“Hang on,” Clary says. Annie’s presence there is making her—and the doves—agitated. They eye her through the wire sides of the loft and sidestep on their perches, gauging if she is a predator. “She’s no threat,” she tells the doves. But as she says it, she remembers their conversation a few days ago and wonders if that is entirely true.
“Faye says you lost one?” Annie asks. Her voice is hesitant, and Clary can tell she’s been sent out here to talk about it but doesn’t really want to.
“Yeah,” Clary answers, but doesn’t offer more information. She doesn’t want to talk about it with anyone except her vet, an avian specialist in Greenville who is helping her get the word out to other vets that Mica is lost. He’s the same vet who helped her unite the bird she found years ago with its owner. And the bird’s grateful owner is the one who helped her get started with this hobby that has turned into a little business. It’s not enough to support herself—she still has to do odd jobs on the side.
The thought of odd jobs reminds her: she has to drive Miss Minnie tomorrow. That will put a damper on her efforts to look for Mica. She was going to drive to some other towns and hand out flyers to vets and pet stores. There’s no telling how far Mica has gone or where he might turn up. She’s been so consumed with finding him that she has forgotten everything else.
“Shit,” she says, forgetting that Annie is still standing there.
“What’s wrong?” Annie asks.
She shakes her head. “Nothing. I just remembered I’ve gotta work tomorrow. I didn’t have to today—Miss Minnie had a doctor’s appointment in Greenville—but tomorrow I’m supposed to take her for her drive and fix her supper. And that means I can’t look for Mica.”
“Mica?” Annie asks, clueless.
“My dove. The one that’s missing.”
“Oh,” Annie says. “I don’t know their names.”
Clary shrugs. “I don’t expect you to.”
“Which one was Mica?” Annie asks.
“Is Mica,” Clary corrects. “He’s lost. He’s not dead.” She hopes it’s true.
“Sorry,” Annie says, and corrects herself. “Which one is Mica?”
“He’s the one with the silver tips on his wings. He’s a Kentucky White Diamond. I’ve had him the longest. I got him from the guy who created the breed. I found one of his birds that had gotten lost, and he gave me one to thank me. That’s actually what got this”—she gestures at the dove loft Faye let her put up years ago, sheltered in a cluster of trees in the backyard—“all started.”
“You’ve never told me that,” Annie says.
Clary shrugs. She doesn’t like bringing up that time in their lives, because she knows where it could lead. “Well, you were off at school then,” she says, making her voice sound flippant, and prays Annie won’t connect the dots and bring up Travis. Annie has been bringing up Travis a lot lately, harping on “doing the right thing.” But Clary and Annie disagree on what the right thing is.
“I’ll do anything you need for your wedding,” Clary had told her when this all first came up. “Just don’t ask me to do that. You want to clear your guilty conscience over Cordell Lewis, you go right ahead.” She had sniffed indignantly, for effect, hoping she sounded like Scarlett O’Hara, if Scarlett O’Hara had multiple tattoos, lots of piercings, and hair color that doesn’t occur in nature. “I didn’t do anything bad to Travis Dove—and, I will add, his life has turned out just fine. Why would I go opening a can of worms? Why would you want me to?”
Thankfully, Annie doesn’t connect that time with this, and Travis is mercifully left out of the conversation. Clary by no means believes that it won’t come up again. “Mica,” Annie says instead, and smiles. “Now I understand the name. Silver tips like the mica rocks?”
Clary looks over at her and smiles. She’s trying. Clary can see that. “Yeah,” she says. “Like we used to collect when we were little.”
Annie returns her smile, and it is, as always, brilliant enough to light up the room, or the dusk of the gradually fading day, in this case. It will be night soon. Mica will be out there all alone in the dark. She takes a deep breath to calm herself.
“We thought we were rich, remember?” Annie asks, sounding almost like the little girl she once was.
“Yeah,” says Clary. “I remember.”
