by Sarah Jio
Our jaws dropped when we heard her say it. The woman actually chewed tobacco—like the construction workers who howled at us on Broadway. It was like hearing that your best friend’s dad, the football coach, was a cross-dresser. It just didn’t fit.
But, no, not Henry. I tried to repress the thought, but it stubbornly held on. The island of my childhood had weathered clouds and rain, but now it was dark with secrets.
“Elliot,” I said, remembering my own journey on the island. “I know what it feels like when you can’t quite get at the heart of a story.” I paused and gazed deeply into his troubled eyes. “What is your heart telling you about Esther after all these years?”
He looked away. “I’ve been trying to make sense of this for the better part of my life. All I know, and perhaps all I will ever know, is that Esther took my heart with her that night. Took it for good.”
I nodded, worried that I may have pushed him too far. “Don’t you worry,” I said. “I’m going to do everything I can to find the answers—for you and for Esther.” I looked at my watch, then stood up. “It’s truly been an honor meeting you. Thank you for all you shared with me.”
“It was my pleasure,” he said. “Oh, Jack is coming to visit this afternoon. You could stay to see him if you’d like.”
“Jack?”
“Yes,” he said. “He didn’t tell you?”
“Um, yes,” I said, caught off guard, “but I have to catch a ferry. Bee is expecting me.”
“Oh,” he said. “I’d hate to see you go so quickly.”
I thought about staying, but quickly strengthened my resolve when I remembered the woman who’d answered the phone at Jack’s house. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I just can’t.”
Elliot look disappointed, but conceded.
“Wait,” I said, pausing to think about what I was about to say. “I don’t mean to pry, but do you know if there’s a woman staying with Jack? A friend or family member, maybe?”
He looked puzzled.
“It’s just that”—I paused and fidgeted with my sweater—“it’s just that I called his house last night and a woman picked up. I thought it was strange, that’s all.”
He nodded. “Oh, yes, I think he did mention a woman, someone new.”
“Oh,” I said blankly.
He winked at me. “I don’t know how that boy is ever going to settle down with so many pretty women in his life.”
“Right,” I said. He may have meant it as a compliment, but his words stung. Suddenly, the past couple weeks with Jack flashed before my eyes like a cheap romance novel, one in which I had been duped. How have I been so naive? Why didn’t I see this coming? How did I let myself read into things that weren’t there?
I thanked him for the visit, and let myself out—with a heavy heart and a long list of unanswered questions.
So much for true love, I thought as a cab drove me back to the ferry, at least in my life.
I was both happy and worried when I arrived back at Bee’s later that day. However gingerly I chose to broach the subject, it would still be as startling and provoking as picking up a very old and very valuable bottle of wine and proceeding to smash it on the floor, right in front of the people who were saving it for their fiftieth wedding anniversary.
“Hi, dear,” she said. “Did you go into town?”
“No,” I said, sitting down on the couch, across from her chair, where she was busy working on a crossword puzzle. “I was in Seattle this morning.”
“Oh,” she said. “Doing some shopping?”
“No, I was visiting someone.”
She looked up, surprised. “I didn’t know you had any friends in Seattle, dear. You should have told me last time we were in the city. We could have invited her to join us.”
I shook my head. “He probably wouldn’t have come,” I said.
“He?”
“Yes, he. Elliot Hartley.”
Bee dropped her pen in her lap and looked at me as if I had just said something unforgivable.
“Bee,” I said, “there are some things we need to talk about.”
She nodded as if she had known this day would come. And when I opened my mouth, it was like a flood; everything came out.
“I know about my grandmother,” I said. “My real grandmother. I found it, Bee, the diary she wrote, and I’ve been reading it since I got here. It’s the story of the last month of her life—right up to the end. And it wasn’t until this morning that I fully recognized the characters, that you and Evelyn were there, and Henry. Elliot filled me in.”
I spoke in a hurried, almost panicky voice, as if I was trying to pack an entire lifetime of secrets into a single paragraph. I knew I had little time before Bee would ice over and retreat the way she always does when someone brings up an uncomfortable subject.
“And you believed him?”
“Why shouldn’t I, Bee? My grandmother loved him.”
I could see a storm brewing in her eyes. “So did I,” she said in a distant voice. “And look how things turned out.”
