The Color of Light

by White, Karen

  She placed the cover back on her past, then shoved the box into the back of the nightstand drawer to gather dust. She slipped into her nightgown and crawled into bed, and waited for sleep that seemed to evade her despite how tired she was, her bedside lamp burning brightly. The empty hours before dawn populated themselves with memories of this house and her grandmother, and of the boy she’d first danced with and with whom she’d shared her first kiss. She lay awake until the dawn sky pinkened the white walls around her and the seagulls began to cry.

  CHAPTER 2

  SIX-YEAR-OLD JILLIAN DUG INTO THE SAND WHERE SHE HAD SEEN AN air hole from a clam, her small fingers gripping the soggy grains and pushing them aside until she found her prize. She held it up for her grandmother to see before dropping it into her bucket with the others.

  Grandma Parrish stood next to her, wearing a wide-brimmed straw hat and her pants rolled up to her baggy knees. She winked at her granddaughter, then turned her attention back to the sand and its hidden treasures.

  Jillian moved ahead of her grandmother, eager to fill her bucket and already tasting her dinner. Something ahead in the sand caught her attention, and she moved toward it. A small mound of sand stood scraped away from a large crescent-shaped hole, the small claw marks of the digger still evidenced in the moist sand. Peering inside, she spotted chunks of white eggshell and yolk smeared against the edges of the vandalized nest.

  She fell to her knees with a soft sob, her bucket tipping over and spreading clamshells like an offering. Her grandmother came and knelt beside her.

  “It’s a little early yet for loggerheads to be laying their eggs.”

  Jillian simply nodded, staring with unspeakable sadness at the wrecked nest of unborn baby turtles.

  Grandma spread her hand, soothing down the mound as a mother would ease a child’s ache. “Looks like a raccoon. See these claw marks?”

  Jillian sniffed, hating raccoons with every fiber of her being. “Why’d he have to ruin all of them? Couldn’t he just take a few and leave the rest to get born?”

  Pushing up her broad brim, Grandma Parrish smiled. “Nature’s not always so tactful, is she?” She stared out at the ocean, squinting. “At least their mommy doesn’t know about it. She thinks they’re all safe in the perfect little nest she made for them.” She looked at Jillian for a long moment before turning back to the nest.

  “Why can’t their mommy stay and make sure they’re all right until they’re born?”

  She shrugged. “It’s just what they’re wired to do. They dig a hole, lay their eggs and then spend a great deal of time and energy burying and disguising the nest so their enemies can’t hurt them.”

  Jillian wrinkled her forehead, examining the wreckage. “She didn’t do a very good job, did she?” She stared at the ruined eggs, wondering how a mother could ever let that happen.

  Grandma Parrish pushed out of her granddaughter’s eyes the hair that had escaped dark brown braids. “Jillian, sometimes mothers can only do their best. It’s all God ever asks of us. And all he can expect with what we’re given.”

  Something in the deepest part of the nest caught Jillian’s attention and she leaned forward, scraping sand away from a scrap of white. Gingerly, the old woman moved Jillian’s hand away and finished unearthing a small Ping-Pong ball-shaped egg. They both smiled at her prize.

  With what sounded like relief, her grandmother said, “See? Sometimes we survive, anyway.” Very carefully, she put the egg back where they had found it, then covered the hole with the sand. Grandma emptied her pail of clams into Jillian’s, then walked up toward the dunes to grab dry sand and scatter it over the nest, along with dried sea oats.

  She winked at Jillian. “And sometimes we rely on the kindness of others to put us back in our nests.” With a final pat, she reached for her granddaughter and pulled her up. Jillian felt the reassuring rub of her grandmother’s gold wedding band against her fingers before letting go and bending to gather the clams and replace them in her bucket.

  A tall shadow fell on them, and they both looked up.

  It was Mason Weber, oldest boy of the chief of police. He was all of nine years old, but already taller than her grandma Parrish. “Y’all aren’t messing with a turtle nest or anything, right? We’re supposed to be leaving nature alone.”

