by Karen White
“Like genealogy.” Tucker’s voice was devoid of recrimination, and held only surprise. Since his grandmother had put him in a saddle at the age of two, horses and riding had been constant themes in his life. Even through medical school, marriage and children, they remained as a sort of anchor to the man he strived to be regardless of where life tugged him.
“Like genealogy,” Earlene answered, her words tight.
Lucy spoke, her clear, high-pitched voice belying the maturity of her words. “I think the scars on her knee are from falling off her horse, which means it was probably worse than just falling off. Maybe she had a good reason for quitting.”
The quiet was deafening for a moment, Lucy’s words silencing even her little sister.
Tucker finally spoke. “Or maybe it’s a good reason for getting on a horse again.”
Helen heard Earlene’s chair slide back on the rug. “I need to get going. Thank you so much for dinner. I can walk back to the cottage . . .”
“Don’t be silly,” Helen said as she pushed her own chair back. “The mosquitoes will have picked you up and spirited you away before you make it down the oak alley. Odella will most likely be with Malily for a while but I’m sure Tucker would be happy to drive you back.” Without waiting for anyone to argue, she stood. “Tucker, since your nanny’s off tonight and the girls are staying here, why don’t you get the girls ready for bed while I take Earlene upstairs to give her those papers I talked about? Then you can drive Earlene home.”
Neither one of them answered right away, and Helen couldn’t decide who was more reluctant: Earlene, who couldn’t wait to escape from having anybody scrutinize her life, or Tucker, who’d spent more time with his horses than his children since his wife’s death.
Helen held out her arm. “Earlene, if you’ll grab my elbow, I’ll lead the way. I don’t want to trip and hurt myself on the stairs.” She hated using her blindness to extract sympathy, but she figured Earlene needed her help as much as Tucker needed to spend time with his daughters so she did what she thought necessary.
She felt Earlene’s cold fingers touch the bare skin on her arm before Helen led the way back to the grand staircase that curved up and around the foyer, hiding a rueful grin as she considered which one of them was more profoundly blind.
I hurried my pace to catch up with Helen, who didn’t really seem to need my help. I was glad to be out of the dining room and eager to see what papers she had for me. As I’d been reading my grandmother’s scrapbook pages, the whereabouts of Lily’s and Josie’s pages hovered in the back of my mind. From Helen’s conversation with Tucker, I doubted Lillian’s would be in there, but I was still hopeful that I’d find a reference to the scrapbook or necklace—anything that would give me something concrete so that I could finally approach Lillian.
For the first time in a very long time, I felt a small fire that felt a lot like longing sending sparks inside my chest, where my fearless heart had once beat. As we wound our way up the staircase, I thought back to what had first started it and realized that it was something Sara had said. Malily always says that the best thing to do when you fall off is to get right back up again. ’Else you forget the reason you used to get up on the horse in the first place. I remembered now where I’d heard it before. I’d been young, small enough to still be riding my first pony, Benny. I’d slid off of her backside because I wasn’t paying attention, bruising my backside almost as much as my ego. It had been my grandmother’s arms that had reached for me, pulling me up to stand while my grandfather looked on, his mouth turned down with disappointment. When she’d leaned toward me to brush the dust off of my collar, she’d told me why I needed to get back on.
That had been the first of only two times anybody ever had to remind me to get back in the saddle. I don’t think that I’d ever thanked her for that, either. I’d taken her words of wisdom like I’d accepted her plates of fried chicken and corn bread—nourishment I needed but never noticed, forgotten as soon as the next challenge presented itself. And then I’d fallen from Fitz and I’d almost died. But my grandmother was in the nursing home by then, so there’d been nobody to tell me to get back on, and I quickly tried to forget the reason I used to get up on a horse in the first place.
Helen reached out her hand and let a finger slide down the wall as she began counting doorways, and I continued to analyze how my self-absorption had shifted almost imperceptibly. It was also something Tucker had said about me giving up riding horses for genealogy. His voice held the surprise of watching a starving man choose a glass of water over a four-course meal.
