Sea Change

by Karen White

  “Oh, Ava. Matthew is going to kill me!” She turned her head toward the driver’s seat. “Jimmy, run on inside and tell them we need a stretcher out here, stat. Make sure they know she’s pregnant.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said, then ran from the truck.

  Tish placed her hand on my forehead. “What were you doing at the old Scott place? That wasn’t anywhere near where I told you to start your search.”

  She looked close to crying, so I knew her scolding was to make herself feel better.

  “I’m sorry, Tish. I smelled something burning, and I had to go see.” I closed my eyes again, as if that might make the pain go away.

  “Nothing’s been burning in those woods for more than thirty years, Ava. You couldn’t have smelled anything burning.”

  “It was the smell of ashes, mostly. It was…very strong,” I said, unable or unwilling to explain the compulsion I’d had to follow the scent. I opened my eyes in time to see her giving me a doubtful look.

  I realized my hand was throbbing, too, and when I lifted it to see better, I saw that the side of it was already a vivid blue under the skin. “I think I might have found something, though. When I fell, I hit my hand on something hard like a rock, but when I looked at it I could see that it wasn’t a normal rock, but something that was curved on the edge and maybe manmade. It could be from a chimney or something like that, but it might be worth checking out.”

  A deep crease formed between her brows. “Let’s worry about that later, okay?” She stepped back as the door by my foot opened and a woman wearing a white coat appeared. “I’ve called Matthew and he’s on his way, and I’m not leaving until I know you’re okay. I just want you to try to relax, and make sure anybody who touches you knows you’re pregnant. Especially when they X-ray your leg.”

  I nodded as she disappeared from view; then I closed my eyes again and gave myself over to the pain and the healing hands of professionals, still seeing the vibrant colors of Jimmy’s garden, and hearing my mother’s lullaby whistled softly in the hushed stillness of an island forest.

  I took a sip of tepid tea from my mug, then replaced it on the coffee table. It had grown cold as I’d sat and stared at the same page of my Midwifery Matters magazine for over half an hour. Since returning from the hospital the day before, I hadn’t been allowed to move from the couch in the parlor except to hobble to the bathroom and back and then be carried upstairs to bed. Matthew and Tish had taken turns watching me with a constant vigil—Matthew because he was my husband and Tish because of a misplaced sense of guilt. Luckily, I hadn’t broken any bones, but had still managed to twist or pull just about every muscle and ligament possible in my ankle. I had to wear a demobilizing boot for two to three weeks and stay off of it as much as possible, preferably keeping it elevated.

  I chafed at the restrictions on my mobility, especially that I’d have to miss a week at work and then be confined to the office for another two. I was hoping to be able to at least work in my garden, and when Matthew left for Savannah and I was finally alone again, I was going to try to find out how one managed to plant tomatoes with an immobilized foot.

  After giving me my tea and a kiss, Matthew had gone outside to work in the yard. I’d refused pain medication because of the baby, but I still felt groggy as a result of the entire ordeal. I lifted my head, listening to the quiet of the house and the faint sound of metal scraping against hardened earth. I closed my eyes to hear better—something Mimi had taught me—and heard again the rhythmic scrape and thud of digging. But the sound wasn’t coming from the front yard; it was coming from the back, where I kept my garden and gardening shed with the newly painted red door and shutters.

  Heaving my leg over the edge of the couch to the floor, I then pulled myself up before reaching for my crutches. My hand was still wrapped, mostly to protect it from my hitting it against objects, but at least it had stopped throbbing. It made it difficult to use the crutches, but I’d found a comfortable position so that the bruised part of my hand wasn’t bearing my body weight.

  I found my balance, then hobbled to the side window, where I’d have a partial view of my garden. I struggled to find a good vantage point between the slats of the plantation shutters, until I finally gave in and pulled the shutters back from the window, leaving me with an unobstructed view of the side yard and the entire gardening shed.

