by Cathy Gohlke
Aunt Hyacinth’s mind is going. Her money’s evidently gone, and she’s blind but still doing her very best. I have no money to offer to help her or pay for my keep. How can I come here and add to her troubles? The weight of that knowledge was lifted only by a thought. Can I be a help to her in some way? I summoned my spirits as best I could and stepped inside. “I’m sorry, Aunt; the berries aren’t quite ripe yet.”
Aunt Hyacinth stared at me—or in the direction of my voice—as if I’d lost my mind. “Of course they’re not. It’s only May, child!”
“Then, what—?”
“The berries in the pantry outside the door.” Aunt Hyacinth clapped a hand to her forehead. “You wouldn’t know about that, would you? Land sakes, where’s my mind? Once we’re past freezing, I have Gladys bring things up from the root cellar a little at a time to leave in the pantry so I can get them. Those old cellar steps are more than I can manage anymore.”
I laughed self-consciously, more relieved that her mind had not gone than that there were berries.
But Aunt Hyacinth laughed fully, the laughter of bluebells and church bells, and shooed me out the back door once more, urging me to check the door to a narrow pantry on the far right of the porch. The jar of red raspberries was just where she’d said it would be, along with canned jewels of bright-orange carrots, green snap beans, scarlet tomatoes, and deep-purple blackberries, the lid of each jar marked with a raised letter for its contents. I’d forgotten the beauty of Aunt Hyacinth’s rows upon rows of homegrown fruits and vegetables, the glory of her garden. But who kept her summer garden now, or were these from the garden of another? Who canned these treasures? Surely she could not.
The smell of freshly ground coffee filled my nostrils when I opened the kitchen door. Aunt Hyacinth had the cast-iron skillet heated, butter bubbling, and was just lifting thick slices of white bread from egg batter and plopping them in. Not seeing didn’t stop her from cooking; that was clear.
I opened the jar of berries, drained the juice to save, and spilled them in a little cut-glass dish I found in the cupboard.
“Carry the tray and this cloth into the front parlor directly down the hallway there, won’t you, dear? I love the morning sun in that room. It warms my bones.” Aunt Hyacinth had brought out a tarnished silver coffee service and her very best china and bid me spread the damask cloth across the tea table. “We might as well do this right.” She smiled, delighted as a child at Christmas.
We’d barely settled in the large and brightly lit room when Aunt Hyacinth reached for my hand—so like Mama. I clasped her frail hand in response, and Aunt Hyacinth prayed with the awe of a penitent approaching Mount Sinai. “Dear Lord, we rejoice in this beautiful day that You’ve made! Thank You! Thank You for the morning sun, for the birds that sing, for the love of family and the treasure of Lilliana that You’ve brought me. We sorrow for the reason, Lord, for the loss of my beloved Rosemary, of Lilliana’s precious mama. Comfort us, Father; help us to balm one another’s hurts even as we joy in our Rosemary’s homecoming. Lead us through this day. Make us a blessing to one another and to all who cross our threshold. Thank You for this food and for bodies and minds to enjoy it. In Jesus’ name, and for Your glory, amen.”
I hadn’t even told Aunt Hyacinth yet that Mama had died, but it didn’t seem to keep her from knowing, and how that knowing came about worried me. Still, tears I didn’t want to shed threatened. “The funeral was day before yesterday.”
“I thought it might have been.” Aunt Hyacinth spoke quietly, reverently, stray tears on her own cheeks.
How was it that she could glory in bounty one minute and sorrow in depths the next? How did a person traverse the mountaintops and dip to the valleys and soar up again so smoothly—all the while convinced she could approach the throne of God and be assured of His love? For surely she was. I heard it in her voice.
“Will you pour for us, Lilliana?”
“Of course.” I held the tarnished pot as steady as I could. The coffee service, the grand piano on the far side of the room, the spacious fireplace and faded but fine appointments of the room were like stepping into old-world grace. “Thank you for taking me in last night. For everything, Aunt Hyacinth. This meal is wonderful.”
