The Hideaway

“How did that feel?” Allyn asked.

“Strange, I guess. I hadn’t seen it in a really long time. Ten years, at least. It’s white now—it used to be light blue. But my old wooden swing was still hanging from the oak in the front yard. Two kids were playing on it. My mom always hated that swing. I busted my forehead on it when I was little.” I pointed to a spot above my right eyebrow. “Had to get four stitches right here.”

Allyn smiled. “You’ve never told me much about your parents. Your mom. What was she like?”

I sat back and readjusted the clip in my hair. “She was kind. Soft-spoken. It was like she was put on earth to do exactly what she was doing—being my mom, Ed Jenkins’s wife, owner of the side-of-the-road diner. And she was always good at accepting people and situations for who and what they were. Like with Mags. She had to have known her own mother led an unconventional life, but she took her for who she was without being bothered by any of it.”

“Or maybe she was bothered and you just never knew. You were still young when she died, right?”

I nodded.

“Maybe she kept that part from you.”

“Maybe.” I remembered Mom’s calm demeanor, her contentment with her life and everything around her. With me beating a trail out of Sweet Bay as soon as I could, maybe I was as unlike Mom as I was Mags.

“You’re the same way, you know,” Allyn said after a pause. “Or at least you were with me. I walked into your shop with green hair and a ring in my nose and you didn’t even flinch.”

I squinted an eye and held up my thumb and forefinger a centimeter apart. “Maybe just a little.”

He laughed and nudged my chair with his foot. For a moment, we ate in comfortable silence. From a table across the deck, laughter came in bursts. A flock of pelicans coasted overhead.

“You’re not really going to leave, are you?” Allyn asked. We’d finished our meal and were waiting to pay our bill. I traced my finger along the top of my empty wineglass—my third, two more than I usually drank. “It seems like you have a lot of unfinished business here,” he continued. “You’ve only just met William, you have a hot romance of your own to deal with, and you need to look further into this emergent domain thing.”

“Eminent domain.”

“Whatever. See if it’s a done deal.”

I sighed. “I told you, Mr. Bains has already figured it out. It would take a change of heart for Sammy to give up the property, and that’s not going to happen.”

“Maybe. It’s just a shame to lose such a fabulous house. I wish we could relocate it to New Orleans. It could be our hideaway when we need to escape annoying customers.”

It was an attempt to lighten the mood, but I didn’t feel light. My head throbbed and I was exhausted. He looked across the table and saw it.

“Let’s get you home.” He pulled me to my feet.

At the house, Allyn dropped our helmets in the yellow room, the one he had picked out during our earlier tour of the house. The painters hadn’t yet reached the bedrooms, so they still boasted those original lovely color schemes.

He helped me to the blue room, and I curled up on the bed while he tugged off my shoes. Just before he turned the light off, my cell phone rang. He fished it out of my purse and looked at the screen.

“Crawford,” he said.

“Not now. I’ll call him in the morning.”

He sighed. “Does he know about the house?”

I nodded, my eyes already closing. “I told him last night.”

“You’re going to involve him in all this, right? If this thing between the two of you is as meaningful as you say it is, you can’t just ditch him and slip out of Sweet Bay. That would be the easy road, and you can’t take the easy one this time.”

“This time?” I opened my eyes. My brain was foggy, but his words cut through the muck.

“Something has changed in you since you’ve been here, and it’s more than just Mags. I think Crawford is part of it. Don’t cut him out yet.”

“But what did you mean about ‘this time’?”

He shook his head and stood up from the bed. “Look, you left Sweet Bay a long time ago when things were hard. Believe me, I’m glad you did, but you do have a tendency to skip out on the rough parts. It’ll be messy if Sammy goes through with his plan and you have to figure out what to do with everything you’ve started here. But don’t cut and run.”

I pulled the sheets up tighter under my chin, fending off his words. It annoyed me to admit it, but he was right, as usual.

“One more thing,” he said from the end of the bed. “You shut your heart down too much, which is infuriating, but when you do open up, all of us—me, Crawford, Glory, and her gang down-stairs—we can’t help but love you. You’re magnetic in your own twisted little way, and I think you got that from Mags. These people attached themselves to her and her house, and all these years later, they’re still here because they still love her. Listen to Mags—to who she really was—before you make any decisions about the house. And about your life.”

He patted my feet under the blankets, then clicked the light off and closed the door behind him.

35

MAGS

AUGUST 1970

We rented cabins at the state park in Gulf Shores after Hurricane Lorraine blew through. Lorraine didn’t hit us dead-on; she rolled ashore in Biloxi—close enough to call for evacuation notices in our area (which we ignored, as usual) and to take down much of the electricity in Sweet Bay, but far enough away that the beaches were back to normal after a few weeks. We were all exhausted after the cleanup efforts in Sweet Bay, what with all the downed trees and closed businesses. When we got our heads above water, I suggested the vacation.

There were seven of us—Jenny and me; Dot and Bert; Major and Glory Gregg, who checked in for an extended stay not long after Robert died; and Eugene Norman, the potter-turned-glassblower. Starla, Gary, and Daisy had long since moved on. After a quick call to secure the cabins, we packed a few things and piled into the Greggs’ orange van to drive the half hour it took to get to the sugar-white sand of Gulf Shores. It was late August, the last weekend before Jenny started third grade.

Jenny and I sat in the back row of the van with Glory. Dot and Eugene sat in the row in front of us, with Bert and Major in charge of getting us to the beach in one piece. Jenny had just finished telling us a long story of how she and her friend from school, Doreen, had slipped an earthworm into the school bully’s desk during recess. Jenny laughed out loud and looked back and forth at Glory and me until we laughed too. It was hard to be around Jenny and not feel lighter.

Glory took Jenny’s soft face in her hands and smoothed her hair back. “Child, you are a beautiful creature, but I must say, you look nothing like your mother.” Glory looked at me. “She must have her father’s look. Was he as blond and fair as this?”

Dot turned sideways in her seat so she could make eye contact with me. She raised an eyebrow and waited for my answer.

“Mama? Was he?” Jenny asked.

The first time Jenny asked about her father, I couldn’t have forced the right words out even if I’d wanted to—which I didn’t, because she was too young. I gave her the same easy answer I gave everyone—that he died from a heart attack when Jenny was only three. I’d tell her the truth one day, when she could handle it. Or maybe when I could handle speaking of it.