The doves, settled now, make little cooing noises. Birds in the nearby trees join their song. Other than that, there is peace and (mostly) quiet. Until Annie fills it with her words. Annie has never been one to let silence go unfilled. It made sharing a room with her when they were kids unbearable.
“If you need help with Miss Minnie tomorrow, I can help out.” She shrugs. “I’m not really doing anything.” Her boss recently left and threw the office into turmoil. With the move coming up and the wedding to plan, Annie intended to quit her job in marketing for the grocery store chain anyway, so, rather than going through the transition and adjustment of getting a new boss, she and Scott had decided she’d just leave a bit early. She’s supposed to be looking for a new position in Norcross, Georgia, where she will move in with Scott, who accepted a transfer with his job, after the wedding. But Clary has seen no evidence of her looking.
“That would give you time to search for him.” Her eyebrows form two arches over her sapphire eyes as she raises them in question. “Right?”
Clary narrows her eyes at her cousin and gives her a knowing smirk. “I don’t think you know what you’re asking,” she says. “Miss Minnie has a route we take every day. We have a routine. She gets real out of sorts if we don’t stick to it. I’m not sure she’d take to you showing up to do it. She doesn’t know you.”
Annie waves her hand in the air, dismissing Clary’s argument. “It’ll be fine,” she says. She grins playfully. “Everyone loves me. Right?” She laughs because this is an old litany of Clary’s: how everyone loves Annie, how she gets away with things because of a combination of her tragic past and her cuteness. That cuteness, though, is manufactured. No one knows this as much as Clary, who was there when she created her image, has watched her cultivate it.
The two of them morphed into who they are now under each other’s noses. They’ve seen the many selves they each tried on and discarded through the years before they arrived at these current versions. They each know the parts of those discarded selves they kept, the things they’ve held on to. For Annie, it is her penchant for disappearing when her dark moods strike. For Clary, it is something else entirely.
She is about to bring up that something else—and their earlier conversation about Travis—when Annie’s phone rings: The Dixie Cups singing, “Goin’ to the chapel and we’re gonna get married.” The noise sets the birds off again. The rush of wind created by their startled flapping wings ruffles Clary’s hair, and Clary glares at Annie for causing another disturbance. But Annie doesn’t notice her cousin’s angry eyes. She’s too busy looking at her phone to see who’s calling. Clary watches her hesitate for a nanosecond, a flash of panic or regret or—something on her face before she hits the button to accept the call.
“Hey, babe,” she says, and her voice totally changes, goes soft. She looks over at Clary. Scott, she mouths. As if Clary would think she’d call someone else babe.
Annie walks far enough away to be out of earshot, and Clary decides to head inside, thinking as she does about whether to let Annie drive Miss Minnie so she can look for Mica. It would be nice to have the time, but would it be worth what it might do to Minnie if she’s thrown off her routine? Clary has juggled crazy schedules, worked when she was hungover or even when she was sick, in the name of not disturbing Miss Minnie’s routine. Clary wonders if having an unfamiliar person drive instead would affect Minnie, if she would even realize it in her addled mind. Is it the person driving or the drive itself that Miss Minnie enjoys? In the name of finding her dove, Clary decides it’s worth rolling the dice. How bad could it be?
She takes her place at the table in the same spot she has occupied for as lo
ng as she can remember. She glances at Faye on her left and Annie on her right. Every time they sit down together, she knows they are all thinking that this is one of the last times they will be just the three of them. Soon it will be just her and her mother sitting side by side. And, when Annie is there, Scott will be part of the package and, later, Annie and Scott’s children. In the coming weeks, something will end, and something new will begin.
Though she is finished with her salad, Faye stays on, watching as the girls eat. It takes her a few minutes, but eventually she poses a question. Clary knows her mother well enough to know she is trying to sound casual but is not quite pulling it off. “Any news on that Cordell Lewis stuff?” She poses the question to the table, but it is directed at Annie, who freezes, her fork still in the air.
“No,” Annie responds, her gaze fixed on her fork. Clary shoots a glance at Faye, but Faye isn’t looking at her. She’s focused on Annie.
