“I’m afraid if I did, you’d never answer again.”
A little chuckle-cough tells me I’m right. “True enough.”
“Please listen to me. Please. I’ve been digging around the cottage all evening, and I found something, and you’re the only one who can tell me what it means. I just…I need to know what’s going on and what I should do about it.” If there’s a scandal somewhere in our family’s past, it’s quite possible that it no longer matters, except perhaps to a few well-preserved members of the Old Guard Gossip Brigade, but there’s no way to judge that until I know what I’m dealing with.
“I really can’t tell you that.”
“I understand your promise to your grandfather, but…”
“No.” He suddenly sounds wide-awake—wide-awake and in control. “I mean, I can’t tell you. I’ve never looked in any of the envelopes. I helped Granddad get them to the people whose names were on them. That’s all.”
Is he telling the truth? It’s hard for me to imagine. I’m the type who carefully peels the tape off the wrapping paper and peeks at the Christmas presents the minute they show up under the tree. I don’t like surprises. “But what were they about? What did it have to do with the Tennessee Children’s Home Society? Children’s homes are for orphans. Could my grandmother have been looking for someone who was given up for adoption?”
As soon as I suggest it, I’m afraid I’ve said too much. “That’s just a theory on my part,” I add. “I don’t have any reason to think it’s true.” I’m better off not opening the door to a potential scandal. I don’t know that I can trust Trent Turner, though it takes a man of integrity to live with sealed envelopes for months on end. The elder Mr. Turner must have known that his grandson was made of solid stuff.
The phone goes silent and stays that way so long that I wonder if Trent has abandoned the call. I’m afraid to speak, afraid anything I say might tip the balance one way or the other.
I’m not terribly accustomed to begging, but finally I whisper, “Please. I’m sorry we got off on the wrong foot this afternoon, but I don’t know where else to go from here.”
He takes in air. I can almost see his chest filling. “Come over.”
“What?”
“Come over to the house before I change my mind.”
Stunned silence is all I can manage in response. I’m not sure whether I’m excited or scared to death…or if I’m crazy for even thinking about visiting a stranger’s house in the middle of the night.
On the other hand, he is a reputable and well-known businessman on the island.
A businessman who now knows that I’ve unearthed at least some part of a secret.
His grandfather’s deathbed secret.
What if there’s a sinister intention behind this midnight invitation? No one will even know where I am. Who can I tell?
I can’t think of anybody I’d want to let in on this right now.
I’ll leave a note…here in the cottage….
No…wait. I’ll send myself an email. If I go missing, that’s the first place they’ll check.
The thought feels melodramatic and silly, and then again, it doesn’t. “I’ll grab my keys and—”
“You won’t need your car. I’m four cottages down.”
“You’re right in the neighborhood?” Parting the kitchen curtains, I try to see through the wall of yaupon and live oak. All this time, he was practically next door?
“It’s quicker by the beach. I’ll turn the back-porch light on.”
“I’ll be right there.”
I rattle around the cottage looking for a flashlight and batteries. Fortunately, whatever relatives have been using the place did leave the basics. My phone rings as I’m thumb-typing an email to myself, documenting my whereabouts and my time of departure. I jump at least three feet, then land hard in a pit of dread. Trent changed his mind already….
But the phone number is Elliot’s. I’m too wound up to calculate what time it is in Milan right now, but no doubt he’s working. “I was tied up when you called yesterday. Sorry,” he says.
“I figured. Busy day?”
“Rather,” he says vaguely, as usual. In his family, the women aren’t interested in business. “How are things on Edisto?”
Honestly, the grapevine in our family is better than microchip tracking. “How did you know I was here?”
“Mother told me,” he sighs. “She’d been over to Drayden Hill to get a baby fix, since your sister and Courtney and the boys are visiting. Now she’s on the grandkid kick again.” Elliot is understandably frustrated. “She reminded me that I’m thirty-one already, and she’s fifty-seven, and she doesn’t want to be an old grandmother.”
“Uh-oh.” I wonder sometimes what it’ll be like to have Bitsy as a mother-in-law. I love her, and she means well, but she makes Honeybee look subtle.
“Can we book your sister and the triplets to go stay at Mother’s for a few days?” Elliot suggests ruefully. “Maybe that’ll cure her.”
Even though I get the joke, it stings. I adore the triplets, even if they are little wild men. “You could ask.” Despite the fact Elliot and I have only talked about kids as an eventual part of our life plan, he’s already concerned that multiple births run in my family. He doesn’t think he could handle more than one at a time. Every once in a while, I worry that having kids someday might be never for Elliot. I know we’ll work these things out as we go. Don’t most couples have to?
“So how long are you at the beach?” he says, changing the subject.
“Just a couple days. If I stay any longer, Leslie will send someone to hunt me down.”
“Well, Leslie is looking out for your best interests. You need to be seen. That’s the reason you moved home.”
I moved home to look after my dad, I want to say, but with Elliot, everything is a step toward something. He’s the most achievement-oriented person I’ve ever met. “I know. But it’s nice to have a little breather. You sound like you could use one too. Get some rest while you’re over there, okay? And don’t worry about your mother and the grandkid thing. She’ll be focused on something else tomorrow.”
We say goodbye, and I finish the precautionary email to myself. If I’m never heard from again, someone will eventually check there. Midnight Tuesday evening. I’m going four doors down from the Edisto cottage to talk to Trent Turner about something involving Grandma Judy. Should be back in an hour or so. Leaving this message just in case.
It feels dorky, but I send it anyway before slipping out the door.
Outside, the night is quiet and deep as I walk the path through the dunes, shining my flashlight to keep a lookout for snakes. Along the shore, most of the cottages have gone dark, leaving only the glow of a full moon and a smattering of lights that seem to float over the watery horizon. Leaves and sea grass whisper, and on the beach ghost crabs scuttle sideways through the sand. I sweep the light over them, taking care not to ruin the feeding frenzy by stepping on someone.
The breeze slides along my neck and through my hair, and I want to walk and relax and enjoy the soothing song of the sea. I own meditation music that sounds like this, but I seldom take time for the real thing. Right now, that seems like a shame. I’d forgotten how heavenly this place is, a perfect meeting of land and sea, undisturbed by giant high-rises, or bonfires and ATVs.
I come to Trent Turner’s cottage before I want to. My pulse quickens as I slip along a well-worn trail through shrubbery and cross a short boardwalk to a leaning gate. His cottage is of about the same vintage as Grandma Judy’s. It sits on short stilts on a large lot, with a small outbuilding in the side yard. A stone path leads to the porch steps. Overhead, moths flutter in circles around a single bulb.
Trent answers the door before I can knock. He’s wearing a faded T-shirt with a tear along the neck and sweats that sag around his hips. His suntanned feet are bare, and he’s sporting an impressive case of bedhead.
Crossing his arms, he leans against the doorframe, studying me.