by Karen White
Bennett began leading me away, and I waved to Mabry, Jonathan, and Mrs. Lynch, trying to make a mental note to tell Mabry that I thought she’d made a good choice of husband.
We walked without talking for an entire block, me hanging on to his arm to keep going in a straight line. As soon as we got past the historic district and the street became more residential, we moved to the grassy yards of the homes we passed to give my feet a break.
I stopped in the middle of one of the yards, enjoying the damp coolness of the grass. I looked up at Bennett as if I’d just invented something important. “I haven’t gone barefoot in years—not a good idea in the city, you know? But there’s something nice about it—feeling the ground beneath your feet. Reminds me of the old me, I guess.”
“Good,” he said, his voice so quiet, I wasn’t completely sure he’d spoken.
We walked in silence until we reached Ceecee’s house. I had to lean on Bennett’s arm to climb the steps. The porch lights were on, and Ceecee had kept the front door open, with just the screened door closed to keep out the bugs.
Bennett handed me my shoes. “Do you want me to make sure you can climb the stairs all right?”
I shook my head. “I’m sure Ceecee is lurking inside, so I’ll be okay.” Then I remembered my manners again and added, “But thanks.”
“I’m pretty sure you won’t remember this in the morning, so I’ll call to remind you, but I wanted to let you know that Dr. Wallen-Arasi wants to come out on Friday morning to see Carrowmore and give us her professional opinion.” He looked at me closely as if deciding whether to say anything more. “Also, my mother was getting ready for a garage sale and found a couple boxes of old files and newspapers that had belonged to my granddaddy. There’re a few things in there you might want to see.”
I hadn’t really been listening, just enjoying the cool river breeze and the sound of his voice. It didn’t appear that Bennett was expecting an answer, so I didn’t say anything. The walk had cleared my head to a certain degree; instead of swimming, the world rocked gently, like a docked boat in a safe harbor. I looked up at Bennett, enjoying the calming sensation of being rocked, and felt his arms around me again.
“You’re going to fall over if you keep leaning backward.” His smile belied the sternness of his voice.
I decided I liked the feel of his hands on my waist, so I kept leaning backward, studying his face. “You’re not too hard on the eyes, Bennett Lynch. And in the morning I’ll probably regret having said this, but I think you’re funny and smart and fun to be with. How come some girl hasn’t laid claim to you yet?” I pulled back as another thought crossed my mind. “You’re not gay, are you?”
His mouth twitched, and I noticed how nice his lips were, how full and well formed and probably great to kiss. “No, Larkin. I’m not gay.”
“Not that there’s anything wrong with that,” I said earnestly.
“No,” he said. “But I’m not.” He was definitely smiling now, but when I peered at him in the dim glow of the porch lights, his eyes seemed sad.
“So, there’s no one special in your life right now?”
He sighed, his breath warm on my face. “There is, but I don’t think she knows I’m the perfect man for her.”
“Well, maybe you should introduce us so I can talk some sense into her.”
“Yeah. Maybe I will.”
We were standing very close, with his arms around me. My gaze drifted to his mouth again, to those lips of his.
“You should go inside now,” he said.
“Hmm,” I murmured.
He leaned toward me and I closed my eyes, surprised to feel the soft brush of his lips on my forehead before he stepped back, moving his hands to my shoulders. “Here, let me help you.”
He opened the screened door and with a gentle pressure on my back, pushed me inside, then placed my shoes neatly on the floor. “Good night, Larkin. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
As he walked away I watched through the screen, listening to his footsteps cross the porch and move down the steps, and wondered why I suddenly felt so bereft.
eighteen
Ivy
2010
“Mama?”
Larkin waits, as if expecting me to answer. And I try; I really do. I focus on the big toe of my right foot, putting all my effort into just making one movement. According to one of the articles Ceecee found on the Internet, that’s where all coma patients have to start—with moving their big toe. I think. I wasn’t really listening; I was paying attention instead to Ceecee’s face, and to how much I associate it with love. It was her face that calmed me when things were bad after Ellis left.
