by Ashley Clark
“I do remember. Not the part about the name. I think that went over my head. But I remember you defending Juliet and that I felt really scared.” She looked down at her hands.
Rosie’s tears began to stream down. His always-talking girl had suddenly lost her words. He kept talking in hopes she might find them again.
“When you were born, the country still followed the one-drop rule. We knew the two of you would face a lot of hate and a lot of ignorance and a whole lot of cruelty if we tried to keep you together. Because it’s side-by-side together that seems to be the problem, bringing out the violence in people whether in body or in words.” Franklin faked a gentle smile, doing his best to keep his grief hidden behind it. “We wanted to give both of you the world.”
She studied him, maybe trying to determine if this was true. Maybe trying to determine if they hadn’t just changed their minds when two babies were born instead of one.
“But all I ever wanted,” she whispered, “was you.” She shook her head, as the tears fell harder. “How could you do that to me? To all of us?” She looked into his eyes. “Did you even miss me?”
“We missed you more than you could ever know.” Franklin’s heart shattered. “Sweet girl, being together as a family was all your mother and I ever wanted too. We began taking these trips to Charleston because the pain of being apart was too great otherwise. Been that way since the moment we left you.” Franklin stepped over to the radio and turned the dial until the Sinatra song faded into a memory. “Rosie, can you ever forgive me?”
She fell silent, but he wouldn’t push her for an answer. He didn’t need one. Her feelings and her grief belonged to her alone, and she would need time to process them. But he knew he’d made the right decision to tell her the truth.
Franklin wrapped his dear Rosie into a hug then, resting his chin on her pointy-pinned curls as she shook with tears from within his arms. And he knew he’d done the right thing because his girl needed a father just as much as he had fiercely needed his other daughter. Also, he had an eerie feeling he might not get another chance.
He took a deep breath of the night air as he hadn’t breathed in the last fifteen years of his life.
And finally, finally—he felt fully alive.
FIFTY-ONE
Charleston, Modern Day
After the walking tour ended, Peter asked Millie how her feet were holding up and told her he had one more surprise for her. Sweet Peter’s demeanor had buzzed to life in the last half hour since her confession. His smile was the spitting image of Franklin.
His gumption too.
Millie should’ve told him sooner, but she just couldn’t bring herself to say the words before now—not after the promises she made when his mother was living.
“Close your eyes.” Peter held tighter to her hand.
“What am I, a child?” Millie liked to know where she was going. But Peter just laughed. “Oh, I suppose I’ve got nothing to lose.” At that, he gently turned her in a circle, her eyes still closed, until she couldn’t tell which way she faced any longer.
By Millie’s count, they should be in front of the Ashley River. But after a few steps and a corner turn, Peter stopped her. “We’re here,” he said.
Slowly, Millie opened her eyes.
The sight before her was too much to take in. Her hand flew to her mouth as her fingers began to tremble. She tried to whisper thank you, but her lips were putty.
All she could do was look at him, wide-eyed with surprise.
Peter’s grin broadened.
Tears began to fall. Tears she didn’t know she had left. Tears for all the moments of have not and could be, and the hope—thank God—that, despite her age, she still carried with every breath.
The hope for the next.
Millie took his arm gladly this time. She could scarcely wind her way through her own thoughts, let alone wind her way down the sidewalk.
Millie looked up at the house—the house where Mama had raised her—as she held tight to his arm. “How did you know?”
Peter hesitated as they neared the front porch. He straightened her cloche. “I inherited it after my mother passed and have been gradually restoring the place. Hoping to find the stories between the walls.” He looked up at the home. Though modest, its charm couldn’t be denied. “Then I realized that story was yours.”
Millie stepped toward the front door and placed her hand against the bricks she hadn’t seen in decades. Still as sturdy as she remembered them. The feel of the house, the walls, triggered a memory of Uncle Clyde and Aunt Bea here after Mama’s passing. “Sweetgrass Millie,” Aunt Bea had called her. “You always did weave beautiful stories.”
Peter slid the key into the lock and looked at her, eyebrows raised, as the door swung wide.
Millie stepped into the foyer and closed her eyes.
Her old feet were suddenly strong by memory. Her old heart, held by the walls. Her old dreams took flight from the floor, and this—this was the feeling of homecoming.
Peter flipped on the lights, and Millie opened her eyes.
“Welcome home.”
Her gaze swept the room as chills swept her arms. The floors had been polished and repaired—they were old when she’d lived here, and she couldn’t imagine what shape Peter had found them in. The windows had been replaced, but the fireplace was just the same.
“Why would you do all this?” Millie spun to face him, tears welling up again in her eyes. “Just to save it . . .”
Peter shrugged. “Same reason you and Harper love dresses, I guess. The house was in a bad state when I got it, but it meant a lot to me. I was determined to do the repairs one way or another.”
She didn’t know what to say.
Peter gestured toward the plaster ceiling. “Besides, you can’t get these kinds of craftsman details anymore.” He shifted and caught her gaze. “But if you want it . . . I mean, if you’ve considered staying in Charleston . . . well, I just thought as the saying goes, there’s no place like home.”
