Castles in the Sand Read online

  Susan’s breath caught. Kenzie had told her such things. Until that very moment, though, she never understood what she was saying. “Her music doesn’t always make sense to me. The songs seem full of such longing and sadness or outright condemnation of society. But…they always point to God, to Him as the ultimate hope, even if His name isn’t specifically stated.”

  Mildred nodded. “I know.”

  “You do?”

  “Yes. I told her I was hard of hearing and couldn’t quite catch everything in the songs that were popular with her generation. She’d write down words for me so I could read them.”

  Smiles went round the table.

  “Susan.” Mildred patted her hand. “Kenzie believes in Jesus. She’s just trying to color in pictures of Him that are different from what we can see. Sooner or later, she’ll get to the one of Him in which He floods her soul with His reality, and then her heart will burst with love for Him.” She paused. “Why don’t we pray?”

  And then the Prayer Warrior squeezed Susan’s hand and began to pray for her single, unwed daughter who never had liked coloring books.

  Twenty-Nine

  Twenty minutes after reaching the beach community, Pepper found a curbside parking space large enough to accommodate her van. It was on a side street three blocks from the sand itself and at least two beyond that from Susan’s squished red chili pepper of a house. There was no meter to feed, just a sign indicating a two-hour limit and a meter maid cruising along in her nifty little vehicle, eagerly enforcing the rule.

  How on earth did people live full-time in an overpopulated neighborhood inundated year round—on a Monday afternoon in March, no less!—with ocean-worshipping commuters?

  Pepper hopped down from the van and pushed up her shirt sleeves. Spring was well underway with bright sunshine and warmish temps that promised more than they could deliver. Shade or a brisk breeze would instantly cool her down. Young people in scant summer gear headed toward the beach in pursuit of goose bump sunbathing. Did they think early season tan lines proved their courage or something? That they were better than others?

  Oh, man! Was she in a funk or was she in a funk? Hopefully the hike would help. No sense in greeting Susan with a growl.

  Some minutes and a few blocks later, with what felt like a sheen of perspiration covering her entire body, Pepper arrived at the white picket fence out of breath. No oxygen in the lungs might eliminate fussy speech, if not speech altogether.

  As she unlatched the gate, Susan appeared at the side of the house, coming from the direction of the backyard. Her hair hung loose to her shoulders.

  “Yoo-hoo!” She waved and grinned. “Hi!”

  Pepper nodded, attempting to smile and suck in air at the same time.

  A woman accompanied Susan. She was taller with an athletic build obvious in her outfit of shiny soccer-style top and shorts. Her reddish-brown hair was pulled back into a bouncy ponytail.

  “Is Kenzie all right?” Susan asked.

  They crossed the patio toward each other.

  “She’s just fine.”

  “Oh, thank God. After yesterday—I’m sorry. This is my sister-in-law, Natalie Starr. And this is Pepper Carlucci, Aidan’s mother.”

  Natalie’s friendly expression broke into a wide smile and she thrust out a hand. “Hi! It’s a pleasure to meet you. I’m the aunt.”

  Susan added, “She’s married to Drake’s brother.”

  “Kenzie’s my favorite niece.” They shook hands. “My only one as well, but who’s counting that?”

  A pleasant relative who adored Kenzie! An immediate sense of comfort washed over Pepper. “I’m so glad to meet you too.”

  Susan said, “Do you think we can expand our boat to include aunts?”

  Pepper nodded. “Yes, by all means. Welcome aboard, Natalie.”

  She raised her brows at them.

  Pepper explained. “The Grandmas out of Wedlock Boat. I hereby rename it the Grandmas and Aunts out of Wedlock Boat.” She turned to Susan. “I told Aidan about it. He called us shipmates.”

  She laughed. “Well, come inside, maties. We’ll make some coffee, and…” She reached into her handbag and pulled something out. “Ta-da! And play with my brand-new cell phone!”

  Pepper burst into laughter. For all the world Susan resembled a little girl giddy over a new toy. She wondered what the woman was on. Maybe she could get some of it for herself.