  Grandma Parrish pushed the brim of her hat back and stared down her regal nose at the young boy. “Now, Mason, you know we’re just here digging for clams. Nothing wrong with that, is there?”

  He took off his baseball hat and wiped the sweat from his forehead with his forearm. “No, ma’am.” He peered down at Jillian. “Your parents just pulled in at the house. I reckon they’re waiting to take you back to Atlanta.”

  She clung to her grandmother’s hand but didn’t blink an eye. “I don’t have any parents. I’m an orphan.”

  Mason slid his hat back on his head, giving Jillian a peculiar glance that made her think he’d just bitten into a lemon.

  Grandma Parrish squeezed her hand. “Thanks, Mason. We were just leaving, anyway.” With her grandmother tugging on her hand, Jillian looked at her bare feet and the sand clinging to her knees and hands. She knew her father would make her bear the humiliation of stripping naked in the backyard to use the shower there before she’d be allowed inside their car.

  As they approached the dunes, Jillian looked back and watched as a wave spilled up over the shore and erased the footprints they had made, filling in the dips and hollows made by their heels and toes as if they had never existed at all.

  Jillian’s leg twitched, and she flicked her eyes open. She stared at the unfamiliar ceiling, her heart beating erratically. She could still smell her grandmother’s perfume of baby powder and soap, and feel her absence with the poignancy of deep and abiding loss. She wiped her face of the tears she could only shed in her dreams, and sat up.

  She jerked with a start, realizing somebody was banging on the front door. Out of habit, the thumb of her right hand slid to her ring finger and found the small dent in her grandmother’s gold wedding band. With bleary eyes, she stumbled from the bed, throwing her sweater over her nightgown, her bathrobe still buried somewhere in a suitcase. She tripped on a small area rug, catching herself from falling by grasping the door handle.

  Her sciatic nerve always ached worse in the morning, and she cursed under her breath, remembering her stupidity in leaving her heating pad in the Volvo.

  “Don’t say ‘shit,’ Jilly-bean.”

  Grace stood in the doorway to her room, the sun passing through the pink curtains and flooding her and the room behind her in a soft rose. Her beloved Bun-Bun dangled by a long, floppy ear.

  “Sorry. I didn’t know you were up.”

  “I know. I was being real quiet so I wouldn’t wake you. Do you want me to get the door?”

  “Yes, thanks. It will take me a while to get down these steps.”

  With exuberant enthusiasm that can only be found in the very young, Grace bounded down the stairs, slid back the dead bolt and threw the door wide.

  A woman stood on the doorstep, a large canvas tote dangling from an arm and a white covered casserole dish clutched in her hands. She was of medium height, with medium-length hair in a medium shade of brown streaked with gray. There was nothing remarkable about the woman except for the brightly colored oven mitts shaped like crabs that she wore on her hands, and the warmth of her smile. She moved her gaze from Grace to Jillian, where she stood halfway down the stairs, then seemed to notice all the glaring lights that were still on from the previous night.

  She held up the dish. “I don’t know if you remember me, but I’m Martha Weber. My husband, Joe, brought you here last night and thought y’all might could use a home-cooked breakfast this morning.” She indicated a medium-sized box at her feet. “And Lessie suggested I bring her old college dishes until your shipment arrives.”

  Jillian smiled and took a step toward her grandmother’s old friend. “Of course I remember you. I suppose I should have made
the connection when I saw your husband last night.” She took a step toward Martha, grasping the railing tightly for support.

  With a no-nonsense voice, Martha said, “You stay there while I go put all this stuff in the kitchen, and I’ll be right back to help you down.”

  Jillian heard her bustling in the kitchen before Martha quickly reappeared to help her down the stairs. Too tired to protest, she allowed Martha to take over, settling Jillian and Grace in chairs at the kitchen table, then placing steaming plates of hot ham and grits in front of them.

  When she set a cup of coffee down next to Jillian’s plate, Martha joined them at the table, a mug held between her hands.

  Jillian stretched out her leg, trying to find a comfortable position, and looked across the table at her guest. “I really can’t thank you enough for all this. You’re too kind.”

