When Violet awoke the next morning, rain was plinking off the windowpanes and the metal roof of the back porch. Her stomach was pinched with both nerves and anticipation at the thought of seeing Frank again.
She dressed quietly for the morning survey—after all, a little rain didn’t stop the birds from going about their business—and walked barefoot into the den. She’d expected the rain to keep Trudy asleep for a while, but there she was, already hard at work at the long dining table, her woodworking tools spread out on newspaper, and her tackle box open to reveal the myriad compartments of pastel-colored treasures.
“Getting an early start today?” Violet peered over Trudy’s shoulder to see what she was working on. It was the driftwood lamp she’d started on earlier in the summer. Violet noticed Trudy had added a thin line of iridescent jingle shells down one side of the wood, like a row of tiny buttons on the back of a dress.
Violet touched a shell with the tip of her finger. “This is lovely, Tru. Really.”
A smile ghosted across Trudy’s face, then her brow furrowed and she reached out and touched the white scar on Violet’s outstretched wrist.
Violet pulled her hand back. “Just an old scar,” she murmured, rubbing it with her thumb as if wiping away a smear of dirt or stray ink. “It’s nothing.” The lie gave her mouth a metallic tang, and despite the rubbing, the white line persisted, a slash of memory embedded in her skin. She’d never told Trudy where the wound had come from, opting instead to keep a Band-Aid on the cut until it healed. She’d chosen to keep the worst details of that night from Trudy—she’d seen no need to burden her sister any more than she already was. Violet didn’t remember Trudy ever asking about the scar.
But the way Trudy’s gaze remained focused on Violet’s wrist, her eyes brimming with unease, made Violet wonder if Trudy somehow knew how it had gotten there.
Trudy’s mouth tightened and she reached for her pen and notepad. You’ve been such a good sister to me.
Violet stared at the uncharacteristically tender note, then squeezed Trudy’s hand. “You’ve been good to me, too, Trudy. We’re a good team.”
Trudy shook her head firmly and started to write again, and with a calmness she certainly didn’t feel, Violet placed her hand gently on Trudy’s. “It’s okay. I’m your sister and I love you. That’s all that matters.” She took the pad from Trudy and tore off the page. “Now, how about some toast?”
She knew Trudy was staring at her as she walked to the kitchen, but she couldn’t help it. Once upon a time she’d craved a chance to talk about that night, about all that had happened, all they’d both done, but she’d long ago accepted that for Trudy to move on—for both of them to—they had to leave it all in the past. And now, just the smallest reminder of it had caused Violet’s heart to race and dampness to prickle under her arms.
An image of fish bones—winking in the sunlight, lying brazenly on the back step—rippled through her mind, but she mentally brushed them away, out of sight.
When she reached the kitchen, she crumpled the note into a ball and dropped it in the trash can.
* * *
The rain trickled to a stop in time for their survey, and when Violet emerged from the shadow between the two condo towers, she saw Frank already waiting for her down on the sand. Dark clouds still clustered here and there, but a bright line of sunlight shimmered several miles offshore, promising a sun-flooded day to come.
“Hello,” she called as she approached. She didn’t want to catch him off guard. But instead of startling, he turned slowly, a shy half smile already on his face.
“Good morning.” He planted his cane in the sand and took a few steps toward her. “Glad the rain tapered off.”
She nodded. “I thought we might have to push until tomorrow, but the day seems to be cooperating.”
He readied his clipboard and tipped his head down the beach. “Shall we?”
They fell into step beside each other, moving slowly, pausing often, each making their own notes on paper. Occasionally one would question or comment—“Northern tern, you think?” or “Tricolor heron, haven’t seen one of those in a while”—but for the most part, they walked in comfortable silence, and she was glad. She needed the time and space to collect herself. To allow the rhythm of the waves and the ordinary calls and chirps of the shore birds to settle the disquiet inside her.
She breathed in deep, willing the salty-fresh air into every yawning cavity inside her, every space that longed to be filled, and she remembered how it used to be. After that first night at the bar with Frank, the two of them had begun bird-watching together. And it was in those quiet hours that Violet had dared to imagine a future with him. The image of it shimmered at the edges of her mind, like a mirage she feared would dry up the closer she got to it.
They cared about the birds, of course—they both loved the thrill of seeing a new breed or a nest of perfect black skimmer eggs or the first warbler of the season—but the birding was also a cover. A reason for them to spend so much time together other than just not wanting to be apart.
