“Chile, are you all right? How did you get here? Who are you?”
“My name is Briana Canfield. My mama brought me here to play with Miss Callie. Is she a princess? Are you her mama? My mama said I had to make you like me so I could stay. I don’t know how to play with a princess. I was waiting for my mama to come back for me. How long is it till six-thirty?”
“Lord, chile, that’s a long time. That’s suppertime here at Parker Manor. We don’t have any princesses here or even a prince. We have a little girl and a little boy. My name is Pearl and I take care of things here. I’m going to take care of you, too.”
“Truly you will?” Brie said, her eyes round with awe.
“Truly I will,” Pearl declared, hugging her so tight Brie found herself gasping, but she didn’t loosen the hold she had on Pearl’s neck.
“Does that mean you will love me? What do you want me to do, Miss Pearl? I can fold towels and dry the dishes. I know how to make my bed, and I carry the trash outside to the can.”
She got a second hug, this one even better than the first. “It feels good when you do that,” she whispered.
“Doesn’t your mother hug you, chile?” Pearl asked in surprise, as she rocked the small body in her arms.
“Hardly ever. She’s too busy making a living and going to town with people she says are my uncles. I don’t think I have any uncles. Miss Roland at school said I didn’t have any uncles. Am I too heavy for you, Miss Pearl?”
“Honey, you’re lighter than a feather. You look tuckered out, so I have a mind to carry you all the way up this long drive, around the back, and into the house where you can have breakfast with Bode and Miss Callie. That’s if you haven’t eaten yet. Have you?”
“No, Miss Pearl. Mama gave me a donut. She had to drive me here and then go to work. She didn’t have time to make me breakfast,” Brie said as she tried to mash herself closer to the large black woman holding her. She felt so good, so snug and secure, and the kisses Pearl was giving her felt better than anything she’d ever experienced in her young life.
The closer they got to the main house, the wider Brie’s eyes became. “Is this a palace, Miss Pearl? It looks like a picture in my storybooks.”
“It’s just a house, chile. It looks big because it’s white, and the sun shines on it. I think you’re going to like coming here to play.”
“Will the children like me?” Brie asked, her face puckered in worry.
“Of course. Another little girl is coming out today, too. Mr. Parker made the arrangements. I thought you were both coming together. If I had known you’d be here this early and alone, I would have walked out to meet you. It’s not nice to leave guests alone at the gates.”
“I don’t mind, Miss Pearl. Did my mama make a mistake? I can tell her if she did.”
“No, chile. I’m the one who’s at fault. I guess I didn’t understand Mr. Parker’s instructions. It looks like we have a welcoming committee.” Pearl set Brie down on her feet.
Brie hung on to Pearl’s skirt, her face flushed, as she stared at the two children on the back porch. She felt tears well in her eyes at the sight of Callie Parker in her pink, ruffled dress with the matching hair ribbon. Her gold hair hung in ringlets about her ears, but it was the heart-shaped locket around her neck that drew Brie’s eye. She had to be a princess: only princesses wore gold around their necks. With five-year-old wisdom, she knew she was dressed all wrong. Her frock was old and faded, her shoes scuffed and unpolished, her socks a grayish color. She didn’t have a hair ribbon in her own dark hair; she didn’t even have a barrette. Her hair was pulled back with a rubber band. Brie wanted to cry again until she felt Pearl’s hand in her own. The woman gave it a reassuring squeeze.
“Miss Callie, Bode, this is Briana Canfield. I think she likes to be called Brie. Her mother brought her out here to play with you. There’s going to be another little girl coming at lunchtime. I want you all to be friends, but first I’m going to make breakfast. You can all sit here on the back swing and get acquainted. Briana, this is Callie Parker and Bode Jessup.”
Brie’s eyes followed Pearl as she walked through the kitchen door. The urge to cry again was so strong she pinched herself. This hurt so bad her eyes started to smart. She blinked hard and fast so the children wouldn’t think she was crying. “I like Miss Pearl. A lot,” she said.
“You should like her a lot,” the boy named Bode said. “She’s the nicest person in the world.”
“I love her,” Callie said. “Loving is better than liking, isn’t it, Bode?”