“Stop thanking me at every turn, Niece. This is your home now, for as long as you want it. After I’m gone, it will be yours entirely.”
“Aunt Hyacinth, that’s not why I came. I came because . . .” I didn’t know how to continue, how much to say.
“Because you had no other choice. You’d nowhere else to go.”
I shifted in my seat, ashamed of my need, ashamed of my transparency, confused by what she seemed to know without a word from me.
“It’s all right. I understand, better than you know. I know that your father did not treat your mother well, that she died of a weary and broken heart. I know that he long ago forced her to will everything to him and to exclude you from that will with the promise that he’d care for you and protect you if anything ever happened to her.”
“Did Mama write that to you?”
“She told me when you were both here, but she didn’t need to. I haven’t heard from your mama since the day your father took you both away. I suspected that was what he was after when she ran off with him as a girl, but hoped I was wrong.” Aunt Hyacinth set down her bone china cup, sloshing just a little of the coffee as the saucer found its nesting place. “She wrote me a couple of years after their marriage, asking about Garden’s Gate—if I’d made a will. She encouraged me to do so and to make her—or better yet, her husband—beneficiary and executor so that nothing would be left to the state but ‘kept in the family.’ I knew then.”
“I don’t know anything about that.”
“He vowed that she and their children would share legally in everything. She wanted to believe him, but I knew it was a lie. Everything that man did was a lie. From the moment he proposed to the day he buried my Rosemary.”
It was a hard conversation. He was my father, after all, and though I knew he was willing to sell me to “insanity” to cover his tracks and save his reputation, that he’d as much as sold me to Gerald as a young bride for whatever favor it bought him in the church, it felt all skewed that I wouldn’t take up for him, that I couldn’t. Honor your father and mother resounded through my brain.
“Your mama, God rest her weary soul, knew the truth, too. Not that she’d admit it at first, mind you, but she came to it later. He was a slick one, a smooth one, a charming sort, and he wanted her money—or what he believed was her money. He’d convinced her she was not smart enough to manage her affairs—that she needed him to handle everything.” Aunt Hyacinth huffed. “Rosemary was a brilliant girl, a brilliant woman. He knocked the confidence straight out of her like straw stuffing.”
I held my breath. She could be talking about me—about Gerald and my lack of stuffing. That she’d known Mama when she was more than a frail woman intrigued me, excited me. It also reminded me that I had a ring to deliver.
“Not getting me to affirm his lawyer’s ‘encouragements’ was surely a disappointment, but I suppose he believed I’d seen the light and acquiesced. In any case, he wanted the recognition your mother’s beauty brought him. I imagine Rosemary just hoped she’d outlive him to make things right . . . for you.”
The stone walls in my stomach shifted and crumbled. Here was the first person I might count as an ally, even if it was too late for Mama. “He doesn’t know I’m here—neither him nor . . . anybody.”
“You mean your husband?”
I swallowed. “You know I’m married.” Would this be it? Would she send me away—back to my rightful place?
“I felt the groove on your ring finger when you placed your hand in mine just now. You must have taken it off recently.” She sighed. “It’s what men like your father do—marry their daughters off young. What sort of man is your husband? A good man?”
Aunt Hyacinth’s deductions made my head swim. It was good I hadn’t
lied to her—or “neglected” to tell her I was married, though I’d considered it. I’d become very good at pretending, at lying to cover up for Gerald’s outbursts and for his sometimes-antisocial behavior—or more difficult still, at pretending everything was all right when he fawned charm. But I meant to start fresh now, whatever I did. In barely a whisper, I forced the truth between my lips. “No. No, he’s not.” Silence spread between us, the half-eaten toast and coffee growing cold. “He doesn’t know I’m here. I ran away—from Gerald and from my father.”
Aunt Hyacinth drew a deep breath as if she’d been waiting for me to speak. “Good. I’m glad you did. They won’t hear it from me.”
