by Karen White
I felt reluctant to turn my back on the house, but I did and quickly understood what Mr. Williams had meant. The house had been built on a rise that afforded a wide vista of the river, the view framed by the thick-trunked oaks and their shawls of moss.
The lawyer wore a pleased expression, as if he’d finally found a reason for me to smile. “This part of Beaufort is called the Bluff for obvious reasons. Most of the houses are about the same age as this one, between one hundred and fifty to two hundred years old, and a few even older than that.”
I listened with only half an ear, too mesmerized by the flicker of sunlight off the water, and the graceful shape of the land as it gently knelt toward the river, and the grand house that sat in proud desolation and watched over it all. It had been Cal’s home, where he’d been born and spent his childhood. He’d lived inside the old house’s walls, had seen what lay behind the crumbling garden wall, and probably saw the view of the river every day of his life. Yet he had left it all behind two decades before and never looked back. Had never thought to tell me about it, or to bring me there to share the beauty of it. I shivered again, as the thought I didn’t want to voice pricked at my conscience. What happened to Cal here to make him want to forget?
The heat seemed to roll at me in waves, bringing with it a scent I didn’t recognize. “What’s that smell?” I asked, tilting my face to capture the scent that wasn’t pleasant or unpleasant, but had an earthiness to it that made it oddly alluring.
“That’s pluff mud. Basically rotting vegetation that gets left behind at low tide in the marsh. People from here call it the scent of home.”
I nodded as we turned back toward the house, wondering whether Cal had ever missed the scent of the pluff mud or the exotic vegetation that seemed to explode all over the yard. Our house in Farmington had been small, with a tiny yard. It had been one of the things he’d specified to the Realtor when we’d been house hunting, claiming he had no time or patience for a yard or garden.
As we climbed the steps Mr. Williams offered his arm, and I took it after a brief pause. Looking down to avoid a large crack bisecting the bottom step, I realized that the steps weren’t made of cement as I had originally thought. There were small rocks and shells embedded in the material, coarser than cement, with a sandier hue.
“That’s tabby,” explained the lawyer. “Old sea-island building substance made of lime, water, sand, oyster shells, and ash. In the old days it was the most economical building material because of its ready availability and durability. You’ll notice that your chimneys are also made of tabby.”
I smiled at his use of the word your, as if I were the rightful owner and not just the unknown wife of a favorite son who’d disappeared from this place twenty-one years before. Maybe it was the way of the South to welcome home wayward family members who had no claim to such a piece of history except for a willingness to adopt it as their own and a shared last name.
A strong breeze blew up from the river, cooling the sweat that had begun to drip down my neck, and I could see the shimmying of the leaves and moss of the oak tree reflected in the dull sidelight windows. A melodic tinkling sang above me, and I looked up in surprise. Lining the peeling blue porch ceiling were about a dozen wind chimes made of what looked like blue and green stones.
“Edith made those. They’re on the upstairs balcony, too. She liked to collect sea glass and figured this was a good way to display her favorite pieces.”
I looked closer, frowning. “They look like stones.”
“They do. That’s because they’ve been tumbled about the ocean for many years, which gives them that cloudy look. That’s what she liked about them. Edith said that any glass that could withstand such a beating without crumbling was something to be celebrated.” He smiled to himself as if recalling an old conversation. “She always said that only fools thought all glass was fragile.”
Another breeze chased us up the steps, bringing a respite from the heat and making the glass dance and sing. I frowned, contemplating the wind chimes, and tried not to think of the old woman who’d made them. “They’re charming, but I wonder if the noise will keep me up at night.”
Mr. Williams slid a large brass key from his pocket. “Oh, maybe the first few nights, but I expect you’ll get used to it after a while, to the point that you’ll find it hard to sleep without them.”
I took one last look at the long row of wind chimes, wondering whether I’d need to go buy a stepladder so I could remove them, then stepped past Mr. Williams holding open the large door and into the foyer of my new home.
