Sea Change

by Karen White

I thought of Mimi’s words as she’d handed me the music box. Some endings are really beginnings. I looked up through the darkness toward Matthew and wondered whether giving up the past could mean only looking forward, that this ending could be my new beginning, that trusting him would eradicate the doubt that clung to us like kudzu vines.

  I reached for him, needing the solid feel of his bare skin beneath my fingers. “Yes,” I whispered back. “I want you to help me.”

  He kissed me softly, then settled beside me and I sighed, tasting salt on my tongue and hearing the hum and roll of the ocean once more.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Ava

  ST. SIMONS ISLAND, GEORGIA

  JULY 2011

  Beth honked the horn when she spotted me sitting on the front steps, my crutches resting across my lap. I was hobbling toward her by the time she stopped the car.

  “I could help you, you know,” she said, sounding so much like her mother that I smiled.

  “I know. But I feel bad enough dragging you out to come drive me around when I’m more than capable of doing it myself.”

  Beth moved to my side of the car and opened the door for me. “Are you kidding? It gives me something to do besides obsess over the baby and shop for baby clothes. I’ve got about a month to go before school starts back, so I jumped at the chance to be your chauffeur when my mom called.”

  “Well, in that case, I do appreciate your company, and I’m glad to know you weren’t coerced. Your mom’s not really one to take no for an answer.”

  “No, she’s not.” Beth caught me studying her spiky blond hair. Quickly running her fingers through it, she said, “Don’t worry—it’s just lemon juice to lighten it. I read all the mommy-to-be instructions you gave me at my last appointment, and I promise that no chemicals will touch my hair until after I’ve weaned Cletus.” She patted her belly.

  “Cletus?” I asked.

  She giggled. “Yeah. Since Ken and I don’t want to know the sex of the baby, we chose a generic name to call him or her before he or she is born. It was the only name we could think of that rhymed with ‘fetus.’”

  Laughing, I said, “Nice. Matthew will be disappointed that you called dibs on the name first.” I glanced at her Prius. “Are you sure both of us and my crutches are going to fit in there?”

  Taking my crutches from me, she said, “Oh, ye of little faith,” and then deftly placed them between the two front seats. “Now sit down and make yourself comfortable before I change my mind.”

  I maneuvered myself inside and buckled my seat belt, preparing to brace myself if she drove anything like Tish. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that she drove like an old woman—assuming the old woman wasn’t Mimi—and I wondered whether it was her pregnant state that made her err on the side of caution. I looked in my side-view mirror and saw the line of cars trailing behind us on Frederica Road, but said nothing. We were in the height of the tourist season on the island, and I figured most of them needed a lesson in patience anyway.

  She pulled into the parking lot across from Christ Church, then helped me out of the car. “Got everything?”

  I patted the camera around my neck. “Yep. I shouldn’t be too long. I’m just going to snap pictures of the Frazier tombstones so we have all the dates and names for when we visit the archives.”

  “Great. Mom wanted me to check on the flowers in the church, clean them up a bit, and report back to her. That will probably take me no more than thirty minutes. Unless you want me to come with you and help navigate?”

  I waved my hand. “I’ll be fine, and I’ve got my cell phone in my pocket if I fall and can’t get up.” I studied her worried face for a moment. “Really, I’ll be fine.”

  Her face relaxed. “You want to meet back here in about half an hour? Or if you’re done sooner, just pop your head inside the church to let me know.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” I said. She helped me across the street and down the main path, then continued straight into the church while I veered right toward the cemetery. I tried to remember which path I’d taken the time I’d been here with Tish, but found myself walking in the same circle twice. Eventually, I attempted a worn path in a direction that initially felt wrong, but after winding my way beneath the shade of the tall oaks and crape myrtles, I realized that I was finally headed in the right direction.

  I headed toward the Frazier plot, then abruptly halted. Somebody was whistling. I turned my head and began walking in the direction of the sound, my crutches thumping on the packed dirt and fallen leaves. The leaves of the oak trees shimmied above me in the hot summer sun and I looked up, searching for the dormant resurrection ferns that were invisible now in their cycle of waiting.

