by Karen White
“Just don’t have too wild a party,” I said, leaning in to kiss Loralee’s cheek. “I don’t want Owen coming home early and being scandalized.”
“We’ll try not to,” she said, looking up at me with bright eyes. “Good-bye, Merritt.”
It wasn’t until we were outside again that I wondered at her choice of words, but I didn’t dwell on it. If there was anything Loralee had taught me, it was not to dwell on things. In the week since we’d had our “come-to-Jesus meeting,” as she called it, I still hadn’t found a way to tell Gibbes what I knew, or prepare myself for the consequences. I knew she was probably hoping it would happen that night, but when his hand touched the small of my back as we headed down the porch steps, and I smelled the clean, fresh scent of his shampoo, I knew I couldn’t. If that was to be the only night we’d have, then I didn’t want to ruin it with confessions and recriminations. Or memories of a husband who’d never let me wear red.
“Would you like to walk?” he asked. “We could drive, but it might be hard to find parking.”
I pointed my toe, showing off my new red ballerina flats with the tiny bows on the top. “These are perfect for walking, and it’s a gorgeous evening, so I say we walk. And maybe, if you’re lucky, I’ll trip and hurt my foot so that I won’t be able to dance.”
He threw back his head and laughed, then tucked my hand into the crook of his arm. “You probably aren’t aware that it’s illegal to live in South Carolina and not know the state dance.”
“I think you’ve mentioned that. Although they might need to change the law after tonight.”
As we approached the marina, Gibbes stopped. “Are you okay to walk along the river, or would you prefer we stick to Bay Street?”
I stared down at my shoes for a moment, thinking. “I’ll be okay to walk by the water. I just have to think about Loralee and I realize my fears are pretty pathetic in comparison.”
I put my hand on his arm and we resumed walking past the marina to the waterfront, both of us lost in our own thoughts. It had been a warm day, but not too hot, and a cool breeze now blew off the water as the sun began to paint the clouds with streaks of red and orange. The distant sound of live music came from the park, and my heart sighed. It was almost as if for a long while all the things that made my heart beat had been silenced by the things in my life I couldn’t control. But as my skirt swished against my legs, and I felt the salt-tinged air on my face and the solidness of Gibbes’s arm beneath my hand, I allowed myself to loosen up and to believe—even just for one evening—that both feet were off the brake.
“Have you been over to Saint Helena’s churchyard to find your grandfather’s grave yet?”
His question startled me. “No. I’m not . . . I mean, maybe eventually. I’m just focused on other things now, taking it one day at a time. I plan to give the suitcase to the police, but not yet. I need a little more time to think things through.” I stopped walking, making him stop, too. I looked up into his eyes, still hoping I could find answers that were more palatable than the ones I already had. “Do you remember anything about the day Cal left? Anything he or your grandmother said to you?”
He looked away for a moment, the sun shining in his eyes. “I remember mostly how I felt—lonely. And unwanted.” The light made his eyes almost translucent, and I imagined I saw clouds moving behind them. “But like I said before, being in the house so much lately has helped me remember other things, too.”
“Like what?” I asked, trying to hold my breath, trying to see Edith not as an accessory to a crime, but as an abused woman who’d sought love and restitution in a world she didn’t fully understand.
“My grandmother told me to be happy.” He rubbed his hands over his face. “But it’s what Cal told me that I’ve been thinking about lately. ‘Never let the fire get behind you,’ he said. I haven’t thought about that for a long time, and I guess I’m still trying to figure out what he meant.”
I remembered what he’d told me as we stood outside the Heritage Society. “And you said Cal called Edith a murderer.”
He nodded slowly. “Yeah. I can’t figure that one out, either.”
Tell him now. It wasn’t Loralee’s voice in my head this time, but my own. I didn’t want to be like Edith, dwelling in the past and living in exile in the old house on the bluff, with only my guilt and secrets to keep me company. And I had Owen to think of, the brother I’d happily pretended didn’t exist for ten years but who’d now become so precious to me. You can’t move forward with one foot always on the brake.
