May the raindrops fall lightly on your brow.
May the soft winds freshen your spirit.
May the sunshine brighten your heart.
May the burdens of the day rest lightly upon you.
And may God enfold you in the mantle of his love.
The next morning, before the first light had crept into her small upstairs room, Erin was awakened by the roar of the winter storm raging outside. Tiny beads of hail pelted the dormer window, as if a Romeo were trying to gain the attention of his Juliet.
The churning blast of the waves seemed to have turned up in volume since Erin first arrived, and the fierce wind now roused her from under the down comforter. She put her bare feet on the braided rug and took four steps across the floor to pull up the shade to take a look outside. She could see nothing but a few rounded shrubs and her rental car parked under the still glowing light above the garage. In the light she noticed the streaking pellets of ice as the wind pushed them toward the east at an angle.
Beyond the immediate perimeter of the cottage the rest of the world remained shrouded in darkness. She could hear all the sounds rocking that outer world, but here inside this steady fortress she was safe. Her father had made this tiny castle of his nice and safe, and Delores had made it pretty.
Erin thought of the Hidden Cottage scrapbook. Last night her father had sat beside her on the couch and gone over every before and after photo with detailed explanations. He was proud of the work he and Delores had done. Erin also got the impression he was proud of Delores for documenting the process step-by-step and putting it together in such a beautiful book.
Erin’s mom never quite got around to creating scrapbooks. Faith O’Riley loved people, and she loved God. Those two distinctions permeated her life, and one could see by the way she ran her home and her life that she put people before projects. Therefore, Erin’s mom left many little projects unfinished when she went to heaven. Erin had appropriated a number of her mom’s treasures, such as her diary. But Erin safely could assume that many photos and mementos of her childhood were still in boxes. Most likely they were packed away in one of the orderly storage bins she saw stacked up when she’d been given the tour of the garage last night.
Erin hopped back into the twin bed and rubbed her cold feet together, trying to warm them. The wind seemed determined to play its shrillest notes, forcing them in through the tiniest spaces around the window frame.
A memory came to Erin, turning her lips up in a soft grin. When she was in the fourth grade, she took up playing the flute. Every afternoon her mother made Erin practice. She discovered that if she waited until her father came home, around four thirty, and if she inserted just the right amount of extra-shrill notes in the middle of each piece, her father would open her bedroom door and excuse her from practicing anymore.
Erin continued to play the flute all through high school and improved to the point her mom could make requests, and Erin could pick out the tune and play it accurately after a few tries. She did duets with her mom at the piano. Their favorite duet was “Für Elise,” and Erin had decided when she was eighteen that if she ever had a daughter she would name her Elise Faith.
She felt wistful, curled under the blankets listening to the winter wind and missing a daughter she’d never borne. In truth, it was her mother she missed and knew she would miss every day for the rest of her life.
While Erin had been curled up under the comforter, the daylight had slowly brightened her room the way a dimmer on a lamp gradually increases the amount of light and reveals previously unrecognizable details. The pale winter light that now filled the room prompted a return visit to the window. This time she could feel the tiny stream of chilled air as it whistled in through an opening in the left corner of the window frame.
I’ll have to tell Dad. He’ll want to know about that so he can fix it.
The view outside caught Erin by surprise. It was dismal and gray, as she suspected, yet the scope opened up before her was unexpectedly majestic. The cliff on which the cottage was built extended another fifty yards beyond the front of the house and then appeared to drop off dramatically over a cliff formed from black rock. Beyond the cliff was the ocean. Nothing but pale gray water churned to a froth of whitecapped breakers that bashed against the rocks with such force they sent their spray into the air like a bursting geyser.
To the right Erin could make out what looked like a large area of tide pools where the coastline took a dip inland, giving an even greater impression that the land on which the cottage stood was alone on an isolated cleft of impenetrable rock.
Pulling on her warmest apparel, Erin tiptoed down the stairs, trying not to make too much noise. The old wood floor groaned, giving away her escape route. She could hear low voices murmuring as she passed the closed door of her dad and Delores’s downstairs bedroom. Since the only bathroom in the cottage was next to their room and accessible through a second door off the kitchen, Erin tried again to accomplish her morning routine as quietly as possible but without much success. Every sound seemed to echo through the house.
