by Karen White
“But you had no other contact with her?”
Lillian’s knuckles began to hurt and she rubbed them, trying to make the pain go away, and knowing that nothing would ever take it away completely. “No. We’d made a clean break. There was no more contact.”
Piper leaned forward, her elbows on her knees. “Was it Josie who added the baby carriage charm to Lola?”
How easy it would be to say yes. Lillian shook her head, the effort exhausting her. “No. Alicia wasn’t born until nineteen fifty and we stopped adding to Lola when we split up the scrapbook in nineteen thirty-nine.”
“So who did?”
Lillian fisted her hands, wishing she had a drink. As if reading her mind,Tucker stood and moved to the wet bar, then poured her a generous glass of sherry. She took her time sipping from the glass, her eyes never leaving Piper. “That would be jumping ahead in our story, wouldn’t it? We’ve still got a few more pages in Annabelle’s scrapbook, and you’ve got most of mine still to read. That way you’ll have all the information you need before you start jumping to conclusions. But maybe that’s your nature. Is it, Piper? To jump ahead of yourself before you’re prepared?”
She watched as Piper’s cheeks darkened. Before Piper could defend herself, Tucker stood again. “That’s enough, Malily.” Tucker moved back to the wet bar and poured three more glasses of sherry.
Lillian looked down at her hands, knowing he was right. “All right. Why don’t you tell me what you learned today? I’m eager to hear how events have been distorted by the historical record.” The weight of Lola on her chest surprised her. It was the weight of years pressing against her chest, pushing the air out of her lungs.
Tucker brought over the drinks and Helen clasped hers with both hands as she spoke. “Why don’t you read from your scrapbook first? You haven’t gotten very far.”
“My eyes hurt, and it’s hard for me to read the handwriting. Why don’t we have Piper read it?” She wasn’t sure why she’d said that, only that she realized how much Piper sounded like Annabelle, and how when she’d been ill, she’d enjoyed listening to the sound of Annabelle’s voice reading to her. It was a rare place in her memory, a place untouched by adulthood.
“I’d be happy to.” Piper stood and moved to the desk where Lillian had motioned.
“The pages are stacked in order from the top. Thumb through them to find where you stopped. I didn’t write every time I had Lola, so I don’t have as many pages as Josie and Annabelle.” She took a sip from her glass. “They had a gift for turning the mundane into something exciting to write about. I preferred to live an existence that was a bit more exciting, and precluded the need to share lest all my secrets be exposed.”
Piper glanced at her, then leaned over the desk, and Lillian noticed how her hair fell over her shoulders, the first time she’d seen it loose. It softened her, shadowing the blunt edges and angles of a woman who’d once jumped tall obstacles without blinking an eye.
Sitting back down next to Tucker, Piper cleared her throat and began to read.
June 14, 1937
It’s been a year since my debut and Papa is getting impatient with me. I can’t explain to him that my future isn’t solely in my hands, that I wait for my love to offer for me, to take me away so that we can live together finally as man and wife.
I’ve told no one except this book, so Josie and Annabelle are left to wonder when they read this. It’s remarkable that the sisters of my heart don’t yet know the depth of my love, or the secrets in my heart.They only know that Charlie makes me laugh, and loves to dance and has already promised me that he will love me forever.
Sweet Annabelle, I think you suspect my secret, but your loyalty keeps you silent. Or is it jealousy? Your clandestine activities to help those less fortunate amongst us are admirable, but I’m afraid they won’t keep you warm at night. Take care, my friend, that you choose wisely.
I’m afraid these affairs of the heart have cooled our friendship, and it grieves me. That’s why I invited Annabelle and Josie to Asphodel last month. Our friendship is meant to last forever and I’d hoped we could recapture some of our childhood. I think we did, too. We went riding again, just like old times and even got Josie to sit in a saddle, although she never went faster than a slow walk. But Annabelle flew over hedges and gates—scaring the life out of me and Josie—but she was a queen on her horse.The very best.And I remember thinking at the time that I wished for her in life what she felt at that moment—sheer joy and passion at having found the thing that makes her heart beat wildly. People live their entire lives without discovering what that is, but she’s found it by helping others. And by flying over hedges on the back of a horse.
And then we went to the county fair and all the men couldn’t take their eyes off of us—it was so flattering! Annabelle did exchange words with a young man who said unkind things to Josie, but she put him in his place so he didn’t bother us again. Annabelle’s like that—when she speaks, she speaks with authority and people listen. I think that will help her when she becomes a doctor and has to tell people what they need to be doing.
They had a singing contest and Annabelle and I made Josie perform. She didn’t win, and we suspect it was because she was the only woman of color who participated, but we all knew she was the best.The girl shines on stage and it’s only a matter of time before somebody important hears her sing and decides to make her a star.
The fair had just finished the new dance pavilion and we didn’t lack for partners, if I may say so myself. We tried cotton candy for the first time and Annabelle enjoyed it so much that she went back for seconds.When we went on the Ferris wheel, the spinning and all that sugar was too much for her and she barely made it out of our car before she threw up behind a bush. She was embarrassed but I laughed, and that made her laugh, too, and it was just like old times, with the three of us together.
