Chapter 11
Still winded from the altercation, Tommy marches over to the barricade to try to put it back together. As he leans down, his
head swims from the alcohol and the exertion of the fight. He’s never fought a woman in his life, and he hadn’t intended to
just now. In hindsight he figures he should’ve let her run out. Then he should’ve let them all run out after her. Then this
would be over and he could let the chips fall where they may.
But when he saw her trying to escape, something in him had to stop her. He doesn’t know what compelled him, but it was something
he doesn’t like, a deep-down kind of meanness he wishes wasn’t there. It is the same impulse that led him to create the barricade,
a combination of stupidity and stubbornness that has got him locked into a situation he can’t get out of now. He feels a wash
of shame flood his cheeks and travel down through his chest and into his belly, coming to rest there like a hot, spreading
fire. He has no choice but to see it through.
He turns his focus back to gathering up the tourism pamphlets that fell to the floor as they struggled.
It seems odd to him that they have tourism pamphlets in a post office.
How many tourists actually come in this post office?
Do people on vacation need to mail things?
He doesn’t know why they would. The whole point, as far as he can figure, is that people go on vacation to take a break from doing things like going to the post office.
But Tommy doesn’t know about taking vacations. That wasn’t something he grew up doing.
His dad always said, “Son, we live where people come to vacation. Why would we need to go anywhere else?” Tommy figured that
was true, but still. He always wanted to go on vacation like he’d seen people do on TV and heard about from kids at school.
He and Nadine said they would go on a vacation someday, but money was always tight, and he heard himself saying to her, like
his dad, “Why would we need to go on vacation when we can go to the beach here?” He told himself it was enough. He looks over
at Nadine. Maybe it wasn’t.
He continues with the pamphlets, each one promising a better time than the one next to it. He goes to pick up the ones on
the floor, fanned out like a deck of cards. They are for the planetarium, which is right down the street. He went there once
on a field trip. He can’t remember what grade it was, but he remembers learning about the stars and finding them fascinating.
For a while after that field trip he’d asked for a telescope for Christmas. Instead, he’d received his first hunting rifle.
Instinctively, his hand moves to pat the gun in his pocket. It was probably a mistake to bring it in here. But right now it
feels like security.
As he continues with his task, his eyes fall on a familiar logo. It is a pamphlet advertising the Tiki Bar over on Ocean Isle.
“Hey, Nadine,” he says, holding it up. “Look!”
From her place on the floor, Nadine scowls at him.
“So?” she asks, as if they haven’t been there too many nights to count.
As if they hadn’t stared out at the night sky from the roof deck, trying to name those stars they learned about in school but had long since forgotten, as Jimmy Buffett sang through the speakers.
She can try to pretend she’s forgotten all she wants.
But he knows she hasn’t. Somehow, he thinks, he’s just got to make her remember.
Across the room, Morrow smooths her ponytail, wishing for a mirror as she feels around for loose strands of hair and tries
to secure them. She probably looks a sight. When Blythe tries to catch her eye, she looks away, embarrassed for reasons she
can’t name. Because her attempt to escape failed? Because she looks foolish for attempting at all? She tells herself she should
be proud she tried. It is more than anyone else in this room has done.
She would do just about anything for a cigarette right now. It is her dirty little secret, a habit she fell into without intending
to. She’d smoked in college, like everyone seemed to, but quit almost as soon as she began. She’d never considered smoking
again after that. Then one night last fall she’d walked outside to get the dog back inside the house and smelled the distinct
scent of nicotine-infused smoke wafting through the air. She’d looked around for the source, fearful she’d find Maya and a
friend, but spotted her elderly neighbor, Pat, instead, sitting on her back porch, taking in the view of the Intracoastal
Waterway.
Morrow had nudged the dog inside the house, then stayed where she was, keeping her eyes on Pat, who seemed oblivious that
she was being watched. Transfixed, Morrow had studied her neighbor’s series of actions: lifting the cigarette to her lips,
the glow as she inhaled, the smoke floating into the air upon her exhale. Pulled by her senses and, she can admit now, motivated
by loneliness, she’d crossed the yard and spoken to her neighbor, someone she’d only had a handful of conversations with since
they’d moved in. She’d let their age difference negate the possibility of a friendship, assuming that she, a perimenopausal
woman with family obligations, had very little in common with an elderly widow who lived alone. She’d been wrong.
Pat welcomed her that first night, invited her to sit.
And though not on that first night, eventually offered her a cigarette.
At first Morrow demurred. Then after one particularly bad night, she’d given in, puffing on the proffered cigarette like a rebellious teenager.
But instead of hiding it from her parents, she was hiding it from her husband and child.
After that, smoking with Pat on her porch became a regular thing. Their nightly conversations—taking place when Kevin was
on yet another business trip and Maya was locked away in her room reigning over the kingdom inside her phone—became a lifeline.
