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The Beach House
Mary Alice Monroe
Known for her moving characters and emotional honesty, Mary Alice Monroe brings readers a beautifully rendered story that explores the fragile yet enduring bond between mothers and daughters. Caretta Rutledge thought she'd left her Southern roots and troubled family far behind. But an unusual request from her mother—coming just as her own life is spinning out of control—has Cara heading back to the scenic Lowcountry of her childhood summers.Before long, therhythms of the island open her heart in wonderful ways as she repairs the family beach house, becomes a bona fide "turtle lady" and renews old acquaintances long thought lost. But it is in reconnecting with her mother that she will learn life's mostprecious lessons—true love involves sacrifice, family is forever and the mistakes of the past can be forgiven.
Praise for the novels of
MARY ALICE MONROE
“Readers who enjoy such fine southern voices as Pat Conroy will add the talented Monroe to their list of favorites.”
—Booklist on Sweetgrass
“Skyward is a soaring, passionate story of loneliness and pain and the simple ability of love to heal and transcend both.”
—Anne Rivers Siddons
“Mary Alice Monroe is helping to redefine the beauty and magic of the Carolina Lowcountry. Every book she has written has felt like a homecoming to me.”
—Pat Conroy, author of The Prince of Tides and Beach Music
“A devoted naturalist and native of South Carolina’s Low Country, Monroe is in her element when describing the wonders of nature and the ways people relate to it…. Hauntingly beautiful relationships between birds and people add texture to the story…. Monroe successfully combines elements of women’s fiction and romance in this lyrical tale.”
—Publishers Weekly on Skyward
“Mary Alice Monroe writes from her heart to the hearts of her readers. It is a quality of emotional honesty together with lyrical, descriptive passages that draw her audience to books like The Four Seasons.”
—Charleston Post & Courier
“Monroe writes with a crisp precision and narrative energy that will keep them turning the pages. Her talent for infusing her characters with warmth and vitality and her ability to spin a tale with emotional depth will earn her a broad spectrum of readers, particularly fans of Barbara Delinsky and Nora Roberts.”
—Publishers Weekly on The Four Seasons
“With novels like this one and The Book Club, Mary Alice Monroe continues to be one of the leaders of complex female relationship dramas that hit home to the audience.”
—Midwest Book Review on The Four Seasons
“The Book Club skillfully weaves the individual story threads into a warm, unified whole that will appeal to readers who enjoy multifaceted relationship novels with strong women protagonists.”
—Library Journal
“What price beauty? Mary Alice Monroe’s Girl in the Mirror reflects the shadows and shapes of a woman’s painful and illuminating journey of self-discovery, of choice, of loves.”
—Nora Roberts
“Monroe’s novel is a fascinating, emotion-filled narrative that’s not to be missed.”
—Booklist, starred review, on Skyward
New York Times bestselling author
Mary Alice Monroe
The Beach House
www.mirabooks.co.uk (http://www.mirabooks.co.uk)
This book is dedicated
to my fellow members of the
Isle of Palms/Sullivan’s Island Turtle Team:
Mary Pringle, Mary Ellen Rogers,
Beverly Ballow, Barb Bergwerf,
Nancy Hauser, Tee Johannes,
Marge Millman, Susan North,
Kathey O’Connor, Wanda Parker,
Grace and Glenn Rhodes, Sara Saylor
And to all Turtle Volunteers here and elsewhere
who walk the beaches every morning
to help our beloved loggerheads.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This is the first time I’ve written about two subjects dear to my heart: the loggerhead sea turtles and the Isle of Palms. I’d like to thank the following people for their help with this book that is special to me.
For sharing her knowledge, lending me books, videos and pamphlets, and for answering my countless questions not only about sea turtles but about a zillion other things that would take me too long to list, love and thanks to my dear friend and Turtle Team guru, Mary Pringle.
I am indebted to Charlotte and Ken Tarr for all their valuable help with important plot points and for their tireless and continuous support of me and my books.
Once again, thanks to Julie Beard for editing, wonderful critiques and for just listening.
For art and cover designs, story editing and helping me get to the heart of my heroines, thank you, Marguerite Martino.
A special thanks to Shane Ziegler of Barrier Island Eco Tours, Isle of Palms, for sharing his invaluable insights and vast knowledge about the Lowcountry, its wildlife and ecosystem. And the tours are fabulous!
Barb Bergwerf’s incredible photographs of so many aspects of our efforts with the loggerheads were inspiring to me as I wrote during the “off” season. Thank you!
I’m blessed with a brilliant editor who helps me bring out the best in my books. Thanks to Martha Keenan, a lovely lady in every way.
As always, I’m grateful to my agent, Karen Solem, for all her insightful comments and for knowing when I needed a smile and enthusiasm.