  Matthew had discarded his golf shirt and was now wearing just an undershirt and shorts, and as I watched he shoved the tip of his shovel into the ground beside the shed. We hadn’t talked about expanding my garden yet, or where, but it most likely would not have been where he was digging.

  I pressed my cheek against the glass, my breathing fogging the window. Using the back of my wrapped hand, I wiped it clean and peered out again. I had never seen Matthew working in the yard, had never even seen him with a tool in his hand, although I knew he was handy and had built the small deck that led from the French doors off the dining room. He’d even rebuilt the dock on the creek. But he hadn’t mentioned any projects to me involving my potting shed, and I stood where I was for a few minutes, listening to the scraping of the shovel, wondering what he was hoping to find digging so close to the foundation.

  I lifted my hand to knock and get his attention, but before I could, he turned toward me. A sense of déjà vu descended on me, overwhelming me to the point that I was no longer sure of where I was standing or who I was. Our gazes met and, as I watched, he leaned the shovel against the shed and began walking toward the house.

  I almost ducked out of sight, like I’d been caught doing something wrong. My head felt fuzzy, as if I’d been expecting to see something different, see somebody else walking toward me from the shed.

  I’d made it back to the sofa by the time Matthew walked through the front door, but I remained sitting. I smiled up at him as he stood in the doorway, the smell of sweat and dirt only adding to the shock of desire that threaded through my every vein.

  “You’re supposed to be keeping your foot elevated,” he said.

  I looked up into his face, surprised at the sharpness of his words, and wondered briefly why I expected his eyes to have suddenly turned blue. “I was bored sitting on the sofa and I went to the window to see what the noise was.”

  He moved closer and took a seat on the antique wooden rocking chair next to the sofa. “You could have just waited and asked when I came inside.”

  My jaw stiffened. “I’m not a prisoner here, Matthew. It’s okay for me to move around a bit before I resume my position on the sofa with my foot propped up.” In case he needed proof, I lay back on the sofa and lifted my leg up on the pile of pillows Tish had arranged for me.

  He rubbed his hands over his face, and when I saw his eyes again I saw they were filled with concern. “It’s not just you I’m worrying about, you know.”

  I placed my hand on my stomach. “The baby’s fine. He or she is much too small right now to care if I fall in a ravine and hurt my ankle. But I promise to be more careful.” When I saw the look of doubt cross his face, I added, “Really. Besides, it’s not like Tish is going to let me traipse through anything except a manicured lawn until this baby’s born.”

  He smiled, and it was the old smile I had fallen in love with. “Good,” he said. “Otherwise I’d be making you wear a bike helmet and knee and shoulder pads for the next eight months.”

  I relaxed against the pillow and smiled. I was about to ask him what Tish had put in the refrigerator for dinner when I noticed the dirt on his hands and under his fingernails. “What were you digging out there?”

  He hesitated only briefly before answering. “I’d noticed kudzu growing through a crack in the wall of the shed, and I wanted to make sure I got it out at the root. Otherwise it’ll have the inside and outside of your potting shed covered within the month.”

  I studied his hands, afraid to meet his eyes. “You dug a lot just to get to a root.”

  Again, he seemed to hesitate, as if his words needed measuring. “That�
��s where the old root cellar used to be until my grandfather got locked inside while playing hide-and-seek with his brothers and cousins. Almost scared him to death—couldn’t go into a dark room for the rest of his life. So my great-grandmother had it filled in and the doors removed. While I was digging I wanted to make sure that there hadn’t been any settling, that the hole was still sealed. The old root cellar ceiling beams have long since rotted, and I didn’t want the floor of the shed giving way while you’re standing on it.”

  “Then thank you,” I said. His words made sense, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that he was leaving something out.

  He stood and sat on the edge of the couch. “I feel so protective of you. And not just now, because you’re pregnant. I’ve felt this way since the first time I saw you.” He smiled softly. “I guess you’ll just have to bear with me.” His thumb rubbed the ridge of the birthmark on my left hand while his eyes studied my fourth finger, where I wore only my gold wedding band. “Maybe we should sell your engagement ring and buy baby furniture with it.”

