A Long Time Gone

by Karen White

  “We were, but then look who we ran into in the hotel lobby.” She stepped back and I imagined I felt the air begin to pop and sizzle like water hitting a hot fry pan. Oblivious, Mrs. Heathman continued. “He was eager to come see what our famous Harvest Festival was all about.”

  Angelo Berlini, dressed immaculately as always in a dark striped suit and a crisp white shirt, a cashmere coat tossed elegantly over his shoulders, stepped forward. “What an unexpected pleasure,” he said, taking my gloved hand and kissing it. I hadn’t seen him since my wedding, but I knew through John that he remained on the outskirts of our lives. “You are lovelier than ever, Mrs. Richmond. Married life suits you.”

  I thanked him, then stepped back, wondering why he’d chosen me to greet first.

  Mrs. Heathman continued with the introductions. “You already know our daughter, Sarah Beth, of course, and this is her college hall mate, Larissa Belmont, of the Baton Rouge Belmonts.”

  Larissa fluttered her eyelashes at him, and allowed him to kiss her hand before he turned to Sarah Beth. Her face seemed as calm and still as the statue’s in the square, her face pale. “It’s a pleasure to see you again, Mr. Berlini.” Her words were stiff, as if her stone lips would crack.

  “Likewise,” he said, sounding as if he were reading from a script. “I understand you’re at Newcomb. How are you liking it?”

  “Very well, thank you.” It looked like she was about to say something else when Angelo held out his hand for another member of their party who’d been hidden from view behind the Heathmans.

  The woman was only slightly older than Sarah Beth and me, but she had the air of royalty, a regal glance that made me think of Agnes Ayres in my favorite picture show, The Sheik. Her hair was black, as were her eyes, but her skin was as creamy as fresh-churned butter and the color of sheets bleached outside in the sun. Despite her fashionable clothes, her voluptuous figure defied constraint by the straight lines of her dress. She was as perfect as a china doll, and I felt Sarah Beth stiffen beside me.

  “Please allow me to introduce Miss Carmen Bianca. My fiancée.”

  I smiled, feeling like a hayseed despite my best Sunday dress and new wool coat. I wished I were wearing my Cartier watch, since that at least would have made me feel more elegant.

  Larissa practically gushed with enthusiasm as she greeted the newcomer, but Sarah Beth was oddly silent. She smiled vaguely in Carmen’s direction, but she’d gone so pale that I thought she might faint.

  I touched her elbow and felt her lean into me. “What a pleasure to meet you,” Sarah Beth said, regaining some of her composure. “I wasn’t aware that Mr. Berlini was engaged.”

  The woman laughed, the sound like water burbling in a fountain. “Yes, well, it’s been unofficial for several years, because my father is a diplomat who travels a great deal with my mother, and we simply have not had the time to devote to planning a wedding.” She squeezed Angelo’s arm into her side. “With all of my parents’ friends and Angelo’s family and wide-flung businesses, it will be quite large. Mother promises me that she will have time next year.”

  “Your accent is just darling,” Larissa said, and I wondered if that was her way of saying, “You’re not from around here.” She smiled sweetly, seemingly completely unaware of Sarah Beth’s discomfort and her desire to get away as quickly as possible. “Where are you from?”

  “New York, although I was born in Paris, where my father was stationed at the time.” She said this in such a languid, bored tone that she might have just told us that she’d had grits for breakfast. Not that I thought a woman like that would ever eat grits.

  “How long do you plan to stay in Indian Mound?” Sarah Beth asked, her voice strong despite the tremble I felt in her arm beneath my hand.

  “Only for a day, unfortunately,” Mrs. Heathman interjected. “Mr. Berlini has business to return to in Jackson. He will be staying at the Main Street Hotel, but I’ve invited Miss Bianca to stay with us. I didn’t realize you’d be home from college, dear, or I would have had your room freshened.” She frowned at her daughter for her breach of etiquette. “I had the blue room made up for Miss Bianca, and I’ll have them prepare the rose room for Larissa.” The smile she directed at Sarah Beth was brittle, as if she couldn’t imagine her daughter imposing on her with no notice. Not that she would be the one putting on the sheets or placing fresh flowers in the vases and clean towels in the bathrooms. I wondered if I should find Mathilda to let her know, so she could warn Bertha, but I didn’t want to see Leon or Velma again, and I certainly didn’t want to see that pearl on Mathilda’s neck.

