She took another sip of her wine, not knowing how to answer. Being at the beach house today—cleaning, tending—had stirred up a lot of memories. Especially of her coming home from Chicago for a weekend that ended up lasting the rest of her life.
She’d always been what her mother called a “solitary swimmer,” like the loggerhead sea turtle for which she’d been named. But tonight she wondered if the solitary swimmer was not adventurous but rather merely swimming in a pattern, following the great current, stroking one flipper after another, as generations had before her. Was this all there was left in her life?
“Maybe Palmer’s right,” she said in a despondent tone. “Holding on to the beach house, I’m just holding on to a memory.”
“So that’s what’s wrong,” Brett said with understanding. “Don’t listen to Palmer. You’ve never done so before. Why start now?”
Cara swirled the wine in her glass. “Because my birthday is coming up. That’s why.”
Brett scoffed. “I’m fifty already. So what?”
Cara slipped out of his hold and turned to look up and meet his gaze. She studied the sharp contours of his handsome face, coursed with new lines that only added to his appeal. Brett was a naturalist, born and educated. Though they’d both grown up in the lowcountry, Cara, the daughter of a privileged Charleston family, had gone to private schools. Brett was the son of a harbor pilot and had attended local public schools. In high school, Brett’s reputation as a football star was well known in every school in Charleston County and beyond. He’d been a popular jock as well as a good student. Cara, by contrast, was an academic who eschewed the popular boys. They might have had friends in common, but they definitely didn’t hang out in the same circles.
So when Cara had returned to Charleston ten years earlier at the ripe age of forty, she was surprised—even stunned—that Brett was not only still single, but also that he’d known who she was. Theirs was an unlikely courtship that seemed destined from the start. Brett, always a romantic, claimed he’d been waiting for her to return.
In the past decade she’d seen all sides of the man she’d married in haste. The man who repaired and rebuilt her mother’s beach house out of kindness, the man who never said no to a friend in need. He’d helped Cara to appreciate a simpler life than the fast-paced, high-style one she’d lived in Chicago. Being a naturalist, he’d also guided her to appreciate the beauty of what was wild not by preaching but by taking her fishing and baiting her line, helping her cast a shrimp net so it unfolded like a blossom over the water, pulling up crab pots full of snapping claws, and cuddling together under a blanket on the dark beach watching the Perseid meteor shower. She thought of how many times he’d gone shopping unasked, brought flowers home for no particular reason, woken her up with a cup of coffee in hand. How Brett had waited on her hand and foot when she was bedridden through each of her five miscarriages, never complaining, always supportive, even while his heart was breaking. He was a good man. Her best friend.
And on top of all that, the man was plain gorgeous. His brown hair that caught glints of red was now also streaked with the first strands of gray. His brilliant blue eyes were sometimes covered with eyeglasses now, which she thought only added to his attractiveness, making him appear clever. It was brutally unfair of God to allow men to improve with age while women suffered the indignities of gravity. They were an unlikely couple. Brett was the man she’d never looked for when she was young, which was why it had taken her so long to find him. But she had at last. Thank God.
“I don’t like getting old,” she said with a slight whine.
“Fifty is still young. And you’re still beautiful.”
She made a face. “I’m not talking about my looks. Lord knows that’s a losing battle. I’m talking about me. Who I am, what I have yet to offer. I’m beginning to feel like my best years are behind me.”
“Cara, we have a lot of years left. Some twenty, thirty years. Or more! A lifetime. Spent with me. Does that sound so bad?”
Cara stared at him, vaguely shocked at the concept of so many years. “When you put it like that, it sounds like a long time. Another lifetime. You’re right.” She tilted her head looking at the situation differently. “In that case, the question I have to ask myself is—how do I want to spend the next twenty, thirty years of my life?”
Brett whistled softly. “It’s kind of . . . freeing.”
“Exactly,” she said with heart, glad he understood. “If I sold the beach house . . .”
“But you just said you’d never sell it.”
“I know. Mostly I wanted Palmer off my back. But ever since we left the beach house, I’ve been thinking of the possibilities that money would open up to us. I mean, we’re relatively free. We could move anywhere. Travel. No responsibilities. We have nothing to hold us here. No . . .” She paused before entering into tender territory, then pushed on. “We have no children.”
Brett pursed his lips. “There’s my business.”
“Well, yes,” she acknowledged. She rested her hand on his arm. “But we could sell it.”
“Sell it?” Brett’s face appeared thunderstruck. “I’m not ready to sell. Not yet anyway.”
Cara felt a crushing disappointment and slowly removed her hand. “When would you be ready?”
Brett shifted his weight. “I don’t know,” he ventured, caught off guard. “Ten years, maybe?”
Ten years sounded like one hundred to her tonight. “So long??”
“As you pointed out, I’m fifty.” His smile was wry. “No matter what you’re thinking, fifty is not old. I’m not ready to retire. Besides, I love my job.” He added carefully, “Cara, I’m content with our lives just the way they are.”
Cara looked at him sharply. “You’re content,” she repeated, and set down her wineglass. She gazed down at her hand. Her wedding band was the only jewelry she wore. She felt a crack in her composure as an old hurt resurfaced. She crossed her arms. “And me?” She shrugged. “Not so much.”
Brett’s brows gathered as he suddenly understood the conversation had taken a dangerous turn. “What? You’re not content?”
She looked away and brusquely shook her head.
Brett pushed out a plume of air. “Well.” He put his hands on his hips in thought. “That’s news to me.”
Cara turned to face him. The silence lay thick between them. Outside a dog began barking.
“I thought we were pretty happy,” he said at length.
“You’re happy,” Cara said. “I know that. You’ve always loved working for yourself. You have your own business that you love. You’re out on the water all the time, doing what you trained to do. What thrills you. Why wouldn’t you be happy?” It came out like an accusation, which she didn’t mean. But she couldn’t take the words back.