by Karen White
I watched their faces as they vowed to love, treasure, and obey until death parted them, the words flung from their mouths to the wind making them seem like wild and reckless promises. I could not help but wonder whether this had been Georgina’s intention all along.
As soon as the reverend closed his Bible, the small gathering began its solemn retreat back toward the dunes, the guests’ movements slow and awkward because of the sucking sand, but perhaps because of something else, too.
I had planned a small supper at our house to celebrate the nuptials before Georgina and Nathaniel left for their wedding trip to Savannah. But as I glanced up at the darkening skies, I wondered whether their trip would be postponed and hoped fervently that it would not. They needed to be away from this place; I needed them to be away. Even if it was only to be a few days, I needed to breathe freely again, to no longer feel the accusatory stare on my spine.
A hand touched my shoulder and I turned, expecting to see Geoffrey. Instead, I saw Georgina, her eyes wide like a child’s and full of questions. I stopped and allowed the others to pass us by. I tried not to cringe from her touch, to meet her eyes as if I had nothing to hide.
“Speak quickly, Georgina. I must help Leda with the wedding supper, and the guests will be arriving directly.”
Her eyes were restless, her fingers plucking at the pale yellow gown that showed perspiration under the arms already. She looked up at the sky. “I think it will rain.”
“Most likely.” I picked up my skirts. “Let us walk while we talk. Nathaniel will be waiting.”
As if I had not said anything, she didn’t move. “It bodes ill for a bride if it should rain on her wedding day.” Her voice caught with the last words, and I looked closely at her, remembering the small sister who had stopped talking for a whole year when our mother died.
“We make our own good luck, Georgina. And Nathaniel loves you. That should mean something.”
A sneer marred her perfect face. “What is love, Pamela? It is a fickle thing, a feckless plant that blows and sticks itself to a place with shallow roots until the next wind comes along.” She looked at the water and frowned. “I hate it here. I always have. Mama used to tell me that she would take me away from this place, to Savannah or Philadelphia.” Her eyes met mine. “She said she loved me, too, and see what has become of that.”
My head snapped back as if I had been struck. “You are my sister. I will always love you.”
Her eyes met mine, the clear blue reflecting the stormy skies above. “When Mama was ill and calling for me, Papa sent you in to nurse her. He would not allow me in, punishing me for something I did not understand. I did not see her again while she still lived. You went in, and she died. For years I believed that you had taken her from me on purpose.”
I shook my head vigorously, trying to recall events that had occurred so long ago. “He was not punishing you. He did not feel you were old enough, or strong enough, to see Mama in her weakened state. I nursed her as best as I could, but she had given up long before. There was nothing I could do, except love you as a mother and a sister would. And I have.”
“Then why do you not believe me? I did not mean to make you sick. If you had allowed me in to come see you, to explain, I would have told you that. I am not as expert on the herbs and leaves as you are. Can you not believe that it was an accident?”
I thought of the missing jar of pennyroyal leaves, and of the time I had painstakingly explained how to use the leaves to heal, and how much to use for baiting traps for the persistent crawling bugs that vexed us all on the island. Yet it was true that beyond that one instance, she had not worked with me in the garden, or in the kitchen house preparing my medicinals. Perhaps she hadn’t remembered the proper dosages. Perhaps I had been wrong. But none of that mattered any longer.
“I want you to be happy, Georgina. That is all I have ever wanted for you.”
She took my hand and squeezed my gold wedding band between her fingers. “My wedding ring does not say ‘Forever.’ What is between Nathaniel and me is not what is between you and Geoffrey. I think I have always hated you both a little because of it.”
I watched the wind whip at my sister’s hair, tangling and twisting the strands like little lies until it was unclear where they started and where they ended. “Tell me you do not mean that, Georgina. Tell me.”
She stared past my shoulder, out toward the open sea. “I cannot have children; did you know that? And please do not ask me how I know—you will not want to hear it. But that is why little Robbie is so precious to me. He is part me, you know. We share the same blood.”