My first impression was of vastness, of high ceilings and thick baseboards, of a wide and deep foyer with four tall, thick doors opening on two sides, a narrow hallway leading toward the back of the house. A delicate banister of dark wood held aloft by slender spindles curved its way to the second floor, cradling an enormous crystal chandelier that had more cobwebs than working lights. It smelled of dust and age and neglect, and I finally understood Mr. Williams’s reluctance to allow me to move right in.
But I saw beauty, too, hidden under the dust and dark shadows. I saw it in the intricately carved ceiling medallions and door cornices, in the broken inlaid wood floors of the dining room and marble pilasters that separated the two parlors. It was there in the graceful sweep of the solid-wood banister and in the tall rice poster beds of the bedrooms upstairs.
Everything reeked of dust, but I couldn’t help remembering the feeling I’d had staring up at the house, as if it were considering me as much as I was considering it. The sense of expectation, of us both waiting for something to happen. The feeling dogged my steps until I realized I was holding my breath and imagined the house doing the same thing.
Mr. Williams opened a door to the main bathroom upstairs, and I stayed back, having already been warned—and knowing from seeing just inside the door the chipped marble floor tiles and antiquated claw-foot bathtub—that although the house had modern plumbing and electricity, nothing much had changed in a very long time.
“Which was Cal’s room?” I asked, my voice sounding loud in the quiet house.
“This one,” the lawyer said as he moved to the end of the hallway and pushed open a door. The heat poured out of the room, keeping me at the threshold just long enough to see the twin bed and a large chest at its foot. LEGO models covered bookshelves and a small desk under the window, sharing room with school textbooks. A dog-eared copy of Huckleberry Finn sat on the nightstand. I stared at it, not recalling ever seeing Cal read a book.
“It’s like he never left,” I said, unaware I’d spoken out loud.
“When he left so suddenly, it broke Edith’s heart. She’d never been a happy person, but her grandsons brought a lot of light into her life.”
“What about Gibbes—Cal’s brother? Did he have a good relationship with Edith?”
We stepped out of the room and Mr. Williams closed the door, pausing with his hands on the doorknob for a moment while he thought. “They did. Up until Cal left. Gibbes was only about ten at the time, but I think he blamed Edith for making Cal leave. As soon as Gibbes went off to college and med school, he barely came home. Sometimes he would stay with us instead of staying here on his school breaks—he and my sons were good friends. And I don’t think it was all his choice, either. After Cal left, Edith just sort of . . . closed up shop, I guess. She told me . . .” He stopped as if remembering to whom he was speaking.
“She told you what?” I asked. “I’m sorry to be so blunt, but Cal was my husband. I’m just . . . I’m trying to make sense of all this.”
He nodded slowly. “She said that Gibbes was better off with us than with her. That she’d failed twice to raise good men and she wanted Gibbes to have a chance. This was still his home, but Edith made sure that he spent a lot of time with us. She thought that we were his only chance to have a happy, normal life. I’m not sure I agreed, but there was nothing I could do to persuade her otherwise. And Gibbes seemed to enjoy having brothers around, especially a
fter Cal left.” He paused, his thoughts turned inward. “I do know that she loved Gibbes very much. Enough to send him away.”
I could see that Mr. Williams didn’t understand what she’d meant any more than I did, so I didn’t press. “But why would Gibbes blame Edith? What could she have done to make Cal leave?”
Mr. Williams shrugged. “She never confided in me.” Patting my arm, he said, “And I guess now we’ll never know.”
We were headed back toward the staircase when I paused in front of a closed door that we hadn’t gone through yet. “What’s in here?”
Mr. Williams tried the knob. “I’m not really sure, to be honest. I imagine it’s the stairs to the attic, since we haven’t run across those yet. Don’t know why the key’s missing, though. All the other doors have their keys in the locks, and I know I wasn’t given any extras. I know a good locksmith and I’ll send him over. I’m sure it’s only old furniture and clothes up there, but you never know.” He winked, as if a surprise in the attic might make up for the rest of the house.
