They hung out with locals who leaned over the creek bridge, fishing poles tailing line into rippled waters, buckets and coolers smelly with flounder and spot. At low tide, the boys dug oysters and clams. They came home with split fingers and a sack of jagged bivalves.
They shed their cut-off high-tops in a muddy heap outside, hung their stinky shirts and shorts on the clothesline and showered in the changing area under the house. The shower stung their skin with sweet prickles of pain and washed rank pluff in a gurgle down the drain. They ran up the back stairs in the buff, their mother snapping a tea towel at their bare bottoms as they streaked through the kitchen. A few days later their clothes would appear, fragrant and folded, in their chests of drawers.
Emmett often lamented that his girls would never know the luxury of being kicked out and free to roam. Lauren kept a close eye on them—they were never unaccounted for, never left to their own meanderings, particularly Ainslie, who was still a baby in so many ways. But Ainslie was tough, athletic, and energetic. Emmett wished Lauren would let her join the other kids who explored the island on bikes and slender scooters. Often Emmett thought Ainslie should have been born a boy; perhaps then her mother might have cut her some slack. But to Lauren, girls were supposed to be pink bows, tea parties, and piano recitals.
Poor Lauren had struck out with both girls in that respect. Where Ainslie was rambunctious, Sloan was introverted and somewhat dark of nature. She had inherited his family’s artistic talents but also a more brooding, sensitive side that was puzzling. Sometimes when Sloan would give him a certain look Emmett could see contempt, so bald and honest it seared his soul. She apparently found him incompetent, but then the girl would roll her eyes and he would convince himself it was only puberty talking.
He could feel the girls rattle into the house, but up this high, wind smothered most of their noise. He sensed water running in their bathroom beneath him. He reclined against the bench and scanned the horizon of startling orange burn pooling over the mainland, its reflection quivering in the creek. Out to sea, the sky was licked with lavender like the heavens of a Renaissance painting.
“Want some company?” Lauren appeared at the hatch. Wind whipped her blonde bob in a frenzied dance. She held a glass in both hands. “I come bearing gifts.”
“Please join me.”
He took the gin and tonics from her outstretched hands. She climbed up and slid onto the bench opposite him.
“I assume Ainslie’s in the bath.” He sipped his drink, and the distinct taste of juniper and lime tingled his nose.
“Sloan’s supposed to be helping her wash up, but I heard the TV on. I think they’re watching Titanic for the forty-fifth time,” she said and sighed dramatically. “It’s pretty up here tonight.”
“We always have the best sunsets in the fall.”
“Have you heard when they’re going to start dredging the creek?”
“Spring, I hope. The channel has to be opened up again or we won’t be able to get the boat out.”
“Mom?” Sloan’s frustrated voice floated up to them.
“What now?” Lauren leaned over the opening and yelled, “I’ll be down in a minute.” Then to Emmett she said, “Well, I guess I need to go stir the soup anyway.”
“What are we having?”
“She crab.”
“My favorite.”
Lauren backed down the ladder, grasping the rungs with one hand while she balanced her drink in the other.
Emmett sucked down the rest of his cocktail and tossed the ice cubes onto the sharply pitched roof. He watched as they rolled down and bounced off where the curlicued façade poked above the gabled roofline of his funny house, the only Victorian on Pawleys. When his grandfather built it in the 1920s, locals had hated the giant burgundy, blue, and green house. Now it was considered a landmark, a house locals advised tourists not to miss.
Emmett Layton Sullivan Sr. bought this northern part of the island as a family get-away and erected an exact replica of his house on Cape May. Shortly thereafter, Victorians started popping up in nearby Georgetown, but there was never another frosted cake house on the island. The houses served as the logo for his grandfather’s company, Painted Lady Greeting Cards. His brother Judd lived in the New Jersey house now and was CEO of the company. Rick was their lawyer and CFO. But Emmett Layton Sullivan III had stayed behind, married a Lowcountry girl, become a landscape architect. Along with his brothers, Emmett had inherited this house. His end of the deal was upkeep and taxes, both of which escalated each year. Lauren had been so enamored of the house that Emmett continued to tease her that she’d married him for real estate. They had both envisioned the many rooms overflowing with a large family. But now their home was a money pit, a hulking house of deterioration that would have served a larger family well, but which seemed empty with only their two children padding the halls.
Emmett backed down the ladder and pulled the hatch closed with a final swish of air. Before he could get it latched Ainslie was calling for him, drawing her words out long and pleading. “Daaaadeeee. Daaaadeeee.”
He pressed his palm against a bumper sticker on her bedroom door that read, Lights out! Turtles dig the dark.
“Watch out. Here I come,” he said in a low growl. He pushed the door ajar and stomped into her room. Ainslie squealed and jerked away from Sloan, who was struggling to pull pajamas over her sister’s wet legs. Posters of frogs, snakes, and butterflies were stuck at odd angles along the walls. An entire bookcase was given over to prized seashells, contorted driftwood, and smelly bits of coral. Ocean musk came from the bank of aquariums housing the luckless creatures Ainslie plucked from the beach.
“You do this, Dad. I can’t get her to sit still,” Sloan said. “She’s old enough to put on her own p.j.s anyway. Y’all just baby her.”
“Go on. I’ll take care of her.” Emmett raised his arms over his head and swayed into the room like Frankenstein. “Get those pajamas on. I’m the daddy monster who gobbles up little girls who don’t have on pajamas. Aarrgghhh!”
“Oh, no. Oh, no.” Ainslie jerked on the damp pajama bottoms. “I’m done! I’m good! You can’t eat me!”
“No?” He stopped and turned his head as if thinking. “But I’m still hungry. Maybe I’ll just GOBBLE YOU UP ANYWAY!” He stomped to the bed, grabbed her ankles, and dragged her toward him.
“No, Daddy! Don’t eat me.” She gasped around gulps of laughter. “Don’t!”
He buried his face in her soft tummy. “Yum. Yum. Yum.”
“I’m not sweet! I’m not!”
“Yum. Yum. Yum.”
Emmett stopped. Ainslie was still slick from her bath and Emmett’s fingers moved smoothly over her abdomen. He could discern a distinct mass below her ribcage.
“Ainslie, does this hurt?”
“Get me, Daddy!”
“No. Stop a minute. This spot right here. Does it hurt?”
She calmed and laid back. “No.”
“How long has this been here?”
“I don’t know. Get me, Daddy.”
“Stay right there.” He walked to the top landing of the stairs and yelled down for Lauren.
“What?” she called up.
“I need you to look at something on Ainslie.”
She came to the bottom of the stairs, a tea towel in her hands. “What is it?”
“Did you know she has a lump in her stomach?”
“No.” Lauren’s forehead wrinkled. She draped the towel over the banister and took the stairs two at a time. Ainslie lay still, her arms above her head, her top bunched up against her neck. Her