The Beach House
She drove for four and a half hours and as she got closer to her destination the worries fell off her shoulders one by one like pieces of stone chiseled from marble. As her concerns broke away from her mind, the muscles around her neck and down her back felt lighter. She found that she was sitting up straighter with every mile and felt an inch taller too! The corners of her mouth began to curl upwards, and she found herself breathing in deeply.
“Ahhh,” she moaned to herself as she turned off the AC and rolled down the windows with a button. “That's more like it.” She exhaled to the wind as it blew across her nose carrying with it the promises of sea salt, shells waiting to be found, and drying seaweed.
She would be there soon. The beach house had been in her family since she could remember. Her grandfather was a fisherman and worked very hard. She could see in her mind's eye his roughened, dry, cracked fingers as he worked a piece of driftwood into a toy for her when she was five years old. His eyes were as deep and blue as the ocean. She would swim into them when he told her bedtime stories of days of old, and she wouldn't come up for breath until she felt her own eyes closing in sleep.
One of the stories she made him tell over and over was how he built the beach house with his bare hands. He would explain to her that when he was younger and stronger, he saved what money he could to buy the isolated stretch of sand. The house started out as one room, enough for shelter from the wind and the cold. But he made it strong and the fireplace in that wood-built room was large. When he would visit his brother in the mountains or vice versa, stones would be brought back to use in the construction. Incorporated in the mortar were empty conchs and seashells of varying sizes, shapes, and colors. The mantle was made out of a huge piece of ship's wood that had drifted up on shore after a storm. Her grandfather liked to believe it came off of an eight-masted sailing vessel that found its demise on the Outer Banks, splintering into huge pieces after wrestling with a sudden hurricane. Her grandfather told her that when he met his love, he added on a bedroom, proposed, and brought his bride over the simple threshold. The additions occurred child by child until it was a warren of rooms connected by hallways and creaking, cypress doors.
She thought of all this when she turned down the sandy driveway which wound its way through the bent over, stunted trees that hid the beach house from the road's view. Whatever concerns remained within her floated off her soul and sifted themselves through the gnarled fingers of those trees which had protected the family from the outside world for three generations.
She needed to be here. Life had thrown many obstacles her way in the past year and this was the first time she was able to get away and come to this house where she felt safe.
She parked the car, hauled all her bags through the kitchen door, and found some wildflowers waiting for her in a vase on the wood counter. He had been here. Just like he promised. How did he know she was coming? It was as if he had a sixth sense about her for she could show up at any moment in time and there on the counter or on a table would be a bunch of freshly picked beach flowers and grasses to greet her.
She sat down on the well-worn couch cushions in the fireplace room and put her face in her hands. Leaning forward she cried the tears she needed to cry months before but wouldn't let herself because to do so would mean she had been defeated. At least that's what she thought at the time. She knew now that she was as strong as this house and could weather any storm. But at that time, she felt as fragile as a baby bluebird's egg cracked open and left on the ground. Drying her face with the sleeve of her shirt, she looked around to see the bowls of shells that the family had gathered placed on a table and on a shelf. The landscape above the rustic mantle was one that her grandmother had painted in oil when she was a new bride. The ones in the kitchen she painted of sea creatures and vegetables that found their way into the savory dishes she had prepared for everyone. When the new oven had arrived, her grandmother had been intimidated at first, but she was determined to master the knobs and dials. Thanksgivings were the best.
Getting up from the couch she walked out onto the deck of the screened-in porch which spanned the length of the house. There it was . . . the beautiful ocean that seemed to heal her whenever she walked into its salty waves, washing over her like a baptism to cleanse her of all her failings. She would come up out of the water and walk back onto the sand renewed in spirit.
Remembering, she reached out her hand to open the screen door which led to the walkway over the dune. Once outside she took one step and then another. She took her shoes off when she reached the sand and dug her toes into its warmth. Carrying her sandals in one hand she swung them at her side and continued walking until she felt the cold water rise up to her knees.
No one was in sight. The seagulls cried and argued with one another. They always seemed to say, “That's mine. No! It's mine. Uh uh. Uh huh!” and run each other away from the speck of sand they were claiming as their own.
Looking back up toward the house, she realized with a start that the house was now hers, claimed by a piece of paper.
Mine.
It sounded good to her heart. She felt the throbbing inside her agree and she smiled again and laughed and kicked the water up in a spray which made all the seagulls fly.
“Mine,” she cried to their flapping wings and knew she was going to be alright. She had made the right decision. This piece of sand was hers, and she looked at the ramshackle house, loving everything about it. The weathered cedar shakes on the outside. The metal roof. The long, screened-in porch, the swing on the porch, the two-story addition with its dormers, the white-washed window frames, the curtains that blew in the breeze . . the memories.
This house would be her home where she would make new memories. It was perfect. It was time.
“Dierdra,” she heard him call over the dunes.
She looked up to see Adam, drenched in sunlight in his blue jeans, walking toward her.
“You came,” he said as he approached, holding out his arms to her.
“Yes,” was her simple reply.
No one was in sight. The seagulls cried and argued with one another. They always seemed to say, “That's mine. No! It's mine. Uh uh. Uh huh!” and run each other away from the speck of sand they were claiming as their own.
Looking back up toward the house, she realized with a start that the house was now hers, claimed by a piece of paper.
Mine.
It sounded good to her heart. She felt the throbbing inside her agree and she smiled again and laughed and kicked the water up in a spray which made all the seagulls fly.
“Mine,” she cried to their flapping wings and knew she was going to be alright. She had made the right decision. This piece of sand was hers, and she looked at the ramshackle house, loving everything about it. The weathered cedar shakes on the outside. The metal roof. The long, screened-in porch, the swing on the porch, the two-story addition with its dormers, the white-washed window frames, the curtains that blew in the breeze . . the memories.
This house would be her home where she would make new memories. It was perfect. It was time.
“Dierdra,” she heard him call over the dunes.
She looked up to see Adam, drenched in sunlight in his blue jeans, walking toward her.
“You came,” he said as he approached, holding out his arms to her.
“Yes,” was her simple reply.
Nothing more needed to be said.
© nancy 4.26.2010
© nancy 4.26.2010
