Chapter 13
13
It was still balmy when they walked along the weathered wooden boardwalk and onto the beach at Haven Harbor in the Hamptons. Deedee slipped off her wedged-heel sandals and let them dangle from her fingers by the straps so she could feel the warmth from the sunbaked sand on the soles of her feet. Grassy dunes swayed in the breeze, as it furled around her like a comfort blanket, welcoming her to where Joe spent many hours here as a young boy, most likely, walking on this same stretch of shoreline with the breathtakingly beautiful view over the Atlantic ocean. The house was further on, according to the map included with the paperwork, at the end of the rickety wooden post and wire fencing and nearest to the curve of the coast before it looped around and led to the harbour over on the other side of the dunes. And where a tall red-and-white masonry lighthouse with a glass lookout tower on the top stood to keep watch over the waves. It was built in the 1700s after many ships had wrecked on the rocks all around it, according to the leaflet of historical details that Joe had thoughtfully added to the envelope too.
Gulls dipped and soared over the ocean to her left as Deedee went ahead alone, having already asked Gina, Rosie and Anthony if they would mind her walking this section by herself. She wanted to just be with her thoughts, and possibly have a chat to Joe, as she made the journey for him. He had entrusted her with this project, and she had every intention of honouring it and doing the best for him. She already knew she would restore the house to ensure his memory was etched here forever somehow. Maybe she would give the house a name, Joe’s Plaice , she mused to herself, chuckling inwardly and knowing Joe would have laughed too at the fish theme and agreed it was perfect for a house on a beach! She could have a ceramic tile made up with the name on to hang by the door. Or how about a blue plaque like the ones in England on houses where famous or notable people had lived in history? She laughed some more, liking that she had this banter inside her head with Joe, it was comforting and kept her feeling close to him. Although since the conversation with Cleo earlier, Deedee was finding her thoughts drifting to Yiannis and all the way back to when they dated decades ago. They were young and adventurous. And she’d be lying if she said she hadn’t enjoyed that time with Yiannis – he had been an incredible lover; energetic and generous, patient too… She had her first orgasm with him, she suddenly realised. Her cheeks flushed as she momentarily wondered if he remembered this too. Surely not. Did she even tell him at the time? She couldn’t remember, most likely not, as there was a high chance she’d played it cool, not wanting him to know she had probably faked it before then. But she had been inexperienced and less sure of herself back then, na?ve, and hadn’t figured out – until that first orgasm of course – that sex was something for women to enjoy and not just participate in, purely for the pleasure of men.
Quickly shifting her thoughts back to her husband and her current surroundings, she gazed out at the sea and then to the sand dunes again.
‘Oh, Joe, Haven Harbor is so beautiful, I can see why you loved living here, my darling,’ she said out loud, tilting her face towards the sun as if to send her words directly to him. She could feel his presence, she was certain of it, his citrus scent swirling in the air around her, or maybe it was just her imagination, fanciful thinking and she was mistaking it for the sea’s salty spray. Either way, it didn’t really matter, because whatever the scent was, she knew from now on that she would always feel closer to him whenever she came here. And she fully intended on trying to do that as often as possible.
As she walked on, her thoughts turned to her plans to properly move the travel agency online and to see if she really could offer a more bespoke service and figured it would mean she could actually live anywhere. She stopped walking and wondered… so why not here? She had a Green Card after all – Harry organised it for her years ago after her marriage to Joe, an American citizen, as it had made travelling with him here so much easier. It would also mean she could sell her house in London and sort herself out financially. She could pay off the loan and maybe manage to bring Molly on full time.
Spotting a pretty pink shell on the sand near her toes, she crouched down to retrieve it and the realisation dawned on her that maybe moving here was the answer, the last piece of the jigsaw of grief that had been puzzling her for the last four years. The missing piece. Could she feel whole again here? Close to Joe, so truly at peace without him. Possibly. She stood up and slipped the shell inside the pocket of her sundress. Seeing Joe on screen as if he had come to life had been a start and she realised that confronting her loss, seeing him and hearing him again had been incredibly cathartic. The giant hole he had left in her life somehow smoothed around the edges, bringing a lovely sense of acceptance. The word ‘nice’ was so often dismissed as meaningless but that’s what seeing the video yesterday had been – really nice – in an uncomplicated, normal, simplistic way, just as the best of times often were. The moments of normality when she and Joe had just sat together, chatting or reading a newspaper, drinking coffee in a cafe and watching the world go by. And hearing from him yesterday had given her another one of those precious moments. So why not go all in and live in the beach house in this beautiful location and see if she really could feel whole again? She could walk on this beach every day and have her normal chats with Joe, drink coffee from a flask as she sat on the sand dunes and watch the world go by. She could get a dog! A scruffy scamp to run across the wet sand at low tide. Joe had often talked about having a dog, but they had decided against it on account of all the travelling they did together. But if she was based here in Haven Harbor, then maybe she would slow down, travel less, she was going to be seventy after all. She smiled wryly to herself knowing that slowing down was highly unlikely. So a small dog in that case, one that could travel with her.
Yes, there was always a way. And she didn’t have any real ties to England any more, other than the travel agency business, and she had a plan for that now. So there really wasn’t anything stopping Deedee from doing whatever she chose to. Many of her closest friends were here – especially Anthony, Karl and Yiannis. And her friendship with Gina and Rosie was already mostly online with their daily WhatsApp chats. Of course, she needed to see the beach house before any serious decisions could be made, but Deedee had an inkling that it could be just what she needed. Turning towards the ocean, she let her sandals fall onto the sand and lifted her arms up and wide to the sky to embrace the start of this new adventure. It felt so incredibly exciting as she stood motionless, just letting the sound of the waves roll over her, the still-warm early evening sun soothe her.