Bode pondered the question. Because he was seven years old, Callie thought he knew everything. He always tried to come up with a response that made sense. He knew he could fib to Callie and she wouldn’t know the difference because she was only four and believed everything she, was told, but he didn’t like to lie. “Today Brie likes her,” he said. “Tomorrow she can love her like we do. Today is the first day. Will you love her tomorrow, Brie?”
“Oh yes. Maybe by tonight even.”
“Push us, Bode,” Callie said. “Hold my hand, Brie. Then you move your legs in and out when Bode pushes us. He hops on after we get going good.”
Brie did as instructed, squealing with delight.
“Bode pushes better than Pearl. He does everything the best. I love Bode. Do you love Bode, Brie? Pearl says everyone loves Bode. If Pearl says it, then it’s true words,” four-year-old Callie said importantly. “Do you love him?”
“Yes,” Brie mumbled as she worked her legs under the swing to pick up momentum.
“Tell Brie about your name, Bode. She needs to know that. Pearl said we have to ’splain things.”
Bode walked around to the front of the swing. He grinned at Brie. “You spell my name B-o-w-d-e-y Jessup. But,” he said, holding up his hand, “you pronounce it Bo-dee and you spell it B-o-d-e. My teacher figured it out for me. Mama Pearl said it was right, so it’s right. Mama Pearl never tells a lie. Never!” he repeated solemnly.
“You have to love Pearl, too, but you can’t love her as much as we do,” Callie piped up. “We were here first, and Pearl loves us first, too. That means she loves us more—isn’t that right, Bode?”
“No, that’s not right. Don’t you be saying things like that to hurt Brie’s feelings. Pearl has lots and lots of love.”
“She loves me most, she truly does. You came after me, Bode, and now Brie is here. She has to love me more. Pe-e-e-arll!” she wailed.
The housekeeper was out on the porch in the time it took Brie to take a breath. “What’s wrong, honey?”
Bode shuffled his feet and Brie hung her head. Pearl repeated the question, her voice stern once she was satisfied that Callie was all right and hadn’t fallen off the swing.
Hands on hips, head tilted to the side, Pearl said, “I’m waiting to see what that caterwauling was all about. Some chile on this porch better speak to me quick.”
“You love me best—that’s true words, right, Pearl? I love you best, then I love Bode, and then I love Brie. Tell them the true words, Pearl.”
Brie stared at her new friend and saw how anxious the little girl was. Instinct told her it was very important for her new friend to be loved best. She looked at Bode, saw his miserable eyes. He wanted to be loved best, too—she could tell. So did she. She remembered how wonderful it had felt when Pearl picked her up and cuddled her. Childishly, she crossed her fingers and said under her breath: “Let her pick me. Just for today. Please let it be me.”
Pearl’s hands moved. Bode hopped on the swing, his eyes glued to Pearl as he waited.
“Love is a wonderful thing,” the housekeeper told them gently. “It’s not something to fun with or talk about in a mean way. God says we should all love one another. There’s different kinds of love, but you children are too young to be knowing about that. I love each of you, not one more than the other. My heart is near to bursting knowing you all love old Pearl. Now, come to Pearl so she can give you each a kiss and a hug before she serves y
ou your breakfast.”
Callie scrambled off the swing first to run to Pearl. She wrapped her arms around the woman’s heavy thighs, blubbering, “I love you the mostest, Pearl. Bushels and bushels.”
Bode was on his feet, his arms around Pearl’s waist. Brie heard him whisper, “It’s okay to love her the best, Mama Pearl.”
Brie held back, uncertain if she belonged in the tight little circle. Tears burned her eyes. She wanted to be there, wanted the kiss and the hug, wanted the warmth and the smile from the housekeeper. The moment she saw her hold out her arms she moved like lightning. The kiss and hug were everything, almost better than Christmas morning. She grinned at Bode who poked her lightly in the arm.
So loved . . .
Brie sighed mightily. She should get back in the car and drive up the road between the arc of angel oaks. Memories hurt too much. Better not to call them up—but then, how did one do that?
She shielded her eyes from the bright sun as she stared around at the place she loved more than anything on earth. In so many ways it was home. A home she hadn’t visited in years and years. And why is that, Brie Canfield?