We grew close again, didn’t we? Until Freddie returned to Asphodel to break in a new mare my father managed to acquire from a bankrupt lawyer. And things grew awkward between us again. I wish he hadn’t come. Because friendships are forever, regardless of any matters of the heart.
Piper was silent for a moment before she looked up. “There’s another entry. Shall I go on?”
With their nods of assent, she continued to read.
April 9, 1939
She stopped, looked up at Tucker. “That’s the year Freddie died, isn’t it?”
Tucker nodded, and Piper’s gaze fell back to the book but she paused for a moment, filing away the information, before she began to read again.
My father has stopped writing for me to come home. I’ve told him that Annabelle is still busy nursing her increasingly frail father and exhausted from all the extra work that has fallen on her shoulders.
At least that wasn’t a complete lie. She has taken upon herself the burden of running the household and nursing her father, but she also seems to hold a great deal of anger toward him. When I ask her about it, she gets upset with me, so I’ve stopped asking. I think they might have had an argument that has yet to be resolved, and she can’t bear to think about it. Several times she has taken me aside and tried to tell me something, but has so far been unable to. But sometimes she has a gleam in her eye, like she knows something that I should know, but she harbors her secret in an attempt to best me. I hope, with time, it will be easier for her and she can unburden herself to me. I owe her that, at least, considering everything I’m asking her to do now.
I’ve told my father that I would like to stay for at least another six months—for reasons obvious to us here but not to him. I told him that I’d like to find employment, and it’s easier here in the city. And Annabelle does need me after all, though I could never tell my father why.
Papa tells me that Charlie comes to Asphodel at least once a week on the pretense of visiting my father but everyone knows it’s to find out about me. Papa said that Charlie’s bank is doing well, considering the times, and it’s quite plain to anybody with ey
es that Charlie needs a wife and that he’s already decided on who he wants.
Charlie would make a good husband, I know.When I think of him, I remember him at my come-out, and how he danced and made me smile. It wasn’t that long ago, but it feels as if it happened in another lifetime, and a part of me wishes that I could go back, that we could all go back and be the people we were before. But that’s impossible now.
Piper stopped and looked across the room to Lillian. “There’s an envelope here that’s come loose from the page.” She glanced down, holding the paper as if it were a delicate flower petal. “Is this the letter Susan found?”
Lillian swallowed, the necklace heavy on her skin. “No. That’s from Charlie. Go ahead and read it.”
With clumsy fingers, Piper slid the letter out. “It says, ‘Marry me, Lily. Come home and marry me. My heart is quite lost to you, and there is nothing you could ever say or do that would cause my opinion of you to sway. I love you, sweet Lily. Come home to me and be my wife.’ ”
“Did he ever come to Savannah to see you in person?” Helen placed her untouched sherry on a side table and sat on the edge of her chair.
“Every week, I think. But I would never see him. Annabelle would have Justine make excuses for us so that neither one of us would have to face him. Sometimes he’d sit on the porch for hours waiting for me to change my mind, but I never did.”
Piper used both hands to swipe her hair from her forehead. “But I thought you loved him. And you did end up marrying him the next year. So why did you make him suffer?”
Lillian leveled her with a stern gaze. “You’re jumping ahead again, dear. Be patient.”
Piper didn’t back down. “I’m not jumping ahead. I’m just trying to fill in the empty places you seem to be skipping over. Like the letter that Susan read that you told Tucker was an unsent letter you’d written to a friend. Was it intended for my grandmother? And is it in here?”
Lillian continued to watch her, wondering who would back down first, and not at all sure of the answer.
Tucker placed a hand on Piper’s arm and she looked at him for a long moment before sliding back in her seat. She cleared her throat and began to read again.
Annabelle shared a secret with me today. She led me up to the attic and made me help her shove an old armoire away from the wall. A locked door had been hidden behind the armoire, but Annabelle had a key. She said she’d found it with her father’s things as she and Mr. Morton were getting his papers in order. Before she opened it, she told me that she thinks she’s found the answer to all of our problems.
On the other side of the door lay a sad little room. A small bed with sparse furnishings was all it contained, but I understood immediately what she meant. A person could live here without the interference of prying eyes from the outside world. If a person wanted to disappear for a period of time, this would be the perfect place.
I feel better now that our predicament has a temporary solution. I might even be able to sleep at night, if only we knew where Freddie was. Josie tells us that neither she nor Justine has seen or heard from him since I’ve come here, and certainly Annabelle and I haven’t either. Unless Annabelle isn’t telling me everything. But I can’t be angry with her. She is being more like a sister to me, and I can’t be anything but grateful to her.
I only added one charm this time: a golden key. It’s to symbolize the key to our sanctuary, and to the locked door of our future. For all three of us that future is a mystery, and I wonder which one of us will be the first to figure out how to unlock it.
Helen had moved to the floor by her grandmother’s chair as if the story being told was theirs together, that anything revealed would be about them. She placed her hand over Lillian’s. “We went into the secret room today, Malily. We believe it was probably built for a little girl born in the late eighteen hundreds, Margaret Louise O’Hare. Piper found a blue knitted blanket there. And she also found a blue baby sweater in Annabelle’s trunk. Whose baby were they for?”