When she stepped back into the kitchen, Delores was there to greet her, still dressed in her robe and slippers as she had been when she had greeted Erin at the car last night. She wore a knit cap, just as she had the night before, with all her hair tucked under the edges. This cap had a crocheted flower affixed to the side. Erin noticed how clear and unflawed Delores’s pale complexion was. There was something Old World and elemental about her fair skin and dark-eyed appearance that gave off the aura that she thrived in the cold.
Erin had to wonder if the same appeal her father had for this place that reminded him of Ireland applied to his wife as well. Did Delores remind him of the Irish women he had admired for their brawn and capabilities when he was young? She remembered the one trip she had made to Ireland with her parents when she was only six. Her brother wasn’t born yet, and Erin was sick part of the trip so she didn’t have many memories, and the ones she did have weren’t magical at all.
She did remember saying to her elderly grandmother that she was very cold. Her grandmother had said, “Best cure for a chill is a broom.” Then, handing Erin a broom, she indicated that doing a brisk job of sweeping the floor would warm her right up. As a matter of fact, the kitchen of that Irish cottage couldn’t have been much larger than this one. Only, when she was six it seemed enormous.
Delores opened a cupboard door and said to Erin, “If you would like coffee or tea, you can find whatever you need in the cupboard there behind you. We have a little milk, and there’s some half-and-half in the refrigerator.”
“Okay. Thank you. I hope I didn’t wake you.”
“It’s too small of a house not to be woken.” The statement bore just enough indignation to make Erin squirm.
“Sorry. I’ll try to be quieter.”
Delores turned the faucet on the kitchen sink to stop a slow drip and returned to the bedroom.
I get the feeling that it isn’t just me that Delores doesn’t like. I don’t think she likes anything. So why does she like my dad?
A short time later, with a cup of tea warming her hands, Erin sat on the couch in the living room with her stocking feet tucked under her to keep them warm. The expanded picture window was providing her with an unlimited view of the ocean with all its muted shades of blue and gray. The storm had stopped. The wind seemed to be subsiding. The raucous waves, however, still were vehemently crashing against the rocks. It was like watching the 1812 Overture being played on instruments improvised by nature.
She was glad to find the Irish breakfast tea in the cupboard and sipped it slowly. It had been a staple in her home while growing up. Early on she found that a cup of Irish breakfast with a splash of milk and a dash of sugar could calm the most tumultuous inner storms. Erin needed this steaming cup of support this morning.
The bedroom door opened, and Erin’s dad came out dressed in a pair of baggy jeans and a sweatshirt. His white hair was combed back, and aside from looking a little winter pale, he looked like the bright blue-eyed father she had always known.
“Top of the morning, Glory.”
Erin grinned. It was the standard greeting she had heard from him ever since she was a child. According to her dad, the greeting originated with his great-great-great-grandfather from a wee village near Dublin and was the duty of the O’Riley family to bestow on to the rest of the world. He always would wink after he made the declaration.
“Are you interested in having the best breakfast you’ve ever had in your life?”
“That’s quite an offer,” Erin said. She knew her father didn’t cook. At all. So either Delores was a notable chef or her dad had a favorite place in town where he liked to go. In Irvine it had been a tiny place called Johnny’s Donuts. The café’s coffee was awful, but the donuts were amazing.
“I thought you and I could go on over to Jenny Bee’s Fish House.”
“A fish house, huh?”
“Best breakfast you’ve ever had. I guarantee it. Homemade bran muffins and perfect omelets. You ready?”
“Sure. Is Delores coming?”
“She doesn’t eat breakfast.”
“Oh. Okay. Let me get my jacket. I’ll drive, okay?”
“I thought we’d walk. It’s less than a mile.”
“In this weather?”
Her dad put on a baseball cap and reached for his jacket waiting on a hook by the door. “What’s the problem? You still opposed to exercise?”
Erin’s greatest concern was for her dad and whether he should be hiking a mile in such blustery conditions. After being a physical education teacher for more than thirty-five years before taking to the classroom to teach U.S. history, her dad did push-ups, jumped rope, and jogged until he was sixty. If he hadn’t had the scare with the blood clot traveling to his brain, a morning hike with him would have seemed normal.
