Reunion Beach, Elin Hilderbrand [novel books to read txt] 📗

My deceased husband, Joe Perez, had been a soft-spoken man of Hispanic descent, an immigration lawyer who was the polar opposite of Bram Stoker O’Connor. I had two adult children, a daughter in Manhattan and a son in San Diego, and I had to tell them that their mother had taken leave of her senses and decided to marry someone I’d only known a few months. They handled it better than I dared hope, having seen me submerged in grief for so long. My son, William, so like his father, asked only if I was sure. But my daughter, Victoria, said, “Go for it, Mama!” So I did.

* * *

By the time I turn into the partially hidden driveway of our house, I’ve managed to quiet the turmoil that my talk with Nellie Bee stirred. Bless her heart; she only wants what’s best for me and her brother, but I’ve decided that her fears are unwarranted. Bram’s obsession with his former wife is over and has been for several years. I know now what I didn’t know before, that he was on the verge of taking her back when he met me. And knowing something of the pain she’s caused him, I believe his turning to me was an act of self-preservation, whether consciously or not. Something was telling him that he had to move on from the toxic relationship he and his ex had been bogged down in for way too long. So many of his friends have told him that marrying me was the best thing he ever did for himself, which of course I modestly denied. But now I’m thinking they might be right. I love him enough to do anything to keep him from being hurt like that again. I don’t know Michael well, having only been around him a couple of times, but maybe he’ll come to see that, too, being here with us. Now that he has his own child, he’s more likely to understand what his conflict with his father has cost both of them.

As I steer through the gates to the house, the scent of gardenias is intense. Besides oleander, gardenia is the only flowering plant to grow successfully on Fripp without being consumed by the deer who roam the island like skittish dogs. I close the gates behind me then drive the golf cart along the pebbled driveway to the parking area underneath the raised house. The house faces a mysterious, murky lagoon, where gators sun on the grassy banks. Snowy egrets nest in the trees surrounding the lagoon, festooning the branches like feathery blossoms. The house is the only truly isolated one on Fripp, situated on a little inlet of land far from the maddening crowd. Once the gates close behind you, you might as well be on your own island. It’s the reason Bram settled here, for the solitude he needs to work. He likes to think of the lagoon as his moat, with the gators standing guard to keep his too-zealous fans at bay.

The house itself is what’s known as Lowcountry style, two-storied and elevated high off the ground, with double piazzas (we call them porches in Texas), set off by a semi-circular brick stairway in front. Painted a dull gray green, the house blends perfectly into the leafy foliage enclosing it. Carrying the beach tote, my steps are light as I climb the stairway and enter the house. I’m grateful that the leisurely, gardenia-scented drive from the beach gave me time to compose myself. I didn’t relish a showdown with Bram about Jocasta. Nellie Bee was right in what she’d said earlier; my training provided me with conflict-management skills, but that doesn’t mean I relish using them with family. By nature (and ethnicity, I tease) Bram has a fiery, confrontational temperament. Joe had been so even-tempered that I rather enjoy the novelty of my and Bram’s infrequent skirmishes. Even better is the way we make up, when one of us reaches out to the other in the dark of night. A bit of anger can ignite the passion in lovemaking, and in turn, lovemaking can dispel anger. It doesn’t work like that with seething rage or deep-seated resentment, but it can be a healthy way of dissipating the little day-to-day rifts of marriage.

For the five years we’ve been together, Bram and I have faced only a few of those. He tells me he’s just too damn tired and old to fight, which I laugh at. Neither is true. He has the energy and virility of a much younger man. Following his retirement, he started writing his food memoir, which he’s calling Lowcountry Stew, and has worked tirelessly since. Or as far as I know, he has. When I get home from work, he’s closed away in his office, the same as when I’m home. Despite Bram’s breezy assurances when we were courting, I could only get part-time work after moving here. Three days a week, I drive an hour to Bluffton as the consulting psychologist for a nonprofit that works with the area’s large migrant population. In truth, it’s such intense and challenging work that I’m not sure I could do it full-time. After a ten-hour workday, every time I drive over the bridge to Fripp Island I lower the windows of my car and let the bracing salt breeze carry the troubles of the day out with them, all the way across the Atlantic.

During each evening cocktail hour Bram dutifully reports how many pages he’s written or tells me about some of his research. He’s published cookbooks, but they’re the coffee-table kind with photographs of lavish dishes and fancy dinner parties. For those he created and perfected the recipes while his editor wrote the headings. The memoir will have some recipes, but he’s mainly telling the stories that go with them. He claims it’s the hardest and most grueling work he’s ever done, and he thinks that