  They left the outside door open. Soothing sounds of ocean and seagulls floated through the screen door and reminded Pepper why people flocked to the area year round. Given the chance, she could get accustomed to the crowds.

  After the usual generic chitchat about weather, beach, and freeway traffic, they settled on the living room couch and chairs with mugs of freshly brewed hazelnut coffee.

  “Pepper, I’m so glad you came again. Hey, now with my phone…” She touched the new silver toy she clasped on her lap. “You can call ahead to make sure I’m here. Are you running away again?”

  She hesitated, taking her internal temperature. “I think I must be. Maybe it’s only PMS, but life seems totally out of whack. Nowhere near under control.”

  “Kenzie and Aidan?”

  “Yeah. I don’t mean to blame you in the least or my husband, Mick. It’s just that schedules and situations leave me in the forefront. And now Mick’s going out of town. He’s in road construction and has to do this every so often for work. He’ll be gone for months to Los Angeles. Sometimes he’ll get home on weekends.” She turned to Natalie. “I still have three little ones at home, a four-year-old boy and two girls in elementary school.”

  “Mmm, lucky you.” Natalie’s tone indicated she thought otherwise.

  “Exactly. I usually thrive when I’m at my wit’s end. It’s where I do my best work. The busier, the better, and I can handle Mick’s absence. But I tell you.” She shook her head. “I’m coming unglued. So I guess I came to share the fun with you, Susan.”

  “We are in the same boat.”

  “Thanks. The thing is, Kenzie and Aidan live in a tiny one-bedroom apartment. There is no space for a cradle, let alone a crib. They’re not thinking through practical things like that or how they’re going to afford diapers, even. Kenzie hardly has any clothes that fit her. Not that she ever complains.”

  Natalie said, “It’s time Aunt Nattie stepped in.”

  Susan said, “What do you mean?”

  “Well, my first thought is that I want to run out and buy them everything they need. But Drake would have a cow and Rex would probably draw the line at that. He’d tell me I’d better work full-time at something that pays real money. Coaching high school girls isn’t exactly big league bucks. So maybe I’d better start small. Duh!” She slapped her forehead. “I know! A baby shower! If they’d gotten married I would have hosted a wedding shower, right? Why can’t I host a baby shower now? I don’t care if it’s out of politically correct order.”

  “She’s only five months along. Isn’t that kind of early?”

  “That doesn’t matter either. She needs to know now that we love her. And we could have it here at the beach house, neutral territory.”

  Susan turned to Pepper. “Do you think she’d come?”

  “I don’t know. Do you think she would?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Natalie said, “Why don’t I call her and ask her?”

  Pepper hesitated barely a fraction of a second. “I’ll give you her number.” After all, Kenzie never said don’t tell Aunt Nattie.

  She sipped her coffee.

  Natalie found paper in a kitchen drawer and began writing a to-do list for a baby shower. They worked together on a guest list—a few friends from Susan’s church, Aidan’s sisters—and exchanged phone numbers.

  Susan laughed when she recited her new cell number from memory. “I’ll program both of yours in this. I can do that, right?” She looked at Pepper. “Natalie convinced me I need this. I never thought I did, but already it gives me such a sense of fr
eedom! I don’t have to go next door to use the neighbor’s phone. And Kenzie can call me directly. If she ever wanted to.”

  “I’m sure she’ll want to.”

  “I don’t know. Did she tell you about yesterday?”

  Pepper shook her head. “No. I haven’t talked with her since last week.”

  “She came here. By the way, thank you for giving her my message, that I was back and baking cookies.”

  “I told Aidan. He must have told her. How did things go?”

  A myriad of expressions crossed her face. First the womanly uptight appearance overtook the delighted little girl, and then they flip-flopped positions. “Um. They went okay. Kind of hopeful. Disastrous.”

  “Suze.” Natalie laid down her pencil. “She came. She gobbled your cookies. You asked for forgiveness but didn’t demand it on the spot. You hugged her more than once. You touched her tummy. You gave her money. All the way around it was major movement in the right direction.”

