Isle of Palms (7 page)

“Are you insane? But it’s two houses from the path to the beach, across from Wild Dunes. And it’s got a big yard, so I could add on at some point. But then there’s the kicker part.” Jim’s wallet lived in another world than mine and no doubt what he had in storage would be better than anything I could ever afford.

“Lemme guess,” Frannie said, “Doc is gonna kill himself?”

“Basically, yeah.”

“Shit,” Jim said.

“How should I break the news?”

They were both quiet for a moment and then Frannie spoke.

“He’ll understand, Anna, I’m sure of it.”

“Anna, just tell him straight out and be sweet about it. Old Douglas adores you. We know that. Christ, it’s not like you wanna move to Patagonia or something!”

“You’re right. Okay. I’ll do it. I’ll call y’all tomorrow.”

“You’d die without us, you know,” Jim said.

Frannie said, “If he gives you a hard time, I’ll be home tonight around ten.”

“Thanks, y’all. Love you madly!”

It was still light outside so I decided to weed the beds and deadhead the flowers until Daddy came home. Gardening was a kind of meditation for me. I would have my conversation with nature and the answers to my problems would always come. Now I needed to find words. First, I checked the chicken stew I had started that morning in the Crock-Pot and it smelled wonderful. It was thick and rich. When I lifted the lid the whole room was filled with the fragrance of onions and celery. That would put old Douglas in a good mood for sure. I picked out a mushroom, blew on it, and popped it in my mouth.

“Damn, honey,” I said out loud to myself, “you ain’t fancy, but you sure ’nough know how to put the hurt on a bird!”

I was relishing my extraordinary good humor and suppressing my nerves. Eventually I got myself outdoors and began yanking some grass intruders from the azaleas. Daddy’s car pulled up. My heart sank, knowing
the moment of truth was nigh,
like Daddy always said when my report card came. I had cut a handful of basil I was going to chop with tomatoes for a salad, and some parsley to garnish the stew. I walked over to greet him, forcing myself to smile.

“Hey! How was your day?”

“Hey, sweetheart! Let’s see,” he said, pulling his well-worn black leather doctor’s bag from the floor of the backseat of his sensible Buick. “Three cases of stomach bug, four ear infections, lots of DPT shots, and one appendicitis. All in all, an average day, I’d say.”

He hadn’t noticed anything different. Good.

I followed him into the house and began setting the table while he went through his mail. I watched as he began to reenact his daily routine, saying the same things for the millionth time. Odd. His words that had grown to a stockpile of irritants now seemed to spark some melancholy in me. I realized the day might arrive when I would miss hearing him say,
I wish I had the money it costs to produce all the junk mail I throw out every day. We got any beer?

“I wish I had the money it costs to produce all the junk mail I throw out every day. We got any beer?”

I reached into the refrigerator and, after some digging around, produced a Corona Light. I drank Corona. He drank Beck’s. Corona was going to make him say
Humph, sissy beer.

“I need to go to the store,” I said. Next, he would ask about supper time.

“Humph,” he said, “this is sissy beer. When’s supper?”

What did I just say? See what I mean? Sweet but annoying. Maybe it
would
be a while before I missed the dazzling repartee we shared every night.

I served the chicken stew over biscuits and we began to eat. Now he would ask about my day.

“So how was your day? This is delicious, Anna.”

“Thanks,” I said. “My day was the usual baloney with Harriet and the normal gossip with my clients. Did you know that Alex Sanders resigned from the College of Charleston? I heard he’s running for the U.S. Senate for Thurmond’s seat.”

“Well, personally, I like Alex Sanders very much. However, if Thurmond can still frost a mirror, that’s his seat.”

Strom Thurmond had been a U.S. senator since before we were all born, was a hundred, and it seemed like he would live forever. People would vote for him even though he fell asleep during Senate sessions. Tradition. It’s how Charlestonians were wired. No one cared if the rest of the country snickered. What the hell did they know? Not diddly about what mattered to us, let me assure you.

