“A pen.Someonechanged the engraving on it.”
Raindrops thwopped into the empty metal pot.Mymind floated to the notion of summer showers performing in a symphony on a tin roof.
“Have you called your mom and asked her what she knows yet?”Willowasked.
I let out a short laugh. “Yeah.Mymom didn’t know she was an author.Shesaid my great-aunt was always really eccentric and would make up stories when people asked what she did to be so wealthy.She’dsay she had a rich lover inSpain.Orthat she worked for the government.Orthat she had divorced aRussianoligarch and took everything he had.Orthat she was an oil heiress.Iasked my mom where she got my name from whenIwas born, and she said thatAuntJuniperused to insist that, ‘Aurorais the best name and was to be reserved for the most daring of women.’Sincemy great-aunt never had kids of her own, my mom named meAurora.”
It had been years sinceI’dseen my aunt before she passed away, but my impression was spot on.
“Awww!” the girls said in unison.
Thunder crashed like cannon fire.Thelightning strikes that followed were sword slashes through the sky.Thevideo call buffered as the heavens collided in a civil war.
I had told the girls all aboutJack’sand my discovery at the library.Iended up reading my aunt’s autobiography cover to cover four times.
One of those times was whenIwas snuggled up withJackon his couch, butIwasn’t ready to unpack that phenomenon quite yet.Itwent completely against my “personal space” requirement.
But with him . . .Iliked the closeness.Ihad started to crave it in his absence.
WhileWhitneyandWillowchatted about the possibilities of what the pen could mean, my mind floated back to my aunt’s autobiography.Halfof me was captivated by who she was.Theother part of me was . . . confused.
She hinted at leaving pieces of herself in the house.Bymy guess, she meant the random pieces of manuscripts and trinkets, like a weirdly engraved pen.Ihadn’t quite figured those out yet, but it was fun to think of my aunt sneaking around her house, chiseling out an old brick, and tucking away something that she had written and was proud of.
In the book, she talked about how she lived to spite the norms of ladylike behavior.Shedressed and acted the way she wanted.Shetook up “method writing” and would immerse herself in the characters she was creating.
She romanticized everything, and had a fabulous time terrifying the locals in the process.Ihad smiled at the stories she recapped in the autobiography of her going to the grocery store in a petticoat or a hoop skirt.Iidolized her inability to care what others thought—turning up her nose at the rumors and opinions that swirled about the crazy old spinster who danced along the waves.Thatkind of freedom would have been cathartic.
She didn’t walk on the beach.Shedanced along the shore, hiking up the hem of her dress and dashing across the sand like she was running toward a forbidden lover.Shedidn’t peel back the curtains or peek out of a window.Shewould stand in the widow’s watch, facing down a storm, staring at the ocean in her best dress as a salon-perfect blowout wilted in the rain.
Less romanticized and more of a poor life decision, she refused to evacuate for hurricanes.Sheclaimed that it was exactly why she had moved to theCarolinacoast in the first place.
AuntJuniper—orAuroraArcher—declared that the beach was the moodiest of landscapes.Itwas happy.Itwas magical.Itwas raging and hostile.Itwas somber and sorrowful.Itwas a place for dreaming and an anchor to stay grounded.
She claimed the beach engaged all the senses, not just the basic five.Itdrove curiosity and wanderlust.Therewas a beauty in the sonder that bloomed as strangers met on the beach for one magical summer.
I twirled theAuroraArcherpen between my fingers asIsettled back in front of my computer.WhitneyandWillowboth had their microphones muted and were studiously typing away on their books.
I had a cluster of emails still needing to be answered, butIdidn’t feel up to responding to the overdue messages.
I felt as broody and irritable as the storm clouds looming over the coast.WhatIwouldn’t give for an evening sunset painting the sky in pink twilight as the breeze danced through the dry grasses that sprang through the sand dunes.
My cursor lingered over the stack of unread emails.Butinstead of clicking on the first one,Istabbed theAuroraArcherpen into the bun on top of my head, opened a blank document, and began to type.
There’s something overwhelmingly nostalgic about the summertime.It’sthe sound of crickets chirping as dusk turns to twilight.Goingfor a long drive as the air cools after dinner as the lingering light glows.
Summers as a kid were everything.Theywere endless.Therewere no worries about mosquito bites on your legs as you ran through the grass.Itwas just freedom and fresh air.
Summer was a thousand senses all wrapped up into five.Itwas the sound of a country song full of angst, lust, and love on the radio as you drove with the top down; hair whipping in the wind.
And then you turn eighteen and those magical summers disappear.
The lights flickered overhead as thunder rolled and my fingers flew over the keys, bleeding the skeleton of a story onto the first page.
It felt like a purge.Acleansing.
It felt like cracking my knuckles—an ache that had lingered and needed to be released.
My fingers froze over the keys.Ineeded a synonym for moody.