  I made my way out of the shade of trees and found myself in a semiclearing with four small white granite tombstones set in a row like grinning teeth. I stopped, recognizing the red wagon and the back of the head of the man kneeling before one of the graves.

  Jimmy Scott turned and smiled when he spotted me. “Hello, Miss Ava.”

  He wore a red University of Georgia baseball cap over his short-cropped blond hair, making his oddly shaped nose even more prominent. Even though he continued to smile, his brown eyes seemed darker, holding in a shadow he couldn’t step out from under. I began to back up. “I’m sorry to disturb you….”

  He stood. Still smiling, he said, “You’re not disturbing me. I was just whistling to my sisters while pulling up these old flowers and planning what to plant next.” I remembered what Tish had said about how he still talked with the two little girls as if he expected them to come back. I suppose I would have, too, if I had lost all of my family and found myself alone.

  I noticed his gardening gloves on his hands, and the uprooted purple cornflowers in his wagon, their roots like the arms of small children asking to be held. Jimmy indicated the stones with a sweeping gesture of his arms. “This is my family.”

  I took a step forward, like I would if I were about to be introduced to strangers, and paused in front of the first one. As if on cue, Jimmy said, “This is my daddy, Walter F. Scott. The ‘F’ is for Floyd, and that’s what everybody called him. I didn’t even know Walter was his first name until I saw it here.”

  The lettering was done in a simple raised block style and, except for one headstone, gave only the name and birth and death dates—the latter being the same for all four. I moved to the second grave, the only stone with an inscription: FROM THE WITHERED TREE, A FLOWER BLOOMS.

  “And this is your mother?” I kept to the present tense, just like he’d done.

  Jimmy nodded. “Uh-huh. Mary Anne Sinclair Scott. Everybody called her Mary Anne.”

  I lifted my camera from my neck. “Do you mind if I take a picture? Tish said to take as many as I can to go with our report.”

  “I don’t mind. I take pictures here all the time. I keep wanting to see one of those orbs or something.”

  “Like in those ghost photos you see on TV?”

  He nodded. “I’ve never seen any, but I keep hoping. I think it would be nice to know I’m not all alone, you know?”

  I looked into his eager and hopeful face, remembering sitting at the dinner table with my whole family, yet still managing to feel as if I were sitting by myself, the people surrounding me like holograms projected from somebody else’s life.

  “Yeah. I know,” I said as I snapped the photo, then followed him to the next two gravestones.

  “These are my little sisters, Christina and Jennifer. Everybody called them Tina and Jenny, but I called them something else.” He smiled shyly.

  “What did you call them?” I asked softly.

  He slapped at a mosquito that had landed on his arm. “Scooter and Skeeter.” He smiled broadly, as if he weren’t talking about two small children who had died in a fire before their third birthdays.

  I squatted down in between the two stones, reading the names and dates: Christina Mary Scott and Jennifer Ann Scott, both born on September fifth, 1977, and dyin
g together on the same day, June thirtieth, 1980. I looked up at Jimmy, trying to see what he was seeing. “Why those names?”

  “Well, I called Tina ‘Scooter’ because that’s how she crawled. Never wanted to crawl the regular way, but scooted on her diaper using both feet out in front of her to pull herself along. It was like she was too impatient to walk and didn’t have time to crawl. Made my daddy real mad, because she learned to walk when she wasn’t even a year old yet.”

  “And Skeeter?” I asked, beginning to understand why Jimmy smiled, my own face letting go of some of the sorrow.

  “Because she refused to talk and instead would just let out this high-pitched screech. She fell and hurt herself real bad when she was real tiny, and Mama said that’s why she wouldn’t talk, that it would come later for her. It never really did.” His smile dimmed, remembering something I didn’t have the heart to ask him about.

  I stood, noticing his scarred hands again and trying to picture the fifteen-year-old he’d been, trying to save his family from the fire. “I imagine that you still miss them a lot.”