Walking along the beach with him all these years later, Violet knew there was no reason she should feel this zing of familiarity, these strains of muscle memory, as if it had only been a short time since they’d walked down the beach together, fingers tracing circles on each other’s skin and streaks in the cerulean sky as they learned each other and followed birds on their flight paths. It had been forty years. They were strangers. And yet the past felt as sure and solid as the sand under her feet and the wind against her face.
1982
Violet ran up behind Frank, her long brown hair wind-whipped and her skin goose-bumped, and tapped him on the shoulder. When he turned one way, she darted the other, her footsteps muffled by the cold sand. The sun was brilliant on this mid-February Saturday. It was chilly so close to the water, but the brisk breeze revived her lagging spirit, and now that she was here with Frank, her heart was light.
He took three running steps with his long, muscular legs and caught her, his hand warm on her wrist. “Hey, you.” He pulled her toward him and kissed her. She rested her cheek against his and slid her hand into his.
“Sorry I’m late,” she said as he wrapped an arm around her back. “I had to run by my sister’s house.” Violet had woken up that morning with an ominous sense that a crossroads was coming. She’d driven too fast on the curving road to Jay and Trudy’s house, only to be turned away at the door by Jay.
“Your sister,” Frank said as they fell into step together and headed down the beach, eyes alert to wispy feathers, thin legs, sturdy beaks. “Trudy, right?”
Violet nodded and nibbled her thumbnail as the cold Gulf water flowed over her feet. She inhaled sharply at the shock, and Frank guided her up a bit onto softer sand, away from the edge of the waves.
“Last time you mentioned her, you said she was going through a hard time.”
It was true, Violet had said that, but she almost laughed at the absurdity of the cliché. A hard time. As if being married to Jay Malone was just a virus Trudy had picked up and would get over soon. The problem was Violet worried Trudy would never get over him, no matter how hard the times got. No matter how hard Violet tried to keep her promise to her mother. “I promise. I’ll protect Trudy.”
“You know what? I don’t want to talk about Trudy.” She met his gaze. “Is that all right?”
He closed the space between them and kissed her temple. “Of course.” His eyebrows knitted. “She’s okay though?”
Violet sighed. The random scrapes and cuts on Trudy’s skin had transformed into dark, angry bruises, green and brown and yellow at the edges. Trudy tried to hide them, but there was only so much one sister could hide from another. Every time Violet asked about Jay or ran her finger lightly over another purple bloom—on Trudy’s jaw, at her hairline, on the back of a leg—she would smile her perfect smile and toss back her mane of blonde hair and the haunted, anxious expression with it. “It’s fine, Vi. Everything’s just fine.”
Trudy had said that so often, Violet was ready to take her sister forcefully from the home she shared with her husband. Either that, or give up on Trudy completely, which she couldn’t, wouldn’t, do.
“Violet?” Frank slowed their pace. “If it’s anything I can help with . . .”
He didn’t finish, but he didn’t have to. She’d known him less than two months, but already she could tell he’d go an extra mile—or ten—for anyone who needed it. It was his nature, both as a police officer and as the earnest, loyal, good man she was finding him to be. And the poor boy had love written all over his face when he looked at Violet. Could he see the same in hers?
“She’ll be fine,” Violet finally said.
“You’ll let me know if I can help?”
“I will,” she promised.
Satisfied, he kissed her, his lips cold and salty from the breeze coming off the water. She caught his bottom lip gently between her teeth, then let go and pulled back. Even in his casual clothes and a ball cap on his head, he still had a commanding presence—broad shoulders, sturdy chest, strong jaw. He was twenty-seven—a year older than she was—but he could’ve easily passed for thirty or more on bearing alone.
They’d met up as often as possible to bird-watch together, though they did less of that lately, as focused as they were on learning every little detail about each other that they could. And Violet let him in on everything.
Almost everything, anyway. It was easier to keep some things to herself.
“I have to tell you something,” she said, after kissing him once more and resuming their walk, not an inch of space between them. “I’m thinking about applying for a field study program this summer.”
“A field study? What does that mean?”
“It’s basically a temporary job, mostly for teachers and biologists. I’d be paid a tiny bit to work with scientists studying birds in their natural habitats. It’d be three months.”
“It sounds perfect for you. Where is it?”
