The Memory of Water Read online

  Praise for the Novels of

  Karen White

  The Memory of Water

  “Beautifully written and as lyrical as the tides, The Memory of Water speaks directly to the heart and will linger in yours long after you’ve read the final page. I loved this book!”

  —Susan Crandall, author of A Kiss in Winter

  Learning to Breathe

  “White creates a heartfelt story full of vibrant characters and emotion that leaves the reader satisfied yet hungry for more from this talented author.”

  —Booklist

  “Beautifully written, White’s latest is full of emotional drama and well-crafted characters.”

  —Romantic Times (4½ stars)

  “One of those stories where you savor every single word…[a] perfect 10.”

  —Romance Reviews Today

  “Another one of Karen White’s emotional books! A joy to read!”

  —The Best Reviews

  Pieces of the Heart

  “Heartwarming and intense…a tale that resonates with the meaning of unconditional love.”

  —Romantic Times (4 stars)

  “A terrific, insightful character study.”

  —Midwest Book Review

  The Color of Light

  “[White’s] prose is lyrical, and she weaves in elements of mysticism and romance without being heavy-handed. This is an accomplished novel about loss and renewal, and readers will be taken with the people and stories of Pawleys Island.”

  —Booklist

  “The reader will hear the ocean roar and the seagulls scream as the past reluctantly gives up its ghosts in this beautiful, enticing, and engrossing novel.”

  —Romantic Times (4½ stars)

  “A story as rich as a coastal summer…dark secrets, heartache, a magnificent South Carolina setting, and a great love story.”

  —New York Times bestselling author Deborah Smith

  “An engaging read with a delicious taste of the mysterious.”

  —New York Times bestselling author Haywood Smith

  “Karen White’s novel is as lush as the Lowcountry, where the characters’ wounded souls come home to mend in unexpected and magical ways.”

  —Patti Callahan Henry, award-winning author of Between the Tides

  NAL ACCENT TITLES BY KAREN WHITE

  The Color of Light

  Pieces of the Heart

  Learning to Breathe

  The MEMORY of WATER

  KAREN WHITE

  NAL Accent

  Published by New American Library, a division of

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street,

  New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England Penguin Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.) Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.) Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi–110 017, India Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.) Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices:

  80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  First published by NAL Accent, an imprint of New American Library,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  Copyright © Karen White, 2008

  Conversation Guide copyright © Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 2008

  All rights reserved

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA:

  White, Karen (Karen S.)

  The memory of water/Karen White.

  p. cm.

  ISBN: 978-1-1012-1151-9

  1. Mentally ill parents—Fiction. 2. Sisters—Fiction. 3 Family secrets—Fiction. 4. South Carolina—Fiction. 5. Sailing—Fiction. 6. Domestic fiction. I. Title.

  PS3623.H5776M46 2008

  813'.6—dc22 2007032734

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  This book is dedicated

  to the original Highfalutin,

  and to all those who lost so much

  in Hurricane Katrina.

  CONTENTS

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  EPILOGUE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  With many thanks to my friend and talented author Wendy Wax for your pearls of wisdom and thoughtful suggestions, which always make my books better.

  Thanks also to Jill Evans and to the kind and helpful staff at Wind-song Sailing Academy for your sailing pointers, and especially to Dave Crumbley aka “Captain Dave,” who gave so much of his time and knowledge to share his love of sailing with me and to make sure I got it right. Any errors regarding sailing are completely mine and mine alone, and my apologies to Captain Dave.

  I would also like to thank Kelly and John Deushane and their daughter, Taylor, for their charitable donation to KRCS and for the inspiration for the character of Tally Deushane.

  And no acknowledgments would be complete without a nod to Tim, Meghan, and Connor for hanging in there and for always being excited when seeing my name in print.

  CHAPTER 1

  For I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; and shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.

  —EXODUS 20:5–6

  Marnie

  For thousands of years, the Atlantic Ocean has beat against the beach of my childhood, its watery fingers stealing more and more of the soft silted sand, grabbing at the estuaries and creeks of the South Carolina Lowcountry, leaving us with the detritus of old forests, battered dunes, and bleeding loss.