Pat went from neighbor to friend, and now the smell of cigarette smoke reminds her of laughter, of long, meandering discussions,
of secrets whispered. Which is why she’s craving a cigarette. It’s not just the nicotine; it’s what comes with it. If she
had a cigarette right now, she’d be home. Her daughter would be in her room. She’d be telling Pat all about what has happened
here today. She would be free.
Morrow rests her hand on her tote bag. I tried, she thinks. I tried to get back.
Beside her Sylvie whispers, “That was very brave, what you did.”
“I just thought we should try to get out of here any way we can,” Morrow quips.
Sylvie chuckles at that. “Well, it was certainly a good try. I wish I’d done it myself.”
Morrow catches herself thinking Sylvie is too old to attempt what she did. But if there’s one thing she’s learned from spending
time with Pat, it’s not to count anyone out just because of their age.
Sylvie extends her hand. “I’m Sylvie. And you are?” Morrow pauses before answering. Somehow, learning the names of her fellow
captors makes this seem more real. But, she figures, it can’t hurt. They are, like it or not, in this together.
“Morrow,” says Morrow.
“Morrow,” Sylvie says. “That’s a lovely name. Unusual.”
“My mother loved the book Gift from the Sea, so she named me Anne Morrow. I was called Anne until I reached my teens. Then I started going by Morrow.” She laughs at
herself. “I thought it sounded more romantic.”
“It certainly does.” Sylvie nods. “I loved Gift from the Sea as well,” she says. “I actually made a needlepoint pillow many years ago with a quote from it.”
“Oh?” Morrow asks. “Which quote?” Morrow has read the book many times. It was what led to her campaign for her family to move
here, her long-romanticized dream of living by the sea, of somehow becoming whatever her mother had intended when she named
her. She wishes she could ask her mother just what that was, but she has been dead since Morrow was a teenager, since about
the time she changed her name.
“It was about security in a relationship,” Sylvie answers. She shrugs. “About living in the present and not in the past or
future.” A wistful look passes over Sylvie’s face. “I haven’t seen that pillow in years. I’d forgotten all about it till just
now.” Sylvie looks at Morrow. “It’s funny how you lose track of things.”
Morrow nods, agreeing. In their nearly thirty years of marriage, she and Kevin have acquired and discarded several lifetimes’
worth of possessions. They keep a storage room they pay for each month, filled with things she couldn’t account for if pressed.
She sees Sylvie make eye contact with Blythe. “And you are?” Sylvie asks her.
“Blythe,” says Blythe, but softly.
“I’m sorry,” says Sylvie. “I couldn’t hear you.” She points at her ears. “These things ain’t what they used to be.”
Blythe smiles at that and says her name again, louder this time.
“Blythe,” Sylvie repeats. “Also a lovely name.”
“It’s supposed to mean ‘happy’ or ‘cheerful,’” Blythe says, then shrugs her shoulders. “Which is not so fitting right now,” she adds. She tries for a laugh, but it catches in her throat.
“I think it fits,” says Sylvie. “You look like a Blythe. No matter what the circumstances are.”
Blythe gives her a smile even as she thinks that this is not true. She once heard happiness is dependent on circumstances.
Joy, however, is within you, existing beyond the circumstances, in spite of them. But Blythe’s name means “happy,” not “joyful.”
Perhaps her name is holding her back.
Her mind returns to the dinner last night, crowded around Aaron’s family’s table, elbow to elbow with her mother, who sat
stiffly, her disapproval wafting off her and onto Blythe, poisoning the air. Just weeks before, at Easter, Blythe had sat
at the very same table, elbow to elbow with Aaron, smiling ear to ear as his nieces and nephews chased one another out the
door to hunt for eggs. All the while she was thinking, This is exactly what I want. This is what I’ve always wanted. Only one thing had changed, and that was her mother.
Blythe thinks about the package once more, wonders again about getting it back.
“Morrow, Blythe, and Sylvie,” Sylvie says, pulling Blythe out of her contemplation.
Sylvie looks at all of them, then over at Nadine. “And we can’t forget Nadine,” she adds. Blythe sees this is Sylvie’s way
of drawing Nadine in, of reassuring her that they don’t fault her for any of this.
“I’m sorry about this, you guys,” Nadine responds.
“It’s not your fault,” Blythe speaks up.
Morrow looks over at Nadine. “It’s not,” she agrees with Blythe, “your fault.”
“It’s certainly not,” chimes in Sylvie.
The four of them exchange smiles as Tommy stops messing with the barricade and looks over his shoulder, aware that something has happened. He turns around and takes in the scene. Something has shifted and he knows it. He almost seems afraid.
He should be, Sylvie thinks.