  Our eyes met, and I wasn’t sure whether he was joking or not. “Matthew, you know I love my ring. It’s just that when I’m working, or hanging out at home, it seems—I don’t know—like too much. I do like it, but I like my wedding band, too.”

  I grasped his fingers and held tight, realizing that now was the opportunity I needed to discuss the one thing I didn’t want to. “When we first got engaged, you mentioned that your family had an heirloom wedding ring.” I sucked in a breath. “Was that the ring Adrienne wore?”

  His eyes darkened like the sky before a storm. “Yes. Why are you asking?”

  I held his fingers tighter, afraid he’d pull away. “Do you know where it is?”

  He didn’t hesitate before answering. “She lost it. While we were sailing. That last summer, when we were practicing for the Charleston regatta. She said it was too tight for her finger, so she stuck it in her back pocket and it must have fallen out.”

  I looked down at our entwined fingers that reminded me of the roots of the live oaks at Christ Church, long instead of deep, as if to reach through time itself. “Oh,” I said, John’s words spinning in my head like a ring on a laminate table. She said it didn’t belong to her. I looked up at him again. “Who wore it before Adrienne?”

  “My mother. I inherited it when she died, and I kept it until I had a bride to give it to.” He was silent for a moment. “When I allow myself to think about it, I find myself wishing that I had waited to give it to you.”

  I bent my head and closed my eyes, remembering the word Forever engraved on the inside of the ring, and knew I couldn’t tell him now about my meeting with John, or that the ring had not been lost. She said it didn’t belong to her. I told myself that I knew now what Adrienne had meant by those words, that it had belonged to too many others to truly be hers. Later, cushioned by the space of time, I would tell Matthew what I knew and perhaps even get the ring back. But not now, when our marriage was still so new and fragile.

  His phone rang and he answered it, turning away from me to carry on an abbreviated conversation with one-word answers. He hung up and went to the window and was silent for a long moment. Then he turned toward me, as if he wanted to ask me something, but stopped and instead said, “I’m going upstairs to take a shower. Do you need anything before I go?”

  “What’s wrong?” I asked, as if he could hide anything from me, as if I didn’t know the dreams he left on his pillow when he awoke.

  “I think you need to rest—”

  “No,” I said, cutting him off. “I need to know what’s wrong.”

  He cast a reluctant gaze toward the stairs before walking back to where I lay on the sofa. Slowly, he sat again on the edge of the rocking chair facing me, his expression devoid of emotion, and I wondered whether this was what he looked like when he counseled patients. A tingle of alarm began at the base of my skull.

  He took a deep breath. “That was an old friend of mine, Walt Mussell. We met in undergrad, but Walt went on to medical school and is now a radiologist. I asked him to read your X-rays.”

  I sat up. “But my doctors said there was no break, just a bad sprain. Why would you need a second opinion?”

  He rested his elbows on his knees and folded his hands, much as I imagined he’d do during a counseling session. “My questions didn’t have anything to do with your most recent injury.”

  “What do you mean, ‘my most recent injury’?”

  He paused, measuring his words. “Were you ever in a car accident as a child, or did you sustain a bad fall?”

  I used my wrists to push myself higher on the sofa, and I winced as I put too much pressure on my injured hand. “No, never. Why?”

  His face remained impassive. “Do you ever remember breaking your foot or your leg?”

  “What are you getting at, Matthew? I’m not one of your patients. Just tell me what you’re trying to say.”

  He steepled his fingers, and I wanted to grab his hands and shake them loose. I hardly recognized this man, this professional who listened to children who told him things most people didn’t want to hear. “Your X-rays show healed multiple bone fractures in your foot and leg. They’re old injuries, possibly sustained as a toddler or even as an infant, which is probably why your doctor didn’t think to mention them. But I happened to see the X-rays, and because of my line of work am trained to question injuries sustained during early childhood. They’re well healed, meaning they were set by a professional or at least by somebody who knew what he or she was doing.” He paused, examining my face as if I were supposed to be giving him some sort of clue. “Usually those sorts of injuries for a person that young are caused by a catastrophic incident—like a car accident.” He paused. “Or it could be a sign of physical abuse.”