Millie smiled and rested her head on his chest as she hugged him. “No, Peter, there certainly is not.” When she glanced up, her heart turned wistful.
“What is it?” Peter asked. “You all right?”
“Oh, absolutely.” Millie fiddled with the sleeves of her dress. “I was just thinking, it’s funny how sometimes life takes us away. But other times, life brings us back.”
“And maybe that was your story all along.”
Peter and Millie had just turned the corner of King Street when the rain began to drizzle. “He was seriously a train jumper?”
Millie raised her chin. “I wouldn’t fall in love with someone dull, would I?”
Peter took a long glance at her and shook his head. “No, Millie. I guess you wouldn’t.”
He pointed to the nearest antique store. “Why don’t you go inside so you don’t get wet, and I’ll run up the block to get my car?”
“Always so chivalrous.” Millie patted his arm. “Well, thank you, calvary, but I do intend to walk the rest of the way and am quite certain I won’t melt.”
“But I really don’t mind.”
She put one hand on top of her hat to keep it from falling as she looked up at him. “Nor do I.”
Peter smiled. He angled his elbow toward her. “Then at least take my arm. We can help one another avoid tripping over any cracks in the sidewalk.”
Millie swiftly reached for him. “Are you always so accommodating, or only with your long-lost grandmothers?”
Peter gave a half grin. The rain continued falling—gentle but persistent—and in no time, the cotton shoulders of his shirt were sticking to his skin. He was ready to hurry back home and get some dry clothes on, but he wouldn’t trade this conversation with Millie for anything.
He wanted to know more details, like how the train smelled or what happened to Franklin. But he knew all that would come in time, and he didn’t want to overwhelm her with the memories she’d only just begun to speak about.
>
“It’s come full circle, hasn’t it, Millie?”
She grinned up at him. “What’s that?”
“Well, you left Charleston chasing a dream for a different life, and I’d like to think you returned for much the same reason.”
She patted his arm with her free hand. “Why, when you put it that way, yes. I suppose you’re quite right.”
Peter sidestepped around a huge puddle and took care to help Millie avoid getting splashed. Knowing her, the shoes she was wearing were probably as old as him.
A storefront offered a welcome awning, a sudden reprieve from the rain, and they both hesitated under it. Millie turned to face him. It was a natural sort of movement, but he suspected she knew what he was about to ask next.
Peter removed his glasses and did his best to wipe the raindrops from his lenses with the hem of his damp shirt. Then he squared them at the bridge of his nose and looked back at her clearly.
“I understand now why you left Charleston on the train that day. But why did you leave my mom?”
And why had she taken so long to tell him the truth? She must have known how hard he’d searched for answers.
Millie blinked, and he couldn’t tell tears from raindrops, but he assumed the moisture in her eyes must be the latter because he’d never seen Millie cry.
“I was trying to keep them safe. Both of them.”
Peter frowned. “Both of . . . who?”
Millie wiped her eyes with her fingertips. “You have an aunt. Juliet is her name. She and your mother had very different complexions. Put them together side by side, and they would have been targeted just as I was when I was a child. She came to the funeral.”
Peter tried so hard to recall that day. He remembered Millie there as a friend of his mother’s, but the rest was blurred by grief.
“She lives in New Orleans. Owns a dress shop in the Garden District. Although she’s in France right now, gathering ideas for new inventory and studying under some of the biggest names in the industry. Can you imagine? She isn’t deterred a bit that they’re half her age, and her dedication has taken her a block away from the Eiffel Tower.” Millie glowed with pride. “She’s the one who sent me the initial inventory for the store.”
Rain fell behind the lenses of Peter’s glasses once more. “A dress shop?”
“Apple doesn’t fall too far and all.” Millie grinned. “She’ll be back in New Orleans soon, so maybe we could arrange for the two of you to meet properly.”
“I’d really like that.” Peter’s mind spun with all this new information. In one fell swoop, Millie had filled in blank spaces he’d researched for years. To think that all this time, he had an aunt. His gut clenched with the thought of time lost, but he willed himself to remember the opportunity ahead.
“Let me be clear.” Her unwavering gaze arrested him. “The day I left your mother in Charleston, I left half of my heart behind. I was never the same until we all reunited after Franklin’s death. The girls came to live at the boardinghouse in Alabama for a while, and then I paid for their college and your parents’ wedding—”
“With the savings you’d accumulated to start your dress shop.” Peter let go of a deep sigh. It all made sense now. Of course Millie would give up her own dream for the sake of helping her children, especially with Franklin gone. She was their mother, after all. “And you couldn’t raise them both because one looked white and one looked Black. Would’ve been dangerous back then.”
Millie nodded. Even now, the memory tightened the wrinkles around her eyes. He imagined it would never let her go, this loss she had endured. Choosing, at every turn, one part of herself. One part of her past, one part of her future, and never really getting that dress store.
Until now.