And I keep thinking about my memory—or was it a dream?—of being carried out of the fire, and looking up into the face of the person who’d saved me. The smoke blocks my vision, but the arms holding me hug me close and I feel safe.
As with all mothers and daughters, we had our struggles. But after the accident and my being in this room, the hard edges of my resentment have softened like butter left on the counter. The softer I feel, the fuzzier the ceiling of my room becomes, like I’ve found a part of the combination to spring me loose. I just need to figure out the rest of it.
“Please wake up, Mama. There’s so much we need to talk about.”
Larkin seems so near tears, and my heart breaks a little more. She’s pulled out that gold necklace Bitty gave her, and she’s playing with it. I didn’t want Bitty to give it to her. I thought she was trying to tell Larkin she could choose where she belonged. As if she could call anywhere else home. I understand the pull of this place, how you can’t leave no matter how hard you want to. When your blood runs with salt water, you might as well drop anchor and get comfortable.
“We’re having a consultant meet with us at Carrowmore on Friday to see if it’s salvageable. It’s Daddy’s idea, and he says he’s working for our best interests.” She reaches for a tissue and blows her nose, the sound like a flock of geese flying across the room. “It would be so much easier if you’d just wake up and tell us what you think. I know it will all belong to me, but only because you gave it to me, and I’d like your thoughts on what I should do. I really would like to know why you went to Carrowmore that day of your accident. I think the ribbons you put in the tree are some kind of clue, but I can’t figure it out.”
I want to answer her, but I can’t because I no longer remember why. I struggle to recall, but my memory keeps taking me down the same path, to me refinishing a desk in Ceecee’s detached garage, then parking my car at Carrowmore before walking toward the Tree of Dreams with a ribbon in my hand. One ribbon. Not two. A shock of light flits through my body, and I’m transported upward again, and I’m looking down at my bed and at Larkin, who’s taken my hand in hers.
She’s talking, and I’m listening carefully because I know this is important. “I think I understand what the first ribbon is about—the one that said ‘I miss you. I wish I’d been given the chance to know you.’ That’s about Margaret, my grandmother, isn’t it? You never got to know your mother because she died when you were so young. I get that. I also believe that’s the same reason why you never wanted to own Carrowmore, and gave it to me instead.” Larkin lets go of my hand and leans back in her chair.
She tilts her head to look up at the ceiling, and for a moment I wonder whether she can hear the crackling, see the light creeping through the openings. But then I see she’s doing it so that she can cry without the telltale tears running down her face.
“I wish I’d known about Ellis. Then maybe I would have seen your need to always try new things as a desperate need to be happy. We might have been able to figure out how to be happy together. And I wouldn’t have made myself so miserable trying to be someone I wasn’t.
“I don’t blame Ceecee, you know. I was so angry with her when I left—yet another reason why I stayed away. But my therapist he
lped me see that Ceecee had made lots of mistakes trying to cover for your absence and to make me feel special. It’s hard to find fault in someone who just has love in their heart for you, you know?”
The crackling noise continues, and behind it I hear the rumble of a car engine. For once I want to tell it to go away, that I need to hear what Larkin is saying.
“I don’t understand the other ribbon, Mama. The one that said ‘Forgive me.’ Who are you asking? And why?”
Silence again, and I know she’s really holding out for me to answer her. I see the flash of a yellow dress somewhere over in the corner by the window, and I know it’s my mama because Ceecee said that yellow was Mama’s favorite color. It’s why when I made clothes for Larkin, I used a lot of yellow. Sort of as a nod to us Darlington women. I always felt that despite everything, we had that bond.