I’d met his eyes and seen none of the recrimination I’d expected. Instead, I recognized something familiar, and knew he understood how it was to feel incomplete unless you were in a saddle, how walking or running and even flying in a plane could never compete with the freedom and power you felt when you were riding into the wind on the back of a horse. It’s the complex mix of vulnerability and bravado that makes a great horseman, and in Tucker Gibbons, I recognized the mind-set of the person I used to be. But I’d also noticed that he hadn’t seen that person at all when he looked at me. It shook me at first. Shook me hard enough to start that little spark in my chest—enough to make me follow Helen upstairs instead of bolting out of the house as my instincts kept telling me to do.
Helen paused by the third door in the dim hallway, then turned the knob and pushed open the door. She flipped on a switch and the room was bathed in bright lights from the ceiling and walls. Helen moved about the room, turning on table lamps. “Can you see all right?” she asked.
I wanted to laugh. I felt as if I were standing inside a crayon box, each wall surface brighter than the last. Her antique four-poster bed was draped with dark purple chiffon, contrasting with the fuchsia and lime green quilted duvet with matching toile shams and roll pillows. “I can see fine. In fact, I think I might need to put on my sunglasses.”
Helen smiled as she made her way over to a Queen Anne lady’s desk, which sat under an oval window on the side of the house I hadn’t yet seen. “Malily helped me with it. I wanted colorful and she promised me that colorful is what I’d get.”
I stood in the middle of the room admiring the way the lemon-colored rug thrown over the wood floor matched the painted ceiling. “I’d have to agree. It’s really beautiful.” I thought of the stern Lillian I’d just had dinner with, and I couldn’t imagine her agreeing to create a room like this in her house. But she had done it for her blind granddaughter, and it made me wonder what other surprises lurked beneath the quietly refined facade of Lillian Harrington-Ross.
Helen pulled open the bottom drawer of the desk and lifted out a large three-ring binder that bulged with papers, their corners exploding from the confines of the cover. “After Susan died, Odella helped me gather her papers and put them in here. I’d read them if I could, but since I can’t I guess I was just waiting for the right person to come along.” She held it out to me. “I’m going to let you borrow these if you promise that you’ll let me know if you find anything interesting.”
I took the binder, its weight letting me think of possibilities. “I will—I promise.” I clutched the binder to my chest. “But you mentioned something earlier—something about your grandmother’s scrapbook?”
She straightened, and tilted her head to the side just like I’d seen Lucy do before she spoke. “Malily asked for it back, so I gave it to her. She said she didn’t care about the rest of it, but she wanted the scrapbook. Actually, it’s not even a scrapbook—it’s just pages that have been torn out. I’m not sure where the rest of it is.”
Her green eyes settled on me and I had to remind myself that she couldn’t see me squirm. “Well, this should be a great boost to my research. Thank you. And I promise to give you a report of anything I find.”
The door flew open and Mardi sauntered in, immediately zeroing in on Helen. She squatted down to scratch behind his ears. “I guess it’s time for bed, hmm?” She turned her face in my direction. �
�He sleeps at the foot of my bed, guarding me. Don’t think he’d do much to an intruder besides lick him to death, but I appreciate the thought.” She straightened and yawned. “Excuse me. I guess I’m more tired than I thought.” She yawned again as if to accentuate her point. “Tucker is probably still with the girls. If you take a right out of my room and go to the end of the hallway, their door is the last one on the left.” She grinned up at me. “Since they’re here so much, Malily allowed me to design a room for them—I went a little wild with the colors in there, too, but the girls seem to enjoy it. Just stick your head in and let Tucker know that you’re ready to leave. Unless you’d feel more comfortable if I took you myself.”
I resisted the temptation to take her up on her offer. “No, that’s all right. I’m sure I can find it,” I said, wondering briefly if anybody would notice if I just let myself out of the house and made my own way home.
As if reading my thoughts, Helen said, “Tucker would take the cart back to the tabby house anyway, so he might as well drop you off, too. And I’d feel better knowing you made it back safely.”
