The High Tide Club

“Okay,” he said finally. “I’ll move to the coast. We’ll figure us out. And the dad thing.”

“I hope you know what you’re getting yourself into,” Brooke said.

The door opened a crack, and they hastily pulled apart. Henry stepped onto the porch, dressed in his favorite SpongeBob T-shirt and a sagging pair of pull-ups. “I pooped,” he announced proudly.

Brooke scooped up her son and handed him over to Pete. “About that dad thing…”

Epilogue

October 2018

Moonlight dappled the water, and a stiff wind rattled the fronds of palm trees and swirled sand around the ankles of the five women standing at the water’s edge.

Felicia tightened the blanket draped around her elderly aunt’s shoulders. It had been an unusually chilly October on Talisa, with temperatures dipping into the forties and high winds buffeting the fragile dunes.

“Are you warm enough, Auntie?” she asked.

“There’s an extra blanket in the back of the Packard,” Lizzie offered.

“Don’t y’all be fussin’ over me now,” Varina said. “I’ve lived this long, and I haven’t frozen or blown away yet.”

“Well, I for one am chilled to the bone,” Marie said with an exaggerated shiver. “I know we agreed to do this every time we’re together on a full moon, but nobody said anything about getting frostbite in the process.”

Brooke gestured at the quilt, beach chairs, and picnic basket they’d set up a few yards away. “Don’t be such a whiny baby, Mom. We’ve got hot toddies in the thermoses and plenty of beach towels.”

“And what about that fire I built?” Lizzie asked. She’d spent hours digging a pit in the sand and circling it with bricks left over from the latest island restoration project. They’d hauled down a load of wood in the beach cart, and now the flames leaped high into the frigid night air, crackling and sending up showers of sparks.

“I think we should wait until the weather warms up again in the spring,” Marie said. “After all, we didn’t swim last month when you had court in Brunswick, Brooke, and it seems to me that Felicia was off island in August, visiting her new beau.”

“No, ma’am,” Varina said firmly. “Y’all know what today’s date is?”

“It’s October 21,” Felicia said.

“Same exact date as the first time, the night after Millie’s engagement party,” Varina said solemnly. She pointed up at the star-shattered night. “You know what that is? It’s a hunter moon, just like that night it all started. We only get one of those a year. Might be the last one I ever see.”

“Don’t talk like that,” Felicia said.

“It’s the truth. I’m ninety-one. Nobody in my family ever lived this long. I could go tonight or tomorrow, and I’m at peace with that,” Varina said.

“Why is this so important to you, Varina?” Lizzie asked. “I can’t believe you don’t want to forget this date and everything associated with it. What happened to you—”

“Is in the past. And that’s why I cast that ugliness out of my heart. I’m not letting it fester there like a poison-filled boil,” Varina said. She grasped Lizzie’s hand tightly and gazed out at the moon in wonder. “You know I wouldn’t ever say that man’s name after that night. I couldn’t. But when I woke up to this sunny morning and realized what today is, it struck me from out of nowhere. I can’t hate him no more. He is long dead, cold and in the grave, and I am alive and more blessed than I deserve. I got me a son I never even knew about. I got my own little home right here on this island, got family and friends…”

Marie nodded and grasped her daughter’s hand. Wordlessly, Brooke reached for Felicia’s hand.

“His name was Russell Strickland,” Varina said. She repeated the name, enunciating and pausing between each syllable. “Russ. Sell. Strick. Land.”

Without prompting, the women repeated the name.

“Russell Strickland is powerless over me,” Varina said. She shrugged out of the blanket and took one tentative step into the water, and then another, letting out an involuntary yip of shock as the cold water reached her knees and then waist. She turned once, looking over her shoulder at the four women, standing naked on the shore.

“Y’all coming?”