by Karen White
Ceecee watched as Bitty offered Margaret a Tootsie Roll, and Margaret turned away, shaking her head. Mrs. Darlington had given up trying to entice Margaret with the usually forbidden sweets she craved, and was threatening to call the doctor. That was the only thing that had evoked a strong reaction from Margaret, who told her mother that no doctor could mend a broken heart.
Mrs. Darlington’s expression had suggested that Margaret was being overly dramatic, but there was worry there, too. She’d promised that if they hadn’t heard from or seen Reggie by the end of the day, she’d have Mr. Darlington make a phone call. Not to appear eager on their daughter’s account. After all, Margaret Darlington was not desperate or the kind of girl without other options. They just wanted to show their concern over Reggie’s welfare.
By the time they saw the cloud of dust announcing an approaching vehicle, Ceecee had chewed off all of her fingernails, and Margaret had collapsed against Bitty’s shoulder on the swing. Ceecee ran to the screen and threw good manners aside to shout inside the house, “Someone’s here!”
The uniformed housekeeper who’d been dusting the foyer stared back at Ceecee through the screen. “Yes, miss. I’ll let Mr. and Mrs. Darlington know.”
Ceecee ran back to the top of the steps, pausing long enough to watch Bitty helping Margaret stand, their hands clutched together. Her heart gave a leap of relief when the car was close enough for her to recognize it as Boyd’s. She strained to see whether someone was in the passenger seat, but the dust obscured her vision. Impatient, she ran to the bottom of the steps but forced herself to stop at the drive upon hearing the arrival of Margaret’s parents behind her. Their regal bearing and strict adherence to social niceties had always intimidated Ceecee, and she knew she had to be on her best behavior for Boyd’s sake.
When the car pulled up and the engine stopped, she heard the cry of despair from Margaret before her own brain registered that Boyd was alone. But Boyd was here. Her Boyd. It took every ounce of restraint not to throw herself into his arms and kiss him. Instead, she walked around the car to greet him sedately as he shut his door, and when he smiled at her, it was with the same mix of emotions she was feeling.
“Hello, Sessalee. I’ve missed you,” he said quietly.
“Me, too,” she whispered back, and then, because she couldn’t not touch him, she took his arm and slid her hand into the crook of his elbow. “Let me introduce you to Margaret’s parents. We’re hoping you’ve brought us good news.”
He looked down at her and gave a quick shake of his head. Ceecee’s heart sank as he guided her up the steps toward the gathering group. She couldn’t look at Margaret, couldn’t bear to see her friend’s agony any more than she could bear the guilt of her happiness because she had Boyd by her side.
Margaret surprised them all by moving to stand between her parents to make the introductions. She appeared cut from glass, her skin bloodless, her movements sharp and deliberate as if someone else had moved into her body and left only a shell.
The housekeeper appeared and pulled the door wide open, and Mrs. Darlington ushered them all inside. Margaret even managed to walk on her own, following her mother’s lead by asking about Boyd’s trip and how his family was doing in Anderson. But her voice didn’t sound like hers; it reminded Ceecee of a talking doll.
They were led through the gracious paneled entryway lined with antiques and family heirlooms, Dresden figurines and French crystal, and to the white parlor on the right. Ceecee had always thought of this room as the wedding room, and not just because generations of Darlingtons had been married within its four walls but because of the layers of filigreed moldings and heavy chandelier medallions that resembled the white spun sugar of a wedding cake. It was the room where she was sure Margaret had already dreamed of her wedding with Reggie taking place.
Ceecee made sure her back was straight and her ankles crossed as ancient Darlingtons looked down their perfect noses at the visitors from framed portraits on the walls. The housekeeper and another maid brought in a silver tea service and small cakes, along with the treasured Darlington Chinese porcelain that had been in the family for two centuries.
