by Karen White
“Hello, Earlene. I’m glad I found you at home.” He held up a foil-wrapped casserole dish. “Mama thought you might get hungry, so she sent her tomato-okra casserole for you. There’s a lot of food there, so if you don’t think you can eat it all, I’d be happy to stay for dinner and help you out.”
I took the casserole and forced a smile on my face. “Thanks, George. That was real sweet of your mother to think of me.”
He stood facing me, obviously waiting for an invitation to come inside.
I indicated the space behind me. “I left a bag of groceries in the back garden and two more in the kitchen and I need to go put them away before they spoil.”
“You know you’re not supposed to be carrying anything too heavy. Let me help you.”
Resigned to submitting myself to his company, I moved back to allow him in. “Let me put this casserole in the fridge if you wouldn’t mind getting the bag I left outside.”
He followed at my heels like a lost puppy as I made my way to the kitchen and he went out the back door. I added the casserole to the collection in the refrigerator and started unloading the bags. When George returned he began organizing the groceries on the counter by the section of the kitchen where they would be stored. It annoyed me and I pretended not to notice his system when I put the can of peeled tomatoes in the pile with frozen peas and ice cream.
“You gave a beautiful eulogy at the funeral, Earlene. You’re a very strong woman, saying those words and not crying at all. I said that to my grandpa Paul and he said that you would have made your grandfather proud.”
“Thank you,” I said stiffly as I stuffed a plastic bag inside another. How could I explain to him that it wasn’t at all because I was strong? To be strong I’d have to feel something.
He stacked the two boxes of Froot Loops on the counter. “Do you really eat this for breakfast?”
A sarcastic comment came to my lips but I bit it back. I simply didn’t have the energy to apologize later. “Yes, as a matter of fact, I do.”
He pursed his lips. “I think your doctor would agree that a diet filled with fresh fruits and vegetables as well as whole grains would contribute to your healing process a lot quicker than all these processed foods.”
I gritted my teeth and began folding the plastic bags, knowing what was coming next.
“You know, your accident was close to six years ago. You should be walking with a lot less pain by now. Maybe you need to go back to your physical therapist to go over some exercises. . . .”
“Thanks for your concern, George. I appreciate it. Really. But I can take care of myself.”
His perusal of the kitchen countertops with crumpled fast-food bags made me a liar but I chose to ignore him as I bent under the kitchen sink to throw in the pile of plastic bags.
“Have you thought much about what you’re going to do now?”
I rose slowly, looking out the window over the sink into the bare garden, its beds as abandoned and neglected as a childhood dream. His grandfather had asked the same thing and I think I hated them both a little bit for it. For so long I’d existed with a wall between my present and my future and I had neither the will nor the strength to tear it down. It was so much easier to simply be.
I turned to face him. “It’s really none of your concern, George.”
“You know that I’d like it to be.”
I closed my eyes for a long moment and took a deep breath.
“There’s another reason I stopped by today.”
My eyes fluttered open with dread, half expecting a small ring box.
He reached inside his jacket pocket and pulled out a small manila envelope. “My grandfather meant to bring these to you when he stopped by yesterday. For some reason they were kept separately from the envelope he already gave you. I think it’s because these were given to my grandfather for safekeeping last year, when your grandfather first knew he was ill.” He shoved the envelope at me and distracted himself with storing the frozen food in the freezer, stacking the peas and broccoli with military precision. “I don’t think he meant for you to find them before he died. Which is why he instructed us to give them to you after his death.”
I stared down at the envelope with the law firm’s preprinted return address in the upper-left corner. Only my last name, Mills, was written in an unfamiliar handwriting on the front. I flipped it over and pulled out two letter-sized envelopes followed by a heavy silver key that slipped out of the envelope and clattered to the floor. I stared at it for a moment before picking it up. It was an old-fashioned key, like all the other keys that protruded from locks throughout the old house. None of the doors were missing keys, and as I turned it over in my hand, I wondered what it could go to.
I then turned my attention to the two envelopes, both of them sealed and both of them addressed to a Miss Lillian Harrington at Asphodel Meadows Plantation, Savannah. I recognized my grandmother’s handwriting, but not that of the person who had scratched through Lillian’s name and address and written, “return to sender.” I didn’t know who Lillian was, but I knew of Asphodel Meadows. A former rice plantation built in the early eighteen hundreds on the Savannah River about thirty miles south of the city, it was now, and had been since around nineteen twenty, a horse farm. I’d never been there, although it hadn’t been for lack of interest on my part. Considering my past history with horses, I thought it odd now that my grandfather had never taken me there, or that our paths hadn’t crossed in the nearly incestuous equestrian community of Savannah.
I glanced up at George, who looked back at me with undisguised curiosity. I shoved the key in my jeans pocket and put the letters back inside the larger envelope before tucking it under my arm. Smiling brightly at George, I began to lead him back to the front door. “Thanks so much for the casserole and for helping me with my groceries. I really do appreciate it.” I yanked open the door. “I’ll be sure to call you if I need anything. I promise.”
