CHAPTER 1AVA
The letter had been sent by a dead man.
There was no doubt in my mind.
Fine. There was a little doubt. Okay, a lot of doubt. Buckets of it.
But after thirteen long hours in the car during which I’d thought of very little else, I couldn’t come up with anyone else who might have sent the note. Not one single person, other than Alexander Bryant, who’d died exactly a month ago yesterday.
Yesterday also happened to be when a late-summer breeze blew through my apartment’s kitchen window and caused an unassuming envelope to fall from the thin stack of this week’s mail on the countertop. The letter had drifted steadily downward, soundlessly landing at my feet while I’d been washing dishes.
The strange thing was I didn’t remember receiving the letter. I didn’t get much mail, so it should’ve stood out to me. But I had no recollection of the crisp kraft brown paper envelope that had no return address. Or the way my name and address had been hand-printed in neat letters that almost looked machine-produced except for the unevenness of the blue ink. I definitely didn’t remember the butterfly stamp in the upper right corner of the envelope, the colorful sticker unmarred by an adjacent postmark too smudged to read.
Now, as I rolled to a stop at a traffic light, waiting to turn left down a road lined with palm trees that swayed in the breeze, I thought it extremely odd I’d not noticed the stamp. Usually, all things animal-related captured my attention. But I had to admit that life had been a bit of a blur since Alex had passed away. My mind had been elsewhere, tangled up in a guilty net of what-ifs and should-haves.
“Are you sure this is the best job choice for you?”
My mother’s voice drifted through the car’s sound system, her concern crisp and clear.
“Only one way to find out,” I said, adjusting the volume on the Bluetooth system. Her sharp worried tones made my ears ache.
“Ava,” she said on a sigh. “I know you’ve been a little lost this past month, but this feels rash. You’ve always worked a computer job from home, now suddenly you’re applying to be a caretaker?”
I’d told her a little bit about the job I was applying for, but not all. I hadn’t told her how the position had come to my attention. Or that the job was in Alabama. Or that I’d driven through the night to get here.
It didn’t matter that I was twenty-seven years old—she’d have thrown a fit if she thought for a second I wasn’t taking good care of myself.
I almost hadn’t answered her call at all, but that would’ve only sent her into a blind panic. It was better to ease her fears now, get them out of the way.
I didn’t want her worrying about me. She’d had a lifetime of that already. It was only in the last couple of years that she could breathe more easily, sleep better, and live a normal life without feeling like she always had to be on alert to keep me safe.
I didn’t want to go back to what used to be.
“I think a change of pace will be good for me,” I finally said. I swallowed hard. “Get me out of my comfort zone.”
It was a gray morning, the sky filled with low-hanging clouds. Leftover rain droplets from a storm that had rolled through in the wee hours of the morning sat fat and sparkly on the edges of my bug-splattered windshield as I glanced at the dashboard clock: 8:38.
I drummed my fingers on the steering wheel, unable to stop thinking about the letter that had set this trip in motion.
Inside the envelope had been a wrinkled piece of paper, folded neatly in thirds. It was a typed help-wanted ad that looked to have been crumpled up at one point then smoothed out. At the top of it, someone had written me a note.
Someone.
Alex?
The short, scribbled message had several of my ex-boyfriend Alexander’s earmarks. The cheesy buttercup line? That’s exactly something he would say. He had a way of making old-timey phrases sound endearing. Plus, that double x? It’s how he’d always signed off on his text messages. The handwriting could’ve been his, that slanting, masculine scrawl, but I didn’t know for sure and didn’t have anything to compare it to other than a belated birthday card he’d given me back in June. But that had only xx Alex handwritten on it. He’d been a nice guy but not overly sentimental and often forgetful—always too focused on the next thing to simply be present, to take notice, to just be.
That, honestly, was one of the many reasons I’d broken up with him after only three months of dating. We’d parted the same way we’d started—as friends—and made promises to stay that way. But he’d pushed those boundaries in the weeks after the breakup. And then he was gone.
“All right, Ava,” Mom said. “I’ll let it go for now. What time is the interview?”
If the letter had come from Alex, why? How?
I let out a frustrated huff of air, my breath making a soft whistling sound, as if testing its wings in the unfamiliar humidity. I had a suspicion about a reason, but the how baffled me. I supposed it was possible he’d mailed the letter before he passed away. It could’ve been lost for a month in the mail system, then found and delivered recently. That kind of thing happened all the time. All. The. Time.
But …
Why send a letter? As someone who had his phone with him twenty-four/seven, why not just snap a picture of the want ad and text it to me? That seemed more like something Alexander would do. Snail mail was too old-school for him. Plus, why not put a return address on the envelope? Or sign the note? Also, it was only recently that I’d started looking for a new job—I hadn’t needed one when he was still here—so how would he have known? It had been only two weeks since I was fired, unable to concentrate on much of anything in the aftermath of Alex’s death.
“Ava?” Mom asked. “You still there?”
“I’m here. Just lost in thought.”
“I asked what time the interview is,” she said.
Without a doubt, the timing of that letter felt all kinds of unexplainable. Was it simply coincidence that the letter had fallen from the stack of mail the day before the job interview, giving me just enough time to get to Alabama? Never mind the strange manner in which it had floated to my feet. It was almost as if …
I could hardly allow myself to think that it looked like it had been taken out of the stack of mail by invisible hands and placed at my feet. Goose bumps popped up on my arms, and I rubbed them away. Ghosts weren’t real. They weren’t.
Were they?
Shaking my head, I finally settled on the letter being mysterious. That was all.
“Ava!”
My head jerked back at her shout. My ears rang. “It’s at nine,” I said quickly.