  But the shore remains
, the sand itself testament to survival—the remnants of large rocks crushed into grains of sand. Just as our family has dared to claim ownership of a parcel of shoreline and ocean for generations, our house defying the elements of nature. Strong winds buffet the sea oats and tall dune grasses, tossing sand and seabirds where it will, winding my sister’s golden hair into sunlit spirals of silk until it becomes the only good memory I have of her—the only memory I allowed myself to keep. But the wind pushes on, pushes at the shoreline, at our old house, and at me. Yet somehow, we remain.

  I hadn’t been back to McClellanville for almost ten years—ten years while I tried to forget the sting of salt water in my eyes, the slippery feel of the tide pulling the sand out from under my feet. Of being underwater and not able to breathe as water rolled over me, cascaded around me in a watery rug, sucking the air from my lungs. And the feel of my mother’s hands slowly letting me go.

  I parked my rental car on the driveway of crushed rock and shells, and left the radio on, not yet ready to hear the ocean again. The white clapboard house, owned by my mother’s family ever since the Revolution, had changed little. Only on closer inspection did I begin to see my sister’s artistic hand. The once solid green porch swing now sported a leopard’s spots, and the front walk and porch were covered with brightly hued flowers, their garish blooms radiant and mocking as if they knew they had once been outlawed by our grandfather. Blatant beauty and bright colors were once a sin to him, regardless of the fact that the Creator he worshipped had also created them.

  A tire swing hung from the ancient oak tree in the front yard, its frantic movements evidence of recent occupation. Reluctantly, I turned off the radio and took my key from the ignition before exiting the car. I glanced around, hoping to catch sight of Gil, the nine-year-old nephew I had never seen, but only the empty yard and the distant sound of the ocean greeted me. I glanced up at the windows on the right side above the porch roof as a shadow seemed to pass behind the glass. I stared at them for a long time, wondering if it had been the passing of a cloud reflected in the glass and remembering my sister sneaking out of her window onto the roof, then shimmying down the drainpipe that ran from the roof to the front porch.

  I’d never tattled on her. Looking back, I suppose that even then I’d known that her self-destructive behavior would simply find a more dangerous outlet. Watching her run off the first time into the darkened yard with a shadow boy, I had felt the final snap of the invisible cord that had attached us since my birth. It had first started to fray on the day our mother died and we’d been sent to live with her father. We were given separate rooms, and my sister had become a beautiful stranger who regarded me with silent eyes and weeping shoulders. My grief for my mother and my sister found no succor with our grandfather whose only recourse during times of trouble was his Bible. But it never occurred to me to question the reason for my grief; according to my mother, we Maitlands were meant to suffer. It’s what happens, she once explained, when a man curses God. His children, his children’s children, and their children would be cursed. From what I have seen of this family, I would have to agree that she was right.

  Slowly I walked to the back of the house, a swarm of gnats following like persistent memories, down to the gravel path that led to the dunes, and finally beyond them, the Atlantic Ocean. I stopped on the old railroad tie that marked the end of the path and turned my face to the wind, stilling the first panic at the smell of salt water. I clenched my eyes, and when I opened them again, I saw Diana. She sat on an old Adirondack chair with her feet in the surf, swaddled in a quilt despite the pressing heat of the midafternoon sun. She wore her hair loose, its color not diminished by time or the miles of asphalt that had separated us for so long. Miles and years become suddenly invisible when you find yourself back where you started from, as if you’ve learned nothing and you are once again the person you once were.

  She was watching a sailboat as it headed out into deeper water, triangular sails full and bright white. Two sailors, a man and a woman in bright yellow Windbreakers, stood in the cockpit, their faces turned into the wind. I moved through the cloying sand so that I stood behind my sister, not speaking.

  “Do you remember how it feels?” She spoke without looking at me, her words deceptively soft.

  I watched the sailboat bobbing on the waves as if nodding, the woman moving to adjust a sail. I could almost feel the sleek teak beneath my feet, the damp crispness of the white sails through my fingers. Hear the rushing water beneath the bow and the wind blessing my face. “No,” I said. “I don’t remember at all.”

  She faced me for the first time, the old familiar sneer darkening her once beautiful face. I had never been able to lie to her; although she was three years older, we had been as twins, inseparable as if we had shared our mother’s womb, felt the rhythm of our mother’s heart at the same time. Maybe we had known, in that dark corner of heaven our preacher grandfather said babies came from, that being born into our family would require an ally.

