by Karen White
Rainy touched Caroline’s cheek, her finger callused from years of quilting, of pushing needles in and out of fabric, stitching pieces together. That was how Caroline had always thought of her: the solid presence that always held the loose scraps of her life together. Caroline felt the panic grab hold.
The older woman smiled. “I’m not done with this world yet, hon, so don’t be fretting.” She sighed and dropped her finger. “I do get more tired than I used to, and I sure do wish I had more help with this quilt for Jewel.”
Caroline knew that had been aimed directly at her, and her eyes dropped from Rainy’s face. She’d once loved the feel of pushing a needle through fabric, the ability to lose herself for hours creating lively, colorful quilts for other people. It had been her way of getting inside people’s lives in a way her innate shyness otherwise prevented. It had made her popular and sought after, and for the first time existing in the same social circles Jude had become accustomed to since birth.
She recalled the memory quilt she’d started making for Jude before he’d died, that had somehow disappeared in the lost months following his funeral, months she couldn’t recall even now. Oddly, all she could remember from that time were colors—of wet leaves, gray skies, and the stark white walls of a hospital room. And when she’d finally returned home, Jude’s quilt was gone.
Caroline looked at the fabric Rainy still held in her hand. “What’s this one from?”
“A dress Shelby wore at the junior prom. She asked Jude to come up from Atlanta for it. She didn’t care that he was an underclassman—she wouldn’t go with anybody else. They were like that, you know. Inseparable.”
“I remember.” The old grief rose to the surface, and Caroline stood. “I can’t help you, you know. I’d like to, but I can’t. Anything that reminds me of him . . . I just . . . can’t.”
Rainy took off her glasses. “Do you think I don’t understand that? Don’t you think I grieved when Shelby died?” She leaned forward, her eyes narrowing. “But I wasn’t the one who died. I still have a life to live, and I try my best every day to live it to the fullest. Shelby wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.”
Caroline was silent for a moment, unable to find the words to make Rainy understand. “How did it happen? Shelby, I mean.”
“She was on vacation on Sullivan’s Island. She was swimming and had a brain aneurysm and drowned before anyone could bring her in to shore.” She drew a deep breath. “Jewel was with her. She tried as hard as she could to swim back carrying her mother, and she’s a good swimmer, but she was only ten. Her little muscles just weren’t strong enough, and she would have drowned, too, if help hadn’t arrived when it did.”
Caroline let that sink in for a moment as she thought of the calm and cool Jewel struggling with the body of her mother and trying to bring her to shore. “Where was Drew?”
Rainy’s fingers plucked at the yellow fabric on the sewing table as if trying to bring it back to life. “He’d had every intention of being there, but he had to stay in Charleston for an extra day to get some work done before joining Shelby and Jewel.” She looked squarely up at Caroline. “Sometimes punishing ourselves for bad choices in our past isn’t the best way to live our future.”
Caroline rubbed her eyes. “No, probably not.” She wondered for a moment if she should share with Rainy what she’d never told anybody before—about the dreams she’d had after Jude’s death. But then she looked up at the fragile woman, at the scarf that covered a nearly bald head, and knew she couldn’t burden her with one more thing.
Caroline walked back to the table and swept her hand through the sea of fabric, her fingers briefly clutching at memories before letting them go. “Jewel’s headaches—does she get them often?”
Rainy nodded. “Too often. We’ve taken her to doctors and had all sorts of tests, and the only thing they’ve been able to do for her is tell her what not to eat and give her strong pills to make the pain easier to take.” She snorted.
“I was just wondering, you know, with Shelby having a brain aneurysm ...”
“Her daddy and I were concerned about that, too. That’s why we took her to a specialist in California last summer. He said that there’s nothing wrong with Jewel, and what happened to her mama was a one-of-a-kind event and not something Jewel could have inherited.”
“That’s good.” She drew a deep breath to finally broach the subject she’d come to discuss, but her next words were drowned out by the ringing of the telephone.
Rainy picked up the cordless by her feet on the third ring.