Lillian turned, listening to the sound of the clock, the necklace pressing down on her again as she struggled to find words.
“Would you like us to leave now?” Piper stood, as if she could feel, too, the need to end the story now—now that it still had the chance for a happy ending. Annabelle had been that way to the end, unable to believe that the worst thing that could happen to you could happen twice.
Lillian shook her head, feeling as if the ticking from her bedside clock was louder than it should have been, the passage of time echoing through the still room. “No. Not yet.”
Piper’s hand reached up to the angel charm around her neck. “My grandmother, Annabelle, she was a good friend to you?”
Lillian nodded without hesitation. “The very best. Even when I didn’t deserve it. I was jealous of how close she and Freddie worked together with the movement. I was excluded from helping because of my father and his association with the Klan, not that I think I was so brave back then to be of much use, anyway. So I tried to make Annabelle jealous by flirting like crazy with that boy from the law office. He was a lot younger than us, but I think she had a tender spot for him.”
“Paul Morton?”
“Yes. That was his name. Nice-looking young fellow. I think he had it bad for Annabelle, too. But she never said anything to me. Allowed me to make a fool out of myself without any repercussions.” She smiled to herself, remembering. “Josie and I used to say that we were the stones and Annabelle the mortar. She kept us together.”
Piper and Tucker exchanged a glance. Piper stood and moved to sit on the footrest of Lillian’s chair. “We found the birth records for Freddie and Josie today.”
“Yes?” This wasn’t a direction Lillian had anticipated.
“Did you ever know who their father was?”
Lillian shook her head. “It didn’t really ever concern me. Since I was very little and began visiting the O’Hare household with my father, Justine was there with Freddie and Josie. There was never a father. He simply didn’t exist, and to my young mind it never occurred to me to ask. Why?”
Piper cleared her throat. “Dr. Leonard O’Hare was their father. Josie and Freddie were Annabelle’s half brother and half sister.”
Lillian stared at her for a long moment, not comprehending at first. The ticking of the clock was more insistent now, each tick louder than the last, the sound coming from very far away. She shifted her head. “But Justine . . . She was . . . she was his housekeeper.”
“Apparently she was more than that, Malily,” Tucker said gently.
“Did . . . did Annabelle know this?”
“According to her scrapbook, we think she didn’t find out until her father was so sick with the flu.”
Lillian’s gaze darted around the room. Couldn’t they hear the clock ticking? She jerked her hand out toward the sound of the clock, succeeding in knocking it to the floor. She held up her hand to stop Tucker, who’d already stood. “Leave it.”
Piper spoke again. “Annabelle or Josie never told you?”
Lillian stared at Piper for a long moment, seeing her friend Annabelle—the friend whose loyalty she’d taken for granted, who’d taught her how to cultivate tea roses and who’d known how to keep a secret. “I don’t think Josie knew. And Annabelle never told me.” She closed her eyes and laughed, the sound brittle and hollow. “I was jealous of Annabelle. I thought she and Freddie . . .”
Helen leaned forward. “But wouldn’t she have told you? You were like sisters. I would have thought she’d confide in you about her feelings.”
Lillian gasped, the memories of her youth cold and unyielding against the reality of her frail body. “Yes. She would have. I know that now, but back then . . .” She shook her head, still unable to tell the rest of the story. The ticking from the clock, although now muffled, continue to reverberate through her head.
Tucker stood and moved to press the buzzer on the wall by her bed. “I’m calling Odella. You’re not looking well, Malily. We can
continue this tomorrow after you’ve rested.” After murmuring something in her ear, he lifted her as easily as one of his daughters and brought her to the bed. Piper approached and adjusted the pillows under her head and placed a blanket over her legs, her touch soft and reassuring as Lillian had known it would be.
Lillian nodded, feeling the tiredness now in her bones. She welcomed it, this respite from the pain. But there was something new, too. She felt lighter, somehow. As if the secrets that had long anchored her to this world were slowly fraying, like a ship breaking its moorings as it slid out to sea.
She turned her head and blinked at the watery image at the foot of her bed. Annabelle sat there, her knitting needles flying, the ticking of the clock having eased its way into the clicking sound of needles. Blue yarn spilled on the white chenille bedspread, only Lillian knew that it wasn’t the right bedspread. Always knitting, Annabelle. Always that incessant knitting as we’d waited those last months for news of Freddie. How I’d hated it. And how I hated you for having something to keep you busy besides regret.
She heard Helen whisper in her ear before kissing her cheek. “Good night, Malily. We’ll see you in the morning.” Lillian closed her eyes and the sound of the knitting needles ceased.
Piper took her hand and Lillian managed to hold on to it, pulling her closer. “Stay. Please.”
Piper sat down on the edge of the bed, not releasing her hand. “Okay.”
Lillian waited for Tucker and Helen to leave before speaking again. “I need you to do something for me.”
Piper nodded.
“In the top drawer of my writing desk is an old framed photo. I need you to bring it to me.”