Gullah Secrets

by Susan Gabriel

  “That had better be true, Mister Grainger.” Queenie is weary from having not slept and is so hungry if she had a way to fry these fish thrashing around she would have some breakfast.

  Katie shrieks with the labor pains that are coming with growing frequency. Everyone wearing a wristwatch checks the time. The pains are only a minute apart now. It is all Queenie can do to not shriek with her. One of those primal screams like she used to do when driving over the Talmadge Bridge from Savannah on the way to Dolphin Island.

  Old Sally, Violet, Rose, and Angela are now with Katie at the top of the lighthouse, by far the driest place they could be. Queenie likes that it also gives Katie a little privacy. Anticipating the storm surge, Max and Jack created a spot near the beacon for Katie to give birth, the floor padded with army blankets. They also brought the first-aid kit from the old footlocker. It is not ideal, since everything is wet, but it is better than nothing.

  At least a foot of water still stands in the lighthouse and keeps them from venturing down the metal stairs. A baby shark thrashes around in the low water, trapped inside as the wave went out. Max and Jack grab two boards and stand on each side of the baby shark to help guide it through the doorway. But the shark is frightened and swims into the darkened corners of the lighthouse.

  A metal trash can lid floats in. Queenie fishes it out and bangs it against the metal stairs to discourage the shark from swimming near them. It works. Their unwelcome guest finally finds its way outside and into the small river of water returning to the sea. Given the shark’s example, one by one they carefully wade through the debris.

  In stark contrast to the dark eye of Iris, the sunrise is so bright that Queenie has to cover her eyes. A new day greets them. A perfect summer day, from the looks of it. However, this day isn’t at all typical. Even though the wind and rain have stopped, the morning light reveals a chaotic scene that reminds her of 9/11.

  Queenie remembers that awful day last fall. They had only been living on the island for a few months when they sat around the television in the living room watching those towers go down, all of them disbelieving that this horrific event could happen here in the United States. Old Sally went silent for days, as did Spud. No one knew what to do. Life seemed suddenly dangerous and unpredictable, just like now. All distractions fell away. A few weeks later, Spud proposed to Queenie. And Katie got pregnant again after miscarrying a few months before. The most essential elements of life seemed clear. Humans aren’t meant to be isolated and alone. We are destined to be together and create community. No matter what that might look like. And together they became survivors in a way, just like now.

  “I have something I need to say to you,” Queenie says to Spud. “But I don’t want to hurt your feelings.”

  “Go on,” Spud says, a look of concern in his eyes.

  Queenie pauses. She isn’t someone who usually needs the courage to speak her mind.

  “I want to keep my old name,” she says.

  “Yes?” Spud says, waiting for her to say more.

  “That’s it,” she says. “Just that one thing.”

  “Of course, gingersnap.” Spud gives her a relieved smile, as though much more concerned that he was about to be asked to find new homes for his bow ties.

  “You don’t mind?” Queenie asks.

  “Not one bit,” he says. “You’ll still be my wife, and that’s all I really want.”

  Now it is Queenie’s turn to look relieved.

  Spud helps Queenie leave the lighthouse.

  “Careful, sweetheart,” he says, wading through the water in front of her. “Watch your step.”

  Queenie watches every step and then some. She has no intention of falling into what smells like the inside of a dumpster at Red Lobster.

  Outside, water continues to make its way back to the sea, cutting jagged ruts deep into the soft earth. Large puddles create a natural obstacle course. Queenie hangs onto Spud’s arm. It seems like years have passed since they made their way to the lighthouse last evening.

  Live oak trees, once majestic and beautiful along the shoreline, lie wounded on their sides, their roots exposed like the one that now rests in Queenie’s bedroom. The ones that have not entirely fallen over lean in unison in the direction Iris came, like witnesses pointing out a murderer in a courtroom.