“There were so many times I questioned the decision of asking Franklin’s mother to raise Rosie. Hearing my own daughter call someone else Mom.” Millie swallowed. She looked straight at Peter. “How do you do right by your child when you don’t even know what that is or looks like? At times, I was convinced I’d allowed fear to make all my decisions and done everything wrong. Other times, some awful act of racial violence would be in the paper, and I’d feel justified.”
Peter reached out and folded his grandmother into a hug. She didn’t need to say any more. He understood now—at least, as well as he could understand. From the beginning, Millie’s every choice had been for her family. She must’ve feared how he would react just as she feared how his mother would’ve.
But she clearly wanted to know him since she traveled all the way to Charleston. A city to which she wasn’t supposed to return. Not for his mother Rosie, and not for him either.
Peter rested his chin on top of her red hat. “I’m glad you’re here, Millie. And I know the boardinghouse has been a home for you, but I do hope you’ll consider staying here for a while.”
“You’ll be itching to get rid of me like a head full of lice.” Millie ducked ever so gently from under his arm. She held out her elbow, as if she would be the one to steady him this time.
And perhaps she would.
By the time they made it up the block from his house, a drenched Peter clenched his teeth against the breeze despite the otherwise pleasant temperature. Millie, meanwhile, strolled down the sidewalk completely composed, as if there weren’t the faintest cloud in the sky. Typical.
They turned the corner toward the loft, and that’s when he saw her. Wearing one of the dresses he’d salvaged from the closet of an old house, along with golden shoes and her hair in those curls that drove him mad.
“Harper.” All the breath rushed from him at the mention of her name. Peter tossed his ball cap to the ground and ran to her.
She ran to him as well. “I didn’t see you upstairs, so I thought you might be out on a—”
His fingers met the underside of her hair as his other hand pressed her waist against him. He looked down at her, little raindrops on the tips of her blinking eyelashes, and he couldn’t wait any longer.
“Harper.” This time, her name was a whisper.
He lowered his chin far more confidently than his rational mind would’ve allowed until his parted lips slowly met her own. Attraction pulled him, floated higher and higher until he feared—as with air balloons—the heat might push him to the sky. But to be lost among these clouds.
He pulled back, held her by both arms and noticed she seemed as breathless as he.
“Don’t mind the old woman over here—I’ll just be inside getting dry.” Millie’s voice might as well have been miles away from how focused he was on Harper’s blue-grey eyes.
“You came back.”
“We had an unfinished conversation,” Harper said, never breaking his gaze. The rain continued to fall, but he wasn’t cold any longer.
Peter tucked a stray piece of Harper’s hair back in place, and let his thumb linger on her ear. She smelled like flowers as always, only this time, from this close, it may as well have been a field of them.
He had dreamed about her last night. He could almost reach out and touch her, and when he woke, he realized she was gone. He hadn’t fallen back asleep for hours.
“Are you sure you’re real?”
Harper laughed. “My rumbling stomach would suggest I am indeed.”
Peter leaned closer, a half grin on his lips as he said in her ear, “Perhaps you’d like a cup of coffee while we decide what restaurant.”
Harper angled her head so she could see him over her shoulder and grinned. “Cheap coffee has never sounded so appealing. Although I have to confess, I think Millie threw away the stuff you got us. She said it might attract weevils.”
“How romantic.” He turned her to face him, the two of them laughing, and kissed her again. His pulse pounded as he backed away, her berry lips inches from his own. “Harper Rae?”
“Hmm?” Her eyes had fluttered shut, and she waited for him to say more.
“I’m in love with you.”
She opened her eyes, and they seemed
to glitter in the puddled reflections of sunlight all around. “I love you back.”
Peter grinned, spinning her around until her feet splashed shallow water and came up off the ground. Then he set her back down and slid his arm around her waist, drawing her closer to himself. Side by side, they started toward the stairs leading to the loft.
“It was the Poe story that won your heart, wasn’t it? Tell the truth.” Peter reached to hold open the door for her.
Harper flashed him a smile as she stepped inside. “I can definitely say it was not the Poe story.”
“Maybe my Ryan Gosling clothes.”
“Now that . . .” Harper bit her bottom lip, and the admiration in her eyes shook him down to his core. He wanted nothing more than to spend the day with her, and then tomorrow, and then all the tomorrows thereafter.
She had ruined him for any hope of enjoying life without her. So he didn’t intend to let that happen. He was certain, in fact, he would love her for the rest of his life.
FIFTY-TWO
Fairhope, 2008
Millie was scooping flour from her biscuit barrel and mixing dough with the firm roll of her palm when the phone rang. She brushed the flour from her hands onto her floral apron and reached toward the phone.
“Hello?” Millie turned her back toward the dough and leaned against the counter to get a better view of the wall clock shaped like a teacup. The phone cord would only let her go so far, so she squinted. Still so early in the morning for calls.
“Hi, Mrs. Millie. This is Jane.” Pause. “Unfortunately, my daughter Stephanie and I won’t be able to make it to your sewing lesson today. Something has come up. I’m so sorry for canceling last minute. I do hope you haven’t made preparations for us.”