They made small talk as cups and plates were passed. A cup and saucer were placed on a table next to Margaret, and she accepted a plate of cakes, which sat perched on her lap untouched. Boyd sat next to Ceecee on the sofa, and she had to keep remembering not to stare at him, to keep her focus on Margaret, who appeared to be shattering beneath her skin.
Bitty, who sat in a chair to Ceecee’s left, kept shooting her glances, her eyes widened with worry. Mr. Darlington was in the middle of telling Boyd that he would be more than happy to formally introduce him to the retiring Dr. Griffith, when the sound of shattering china quieted the room immediately.
Margaret had stood, her plate and teacup crashing together onto the Aubusson rug. Her fists were clenched by her sides, her eyes wild as she regarded Boyd. She opened her mouth to speak, and Ceecee held her breath.
“Where is Reggie? He’s supposed to be here today.”
She was shaking as if with fever, and Ceecee admired Mrs. Darlington’s poise as she gracefully stood and put her arm around her daughter’s shoulder. “Margaret, I think you might be ill. Let Delphine draw you a bath . . .”
Margaret pulled away. “No, Mama. I need to know. I cannot go on pretending that this is just another day and that everything is all right.”
Boyd placed his cup and saucer on the coffee table and walked to stand in front of Margaret. Taking a sealed envelope from his pocket, he said, “Neither I nor my parents have been able to reach him for several days. When I went to his friends’ house today to see him, they gave me this note addressed to you from Reggie.”
She took the note, but didn’t open it. She stared at it for a long moment before raising her eyes to meet his. “He enlisted?”
Boyd nodded. “Yes.”
The sound that came from Margaret’s slim frame seemed filled with all the grief and sorrow of a hundred wounded souls, from a heart pierced by as many arrows. Her knees buckled, and it was Boyd who held her up and allowed her to press her sobbing face into his chest to be comforted. And when the wailing didn’t stop, Mr. Darlington went to call Dr. Griffith, and it was Boyd who lifted her and carried her upstairs to her bed, the letter still clutched in her hand.
Bitty and Ceecee clung to each other, unsure of what they should do or how they could give comfort, staring after Boyd’s departing back. And Ceecee, who loved Margaret like a sister, felt the sharp stab of jealousy wedge its way like a blade into her own heart.
nineteen
Larkin
2010
On Friday morning, I waited on Ceecee’s front-porch steps for Bennett to pick me up and take me to our meeting at Carrowmore, his cleaned and folded red T-shirt in my lap. Even my father conspired against me, saying he and Ceecee would drive together, leaving directly from the hospital after visiting my mother. I’d tried desperately to convince Bennett that I was happy driving myself, fairly confident that I couldn’t take the awkwardness of sitting alone in his truck for the drive to Carrowmore following my disastrous date night with Jackson.
Flashes of my conversation with Bennett kept up a constant rotation in my brain, making me cringe each time I remembered how drunk I’d allowed myself to become, and some of the things I’d said to Bennett. I still had no idea how Jackson and I had gotten separated or how it was Bennett who’d walked me home. Mostly, I remembered his lips and how appealing I thought they’d seemed, and how I might actually have closed my eyes in anticipation of a kiss. Which hadn’t happened, I was pretty sure. Because he was Bennett, who wouldn’t have been thinking about kissing me unless we’d both happened to lose our minds on the same night.
Jackson had called twice—once to apologize for not being the one to see me home safely, and once to extend another invitation to go out on the boat with him. I’d put him off, say
ing I’d let him know, since it was hard to make plans now, considering my mother’s situation. He said he had to go out of town on business for a few days, but would call me to set up another date when he got back. I was excited by the thought of seeing him again, but was just as excited that I had a few days’ reprieve. I was like a child leaving a gift unwrapped, the anticipation more exciting than the reality.
Bitty, sitting next to me on the steps and smoking her morning cigarette, elbowed me. “Why are you puckering?”
I stopped as soon as I realized she was right—I was puckering. “Just thinking. I usually pucker when I’m thinking.”