“Yes, she’s here. Yes, I got the package. No, don’t know if I’ll use it—not on my face, anyway.” There was silence for a few minutes, then, “Yes, I’ll do that.”
Rainy hung up the phone, then looked at Caroline. “That was your mother. She wanted to make sure that you’d gotten here safely. And she wants me to let her know when you leave so she’ll know when to expect you.”
Caroline rolled her eyes. “This is insane. I am not twelve years old.” She held up her hand to deflect anything Rainy might say in defense of Margaret. “I don’t want to get into this now—that’s not what I came here for. I actually wanted to talk to you about selling Rainy Days.”
Rainy pushed back her chair from the sewing table and stretched out her legs as if she were preparing to watch a show. Caroline leaned against the table, her arms crossed over her chest, and cleared her throat. “I don’t think you should sell it—not to Drew, at least.”
Rainy raised an eyebrow.
“He doesn’t know the first thing about marketing. I mean, he’s creating one-of-a-kind pieces that could make him a sheer fortune if he’d allow them to be mass-produced, but he doesn’t want to do that. Imagine what he’d do to your store with an attitude like that—‘if it’s popular don’t sell it.’ He’d run it into the ground within a year.”
Warm brown eyes contemplated Caroline for a long moment. “Have you had much of a chance to get to know Drew?”
“No—thankfully. No offense, of course, to Shelby, but the man seems a little . . . slow.” Grudgingly, she added, “Although he makes the most beautiful pieces of furniture I think I have ever seen.”
Rainy’s mouth quirked a bit. “Um-hmm. Well, it’s too late now. It’s a done deal. I’m planning on sticking around until the end of the year, and then he’ll take over. We’re having the contracts drawn up now.”
Caroline straightened. “But . . . but the ‘for sale’ sign is still in the window. Surely this is still negotiable.”
Rainy stood and made her way through the kitchen to the front of the store with Caroline following close behind. “I’d forgotten I had that there. I’ll take care of that right now.” She reached into the window display and plucked out the sign. “There. Done.”
Caroline felt the unmistakable urge to cry. “But, Rainy, this can’t be the end of it.”
Rainy put her arm around Caroline’s shoulders and started leading her back toward the kitchen. “Honey, every ending is just really a beginning of something different. I know Drew’s heart isn’t into owning a country store up in the middle of nowhere. But I also know he’ll do his best by it until he figures out what he really should be doing.”
Caroline stopped walking and looked up at Rainy. “And what would that be?”
Rainy just shook her head and continued to propel Caroline toward the back of the old house. “Hell if I know. But we all have to figure out what we want to be when we grow up—no matter how old we are. It just takes some people longer than others to find out what that is.” She looked pointedly at Caroline, making her squirm.
“But Drew needs this right now. He has a lot of guilt—thinking he should have been there with Shelby, that maybe she wouldn’t have died if he had been. Things had been . . . well, difficult in their marriage for a few years. I guess he felt for whatever reason that he needed to work constantly to prove himself to his father, even if it meant taking time away from Shelby and Jewel. And something . .
. changed in him after Jewel was born.”
She shook her head slightly at the confused look Caroline wore. “No, it wasn’t like that—he adored his daughter. And loved Shelby. I’ve just never been able to figure it out.” She walked toward the kitchen. “Anyway, this is something he needs right now—for him and Jewel both. He’ll work through it and move on, which will be the best thing for everyone involved. A person can’t move forward if he keeps his feet glued to the ground.”
She sent another pointed look at Caroline, but before Caroline could respond, Rainy said, “Come on into the kitchen with me and I’ll make us some tea. Then you can help me oil the hinges on my back door with that stuff your mama sent.”
Caroline pushed back the need to defend herself and allowed a reluctant smile to tug at her lips as she followed Rainy through the kitchen door.
December 26, 1986
Jude has come back. He talked his family into spending Christmas up in the mountains even though it’s tradition for them to spend it at their grandmother’s in Savannah. But Mama says Jude could talk the blue down from the sky, and I think she’s right.