  In addition to the fallen oaks, pine trees are snapped halfway up, like Iris took a giant ax and knocked all the trees down with one blow. Queenie feels oddly satisfied. Iris has thrown a massive temper tantrum for everyone to see, not just Queenie. A hissy fit of hurricane proportions.

  A butterfly crosses in front of them, following a jagged flight pattern, drunk from the storm or perhaps disoriented by its surroundings. A visible mark graces the outside of the lighthouse about fourteen feet up. Is it possible that the storm surge was this high?

  Max reports that his truck is nowhere to be seen. Washed away by the storm surge.

  Spud squeezes Queenie’s hand. “I hope we still have a home.”

  Queenie hasn’t thought that far ahead. When the Temple mansion burned down, she felt displaced for months. But once they moved to the beach, she felt like she was finally home.

  Sweet God in heaven, Queenie thinks, please don’t ask me to start over again.

  But from the looks of things that seems entirely possible. She reminds herself that houses don’t make homes, but the love and the people in them do. It seems trite to even think that way, but she will settle for any comfort she can find.

  With Spud nearby, Queenie takes in the scene of the chaos on their island. When they were outside during the eye of the storm, Queenie would have never thought the destruction could get any worse. Unfortunately, it did. The dunes are gone. Debris is everywhere, dotting the beach. Vast rivers of water return to the sea. The one-lane road to the lighthouse has been washed away, water still standing everywhere. They have no way of letting anyone know where they are.

  Unexpected things have traveled on the wind or washed up with the swollen tide. Next to the lighthouse are a variety of displaced objects: a rake, an unopened bag of diapers, the gate of a white picket fence, a yellow rain boot, a container of mint-flavored dental floss, and a pink toilet seat that Queenie hopes no one was sitting on.

  The concrete steps leading from the beach to the lighthouse have disappeared, along with the railing. There is some question of how they will get home. Heather sits on an overturned tree a few yards away. The storm seems to have taken away all her rough edges. She still looks like a younger version of Iris in this light, but also like someone who is lost (like in “Amazing Grace”) and not yet found.

  During their time at the lighthouse, Heather made no effort to connect with any of them. Hard times usually bring people together. But not Heather. If anything, it seems to have reminded her of how separate she is.

  The sunny, humid day feels more like late August instead of June. However, the sky is the bluest Queenie has ever seen it. If not for the astounding physical evidence around them, no one would believe a hurricane had hit a few hours before.

  Isolated at the lighthouse, she has no idea how far the damage extends. For all she knows, Iris may have devastated not only Dolphin Island but Savannah, as well. It is the not knowing that is the worst.

  In the distance, Queenie hears what sounds like Iris returning. But then they realize it is a rescue helicopter flying along the coast. Excited, everyone gathers near the lighthouse and waves as it hovers nearby.

  A man on the helicopter uses a bullhorn to ask how many of them there are, promising to return with help soon. They look at each other, counting, yelling different numbers until Queenie finally gets it right: “Almost thirteen!”

  In the aftermath of Hurricane Iris, the most devastating event Queenie has ever witnessed, it seems that the most significant development is happening now, as Katie pushes a new life into their world. Lucky number thirteen.

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  Old Sally

  Old Sally hasn’t delivere
d a baby in years, but Violet is a great help, and of course, Katie and the baby know through pure instinct what to do. Overhead, helicopter sounds drown out Katie’s efforts for a time, before it moves away. With the final push, Old Sally catches a perfect baby girl in her arms.

  After the cord is cut and the mother and baby are resting, Old Sally takes out a thimble she put in her pocket right before she came to the lighthouse.

  “What are you doing?” Violet asks.

  “The first water taken by a new mother must be sipped from a thimble,” Old Sally says. “This will ease the baby’s first tooth.”

  Violet helps Old Sally pour a tiny bit of bottled water into the thimble before giving it to Katie. Then Rose and Violet help Old Sally finally stand. She has been on the floor for over an hour, with only a soggy folded army blanket underneath her knees. She is wobbly, at best, yet also exhilarated to have helped a new life come into this world.