She took the responsibility for his need to take it easy and said, “I don’t want to walk. Let me drive us, okay?”
“Suit yourself.”
By all outward appearances, he looked good. His sentences were clear and cohesive. Erin found it hard to believe that yesterday at this time he couldn’t carry on a conversation over the phone. Erin wondered how she would know when she was supposed to leave. She had purchased a one-way ticket and would do the same for the return when it was time to leave. But what sort of indicators would make that clear? Hopefully, a call to his doctor would give Erin the information she needed.
Out of curiosity, Erin watched the odometer in the rental car as her dad directed her into the tiny town of Moss Cove. The distance to Jenny Bee’s Fish House was two miles. Not “less than a mile,” as her father had said. If they had walked, it would have been two miles into town and two miles back. Was her dad really planning to walk four miles in this fierce wind and chilling temperatures? Or was he trying to put on a show to convince her he still was his former self so she wouldn’t have to worry?
On the drive into town, in spite of the misty white fog that covered them, Erin could see what she had missed driving in the dark. On the right side of the road rose an expansive forest of soaring evergreens. Every so often a house appeared, tucked in here and there under the branches that dripped with moisture from the sea as well as from the sky. From several of the homes a vapor of smoke rose from the chimney.
On the left side of the road a variety of beach houses lined up near one another, each sporting a unique color and personality. Erin noticed a quaint oceanfront lodge called the Shamrock Lodgettes. Each of the lodgettes looked like a small log cabin, but the name did somehow add to their charm.
“I’m guessing this place reminds you of Ireland.”
“It does indeed. We have plans to go to Ireland this summer. All depends on Delores, though, at this point.”
Erin wasn’t sure why the decision would depend on Delores. He certainly hadn’t made choices that way while married to her mom. She wondered if his thinking was similar to his statement that they should walk to the café this morning. He would, of course, want to give the impression that he was strong and capable of anything. Was he hoping Delores would be the one to call off the trip due to this new turn of events? Erin thought she remembered hearing before that people who took blood-thinning medication or had a history of blood clots were advised not to take long plane flights or long car rides.
“Park over there,” her dad said, pointing to the only open space in front of an undistinguished-looking storefront next to a Laundromat. A handmade sign out front announced that they had fresh halibut today and buckwheat pancakes. Erin hoped that didn’t mean the two items came together.
Her dad entered the small shop first, and everyone greeted him—the waitress with two short pigtails and with a tattoo running up her bare right arm, the mustached cook behind the window, and the five morning diners. All of them knew him by name, and all of them seemed happy to see him. That didn’t surprise Erin. Her father could be charming when he wanted to, and he always was the initiator when it came to collecting cronies.
Jack repeated his “Top of the morning, Glory” to one and all. Then, as if he were the traveling thespian here to announce the next community theater production, Erin’s father scooped his cap from his snowy head and tipped it in Erin’s direction. “So, what do all of you think of my one and only daughter? You can see where she gets her good looks, right?”
“Welcome to Moss Cove!” the waitress said. “You want some coffee?”
Caught off guard, Erin managed to say “Sure” before following her dad to a corner table. The other guests all took their time giving Erin a good looking over. A few nodded politely. One of them, a crusty, old, frowning sailor-type, just stared. This wasn’t what she had expected when she rushed to Oregon to be with her father. She didn’t know how a person was supposed to act the day after a stroke, but this wasn’t what she had pictured.
The waitress, whom her dad introduced as Jo, placed two mismatched mugs of steaming coffee in front of them. “The usual, Jack?”
“Not today. I’m having my Sunday morning special. And bring the same for my girl.”
As soon as Jo walked away, Erin asked, “What are we having?” The advertisement of halibut and buckwheat cakes lingered in her mind.
“A mushroom and Swiss cheese omelet with fresh crabmeat, red potatoes with basil, and honey wheat toast with homemade raspberry jam. Wait till you taste the jam. It’s the best in Oregon, I’ll tell you that. The raspberry harvest last year was a good one.”