  “Don’t go to all that trouble, Mother. Larissa and I have to head back to Newcomb tomorrow morning, so we’ll just share my room tonight. What a shame we won’t have a chance to get to know Miss Bianca better.”

  “What a shame,” Carmen repeated, her tone mimicking Sarah Beth’s.

  “Are you ladies here by yourselves?” Mr. Heathman asked. He was shorter than his wife, with sparse graying hair, and one usually forgot he was present, because his wife seemed to take over any room or conversation.

  “No,” I said, looking back toward the horse ring and wishing I could spot the men. I remembered my wedding day, when Willie and Angelo came to blows in the backyard, and I had no interest in repeating it. “John is here, along with my cousin Willie and Chas Davis.”

  I turned to Sarah Beth, hoping to catch her eye to let her know that she needed to get her parents to leave us before the men returned. But she was staring down at my watch, twisting it on her wrist. I leaned forward to whisper in her ear, and a sharp pain erupted from deep in my womb.

  I must have groaned out loud, because Sarah Beth turned toward me, a little color flooding back to her cheeks. “Are you all right, Adelaide?”

  I opened my mouth to let her know that I was fine, that I had to be fine, that all I needed was a chair to sit down in, but another searing pain shot through me, and I felt my knees buckle as something warm and thick slid down my legs. “Get John,” I said, not sure if the words made it past my mouth, the world growing dim around the edges.

  “It will be all right,” I heard a man say, and I knew it was Angelo Berlini. And then he was picking me up in his strong arms while the world around us faded to black.

  Chapter 32

  Vivien Walker Moise

  INDIAN MOUND, MISSISSIPPI

  MAY 2013

  The sunshine had awakened me before the ringing of my cell phone, which was a good thing. Otherwise I’d have been tempted to throw the phone across the room and attempt to reclaim the sleep that I’d managed to find only three hours before.

  I looked at the number and groaned. I let it ring three more times so I could brace myself, then answered it. “Good morning, Mark,” I said, my voice so chipper that I wondered if I should have been an actress.

  “Vivien?” His voice was surprised, as if he couldn’t believe that I’d be awake and alert at this hour.

  “Yes, Mark. It’s me. How are you?” Despite my sleep deprivation, I was rediscovering what it meant to have a clear head in the morning, with thoughts uncluttered by a drug-induced fog. It almost seemed as if the sun were brighter, the sky bluer. Like I’d parted curtains so that I could peer into a future that was still unknown but no longer seemed as frightening.

  After a brief pause, he said, “What time is it there?”

  I lifted the phone from my ear to look at the screen. “It’s six-oh-three. What time is it where you are?”

  “I, ah, it’s a little after eleven in the morning.” His voice was thick with sleep, and I pictured him still in bed, with the perfect body of his new wife curled up against him. The only thing I felt a pang of jealousy about was that he’d been able to sleep until eleven o’clock.

  “You’ve been getting the drug reports?” I asked, knowing that since I hadn’t been ordered to send Chloe back yet he most likely had b
een.

  “Yeah. Twice a week like clockwork. Still can’t believe it, to be honest.”

  “Thanks, Mark. Your vote of confidence means the world to me.”

  “Well, you must be taking something, because something’s giving you an attitude I don’t think I like.”

  I had to remind myself that I had to stay in his good graces to keep Chloe with me. “Is there something you need?” I braced myself, waiting for him to tell me he was coming to get Chloe, and preparing to tell him that she had a patch in my garden that needed tending, and that my mother had breakfast with her each morning, and she hadn’t finished reading all of my books in my childhood bedroom. She had so many reasons to stay, but none of them could have anything to do with me, and I needed to make sure Mark believed that.