  Diana reached up with paint-stained fingers and pushed her hair away from skin that appeared too sallow, too tightly aligned over jutting bones for a woman just thirty-one. I swallowed a gasp; her resemblance to our mother was unmistakable now. Long ago, when we were a normal family of mother, father, and two daughters, we had taken delight in the fact that I looked just like our father and Diana had been a reflection of our mother. But now, that reflection included all the demons of memory, and I took a step away from her as the old fears reached out and grabbed me like grasping seaweed in the darkest part of the ocean.

  “Is that why you moved to Arizona? It’s the goddamn desert, Marnie. I thought you, of all people, would be a little more creative than that.” She fished a cigarette pack and a lighter out from under the quilt. With shaking hands she put a cigarette in her mouth and lit it, then took a deep drag. “It didn’t make you forget, though, did it? You still remember how it feels.”

  A large wave broke near the shoreline, sending its frothing edge with bubbling fingers toward me. I jumped back and Diana laughed. “You’ve been living in the desert too long. Welcome back.” She blew out a puff of smoke into the air between us, like the ghost of unspoken words.

  “I came because of Gil.”

  She looked at me again, her eyes flat, her cigarette stilled in her hand. “I know.” She turned from me, examining the tall mast of the fading sailboat again, as if hoping to see something new. “I wouldn’t expect you to come back for me.” She took another drag from her cigarette, her hand shaking so badly she could barely make it to her mouth.

  “Quinn called me,” I said, feeling embarrassed that I hadn’t seen the need to lie. “Is he up at the house with Gil?”

  Pale green eyes studied me and it was as if I were looking into my mother’s face. “There’s nothing you can do for us here, Marnie. Go back to your desert, to your months without rain, and leave us alone. We don’t need you here, and I don’t want you here. So go home.”

  “I am home,” I said, surprising myself with the words. It had been ten years since I’d called this place by the ocean home.

  She stood suddenly, the quilt falling into the sand and water. I stared in horror at her legs, merely bones with flesh clinging to them, a large white bandage bisecting the upper quadrant of her thigh. It’s been almost two months since the accident. Why is it still bandaged? I looked up into my sister’s eyes, hoping to see anything but the defiance I found there. Without a word, Diana turned and walked away from me down the beach, leaving only a trail of cigarette smoke and more hurt than could be contained in the mere vastness of the ocean.

  I closed my eyes, wanting to see nothing but endless miles of sand and asphalt, the outstretched arms of the saguaro cactus and the roughhewn crags of distant mountains of my adopted home. Instead I heard the crash of waves against the ancient shore as I turned my back on the unforgiving ocean and headed up over the dunes and back to my grandfather’s house to face whatever curse God had decided to visit upon the latest
generation of Maitlands.

  CHAPTER 2

  All is born of water; all is sustained by water.

  —GOETHE

  Diana

  Sedona is located in Arizona’s high desert under the southwestern rim of the vast Colorado plateau. Average precipitation is around ten inches per year, and the average yearly temperatures range from about forty degrees in January to a high of around eighty degrees in July. A dry, temperate zone. A great place for retirees who hate humidity, for Midwesterners who can’t stand the thought of another harsh winter, and for wounded souls running from the sound of wind and ocean, not having yet realized that the ripe summer smell of pluff mud and the tang of salt in the air is part of their blood.

  This is Marnie. She was raised in the Lowcountry, same as I was. But I know that there are some things you can never run away from no matter how far you go. Surrounding yourself with a lot of desert is a bit like sitting in quicksand: Sooner or later the water will find you and suck you under.

  I watched my sister walk away, her feet in sensible flat-soled shoes, her dark hair pulled back neatly in a hair clip robbing the wind its pleasure of throwing it out of place. She was contained, my Marnie—the proper little schoolteacher. To the impartial observer it would appear that she was ambivalent about seeing me again. But I see things about her that other people don’t. She’s the other side of my soul and she’s never been able to hide anything from me. Marnie may have grown older in the last ten years, but I don’t think she’s grown any wiser. She says she doesn’t have a clear memory of the night our mother died, but she thinks she knows what really happened. And for that, I can’t forgive her.

  I watched her retreating back long after it disappeared up the path before deciding to follow. I knew why she’d come, and somewhere in my tired mind, I was grateful. Gil needed her. I also knew that if I could get myself to calm down and think straight, I would say that I needed her, too. But I couldn’t. Hate does that to a person.