It was like being handed a pardon—the worst of sinners and I was pardoned. “Why? Why will you help me?”
“Because it’s right. Because I loved your mother. Because I love you for your own sake, Lilliana. I would have taken you both in years ago, if only Rosemary had been able to leave your father. You know he telephoned the day she died.”
“Father?” And then I remembered the conversation in the church sanctuary—Father saying something about calling Mama’s aunt and his debts.
“He said he knew I would want to know and that he would be needing to sell the house—my house—to pay for Rosemary’s final expenses.”
“What? That’s not true. He has enough for that, or at least I think he does, and people in the church are helping him.” I felt my face warm. I’d taken that eighty dollars donated by one of the wealthier members and used it to buy my train tickets. And yet I knew that hadn’t been the only donation.
“I told him as much—that he should be able to pay his own wife’s expenses. He said I should know that Rosemary had willed everything to him, and of course that included Garden’s Gate. He thought I should know before he sent a lawyer and agent to sell.” Aunt Hyacinth shook her head. “He so generously offered me a month to move.”
“You willed Mama your home?”
“I never married. You may not know that. I raised your mama when her mother—my sister, Camellia—died.”
“Mama told me. She always thought of you as her mother.”
“Rosemary was a daughter to me, all I ever loved as my own in this world, and she came to me as a very little girl. She barely remembered her own mama.”
“I remember the summer Mama brought me here.”
“Do you? I didn’t know if you could; it was so long ago and you were such a tyke.”
“Those were the best days of my life, of my childhood. Until he came.”
“He came and terrified your mama into going.”
“He wanted to leave me here.”
“It was all I could do not to keep you. I feared what your life would be with him, but I knew your mama needed you as much as you needed her. I knew that you were all that made her life worth living once she was under that man’s spell.”
“Why didn’t she stay or come back here—to you, to Garden’s Gate?” I asked questions I’d pondered over and over for Mama—and for me.
“She was afraid. She was so very afraid of him. He vowed he’d hunt her down and get her back, no matter where she went, and that he’d go to court to claim desertion and prove her an unfit mother.”
“Could he have done that?”
“It’s a man’s world, Lilliana, don’t you know?”
I did know, had every reason to know. “Then he will come. If Garden’s Gate is his, he’ll sell it. He won’t care that he turns you out, Aunt Hyacinth—or me.”
“Come here? Oh, I don’t think he’ll be coming here.”
“But you said he—”
“He was right that I’d willed my home to Rosemary. She was to inherit it after I pass, not before. Somehow he’d gotten it in his head that I’d put the property in her name already. There is a grave plot in the churchyard in her name; that’s all. A place where I’m to be buried. I put it in Rosemary’s name believing she could handle the details when the time comes, that she’d outlive me. That’s what he inherits—little good it will do him. Though I’m sorry about that now. Unless he allows me to purchase it from him, it will mean I won’t be buried next to my family.” Aunt Hyacinth sighed. “I’m no fool. I won’t sign over my home—my family’s home for five generations—until I draw my last breath.”
“And then he’ll take it. Take it and sell it.”
“No, he won’t. I talked with my lawyer the moment I hung up the phone. I’ve made a new will. Garden’s Gate will be yours when my time comes.”
“But you hardly know me!”
“I hope we’ll change that. And even if we don’t, there’s no one else I’d want to have it. You are bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh, Lilliana Grace. Your grandmother and I grew up in this house. Our father was a child in this house, along with his older brother and sister. The Belvideres have owned this land since No Creek was founded before the Revolution. I’d like it to stay in the family, of course. Our family has lived here long years. I hope you will—if you want.”
I didn’t know what to say. It was an extravagant gift, but too much, too soon, and how could I commit to such a life? How could I know what my future might bring—other than threats from Gerald and Father?
“If you choose to sell Garden’s Gate after I’m gone, I trust you to sell it for a fair price and a good reason, an amazing future—nothing less. Certainly not for a man who treats you poorly. I love my past, but I love your future more.” Aunt Hyacinth spoke in my direction.