She snorted and sucked on her cigarette. “You still wearing that necklace I gave you?”
I reached under the neck of my shirt and fished it out. “I never take it off. Still not sure what it means, but I like it.”
She nodded. “Have you thought much about what you’re going to do with Carrowmore?”
“Not really. I’m still surprised to know it even exists, much less belongs to me. I guess we’ll have to see what the preservationist has to say and go from there.”
A bee landed on her arm, and she didn’t move, allowing it to crawl to her wrist and turn in a circle as if it might find pollen. “All the bees you see out of the hive are female—they’re the worker bees. And you should never kill one.”
“Because it’s bad luck?”
She frowned. “No, because it’s a living creature. And they’re endangered. If bees go away completely, it’s been said that they’ll take the human race with them. They’re responsible for so many of our food sources.”
“Ceecee always told me it’s bad luck to kill a bee.”
Bitty took another drag from her cigarette. “Ceecee would know about bad luck, I suppose.”
“What do you mean?”
She didn’t answer right away. “The Darlingtons were so lucky for so very long. It’s as if they always knew ahead of time how to protect their interests. Rumor had it that one Darlington was a blockade runner during the Civil War, and he had managed to not only squirrel away his earnings, but he had also asked to be paid in gold and not Confederate dollars. That’s how they survived the war still prosperous when many if not most of their neighbors didn’t.”
“What’s that got to do with Ceecee?”
Bitty waited for coughing fit to pass before speaking, the bee keeping its ground. “She and I were allowed in the Darlington inner circle, so we could experience their good fortune firsthand.”
“And then my grandmother died, and the house was ruined. Sort of the beginning of the end.”
Bitty watched the bee fly away, tracing its path before it landed on Ceecee’s tea roses. “Not really. It had started a bit before that. Before your grandmother married your grandfather. Sort of the rumblings before an earthquake.”
My eyebrows knit together. “What happened?”
Bitty flicked ash from the end of her cigarette, then looked at me. “It’s a long story. But it seemed as if a single incident split a fault line. The one good thing about it all was that it made me stop believing in luck and making wishes.” She settled her gaze on me. “We all have to find our own way in life, Larkin. There’s no such thing as luck.”
She reached over and lifted the arrow charm hanging from my neck, the smell of nicotine thick on her fingers. “I think we’re all born with an internal compass that leads us to where we’re meant to be. And whether it’s a good place or a bad place, there’s nothing you can do about it. I think our best friends are the people whose compasses are pointed in the same direction. That’s how we find one another.”
“Like you and Margaret and Ceecee,” I said.
She didn’t answer right away, taking her time pulling a last puff on her cigarette before stabbing it out in the ashtray by her feet. “That’s the thing,” she finally said. “Sometimes it takes an earthquake to find out that your compasses are set in opposite directions.”
I wanted to ask her more, but Bennett’s truck pulled into the driveway. I stood and looked down at Bitty, tempted to ask her to come along just so I wouldn’t have to be alone with him.
“Don’t even think about it,” she said, standing and brushing off the seat of her long skirt.
I was clutching Bennett’s red shirt. “How did you know what I was thinking?” I asked, surprised and horrified to know I was so easily read.
“You’re so much like Ceecee. Always worried that people might think less of you if they knew what was really in your heart.” She waved at Bennett, then picked up her ashtray. “That boy there is a keeper. I think when you scrape away all those old thoughts and misconceptions about who you used to be, you’ll start seeing people in a whole new way.”
Without waiting for me to answer, she went inside, leaving me to fend for myself.
* * *
• • •
By the time we rumbled over the bumps and ridges of the road into Carrowmore, my nerves were on edge. Our conversation had stuck strictly around neutral topics like the weather, how the fish were biting, and how many tourists Georgetown could expect for the upcoming summer season. But the whole time Bennett wore a slight grin, the kind of grin that told the world that he knew a secret and wasn’t going to tell. It irritated me, and I could tell he knew it.
