On Folly Beach

by Karen White

Slaves from the Congo had brought the tradition of the bottle trees from their homeland to the American South, their intent to catch evil spirits inside the bottles before they could make it into their homes.

Or how she’d have to find a way to say good-bye to her husband for the last first time.

Her grief was a silent thing—an invisible virus that gnawed at her from the inside but somehow managed to leave the rest of her unscathed.

“Sometimes, just when we think we can see our lives on course and we can settle back and get comfortable, a new path opens. Some people just keep going, too scared to veer off the familiar path. But others, well, they step off into the unknown, and find that maybe that was where they were supposed to be all along.”

“Life should be a question, Emmy, and you’re way too young to think you’ve already found all the answers.”

You’ve always been so damned independent. Maybe I’ve finally figured out that to love you means letting you go.”

A great man once wrote, “Absence diminishes small loves and increases great ones, as the wind blows out the candle and blows up the bonfire.”

“I don’t need to be asking who put that thing up there in the yard. Miss Maggie works too hard and Miss Cat’s too lazy to make time for something like that.”

She’d watch for a short while, and when she returned to her bed, she’d lie on her pillow with a lump in her throat, wondering if it was from resentment that she wasn’t the center of their world or from a distant hope that one day she would find someone who liked to dance in the living room and who would look at her as if she was loved best.

“These five holes show Christ’s wounds on the cross, and this in the middle is a blooming Easter lily surrounding the star of Bethlehem.” Maggie lifted her eyes and saw that Peter was staring at her instead of the shell. Quickly she averted her eyes and turned the sand dollar over. “On the other side is the Christmas poinsettia to remind us of Christ’s birth. They say if you break the center five white doves will be released to spread goodwill and peace.”

“We never get to choose whether we love someone or not, Lulu. It’s not like a gift you can give and take back. It just is.”

She started to cry, recognizing the words that she’d said to empty rooms long after Ben had gone, haunted by the ghost of the life they’d never have.

But as she’d learned before, sometimes it was better to be quiet and listen, then wait until the time was right to reveal what you knew.

live for the day in the best way possible, and everything else will work itself out. Seems

Sir Francis Bacon said it best: It is impossible to love and be wise.

I think worrying is a lot like chewing gum. Eventually it runs out of taste, and you’ve got to spit it out.”

She imagined that life underwater must be like this, looking up toward the filmy surface from her liquid cocoon, and seeing the rest of a world that she was no longer a part of.

But all she could see was a pathetic woman who’d made the colossal mistake of getting what she’d wished for.