“They have programs like this all over, but there’s one particular program in the Florida Keys. That’s the one I’d apply for.”
“Oh. Wow.” He rubbed his cheek. “That’s a long way away.”
“I know. I’ve been thinking about applying for a couple years now. Since I have summers off, I have the time, and I’ve always wanted to see the Keys. I never thought I’d actually have a chance to go there though.” She paused. “I have to turn in the application this week. I had it all ready back in January, but now I’m . . . well, I’m unsure.” She swallowed. “The program starts in late May.”
He glanced down at her and squeezed her hand. Good. She didn’t have to spell it out that he was the reason she was unsure. Trudy was part of it, too, of course, but Frank played an increasingly large part in her uncertainty. It was so foreign to her—to have a man factor into a decision about her life. It had never been that way for Violet. Trudy, sure. She was the beauty, the desired one. Not just by boys and men but by everyone—friends, teachers, anyone with a camera. Since she was thirteen, Trudy had been quantifying and estimating herself based on how she was perceived, mostly by the opposite sex. Violet had always had complete freedom in her decisions. At least as it pertained to men.
And now here she was with a chance to go somewhere she’d always wanted to go, while doing the thing she loved to do, and she was waffling.
She kicked the sand with her toe, causing a cloud of it to fly back against their shins in the breeze.
“I think you should go for it.”
“You do?”
“I do. Turn it in Monday and see what happens. If you get in, you’ll go and study and learn. Then you can come back and tell me all about it.”
Relief etched itself across her face in the form of a wide smile. She stopped and threw her arms around his neck. “Who knows?” he murmured into her ear. “Maybe I’ll get some time off and I can come visit while you’re there.”
“I’d like that very much.”
He put a gentle finger on her chin. “And I like you very much, Violet Figg.” Her heart pounded but she didn’t speak. “Where did you come from? You just walked into my life and changed my whole world.”
“Actually, I think you walked into mine.”
He chuckled. “Regardless, I don’t think I’ll ever be the same.”
* * *
Frank’s cane stabbed the sand with each step he took, and Violet was momentarily flustered, having nearly forgotten that it was decades later, and the man next to her was no longer the young, sure-footed, rookie policeman he’d been back then. And she was no longer the fresh-faced, ambitious young woman she’d once been.
Next to her Frank made a mark on his clipboard, then lowered it to his side. “I have some questions, if you don’t mind.”
She paused to steady herself. To ground herself in the here and now. “I’m surprised. You seem to have caught on to everything quickly.”
“I don’t mean about the surveys. I mean about you.”
“Oh.” She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. She’d left her visor at home, thinking it’d be cloudy all morning, and her hair, no longer rich brown but mousy gray, tickled her cheek.
“It’s been so long. I’m curious about you. About your life.”
Violet swallowed hard and adjusted her backpack on her shoulder. “What do you want to know?”
“Did you ever make it down to the Keys?”
That long-ago desire. Her studious little heart. “No. I never did.”
“Really? You were so excited about it. It seemed so perfect for you.”
It was.
“Something else came up.” She shrugged. “And kept coming up.”
“What about kids?” She waited for the next, and it finally came. “Husband?”
There had been other men, of course. Later. They came and went over the years, some just wanting company for a little while, some wanting more, but she could never make them a priority. Not with her real priority holed up in her home, creating beautiful artwork out of cast-off shells and bits of wood, writing her words on pieces of paper, hiding herself within a bubble of silence and solitude.
“Neither.”
He stared at her.
She laughed, a quick burst. “What?”
“I’m just . . . I’m shocked, honestly. I figured that was—” His mouth had started to form the next word—why—but he cut himself off.
What else would he have thought, Violet? Her words to herself were exasperated. You flat out told him there was someone else.
Everything in her wanted to set him straight, to assure him it hadn’t been another man who’d pulled her away from him. But explaining that to him now would only trigger more questions—questions she’d orchestrated her life around not answering.
“It just never happened,” was all she said.
He was quiet, waiting for an explanation she couldn’t give him. “I have to admit, I’m surprised. You were quite a woman, Violet.” He stole a glance at her, the corner of his mouth lifting just a little. “And still are, I imagine.”
She smiled. She couldn’t help herself, and neither could her heart, apparently. With the present and the past bumping up together, her heart raced just as it used to when she was with him.
