Driftwood Summer by Patti Callahan Henry

Author:Patti Callahan Henry
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Penguin USA, Inc.
Published: 2011-07-16T04:19:59+00:00

FOURTEEN

RILEY

Regret buzzed through Riley like a fly she couldn’t swat. Why had she spent so much time being irritated with Mama when she should have been appreciative? And why did it take the storm of illness to awaken the need to cherish Mama? She walked down Pearson’s Pier, and then lifted her hand to stop her hat from flying off in a quick breeze. Her eyes locked on Brayden and she waved.

He turned away and she imagined him rolling his eyes at Mack, fishing next to him. As a child Brayden had come to her in the middle of the night with bad dreams. Now he didn’t seem to need her at all. When she was twelve years old, and summer had released her from the grip of homework and team sports, she, too, had spent hours and hours on this pier. She’d run around with a couple of dollars in her pocket—enough for lunch at the Burger Shack and an ice cream in the late afternoon. Sometimes she’d pick up loose change on the boardwalk for extra bait at the Pier House. If she didn’t have the change, old Mr. Henson would sneak her a bag of chum.

Riley came up behind the two males and they turned in response to her greeting. A cloud moved from the sun, and vivid sunlight struck Mack’s face. Riley lifted her hand to shield her eyes.

“Hey, Minnow,” he said.

Brayden answered, “No, her name is Riley.”

Mack laughed. “There was an entire summer when she wanted to be called Minnow.”

Riley shook her head at Mack, pulled her hat lower and spoke to Brayden. “I never wanted to be called Minnow.”

Brayden made a snorting noise in the back of his throat. “Then why did he call you that?”

“Because”—Mack bent closer to Brayden—“she thought she had this huge, really huge fish on the line. Thought the bet was won. She reeled it in and there was this very, very tiny fish—a minnow really—and a very, very large hunting boot.”

“Which, for your information, Brayden, was full of wet sand and muck, making it heavy,” Riley said.

She looked up at Mack, and for a brief moment, Riley saw the young Mack on the other side of a bonfire. She smiled past the memory. “Hey, thanks for fishing with Brayden, but no more childhood stories. And I haven’t seen your dad yet. . . . Is he here?”

Mack turned, called out to his father. Sheppard Logan, standing at the other end of the pier, turned at his son’s call. He walked toward them, and Riley remembered everything good about her childhood summers, everything pure and right. She didn’t hesitate to hug Mack’s father, held him for a moment and then leaned back to look at him. “It is so wonderful to see you.”

“You, too, Riley. How in the world did you grow up? Get married? Have a son? Just yesterday you were a twelve-year-old girl outsailing and outfishing my sons, to their dismay.”

It was true—all those years she’d been Mack’s equal in the activities of a Palmetto Beach summer.

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