She had to be the heroine in her own story.
Carson took a deep, calming breath and shifted the gears. She backed out of the garage, then drove with purpose north on Middle Street. A few minutes later she parked near Dunleavy’s Pub. Cars were still parked in the slots, but she found one nearby. The laughter on the street was louder and brassier, a sign of late-night drinkers. She reached the dark green pub at the corner, past the picnic tables, and peered in the windows. It was near closing time, but a handful of people were still there, mostly in their twenties and thirties. The late crowd.
Taking a breath, she pushed open the door. Immediately she smelled the freshly popped popcorn and recalled the days it was her job to make it. She stood at the door of the popular watering hole and glanced quickly around the room. Old beer cans and license plates from across the country decorated the walls, along with photographs of local sports teams and signed photographs of a few famous greats. A soft buzz filled the room. The television over the bar had a baseball game playing.
Ashley, a fellow waitress when Carson worked here, smiled, drawing near, carrying a tray of dirty glasses back to the sink. “Hey, girl. Long time no see!”
“You took the night shift.”
Ashley shook her blond head. She looked tired after a long night. “No, filling in. Hey, great to see you.” She smiled wearily and, her arms loaded, hurried on to the kitchen.
Carson’s gaze moved directly to the bar, the crown jewel of the pub, which dominated the back wall. Behind the bar, in his usual spot, the bartender stood facing the room, polishing a glass.
Carson walked straight to the bar, grabbed hold of the polished wood, and leaned forward, her gaze squarely on Bill. He was the bar’s owner and manager and had been her boss when she was a waitress here. He was an old friend of Mamaw’s, which had helped her get the job. Bill had also fired Carson for stealing a bottle of liquor.
Bill, a big man, had a long, drooping face that spoke of how he’d seen it all and suffered no fools. He had spotted her the moment she’d entered the room. His habit was to immediately check out anyone who walked through his door. His gaze had followed her as she walked across the room, and he studied her as she stood before him.
“Carson.” He nodded in greeting. He set down the glass and towel, then walked to stand across from her. “How can I help you?”
Carson gathered her courage. “Do you remember how you told me you’d be my sponsor for AA?”
His expression shifted. “I do.”
“I’m asking you to be my sponsor.”
Chapter Seventeen
The following day, Harper didn’t see the shops she passed along Highway 17 or the gated communities nor the long stretch of longleaf pines in the Marion National Forest. As she drove north to McClellanville, her mind was going full speed, caught up in a maelstrom of emotions and thoughts. She’d left Carson in her room alone. She couldn’t bear to stay there while her sister read her book. It was too personal.
Harper squeezed her hands on the steering wheel and thought again of her advice to Carson—now’s the time you need to hold on to Blake. It was high time she took her own advice.
The light turned red and Harper brought the Jeep to a stop, shifting the gears easily. She remembered her terror when she’d purchased the Jeep and realized it was manual transmission. Immediately she’d panicked. Why hadn’t she believed she could do it?
As soon as she asked the question, she knew the answer. Fear. Fear of failure. Fear of not being perfect. Fear was at the root of her problems. The bedrock of her timidity.
The light turned green and Harper took off again. She was driving through a remote section of the vast Francis Marion Forest. As the miles passed beneath her humming wheels, her anger percolated. What kind of a sick mother would threaten to cut her child off? she wondered. Mamaw never cut off Parker, not even at his worst. Wasn’t that the unconditional love a mother was supposed to feel for her child? Did unconditional love even exist, or was it just another fairy tale?
She’d read books on family dynamics ad nauseam. She couldn’t even count the books she’d read about mother-daughter relationships. A lot of them waxed poetic about a mother’s unconditional love. A love that knew no bounds. She’d never forget what Erich Fromm wrote. How a mother’s love need not be acquired, it need not be deserved.
“Right,” she muttered bitterly, never having felt that innocent, peaceful assurance of her mother’s love.
Cutting the cord between her and her mother hadn’t been as difficult as she’d thought it would be. She’d always envisioned that someday she’d go off on her own, but she saw now that was another fairy tale. For far too long it’d been so easy to accept the money handed to her, to live in a gilded cage. Like the child her mother had called her.
At last she came to the blinking light that signaled Pinckney Street. Harper had plugged Taylor’s address—which she’d found easily enough, after a quick Google search—into her phone’s GPS. She’d never have remembered this turn without it. Flicking her signal, she turned off the highway toward McClellanville, remembering the long and foliage-tunneled road toward the sea.
She drove through the few blocks of town, then turned on Oak Street and stopped at a driveway bordered by a clump of tall, leggy shrubs. She checked the address. This was it. The dirt drive was bordered by enormous live oaks dripping moss. Peeking out from the foliage sat a charming, if modest, white clapboard house with black shutters and a bright, cherry-red, sloping tin roof. Harper thought it was a vision from a classic southern painting. Two gable dormers adorned either side of the roof, and a wraparound porch embraced the house like loving arms. Jeremy Creek glistened in the sunlight behind the house.
She pulled into Taylor’s driveway and spotted Thor lying on the porch. Immediately he raised his head. Harper turned off the ignition, aware the big dog was watching her every move. When she stepped out of the car, Thor immediately barked low and came trotting off the porch and across the yard, his dark eyes trained on her.
“Hey, Thor.” She stuck out her hand toward him.
Thor sniffed her hand, then nudged his head against her leg for a more vigorous rub. He began whining gently, then barking excitedly, his tail wagging. Harper was giddy to be welcomed so warmly.
“Thor, back,” Taylor called from the porch.
The dog responded immediately to the sharp command and backed off.