The Return

Immediately after waking, she’d heard the phone begin to ring in the kitchen. Hope had to wrap the blanket around herself and stubbed her toe on the corner as she’d raced to answer it. She’d thought it might be Josh, but she remembered the time difference in the same instant she heard Ellen crying on the other end. Sobbing, actually—at first Hope had no idea what Ellen was trying to tell her. It was all Ellen could do to choke out a few words here and there. Hope initially believed that the wedding had been called off, and it took a while for her to decipher that Ellen was crying about the weather. Between sobs, Ellen informed Hope that it was supposed to start raining later today, and that storms were virtually certain over the weekend.

It struck Hope as a bit of an overreaction, but Ellen remained inconsolable, no matter what she told her. Not that Hope had the chance to do much talking. The phone call was more like listening to a weepy forty-minute monologue about the unfairness of life. As her friend went on and on, Hope leaned against the counter with her legs crossed and toe still throbbing, absently wondering if Ellen would even notice if she set the phone down to use the bathroom. She really, really had to pee, and by the time she was finally able to get Ellen off the phone, she had to ditch the blanket and hobble as fast as she could.

After that, as though some deity had it out for both Tru and Hope, her coffee maker went on the blink. The light came on but the water wouldn’t heat, and Hope debated whether to boil some water and pour it through the grounds. By then, however, Scottie was at the door and she knew that if she didn’t get him outside soon, she would have a mess to clean up. So, throwing on some clothes, she brought her dog to the beach, hoping to salvage the morning with a relaxing walk. But Scottie made that impossible. On two different occasions, he ran to the top of the dune and up someone’s walkway—either trying to find that cat again or purposely attempting to give her a heart attack—and she had to scramble after him. She supposed she could put the leash back on, but Scottie would likely alternate between trying to pull her arm off and sulking, and she wasn’t in the mood for either.

Despite all that…

While on the phone, she’d seen Tru walk past her house on the way to the pier with his fishing gear and couldn’t help smiling. She still had trouble believing she’d actually had dinner with him. Her thoughts drifted back to their conversation…she was surprised by how pleasant the evening had been, and how effortlessly they’d seemed to get along.

She wondered whether he’d take her advice and visit Kindred Spirit after he finished fishing. With storms on the way, tomorrow would probably be too late, but that went for her as well. After her appointments, she guessed she might have some extra time to swing by the mailbox, and as she walked the beach, she made the decision to do just that.

But she had to get going or she’d be late. She had a hair appointment in Wilmington at nine and a pedicure at eleven. She also wanted to see if she could find an appropriate pair of shoes to wear to the wedding—the burgundy pumps that Ellen had picked out for the bridesmaids pinched her feet terribly, and she’d decided she couldn’t spend the whole night in agony. Traffic would probably be heavy, and cutting the walk short, she called to Scottie before turning around. Not long after, Scottie barreled past her with his tongue hanging out. As she watched him run, she glanced toward the pier. She could see a cluster of people, but they were nothing but shadows, and she wondered whether Tru was having any luck.

Back at the cottage, she dried Scottie with a towel, then took a quick shower. Afterward, she dressed in jeans, a blouse, and sandals. She’d worn pretty much the same outfit the day before, but when she glanced in the mirror, she couldn’t help feeling that she looked different—prettier, maybe, or even more desirable—and she understood that she was seeing herself as a stranger might see her. The way Tru had seen her last night, as they’d sat across the table from each other.

With that realization came another decision. Hope rummaged through the drawer beneath the phone, finding everything she needed. After scribbling the note, she left through the back door and descended to the beach. Taking the steps and using the walkway at the house next door, she tacked the note next to the latch of the gate, where Tru couldn’t help but find it.

She returned the way she’d come and grabbed her handbag as she headed out the door. As she got in her car, she let out a deep breath, wondering what was going to happen next.

* * *

Tru wasn’t sure what Hope had done.

He’d seen her emerge onto the back deck, maybe forty minutes after she’d returned from her walk with Scottie, and then make her way to the house where he was staying. He felt a pang of disappointment at the thought that she’d gone to see him when he wasn’t there, but at the gate, she’d stopped. He supposed she might have been debating whether or not to proceed to the back door, but she was only there for a few seconds before she retraced her steps and vanished inside her parents’ cottage. He hadn’t seen her since.

Strange.

His thoughts remained on her. It would have been easy to chalk his feelings up to infatuation, maybe desperation. Kim, no doubt, would agree with that. Since the divorce, his ex would occasionally ask him whether he’d met anyone. When he would reply that he hadn’t, she’d jokingly suggest that he was so out of practice that he’d probably end up falling head over heels in love with the first woman who so much as glanced at him.

That wasn’t what was going on here. He wasn’t infatuated with Hope, nor was he desperate, but he admitted to himself that he found her arresting. Ironically, it had something to do with Kim. Early on, he’d realized that Kim knew exactly how attractive she was and that she’d spent a lifetime learning to use it to her advantage. Hope seemed to be the opposite, even though she was equally beautiful, and it spoke to him in the same intuitive way as when he finished a drawing and thought, That’s exactly the way it should be.

He knew that it wasn’t appropriate to think such things, if only because nothing good could come of it. Not only was he leaving on Monday, but Hope would return to her life on Sunday, a life that included the man she thought she’d marry, even if they were having difficulties at present. Nor, with their respective weekends on tap, was he sure he’d even see Hope again.

Feeling another tug on the line, he played the game, timed it right, and set the hook. After a struggle that surprised him, he ended up pulling in a fish different from the flounder, but one he still didn’t recognize. The older man in the ball cap wandered back toward him, watching as Tru began to remove the hook.

“That’s a helluva whiting,” the man said.

“Whiting?”

“English Whiting. Sea mullet. Big enough to keep, too. Sure would be nice to cook it up. If you were planning to throw it back, I mean.”

Tru handed over the fish, watching as it vanished into the cooler again.

He didn’t have much luck the rest of the morning, but by then it was time to call Andrew. He packed up his things, walked to the shop, and got some change, then went to the pay phone. It took half a minute and a lot of coins to get through to an international operator, but eventually he heard the familiar ring as the call was placed.

When Kim answered, she agreed to accept the charges, and Andrew came on the line. His son had all sorts of questions about America, most of which had to do with various movies he’d seen. He seemed disappointed to learn that there weren’t endless shootouts on the streets, people in cowboy hats, or movie stars on every corner. After that, the conversation settled into something more normal and Tru listened as Andrew caught him up on what he’d been doing in the past few days. The sound of his voice made Tru ache at the thought that the two of them were half a world apart. For his part, Tru told Andrew about the beach and described the two fish he’d caught; he also told him about Scottie, and how Tru had gone to help him. They spoke longer than Tru had anticipated—nearly twenty minutes—before Tru heard Kim reminding Andrew that he still had homework to do. She popped on the line after Andrew.