Erin decided to stop trying to figure out what was going on in this alternate universe where her father was very much at home. He apparently was okay. The meds were working. He wasn’t in need of convalescence. Her trip was apparently for the purpose of seeing him and making some inroads with Delores. If that was the reason, then it had been a fairly expensive success, and she could book a flight home later today.
“So what do you think of the place?”
“This place?” Erin asked.
“No, our place. Hidden Cottage. What do you think?”
“It’s nice.”
Her dad’s expression drooped, and Erin quickly bolstered her comment. “You and Delores have worked hard on the place. It’s really nice.”
“Not a place you would want to come to unless you had to, though, right?”
Erin wasn’t sure what he meant by that comment. “Do you mean would I like to come up here for vacation?”
He gave a slight nod of affirmation. It seemed as if his feelings were hurt. That wasn’t an expression she remembered seeing on him very often.
“It’s pretty far away from Southern California.”
“Of course it is. That’s the point. Can’t you see the boys down there, poking around in the tide pools? Mike can fish all he wants. You can sit on the deck and read a book all day long. At night we can have a cookout. Crab is the way to go around here. Couple of my pals have all the equipment. The boys can set the traps down at the pier and catch the crabs, then we’ll boil ’em in the big pots. Not a bad way to spend a summer evening, don’t you think?”
Her dad’s idealized comments scrambled her brain. He had projected a scenario of an entire vacation based on the family gathering together at his Hidden Cottage. Had he forgotten how old the boys were? They weren’t Tom Sawyer age, eager to go hunting in tide pools for their summer vacation. And Mike had never fished a day in his life, as far as she knew.
“The boys are pretty much on their own now when it comes to how they spend their vacations.”
Her dad’s countenance dipped again.
“But Mike probably would like to come up here sometime. Maybe he and I can come back this summer for a few days.”
“Sure.” He turned and glanced over his shoulder as the door opened and another local man entered. The turn-and-look-the-other-way gesture was familiar. Erin knew that was her father’s way of indicating the end of that conversation. She knew her responses had disappointed him, but that wasn’t a new experience. Erin never felt as if she had managed to garner his approval.
The man who entered came over to the table and introduced himself to Erin. He had a joke for her dad and a nod for the waitress before sitting down with a newspaper as his breakfast companion. Erin enjoyed seeing her dad like this, cheery and surrounded by “chums.” It was especially good to see how enthusiastic he was again about eating. Ever since her mom died, he had been apathetic about many things, including food. And her father was definitely a foodie. That he had never turned his hand to cooking always mystified her. Her mom had been a pretty adept home chef and was always trying new things.
“Does Delores like to cook?” Erin asked.
“Not at all. She knows how to steam vegetables, and once she cooked a whole chicken. She’s yet to make me a cup of coffee.” Jack put his lips to the rim of his mug as if he had nothing further to say on the subject.
“I’m glad you have this place, then, Dad. You always did like having nice big meals with people you enjoy.”
“Must come from all those years in the teachers’ lounge.”
Erin grinned. “I bet you’re right. Do you miss that world?”
“Sometimes. I don’t miss California, though.”
Erin felt the same twinge of pain she had felt yesterday while talking with Sharlene. Knowing that she was a big part of the California he did not miss stung.
“Well, I miss you.” She offered a smile that made her feel as if she were seven years old.
He conveniently lifted his coffee mug to his lips and murmured something she couldn’t understand.
Erin took a sip of her Jenny Bee’s coffee and coughed involuntarily, barely swallowing the coffee in her mouth in time.
“What’s wrong?”
Once her throat had cleared she said in a low voice, “I’m afraid I’ve become a coffee snob. This is pretty strong.”
“Can’t handle the high-octane stuff, is that it?”
“I guess so. What about you? Are you supposed to be drinking coffee?”
“Yes, I am,” he growled. Erin knew that was the end of that discussion.
In an effort to launch a less volatile topic, Erin said, “Jordan has a girlfriend. Did I tell you that?”
“How serious are they?”
“Pretty serious. He met her in Hawaii last month.”
Erin’s dad put down his coffee mug. “Did Jordan see Tony while he was there?”