Sandpipers coasted over the water and landed inches from the lapping waves. They dug their long, thin beaks into the soft sand.
Six sandpipers, four female, two male.
“What about you?” The thought of him loving another had once been unbearable to her, but years changed things. She thought she could take it now. “Did you marry?”
“I did. I married a woman named Alice. We have two sons.”
Violet’s heart stuttered, then resumed its pace. “And you live here in Sugar Bend?”
“I just moved back a few months ago. I’d been in Pensacola since . . . well, for a long time. But I wanted to be back closer to the grandkids.” He paused. “Alice lives in Abilene with her second husband.”
“Oh. I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Don’t be. We divorced five years ago. It was very amicable.”
“Well then, I’m glad.”
“Me too.”
They’d turned around at the end of their one-mile route and were now headed back the other direction, quiet, the sun against their faces. Violet held up a hand to block the rays.
“How’s your sister?” he asked.
“My sister?”
Her response was too loud, too sharp, and he tilted his head. “I remember you telling me a little about her. You always seemed worried about her.”
“Trudy’s just fine.” She spoke quickly, almost before he’d finished. “She lives with me.”
“Ah. I see. I’m glad you have someone with you. So you’re not—?” He stopped.
“So I’m not what? A lonely old woman?” She smiled to take the sting out of her words.
He lifted his cane and set it down again a couple feet ahead. “You’re not an old woman, but yes, I’m glad you’re not alone. Or lonely.”
She shifted her backpack off her shoulder and dropped her pencil and clipboard inside. “Trudy’s a good companion.” Quiet but steady as a heartbeat.
Back at the lounge chair that marked the beginning and end of their route, Frank lifted his face toward the sun and closed his eyes. Violet watched him a moment—his broad shoulders just a little bit stooped, the line of his jaw softer, his thick eyebrows wiry with age, and those same full lips—then she turned her face up too. The sun’s rays were still soft, a little hazy in the morning breeze. Above them, gulls cackled to a nearly empty stretch of sand. Just Violet and Frank standing still as the years pushed against them. Leaning toward the sunlight.
* * *
Liza waited until the rest of the Observer staff had gone home for the day before she paused in front of the gallery wall of old Sugar Bend photos and newspaper clippings. She focused on one photo snipped from a 1981 front-page spread. She’d perused the gallery wall in the office many times since beginning her job at the paper, and while she’d seen this particular photo, she never paid it any particular attention. Today, though, she couldn’t pull her eyes away.
The yellowed clipping showed a man with a wide smile. He held a string of just-caught fish in one hand, and the other rested possessively on the steering wheel of a green boat with a blue stripe across the side. The man was charming—cute and a bit flirty, as if he were trying to get a smile out of whoever was holding the camera. His hair was pleasantly disheveled, and his taut chest muscles gleamed in the sunlight. She thought back to the strange dream she’d had after seeing the boat washed up onshore—the fists and tears, the sound of a boat motor and broken glass. None of that jived with the affable face grinning from the photo.
The caption beneath the photo read, “Owner of Friendly’s Ice Cream, Jay Malone, with his catch of the day.”
* * *
The Sugar Bend Observer, Sugar Bend’s Community News Source
June 2022 | Volume 11, Issue 6
As I’m sure you’ve noticed, several new housing developments are under way in Sugar Bend. Each development is spearheaded by architects and builders intent on preserving beauty and charm while also renovating and rebuilding sections of the area that have fallen into disrepair. One of those areas is a neighborhood just up the river from downtown Sugar Bend. Carl Waters, with Southtown Contractors, has begun work on a new subdivision called Fox Cove. I recently visited Fox Cove, and Mr. Waters’s teams are already in place beginning renovation work. The development will be anchored by River Ash Road, and a majority of the homes face the upper sections of Little River. I hear the sunset views are second to none!
In a nod to the history of our area, I discovered one of the homes Mr. Waters will be renovating was once owned by Jay Malone, who also owned several Friendly’s Ice Cream Shops back in the 1970s and early ’80s.
Additionally, on the day I visited, Mr. Waters pointed out a boat that had recently washed up onshore in front of the house. According to a photo from a back issue of The Observer, Mr. Malone caught quite a few fish from his treasured boat. I’ll be doing a little digging to see if the boat that washed up did in fact belong to Mr. Malone. In the meantime please enjoy our feature on Fox Cove on 1B.
Happy reading!
Liza