I cannot have children. The memory of her asking for the pennyroyal tea flitted through my mind as a fissure of fear split open inside my heart. “Yes. You are his aunt.” I wondered whether she could hear the way my words trembled, like dangling leaves in a stiff wind. “He loves you.”
A broad smile brightened her face. “Yes, he does. I would hope that you would continue to allow me to see him. We do enjoy each other’s company, I believe, and he would grieve as much as I should we be separated. I am his only living blood relative, after all. And if something should ever happen to you and Geoffrey, you would not want him to live with a stranger.”
“Let us not speak of such somber matters on your wedding day. I wish you happy, Georgina. May we all have long lives, and may we find love eternal.”
My sister raised a delicate eyebrow. “Do you really believe in such a thing?”
“I do,” I answered without hesitation. “You will find it, too. You will see. That is why Geoffrey and I thought this marriage was best for you.”
Her cool eyes settled on me once more. “Thank you, Pamela. You have made things so much clearer for me.” She stepped forward and put her hands on my shoulders, then leaned in to kiss my cheek. Her lips were icy against my warm skin, and I felt as if I had been kissed by a corpse.
Without waiting to see what I might say, she dropped her hands, then marched forward through the sand toward her bridegroom, who was waiting for her, and looking at her in a way that made me blush and drop my gaze.
I turned toward the frenzied sea as the light changed in the sky, turning the water from green to gray, while in the depths below nothing changed at all.
Gloria
ANTIOCH, GEORGIA
JUNE 2011
I rearranged the snapdragons and passionflower vine clippings in the pale cream vase in the viewing room, comfortable with the other occupant in the room despite the fact that she lay horizontal in an open casket.
Helen Truitt had been Ava’s fifth-grade math teacher, and a classmate of mine from elementary school through high school. It didn’t unnerve me too much that my contemporaries seemed to be dropping like flies. I wasn’t afraid of death, and not just because I was the wife of a funeral director and the daughter of a woman who still carried with her the Native American belief that the life of a man is a circle from childhood to childhood. I truly believed that my lack of fear had more to do with the fact that in my seventy-four years I’d learned that there were a lot more things worse than dying.
I stood before my old friend, eyeing her critically. Denise, the beautician Henry employed, had done a good job with Helen’s hair and makeup, making her appear much as she had in life. Yet maybe that was the problem. I’d always longed to tell Helen that her hair was too dark and youthful for her complexion and age, and her makeup colors hadn’t progressed much since the seventies. That was the main problem with death—that all the things you wished you’d said had to stay stuck in your throat. My throat was getting way too full with words.
I bent down to my basket of flowers to begin the next arrangement when I heard a sound behind me. I jerked up, knowing my back would punish me later for the sudden movement, and stared down at Helen, half expecting her to open her eyes.
“I don’t think she’s going anywhere, Gloria, so you can stop staring.”
I swung around to the half-opened door and saw Mimi in her re
d sundress and matching red low-heeled pumps, the handle of her red patent-leather pocketbook draped over her arm. With her bunions I didn’t know how she managed the heels, but I’d never known her to wear flat shoes since the day I was born.
I tried to appear calm despite the wild beating going on in my chest. Narrowing my eyes, I said, “How did you get here? Please tell me that June or Kathy drove you.”
She scoffed as she walked inside and shut the door behind her, having to push on it twice to get it to close completely. “I didn’t think you’d want either one of them to hear what I have to say to you.” She put her hand on her hip. “You know, if you owned a cell phone we could avoid these kinds of situations.”
My eyes widened. “You drove yourself?” I tried not to picture her behind the wheel of her 1982 Lincoln Town Car, mowing down stop signs and mailboxes. We’d long since hidden the car keys to avoid the long list of apologies and repair bills.
“Did you want me to walk? I’m not in my eighties anymore.”