His mouth jerked open and closed like a goldfish who’d sought sanctuary outside of his bowl as he tried to come up with something that would get me to invite him back inside. I put my hand on his arm and gently guided him through the doorway.
He put a hand on the doorframe, overly confident that I wouldn’t shut the door with his hand in the way. “You have my cell number, right? Call me anytime. Day or night. You hear? If you need anything, please call me first.”
I nodded. “I will, George. Promise.” I began to close the door and was grateful when I saw him yank his hand away.
I carried the envelope into the study and emptied the contents onto the mahogany desk and sat down. With my grandfather’s ivory-handled letter opener, I sliced open the smaller envelope. Carefully unfolding the heavy stationery, I read:
September 30, 1939
My Dearest Lillian,
My words are so inadequate, but I have no other means to reach you. I know that circumstances dictate that we not have any contact with each other, but my conscience dictates that I at least attempt to reach you using whatever means I have to ask your forgiveness. I don’t know if I can live the rest of my life without it, so I must at least try.
What happened was an accident.You were there and you know the desperate situation we were in, but the end result was the same.And for that, I cannot forgive myself but must rely on your clemency to release me from this guilt that claws at me every day without mercy.
Forgive me, Lillian. Forgive me for loving too much and for trusting too much. With God’s mercy and your forgiveness I might have hope again. Dum vita est, spes est, remember?
Please let me know that you have received this.You can send a message through Paul at the law offices. I see him often and I know that he can be trusted.
Remember how happy we once were? How much is changed, Lillian. I don’t know if I can ever feel happy again after all that has happened. But with your forgiveness I know that I can try. Josie always told us that the more we loved, the more we lost of ourselves. I think she’s right. I’ve
lost so much that I don’t think I can ever find myself again.
Your friend forever, Annabelle
I read the letter three times, trying to hear my grandmother’s voice, the one I remembered from my childhood, but couldn’t. Who was this Lillian? And Josie? And what had my grandmother done that was so horrible that she was begging for forgiveness? If I hadn’t recognized her handwriting, I would have denied it was written by her. This young woman in the letter was passionate and forceful. The grandmother I knew was neither.
Slowly, I slid the opener into the second envelope and pulled out the letter and began to read.
December 15, 1939
My dearest friend,
My first three letters to you have been returned to me unopened. I don’t blame you, for I deserve no better.
But I have loved you like a sister, as I loved Freddie and Josie, and my loss of all of you has killed something inside of me. I only hope that one day you will find it in your heart to forgive me and we can be as sisters again. Until then, I will not rest, nor weep, nor smile, nor love; I cannot, for a heart is required to do all those things.
Do you remember when we were not much younger and we talked about the men we would marry and the daughters we would have, and the stories we would tell them when they were old enough to hear? I pray that you will have a daughter one day, and that I shall, too.Then we can share our stories with them so that what has happened will never be forgotten and we aren’t so all alone in our sorrow.That is my wish for both of us.
Good-bye, sweet friend,
Annabelle
My eyes stung with tears I couldn’t shed for a woman I thought I had known. I caught sight of the little blue sweater I had left folded on top of the desk. I lifted it up to my face, smelling nothing but dust and old secrets, and for the first time in my life I realized that my sad, quiet grandmother might have a story to tell me after all.
CHAPTER 3
I hated the smell of nursing homes: the mixture of antiseptic cleaners, stale cooking odors, and old dreams. I hadn’t learned to hate it until my long stay in the hospital six years before when I’d begun to associate those same smells of the hospital with all of my own lost dreams.
The nurse on duty greeted me as I signed in and escorted me to the Alzheimer’s wing, where she had to use a code to open the door. My grandmother had a private room, as private as living in a nursing home could be, and it was at the end of the corridor at the back of the building, giving her two large windows to look out and see the gardens. This was what my grandfather told me when we had moved her in, and I never thought to mention to him that every time we visited she sat facing the wall.
She was asleep when I entered, so I sat in a chair near her bed and watched her sleep. She slept on her side with one hand tucked under her cheek like a child, and her long white hair tied back in a braid that lay on the pillow beside her like a remnant from her past life. My grandmother had always been old to me. I’d seen pictures of her when she was younger, of course, but I could never quite reconcile those pictures of the beautiful bride or young mother with the sad old woman of my childhood.
She stirred, a word lost on her lips as she struggled between sleep and wakefulness, awaking from dreams she couldn’t remember or share. I often wondered what she dreamed of—if she were reliving happier times before the smiling woman in the photos became the old woman, or if her dreams were as blank and empty as her mind had become.
I waited as she opened her eyes and gradually came awake. Her gaze settled on me and I held my breath wondering if she would recognize me today. But her eyes continued on to the window behind me as if I had been nothing more than a piece of furniture.
“Grandmother?” I said quietly, not wanting to startle her.