  He nodded matter-of-factly, as if we were discussing the weather. “Yeah. I do.” He was thoughtful for a moment as he leaned over to brush dirt off one of the headstones. When he spoke he looked back at me, his eyes warm and familiar. “But I got a new mama and daddy, and a brother and sister.”

  “You mean Adrienne and her family?”

  He nodded. “But it wasn’t like they were taking their place, you know? It’s just that it was a family, and I needed one, and that’s how it worked out.” He lifted a pot from behind his mother’s grave that I hadn’t spotted before, the vibrant red blooms of a swamp hibiscus nodding at me in greeting. “I got this from my garden, transplanted the roots and all so I could bring it here and replant it. Something keeps eating on it, so I figure it might do better here. It’s funny how that works out sometimes.”

  “How what works out?”

  Jimmy shrugged. “How sometimes flowers need to figure out how to bloom wherever they’re planted.” He winked. “Miss Tish embroidered that on a pillow for me.”

  I felt a genuine smile lift my lips. “I like that, Jimmy. I’ll have to remember it.”

  I glanced at my watch, knowing I’d have to hurry to get back to Beth in time. “That song you were whistling—it was the same song you were whistling when you picked me up from that ravine. Do you know what it is?”

  “Yep. It was a song my mama used to sing to Skeeter and Scooter, but they always liked it better when I whistled it for them.”

  “Do you remember the words?”

  He pursed his lips and looked up as if asking for divine inspiration. In a pleasant baritone, he began to sing:

  Oh, hush thee, my baby,

  Thy sire was a knight,

  Thy mother a lady,

  Both lovely and bright;

  The woods and the glens,

  From the towers which we see,

  They all are belonging,

  Dear baby, to thee.

  Stopping, he opened his eyes wide and looked at me. “There’s more, but I figure you got the idea.”

  “Bravo!” I said, clapping. “You have a lovely voice.”

  His cheeks pinkened and he looked down at his tennis shoes. “Thanks, Miss Ava. I sing in the church choir with Miss Tish. She’s the one who told me I should join.”

  “They’re very lucky to have you.” I worried my lower lip. “I’m curious, though, about the words. Do you know a different version, maybe? Other words that talk about a wife and child living across the sea?”

  Again, he looked up at the sky as if in consultation with a higher authority before shaking his head. “Nope. Those are the only ones I ever heard.”

  I adjusted the crutches under my arms. “Well, thanks for the concert. I’ll let you get back to work.”

  He nodded somberly as he watched me work my way out of the small clearing. I paused and turned back to him. “Which way to the Frazier plot? I’m a little turned around.”

  Jimmy pointed to my left. “It’s real close, but I think he wanted privacy.”

  I was too afraid to ask who, so I simply thanked him, then made my way as quickly as I could down the path to where I recognized the small fence and the large granite marker in the front. When I saw blond hair instead of dark, my heart beat easier in my chest.

  John turned as I hobbled my way over the chain fence and into the small enclosure. He’d been sitting cross-legged on the ground in front of his sister’s grave but stood as I approached.

  “Ava,” he said in greeting, staring at my crutches. “I heard about your accident. Glad to see you up and about.”

  “Thanks.” I lifted my palm. “I’m sorry to intrude. I promise to be quick—I’m just here to take pictures of the older graves to add to our report and maybe help me with some of my research.”

  He shoved his hands into the front pockets of his jeans. “I take it then that you haven’t found Adrienne’s notes.”

  I shook my head, thinking of the locked attic. “And Matthew doesn’t know where they are, either.”

  “Like the wedding ring.”

  I checked my anger, knowing this wasn’t a place for it. “She told Matthew that she’d lost the ring while sailing. He had no reason not to believe her. I didn’t tell him that you had it. I was actually hoping that we could come up with some arrangement.”

  He raised an eyebrow in response.

  “An arrangement?”

  I took a deep breath. “It’s a family heirloom, John. It belongs to the Fraziers, and I’d like it back in the family. I’ll be happy to pay you for it.”