I tilted my head back, his name on my lips. “Gibbes . . .” I began.
I hesitated, my old fear of stepping past my boundaries, of swimming away from the safe place, paralyzing me, making me think of Cal and the coward he believed me to be.
But then Gibbes kissed me, his lips soft and warm against mine, and I stopped thinking about Cal, and my fears, and everything else except the feel of Gibbes’s hands gently cupping my head as if I were a rare and precious treasure.
He lifted his face away from mine.
“Why did you do that?” I asked, breathless.
He didn’t remove his hands. “Because you’re a beautiful woman and it’s a warm summer night, and you’re wearing that dress. And because I’ve been wanting to do that for a very long time, and I think I might just do it again.”
And he did, but this time I put my arms around his neck and let him draw me closer, kissing him back. I felt wanted and desirable and even pretty. I imagined curling up with Loralee later and telling her thank you. Mostly, though, I felt the long-dormant stirrings of desire, and want, and gratitude to this man who’d never demanded more from me than I was ready to give.
“Get a room,” somebody from a crowd of teenagers called out as they passed us.
We broke apart and I was sure my face matched the color of my dress.
“You ready to cut some rug?” Gibbes asked, reaching out his hand.
“Excuse me?”
“Dance. Are you ready to dance?”
“Only if you’re ready for a good laugh,” I said, putting my hand in his.
“I’m always ready for that,” he said, leading me down the boardwalk and the grassy area to where bodies were already moving in tandem and the music seemed to dance across the water like a skipping stone, rocking the anchored boats with its rhythm.
I found that I recognized a lot of the music as old standards like “Double Shot (Of My Baby’s Love),” “Too Late to Turn Back Now,” and “Band of Gold.” Maybe it was my ability to sing along with the lyrics and anticipate the beat that saved not only my pride but also Gibbes’s feet. I made sure we stayed in a back corner, far away from the very experienced dancers—whom I’d have been content to just sit and watch all night—as I counted out loud to the eight-beat count, “One-and-two, three-and-four, five-six,” always reminding myself that each beat meant a different foot.
His left hand held my right, giving me a firm, guiding pressure to remind me when to turn and when to avoid an oncoming pair of dancers.
“Remember—your weight should be toward the balls of your feet, and you’re supposed to pretend that your shoes are magnets and the dance floor is made of metal, so that you just sort of shuffle through the steps.” Gibbes smiled as I ran into him again before stepping back with my left foot.
I allowed myself to laugh and to make mistakes, becoming bolder as Gibbes laughed along with me, gently leading me instead of criticizing me. A thought occurred to me, and I stopped moving, causing Gibbes to pull me toward him and off the dance floor so we wouldn’t get trampled by the other dancers.
“Are you all right?” he asked, concern in his voice. “Can I get you something to drink? Or eat?”
“No, thanks. I’m just hot. Can we go sit on one of those benches on the boardwalk?”
I took out a tissue from my small evening purse—the purse borrowed from Loralee and the wad of tissues suggested by her—and handed one to Gibbes, then took one for myself. It
was full dark now, the lights from the boats on the water twinkling like fireflies.
I tilted my head back and pressed the tissue against my face and neck, finally understanding why Loralee insisted on waterproof makeup in the summertime. “I just realized something—something about your grandmother. She made a lot of mistakes, but she did right by you. Maybe she’s the reason you’re a good pediatrician, and the kind of person who accepts—although grudgingly—his brother’s widow even when he thinks he probably shouldn’t.” I shrugged. “It’s something to think about, anyway.”
“Maybe,” he said, seeming to weigh the word and what it might mean slowly in his head. “What’s making you so philosophical tonight?”
I leaned back on the bench and noticed the nearly full moon, pregnant with possibilities and the power to conduct the music of the tides. I kept my gaze focused on the moon, at the way it sheltered us all from the dark like a mother’s hand, and let it bathe me in its blue glow. “You. And Loralee. This place, too.”