“No. Jordan was on Oahu taking photos on the North Shore.” Erin’s only brother had been a difficult topic for many years. She hadn’t seen him since their mom’s funeral, and they had barely spoken to each other then. Years ago, Tony had dropped out of everything mainstream and moved to Maui. Erin knew Tony and her dad hadn’t shared much of a relationship for more than twenty years. The strain had weighed on her mother and was a daily theme in her prayers.
“I have pictures of them.” Erin reached for her phone and saw that she had missed a call from Mike. She flipped to her digital photo album and held up her phone so her dad could see the cute young couple standing by a palm tree at Sunset Beach. “Her name is Sierra.”
Her father raised his eyebrows. “What kind of a name is that?” Without waiting for an answer, he studied the shot more closely. “She certainly has a lot of hair. Your grandmother used to have curly hair like that. Red, not blond like this girl, Sarah.”
“Sierra,” Erin corrected him. “Her name is Sierra, not Sarah.” She was aware that several other diners were leaning over, unabashedly trying to catch a glimpse of the photo on Erin’s phone.
“Have you met her yet?”
“No, not yet.”
“She could have some Irish blood in her with hair like that.”
The crusty old sailor who openly had stared at Erin when they entered rose, walked over, and leaned in to see the photo. Erin’s dad held up the phone so he could get a better look. He made no comment. Just had a look and returned to his breakfast.
“When are they getting married?” Erin’s dad asked.
“They just met last month.” Erin took back her phone and placed it in her lap.
“By the time they decide to get serious, you might have that wedding business of yours up and going.”
“Actually, I don’t think I told you yet, but my friend Sharlene and I launched our wedding planning business.”
“Well, that’s news. When did this happen?”
Erin let the true answer slip out. “Yesterday.”
Her father made an expression that clearly reflected disapproval. “Yesterday. Then what are you doing here?”
“I wanted to come. I wanted to . . .” She almost said “. . . make sure you were okay” but with the audience that certainly was listening and the way her father had been acting as if nothing was wrong, she left her sentence unfinished.
“Well, you don’t have to stay on my account. We appreciate your coming to see the place now that we have it all fixed up, but you don’t need to turn this into a vacation. Not your first week on the job. If I were you, I’d be on the next flight home.”
One of the women at the table just inches away turned to them. “You don’t want to go home yet, Erin. This storm is on its way out. We’re expecting full sun by tomorrow. Highs in the low sixties. It’s going to be beautiful. You should stay and enjoy the weather.”
Erin tried to make a lighthearted comment. “Highs in the sixties, you say. I suppose I shouldn’t tell you that where I live as soon as it dips into the low seventies we wear wool sweaters and sip hot cocoa to warm up.”
The woman didn’t appear amused. However, the leather-skinned sailor chuckled to himself.
The omelets were delivered just then, and she was happy to put an end to their group conversation. The toast arrived a moment later along with the acclaimed jam. All of it was delicious. Especially the jam. Erin’s opinion of Jenny Bee’s Fish House went up another notch with each bite.
They talked only a little as they ate. That seemed fine to her father, and it was fine with Erin. She spent her chewing time thinking through the phone calls she was going to make as soon as she could do so in private. She would send a text to Mike, letting him know she would call as soon as she could. She planned to give the doctor a call just to make sure, but at this point Erin saw no reason not to book a return flight for that evening or the next morning at the latest.
When she and her dad returned to the cottage, Erin dropped him off and left her engine running. “I need to drive back to town to buy something at the grocery store.”
“What do you need? We might have it.”
“It’s a personal item.” That excuse had worked for years with her dad. He never wanted to hear about any personal “feminine” item she needed at the store. In this case, her true personal item was personal time on the phone with her husband in the grocery store parking lot.
With a wave of his hand he dismissed her and took the steps on the front deck with ease. She waited until he was inside the cottage before backing up the steep gravel driveway and driving the two miles to town.
Parking the car in front of the small Wayside Market, Erin called the doctor and left a message with the on-call nurse, then Mike and gave him a report of how things had been going.
“You might as well come home unless the doctor calls back and says otherwise. If your father is well enough to go out to breakfast and eat shrimp omelets with you, I’m guessing he’s not in any immediate danger.”
“I think you’re right. It was a crabmeat omelet, actually. Not shrimp. By far the best omelet I’ve ever had.”
“Really?”