I felt my way down the dim hallway, avoiding antique tables with vases filled with fragrant flowers and looking for a light switch. I followed the thin glow of light from under a door and stood outside for a moment, listening to Sara’s voice.
I tapped on the door and pushed it open further, then peered inside. Sara and Lucy had matching pink lace-topped canopy beds but both girls were propped up on large pillows on one of them, sharing a book while Lucy read out loud. Tucker sat across the room in a stuffed rocking chair, his elbows on his knees and his fingers steepled as he silently regarded his daughters.
I saw the same bewildered expression that I’d seen at dinner, like that of a man meeting a stranger but recognizing something oddly familiar about them. No one looked up as I stood there and I had just decided to back out quietly and find my own way home when Sara looked at me and smiled.
“Hello, Miss Earlene. Did you come to tuck us in and say good night?”
Her smile was infectious and I smiled back. “Yes, among other things.” I set the notebook down outside the door and entered the room. The walls were painted a faint lavender, matching the lavender shag rug on the floor, and at the top near the ceiling cornice were handpainted nursery rhymes in gold sparkling paint. Helen’s artistic spirit could be seen everywhere, including the cobalt blue rocking chair shaped like a crown that Tucker sat in.
Tucker stood as I entered. “Are you ready to go home?”
“Yes, if it doesn’t inconvenience you at all.” I had trouble meeting his eyes, remembering what I’d thought when I’d first seen him, how fresh his grief was. Being near him felt like an intrusion, as if his dead wife was in the room and I’d interrupted them in conversation.
“Not at all. Let me tuck in the girls and I’ll be ready.”
Sara slid from the bed, her white cotton nightgown brushing the floor as she ran to me. “I want Miss Earlene to tuck me in.”
I reached down to pick her up, managing not to wince as my knee protested at the sudden weight. “I’ve never done it before, but you can teach me, all right?”
I carried Sara over to the other bed and set her down on the side of it.
“It’s easy. I taught Emily, too, and she does everything just like Mama did. We’ve been teaching Daddy, too.”
I glanced over at Tucker, who hadn’t moved from his spot but stood watching Sara and me closely, his hands tucked into his pockets.
“Okay,” I said, turning back to the little girl. “What do I do first?”
She lay down on her back, her head on the lace-covered pillow. “You tuck the sheets all the way around me so that they’re really, really tight. Like a mummy, except you leave my arms outside.”
She lifted her arms over her head and I did as she asked, not able to resist a quick tickle under her arm. She giggled. “Mama used to do that, too.”
I stilled, staring down at her. Mine did, too, I wanted to tell her. And so did my grandmother. It must have been when I was very young, before I’d grown too wild and my ambitions too elevated for me to take much notice of my grandmother’s quiet presence in my life.
“What’s next?” I asked quietly, watching her pale blue eyes that were so different from her father’s.
She pursed her lips for a moment as if she were thinking. “I say my prayers. Then you kiss me on the forehead and turn off the light.”
I sat down on the edge of the bed and folded my hands. “I’m ready.”
Sara clenched her eyes shut. “God bless Daddy, and Malily, and Lucy, and me, and Odella.” She opened her eye and looked at me for a moment before shutting it tightly again. “And Miss Earlene. God bless Mardi, and all of the horses, especially the mean one with the scar on his side. Please help Daddy fix him, too, so that he’s all better and doesn’t remember any of the bad stuff that happened to him before he came here.” She turned her head to face her sister, who was lying quietly on her side, watching us. “Did I forget anybody, Lucy?”
Lucy nodded her head solemnly and I heard Tucker let out a small breath. “You forgot Mama.”
“Oh, yes,” said Sara, squeezing her eyes shut again. “God bless Mama. Please help her find what she’s looking for.”
A heavy silence descended on the room and I was glad my head was bowed so I wouldn’t have to look at Tucker and he wouldn’t have to see my face as I tried to figure out what Sara meant.
“Amen,” Lucy said softly.
