Grace at Low Tide by Beth Webb Hart

Author:Beth Webb Hart [Hart, Beth Webb]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Published: 2018-08-02T00:00:00+00:00

11

Sociable

When the Edings arrive for dinner, they are a half hour late.

Mama nudges Daddy, who is tending to the oysters at the grill beside the fish shed, and says, “Here they are!”

Daddy turns and watches the Edings consider a place to park. They drive a fancy white Range Rover. It is tall and hefty, decorated with mysterious tubes and gadgets, narrowing at the top like a wedding cake.

Mama has spent the majority of her week preparing for this get-together, which she calls the “midwinter oyster roast.” She devoted one whole day to cleaning out the cobwebs and abandoned hornet’s nests in the ceiling corners of the sheds, and she spent hours each morning on top of the tractor, surveying the yard and the avenue of oaks for dead limbs that Chambers scooped up and took to the dump. I was in charge of looking after Daddy, who acted as if nothing was going on. He spent his mornings working on the sailboat and his afternoons tending the fields.

Going on the theory that the scruffiness of Rose Hill, with its antebellum ruins and wildlife, was its charm, Mama went to the toolshed and hauled out the rustiest-looking trash cans she could find and placed them at the ends of the picnic tables where the Edings could hurl their oyster shells.

She also searched through the attic of the main house and found several old wool gloves and mittens, which she placed along with some old blankets in cardboard boxes beside the picnic table so people could huddle up together and keep warm.

She became nervous when the temperature rose to sixty-eight degrees yesterday, threatening to spoil the “winter cold” mood she’d envisioned. I thought she was either going to cry or yell at God when Chambers came over to the house to say that he spotted some buds on the azalea bushes in the gall.

“Oh, not yet,” Mama says. “It’s mid-February for heaven’s sake.”

But last night the temperature dropped and today it was cold again, hovering around thirty-seven degrees, and she said, “Thank the Lord” this morning while she watched The Weather Channel.

At the last minute, Mama decided that she should also invite the Davidsons, Dr. and Mrs. and Mary Margaret, as sort of a “Thank you for saving our tree; we’re still civilized people and your neighbors” kind of a gesture. Daddy just shrugged when she asked him if this would be okay. He was as ready as he could be for the dinner, and it seemed to me that he thought Mama might as well combine all their social duties into one night so it would be over and done with.

So Mama called the Davidsons this afternoon and they showed up ten minutes early and have been sitting in the fish shed eating Mama’s crab dip and watching the oysters as their hinges loosen beneath the croaker sacks, saying, “Those sure look good.”

Today, when Mama had me sweeping the dock, I noticed some movement on Otter Island, Daddy’s failed development across the river.

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