  “What’s this?” Rose asks, picking up a small glass container filled with what looks like dirty sand.

  “Oh, that be mine, too,” Old Sally says, returning the small bottle to her pocket along with the thimble. “Childbirth be a dangerous time,” she continues. “Mother and baby are vulnerable to spirits who may wish them harm. But I brought along some graveyard dirt to protect them.”

  Violet and Rose exchange a look of surprise.

  A warm, salty breeze drifts through the broken windows at the top of the lighthouse. Old Sally looks out over the island. Her island. The island of her Gullah ancestors. The last time she stood in this spot was the night she and Fiddle stayed here. On that night, so long ago, it was romantic to look out over the island because she was so much in love. Her knees were wobbly then, too.

  The baby cries and Rose helps Katie place her new daughter at Katie’s breast to feed.

  “Birth be such a hopeful process,” Old Sally says. As is death, she wants to say, looking out over the eternal sea.

  “Do you have a name yet?” Violet asks.

  Angela and Katie exchange a look, and Katie nods, giving Angela permission to say it.

  “Sally Rose.”

  Old Sally lets out a short laugh, and tears rush to her eyes. Rose takes Old Sally’s hand.

  “What an honor,” Old Sally says to them.

  “Truly,” adds Rose, who is a mixture of tears and smiles.

  This lighthouse holds a vibrant part of her history. From now on, Sally Rose will have a history here, too, just like Old Sally, and everyone who survived the storm. Someday, Sally Rose may even run down the beach and play here. A descendant of the light.

  * * *

  Dolphin Island experienced the full force of the storm. Not only were the winds devastating, but most of the island was underwater. It turns out that the lighthouse was the safest place they could have been.

  While most people experienced the storm sitting in long lines on the interstate, those who stayed on the island sought refuge on the second floors of their houses or in their attics. After the storm, there were stories of resilience everywhere. Stories of people climbing into live oaks in their backyards to try to outrun the sea—rescue workers found them the next day, clinging to limbs, battered and bruised. Stories of people coming from all over the United States to help the residents of Dolphin Island with the aftermath of the storm. Helpers who brought bottled water, food, supplies, and generators because they were told it would be months before the power would be restored. Miraculously, only one person died on the island, an elderly gentleman who had a heart attack while hammering up plywood before the storm.

  The winter after Hurricane Iris, bulldozers droned up the beach, rebuilding the fragile dunes that were destroyed by the storm surge. Like the helicopter that found them, the sound of the bulldozers reminded Old Sally and the others of Iris’s roar. Iris changed everything on Dolphin Island. Even now the ocean spits out reminders of the storm. Pieces of houses. Pieces of people’s lives.

  When they returned to their home after the storm, two feet of water were still in the house, but it had been much higher. The high-water mark stopped right below Queenie and Spud’s wedding presents in the top of Queenie’s closet. A fact that made Queenie cackle, as well as cry. While most of their things were destroyed, the structure and foundation of the house stayed strong. Old Sally attributes this to the graveyard dirt she used to surround the house. Dirt she gathered at midnight, the night before the storm hit, from her grandmother’s grave. Midnight being when the graveyard dirt is the most potent.

  Like everybody else on the island after the storm, they started a massive cleanup that took months to complete, and then they began rebuilding. Like the pains of childbirth that most mothers forget, Old Sally has mostly forgotten the pains of starting over. What matters most is that Katie and her baby are healthy, and they all survived.

  * * *

  On the one-year anniversary of the hurricane, Old Sally sits facing the sea in her favorite rocking chair. Life has a habit of keeping on. She has lived on this same piece of land her entire life. A rare occurrence these days. In extreme contrast to Iris’s storm surge, waves break gently along the shoreline. Now that things are starting to return to normal, there are some days she can fool herself into thinking that the storm didn’t happen at all.

  There will always be storms. Storms of the heart and mind, and storms on land. Storms that have a beginning, a middle, and an end, and storms that seemingly last forever.

