Welcome to Crystal Cove.
We’re Glad You’re Home.
That sign had been posted in this spot for as long as I could remember. Back in my early days of high school, as soon as some of our crowd had gotten their licenses, we used to drive out here and take pictures with the sign, usually while one of us made a rude gesture. I wondered if kids still did that sort of thing; of course, back in my youth, we’d snapped the photos with cameras our parents had given us for Christmas or our birthdays, and then we had the film developed at the local drugstore. What had we done with those prints, I wondered? I couldn’t remember.
Now, if kids still posed in front of the sign, they would take the pictures with their phones and post on social media. I tried to imagine what my growing up years might have been like if I’d had access to crazy things like smart phones or the internet. It was a crazy thought.
I’d made it down to Florida in good time, and it was too early to check in at the hotel. I wasn’t ready to venture to the main part of town yet, so instead, I cruised around the adjacent neighborhoods. Some were so different that I couldn’t believe it; the small houses had been demolished and replaced by mansions or ultra-modern beach homes. The Cove was not immune to the march of time and change.
But my grandparents’ home was still there, its dignity intact. The porch where I’d often sat with my grandmother popping green beans or listening to my granddad spin his stories had been screened in, and the ancient wooden siding had been replaced with vinyl of a different color, but I could see the footprint of the original house.
And when I cruised past Aunt Maggie and Uncle Joe’s place, it was mostly untouched. It was painful to think that both of my cousin Jude’s parents had passed while I was away. My uncle Joe, with his relaxed, happy vibe, had been so different from my own father’s stiff and grouchy sternness. I’d loved spending time with their family, even though Jude and Mark were both older than me. Aunt Maggie had been the woman I wanted to be, always smiling and patient, cooking us food that my parents didn’t allow me to eat at home.
Almost reluctantly, I turned down the street where I’d grown up, hoping that maybe someone had had the good sense to tear down my parents’ house and replace the structure with a condo. But no, there it stood, stalwart and dour in the middle of the block of nearly identical homes. My parents’ lawyer had emailed me once the property had sold after my mother moved to the nursing home in Elson, so I wasn’t at all surprised to see a car in the driveway and the side yard cluttered with kids’ toys. Still, it was oddly jarring to see that another family had taken up residence in the house that held so many memories.
There was nothing here for me, not anymore. Maybe there never had been. I let my mind wander back to my childhood, to my mother, an anxious, fastidious woman who often looked at me as an exhausting disruptor plunked down in the middle of her orderly life. I thought of my father and how Uncle Joe had once described him as a whistling, happy-go-lucky guy before he’d been drafted and sent to fight in Vietnam. According to my uncle, his brother had returned home a different man, haunted by what he’d experienced. But in the late sixties and early seventies, men of his age and place in life didn’t seek therapy or help of any kind, so instead, he’d simply grown more silent and bitter. I’d sometimes had the sense growing up that he couldn’t figure out what to do with a daughter. Maybe if I’d been a son, he might have taught me to shoot guns and play baseball, but I guessed I’d never know.
I was growing morose, sitting here and staring at my childhood home, and it wasn’t unlikely that some nosy neighbor could call the cops about the unfamiliar car with out-of-state plates casing the area. I put the car into drive again and eased away from the curb.
“This is why I didn’t want to come back to this stupid reunion,” I muttered to myself. “There’s nothing left here for me but pain.”
On the heels of that thought, though, came another: there was one place in Crystal Cove that held only happy memories for me, and I could get there from here with my eyes closed. I made the necessary turns, driving a few blocks until I’d reached the Cove’s main street. I hung a right, hoping that luck was with me and I’d be able to find a spot in the small lot behind the Tide.
It took me a while to get there, even though I could see the Tide and the edge of the beach from where I was stuck in traffic. Cars were bumper to bumper between the center of town and the beach entrance, which was annoying but did give me the chance to glance around to see how things had changed.
And how they had changed! All of the storefronts opposite me had bright and shiny new signs, proclaiming businesses I didn’t recognize. Gone was the old five and dime where I’d routinely shopped for penny candy as a girl and grabbed cold sodas with friends when I was a teen. It had been replaced by a store called The Surf Line and displayed surf boards and skateboards in the wide windows. Across the street, the old yellow house that had sat in disrepair for years was now lovely and graceful, right down to the sign in front that readThe Hawthorne House: A Bed and Breakfast.
Ah. So that was the project my cousin Jude had mentioned to me, the one her husband Daniel had begun shortly before his death. I knew that Jude and her second husband, Logan, now owned the bed and breakfast, in addition to The Riverside Inn and the Rip Tide. It was wild to think of my cousin as hotel and restaurant magnate of sorts.
I finally made it down Beach Street and managed to squeeze my sedan into a tiny spot on the side of the lot, the same place I used to park back in the day. Uncle Joe used to block off that area for family only.
I had just grabbed my handbag and climbed out of the driver’s seat—moving a little stiffly after hours of driving—when I heard someone call out.
“Oh, hey, sorry, that’s not a parking spot.”
I adjusted my sunglasses and looked at the guy talking to me. He was tall, dressed in shorts and a gray T-shirt that read “THE Rip Tide: Best Burgers and Beers on the Beach!”. His reddish-brown hair was a little long, and the green eyes gazing at me with barely veiled exasperation were so familiar that my breath caught.
“Back when I lived in the Cove, family was allowed to park over here.” I took a few steps toward him. “Has that changed?”
He shook his head, frowning. “No, we still do that. But you . . .” His voice trailed off as he squinted at me. “Um, you look like my mom. Sort of, I mean.”
I laughed. “We’re cousins, but once upon a time, we were often mistaken for sisters.” I thrust one hand toward him. “I’m Peyton. And I guess you must be Joseph, right?”
“Peyton? Mom’s cousin, Peyton?” Joseph laughed out loud, and ignoring my hand, wrapped me in a bear hug. “I’ve heard about you! Welcome home.”
When I’d seen the same sentiment on the sign at the edge of the Cove, I’d sniffed snarkily, but hearing it from my cousin’s son, I had to fight back tears.
Home.
For so many years, I’d forced myself to forget Crystal Cove, to forget my family. My emotional survival had required that I never thought about them—or if they came to mind, that I immediately pushed down those memories. But now, standing in this familiar place, wrapped in the welcoming hug of a family member I’d never met, I knew that deep down, I’d never really cut myself off from the Cove.
“You have to come in,” Daniel was saying as he released me. “Mom is here, and Logan, too. Everyone is all hyped up about the reunion—geez, it’s all we’ve heard about for the last few weeks.”
I allowed him to lead me across the parking lot to the back door of the Tide, up the steps that looked exactly the same as they had thirty-five years ago, the last time I’d run up them on my way to grab a burger and a chat with Jude. He threw open the door to a dining area that was fairly empty, with only a few people occupying tables here and there.
“Hey, Mom! Look who I found trying to park in the family lot!”
The woman sitting at the bar turned toward us, freezing momentarily before she jumped up and sprinted toward us.