  Aunt Nattie was one straight talker. Pepper liked her more and more.

  Susan said, “But then I blew it. I asked what they were thinking about marriage.”

  Pepper nodded. “They always go defensive on that one.”

  “You’ve asked?”

  “Sure. Although I’m accepting them where they are in their own journey, I do believe they’re out of God’s order, so I ask. I hint. I get shrugs, frowns, and ‘give me some space’ looks.”

  “Kenzie said they consider themselves married already.”

  “Mm-hmm. I mentioned legalities like last names. They said the baby can be given either or both, but it’ll be different from at least one of theirs. That’s always a confusing thing for a kid, I think.”

  Susan nodded in agreement. It felt so good to unload feelings to an empathetic ear.

  Pepper continued. “I’ve noticed now and then it seems Aidan and Kenzie are out of sync.”

  “How’s that?”

  “One time, early on, Kenzie was upset, very emotional, and she said she didn’t want Aidan to marry her just because she’s pregnant. He’s never mentioned that concern, but he told his sister Lisel that he bet if she were in Kenzie’s shoes, she wouldn’t want to wear a maternity wedding dress. Now he could have just been teasing her about being concerned with her looks—which Lisel is, but Kenzie isn’t so much. Or maybe he was serious and it’s a reason not to marry now.”

  Natalie said, “Pregnancy can reduce any woman to tears because let’s face it, our appearance is not what it once was and there’s not a whole lot we can do about it.” She waved a hand. “Been there, done that.”

  “I think there’s a chance they do want to marry, but not just yet.”

  Susan said, “I used to think this was my worst nightmare, Kenzie pregnant and not married.” She sighed. “Now I know it’s not. That was all for show. That was what the pastor’s wife should feel. Now I know my very worst nightmare is they would marry because they feel like they have to and then she spends her whole life wondering if she did the right thing.”

  “Huh?” Pepper said. What happened to the pastor’s wife who more or less agreed her daughter should suffer the consequences of her choices?

  Natalie leaned forward. “Susan, what are you talking about?”

  “Me. I’m talking about me.” She fiddled with the phone on her lap. “I was pregnant once, three years before Kenzie was born. I had a miscarriage before anyone knew what was going on, but in the meantime Drake and I got married. We thought the pregnancy meant we had to. And now…well, I’ve just been wondering, that’s all.” She opened the phone. “How do I use the speed dial?”

  Thirty

  Wednesday afternoon Natalie was back at the beach house. She stood in the kitchen at a total loss for words. Absolutely speechless. An absurd condition of which heretofore she’d had little personal acquaintance.

  And to think that of all people, her sister-in-law put her in such a position.

  Forty-eight hours before, Susan divulged that she had been pregnant when she married Drake. That was news to Natalie. Not that she expected all family members should be informed of such a thing—especially an in-law like herself who met Rex years after Drake and Susan were married—but still! Rex didn’t even know! The brother and best man!

  And now Kenzie was pregnant before marriage, and her dad—who’d been in the exact same situation—wouldn’t even speak to her because of it!

  “Natalie.” Susan leaned back against the kitchen counter and straightened the plastic silver cape draped around her shoulders.

  Their friend Emmylou, the pregnant hairdresser, was in the bathroom arranging things. She was going to cut Susan’s shoulder-length hair. She was going to cut it short. She was going to cut it shorter than Kenzie’s.

  That was another reason for Natalie’s speechlessness. She’d never seen her sister-in-law with short hair. She didn’t even know she had been wanting to get it cut for years.

  Susan said, “Are you furious?” She was not referring to the planned change in her hairdo.

  “Furious?” Natalie shook her head. “Incensed is the word. Not because I didn’t know, but because as far as I can tell, Drake has not revealed a hint of compassion toward his daughter, who’s in the exact same situation he was in at one time.”

  Susan hummed under her breath. It was a bar from some hymn. The same thing happened the other day when they’d gone out to get the cell phone. A couple times Natalie had to wait through one or two verses before speaking.