  His face darkened as if a cloud had suddenly obscured the sun. “No.” He shook his head. “It’s all I have left of my sister.”

  I put my hand on his arm and squeezed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you. I’m a nurse and a midwife, so it’s just my nature to fix things. The ring brings you no pleasure, John. Why do you hold on to it?”

  He grinned, but it didn’t make me want to grin back. “For evidence.” He turned his back to me and stared down at Adrienne’s tomb. MOTHER OF UNBORN CHILDREN. I thought again of the sketches of the faceless baby.

  Very quietly, almost as if he were speaking to himself, he said, “She told me that it didn’t belong to her. If it wasn’t hers, then whose was it?” He turned his head toward me, spearing me with an accusing glare.

  His expression told me that he had already figured out an answer, and I knew my own explanation that it had belonged to Matthew’s mother and other women in his family wouldn’t satisfy his need for blame.

  “You were friends with Matthew once, so surely you would know that he’s not the sort of person who would be unfaithful, and I resent your implication. I can’t be your friend, John. Not until you accept the fact that your sister died in a tragic accident and that it was nobody’s fault.” I dropped my crutches, then began fumbling with the camera, eager to take the pictures I’d come for and leave John and his anger behind in this place of grief and shadows.

  My hand shook as I focused on the three graves in the back, using my zoom lens so I wouldn’t have to walk on my booted foot to get to the back of the plot. I lowered the camera slowly, reading Geoffrey’s tombstone again. BELOVED FATHER AND FRIEND. BORN 1771. DIED 1815.

  Beloved Father and Friend. No mention of being a beloved husband. No mention of a wife. And no space between or around him and his two children for a fourth grave.

  I started at a touch on my arm. John stood there with my crutches, handing them to me. “I’m sorry. At least let me help you with these.”

  I let the camera drop around my neck, then reluctantly took the crutches. As I turned to leave, his words stopped me. “If you have any doubts, Ava, any doubts at all, I wish you would share them with me. Wouldn’t you want to clear his name if you could?”

  I didn’t bother to turn around. “I don’t need to,” I said with more certainty than I felt.

  I moved my crutc
hes forward.

  “Wait a minute—I almost forgot.”

  Reluctantly I stopped and waited while he dug something out of his back jeans pocket. “I went to a flea market last weekend with my mother and I found an old Instamatic with the film still inside. Naturally, I thought of you, so I bought it and then had the film developed. There was only one photo inside that I thought you might like, so I saved it for you. I’ve been carrying it around hoping I’d bump into you.” He held out a small white envelope.

  After a brief hesitation, I took it. Tucking the crutches under my arm, I slid open the envelope and pulled out the single photograph. Judging by the hairstyles and bathing suits worn by the two teenage girls, the picture had probably been taken in the mid-eighties. Both girls had the same dark brown hair, either permed or naturally curly. One wore hers with a headband, the other in a ponytail with a large bow barrette holding it in place against the pulse of the wind.

  They were standing on the beach, their lanky arms carelessly thrown over each other’s shoulders, the vibrant blue-green of the ocean matching the shade of their eyes. One was slightly taller than the other, and one had on a bikini while the other had on a one-piece. Yet it was startlingly obvious that they were sisters.

  The shadow of the picture taker fell on them, but their expressions were easily read. The taller and presumably older sister stared blithely into the camera, unaware of her blossoming beauty, focused only on the now. But her sister, with a smile that touched only her mouth, had turned from the camera and was looking up at the taller girl, in her eyes a mixture of love and something else I couldn’t define but felt as if I knew. Like watching a movie where somebody was stroking a dog, and knowing how soft the fur is without feeling it yourself.

  “What do you think?” John asked. “Did I get it right?”

  “Pretty much,” I grudgingly admitted. “Except I never keep pictures that show the ocean.” I looked down at the photo, suddenly unsure of my reason why. The surf lapped behind them, yet didn’t appear any more threatening than the clear sky above them or the unspoken words between them.