I stood and smoothed down Sara’s hair, then leaned down and kissed her softly on her forehead. I waited for Tucker to approach, but when he didn’t, I moved to Lucy’s bed. “Can I tuck you in, too?”
She nodded, her large eyes never leaving my face. I tucked her in like I’d done for her sister but without the tickling, and then, after hesitating only a moment, I kissed her forehead. “Good night, Lucy.” I started to move away but paused, remembering something else I’d long since forgotten. “Sweet dreams,” I added and watched as Lucy’s solemn face broke into a wide grin, the first one I’d seen.
“Mama used to say that to us. It works, too. I always have good dreams when somebody says that.”
I smoothed her blond hair away from her face. “My mother used to say that to me, too, when I was a little girl.”
Her face was serious again. “She doesn’t say that to you anymore?”
I considered what to tell her and then decided on the truth. “My mother died when I was six years old. That was a long time ago and I think I’d forgotten about her telling me sweet dreams until tonight. So thank you for helping me to remember. It’s a nice memory to keep.”
“You’re welcome. Good night, Miss Earlene.”
“Good night,” I said again, and watched as Tucker moved to the side of each bed, bending stiffly to kiss a forehead and say his own good nights before following me out into the hallway.
He waited as I bent down to retrieve the notebook. “Can I carry that for you?”
It was going to make walking more difficult, but I knew how he felt about the book and its contents and who had last seen them and I couldn’t bring myself to ask for his help. “No, but thank you. I’m fine.”
We walked in awkward silence down the hall but I voiced my surprise when we passed the staircase and continued walking to the other end of the long hallway.
“Elevator,” he said, as we stood in front of what looked like another bedroom door, but this one had two buttons on a panel beside it.
I nodded my acknowledgment, secretly grateful that he wouldn’t have to witness my clumsiness climbing down a set of stairs while holding the heavy notebook. We descended in silence, both of us staring at the closed door. The elevator smelled of new carpet and the air was filled with all the words that I couldn’t say: how sorry I was about his wife; how precious his two daughters were and how they would all get used to the idea of living without their mother; and how I hadn’t always been a crippled genealogist but that I’d
once been an equestrian champion with dreams of winning Olympic gold.
Instead, I waited in silence for the doors to open, clutching the bulging notebook as I stepped out into the dimly lit marble foyer.
“This way,” he said, indicating the back of the house. “Odella always leaves the cart by the kitchen entrance.” He pushed on a piece of wall paneling in the dining room, which revealed a hidden door and I followed him into the kitchen, which smelled like dish detergent and lemons and reminded me of my grandmother and the way she’d taken such pride in her kitchen. I stopped in front of the island, staring above at a pot rack covered in gleaming stainless-steel pots and felt a stab of nostalgia for the woman who’d cooked for me all of those years but whom I barely remembered.
“This way,” Tucker said again as he held open the screen door that led outside.
I stood on the brick steps, and inhaled sharply. A mixed bouquet of flower scents wafted toward me like a spritz of perfume, and I turned to Tucker to see if he’d smelled it, too.
He’d paused on the bottom step, his face illuminated by an outdoor gaslight. He had the same half-amused expression he’d worn the first time he’d seen me, flat on my back in the middle of the horse paddock. “It’s Malily’s garden for the blind.”
I joined him on the bottom step. “Her what?”
“She planted it for Helen. It’s full of the most fragrant flowers in existence so that you don’t have to have sight to enjoy it. It’s Helen’s favorite place in the world.”
“I can see why,” I said, closing my eyes as I breathed in deeply.
“You should come by in the daylight to see it. It’s almost as beautiful as it smells.”
“I will,” I said, and moved off the steps. I hadn’t gone very far before I realized that Tucker wasn’t behind me. “Is something wrong?”
He stood staring at me for a long moment before coming toward me. “No. I was just thinking.” He stopped in front of me, his back to the gaslight and his face in shadow. “Lucy and Sara want to learn how to ride, but I don’t really have the time or the patience to teach them myself. I’ve tried to hire someone, but I can’t find anybody who wants to come all the way out here.”