  They hadn’t talked privately since Susan’s revelation on Monday. Natalie had had to leave before Pepper did in order to get to soccer practice. Then their brief phone conversation on Tuesday did not present the opportunity for a heart-to-heart.

  Susan finished the song. “The compassion is there, inside of him. Drake loves Kenzie. If he accepts her situation, though, then he would have to confess his own past. We buried it so deep, I don’t know that he can face it now, even within himself. Twenty-four years ago seminary students in our school did not engage in premarital intimacy. There was no way they could become pregnant.”

  Natalie crossed her arms and shifted her weight onto the other foot. “It was a major taboo?”

  “Yes. We truly believed it would have ruined his future to serve as a pastor.”

  “Forgiveness never entered the picture?” She bit her lip.

  “Pastors don’t need to be forgiven. They’re already perfect.” Susan’s smile was gentle. “We were probably always under that false impression, even as children. The man in the pulpit and his wife were Christlike. That meant they were perfect. Of course, neither of us were, so we pretended. I guess we’ve been pretending for a long, long time.”

  Natalie almost disbelieved her own eyes. The change in Susan astounded her. Not only was she forthright in her talk, her entire demeanor exhibited a new softness. Her old fragility, which had made her appear brittle, was gone. Even the blueness of her eyes and her light complexion fairly sparkled.

  Natalie said, “I think you’ve stopped pretending. You glow like you’ve just had some heavy-duty facial peel. Make that body peel.”

  “Well, praise God.” She chuckled. “You didn’t know how right you were when you said this whole thing isn’t about Kenzie. It’s about me and Drake.”

  “But you don’t really believe your marriage was a mistake, do you?”

  “No, not really. We loved each other as best we knew how when we got married. We still do. Kenzie is the result of that love. We’ve done good work in the churches we’ve served. But,” she paused, “twenty-four years of faking perfection is wrong.”

  “This is huge. Now what?”

  “Oh, Natalie! Now there’s freedom. I cannot begin to describe how incredibly free I feel. Telling the others about Kenzie just got me started. Then admitting to you and Pepper and to myself that I am not perfect was like taking off a straitjacket.” She flapped her arms. “Whew! I can fly now. And to think—Jesus loves me no matter what I’ve done or ever
will do! I think He even likes me. This is all that matters. This is what I want Kenzie to know. I don’t want her to marry Aidan because she thinks that’s how she will earn His forgiveness. Or her dad’s.”

  Natalie doubted her hearing as well as her sight and remained speechless.

  “Your mouth is hanging open.”

  Natalie closed it.

  “I do want her to marry—but only out of her love for God, a love that moves her to serve Him.” She smiled. “I talked to Drake. Aren’t cell phones great? Thanks again for talking me into getting one. Anyway, he’s coming here for dinner tomorrow night. There goes your jaw again. It’s dropping.”

  Natalie let it drop until her mouth formed a large oval.

  Susan laughed. “I feel like Cinderella. I’m wearing the glass slippers and the ball gown. The difference is, I’m not climbing back into the pumpkin coach or the straitjacket.”

  The bathroom door squeaked, and a moment later Emmylou appeared at the end of the hall, all eight months plus of her abdomen well in advance of the rest of her. “Okay. The Beach House Salon is now open for business. Are you ready?”

  Like a six-year-old, Susan clapped her hands. “Yes. Let’s do it!”

  Natalie trailed behind them, hoping she’d be able to speak again, preferably before that afternoon’s soccer practice.

  Thirty-One

  Susan drove through the deepening dusk. Five lanes of red brake lights led the way. She felt on edge, half expecting a timer to ding and then poof! Her car would shake and rattle and roll itself into a pumpkin with a bunch of white mice jumping around it.

  An unscheduled meeting had delayed Drake. He couldn’t make it to the beach house for dinner and recommended they meet at a Thai restaurant. Located just off the freeway in a strip mall, it lay equidistant between the coast and home.