Larkin’s question lingers in the room, the machines keeping me alive pumping and moaning like floundering fish. And I’m remembering something, too—something in one of Ceecee’s stories she’s been telling me, something important about Mama. I couldn’t answer Larkin’s question even if I could speak. Because I didn’t put two ribbons in the tree, just one. And the one I stuck in the tree’s opening didn’t say Forgive me.
* * *
• • •
Ceecee
1951
Ceecee struggled to fit back into her old life once they returned from Myrtle Beach, but it was as if she’d returned from summer camp and found that all of her school clothes no longer fit. She wondered if her mother noticed how her feet no longer seemed to touch the ground when she walked, or how she daydreamed through most of her days while going through the motions of her chores. She barely even protested when Will Harris stopped by for supper and Ceecee’s mother had her sit next to him, and even suggested they sit out on the front porch while she brought them lemonade. She did protest, however, when Will leaned over to kiss her, turning her head just in time for his wet lips to glide across her cheek.
Ceecee wasn’t allowed to use the telephone in their house—it was solely for church business, just in case a parishioner needed her daddy—so she had to walk over to Bitty’s house or wait for Bitty or Margaret to pick her up and take her to Carrowmore to make a quick call to Boyd. They’d say hello and then hang up; then Boyd would call right back so he’d take care of the long-distance phone charges.
The calls would be short with only quickly whispered I love yous and, before they hung up, a reminder of how many days they had to wait until they’d see each other again. Ceecee couldn’t remember two weeks dragging by so slowly, and kept a calendar under her mattress where she could painstakingly mark an X through each day as it ended.
At the very least, it told her how many days she had to tell her parents about Boyd. That he was kind, and smart, and a gentleman. A doctor. And that she’d met him in Myrtle Beach and he was planning on coming to Georgetown to meet them, and to speak with Dr. Griffith about taking over his practice when it was time for the older doctor to retire. She knew they’d love Boyd once they met him, but they would be highly suspicious of him until then since they hadn’t known him since birth, and didn’t know who his people were. Which was why she was waiting until the very last moment to tell them, giving them less of a chance to interrogate her.
She didn’t mention that Margaret’s new beau was Boyd’s brother and that she was already dreaming about being real sisters with Margaret if they should marry brothers. Ceecee knew that any connection with the Darlingtons wouldn’t endear Boyd to her parents, so she kept silent. She also had no doubt that if they did discover they’d been to Myrtle Beach unchaperoned for two weeks, they’d put her in a convent, Catholic or not, and never allow her to see Margaret or Bitty or Boyd ever again.
Reggie called Margaret every day, but not from Charleston. He’d decided to visit a law school buddy in Charlotte to give himself some thinking time. Even though Margaret pressed him for decision, he told her to wait. She’d told her parents that she’d met a nice young man, and when Mr. and Mrs. Darlington said they knew of his family and were suitably impressed with Reggie’s lofty ambitions, they approved him as a worthy beau for their daughter and allowed the phone calls. Margaret hadn’t mentioned Reggie’s proposal, or her plans to forgo college, but as with everything else in her life, everything would go her way. It always did.
The three young women were at Carrowmore in the middle of the second week following their return, Boyd and Reggie not due for their visit until the following Monday. Margaret met them on the front steps, and Ceecee could see right away that something was wrong. Her eyes were swollen, her nose pink—neither of which detracted from her beauty—and when Ceecee and Bitty approached her, she started to cry.
They moved to either side of her, led her up to the porch, and sat her down in the middle of the porch swing before joining her. “What’s wrong, Margaret?” Ceecee had never seen Margaret cry, at least not as if what she was crying for really mattered.
“Reggie didn’t call today when he said he would.”
Ceecee felt enormous relief. “Well, that could be for any number of reasons. Maybe he’s sick, or had an unexpected family obligation. Did you try phoning him?”
Bitty lit a cigarette, after making sure Mrs. Darlington was still safely inside the house. “Why, goodness, Ceecee, every properly brought up young woman knows it is simply tacky and ill-bred to call a gentleman.” She rolled her eyes, then blew out a mouthful of smoke.