“But…”
“I’ve known you kept my car keys in Lucy’s old dog dish under the sink ever since you took them from me. You know you can’t keep secrets from me, so I sometimes wonder why you even try.” Her eyes gleamed, and I knew she was talking about a lot more than just car keys.
I turned back to my flowers. “I can only hope that you didn’t kill anybody.”
I straightened again to look at her, aware that she hadn’t snorted or tried to defend herself. Her eyes were soft, yet troubled, and my heart began its wild fluttering again. “What’s wrong?”
“Ava called. She’s been trying to reach you. She said it was urgent that she speak with you.”
Relieved, I said, “If it’s only about us visiting at Christmas, I told her I would think about it….”
“No. She had an accident.”
I dropped the flowers, petals scattering at my feet. “Is she all right? Is the baby…?” I couldn’t finish.
“She’s fine, and so is the baby. She twisted her ankle real bad, but they say if she keeps off of it for a little while, she’ll be just fine.” Mimi moved slowly to a chair and lowered herself into it, using both armrests. I knew better than to ask whether she needed my help, but I kept a close eye on her, noticing how frail she’d become when I wasn’t looking. I didn’t want to see that, didn’t want to recognize that one day Mimi would no longer be in my life.
“They had to take X-rays.” Her eyes met mine and I found myself collapsing into the chair next to hers.
I stared at the open coffin across the room as Mimi continued. “She said that they found evidence of multiple breaks in her foot and legs from what appear to be childhood injuries.”
I had to clear my throat twice before I could speak. “Ava played soccer and softball and hurt herself a lot. She was like a magnet for injuries.” The old words sounded rehearsed, even to my own ears.
“That’s what I told her. She was in a cast at least once, remember?”
I nodded. “But did she?”
Mimi was quiet for a moment, her chest rising and falling in shallow dips. “Yes. But she says that Matthew was concerned enough to have a radiologist friend of his read the films, and the doctor seems to think the breaks appear older than adolescence. That they seem to be from early childhood.”
The silence grew until I could almost see it forming in the space between us. Finally I said, “What did you tell her?”
Mimi scowled at me as if I’d just asked whether she’d run down Main Street naked. “That the doctor is obviously wrong. Doctors make mistakes all the time. Ava seemed to agree.”
“Oh,” was all I could manage as I continued to stare at my old friend reclining in her coffin. I noticed a movement on the floor where I’d dropped my flowers, and saw a bright orange Gulf Fritillary butterfly on the stem of a passionflower vine, languorously flapping its delicate wings. As a child, I’d watched one emerge from a chrysalis I’d kept in a jar on my nightstand, amazed at how something so beautiful could have started out as a caterpillar. I stood and walked toward it.
“Don’t pick it up,” Mimi said from behind me, as if I didn’t know this already, as if I didn’t know that holding something too tightly could damage it irrevocably.
I walked toward the window with its heavy drapes and pulled them aside, then unlocked the window sash and slid it open, allowing in the sun and the heat of the day that pulsed up from the dark asphalt of the parking lot.
Moving slowly, I picked up the passionflower cutting and lifted it into the air, the butterfly’s wings stilling from the sudden movement. I held my breath, then began to walk very carefully toward the open window. When I reached it, I held the stem outside and shook it gently. The butterfly stayed where it was for a moment, its wings straight up, then slowly lowering like a mother preparing for an embrace. Then it lifted into the air with rapid wing strokes and flew away.
I continued to stare after it long after it disappeared, remembering something June had told me after one of her mission trips to central Africa, to a country whose name I couldn’t remember or pronounce, about how the women sang the same chant whether in great happiness or deep grief, and I wished I knew such a song, as my heart was filled with equal amounts of both.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Ava
ST. SIMONS ISLAND, GEORGIA
JULY 2011
I placed my good foot on the bottom step and looked up. It had been a week since I’d been upstairs without being carried to either the bathtub or the bed, and I was more than ready to claim the house again. I wasn’t scheduled to return to work for two more days, and I was already so bored out of my mind that I was afraid that if I didn’t do something productive now, I’d go crazy.