Scooping her sandals back up, Deedee then made her way over to the wooden fencing at the bank of a higher section of the dunes and followed it all the way to the end, past a small row of beach houses painted in pretty pastel colours until she came to the one on the end. Joe’s house. She recognised it right away from the pictures in the file and walked towards the front door. Stopping, she took a good look, noting how pretty it looked in real life, in fact significantly better than it had in the pictures. Even with the peeling white paint on the wooden weatherboarding and the faded newspaper taped over the inside of the windows, it was still appealing. Turning back, she looked along the beach and saw her lovely friends kindly loitering in the distance, hanging back as she had requested and pretending not to be looking to see what she was doing. Anthony noticed and Deedee could tell by his body language that he was faking being suddenly engrossed in a shell or something on the sand as he whipped his head away from her direction with such speed, he was in danger of giving himself whiplash. Smiling to herself and acknowledging how grateful and lucky she was to have such loving and patient friends, she raised her arm and waved enthusiastically, beckoning for them to come and join her at last. They didn’t need any persuading, as they instantly stopped huddling and clambered hurriedly across the sand towards her like three overexcited puppies.
‘Thank you,’ Deedee said as soon as the three of them stood panting and brushing sand from their clothes in front of her.
‘What for?’ Gina was the first to catch her breath.
‘For absolutely everything!’ Deedee started. ‘For not complaining about me ruining the holiday and not delivering on the wild week of shopping and partying that I promised. For luring you to New York on the pretext of seeing the famous movie locations and having a big birthday party, only to abandon you mostly by being antisocial and not really explaining why, to bringing you to a lawyer’s office to watch a film of my dead husband, to leaving you to loiter on a windswept beach while I walk to the house he gifted to me and knowing that you’re all as intrigued as I am to see what it’s like inside. Honestly, I’ve been a bad friend and I’m sorry.’
‘Well that’s true!’ Anthony quipped with a perfectly straight face, ‘You’re a terrible friend?—’
‘Anthony!’ Rosie rounded on him with her hands on her hips. ‘That’s mean, Deedee has had a lot to deal with…’ And then she started laughing as soon as she saw the enormous grin on Anthony’s face.
‘I’m kidding, doll,’ he shrieked, pulling Rosie in for a hug. ‘Deedee knows this, don’t you, angel?’ he added over Rosie’s shoulder and Deedee nodded.
‘Yep, but Rosie’s right, you are mean,’ Deedee quipped right back. And they all laughed some more as Rosie wrestled out from Anthony’s hug to wallop him on the arm.
‘Well, please stop doing it… I can’t tell when you’re fooling around,’ Rosie said, pulling a face and trying not to laugh. Deedee smiled inwardly on seeing how Anthony and Rosie seemed to have clicked and become firm friends too.
‘So, what’s brought on this sudden rush of love and realisation?’ Anthony asked, turning to Deedee.
‘Just had a bit of an epiphany, I guess,’ Deedee told them. ‘I don’t know… just being here, walking across the sand, feeling close to Joe and then seeing you all there patiently waiting to join me, just being here for me… I truly appreciate it, that’s all.’
‘Oh, Dee, we will always be here for you… even when you’re being a bad friend,’ Anthony said, swiftly ducking away from Rosie’s reach. ‘So, are we going inside then?’ He looped an arm casually around Deedee’s shoulders.
‘If you are ready?’ Gina checked, looking directly at Deedee.
‘Sure… I think so,’ she nodded. Anthony dropped his arm and Deedee slipped the key from the envelope she had tucked inside a pocket in her shoulder bag.
‘Shouldn’t we say a speech… cut an imaginary ribbon or something?’ Gina added, stepping forward. ‘You know, like they do when opening a new shop or—’ she paused and looked at each of them.
A short silence followed until Deedee suggested, ‘Great idea! And the house is a birthday present after all.’
After declaring the house officially open, Anthony wandered off along a grassy section on the side of a path leading to the wooden balustraded deck and was pointing at an old log of driftwood there by the front door.
‘Dee… come and look at this!’ he called.
‘What is it?’ Deedee and Gina walked over to where Rosie and Anthony were inspecting what looked like an enormous branch that had fallen from a tree or had washed up on the beach perhaps and been dragged on to the deck. It had clearly been here for many years, as the bark was almost white where it had been bleached by the sun and a tangle of delicate pink beach flowers and leafy, lush green shrubs had sprung up from gaps in the broken wooden deck below it and grown through the holes.
‘See here.’ Anthony crouched down and after gently moving a mass of the pink flowers aside he pointed to something. Deedee bent down beside him to take a look. And then gasped. Automatically, she touched her fingers to the thickest section of the driftwood log where it was carved with the letters J O E. She ran an index finger over the grooves of the letters. ‘Joe did this,’ she said softly, instantly imagining him as a young boy sitting here on the log in the sunshine, invigorated by the translucent light, as it dazzled on the seawater, sending sparks of shimmering silver over the front of the house, just as it was now. She imagined Joe diligently carving with a pen knife, perhaps. Not a care in the world. Until his father had died and his whole world had fallen apart, of course. This idyllic life in Haven Harbor cruelly snatched away from him, when he himself was heartbroken in grief for his father. No wonder he hadn’t ever given up on coming back here, nor ever stopped wanting to ensure this place was preserved. Without saying a word and without her usual fanfare, Rosie retrieved a pad from her bag and wrote something down. Deedee just knew she was making a note to keep the driftwood log in place when the deck was repaired, and the garden area was landscaped. She smiled and nodded in thanks to her friend. Rosie patted the back of the notepad before folding her arms around it, clearly intent on having it handy to note down any further surprises they might stumble upon as they looked around the house.