Ceecee frowned at her over Margaret’s bowed head. “Of course you shouldn’t call—you don’t want your future in-laws to think you’re fast.” She put her arm around Margaret. “I’m sure there’s a reason and he’ll call tomorrow, and next week when he’s here with Boyd, we can all laugh about how worried you were.”
Margaret lifted her head, her damp eyes like a blue crystal vase Ceecee had once seen at Berlin’s department store in Charleston. “Do you really think so?”
“Absolutely,” Bitty said. “And if for some reason he doesn’t, I will get on the phone myself and call and pretend I’m the housekeeper at his dormitory back at school and say he left a watch or something behind and I’m trying to get it to him. Seeing as how I don’t mind lying to strangers to get an answer or calling a man’s house, I’ll be happy to do it.”
Margaret giggled, and Ceecee relaxed. Throwing her arms around her two friends, Margaret said, “You gals are the best friends I could ever have hoped for. What would I do without you?”
“Grow into a reclusive old maid, I’m sure,” Bitty said, hiding her smile by taking a drag from her cigarette.
Ceecee leaned into Margaret. “Don’t listen to her. We all know that you’re destined to be the queen of the universe with or without us.”
Her mood restored, Margaret gave them a quick squeeze before sliding off the swing. “Come on, then. It’s time to put our new ribbons in the tree.”
“What new ribbons?” Ceecee asked.
“The ones we talked about in Myrtle Beach—about being friends forever, that no matter what, we will stick together,” Bitty said. “Although I still don’t know why we have to put it in writing. It’s like she doesn’t trust us or something.”
“Silly,” Margaret said. She reached into the large pockets on the skirt of her yellow dress. “I’ve already made them, and they all say the same thing.” She gave each of us a wide sunshine-colored hair ribbon, her neat penmanship inked down the length of each one in blue. Friends forever, come what may.
“Come on. Let’s make it official.” Margaret ran down the porch steps, her mood changed as quickly as the weather, as if she truly believed things were bound to go her way. Because, of course, they always had. Ceecee felt a moment of resentment, but quickly pushed the feeling away as she and Bitty followed her to the back of the house, under the dangling martin gourds, to the old tree at the edge of the river. One by one they stuck their ribbons into t
he opening, then stood grinning at one another. Distant thunder rolled over the marsh, dark and heavy clouds billowing sleepily across the sky.
Ceecee shivered, remembering how it had rained the last time they’d done this and how so many of their dreams had come true. She looked back at the house and at the retreating forms of her two friends, and she had the sudden desire to freeze that moment in a photograph, a memory of three friends before everything changed.
Shaking off her dark mood, she shouted for them to wait for her, then quickly ran to catch up.
* * *
• • •
On the day Boyd and Reggie were expected to arrive, Ceecee was back again at Carrowmore, pacing the front porch while Bitty sat with Margaret on the swing. Despite multiple attempts to reach Reggie—including Bitty following through on her threats to call incognito—Margaret hadn’t heard a single word from him. Even Boyd was having trouble reaching him, but promised he’d go out of his way to stop in Summerville on his way to Georgetown to find out what was going on with his brother.
Boyd was due any minute now, with still no word from Reggie. Ceecee refused to dwell on what might have happened, fearing the worst. As her mother always told her, she’d cross that bridge when she came to it. Although, from what she could tell, the bridge was just around the bend.
A small part of her hoped that Reggie wasn’t with Boyd. She didn’t want him to see Margaret like this. She glanced at her friend, alarmed at the change in her. The golden hair lay dull and lifeless against rounded shoulders, her face lacked its usual glow, and even the light in her eyes seemed to have dimmed. The only color in her skin was the purple of the half-moons under her eyes, a testament to her inability to sleep and to her incessant worry. But this would be the measure of true love, she reasoned. To see a person at her worst and love her anyway.