Because, she said, answering herself, I couldn’t bear to see Bode, and I couldn’t fool myself any longer about the fact that Pearl loved Callie and Bode best. She dropped to her haunches alongside a thick row of daisies that Pearl had planted. Daisies were Brie’s favorite flower because you could play “he loves me, he loves me not” with the petals.
So many memories, so many years. Another time, another life. And now she was back for Callie’s wedding. Not to Bode Jessup but to Wynfield Archer. She picked a daisy, started to pluck the petals—“he loves me, he loves me not” . . . and wiped at a tear sliding down her cheek. Then she saw him. The same old Bode, riding his bike. He was wearing jeans and an open-necked white shirt and on his feet were scuffed, $10.98 high-top Keds sneakers. He was an attorney now in Summerville. Family law, Callie had written in one of her letters. She’d gone on to say that the Judge, meaning Judge Avery Summers, had said Bode was the best lawyer to come out of the state of South Carolina. Brie had been so pleased to hear that—but then she’d always known Bode would be successful. Bode was a kind, generous, compassionate man. If he wasn’t all those things, she wouldn’t love him. God, it still hurt.
He saw her then, his face lighting in a smile that was so warm it rivaled the sun. “I see it, but I don’t believe it,” he said, sliding off the bike and leaning it against the fence. “I called you a hundred times, Brie, but you didn’t return a single one of them.”
“I know. I didn’t want to . . . impose.” She was mangling the daisy in her hand.
“Impose ? You wake me up in the middle of the night to talk, and I oblige. You promise to call—you don’t. I goddamn worried about you, Brie! That was a damn selfish thing you did.”
“I’m sorry, Bode. I needed to talk that night, that’s all. I had to get a grip on things on my own. It was something I had to do alone.”
Bode squatted down and picked a daisy. “And did you?”
“I’m here, aren’t I?”
“You look like a skeleton,” Bode snapped.
Brie smiled wryly. “I just put on five pounds.”
“Jesus. Well, Mama Pearl will have you ten pounds heavier by this time tomorrow—count on it. I forgive you,” Bode said, putting his arm around her shoulder.
“Who asked you to forgive me?” She bridled. “Stuff it, Bode.”
“Testy, aren’t we?” He grinned.
Brie didn’t rise to the bait. When Bode made her smile, that meant things were all right between them—and things weren’t all right.
“What are you doing here at this time of the day?” she asked. “Why aren’t you out there doing whatever it is you legal types do? Did Callie and Sela get here yet?”
“I have court this afternoon. I’m on my way to the store now because Mama Pearl wanted me to pick up a few things for her. I try to get out here at least three times a week. To answer your other question, Sela is due sometime today and Callie is driving down from Columbia this evening. You didn’t tell them, did you?”
“No. Does that mean you did?”
“No. They’re your friends. I thought women tended to cluster up and talk things to death when one of them was in difficulty.”
“That just goes to show you don’t know diddly about women.”
Bode shrugged. “Are you okay—that’s all I want to know.”
Brie stared at her childhood friend who had taken his place in the world, ever so successfully. He wasn’t handsome, and he wasn’t ugly; he was somewhere in between, with dark eyes, curly black hair and skin so blemish-free she wanted to swat him. He had dimples that he hated, a cleft in his chin that she adored, and a rangy body that rivaled Clint Eastwood in his younger days. His smile was special. It was like Pearl’s: it welcomed and warmed you at the same time; and when he held out his hand to take yours, you knew you were one of the chosen few he allowed inside his private world. And he loved someone else.
“I’m okay,” she said slowly. “If I wasn’t, I wouldn’t be here. Yes, I’ve lost too much weight, but I was getting a little thick in all the wrong places. It’s going back on slowly. I can’t truthfully say I’m the old me yet, but I am okay. You can stop worrying, Bode.”
“What happened to us, Brie?”
She wanted to say: “You jerk, you know damn well what happened! I threw myself at you at my graduation, and what did you do? You told me ‘thanks, but no thanks.’ Things were different. We weren’t kids anymore. I suppose it was the moment, graduating and being scared of going out into the world. When you showed up at my graduation, I mistakenly thought that you and I . . .” Brie struggled to her feet, a handful of daisies in her clenched fist. She opened it and let the blooms fall to the ground.