I put my hand on his arm. “It’s fine, you know. The house. I think . . .” I stopped myself from telling him that I felt the house had been waiting for me, that maybe we had been waiting for each other, each needing our dust and cobwebs cleaned out. “I think I’ll enjoy setting it all to rights.”
He smiled, looking relieved. With one last look at the locked door, we made our way down the stairs, Mr. Williams holding my elbow whether I needed it or not.
It was at least twenty degrees cooler downstairs with the air-conditioning units in the dining room and front parlor blowing out air that, while not exactly cold, was better than the heat from upstairs.
“Do you garden, Merritt?”
I shook my head. “No. Not that I wouldn’t want to learn, but I’ve never had the opportunity. Cal and I only had a small yard, and he hated to spend any time working in it, so it was pretty sparse.”
The old lawyer looked at me oddly. “Follow me through the kitchen. Edith really loved her garden, although as you can see, it became too much for her in the end.”
We walked through a kitchen with appliances that were decidedly midcentury but, as Mr. Williams explained, were all in fine working order—including the refrigerator and stove, which looked like they’d been ripped out of a scene from the fifties TV show Leave It to Beaver.
He opened the back door and waited. I smelled the garden before I saw it, a sweet, heady fragrance of flowers I was not familiar with, mixed with a rich green aroma not unlike the pluff mud. There was a narrow porch and then a wide flight of tabby steps, and I stood on the top one, staring at the magical place in front of me. Four wind chimes dangled from the porch, and I found their presence somehow unnerving, their soft sound like a constant whispering where you couldn’t understand the words.
“What’s that?” I asked, pointing to a narrow door at the end of the porch.
“The entrance to the basement. Nothing you need to see. Mostly cobwebs, I expect. Still has the dirt floors and timber rafters. Slave quarters back in the day, I suspect. Not much use for it now except for a wine cellar, most likely.” He winked.
I turned my attention back to the garden. A winding brick walkway meandered its way through patches of brightly colored shrubs and flowers, skirting the high wall I’d seen from the front yard. It was covered with a climbing vine that drew me to it with its scent. I stood before it and couldn’t help but smile.
“That’s Confederate jasmine,” Mr. Williams offered. “Has a short growing season, but every garden has at least some of it.”
“It’s gorgeous,” I said, taking in a deep breath.
“Cal put in this bench for Miss Edith, so she could sit and enjoy her garden. He made it just for her.”
Behind me, against the side garden wall, surrounded by potted flowers that seemed to have run amok, was a pretty curved wooden bench with a high back and wide arms big enough to rest a glass of lemonade or a cup of tea on.
I touched it, wondering who this Cal had been. My Cal claimed to have no knowledge of how to wield a hammer or nail. Or how to plant living things and make them grow.
I looked around at the wild beauty of the garden, imagining Cal there. “You said Cal used to help Edith with the garden?”
Mr. Williams nodded. “Yes. He’d do all the heavy lifting for her, but he also liked to help with the planting.” He paused, as if measuring his words. “He said it was the only place he could find that would calm his soul.”
Our eyes met, and I couldn’t help but wonder to what extent Mr. Williams knew of Cal’s troubled soul. And to what lengths Cal would go to find the peace he so desperately sought.
I looked away, not wanting to know the answer, and my eye touched on the statue of a saint standing lopsided between two billowing rosebushes, one of its hands missing.
“Saint Michael,” Mr. Williams provided.
“The protector,” I added quietly. “Cal put a small Saint Michael by our front door.” I stared at the stone face, at the eyes turned heavenward, knowing why Cal had thought we needed one. And wondering why his grandmother had thought the same thing.
I bent to smell a rose, its scent pungent in the afternoon heat. “Were Cal and his brother close?”
I felt Mr. Williams shrug before turning to look at him. “They were ten years apart, so Cal was raised almost like an only child. It must have been a shock for him when Gibbes arrived. But even if they’d been closer in age, I don’t know how close they might have been. Cal was like his father. Very . . . physical. Both were high school football stars—did Cal tell you that?”