Jude, Caroline, and I went hiking today all the way up to poor old Ophelia. Legend says that a long, long time ago she was a real woman who was cursed and turned to stone. We had our picnic lunch right on the ledge under her nose and Jude made us laugh until our sides hurt with all these booger jokes.
We spent a lot of time talking about Ophelia and what she must have done that was so bad. I said I couldn’t imagine anything worse than being turned to stone—to be forced to watch other people’s lives and not be a part of it. Jude said the only thing worse would be to be alone without friends and family. That made a lot of sense to me because Jude always seems to be in the middle of a crowd. But the weird thing was that Caroline said nothing at all.
CHAPTER 8
PIANO MUSIC FLOATED FROM INSIDE THE HOUSE INTO THE COOL, damp air as Drew stood uncomfortably on the Colliers’ front porch. But this time it was a lively scherzo with none of the minor chords he’d heard Caroline play before that made him think of the deep end of the ocean.
Jewel slouched against the railing behind him, trying to look bored. She’d brushed her hair and pulled it back in a thick ponytail, showing off bright silver earrings in the shape of crescent moons. With a start, he realized that they had been Shelby’s.
The door opened and Margaret Collier smiled broadly as she stood there wearing a flowing silk caftan, something Elizabeth Taylor might have worn in her heyday. “I thought I heard someone knocking—I didn’t realize the music was on so loud.” She opened the door wider for her guests to come inside.
Drew motioned for Jewel to precede him into the house as they followed Mrs. Collier inside. He looked around for Caroline. “I didn’t realize it was the stereo. I thought it might have been Caroline on the piano.”
Margaret closed the door and began herding them into the great room. “Oh, no. Caroline doesn’t know how to play a note. Her brother was quite gifted, but I could never convince Caroline to give it a try.”
Jewel paused by a large framed picture on the far wall as Drew followed Margaret, feeling confused. “But I heard her play—and she was pretty good, if I recall correctly.”
He felt Caroline’s presence behind him before she spoke. “When I’m bored I sometimes sit at the piano and play random keys. I guess to the untrained ear it could sound like Chopin.”
Drew turned to look at Caroline to see if she was joking, but she met his gaze with a half smile that would have fooled him if he hadn’t seen the flash of desperation in her eyes.
Margaret indicated a spot on the sofa for him to sit before she turned her attention to her daughter. “We’re going to have a drink first so you’ll have time to change for dinner.”
“I did change.” She indicated her T-shirt and jeans.
Her mother’s perfectly lined eyebrows rose. “But you’re wearing jeans.”
Caroline’s expression matched her mother’s like a mirror image, and Drew suppressed a laugh.
“And you’re wearing a nightgown.”
Margaret’s lips tightened in a smile. “Why don’t you take drink orders, dear. I have a papaya-and-spinach smoothie in the refrigerator for you.”
Drew felt as if he should be keeping score, but the barbs were flying so fast he was afraid he’d lose track. Jewel came up to stand beside him and he realized she was also wearing jeans. He felt as if he’d made some huge social gaffe, but Margaret appeared not to have noticed. It seemed almost as if everyone was off her radar screen except her daughter.
Jewel tugged on Caroline’s arm. “Come on; I’ll help.”
Drew looked at the retreating form of his daughter, seeing Shelby in every step she took. It wasn’t just the red hair or the tilt of her head—it had more to do with the human awareness that had always appeared to guide Shelby’s actions. It had never bothered him that Jewel seemed not to have inherited a single thing from him. She had received the best from Shelby, and that was enough.
When they took their seats at the dining table, Caroline pulled her linen napkin out of its ring and looked pointedly at her mother, and Margaret answered with a matching expression. Caroline wordlessly put the napkin in her lap. Drew wasn’t exactly sure what that had been about, but he could at least see who’d won that round. Score one for Margaret. He smiled, then quickly coughed into his napkin.
Margaret looked up at her daughter. “Where’s your medicine?”