  Martha waved a hand in dismissal. “I’m just glad to help. Annabelle—your grandmother—and I were good friends, you know. It’s the very least I can do for her granddaughter and great-granddaughter.” She grinned down at Grace, who smiled back without guile.

  Jillian relaxed a bit, glad to see a familiar face who wasn’t aware of the humiliation of her recent past. Martha was more gray and more round than she remembered her, but she was so familiar that it was as if a piece of her grandmother had walked into her kitchen with Martha Weber.

  Spot entered the room cautiously, pausing to look up at the visitor. Purring softly, he snaked between Martha’s ankles, then retreated to a corner to silently watch them with wide green eyes.

  Grace looked up at her mother. “He’s hungry, Jilly-bean. What should I feed him?”

  “There’s a couple cans of cat food in my tote upstairs in my room, if you want to go get them.”

  The little girl slid back from the table, and the two women listened as her feet pounded up the wooden stairs.

  Martha leaned forward. “She doesn’t call you Mama.” She stated it as a fact, without reproach.

  Jillian looked down at the steam rising from her mug. “No. I . . . I didn’t want her to call me that. I know it’s odd, but she came up with Jilly-bean almost as soon as she could talk. . . .”

  Martha reached over and placed her hand over Jillian’s. “You don’t need to explain anything to me. I knew how it was between you and your parents, honey. You don’t need to explain a thing.” She pointed upward. “And your little girl. I don’t think she minds. She’s an old soul, that one.”

  Jillian stared at her companion for a moment. “Do you really think so? A gypsy at the state fair once told me the same thing. I wasn’t sure what she meant then, but I’m pretty sure I know now. Sometimes with Gracie, I’m not sure who’s the adult and who’s the child.”

  Martha smiled down into her mug. “I think we’re given the children we need to make our lives whole.” She winked. “I’ve had eight, so I know what I’m talking about.”

  Looking away, Jillian avoided Martha’s gaze. “I think some children get misdirected and end up in the wrong place altogether.”

  Martha patted her hand in the most sympathetic gesture anyone had offered Jillian in the past three months. She had the sudden and unmistakable urge to cry and to confess every awful hurt she’d suffered in the past three months. Before she could stop herself, she blurted, “I didn’t even tell my parents about the divorce—I didn’t want to hear them say something like ‘It took Rick a long time to come to his senses.’ Which is probably true, since I know he hadn’t been happy for a long time, but I mean, if all he wanted was bigger breasts, he could have just hung around for a couple of months. . . .”

  She stopped, mortified at what was running out of her mouth. Maybe mental instability did run in her family. Maybe she’d be the one to see naked people in her backyard. “I’m sorry, Martha. I think these pregnancy hormones . . .”

  Once again, Martha reached across the table and squeezed Jillian’s hand. “Honey, I’ve been a mother for thirty-eight years. There’s nothing I haven’t seen or been made to understand. And there sure as heck’s not anything left that can surprise me.”

  To Jillian’s relief, Grace clattered back down the steps with the cat food and Spot’s bowl, then rummaged around the kitchen until she found a can opener in the basket from Lessie Beaumont. Settling herself cross-legged in the corner, she put her elbows on her knees and watched Spot eat. Jillian knew that posture well. It was meant to make her disappear so that the others in the room couldn’t see her listening to every word. Jillian had always wondered if Grace had learned that from her.

  Martha stood to begin clearing plates. “Well, I’m glad you’ve found your way back here. It will be like having a little piece of Annabelle back.” China dishes pinged together as she loaded the dishwasher.

  “Please, Martha. Stop. I can do that. . . .”

  “Nonsense. You’re limping, child, so let me help you. I like doing for other people—which is probably why I had eight children. Most of them have moved away, so let me play mama again.” She paused for a moment, holding a dish in midair, her shoulders slumped forward slightly. “Let me help you. I reckon you and your little girl will need it, so you might as well say yes.”

