and his father started the cycle.”

“Dad did,” Caroline said. “If you want to go back that far. By having the affair in the first place.”

“This is getting us nowhere,” Augusta said.

“Are Joe and I supposed to pay for
your
past?”

“I’m worried sick about Skye,” Augusta said. “And now I’m worried about your judgment.”

“Don’t,” Caroline snapped.

“You’ll get hurt,” Augusta said.

“I’m strong, Mom,” Caroline said.

“I know. And we all rely on you,” Augusta said. “Maybe too much.” She reached across the garden bench to pat Caroline’s knee, and Caroline took her hand.

How could people feel such powerful and conflicting emotions for each other? How often, when she was young, had Caroline hated her parents, her sisters? While knowing, with all her heart, that she would die for them? She sat beside her mother, smelling the soothing fragrance of sage and rosemary. Her mother softly stroked the back of her hand with her thumb.

“I saw you dancing with him,” Augusta said. “Before I realized who he was.”

“You did?”

“Mmm. I did. And I thought—” Augusta paused, considering.

“Thought what?”

“Caroline’s done it.”

Caroline closed her eyes. The breeze blew off the sea, and she lifted her face to feel it. Perhaps it had swept across the decks of the
Meteor,
perhaps it had passed across Joe’s boat, his skin…

“What did you think I’d done?” Caroline asked.

“Fallen in love with a dangerous man,” Augusta said.

Caroline shook her head.

“Like your father. Just as I’d done, as your sister Skye’s done…I saw the man, the way you were looking at each other. His tallness, his rough body. And that love in his eyes.”

Caroline could not move. She let her mother hold her hand, felt the soft pressure of her mother’s thumb circling her hand. Augusta’s voice broke.

“Maybe that bothers me more than the rest,” she said. “You’ve kept yourself free for so long. Free and safe. Darling, I can’t bear to think of you hurt.”

“I’m strong, Mom,” Caroline said again, her throat aching. It was true. She had learned all the lessons, and she had kept herself free and safe and strong—and alone. Her mother had nothing to worry about. She and Joe could never be together now.

“Thank God, Caroline,” Augusta said, sniffling. “Do you forgive me?”

“For what?”

“For last night. Not for my emotions, but my behavior. For being so out of control…”

“You were shocked,” Caroline said carefully, picturing Joe’s face. Sam’s. Forgiveness is not the only point, she thought, remembering something Joe had said. First we have to face the truth. It is about understanding. She squeezed her mother’s hand, then let it go.

“I was,” Augusta said.

“Where’s Skye?”

“Inside. Asleep, I think.”

“I have to talk to her.”

Augusta nodded. She blinked at the sun. As if surprised to find herself sitting in the herb garden, she looked around. She brushed the tops of some lavender, smelled her hand.

“Your grandmother’s herbs,” she said. Her eyes filled with tears. “Sometimes I miss my mother and grandmother so much. They were wise women. Not like me. They were solid and old-fashioned, real mothers.”

“You’re a real mother,” Caroline said, laughing with surprise.

“But I haven’t been a very good one.”

“Oh, Mom…” Caroline said, her eyes filling because sometimes she had felt the same way.

“I don’t know what I’d do without my girls.”

“We don’t know what we’d do without you,” Caroline said.

“Skye…” Augusta said, her voice trailing off, her eyes sweeping up the white house to a window where white curtains fluttered in the breeze.

“I know,” Caroline said, following her mother’s gaze to Skye’s bedroom window.

“I’ve made so many mistakes,” Augusta said, her voice thick. “And so much damage has been done.”

“So much good too,” Caroline said quietly, thinking of last night, of Joe helping Skye, of Sam running to the rescue, of Clea and Peter helplessly looking on. “There is so much in our families that’s good.”

Joe stared at the sea. The waves sparkled. The day was as sunny as a summer day got, but the old anger had closed in like fog in Maine. It hung thick and heavy, and it kept him locked in place. He handled his business, but his thoughts kept returning to the Renwicks.

Coming here was a mistake. Diving on the
Cambria
was a success, but the rest left him muddled and fierce. He had wanted to put some things to rest by facing Black Hall. He had stirred them up instead. His hands in his pocket, he felt something unfamiliar. Frowning, he pulled out the cameo.

Pale and incandescent, the cameo showed the profile of a woman. Her face was noble and proud, with an unmistakable touch of sadness and strength around the mouth. Even on something so old and tiny, the emotion was apparent. Her hair was full, her forehead high. She reminded Joe of Caroline. He scowled.

“Boy, Mrs. Renwick was one mad old lady,” Sam said, coming across the deck.

“Yeah,” Joe said, slipping the cameo back into his pocket.

“She could go on, couldn’t she?”

Joe nodded. He watched gulls gather on a school of feeding blues, the water choppy and silver with thrashing fish. He glanced at Sam. The kid seemed okay, well-adjusted, not too bothered by what had happened. In fact, he had a big grin on his face.

“Kinda spoiled a nice party,” Sam said. “Chasing us away like that.”

“She was right,” Joe said.

“About what?”

“We had no business being there.”

Sam raised one eyebrow. Behind his cockeyed glasses, it had the effect of making his frames look straight for once.

“Excuse me,” Sam said, “but Caroline invited us.”

Joe frowned, watching the gulls gulping down pieces of bait fish. He kept his eyes peeled for sharks. There weren’t too many bad species in these waters, but every now and then a mako would come along.

“Well, she did,” Sam said.

“I know that, knucklehead. But getting invited isn’t the point. I should have used common sense. We had no place at a Renwick party.”

“Mrs. Renwick’s just pissed because her husband had a thing for Mom. So what? They had their day, Mom married my dad, Mr. Renwick became the Hemingway of painters, and life went on. What’s her big problem?”