A slight flush appeared on Caroline’s pale cheeks. “I’ll take it later.”
Margaret folded her napkin and put it next to her plate as she stood. “You know your stomach tolerates the pills better if you take them with a meal. I’ll go get them.”
Caroline looked down in her lap, her cheeks now flaming red and a small tic visible in her jaw, as if she were clenching her teeth very tightly. Her chest was moving in and out very rapidly, and he could hear the breath whistle out of her mouth. She reminded him of Shelby in childbirth, practicing the breathing techniques she had learned in her Lamaze classes when she was pregnant, and he had the absurd urge to laugh.
Margaret appeared with a green slushy concoction—presumably the papaya-and-spinach smoothie—and placed it next to the glass of iced tea Caroline had poured for herself. Then Margaret placed four pills of varying colors and sizes next to the glass before seating herself again.
“Could you please pass the bread?” Drew asked, trying to switch everybody’s attention from Caroline, whose chin now seemed to be firmly pressed into her chest in an apparent attempt to disappear.
“What are those pills for?” Jewel asked at the same time.
Unfortunately, Jewel was sitting on the far end of the table from him, so he couldn’t pinch her. Along with all the good traits she’d inherited from Shelby, she’d also received an uncanny forthrightness that took no prisoners.
Caroline finally lifted her head from her chest, meeting Jewel’s eyes. “They’re organ transplant antirejection drugs. I have to take them every day of my life.” She took the breadbasket and handed it to Drew as if she had just made a comment about the weather.
Jewel’s eyes widened. “Wow,” she said, and Drew did a quick mental calculation to see if his leg was long enough to reach under the table and kick her gently in the shins. It wasn’t. “What sort of organ transplant did you have?”
Without blinking, Caroline faced Jewel again. “Heart. I had a heart transplant.”
Drew saw Jewel lean forward, as if prepared to play Twenty Questions. Without thinking, he picked up the breadbasket and knocked it into the glass of thick green liquid, sending its contents spilling out onto the white linen tablecloth and Caroline’s pale pink T-shirt.
They all sat in appalled silence for a brief moment, watching the spread of green form abstract elementary artwork. At the same moment, all four of them stood and began mopping up smoothie and moving plates and silverware out of the way. Caroline mumbled a quick, “Excuse me, I
need to go change,” then turned from the table and walked away without another word.
Caroline sat on the edge of her bed and stared at her reflection in the mirror, not really seeing the pink shirt with the growing green stain across the chest. Instead she saw the white walls and white ceilings of a hospital room, could almost feel the tubes in her arms and smell the sickly clean aroma that had clung to her skin and hair.
She closed her eyes, not wanting the memories to take her to the places that had led up to the hospital room. She rubbed her arms hard, turning the skin pink and waiting for the burning sensation to bring her back into the present. Standing, she slid the soiled shirt over her head and tossed it in her bathroom sink to soak. Her serviceable white cotton bra was tinged green on the left cup, and it soon joined the shirt in the sink.
Pulling open the lingerie drawer, she dug past all the lacy confections her mother had sent her from Victoria’s Secret that still had the tags on, and pulled out a plain beige racer-back bra whose straps had begun to fray. After yanking a T-shirt from another drawer, she turned her back on her reflection, unwilling to look at the puckered pink scar that bisected her chest like a line of demarcation outlining the before and after of her life.
The neck of the shirt snagged on her ponytail as a soft knock sounded on the door. Resigned to another confrontation with her mother, Caroline faced the door with her head and arms still stuck in the top of the shirt. “Come in.”
“It’s me.”
Caroline recognized Jewel’s voice and gave a huge tug on her shirt, yanking so hard on her ponytail it made her eyes water. Jewel’s face peered at her through a crack in the door, a wide smile on her face. “Room service.” She bumped the door open wider with her rear end, then leaned over to pick something up before entering the room. She carried the breadbasket that had been spared the green deluge, and Caroline’s untouched glass of iced tea. “You didn’t come back right away, and I thought you might be hungry.”