Daybreak in Sandbridge

Chapter 1-1

Chapter 1

The first clear memory Winston “Scooter” Stahl had was of falling.

He knew he should have more memories than that, and if he concentrated, he could summon a few. Like his sister’s seventeenth birthday, when she kissed a boy in her bedroom and Scooter told on her. The stinging rat-tail Mary-Alice gave him in retaliation a few days afterward is a little clearer. But neither of them was as clear and bright and indelible as the memory of falling.

Even years later, the memory haunted his dreams.

* * * *

Lorraine Stahl, Scooter’s mother, was a good-looking woman, tall and gray-eyed. She was an excellent cook, a skilled wood-carver, a capable seamstress, and an amateur historian. The latter two interests served her well when she got involved in reenactment and joined the 3rd Virginia Regiment. Big Win, her husband and Scooter’s father, thought the whole thing was ridiculous. He refused to dress up in “hot, fussy” Colonial gear and pretend to fight with antiquated weapons in battles long since decided. Much less cook outdoors, sleep in canvas tents, and shoot powder blanks at smaller groups of pretend Redcoats.

Scooter had heard from his sister about some of the arguments Lorraine and Big Win had, back before Scooter was born, but in the end, as usual, Lorraine had her way. She was gone from home maybe five weekends out of the year. Big Win didn’t want his kids underfoot while he tried to run the family restaurant, Dockside, on his own, so until Mary-Alice—or Mace, as she insisted on being called—was sixteen, Lorraine took both of the kids with her.

Mace hated it. It was always too hot or too cold, and the clothes were uncomfortable, and she didn’t like sleeping on a pallet of hay. The boys were boring and the girls insipid. She was expected to cook and darn socks and sit and be ladylike. She thought the whole thing was awful.

Whether it was because he was a boy or because of a difference in underlying personality, Scooter loved going on his ma’s trips. He liked listening to the unit’s surgeon, with his case of tools and unguents, explain about amputation and leeches. He liked the freedom of running around all day with other kids and only having to report to his mother for meals. Some of the other kids complained about having to help clean up after meals, but by the time Scooter was six, he’d been helping out in the kitchens at home, so dishes for three people was nothing. He loved learning to load and fire the flint and powder muskets, and that was the only part of the whole thing that Big Win was happy to listen to him talk about, after.

He was eight (and a half!) when he discovered the great tree on the green in Colonial Williamsburg. The Market Days event in mid-September was one of the biggest events of the year; dozens of units converged on the historical site, and the sea of canvas tents spread as far as the eye could see. Dozens of other kids ran through the wide paths between the tents, dressed in linen shirts and breeches. The cannons were fired regularly, rending the air with their loud booming.

The boiled leather shoes that were considered historically appropriate for children were not the best he could have selected for tree-climbing, but Scooter was eight (and a half!) and he didn’t stop to think about things like that. The tree had huge branches, some wider than a picnic bench. He was more than twenty feet up without even thinking about it, and by the time he found a good branch, he could barely see the ground through the leaves. Perched high, he stood on a branch, playing pirate. He could see the powder magazine from where he was, and no one could see him. It was terribly exciting.

But he’d forgotten about the cannons and when one of them fired, he startled, and lost his footing. The slick leather shoes gave no purchase, and he went down over the side.

He remembered, very clearly, hitting one large branch on the way down. His arm made a sudden, unexpected noise, and he screamed. Oh, he screamed. Hitting the branch slowed his fall. He tumbled the rest of the way down until he was laying flat on the hard-packed dirt under the tree.

Later, the nurse in the ER would tell his mother it was a miracle that he was still alive.

As it was, he broke his arm in three places and spent the next four months in a cast. (He met his best friend during those months. Jason wasn’t allowed to participate in gym class either because he had trouble with breathing, so the two boys sat together on the side of the gym and watched the other children and struck up a friendship.)

Being so badly frightened and injured changed things for Scooter. He hesitated to splash in the ocean, refused to climb even the short scrub pines near home. Stopped running pell-mell down the dock that gave the restaurant its name. Wouldn’t even step up on the stool to help decorate the Christmas tree. He could feel his mother’s eyes on him, but he tried to ignore it.

As soon as the weather warmed, Lorraine took a day off. She put Scooter in their truck and drove them all the way to Williamsburg. It had never seemed so far before, but his ma didn’t say why they were going and Scooter was nine now and he had a sick suspicion it wasn’t a late birthday treat and the ninety minute drive seemed forever.

Scooter walked with his mom, all the way down Dog Street (he was a lot older before he discovered that it was really Duke of Gloucester Street, abbreviated by the locals to DoG). He started dragging his feet when she crossed the green, but Lorraine didn’t stop.

“You need to go up again, Winnie Stahl,” she said. She looked at him, stern and kind and scary all at once. “I know you’re scared, but if you let it win, let the tree win, you’ll be backing down your whole life.” She cupped her hands to offer him a boost, and the look on her face said there was no getting out of it.

Scooter cried. He was too old to cry, he knew that, but he cried anyway. His arm hurt where it had been broken. He was going to fall again.

Lorraine merely watched and waited until his panic eventually subsided, then handed him a tissue and made him blow his nose. She cupped her hands again and waited some more.

His ma could have waited all day, Scooter knew. Finally, knowing he had no other choice, he put his foot in the stirrup formed by her hands and she boosted him onto that first branch. With a grunt of effort, his mother grabbed hold of the lowest branch and hauled herself up into the tree, too.

Scooter had been scared, but the sight of his ma climbing a tree startled him out of it. He’d never seen her do anything like that before. She passed him, scaling another fifteen feet or so. “Well, you gonna make me climb this tree all by m’self?”

That first bit, when he let go of the safety of the lowest branch, stood up, and reached, might have been the hardest thing he’d ever done in his short life. But he did it. Hooked his leg over the branch and pulled himself up. And again. And again. His ma kept just out of reach, until they got near to the top and Scooter realized he was right back where he’d been.

Ma stretched out on one of the branches, one leg on either side, chin balanced on her hands. Scooter did the same on the branch next to her, so he could watch her face instead of looking down at the ground.

“Fear’s not a bad thing,” she said, finally. “It keeps us alive, allows us to exercise some caution. But too much fear can freeze you up, make it hard to keep movin’ forward. And life don’t care much for you if you’re standing still. Best way to live isn’t to never be afraid, but to be afraid…and do it anyway. That’s bravery, Winnie.”

“Are you afraid?”

Ma smiled at him. “Always am,” she said. “These days my fear’s a bit different. I’m afraid of bad things happening to you or your sister. I’m afraid of the restaurant failing. Of owing money. Of getting older. But life’s not gonna stop just because I’m afraid.”

“Are you afraid of being up in this tree?” Scooter attempted to clarify.

Ma looked at him, then looked down, then back at him. “You bet your buns I am,” she said. “But I’m up here anyway.”