  Jillian couldn’t argue with the bent figure at the sink. She smiled to herself as a flash of memory shot through her mind. Her grandmother standing by this same sink, handing her a glass of iced tea, forbidden by her mother. She could still feel the way the glass chilled her young fingers.

  “Thank you,” she said, and didn’t say anything else.

  Martha found a sponge and began wiping the counter. “I suppose you’ll recognize lots of people—it’s a small island, and us locals don’t move away much. Except for the Millses, but I suppose you know that. After”—she paused—“after poor Lauren disappeared, they moved away, and pretty much lost touch with everybody here.”

  Jillian stood stiffly, then made her way to the coffeepot to refill their mugs. “So you don’t know what happened to them?”

  Martha closed the dishwasher with a final thud. “I do remember hearing that they had lost a lot of money in bad investments a couple of years ago and had to sell pretty much everything—including their house next door. It had been lying here empty for so many years, I couldn’t believe anybody would buy it, but it sold right away. That was the last I heard about them.” She took a dish towel from the basket on the counter and began to wipe drops of water off the chrome faucet. “I heard they hung on to the house as long as they could, hoping their girl would eventually come back. I guess they finally gave up hope.”

  Jillian clutched her mug tighter, staring down at the muddy coffee. Lauren. She had carefully sifted through her memories, taking out the large chunks of unwelcome ones and keeping the ones as fine and easy as powdered sand. The summers before her sixteenth year were the ones that sifted down into the stronghold of her memory. Everything else was left in the sieve.

  Martha reached for a small bowl in the box she’d brought and filled it with milk before setting it in front of Spot and Grace. She patted Grace on her head, startling her as if she was surprised to find that they remembered she was there.

  “And that boy—what was his name? The one they questioned about Lauren’s disappearance. He’s never been back, either. Which I guess is just as well.”

  Jillian’s hand shook slightly as she placed her mug back on the kitchen table. “His name was Linc.” It was a name she had not said out loud in sixteen years, and it shocked her to do so now. But there was something about being on Pawleys Island again, traversing a world she knew yet didn’t know, that made his name leap to her lips.

  Martha sat down slowly. “Yes. I believe you’re right.” Her pale eyes were warm and inquisitive, but she wouldn’t say anything else. “I don’t suppose you’ve come all this way to dredge up the past, though.”

  She shook her head. “No, I didn’t. I came here to start over.”

  “It’s a peaceful place, and I do swear that the salt air is a great healer.” Martha ro
se, taking their two empty mugs with her and putting them in the dishwasher.

  Jillian pushed her chair back. “Thank you for coming, Martha. You’ve been a great help.”

  “Glad to do it. Don’t get up—I’ll let myself out. Joe had your car towed into town to check it out. He’ll have it brought back here if there aren’t any problems. He told me to ask you if there was anything in the back that you needed in the meantime.”

  Jillian’s sciatic nerve began to throb as if in answer to her question. “Yes, actually. I left my heating pad, but I could probably live without it for another day. . . .”

  “No, you shouldn’t. I’ll have him bring it by when he comes home for lunch.” Martha put her hand on Jillian’s arm. “You know we’re not that far away—we’re right down Myrtle Avenue. Just a phone call away if you need anything. Here’s my number.” She scribbled it on a pad of paper by the phone. “Now—is that it? Any toys for Grace, or cat food?”

  Jillian stood, leaning heavily on the table. “If . . . if it’s not any trouble, could he get my telescope, too? My grandmother gave it to me and it’s pretty special.”

  The older woman laid a hand on Jillian’s arm and gathered up her crab oven mitts with her other. “Honey, you don’t need to explain. My Joe will be happy to do it.”

  She bustled to the door, and Grace and Jillian followed.

  “Oh, before I forget, seeing how Sunday’s Easter, we were hoping you and Grace would be able to join us for dinner. A few of our children and grandchildren will be there, and I always make a huge ham.”

  Grace tugged on her hand, and Jillian looked down into pleading eyes.

  “We’d love to—but only if you allow me to bring something.”

  Grace piped up. “My mommy loves to cook. She curses like a sailor when she burns herself, but she’s really good.”