The Story She Left Behind

Chapter 1 Bronwyn Newcastle Fordham

1927

It is two o’clock in the morning when she leaves everyone she loves. At the edge of the May River, she unties the ropes of the Chris-Craft from the cleats of the weathered dock and steps into the boat. In the velvet quiet, a new moon cowers behind its dark cloak; the stars flare as bright as the fire that is sending her away.

She will be long gone before the tide returns in six hours to fill the marsh and secret waterways. She knows the tides of this estuary without having to look at a nautical chart or check the battered barometer that has always hung on the screened porch of their shingled house. She has planned this escape to the minute, and she does not hesitate.

The boat rides on the outgoing tide, and the wind-puckered river pushes it gently toward the sea, catching the current more quickly than she’d anticipated. Flickering lights of Bluffton dot the coastline like fireflies. Any minute, she’ll start the engine and navigate the boat toward Tybee Island and then into Savannah.

She stares at the ink-dark sky, at Orion and the Big Dipper. She doesn’t want to witness the familiar and loved landscape disappear.

Her mind begins to form a list, a habit she’s turned to since she was a child.

First, she lists what she’s brought with her: a coat, a change of clothes, a hundred dollars in cash that she took from the envelope they kept for emergencies, a notebook and a pen, as well as a leather satchel that contains the words she’s spent her life finding and creating.

The boat bobs and sways and she stares out to the horizon, waiting to start the engine. Her thoughts tick past what she’s brought and move to all she is leaving behind: the quiet crash of the incoming tide onto the oyster shells outside their window; the gray-shingled house that has protected her for ten years now; the room where she writes and reads in a chintz chair with the stuffing blooming out of the seams; the dimming of the day when longing rises and she dives into the warm waters of the river; the midsummer’s ivory bloom of the gardenia bush that she planted with her daughter; the soft caress of a breeze when she sits on the porch; her husband reaching for her in their bed and winding his fingers through hers while the crickets seem to cry.

And: Clara.

She holds the gunwale to steady herself as she walks to the cockpit. She presses the button to drop the single engine into the water while a surge of primal need for her daughter flows through her, causing her to sway with dizziness. She draws on her strength and on the knowledge that if she returns to her house, the world will do to her in full what it’s done only until now in part.

She thinks of the beauty of this place that she will carry with her: a place where fireflies decorate the nights and pine needles gather in soft beds, where sunrise tosses diamonds onto the water, where minnows flicker silver on the river’s surface.

The losses mount and she thinks nothing of what others might say, thinks nothing of her own well-being—Bronwyn needs to move forward and away from all that will come to pass if she stays. There are things that cannot be undone.

The unseen world has always called to her. She knows what she must do—she will become unseen. This is the answer for the character that she created, and this is her answer. Their destinies were always tangled together, she knows that now.

She finds the boat’s starter and presses it; the motor purrs, the water churns behind, and she pushes the throttle forward. She places her hands on the wheel. These are her waters, and she does not have to see to know the way.