The High Tide Club

“This weekend?”

“Yeah. I’ve got something Friday night, but I could do Saturday, or even Sunday night if I don’t head home until Monday morning. What do you say?”

Brooke sighed. “I don’t know, Gabe. That’s so generous of you, but the thing is, it’s tough getting a babysitter on weekends.”

“You’ve got a kid?” He sounded shocked.

“Henry. He’s almost three. That’s another long story. Look. My mom is coming down to stay with us, and I guess maybe I could get away for a couple of hours. Is there any way I can let you know over the weekend?”

“Why not? I’m going to be on Sea Island anyway. You’ve got my number, so just call or text me. I won’t make dinner reservations at the club until I hear from you.”

Brooke grinned. “Thanks so much, Gabe. Really.”

17

“Where’s my little fella? Where’s my sweet Henry?”

Marie Trappnell arrived at Brooke’s house shortly after 6:00 P.M. on Thursday night with a rolling suitcase and a gigantic tote bag overflowing with groceries and wrapped gifts. She swept past her bemused daughter and into the house.

Hearing her voice, Henry sped across the living room and flung himself at her knees, repeating his name for his grandmother over and over again. “Ree! Ree!”

Marie plopped herself down on the floor and gently pulled him onto her lap.

“Oh, my sweet boy! My poor angel.” Marie kissed his face and the top of his head. She looked over at Brooke. “He’s breaking my heart. I’m not hurting him, am I?”

“He’s not made of glass, Mom,” Brooke said. “It’s been six weeks and he’s fine. Just don’t fling him around the room.”

Henry held his arm up awkwardly for his grandmother’s inspection. “Look, Ree. I got boo-boo.”

“I see,” Marie said. She kissed his arm. “Better?”

He beamed. “Better.” But the colorfully wrapped gifts had already drawn his attention. He pointed. “What’s that, Ree?”

Marie pulled the tote toward them and spilled the contents onto the floor. “Well, let’s see.”

Henry picked up a stuffed dog. “Puppy!” He waved it at Brooke. “I got puppy!”

* * *

After they’d eaten dinner and put Henry to bed on the mattress in Brooke’s room, Marie took a good look around her daughter’s living room.

“This is really nice,” she said, taking another sip of her wine. “You’ve done a lot since the last time I was down.”

“It’s not Ardsley Park,” Brooke said wryly.

She actually had taken pains to fix up her modest cottage. Marie had donated the furniture from her garage apartment in Savannah after the departure of her last tenant. The sofa and matching ottoman were comfortable but with ugly, eighties brown-plaid upholstery, which Brooke had covered with sets of washed and bleached canvas drop cloths.

She’d splurged on an indoor-outdoor rug from a big-box store at the mall in Brunswick and had assembled a gallery wall of inexpensive thrift store paintings along with Henry’s framed crayon drawings.

Marie yawned and stretched her legs. Brooke thought she looked distinctly out of place in this room of castoffs. Her mother had an innate elegance and sense of style that Brooke had always envied.

After the divorce, Marie had stopped coloring her dark hair, and her now silver hair was cut in a sleek bob, just below her chin. Unlike Brooke, she never left the house without eyeliner, blush, and lipstick. Her clothes weren’t showy, just classics, like the well-fitting jeans and oversized Eileen Fisher white linen blouse she wore tonight. Her hands were long and slender, with nails painted a neutral color. She wore no rings.

“I’m so glad Henry is okay,” Marie said. “I was terrified when I heard about the surgery.”

“If it makes you feel any better, even though Henry is fine and the arm has totally healed, I’m still a little freaked out about the whole thing.”

“You don’t show it,” Marie said. “You never have. I think you’re like your father that way.”

Brooke held up her hand, traffic cop–style. “Don’t. Please don’t compare me to Dad.”

“I didn’t mean it as a dig, honey. Just a mother’s observation.”

Brooke took a gulp of wine. “I may look calm to you, but I’m really like those ducks at the Daffin Park pond back home. Gliding over the water on the surface, but underneath it all, I’m paddling like hell trying to keep afloat.”

Marie cocked her head and studied her daughter. Brooke’s dark hair was pinned up in a messy bun on the top of her head. She wore a loose-fitting T-shirt and denim shorts. She was barefoot and needed a pedicure. And there were dark circles under her eyes.

“I wish you’d called me sooner,” Marie said. “I wish you’d let me pitch in and help. Not just with money, but with Henry. I know you prize your independence, but sometimes I feel like you’re deliberately shutting me out. And it makes me sad. You and Henry are my world, Brooke.”

“I know,” Brooke said with a sigh. “I don’t mean to shut you out. It’s just … I guess I feel like I have something to prove. You know, that I can do this. Work. Raise a child. Just be a competent human being. But it’s so damn frustrating. If I’m home with Henry, I’m anxious that I should be at work, doing lawyer stuff. And when I’m at work, with a client—not that I have that many—I feel guilty that I’m not home with my child. And, Mom, I suck. At everything. I suck at life. I really do!”

Marie got up and sat down beside her daughter on the sofa. She wrapped both arms around her and laughed. “You don’t suck.”

“No,” Brooke insisted, “I do. What kind of mom lets her kid break an arm at the park? What kind of lawyer can’t even make enough money to pay for decent health insurance for her family?”

“Don’t you think you’re being a little hard on yourself?” Marie asked. “Do yourself a favor and stop trying to be a superwoman.”

“I’m not. I just want to be half as good a mom as you were when I was growing up.”

“Is that what this is about?” Marie asked, raising an eyebrow. “You’re comparing yourself to me? But that’s crazy! You’re a single working mom, raising a child in a town where you have no support system. I had the luxury of being able to quit my job when I had you, because your father was more than able to support us.”

“And you did everything, and you did it perfectly,” Brooke said. “Beautiful, spotless house, gourmet cook, on every committee in town … and I know Dad wasn’t any help with any of that.”

“It was a different time. None of the women in our social circle worked outside the home. Even the women who had MDs and PhDs and JDs after their names quit their jobs to stay home with their babies.”

“You sound wistful about that,” Brooke said. “Did you ever wish you hadn’t quit?”

“Sometimes,” Marie admitted. “Not at first. I mean, I waited until I was over forty to have you. So I’d had a great career, and when I finally did get pregnant, it was such a shock, I thought, well, I should just stay home and raise this miracle child of mine. And that ought to be enough.”