  “Ah, yeah, actually.” I heard a woman’s voice nearby, low and suggestive. “Hang on a second,” he said, and I pictured him climbing out of the bed and then moving somewhere more private. “I wanted to know if you could hang on to Chloe for another couple of weeks. We’ve decided to do one of those Orient Express trips through Southeast Asia. Tiffany’s never been out of California and wants to see more of the world.”

  I bit my tongue so I wouldn’t say something about how most children weren’t supposed to have seen much of the world yet. “A couple more weeks,” I said, as if that were a long time and I really had to think about it. “Jim’s okay to run the practice alone for that long?”

  “We hired a new surgeon to take some of the workload, and so I could finally have a vacation. Mike told me to take as long as I needed.”

  I thought of all the times I’d tried to get him to take a family vacation with Chloe and me, or to even spend a day at Disneyland, but he’d always been too busy with work—or golf. It made me sad more than angry that he’d take time off for Tiffany but not his own daughter.

  “So when do you think you’ll be back?”

  “June fifteenth—and then we have to fly to the States. You have airports in Mississippi, right?”

  “Of course. All the planes are crop dusters, but they’ll get you here just the same.”

  “Seriously?”

  For a man who could sculpt the most beautiful pair of breasts or a perfect nose, he could be pretty dense at times. “No, Mark. We have regular airports and big planes. We even have indoor plumbing.”

  “That’s a relief.”

  A woman’s voice in the background began singing the lyrics from Justin Bieber’s song “Baby”—familiar to me only because I’d been forced to listen to the artist’s songs over and over again while living with Chloe. But Chloe was twelve. Tiffany was not.

  “So who’s Tripp Montgomery?”

  “Excuse me?” His question took me by surprise, and I couldn’t at first think who he meant.

  “It’s the name on the letterhead attached to your lab results. I can’t figure out why a note from a Realtor would be included. Is the local doctor also into real estate?”

  “Oh, um, no. Not exactly.”

  “Well, he always includes some sort of personal note with the results, like how patient you are with Chloe and what a good mother you are to her.”

  I felt my face heat. “Oh. That’s nice,” I said, wanting to hug and punch Tripp at the same time.

  “Not really. It’s unprofessional and completely unwarranted. Maybe you can tell him to stop.”

  “Sure. And I’m glad Chloe can stay a little longer. She has a few more homeschool projects she needs to complete, and she’s learning how to fish—”

  I was cut off by the sound of the phone moving and then Mark’s muffled voice. “Just a minute, sweetheart. I’m hanging up now.”

  “Anyway,” I continued. “She’s doing great and learning a lot and even enjoying herself. It’s early and I know she’s still sleeping, but she would just love to talk with you. . . .”

  “Nah, I’ll let her sleep. Tell her I said hi. I’ll call to let you know what flight we’re on so you can pick us up at the airport.”

  “Really, Mark, I think you should speak with—”

  Once again, I knew I was talking to dead air. I ended the call and put the phone back on my night table, wondering how I was going to tell Chloe that she was staying for two more weeks without letting her know that her father had called again without asking to speak with her.

  Four hours later, Chloe and I were headed downtown to the archives. I’d left my mother with Cora, along with Chloe’s instructions on exactly how she wanted her lima bean seeds watered. I’d told her not to expect to see anything for five days, but she checked on her seedlings at least three times a day, and tested the soil to make sure it wasn’t too wet or too dry. I’m not sure if she knew what to do if she got a positive result either way, but I applauded her enthusiasm.

  Her phone sat untouched in her lap, the screen not even lighting up with reminders of Facebook posts or tweets. It was as if her former life in California had receded into the black face of her phone, and there was a part of me that was glad. She needed better friends. Real friends. Like Claire Montgomery and I had once been. In high school we were practically joined at the hip, both of us cocaptains on the cheerleading squad, and instigators of the senior prank where we’d locked farmer Crandall’s mule, cow, and six sheep inside the high school overnight. We’d shared every secret and every dream, usually falling asleep with our phones still pressed against our ears. Until the day I’d packed up and left without saying good-bye.