I wanted—desperately needed—help and sanctuary, at least temporarily. But would I be able to stay? What if Gerald comes for me? And if Garden’s Gate becomes mine, couldn’t he take it? Sell it? Whether or not he could, did I want to commit to a life in No Creek, North Carolina? Did I want to commit to anyone ever again?
“What do we need to do to make certain they don’t find you? Have you asked yourself that?”
It took me a moment to register Aunt Hyacinth’s question. But I’d thought of little else during the long hours of my train ride. “I took off my ring. I threw it in the first trash bin I came to.” I realized too late that perhaps I should have sold it, plain gold band that it was, but I’d just wanted to get rid of it—a shackle on my finger. “I thought of changing my name. But I can’t do that legally, not without leaving a trace.”
“No, I suppose not. But it’s a good idea, before either of them think to come here or to telephone here again. It’s one thing for me to say you’re not here, but our telephone operator is chatty and all too willing to share gossip she shouldn’t.”
“He—Gerald—wants to divorce me.”
“That’s good, isn’t it? You’d be free of him.” Aunt Hyacinth’s face gained color.
“He wants to do it by having me committed to an institution—declaring me unstable and insane, then fabricating a story that the instability made me promiscuous. That gets his divorce within the state of Pennsylvania and his freedom and sympathy within the church.”
“That’s ludicrous!”
“He’s convinced Father to back him up—to make it seem that my grief for Mama is excessive and unnatural and sent me over the edge. I think he’s willing to pay people to stand as ‘witnesses’ for—for whatever he says.”
Aunt Hyacinth didn’t say anything for a time. I wondered if she believed me. Why should she? It was all so outlandish. “I overheard them. They didn’t know I was listening. Gerald threatened to expose Father’s treatment of Mama and, I think, some of his past behavior toward other women.”
“Stirring the pot.”
Try as I might, I couldn’t keep my voice steady. “I don’t want to be locked up for the rest of my life, and I can’t keep on there. That’s why I left as I did—not a scrap of luggage, nothing but my purse—and your ring. Thank heaven I’d sewn it into the lining or it would still be in Philadelphia. Oh, I must give it to you—I promised Mama.”
“Lilliana!” Aunt Hyacinth’s voice trailed my exit.
But it was a good excuse
to dash up the wide staircase, gaining time to pull my heaves into deep breaths. I sat on the edge of the poster bed, taking time to calm my nerves, to blow my nose. The shame of my desperation, of my father and husband counting me as nothing but a burden to be gotten rid of, overwhelmed my heart.
Aunt Hyacinth must have thought me crazy, but I couldn’t help that. It was best to get everything out in the open and know just where I stood with her—what she believed. I couldn’t bear to trust her and find myself betrayed into Gerald’s or Father’s hands.
Pulling the ring from the lining of my purse at last, I straightened my skirt—much the worse for wear these last three days—and made my way downstairs. Aunt Hyacinth still sat by the window. If I didn’t know she was blind, I’d have thought she was watching the cardinal outside her window peck at the seed she must have spread across the wide sill. She didn’t turn her head as I entered the room—not until I slipped the ruby ring into the palm of her hand. Her quick intake of breath told me she recognized it.
“Henry’s ring. I never thought to see this again.” She fingered it lovingly, caressing the intricate setting. “Until your father telephoned, I didn’t know if I’d ever see you again. Not that he suggested you’d come. I just knew from the way he talked that you had no home with him, and I wanted to be ready—in case.”
“Thank you. Thank you. Mama said she took the ring from you.” I couldn’t imagine my mother stealing, and yet hadn’t I just used money that wasn’t mine to escape my husband?
Aunt Hyacinth shook her head. “I gave it to her. She didn’t want to take it, knowing what it meant to me. But she needed ‘portable wealth’—something valuable that’s small and can be hidden. I wanted her to have some small security—some means of escaping your father if she ever needed to. If I’d given her cash, he would too easily have found it.”