“I think Sanders can win if he runs.” I wasn’t too sure about that but said it for a couple of reasons. One, I thought Alex Sanders was brilliant—not only as the college’s president, but he had shown himself to be a man of grace and integrity, something in short supply around Washington. Second, I was in the mood for change of any sort. Last but by no means least, I was using this little politico discussion to figure out how I was going to break the larger news to Daddy. “At least I’d
like
to see him win.”

“Who knows? Personally, I think the guy who raises the most money wins, which is very sick to consider.”

We fell silent for a while and then Daddy spoke again.

“What’s on your mind?” he said.

“Why?”

“Anna, since you were a tiny girl, whenever you had something on your mind, you chew your hair.”

I knew the longer I delayed the news, the more difficult it would be to tell him, so I just blurted it out.

“Okay. I have something to tell you. I’ve found a house on the Isle of Palms and I think I’m going to buy it.”

He sat up and looked at me as though I had just announced peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians. I didn’t think he believed me; in fact, I was certain of it.

“Tell me this again,” he said and gave me his full and rapt attention.

“I found a house on the Isle of Palms and—”

“I thought that was what I heard.” He wiped his mouth with his napkin and sat back in his chair, still staring at me. “Why, Anna? You don’t need to leave here. I mean, I thought that we had a pretty good arrangement, you and me. You were able to save money, buy yourself a nice car . . .”

“That’s not it, Daddy. You know that.”

“How would you manage? I mean, who’s gonna take care of all the insurance forms and all those kinds of things? You hate that stuff! And, who’s going to cut your grass and paint your window trims every year and unplug the garbage disposal and . . .” He stopped and got up from the table, putting his napkin down by the spoon of his place setting. “Fine,” he said. “Do what you want.”

“I’m sorry, Daddy.”

“Don’t be sorry. You’re a grown woman. I knew this would happen one day, I suppose.”

He went outside to the backyard to stare at the water of Charleston Harbor. That was what he always did when he was upset. He’d go out there for a while and think through whatever was bothering him. This was different, though. Daddy was sixty-seven, near retirement. He might be worrying about getting old, getting sick, being alone. I knew these were terrible and dark thoughts for him. But the thought of growing old under Daddy’s roof was just as frightening for me. Was I wrong to want this for myself and for Emily?

We had no other family on his side and I had produced only one daughter. College meant she was gone, really she was, and there was no promise that she would ever return to settle here. But I wanted so badly for her to have her own home to come home to and to see that I could accomplish this.

I wanted to say to him that he could have a room in my new house for himself, but I knew that would only perpetuate the troubles that made me want to leave in the first place. I felt I had the right to live measuring up to my standards without a daily review of my shortcomings from another single person. Daddy couldn’t help himself. I knew that. The scars of immigration to this country and his marriage to my mother had made him exacting, overprotective, meddling, patriarchal, and unforgiving.

I began to clear the table and rinse the dishes, putting them in the dishwasher. I wiped the table and the counters of crumbs and thought about all the times I had cleaned up meals in that house. There were so many memories that sprang just from the table. Thanksgivings, Daddy carving the bird, saving me the wishbone. The early days with Grandmother Violet and her Polish specialties she produced, attempting to fatten up Daddy and me. If I stopped and held my breath I could almost see our ghosts in the room with me then, moving, breathing, and talking. How many years had been spent around Daddy’s table? Emily’s birthday dinners of spaghetti . . .

Blow out the candles, Emily! I can’t believe you’re six years old!
Emily in her best dress, her baby-fine hair slipping from the barrette and falling in her face, squinting her eyes as she made a wish, Daddy with his camera, both of us delighting in her squeals of excitement . . .

Want to know what I wished for, Momma?
She always asked me that.
No, baby, if you tell, it won’t come true.
I always made her cake myself—a yellow cake, chocolate pudding and bananas for filling, chocolate icing. She would lick the icing bowl and ask a million questions.
Did Doc buy me something? Yes, baby. Did he take my training wheels off? Go look in the garage! Did Daddy call? He’s calling tonight. Did he send me something? There’s a big box under my bed. . . .