  “What do kids wear down here when they’re going to a dance?” Chloe asked.

  She was staring out her window, but I was pretty sure her question was directed at me.

  “Well, that depends. What kind of a dance?”

  She shrugged. “Mrs. Smith said that at the end of the school year there’s a party at the middle school gym for all the kids going to high school next year. She said the homeschool kids are invited, too, and it might be cool for me to meet kids my age. It sounds pretty lame, but it’s not exactly Disneyland at your house.”

  “What do you mean? Watching plants grow and learning how to fish isn’t as exciting as riding a roller coaster?”

  She speared me with a look that told me she wasn’t amused. “The plants are a science experiment for school, which means it’s not supposed to be fun. And I haven’t gone fishing yet because Mr. Montgomery got called to a crash and had to leave. So, yeah, a lame dance in a school gym is like a freakin’ Marilyn Manson concert in comparison.”

  I didn’t point out that she had never actually been to a Marilyn Manson concert. Her father had been too happy to shell out the money for tickets without asking any questions, but I’d been pregnant at the time, and off of the pills and thinking clearly, and for once had put my foot down. It hadn’t endeared me to either of them, but I’d been vindicated by the look of relief I’d seen on Chloe’s face. It was as if she’d been testing us, wanting somebody to step forward and be a parent.

  “Back in my day,” I said, “there were a lot of cutoff jeans and sparkly shirts. Big hair has always been popular here, even when the rest of the world was straightening theirs. And cowboy boots. Always had to have a pair of cowboy boots all year ’round, and they’re worn with everything, which, in my opinion, is what started this whole new fashion trend around the country.”

  She raised her eyebrows and let out a loud sigh. “Well, I guess I won’t be going then.”

  Keeping my hands gripping the steering wheel so I wouldn’t be tempted to do a fist pump, I said, “I’ll be happy to take you to Hamlin’s, where you can pick out an outfit or two. It’s going to get really hot here and you’re going to die of heat prostration if we don’t get you some cooler clothing. And a bathing suit. You’ll want one when you go fishing. The way Mr. Montgomery does it, you’ll need to get in the water.”

  I’d already told her about my conversation with her father, and how she could s
tay with me through the middle of June. She hadn’t even asked if her father had wanted to speak with her.

  She slumped down in her seat. “Whatever. As long as nobody takes any pictures for my friends at home to see.”

  I just nodded, looking at her empty screen and knowing there was little chance of that.

  “We’ll have to bring Carol Lynne when we go shopping, all right? She’s been dying to take you.”

  She was thoughtful for a moment, her brows furrowed. “Would she remember that? Or remember that she’d even been there when she got back?”

  We drove in silence as I searched for answers, filtering through everything I’d read on the Internet, and everything I thought I knew about dementia, all of which could fit in a matchbox. I finally gave up trying to come up with a scientific, logical answer and instead spoke from a place inside of me that hadn’t been tapped in a long time. “She probably won’t. But I think she’ll enjoy it while we’re there, which is the point. There’re a lot of things from when I was a kid that I don’t remember specifically, but I do remember the overall good feeling when I think back about school, and Friday-night football games, and visiting my cousin Emmett’s watch shop. Hanging out with my best friend, swimming at Horseshoe Lake, school dances, the annual Harvest Festival they have each year downtown.” And Tripp. I shook my head, trying to clear my thoughts. “I just sort of think that if it makes her happy, then we should do it whether she remembers it or not.”

  She was quiet for a moment. “Is she going to get better?”

  I recalled Tommy’s words, the truth of them finally sinking in. She’s in her own little world right now, a world that’s gonna get smaller and smaller, and I’m not going to recognize her anymore. I shook my head. “No. I’m working on getting her to see a doctor so she can get medicine that will slow the progression of the disease, but she won’t get better.”

  I respected Chloe too much to lie to her, and hoped that I was doing the right thing by telling her the truth. She turned her head to stare out the window and she was silent for a long time. As we passed the sign on the side of the highway that welcomed us to Indian Mound, she said, “At least she’s here.”