The Hideaway

“I’m sensing there are folks here who need one-on-one time with God. No sweaty preacher up here spouting off about everything they should be thinking or feeling—just you and God. If that’s you, I encourage you to close your eyes right now and listen.” The organist started up with a melancholy tune that drew congregants to the front altar like a magnet. My butt stayed planted on the pew. “If you hear God’s still, small voice, don’t worry about me or anyone sitting around you. I just ask you to listen to what He might have to say to you this morning.”

The church was quiet except for the organ. I closed my eyes and tried to listen for that voice. Since the day Jenny asked me about falling in love with William, I’d been more aware than usual of his shadow trailing me. He’d been gone for years, yet he was still a very real presence in my life. Dot let me know in no uncertain terms that the weight I’d thought I’d hidden well still sat on my shoulders in full view of everyone around me.

I wasn’t always on the best terms with God, but I was thankful He had given me William at all. If William hadn’t been living at The Hideaway when I moved in, there was no chance I’d still be there now. I would have stayed a few nights, felt the heavy weight of that fancy ring on my finger, and probably gone right back to Mobile and to Robert, continuing to scratch out an existence in the thing we called a marriage.

But William had been there. And my life was profoundly different because of him and my time at The Hideaway. I was thankful, but Dot was right. I was no longer the twenty-two-year-old I was when I met him. I was almost forty and my right to be a lovestruck girl had passed its expiration date. He was not coming back.

With my eyes squeezed shut and that organ droning on, I pulled my shoulders back and lifted my chin. God, I know we haven’t talked in a while, but—

The preacher clapped his hands. “Thank You, Lord, for that time of prayer and silence. Can I get an amen? Mrs. Betty Jo, how about ‘Onward, Christian Soldiers.’”

Betty Jo fired up the organ again. Mouths opened in song and hands lifted in praise, the time of prayer finished.

Fine then. I looked up at the rafters and winked. I wasn’t ready to let go anyway.

MAGS

1980

My Jenny found love at eighteen—too young in my eyes, but I quickly realized I had no need to worry. Ed Jenkins was no Robert Van Buren. Ed doted on Jenny, but he also pushed her to challenge herself. At his urging, she enrolled in a culinary program at the community college. She was always helping Bert in the kitchen, but I’d never thought of culinary school. Ed took a bite of her seafood gumbo one night and said, “You need to open a restaurant, Jenny.”

The idea for Jenny’s Diner grew out of that early evening dinner, consumed on the dock at sunset surrounded by our friends. Once darkness overtook the sun, lightning bugs popped out in the shrubs and trees. From the dock, they made the place look alive.

Jenny and Ed married less than a year later, and little Sara Margaret arrived ten months after that. Sara had the good fortune of loving, attentive parents and a multitude of “grandparents” who doted on her day and night. As Jenny’s Diner grew in popularity, our job as stand-in parents grew in importance. Bert learned how to operate an Easy-Bake Oven, I became proficient in the rules of Go Fish, and Glory’s knitting needles became fairy wands in Sara’s little hands. Back then, Sara thought The Hideaway was a magical palace, and I never corrected her because, in a way, it was.

Sara looked a little like Ed, but a lot like me. She had my skin coloring and dark, rebellious curls. That hair flew behind her as she ran from room to room through the house. She’d flee from anything resembling a brush or hair band, so her hair grew long and wild, especially during the summers when she was out of school and spent most of her time at our house. I sometimes tried to imagine what Sara would look like as a young woman or as an adult, but I couldn’t see anything other than the carefree child before me.

I got to where I couldn’t allow myself to imagine William coming back for me, or even Jenny, especially once she became a woman with her own family, her own roots. For some reason, it was easier to think of him coming for his granddaughter. Occasionally I’d allow myself the luxury of imagining Sara and William together. I’d give myself over to an afternoon’s worth of a daydream about the two of them finding each other later in life and knowing immediately that something connected them—something potent and essential. They’d be drawn to each other, and they’d trust it, even if they didn’t know why.

Jenny’s death on the rain-slick highway shattered me. It was unspeakable. Not only had I lost my daughter, but I’d lost the last tie I had to William. I’d loved my daughter for the person she was, and she knew that, but I’d also loved William through my love for her. When Jenny was gone, it felt like he was finally gone too.

But the real truth was William was gone the minute he made the decision to leave The Hideaway all those years ago. I should have accepted that fact much earlier, but it was easier to hang on. After all, I hadn’t decided what exactly I was going to tell him in his workshop that day. I wasn’t going to ask him to leave—I don’t think I was, anyway. I suppose I thought we’d figure it out together, like he’d said about so many things. I may have made the choice by not outright refusing my father all those years ago, but William took the decision out of my hands by leaving on his own. I don’t know how he knew Robert was back in the picture, but I suppose he did what he thought was honorable.

All I had left of him were the few things he made for me during our short time together—the pieces of furniture, the bench in the garden, the tiny replica of the house—the one that should have been ours, built into a quiet cove on the bay, undiscovered by anyone but us. But life doesn’t always work out the way it’s supposed to, does it?

SARA

AUGUST

I called William at the number he gave me, and we made plans to see each other the next day. He said he’d make a day of it and visit some friends from his days at The Hideaway, Gary and Starla.

“Starla?” I asked.

“She gave herself that name back when she wore all black and smoked twenty cigarettes a day. It’s a miracle she’s still alive. I think her real name is Betty.”

When he arrived in town, I directed him to The Outrigger for lunch, where we found a table on the deck overlooking the water. I wanted to tell him about the possible fate of the house—not to mention our family connection—but I was nervous about his reaction to both. To stall, I told him about leaving Sweet Bay, landing in New Orleans, and opening Bits and Pieces.

“But couldn’t you have opened your shop here? I’ve dreamed about Sweet Bay since I left fifty-some years ago. It’s a special place, you know. And the house—it has a pull.”

“I get it now,” I said. “I think my time away finally showed me that. But after living with Mags for a decade, I guess I needed a break. Back then, she was a little odd.”

“What do you mean, odd? Maggie was many things, but I wouldn’t describe her as odd.”

“I think it happened after you left. I understand more now, but as a clueless teenager, I just wanted out. And in coming back, I’m finding pieces of her life that I never knew existed.”

He smiled, but it was halfhearted. “If it took her passing on for you to come back to your home and understand more of who she was—and who you are . . . well, maybe something good can come from something so sad.”