“His lawyer’s not bothering you, is he?” Faye asks. Clary sees Annie flinch, ever so slightly, and she knows Faye has seen it, too. Whatever Annie says next will be a lie.
“No,” she says again.
“Well, I’m glad to hear it. You know what the DA said. We need to keep our mouths shut and let this play out.”
“Right,” Annie says. “I know.” Annie looks over at Clary with a pleading look, begging her with her eyes to somehow change the subject. Every moment that she is silent, Clary knows, Annie sees as a betrayal. But Clary knows her mother will not be deterred. And she also knows that Faye’s questions are not random. She either knows Annie has talked to that lawyer or has good reason to suspect that she has.
“I do feel bad, though,” Annie adds, surprising Clary. “Like I should maybe speak up.” She starts to say more but then stops. Clary imagines she’s afraid of giving herself away.
Annie’s guilt over Cordell Lewis’s imprisonment is a well-known fact. And Clary can understand that. She can imagine how Annie must feel, knowing her testimony at three years old landed all suspicion on Cordell Lewis. The town never really considered anyone else. Without Annie’s testimony, they might’ve gone a different direction, set their sights on another suspect. But small-town justice ruled the day, and whether or not Cordell Lewis did it didn’t matter. Someone had to pay for killing a beautiful, young single mother.
“If he gets released, you could buy him a gift card for a restaurant and mail it anonymously,” Clary pipes up, trying to be helpful.
Annie makes a face at her.
“What?” she counters. “It’s a good suggestion.”
Faye gives Clary a look. “No one in this family is buying anything for anyone in that family.” Faye shifts her gaze to Annie, who stiffens. “You don’t owe them anything. If he didn’t do it, then the justice system failed him. Not you.”
Clary doesn’t think this is entirely true. She thinks that her mother should own up to her part in what happened to Cordell Lewis. Faye was one of the main people who insisted he’d done it. She’d pushed for his prosecution. Though Clary had been only four years old herself and had no memory of that time, she and Annie have pored through the old articles together. When they were teenagers, Clary had helped her cousin do research about the man who went to prison for murdering her mother. He’d always insisted on his innocence. And the word around town is, there’s a good possibility that he will be released.
“The timing sucks,” Clary says, trying to be sympathetic.
Annie looks at her quizzically.
“So close to your wedding and all,” Clary explains.
“Oh yeah.” Annie shrugs like it doesn’t matter, when of course it does. Who wants to think about something like that at a time like this?
“Well, let’s stop talking about it,” Faye declares, then stands up, the action an exclamation point at the end of her statement. “I’ve got something for you,” she says.
“What is it?” Annie asks.
“It’s a surprise,” she says and grins. “Wait right here.”
As Faye scurries off to fetch whatever it is, Clary and Annie groan in unison, and thankfully, the tension dissipates. Faye returns, still grinning, then sits back down and slides something over to Annie. Clary sees the edge of what looks like a dishrag underneath her hand. She wonders what her mother is up to.
“I wanted to give you this,” Faye tells Annie, smiling shyly. She lifts her hand, and Annie tentatively picks up the material, turning it over as she studies it.
“It’s your something blue,” Faye explains, though it’s really not an explanation at all. Clary recalls Faye digging around in the attic a few days ago, muttering to herself. This must’ve been what she was searching for. But looking at it, she can’t imagine why this relic was worth the effort.
“Was it Grandmama’s?” Annie asks. Annie has always been jealous of the silver barrette that was their grandmother’s—their mothers’ mother. Because Clary was the older of the two, she got the antique silver barrette on her sixteenth birthday. Clary didn’t think it was particularly pretty—it wasn’t really her style—but as soon as she saw the way Annie looked at it, she pretended it was her prized possession. Sometimes Annie would “borrow” it without permission. Then a fight would ensue, and Faye would threaten to just take the damn barrette back and put an end to it. And around and around it went.
“It was your mother’s,” Faye says, her voice tight.
