Ellen Block - The Language of Sand

Evening seemed to be welling up from between the juniper and wax myrtle rather than filtering down from the sky. The temperature had plummeted. Denny raised the truck’s windows and cranked the heat.

“It’ll take a minute to get warm.”

“It’s fine. I’m fine.”

“If you don’t mind me saying, you aren’t acting fine.”

Resentment was a stopper in her throat. The fire had stolen everything from her. Now the hurricane was dictating her life. Abigail’s own desires felt insignificant.

“I’m a real good listener if you want to talk.”

“There’s nothing to talk about, Denny.”

“I know you’re new in town and we’re kinda strangers—”

“No, I’m the stranger.” Her voice began to climb. “This was an idiotic, impetuous idea. I shouldn’t have come here.”

Denny was quiet. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe you shouldn’t have.”

“What?”

“If you don’t like it, you shouldn’t stay.”

“I didn’t say I didn’t like it.”

“Then why’d you say it was idiotic?”

Frustrated, Abigail pinched the bridge of her nose. “It’s not that simple.”

“Yes, it is. You want to be here or you don’t.”

“Denny, there are some things you can’t understand.”

Even in profile, eyes on the road, he looked wounded. “I might not be book smart the way some people are, but I’m smart enough to know that there are only two kinds of things in this world. Those you have a say in and those you don’t. Being smart means you can tell the difference.”

He pulled into the gravel drive and waited for Abigail to get out of the truck.

“Denny—”

“I gotta get home. Pop’s waiting on me.”

After Abigail gathered her bags from the flatbed, Denny drove off.

She watched his truck disappear around the bend. “Smooth move, Abby .”

In the dark, she could hear the ocean, though she couldn’t see it because of the plywood on the windows. The waves were bashing against the rocks, drawing attention to how close the lighthouse was to the water. Like a maidenhead on the prow of a ship, the lighthouse would have to bear the brunt of whatever came its way.

“This lighthouse has been here for ages. This isn’t the first hurricane it’s withstood.”

It was, however, Abigail’s first hurricane. She had to try to be as steadfast as the lighthouse.

With the windows boarded shut, the house was especially dark. She turned on all the lights and tuned her radio in to the latest weather update. Amelia was churning along the coast, wreaking havoc on Miami. The reporter described horizontal rain and palm trees fanning to and fro. Meanwhile, Abigail unpacked a miniarsenal of flashlights, spare batteries, and bottled water onto the dining-room table.

“Ready or not.”

She switched off the radio. She’d heard enough. Abigail would pack her suitcase and depart on the morning ferry. The hurricane was one of those things she didn’t have a say in. That made her feel trapped.

Not as trapped as Nat Rhone must feel.

She tried to put him out of her mind. She wouldn’t have a say in what happened to Nat either.

Once she’d filled her duffel bag with a few days’ worth of clothes, Abigail found herself meandering aimlessly through the house. She paced the bedroom and wandered to the study, memorizing the rooms in case she didn’t see them again.

The romance novel she’d been reading was splayed open on the bookcase. Her pulse quickened. She hadn’t put it there.

Then Abigail recalled that Nat had set the book on the shelf as they were moving the furniture. She thought of him in his cell and the parable of his life. His parents had died, leaving him alone and adrift, and what befell him seemed to be a tragedy of his own creation. Abigail had been left too. What were Nat Rhone’s chances after such a start in life? What were hers?

She would be gone the next day and the lighthouse would weather the storm without her, yet she would always be weathering her own storm, the gales that her grief would bring, the tidal rushes of tears, the surge of memories, and the rain of everyday reality without her husband and son. It was a storm she would have to wait out no matter where she was. Where she wanted to be was Chapel Isle.

Abigail picked up the romance novel, sat at the desk, and let the book carry her away.

Fiction, as a form, was not that different from the dictionary. Every feeling and fact, even the etymology of emotion, could be found between the letters of A and Z . Alphabetization acted as the plot, and each word was a character with its own personality. Despite the absence of rising action, a climax, or a denouement, the dictionary told an honest tale.

The same might not have been said about the romance novel Abigail was reading. She took pleasure in polishing it off nonetheless. The hero won his battle, the villain got his comeuppance, the star-crossed lovers had their stars uncrossed, and those who were intended to live happily ever after did. Though happily ever after wasn’t in the dictionary, Abigail chose to believe the concept wasn’t reserved solely for fiction.

“Congratulations, Heiress,” she said, pushing back from the new desk. “Same to you, Captain. Have fun sailing the high seas together.”

The house had grown so cold that Abigail could see her breath. She was starving but in no mood to start a fire. The bingo hall at the fire station would be warm, and Denny would be there. She needed to apologize to him.

“And they have hot dogs. Junk food is better than no food.”

With the keys in the front door, the phone flashed in her peripheral vision. Abigail had been meaning to call her parents. They were probably beside themselves with worry. She felt terrible for putting them through that. It was selfish. But she hated being grilled about how she was faring. She wanted to be normal again, and if that wasn’t going to happen, then she wanted to be left alone.

Her parents were relieved when she phoned them. They’d heard about the hurricane on the news and were concerned for her safety. Abigail spent the next half hour guaranteeing them that she wasn’t in danger and that she was being evacuated to a shelter to wait out the storm. What she omitted from the conversation was the state of the lighthouse and its former—or not so former—occupant. Instead, she waxed on about the pristine beaches and the charm of the town.

She could tell that her parents would have preferred to have her home. Her mother questioned if she was eating well. Abigail lied and said she was. Her father made her promise to call more often. Abigail agreed, and that wasn’t a lie. After hanging up, she had to admit the anticipation of the phone call was far worse than the call itself. She crossed her fingers that the same would be true of the hurricane.

The fire station’s hall was full, the vibe festive, as if the next day were the Fourth of July, not a mandatory evacuation. Abigail saw Ruth sitting close to the bingo board. She had an entire folding table papered with cards.

“Couldn’t resist coming to bingo,” Abigail told her.

Ruth removed her purse from the chair beside her. “Who can? Had a hunch you’d show. I set aside some cards for you.”

The man with the suspenders Abigail had bumped into at Merle’s store that afternoon took his position at the microphone and ceremoniously welcomed everyone to the game.