I stepped up onto the first step, then lifted my booted foot to rest next to it before attempting the next stair tread. It took me several minutes, but I managed to make it to the upstairs hallway without hurting myself. Trying not to think about my conversations with Mimi and Matthew about old injuries, I hobbled forward into the master suite.
At the garage sale I’d attended with Tish on the day of my fall, I’d purchased a box of old photographs along with the history book. I’d almost forgotten about them until Matthew told me that Tish had brought the box and the book over and he’d stuck them in the closet.
The new closet add-on he’d built was something out of a design magazine, much like the kitchen. I tried not to think of what parts of it were Adrienne’s ideas and which were his. Because, in the end, none of that mattered. It was my closet now, my house.
Still, I imagined I could smell her perfume when I opened the door, and wondered what Matthew had done with Adrienne’s clothes. I’d found one of her dresses shortly after I’d moved in. It was tucked in a corner with Matthew’s winter clothes—heavy jackets and thick sweaters that weren’t worn too often on St. Simons. But I’d seen the bright colors and pattern that didn’t look like something Matthew would wear, and when I’d pulled it out I’d smelled the perfume that assaulted me every time I walked into this closet. I’d taken the dress and given it to Goodwill. If Matthew ever asked about it, I’d tell him that it was my way of giving up the past.
The book and shoe box sat on top of my dresser, and I managed to tuck both under my arm and shuffle to the bed, where I dropped both. The floral bedspread had long since been donated, and now all we had was a cotton blanket pulled over the sheets. I’d been looking for a replacement, but nothing I’d seen in stores quite fit the mental image of what I thought it should be—a brightly colored quilt in a wedding-ring pattern. I’d never even liked quilts, and I struggled to understand my recent compulsion to acquire one.
I couldn’t quite find a way to sit on top of the high bed, and the little steps were far too delicate for me and my boot, so I wedged myself against the side of the bed and opened up the shoe box before looking inside at the scattered photographs.
I sucked in a subtle air of expectation, the feeling quickly extinguished as soon
as I spied the strangers’ faces and their alien couches. I struggled to see what it was I continued to search for, disappointed with each foreign smile and nameless event displayed in fading Kodachrome.
With a heavy sigh, I picked up all of the loose photos from the blanket and shoved them back in the box, leaving it there while I pulled myself to a stand and picked up the book, wondering briefly how I was supposed to negotiate going down the stairs while holding on to something.
I hobbled to the top of the stairs and stood there, contemplating my next move as my gaze traveled around the hallway, coming to an abrupt halt at a single, dirty handprint on a door at the end of the hall.
Tish had arranged for a cleaning service while I was incapacitated, but their attention to detail wasn’t up to my usual standards. I was one of those rare people who actually enjoyed housecleaning. It wasn’t only that it soothed my mind after a hard week of work; it was more a compulsion to keep this house clean. I’d always been an adequate housekeeper, but there was something about this house, something that came close to a need for preservation for future generations and a reverence for those past.
The door led to the attic stairway, and as I stepped closer, I saw how large the handprint was, the fingers long, the palm broad, and I had a sudden picture of Matthew digging outside by my shed, and his dirty hands when he’d come inside. He’d gone upstairs following our argument and returned with damp hair and the clinging scent of soap. But I’d been outside in my garden, unaware of how long he’d been upstairs, or what else he might have done besides take a shower.
Slowly, I turned the door handle and pulled. It didn’t move. I turned the old iron knob and tugged again, my brain sluggish as it took me a moment to accept reality. The door was locked. It hadn’t been—I’d been up the stairs to give a cursory look at the attic right after I’d moved in. I’d seen the random stacks of old clothes and papers, antique furniture, and new suitcases. The air had been thick and musty, and it was definitely not a space I’d planned to spend any time in. I turned the knob in the opposite direction and jiggled the door, but the latch held firm. My gaze dropped down to the keyhole beneath the handle; I knew I’d find the key missing before my eyes even registered what they were seeing.