Edisto

The late morning sun was heavenly down on the beach in the light September breeze. Mary Elizabeth stretched and smiled at her children building a sandcastle together before picking up her phone to check her messages to see if anyone else was coming out this week. She got bored sometimes without her girlfriends, didn’t enjoy happy hour quite as much when she was the only adult in the house.

The house always felt empty without Josh, which was so ridiculous even Mary Elizabeth knew it was absurd, that the beach house she was conceived in felt empty without her husband of five and a half years.

Mary Elizabeth had a spring wedding, and she was the first of her friends to marry. Thank goodness they still included her on girls’ nights. It had been awkward when she was pregnant with the twins. Susan was always willing to do something other than go to a bar dressed like they were going to Vegas, but everyone else, especially Cathy, Laura, and Teresa, complained so much about how boring it was when they went to dinner and a movie instead. Said they felt themselves turning into their mothers, and Blair made that snide comment that Mary Elizabeth’s children would be old enough to babysit everyone else’s when they were ready to have them.

What in the world? She had fourteen text messages, one from Susan, another from Blair, three each from Cathy, Teresa, and Laura. Another from Ansley. One from her mother, and one from her grandmother.

Since when did her grandmother text her at the beach? Wasn’t she the one who always said, “We go to the beach to get away from Garden City. It’s a shame that so many families from home have bought here over the decades. It’s not the escape it used to be.” In her day, there were no cell phones, and you had to pay by the minute to talk long distance on a landline. Grandmother didn’t approve of communications from home at the beach, not even if the house were on fire. “I’d rather enjoy my vacation than have that ruined, too.”

Good grief, Mary Elizabeth thought, she can’t even be casual in a text message: Dear Mary Elizabeth,

I hope you and the children are enjoying the beach. The sea air is so good for young people. Allow me to apologize for intruding into your beach time, but it would be remiss for me to not reach out under the circumstances. I don’t want to alarm you, but Masie Adams is back in town, and I think it would be wise for you to cut this vacation short and come home to see about things here.

All my love,

Grandmother

The text Mary Elizabeth received from her mother was much the same as her grandmother’s, and as she opened the texts from her cousins and friends, the sun ascended to its high noon position, and Mary Elizabeth called Lizzie and Knox to gather their sandcastle toys and come in for lunch.

“Mommy, we’re not finished! Can’t we just leave them here with our castle?” Lizzie asked as she dutifully put the shovels and sand molds in the empty bucket.

The tide was all the way out, not a ghost of a chance of the toys being swept away into the ocean, but Mary Elizabeth heard her grandmother speaking in her mind’s ear about the double importance of keeping up appearances during trying times. Never let them see you perspire (grandmother wouldn’t say “sweat” in the presence of the generations still being shaped and formed in her family).

“What would Grandmother Betty say if you left your toys out here? The beach is not a trailer park!”

“What’s a trailer park?” Knox demanded, taking the bucket from his sister.

“It’s a place where poor people live in campers that are even smaller than the carriage house.” The last time Masie was in town, Josh wanted to let Masie stay there until she found a place. Mary Elizabeth had been about to cave when her mother put her foot down.

“Absolutely not. What do you think will happen the minute you’re asleep? You tell Joshua Beckum that Masie Adams was not welcome at your wedding, and she is most certainly not welcome in your marriage. He should be ashamed of himself for suggesting it. Absolutely not.” Elizabeth had twisted her pearls as she spoke, Mary Elizabeth could hear the chalky sound of the pearls rubbing against each other through the phone. She could even see her mother’s diamonds winking in the morning light of the sunroom as her fingers manipulated the pearls resting against her Donna Karan caftan, coffee resting in a china cup with a saucer. One must always appear to be in n the middle of a photo shoot for Southern Living, the periodical bible.

After rinsing the sand off in the outdoor shower, Mary Elizabeth put the children’s hoodie towels, a unicorn and a dinosaur on the wrong heads.

“Mommy, Lizzie’s a unicorn. I’m the dinosaur! RAWWR!” Knox jumped up and down to splash in the standing water on the deck.

“Settle down, son. You can be a unicorn this once. Let Lizzie be the dinosaur.

Lizzie had her hands in the paws of the towel and stomped around the deck, scaring Mary Elizabeth’s Yorkie, who watched from behind the sliding glass door.

Inside, Mary Elizabeth made peanut butter sandwiches and sliced a few strawberries and bananas onto them, her mother lecturing on the importance of eating fresh fruit and vegetables at every meal and maintaining a balanced diet as she poured the milk into sippy cups.

Having no appetite herself, she picked up the phone and called her grandmother; it wasn’t the phone call she wanted to make, but it was the most efficient one.Grandmother would unofficially activate her phone tree and communicate with everyone who mattered.

“You just pack your bags and get in the car. What do you mean,’finish their lunch and an episode of Mickey Mouse’? Is Duke’s not open today? I’ve already called Shirley. She and Emily are coming out this evening with the children, and they will see to the house.”

“Yes ma’am. Where should I leave the key for them?”

“Leave a key? Shirley has had a key to this house since she was a KD at ‘Bama.”

“I thought you said all the women in our family were Tri Delta, triple legacy.”

“My goodness, Mary Elizabeth, this is no time to dissect sororities, but Shirley is not a Blanchard. Some of the ladies from my bridge club wrote Shirley’s letters. But why are you still on the phone with me? You should be halfway to Walterboro by now.”