Chapter Twenty-Two

Morning came softly to Sea Breeze. The women slept in, all thoroughly tuckered out from the events of the previous evening.

Harper rose slowly, yawning loudly as she squinted against the sunlight, bright and piercing, pushing through the seams of the closed shutters. It was a late-morning sun, Harper thought, but for the first time in months she didn’t feel the urge to leap out of bed.

She would not run today, she decided. She’d had too much to drink last night, too much excitement, and, she recalled, stretching luxuriously like a sated kitten, too much kissing. Harper rubbed her face with her palms, yawned again, and rose slowly. The room spun a bit so she sat on the edge of her bed, waiting for equilibrium.

“Water,” she murmured through parched lips. “I need lots and lots of water.”

She rose and went to her desk to finish off a half-empty glass of water. Her mouth moistened, she opened the sliding door that separated her room from Mamaw’s, heading for the kitchen. She stopped suddenly, seeing Mamaw sitting in her bed.

“Oh, excuse me!” Harper exclaimed, embarrassed for having invaded her grandmother’s privacy. Ever since Mamaw had transformed her sitting room into a private bedroom for Harper, she’d been exceedingly careful not to invade Mamaw’s space. Harper usually left her room early in the morning through her door to the porch, and even then she often found Mamaw already making coffee in the kitchen. It was highly unusual for Mamaw to be in bed so late.

Harper began to duck out of the room, closing the sliding door.

“Wait, Harper!”

Harper stilled.

“I’ve been waiting for you to wake up. Come here, child.” Mamaw held out her arms.

Harper smiled and scrambled to the large four-poster bed. She crawled across the bed to cuddle against Mamaw’s chest as she had as a little girl. Soon she was enveloped in Mamaw’s arms, inhaling her signature scent. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“You didn’t. I read till very late. Then slept like Rip Van Winkle. I had the best dreams.” Mamaw bent her head to kiss the top of Harper’s head. “All of my summer girls.”

Harper had promised herself she wouldn’t ask, but she couldn’t stop herself. She tilted her head up to meet Mamaw’s gaze. “Did you like it?”

Mamaw’s smile was like the sun coming out, resplendent and inspiring. “Oh, very much. I loved it.”

Harper blew out the puff of air that she’d been holding and beamed. Mamaw’s opinion meant the world to her. “I want to thank you.”

“Me? Whatever for?”

“For encouraging me. For believing in me when I didn’t believe in myself.”

“Oh, my dear . . .”

“I was very worried about you.”

“Worried about me? But why?”

“You looked unsettled last night when I gave you my book.”

Mamaw’s expression shifted from confused to knowing. “I admit, I knew a moment of sadness. Not because you wrote your book,” she hurried to assure Harper, “but because for all his dreams, Parker never could manage to do that.” Mamaw paused and said softly, “I would have liked to see him finish his book. Maybe not publish it, but at least to have had the satisfaction of seeing his project through to completion. To write The End, as it were. But I suppose that was his weakness. And it is rather sad, isn’t it?”

Harper nodded against her grandmother’s chest. “Maybe not his weakness,” she mused after a short while. “Maybe his fear. After so many years spent talking the book up, claiming to be writing, taking your money . . . he set the bar pretty high. He boasted he was writing the Great American Novel, after all.” Harper laughed sadly. “Who can live up to those expectations? I suspect he figured he’d rather fail by not finishing than finish and have his book fail. Because that would have meant the end of his dream. He was afraid that he’d never had the talent after all. I know that fear. It takes a lot of courage to see the book through. And even more to let someone else read it.”

“You’re a brave girl.”

“I don’t know about that. I was shaking in my boots last night. Daddy’s reputation preceded me.”

Mamaw sighed sadly. “Oh, Harper. Don’t be ashamed of him.”

“No, not ashamed,” she hurried to answer. “But, all my life I lived with his name being the source of jokes in my family. So to tell my mother, or, by association, Granny James, that I was writing a book . . . I shudder to even think of what they might have said. I had to keep it a secret from them, and eventually it became so I couldn’t talk to anyone about it. Not even you, Mamaw. At least not until I knew I could finish it. Given Daddy’s history, I had to accomplish that much.” Harper nestled closer to her grandmother.

“I had no idea.”

“You couldn’t have. I didn’t tell you.” Harper paused as Taylor’s face came to mind. “I couldn’t have done it without Taylor. He helped me to overcome my fears.”

“He is a courageous man. A warrior.”

“Yes, but I don’t mean that kind of courage. He risked his own skin in battle and was injured.” Harper looked up at Mamaw’s face. “But he says that was the easy part.” She laughed at seeing Mamaw’s surprised expression. That had been her own reaction when Taylor had told her that. “Taylor taught me that real courage is belief in yourself. To face and defeat your fear, or be defeated by it.”

Mamaw stilled and looked out the window. She said softly, “I understand that kind of courage.”

“I know you do,” Harper replied, thinking of all Mamaw’s losses. To lose someone you love, especially your own child, Harper imagined, required great courage.

“You know,” Mamaw said, the word courage comes from the French root coeur, which means ‘heart.’ You, Harper, have great heart.”

“Whatever happened to his book?” she asked suddenly. “Is it upstairs in the attic? In one of those boxes?”

Mamaw shook her head. “He destroyed it,” she said sadly. “Parker destroyed everything he ever wrote. Even his letters. There’s nothing left.”

“That’s tragic.” Harper felt the loss deeply. “And selfish. I would have loved to read his writings.”

“Perhaps it was selfish. I read some of his early work. Let’s just say Parker did not respond well to criticism. And, perhaps, having failed, he didn’t want his work to be criticized posthumously.” Harper felt her grandmother’s shoulders shrug under her head. “It was his choice. But”—Mamaw stroked Harper’s hair—“his spirit is alive in you. And I know that he would be very proud of you. As am I.”