Her brown eyes shot back to me and widened, but I knew that she still did not know who I was.
“Grandmother,” I said again. “It’s me. Piper. I’ve come for a visit.” I stood and helped her sit up, then fluffed her pillows.
“Yes, Piper,” she said, repeating my words without comprehension. “Where’s Jackson? He said he would come.” She looked at me suspiciously. “Have you seen him?”
“No, Grandmother. Granddaddy is dead, remember? We buried him on Saturday, at Bonaventure Cemetery, where Mama and Daddy are. You wore your black dress with your mama’s cameo at the neck.”
Her eyes blinked slowly as she continued to stare at me silently. Eventually her gaze traveled back to the window behind me. “Jackson brings me flowers. He knows that moonflowers are my favorite.” She suddenly turned her head to face me. “Have you seen Jackson? He always brings me flowers.”
I stood, trying to see the grandmother who’d taught me to garden inside this woman who didn’t know who I was. I felt sorry for this old woman, yet I didn’t know her. Her presence in my life had become like a soft wind that moves your hair and then is forgotten by your next breath. I walked to the window to stare down at the pretty garden somebody had hoped would resemble an English one with geometrical patterns and precisely pruned hedges. Pink roses dotted large green bushes bordering the small square space, highlighting the trellises with climbing wisteria and white wooden benches for weary spectators. I felt sad, recalling the beautiful garden my grandmother had tended in our backyard that now lay sleeping under tired dirt.
I remembered the small blue sweater and the manila envelope in my shoulder bag. Turning back toward the bed, I pulled out the sweater. I would wait to ask her about the key and the letters until later as I had learned that she could only absorb one thing at a time. I wasn’t really expecting her to recognize the sweater or even to reveal anything to me. But when I had been standing in my grandfather’s study the previous day, it had finally come to me how very alone in the world I was—how many years had passed since my grandmother had written that last letter. And I had to at least try.
“Grandmother? I found something yesterday in the house, in your trunk in Granddaddy’s study, and it looks like something you might have knitted. Do you recognize it?”
Her brown eyes blinked slowly as if trying to focus on my face and then I watched as her gaze slowly traveled to the bundle in my hands and stopped, her eyes sad and unblinking. I came closer and sat at the edge of her bed, her gaze never leaving the blue-yarn sweater. Her hand, as delicate as a fallen leaf, reached out and grabbed a fistful of the soft fabric, the blue veins in her hands like roadmaps of her life. Slowly, she pulled it toward her and buried her face in the sweater as I had done, and I wondered what memory she was smelling.
“Do you know whose this was?”
She didn’t respond, but kept her face buried in the sweater. After a moment her shoulders began to shake and a keening I had never heard before erupted from her, the sound bringing back to me all of my own lost hopes and dreams.
With a hesitant hand, I touched her shoulder, appalled yet compelled to reach her as I witnessed a depth of emotion I never thought her capable of.
“It’s okay, Grandmother. It’s going to be okay.” The words were as empty of meaning as my incessant patting on the sharp bone of her shoulder that protruded from her cotton nightgown. It wasn’t okay. And for a brief moment I wished that I had never found that sweater in the trunk or read the letters, that I had been allowed to continue in my numb existence in the quiet house on Monterey Square. But I had found the sweater and brought it here to show her. And I had remembered the words that haunted my dreams the night before, words my grandmother had told me long ago that I thought I’d forgotten. Every woman should have a daughter to tell her stories to. Otherwise, the lessons learned are as useless as spare buttons from a discarded shirt. And all that is left is a fading name and the shape of a nose or the color of hair.The men who write the history books will tell you the stories of battles and conquests. But the women will tell you the stories of people’s hearts.
I thought back to my own mother, dead now for more than twenty years and how she’d left home at eighteen and never gone back. I remembered he
r only from an old Polaroid of her standing in front of the Golden Gate Bridge with my father—a picture I always thought was to show the world how very far from home she wanted to get.
My grandmother’s sobbing stopped as abruptly as it had begun and I thought for a moment that she’d forgotten what she was crying for. But when she turned her reddened eyes up to me, I saw within them a clarity that I had not seen for years.
“He’s gone,” she whispered, her fingers like claws as she hooked them into the sweater. Tears fell down withered cheeks but she didn’t blink or take her gaze away from me. She let go of the sweater and grabbed my hands, her fingers cold and brittle. She leaned toward me and very quietly whispered so close to my face that I could feel her puffs of breath. “Every woman should have a daughter to tell her stories to.”
My grandmother looked away and let go of my hands, distracted now. She leaned back against her pillows and closed her eyes. “I’m sleepy,” she said, keeping her eyes closed.
I wasn’t ready for her to go to sleep yet. I leaned forward and spoke quietly. “Who’s Lillian, Grandmother? Who’re Lillian and Josie and Freddie?”
Her eyes rolled violently under her lids but she didn’t open them. Instead she turned her face away from me, but I saw her hand tighten into a fist before tucking it under her chin.