“Yes. And the raspberry jam was homemade and delicious. I can see why my dad loves going there. On the outside it doesn’t look like much. If you don’t mind sharing your conversation with a handful of locals, it’s a really great place to eat. When you and I come up here sometime, I’ll take you there.”
“Why don’t you tell your dad that? Tell him you have to come home, but you and I plan to visit in a few months and to stay longer for a vacation.”
A car pulled into the open parking spot next to Erin. She turned her face away from whoever it was that just pulled in. If it was one of the breakfast cronies from Jenny Bee’s, she didn’t want to get roped into rolling down her window to engage in a conversation.
“What about Delores?” Mike asked. “Does she like it there?”
“I’m not sure how to gauge what she likes. It seems whatever her favorites are, they’re on a short list that she keeps to herself. I will tell you one thing, though. While I still don’t have much of a liking for her, I can understand a little better what my dad sees in her and why he married her.”
“And what exactly is that?”
“She’s a workhorse. And good with her hands, just like my dad. She’s also abrupt like him, too. With my mom it was definitely a case of opposites attracting each other. With Delores it’s—”
There was a tap on the window. Erin jumped. She turned to see Delores’s stern expression gazing in on her just as it had last night in the dark.
“Delores!”
Mike asked, “What about her? You were saying with their marriage it’s—”
“She’s right here. I’ll call you back.” Erin hung up her phone and turned the key in the ignition so she could roll down the passenger’s window. She tried to adjust her expression to one of calm and innocence. Her mind was busy working to replay the last few minutes of her call to Mike so she could remember what she had said about Delores in case she had overheard through the closed-up car.
“Jack said you needed something at the store. I do, too.” Delores stood her ground, apparently waiting for Erin to lock up the car and come inside with her.
Erin put her phone back in her purse, closed up the car, and locked it with the press of a button. “I guess I should have asked if you needed anything before I came back here.” Erin realized she was apologizing once again to Delores.
Delores didn’t pay any attention to Erin’s apology. Instead, as the two of them entered the market, Delores said, “What did your father say at breakfast?”
“About what?”
“About his condition.”
“He didn’t talk about it.”
Delores’s brows caved. She walked over to the salad dressing aisle where no other shoppers were. “He’s in denial. I’ve tried to tell him that he needs to change his diet, but he won’t listen to me. I thought the best thing about your coming was that you would be able to convince him that he has to change.”
Clearly Delores didn’t need anything at the grocery store either. She just wanted her chance to corner Erin away from Jack’s listening ears. What a crazy dynamic was at work in her dad’s life.
“What did Jack eat for breakfast?”
Erin gave a rundown, even though she felt as if she were betraying her father by reporting on one of his loves—food—and speaking negatively about the fish market hangout that replaced the teachers’ lounge of long ago.
Delores scowled. “He’s eating himself into the grave. Eggs and cheese . . . I told him if he’s bent on going to that wretched place he should order oatmeal or at least nonfat yogurt with blueberries. He should concentrate on his cholesterol and get more antioxidants.”
Erin didn’t know how to respond. Her dad had never been a tofu-and-granola sort of man. Was that how Delores ate? Was that why her dad said she didn’t cook or make him coffee?
“You have to help me, Erin.” Delores now looked more approachable than she ever had. She was only four years older than Erin, and yet this was the first time she seemed to be speaking to Erin as a friend.
In another uncharacteristic move, Delores reached over and clutched Erin’s upper arm. With a look of desperation she said, “Please say you’ll help me talk some sense into him. He has to stay strong and healthy. Erin, if anything happens to him . . .”
“I know, I know. I feel the same way.” Erin placed her hand over Delores’s, partly to comfort her and partly in hopes that she would ease up on her grip. Erin’s heart was touched by Delores’s words and expressions in a way she never expected. “I don’t want anything to happen to my dad either.”
Delores released her terror grip on Erin’s arm. “You understand what I’m saying, don’t you?”
Erin nodded. She felt as if she finally believed that this woman truly loved her dad. “Yes, I understand,” Erin said softly.
With a relieved look, Delores pulled away her hand. “Good. I’m glad you understand. Because I mean it. If Jack becomes an invalid . . . I can’t stay with him. Do you understand? I’ll have to leave him.”