“Brie . . .”
“What?” she snapped, her eyes beginning to water. Without waiting for an answer, she trudged down the road, leaving her car at the gates and Bode staring after her. This was like that first time, a lifetime ago. It seemed to her, through her tear-filled gaze, that the oaks swayed, their branches bending to create a haven, an umbrella, to shield her from all her troubles. When she was almost to the end of the tunnel the oaks created, her feet started to move faster, as if they had a will of their own.
“Pe-e-e-arll!” she wailed, the sound carrying across the acreage. When she saw her, she dropped to her knees, her arms stretched out in front of her. Within seconds, Pearl had her in her arms, was stroking her hair, raining kisses over her face.
“Sweet chile, tell Pearl what’s wrong.”
“Oh Pearl, it’s so good to see you. Just hug me for a minute. You smell so good. You feel even better, just the way I remember,” Brie mumbled, closing her eyes. She could have drifted off to sleep, that’s how safe and secure she felt.
“Now, now, Miz Brie, old Pearl’s here. I’m not going anywhere.” To prove her point, big as she was, Pearl gracefully lowered herself to the ground from her kneeling position, without loosening her hold on the young woman in her capacious lap. She crooned old lullabies from the past, Brie singing along with her in a whisper.
A while later, Pearl raised her eyes to see Bode standing at the end of the tunnel. She knew he had been there for as long as she’d been sitting on the ground. Her head dipped slightly. Bode turned around. She watched until he was out of sight. Tears burned the old woman’s eyes. Only the Lord knew how much she loved that boy and this girl in her arms, although Bode was a man now and this feather-light bundle a woman. To Pearl they would always be children—her children, because no one else had the time to give them the love they needed and deserved.
Brie stirred. “Oh Pearl, I fell asleep. I’m sorry. How long have we been sitting here in the middle of the path? It’s so good to be back. I never know how much I miss you and this place until I come back.”
“Now, you tell me what’s wrong. We aren’t moving from this spot until Pearl knows why you look like you
do. You tell me and don’t leave out even one word.”
Safe in Pearl’s arms, Brie bared her soul. “I’m okay now,” she finished. “Talking to Bode about it helped a lot. I should have come back here sooner, but I wanted to work it out on my own. I nearly called you so many times, Pearl, but I knew I’d cry and that would set me back so I . . . I have it under control now. I’ve made decisions, I’ve followed through, and my life is going to take another course. In a way, I’ll still be in law enforcement. I guess none of this makes sense to you, but that’s okay. No man is an island . . . that kind of thing. God, I am so glad to be here! I’ve missed you, Pearl. There are no words to tell you how much. And Bode, he made it right. How does he do that, Pearl?”
“My boy, he just knows how to do that. He’s a fine man, Miz Brie.”
“Yes he is, Pearl. He’s so caring and unselfish. I don’t know many people like that. Well, maybe one other person.”
“And who might that be?” Pearl bridled.
“You, Pearl. Bode is like he is because of you. If I searched my soul from now till the end of time, I couldn’t give you a better answer. All of us—Callie, Sela, me, Bode—are what and who we are because of you. Did I ever thank you, Pearl, for all you did for me over the years?”
“Every single day, Miz Brie. It was easy because I love you all so much my heart wants to burst sometimes. Don’t you be thinking you can slack off now because you’re all growed up, mind. Pearl won’t stand for that.”
Brie chuckled. “Come on, Pearl, I’m going to walk us home.” God, how wonderful that one little word sounded.
When Brie was on her feet, Pearl’s large hands cupped her face. “You listen to me now. What you did, you did because you didn’t have any other choice. Lots and lots of times I make mistakes that bother my soul. I pray to my Maker and explain things and He lifts the burden off my shoulders because He knows my soul is pure. He knows you did what you had to do. He’s not punishing you, Miz Brie, you’re punishing yourself. You can’t be doing that anymore. You have to get on with your life and trust the Lord knew what He was doing when He took that boy into His arms. He did, you know. He’s probably an angel now, watching us and listening to us talk. The Lord acts in mysterious ways. The preacher says that most every day.”
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