I imagined for a moment Edith at her attic window, looking out at the same moon, attempting to protect a woman she’d never met, and setting off a chain of events she could never have foreseen. And I thought of my own grandmother, lost and alone, making the only choice she believed she had to protect her daughter—my mother—and inadvertently damaging so many lives. There were no heroes in their story, but neither were there any villains. And nobody had learned anything. Yes, I thought. That was the sticking point. I couldn’t nudge myself past it with the belief that it had all been so pointless. Both Edith and my grandmother were gone. What good could come from resurrecting their ghosts?
“Do you really believe that everything happens for a reason?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said. “But I also believe in free will. That our lives are what we make them.”
Our eyes met, the glow of the moon filling the space between us, and all doubt left me. He leaned forward for another kiss, and my phone rang. I jerked back, quickly scrambling to retrieve it from my bag, knowing it could only be Owen or Loralee.
I looked down at the unknown number, identifying only the Beaufort area code. When I answered, I recognized Nurse Stelle’s voice immediately, and suddenly it seemed as if the moon had fallen from the sky.
* * *
I didn’t remember how we got back to the house, only that we must have run the whole way without stopping. I didn’t even recall digging out my key or putting it in the lock or running up the stairs. My whole memory of that awful night was just of Loralee’s peaceful expression, the hint of one of her glorious smiles still lingering around her mouth.
She looked as if she were still sleeping, and I half expected her to tell me to turn on the television or put on some lipstick. The pretty pink-and-lace nightgown I’d bought for her at Victoria’s Secret lay loose around her neck, making her look like a little girl wearing her mother’s clothes. I felt Gibbes behind me, his hands strong on my shoulders.
The nurse stood and I saw she’d been crying. She’d known Loralee for only a short while, but I suppose Loralee had that effect on most people. She wasn’t somebody one easily forgot. “I already called her doctor, and the coroner is on his way.”
I nodded, not sure I could trust my voice.
She cleared her throat. “I see this a lot, when a patient knows it’s time but they don’t want to upset their loved ones. They wait until everybody’s where they want them to be.” She sniffed and brought a tissue to the corners of her eyes. “I hope it brings you some comfort to know that she didn’t die alone. It was so sudden, like . . . like she knew. She reached for my hand and I held it the whole time, and then she smiled at me, closed her eyes, and went to sleep. It was so peaceful and quick, I didn’t have time to call you. But I think she wanted it that way.”
I walked toward the bed with the absurd notion that if I spoke Loralee’s name, she’d open her eyes. I leaned over her to brush her hair off her face, and one of my tears fell toward the bed, landing with an odd splat.
Looking down, I saw her pink journal cradled against her side, the pen lying next to it as if she’d just finished writing. Carefully I picked up the journal and opened it to the last page. There, right beneath the one I’d written just a few hours before, in a very shaky and light hand, was Loralee’s final piece of wisdom. Life doesn’t get easier. We just get stronger.
“Oh, Loralee,” I whispered. How was I going to get through the rest of my life without her? Without her wisdom and advice? And how could I be the mother she wanted me to be for her son?
“Owen,” I said. “I’ve got to go get Owen. I need to be the one to tell him.”
“Let me come with you,” Gibbes said. “You shouldn’t be driving.”
Any courage or knowledge I believed I’d somehow attained fled, leaving behind the old Merritt who would always be afraid of the dark. “Yes. Thank you.” My mind raced, trying to make lists and find order to distract me from the growing numbness. “I’ll call Maris’s dad, tell him that we’ll pick Owen up at the theater and that we’re on our way. He needs to say good-bye.”
I turned to the nurse, not sure what to say, and she took the journal from my hands. “I’ll stay with her until you get back. You’ll need to tell the coroner which funeral home.”
I nodded numbly, my grief like a fist that had grabbed hold of my lungs, strangling the breath from me.