Then Clary understands. Faye’s sister—and Annie’s murdered mother—Lydia has reached mythical status in Faye’s mind in the years since her untimely passing.
“It’s so pretty,” Annie says, but anyone can tell she is lying.
Clary nods along even as she asks, “What is it?”
Annie and Clary both laugh. Faye gives them a look and explains. “It’s been in our family for generations. All the brides have carried it. It’s a handkerchief.” She waggles her fingers, indicating that Annie should hand it back to her. She holds the faded blue scrap of fabric up so they can see that the lace edging has long ago lost its grip on the fabric.
“I bet Miss Minnie can fix that,” Clary pipes up.
“I thought Miss Minnie was blind as a bat,” Annie says. She means it to be funny, but it comes out sounding harsh. It makes Clary feel defensive of Miss Minnie.
She speaks up on Minnie’s behalf. “She is, but she can still make lace. It’s called tatting. She’s been doing it so long she can do it by feel.” Clary remembers Annie’s offer to help out with Minnie so she can search for Mica. “You could take it to her tomorrow,” she adds.
Annie looks at her, confused for a moment, before she remembers her promise. “Oh yes,” she says. “I guess I can! What good timing.”
Annie does a good job at feigning excitement, and Clary can tell that, like her, Annie is ready for this forced family togetherness to be over. Annie takes the handkerchief back from Faye and spreads it on the table, running her fingers across it like it really is something precious.
“My something blue,” she says, her voice reverent and sad.
They are all silent for a moment, thinking, Clary knows, of Aunt Lydia. There are moments in their little makeshift family where Lydia shows up just as surely as if she has pulled up a seat at the table. It has always been this way. Clary wonders if Annie’s marriage will alter things, if, when Annie leaves, Lydia will go with her. Clary wonders who they will miss more.
Annie
After Clary leaves in search of her bird and Faye leaves for the salon, Annie puts the finishing touches on her letter, then emails it off to Tyson Barnes, ignoring the way her heart picks up speed as she hits the little arrow that sends her words off into cyberspace. There is no turning back now.
She thinks about yesterday, how she went to tell her mom what she’d decided to do. She’d filled her in on her talk with the attorney, the news that, with or without her cooperation, Cordell Lewis is getting out of jail. They didn’t need her to accomplish that. She’d told her mom that Tyson Barnes wants her to write a l
etter that basically recants her testimony from back then. He’d said he would read it at Cordell Lewis’s final hearing that will take place in a few days, a formality just before he is released.
She’d explained that all that’s holding her back is Faye’s stern warnings against doing it and pride. To publicly recant her testimony now is to openly admit that she had a part in ruining an innocent man’s life. She does not want people to see her that way. But what if, in writing a simple letter, she could give his life back to him—at least what’s left of it?
She’d practiced aloud what to say in the letter, hoping that there, in the place where it happened, the right words would come. “How’s this, Mom?” she asked the air.
Dear Mr. Barnes,
I am writing this letter to be read in my absence. Though I am unable to add my remarks in person to the hearing that will secure Cordell Lewis’s pending release, I would like to extend my support of the release. As the person whose testimony was a key part of his conviction, I would like to go on the record in saying that, in hindsight, I do not think my testimony was credible or reliable. I was three years old at the time of the murder and, by all accounts, was asleep at the time it occurred. Mr. Lewis has given a satisfactory explanation of why I would say that he hurt my mother.
Now that I am old enough to speak for myself, I feel it is my duty to offer these words on behalf of Mr. Lewis and voice my support of his release from what I believe was a false conviction. I sincerely regret my part in this miscarriage of justice and would like to do what I can to make it right.
I understand that there was other DNA discovered at the scene, and that the police never submitted it to be part of Mr. Lewis’s defense. As my mother’s advocate, I urge the court to test that DNA now and to examine whether someone else could’ve been the one to murder her on that awful night twenty-three years ago. The town of Ludlow deserves to know if there is a killer in their midst. And I deserve to know who really killed my mother.
Sincerely,
Only Ever Her Page 4