  Where the old live oak once stood, a new oak is rising. An upstart, as we all are upstarts in one way or another, with the clear purpose of sinking roots where its ancestor once stood.

  Without speaking, Old Sally sends Violet a message to join her. She has a final ritual to share with her, and then the passing on of the Gullah secrets will be complete.

  Violet has seemed different since the storm, somehow lighter, but also more purposeful. Her tea shop suffered no damage. But it is more than that. She is growing into her wisdom.

  We’re getting good at this, Violet says to Old Sally when she steps outside.

  Old Sally agrees.

  “Have you seen the painting Rose is working on?” Violet asks, speaking aloud this time. “I just saw it.” Her eyes dance with pleasure.

  “She showed it to me last night,” Old Sally says. “She told me it be the first portrait she’s ever done. It’s for sure the first portrait of me to ever exist.”

  “She did a wonderful job,” Violet says. “It’s a great likeness of you. And we’ve already decided where we want to put it in the living room.”

  “Oh my.” Old Sally’s face warms.

  “The one she wants to work on next has all of us standing in front of the lighthouse,” Violet says.

  Old Sally remembers the storm and thanks her ancestors for helping them stay safe. A sudden awareness reminds her that her work is finished. She has done enough.

  “I be so glad Rose is painting again,” Old Sally says. “How are things at the tea shop?”

  “Queenie and Spud are covering the breakfast crowd this morning,” she says. “How are you feeling? Still a bit dizzy?”

  “I have moments. But nothing to worry about.”

  Old Sally sleeps more than she is awake these days, her world full of dreams. When she isn’t sleeping, she is here in her rocking chair overlooking the sea. Or telling Gullah stories to Katie and Sally Rose. Her walks on the beach with Rose are now short ones. She can no longer make it to the lighthouse. Yet, its purpose in her life has been fulfilled.

  “Just a reminder that Rose is in Savannah today to handle the court issue,” Violet says.

  “Did you tell me about this before? I can’t remember what it was about,” Old Sally says. She has very little interest in worldly things these days. Not the news or the weather or anything that doesn’t have to do with this island and her place on it.

  Violet sits in the rocker next to Old Sally and reminds her about the ledger pages that Rose rescued from the rising water in the lighthouse. It seems the
y contained a manifesto for that old Civil War ship that sank off the coast. It turns out that the boat didn’t have soldiers on it, but gold to subsidize the war.

  “It was a Temple ship,” Violet concludes.

  Old Sally chuckles. “Too bad Iris didn’t live to see that. She would have been tickled pink. But why does Rose have to go to court?”

  “Heather says the ledger was in her possession and belonged to her father. She’s suing Rose for the contents of that old ship,” Violet says.

  “Oh my,” Old Sally says again.

  “Rose and I have been trying to put all the pieces together,” Violet begins again, “and it looks like Heather and her half brother planned the whole thing based on information their mother gave them before she died last year. Heather’s brother goes to college in Savannah, and Rose and I saw them in my tea shop one day.”

  “Fascinating,” Old Sally says, always amazed by the drive of humans to amass money when true riches are never—ever—tangible.

  “Years ago, their mother was researching the Temples and found an old newspaper article that told about the ship,” Violet continues. “Then she must have heard about those secrets being released in the Savannah newspaper and put two and two together.”

  “You know, I saw Heather take that old book from Rose’s purse when we were outside during the eye of the hurricane.” Old Sally rocks gently in her rocking chair.

  “You did?”

  Old Sally nods. “It’s a good thing that the storm surge took most of it. All those secrets needed to finally be buried at sea. And all those Temple ghosts finally put to rest.”

  “Rose said something very similar,” Violet says. “The attorney seems to think it’s an open-and-shut case. Heather doesn’t really have any rights in this situation. But we’ll see. In the meantime, there are no plans on locating the ship yet,” Violet continues. “I guess they have to figure out who has rights to it first.”