Gibbes and I said our final good-byes to Loralee and then we left the house. As I stood outside I looked up at the moon again and saw heavy clouds drifting across its face, hiding the light and casting the dark night all around us.
chapter 34
MERRITT
Thunder rolled across the sky as my cell phone rang and I let it go to voice mail. It was Gibbes again, and although I’d seen him at the funeral and several times since when he came to check on Owen and me, we hadn’t really talked. Maybe it was the New Englander in me, but I didn’t want to talk—to anybody. Judging by the number of people who’d stopped by with casseroles and Jell-O molds, the Southern way to grieve was through food and talking. If it weren’t for Owen, I would have simply sat in the silence and listened to the echo of the doorbell.
I glanced down at my cards and then at Owen across from me at the kitchen table. “Go fish,” I said.
He just looked at his cards as if he didn’t understand what I was saying and then back up at me. “Is it okay if we quit? I don’t feel like playing.”
“Okay, Rocky. That’s fine.” I began gathering up the cards.
“And I don’t want to be Rocky anymore. I decided I like Owen better.”
I smiled. “Good choice. I like it better, too.” I finished stacking the cards, then slid them back in their box. “Would you like to watch a movie? We could call Maris and see if she wants to come over later and have pizza and popcorn and watch with us.”
He shook his head. “No, not tonight. I just . . .” He looked at the new refrigerator, as if hoping it could finish his sentence.
I took his hand, wishing that Loralee were there to tell me the right words to say that could make it better for him. But all I had was me. “Owen, it will get better—I promise. One day you will wake up and that weight on your chest won’t be as bad, and you’ll be able to breathe in a little more air than you could the day before. And then you’ll know that it’s getting better.”
He rested his chin on the table. “You promise?”
I nodded. “I promise.”
“I miss her.” Tears welled in his eyes and I quickly blinked back my own. One of us had to at least pretend to be strong.
“Oh, sweetheart, I miss her, too.” I wished again that she were there to offer some helpful piece of insight or her mama’s wisdom that would make sense out of her not being there.
“Can we go visit her? There’re some pretty flowers she planted in the garden, and I want to bring them to her.”
I sat back in my chair, relieved to have some plan of action. “Absolutely. We can go whenever you want—bu
t let’s wait until the storm blows over, all right?”
He nodded. We hadn’t been back to the cemetery since the funeral, where I’d worn the red dress, and Owen his little-man suit, and Loralee had looked beautiful in her pink suit and with her hair teased and sprayed big around her head just like she wanted. Gibbes had laughed when I’d explained why, and somehow the sound didn’t seem out of place at Loralee’s funeral.
My phone dinged, letting me know Gibbes had left another voice mail. My thumb hesitated a moment before I dropped my hand back to the table. “You can ride your new bike, too, when you visit the cemetery. I’ll have to come, but I can just hover in the background and you can pretend you don’t know me.”
I was rewarded with a small smile. Gibbes had brought over the blue bicycle a couple of days after the funeral. It had been his when he was Owen’s age, and it was just sitting in his garage. He’d fixed it up, oiled the chain, and pronounced it good as new when he’d delivered it to Owen. And because I was taking my new role as guardian very seriously, I’d gone to Walmart and bought my own bike—in yellow—and helmets for both of us.
Slowly he slid his chair back from the table. “I think I’ll just go up to my room and play with my LEGOs for a little while.”
“All right. Just let me know if you need anything or if you get hungry.”
He nodded, then slowly walked out of the kitchen, his sock-covered feet quiet on the wood floors.
I stood in the kitchen for a long time, wondering what I should do, then headed up the stairs to pull all the paperwork Loralee had left, including guardianship of Owen and handwritten notes about what sort of education she envisioned for him, as well as the funds and accounts that were already set aside for that purpose.
I paused at the top of the steps, then detoured toward Loralee’s room. The nurse had stripped the bed and remade it with a quilt she’d found in the closet. But the rest of the room appeared as if Loralee had never left, with her clothes hanging in the closet, the scent of her perfume still lingering in the air, her makeup and hairbrushes resting on the dresser.