  Images of my father’s gentle face and of my mother’s fingers brushing dirt from the gossamer petal of a lily filled my mind, completely at odds with what Matthew was implying.

  “No. Absolutely not. My parents never laid a hand on me. Nobody did. They didn’t need to. A look from my mother to show me she was disappointed was all it took to make me straighten up real quick.” I shook my head vigorously, as if to add veracity to my words.

  He leaned forward and placed a hand on my arm. “Sometimes children bury painful memories, Ava. It’s a form of self-preservation that children develop to protect their young minds from things they’re not ready to comprehend. I know you and your parents have your differences….”

  “No!” I shouted. “I’m thirty-four years old—don’t you think at some point I would have recalled something? Because if that sort of abuse was sustained while I was a baby, surely it would have continued as I grew older, and that I would remember. And I don’t.” I glared at him, surprised to find myself close to tears. Quietly, I said, “Being emotionally distant is a far cry from physical abuse. You should know that.” I shook his hand off and turned my face away, too angry and stunned to look at him.

  I heard the rocking chair creak as he stood, and then felt his touch on my cheek, but I still couldn’t look at him. “I know this is hard to hear, Ava. And that’s why I had Walt double-check your films. But the X-rays don’t lie. Something happened to you when you were a small child, something horrible. I’ve had too much experience in this to not know that whatever it was is still affecting you today. The difficulties with your mother, the way you feel alone even in crowds, your nightmares, and maybe even your fear of water.” He paused for a moment and I waited, prepared for the final blow. “Even the way you rushed into a relationship with me.”

  I jerked my head toward him, aware that my shock and anger registered on my face. “I love you, Matthew. That’s the only reason I rushed into a relationship with you. And it wasn’t like I was the only one.” I spat the words at him, but he didn’t flinch.

  “Would you allow me to speak with your parents?”

  I swung my leg over the side of the couch, oblivious to the pain and discomfort. “And
do what? Accuse them of unspeakable things? They have never laid a hand on me—I swear it. And I see no reason to disrupt their lives with baseless accusations. They’re a bit too old for all of this trauma.”

  “Then let me hypnotize you. I use it a lot in therapy to bring back hidden memories. I think it might be helpful to you.”

  I fumbled for my crutches and stood. Matthew didn’t help me, but I felt his eyes on me the whole time, knew he was ready to step in if needed. “There are no hidden memories to discover, okay? So I don’t need to be hypnotized. I played a lot of sports as a girl. Maybe my injuries were more serious than I remembered. If it makes you happy, I’ll call my parents and ask. But I don’t want to hear any more about this, all right? You’re always asking me to look forward, so let’s do that. And I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t go behind my back and ask for second opinions on things concerning me ever again.”

  I hobbled out of the room and through the kitchen to the back door, struggled with it to get outside, and almost gasped for the fresh air of my garden when I finally made it down the steps.

  Matthew didn’t follow me, and I was glad. Because somewhere in the dark places of my memory, a seed of truth had become dislodged, bringing with it the images of flowers and the haunting melody of a song that was familiar and unfamiliar at the same time.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Pamela

  ST. SIMONS ISLAND

  SEPTEMBER 1811

  We stood on the damp sand, our shoes sinking so that we periodically had to lift our feet and place them in another spot, only to begin the process all over again. I barely noticed as I focused on the words spoken by Reverend Matthews, carefully listening to ensure that Georgina said the correct words, and that she and Nathaniel would be properly wed.

  Georgina had chosen the beach for the ceremony, and we had allowed it. It was the only decision regarding her marriage in which she had been allowed to voice her opinion, and Geoffrey and I considered it a harmless one. The wind whipped up white tips on the waves past the shoreline like little flags of surrender, and I wondered whether my sister thought that, too.