I shook my head, pretending to examine the roses more closely.
He continued. “And Gibbes was more like their mother. More introspective and inquisitive. Before his job took over his life he was big into sailing—did a great deal of it in high school—loves the complexities of cheating the wind, I suppose. No time for it anymore, but he and my sons still spend time on the water when they can.” He chuckled softly. “I taught Cal and Gibbes how to play chess, thinking it was something they could do together. It was a terrible idea, of course. Cal would start off using his queen to barrel through his opponent’s pawns and then lose her early on. Gibbes would strategize his next five moves and win the game in six. Most of their games ended with Cal throwing the board across the room.”
My finger stung, and when I looked down at it I saw I’d pricked it on a thorn. I sucked on the pad, tasting copper and remembering Cal. Squeezing my finger and thumb together to stop the bleeding, I said, “I hope you don’t mind my asking these questions. I’m sure it seems odd to you that Cal never told me anything. I don’t blame him. Really, I don’t. I was relieved, I think, because then that gave me the excuse to never talk about my own past.”
“You have no family,” he said, his face so sympathetic that I felt the sting of tears and had to look away.
“No,” I said, turning my head so that I faced the stone saint. “How did their parents die?”
He took a deep breath. “Their mama, Cecelia, fell down the stairs and broke her neck. It was New Year’s Eve and she was wearing a long gown. C.J., their daddy, said he thought her heel had caught in the back of the skirt. She was dead by the time he reached the bottom of the steps. Gibbes was only five and Cal fifteen—terrible ages to lose a mother. C.J. died three years later. He was a heavy drinker and smoker, so it was no surprise that he died of a heart attack at forty-six. But my wife believes he died of a broken heart.”
I nodded silently, wondering whether such a thing was possible and wishing that something Mr. Williams had told me explained why my husband had left this place and never wanted to share his past with me.
We both looked up at the sound of car doors slamming. Mr. Williams began walking toward a rusty iron gate disguised by the climbing jasmine on the garden wall. “It might be members from the Heritage Society bringing casseroles in the hopes of getting a peek inside the house.”
He lifted a heavy la
tch and turned a small doorknob before pulling on the gate, the vines and time blocking his efforts. “I’ll find some pruning shears and cut these away this Saturday, if you like. Let’s go back through the house to the front door.”
As we stood inside the foyer, I heard a woman’s voice outside and the sound of footsteps crossing the wooden floorboards of the porch. I threw open the door before anyone could ring the doorbell.
I found myself staring into large blue eyes that were surrounded by what could only be false eyelashes. She had on fresh pink lipstick, and her blond hair was worn long and wavy with a pouf at the crown. Her silk blouse looked expensive but was unbuttoned one button too far, and her slim skirt revealed a long expanse of legs—legs ending in impossibly high heels.
I was so busy staring that I didn’t see the young boy standing beside her until I heard him speak. “Merritt?”
A small breeze teased the wind chimes, making them all sing in unison, the sound more like an alarm bell to me as I stared at the boy. He had a slight build, and seemed far enough from puberty that his cheeks still had a little baby fat despite his lean frame. He had thick, dark hair with a cowlick that parted his hair at an odd angle. His eyes, hidden behind thick-rimmed dark glasses, were bright blue, enlarged and blinking at me like an owl. I couldn’t stop staring at him. I’d seen eyes like that before. And the same dark hair. They were just like my father’s. They were just like mine.
The woman put her arm around the boy’s shoulder and smiled, and I saw how beautiful she was, and was reminded again that she was only five years older than me. “We wanted to surprise you, Merritt. We were going to go to Maine, but when I called the museum where you used to work, they told me you had moved to South Carolina. When I explained to the woman who I was, she gave me your lawyer’s name. And when I stopped by the lawyer’s just now, the woman there gave me your address.” She smiled even more broadly, as if she were delivering a much-anticipated gift, and moved the boy to stand in front of her. “This is your brother, Owen.”