My father’s car was parked next to an olive green Jeep Cherokee in front of the house. A young woman stood several yards away from it, pointing a camera up at the crumbling façade and then taking notes on a notepad. After we parked and approached on foot, I could see that she was close to my age, with medium brown hair with bangs. Her eyes were hidden behind designer sunglasses, but her eager expression and enthusiasm were evident when she introduced herself.
“Hi,” she said, extending a hand for a shake. “I’m Meghan Black. I’m sorry Dr. Wallen-Arasi couldn’t make it today—her baby is sick, so she asked me to cover for her. I’m her research assistant.” She smiled broadly, as if to reassure us that she knew what she was talking about. “I’ve done tons of research on this house and others like it in the area, so I’m probably the best person to speak with anyway. I got here about an hour ago, and I’ve had a lot of time to look around and take pictures.” She indicated the camera hanging from a pink strap around her neck.
While she was talking, I noticed the string of pearls she wore, the polished fingernails, and that, although she wore boots, she was dressed in a cute cotton knit tunic with jean leggings that screamed J.Crew. Either a research assistant made more money than I would have thought, or her mother bought her clothes.
“Great,” I said, watching as my father and Ceecee came from around the corner of the house to join us.
“So, what can you tell us?” Bennett asked.
“Unfortunately, more bad stuff than good. As you indicated on the phone when you spoke with Dr. Wallen-Arasi, the house has been in the Darlington family since it was built.”
She looked around for corroboration, and we all nodded, the movement mimicking that of two martin gourds strung in the branches of the enormous live oak above us.
Meghan continued. “This is usually a good thing, because when a house is considered a family heirloom, it’s usually cared for consistently. According to my research, the original house was built in the mid-eighteenth century, but that was torn down for a larger house built in 1803—thankfully with a brick foundation that has given it stability over the years.” She grinned, then immediately became serious again. “But the rest of it is wood—not so good. There have been updates and changes—some made mid-nineteenth century to change it from a Federal façade to Greek Revival, and there was extensive roof repair done after Hugo in ’eighty-nine along with some shoring up of the front columns, porches, and chimneys.”
She began walking to the corner of the house so we could see where long boards had been nailed in a crisscross pattern across the chimney, braci
ng it against what appeared to be imminent collapse. “It really is remarkable that any of this is still here. Pure luck, really.”
We were all staring at the peeling paint, the places where bricks were missing in the chimney, and the sagging front porch as she spoke. I noticed for the first time a partially rotted wooden swing collapsed onto the remaining floorboards, a reminder of when the house had been a home. When people had lived their lives here, had sat out on that swing looking out at the alley of oaks. Had probably rocked babies and welcomed guests. This was the house where my grandmother had died, and where my own mother had been pulled from the flames. This house was a part of who I was, and yet I knew nothing about it or the family who’d lived here for generations.
Ceecee cleared her throat. “My husband thought to restore it in the nineteen eighties, and he hired a contractor. I think they got as far as the roof and supports before they stopped.”
“Why did they stop?” Meghan asked.
Ceecee looked at the young woman, but I could tell she wasn’t really seeing her. “My husband got sick. He fought cancer for about three years and didn’t have the strength to deal with this, too.”
“I’m sorry,” Meghan said. “But doing what he did certainly helped—I doubt any of the house would be left otherwise. There’s so much wood rot and mold, and you have a very large pigeon infestation. Probably more critters, too, but I’m not going inside to see for myself on this visit—I’d need to take some safety precautions first. Although I will admit to having peered in where I could. There are still some incredible dentil moldings and cornices that look salvageable. I even saw a few strips of wallpaper clinging to the plaster.”
She faced us, like a doctor ready to divulge bad news. “Believe me, it really hurts me to say this, because I’m an old-house hugger, but I’m afraid, in the preservation world, we’d call this structure in danger of sudden catastrophic failure.”