For filling in the gaps for me while I was madly writing, for loads of support and for just being great and treasured friends, sincere thanks to Cynthia Pearlman, Susan North, Carolyn Graf, Ann Nodtvedt, Buzzy Porter, Marge Irizarry, Dottie Ashley, Sally Marschner, Tim Brewerton, Therese Killeen, Lisa and Barry Hand, Terri Ehlinger, Amy Rowe, Elizabeth Carota, Stacy Harwood, Marsha Iafrat, Clay and Martha Cable, Danny and Lena Johnson, Angela Jones, David Tekler, Susan Shimmin, Tamar Myers, Nina Bruhns, Dave and the gang at the Isle of Palms post office, the people of Isle of Palms and, of course, the Turtle Team.
For tech support, big thanks to Jon D. McCandlish.
Special thanks to the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources, Wildlife Diversity Section. In particular, Sally Murphy, Meg Hoyle and Charles Tambiah for an education on loggerheads.
It was a treat for me to learn about the early days of being a “Turtle Lady” from one of the originals, Florence Johnson, and I am very grateful.
Thank you to the Isle of Palms Police Department and the Charleston County Red Cross for advising me on hurricane evacuation procedures.
Lastly, heartfelt love and thanks to my family. To Markus, for advice and long walks on the beach while I hammered out story points. To Claire, for trying to explain the finer points of my computer. To Gretta, for insights into the mind of an eighteen-year-old girl. Lastly, to Zack, whose smile brightens up each day.
CONSIDER THE TURTLE
Consider the turtle. Perchance you have worried, despaired of the world, meditated the end of life, and all things seem rushing to destruction; but nature has steadily and serenely advanced with the turtle’s pace. The young turtle spends its infancy within its shell. It gets experience and learns the way of the world through that wall. While it rests warily on the edge of its hole, rash schemes are undertaken by men and fail. French empires rise or fall, but the turtle is developed only so fast. What’s a summer? Time for a turtle’s egg to hatch. So is the turtle developed, fitted to endure, for he outlives twenty French dynasties. One turtle knows several Napoleons. They have no worries, have no cares, yet has not the great world existed for them as much as for you?
—Henry David Thoreau
Journal
August 28, 1856
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
loggerhead. 1. Latin: Caretta caretta. A tropical sea turtle with a hard shell and a large head.
2. a stupid fellow; blockhead.
3. at loggerheads; in disagreement; in a quarrel.
PROLOGUE
It was twilight and a brilliant red sun lazily made its hazy descent off the South Carolina coast. Lovie Rutledge stood alone on a small, rolling sand dune and watched as two young children with hair the same sandy color as the beach squealed and cavorted, playing the age-old game of tag with the sea. A shaky half smile lifted the corners of her mouth. The boy couldn’t have been more than four years of age yet he was aggressively charging the water, the stick in his hand pointing outward like a sword. Then, turning on his heel, he ran back up the beach, chased by a wave. Poor fellow was tagged more often than not. But the girl…Was she seven or eight? Now there was a skilled player. She danced on tiptoe, getting daringly close to the foamy wave, instinctively knowing the second to back away, taunting the water with her high laugh.
How like her own Cara, Lovie thought, recalling her youngest. Then, seeing a rogue wave wash over the boy, toppling him and leaving him sputtering with rage, she chuckled. And how like her son, Palmer. Not far away, the children’s young mother was bent at the waist busily gathering up the carelessly thrown buckets and spades into a canvas bag and shaking sand from towels, eager to pack up and go.
Stop what you’re doing and observe your children! Lovie wanted to say to the young mother. Quick, set aside your chores and turn your head. See how they laugh with such abandon? Only the very young can laugh like that. Look how they are giving you clues to who they are. Treasure these moments! Savor them. For they will disappear as quickly as the setting sun. And then, before you know it, you will be like me—an old woman, alone and willing to trade anything and everything for one soft evening such as this with her babies once again.
She wrapped her arms around herself and sighed. “Lovie, you do go on,” she told herself with a shake of her head. Of course she wouldn’t tell the young mother this. It would be rude, and of no use. The mother was harried, her mind filled with all she had yet to do. She wouldn’t understand Lovie’s warning until her own children were grown and gone. One day she would recall this very twilit evening and the sight of her children dancing on the shore and then…Yes, then she would wish she had stopped to hold their chubby hands and play tag along with them.
Lovie continued to watch the scene unfold in its predictable manner. The towels were shaken and folded, then stuffed into the bag, the children were called in from the water’s edge and, as the sky darkened, the mother led her tired soldiers in a ragtag formation over the dune and out of sight.
Silence reigned once again on the familiar stretch of beach. Another day was done. Along the water’s edge a sandpiper peeped as it skitted across the sand and foam line in its straight-legged manner. Behind Lovie, the tall grasses swayed in the evening breeze. She closed her eyes, acutely attuned to the night music. There would only be a few more quiet nights like this. It was mid-May and the tourist season would soon go into full swing on the South Carolina coast.