All the ways we had measured our lives around that table were about to end. Daddy would be alone when I left.

I walked over to the picture window and looked at him. His hands were shoved down hard in his pockets.

He stood by the old dock, watching the sun set. Somehow, his shoulders seemed slumped and everything about his posture told me he was feeling bad. Seeing him that low over the thing that thrilled me made me feel terrible. I didn’t want Daddy to be lonely. Even though he was persnickety and had to have everything just so, I loved him to death. I told myself that I would have him over for dinner all the time and that I would bring dinner to him or that we would cook together. I knew my daddy’s heart and could almost read his mind. If I left, what would he do with himself?

I tied the garbage bag and took it outside to put in the big can. The Mount Pleasant sanitation engineers would collect it tomorrow. I remembered for a flash chasing the “salad wagon” on my bicycle when I was a kid and my grandmother had thrown out my Barbies to punish me for something. Sass, probably. The garbage man had given them back to me and told me to hide them. She was so harsh and so cold. I hated remembering her.

When I returned, Daddy was inside, standing in front of the television, surfing through the channels.

“Three hundred and sixty channels and nothing but junk.”

At least he was talking to me. “Yeah, nothing but junk.”

He clicked off the television and turned to me. “Listen, I know you want to go back to the island. I’ve always known that. I mean, it’s pretty hard to live with you and
not
know what you want.”

His remark gave me a small signal that I could start relaxing and he continued.

“I just hate to think about you not being here, I guess. But it’s only natural for you to want to live on your own, and not just because of the island flag you’ve been waving since your mother died. I mean, I’ll help you, if you want. That’s the decent thing to do. If you
need
help, that is.”

“Before I run to the Bi-Lo to get you a
case
of Beck’s, I
need
to hug your neck!” I threw my arms around him and squeezed. “Thanks, Daddy. I do need your help. Desperately! And, I always will!”

He smiled and there was immense relief between us. He was putting up a brave front. I knew he worried that time would reveal whether or not he had outlived his usefulness. Outliving your own usefulness might be worse than death.

“Okay, enough said. Go get my beer. You need money?”

“Nope. It’s on me.”

Before poor old Mr. Simmons’s funeral flowers wilted, the ink was dry on my mortgage. Larry Dodds, Marilyn’s cousin, did the closing and afterward they took a petulant Daddy and near-levitating me to Station Twenty-two Restaurant for the best shrimp and grits to ever pass my lips. I was one very happy woman. Marshall Stith, the mayor of Sullivan’s Island and owner of the restaurant, stopped by our table.

“How are y’all doing? Everything all right?”

“Fabulous!” I said. “I just bought a house on the Isle of Palms today and I’m celebrating!”

“I always said, the Isle of Palms is the best next thing to Sullivan’s Island!”

“Just ignore him,” Marilyn said, laughing, “he is the mayor, after all!”

When I was a young girl, before Momma died and before the disaster occurred of my grandmother coming to live with us and ruining the rest of my childhood and making me long for a terminal illness (mine or hers) . . . well, believe it or not, there were some beautiful memories of my childhood.

Before the developers arrived, the Isle of Palms was where all the mysteries were hidden. It was untouched, virgin beach, dunes larger than houses that went on, seemingly forever, in a kind of twisting maze. I could stand on the empty beach and scream clear across the Atlantic to London. It was the kind of beach where you might find a genie in a bottle, or at least a message. Some days, the only footprints in the sand were mine.

In those days, Momma was young and beautiful. Daddy was deeply in love with her and I really was the apple of his eye. Momma was Daddy’s grand prize and, with us at his side, all the nightmares of World War II and immigration were behind him. And even though Momma wasn’t always happy in her role, I was able to live around it. Until the day my grandmother came to stay.

Then all the scars of the war and their quest for safety came screaming back like Hitler’s Panzers rolling up Palm Boulevard toward my house.

Violet

THE day after my mother died, good old Grandmother Violet arrived as threatened, with a bushel of peaches and the energy of a hundred men, prepared to take control of the entire situation, me included.