“You’ll text me after?” she asked.
“I promise.”
“All right, since you’re so distracted, I’ll let you go to concentrate on the road. I love you. Don’t forget to text.”
“I won’t. I love you, too,” I said, then disconnected the call and let out a deep breath.
I powered down the windows, letting the wind gust through the car. Immediately I picked up the scent of the sea in the air—a distinct briny smell that I recognized immediately even though I’d only been to the beach one other time in my life, on a family vacation to Florida when I was ten years old. The brief trip had been enough to fall in love with the water.
My blinker ticked steadily, the sound faint, nearly lost in the wind. Only a few miles back, I’d noticed dense fog sitting low along the shoreline. It masked any views of the gulf, but if I concentrated, blocking out the wind, the birdsong, the traffic noise, I could hear waves crashing against the beach, which somehow sounded both melodious and discordant, as if warning of dangerous surf while reminding that beauty could be found in chaos.
I wished I were standing at the water’s edge now. I’d dance in the foamy surf. Maybe fling myself in the salty water, let it flow over me, shushing all other noises, wash away all my worries. Over the years, I’d pleaded for a return to the beach, only to be denied again and again, because that one trip had ended in an ambulance ride to the nearest hospital and a vow from my mother that it was the last time we traveled so far from our home in Cincinnati.
I should’ve returned to the beach after I moved out on my own, but I’d been too fearful to go alone, my mom’s worries having become my own at some point.
I glanced at the clock: 8:40.
The red light finally gave way to a green arrow and I closed the windows to silence the noise. As I drove toward Driftwood, my stomach twisted with nerves. My mom was right. This felt rash. Why, after reading that letter, had I decided to throw caution to the wind by hurriedly packing, then jumping into my car to make the long drive to Alabama? All so I could apply for the job in the letter?
If there was anything I knew about myself, it was that Ava Laine Harrison didn’t throw caution. Or do spontaneity. Or wild-goose chases, which this foray south suddenly felt like. I was used to staying in my comfort zone, surrounded by familiarity. Routine. Quiet.
Especially quiet.
Now here I was racing to Magpie’s, a coffeehouse located in a cozy beachside community, so I could be interviewed for a dreadful-sounding job I wasn’t sure I even wanted.
I didn’t have a good reason why I was here. I only knew that I had to do it. It was a feeling that beat so strongly within me that there was no denying it, even when I wanted nothing more than to turn the car around, head back north.
As I approached a picturesque tree-lined town square, I turned right, carefully navigating the one-way streets. I wanted to inch along, to take in every detail I could of my surroundings, to study every shop. But I kept going, my sights on the coffeehouse, painted a pretty blue green, that I could see on the other side of the square. I threw a look at the clock: 8:44.
I made a left turn, then another as I searched for a parking spot and finally found an open space in between two golf carts not far from the coffee shop. I shut off the engine, grabbed my handbag, and jumped out of the car.
Walking as quickly as I could manage, I hurried along the brick sidewalk. However, as I neared Magpie’s, my steps slowed. Then stopped. Now that I was here, it felt too early to go inside.
Unfamiliar noises swirled around me like a tornado of musical notes, some low, like the rustling of palm tree fronds, some sharp, like the enthusiastic squawk of a seagull—conflicting but somehow harmonious.
I was grateful for the harmony. It wasn’t the norm. Then again, there wasn’t much about my life that could be considered ordinary. I was hoping that would change here in Driftwood. After all, that was what the letter had inferred, wasn’t it?
Everything you’ve always wanted is only one job interview away.
All I’d ever wanted—for as long as I could remember—was normalcy. I’d spent so much of my life tucked away, being kept safe and sound, that I didn’t know how to be part of a bigger whole. I longed to live someplace where people would treat me the same as everyone else. A place where I was simply Ava and not someone to be pitied or judged blindly.
Being in Driftwood was about as far out of my comfort zone as I could wander, yet as I stood here, my nerves settled, calmed. It gave me hope that coming here hadn’t been a big mistake.
So far, the small beachside town seemed perfectly normal. Magpie’s was one of two dozen businesses that comprised three sides of a square, each storefront painted a cheerful pastel color. On the fourth side, seemingly anchoring the town, stood a simple pearly white church topped with a bell tower and cross.
Sitting prettily in the center of the square was an oval green space. On one end of it two women sat on a blanket chatting as two young children kicked a red ball to one another, and on the other side of the lawn, a line dancing class was taking place with ten or so elderly participants.
As I watched the dancers scoot forward, then back, behind me came the sound of scuffling footsteps and the jingle of dog tags. I turned and saw a man and his dog walking along the sidewalk toward the coffee shop.
He was a big guy, broad and tall. The type of guy you’d expect to see with a Labrador, golden retriever, or German shepherd at his side—not a small cream-colored long-haired dachshund. The disparity amused me to no end.
Flashing me a distantly friendly smile, he said, “Good morning” as he used a hook on the storefront to secure the leash.
He had a nice voice, the timbre mellow with a hint of raspy.
With a quick rub of the dog’s long, furry ears he said, “I’ll be right back, Norman. Stay.”
The dog sat.
Norman? For some reason I’d expected the dog to be a girl with a name like Goldilocks or Godiva. He was just so … pretty. I sent him a silent apology for jumping to conclusions.
The man strode past me and pulled open the shop’s wide glass door. Bells tinkled and the scent of freshly ground coffee beans wafted out of the shop, along with the dissonant strains of many voices, the clink of dishes, the whizzing of a grinder.
Using his shoulder to prop the door open, he regarded me with downturned eyes, dark brown with golden flecks. I was taken aback by the heartache I saw in their depths.
Copyright © 2023 by Heather Webber