“Bee,” I said softly, “I know about her last night on the island. I know that she saw you two together, and how you drove off after her.” I paused, worrying about what I needed to say next. “I know that you left her there, Bee. How could you leave her there like that? What if she was hurt?”
Bee’s face had gone white, and when she opened her mouth to speak, I almost didn’t recognize her voice. “It was a terrible night,” she said weakly. “When Elliot came over, I knew he shouldn’t have been with me. We both knew that. But your grandmother had ended things with him, and I longed to know how it would feel for him to hold me. I’d thought about that a million times since I met him in high school, but Esther had always had his attention, until that night, when he seemed to want me.” She shook her head as if the very thought of that was naive, silly somehow. “Do you know what that felt like?”
I was silent.
“I told myself it was OK,” Bee continued. “I convinced myself she would approve.”
“But then she saw you two, and . . .”
“And I knew, we both knew, that it was a mistake.”
“So you drove after her.”
She nodded and buried her head in her hands. “No,” she said standing up. “I can’t. I won’t. No, we’re not talking about this.”
“Bee, wait,” I said. “The diary—did you read it?”
“No,” she said.
“But how did it get here?”
She looked at me with wild eyes. “What do you mean, here?”
“Here in this house,” I said. “I found it in my bedroom. In the bedside table.”
She shook her head. “I don’t know,” she said. “I hadn’t been in that room in thirty years. It used to be her favorite room. I had it painted pink, for her and the baby. She was going to leave him, you know, your grandfather.”
“So why did you have me stay in that room, Bee, if you weren’t going to tell me about my grandmother?”
She looked depleted, as if she’d run out of answers. “I don’t know,” she said. “I guess I just thought you deserved to be there, to be in her presence.”
I nodded. “I think you need to read Esther’s diary,” I pleaded. “You’ll see that she loved you. You’ll see that she forgave you.”
“Where is it?” she said, suddenly looking frightened or spooked, or both.
“I’ll get it for you.” I walked to my bedroom and returned with the red velvet journal. “Here.”
She took it in her hands, but there was no warmth or recognition in her eyes, just anger, and then the tears came.
“You just don’t understand,” she said, not making any sense to me.
“What, Bee?”
She wiped away tears. “What she did to us. What she put us through.”
I walked over to her and rested my hand on her shoulder. “Tell me, Bee. It’s time I knew the truth.”
“The truth is buried,” she said, taking a deep breath. There was
rage churning in her eyes now. “I ought to destroy this thing,” she said, walking to her bedroom.
“Bee, wait,” I said, following after her, but she closed the door quickly, latching it behind her.
I waited outside Bee’s door for a long time, hoping she’d come out and praying that she’d break through whatever pain she was holding on to, so we could talk about my grandmother openly and honestly for the first time ever.
But she didn’t. She stayed in her room all afternoon. And when the seagulls began shrieking the way they always do around dinnertime, I expected her to appear and start poking around the kitchen, but she didn’t. And when the sun set, I figured she’d give in and head to the lanai to mix herself a drink. But she didn’t do that, either.
So I opened a can of soup, combed through the newspaper, and tried to interest myself in some made-for-TV drama, but by nine, I found myself yawning and wondering about the month of March. I had been on the island for almost three weeks, and so much had gone on, but so much had gone wrong.
I’d made a promise to Elliot, and to my grandmother, to find answers. Yet, I hadn’t considered that maybe my grandmother had simply wanted to leave this world. Who was I to stir up the past, to stir up her past?
I felt too discouraged to think about it anymore. Jack had left two messages on my cell, but I didn’t return his calls. I was too weary—from his secrets, from Bee’s, from Esther’s. So I called the airline to change my departure. It was time for me to return to New York. I knew in my heart that if I were to learn from Esther’s story it would be to stay and fight—for truth and for love. But I was much too tired for that now.
Chapter 18
March 17
“I’m coming home,” I said to Annabelle the next morning over the phone. My words sounded a little more defeated and deflated than I had hoped.
“Emily,” she said, “you promised yourself a month.”
“I know,” I said, “but things have gotten pretty intense here. Bee isn’t speaking to me now, and there’s nothing more to say to Jack.”
“What’s going on with Jack?”
I told her about my visit to see his grandfather and what he’d said about the other woman.
“Did it ever occur to you that you might let him do the explaining for himself?”
I shook my head. “No, not after what I’ve been through with Joel. My threshold is low. I can’t go there again, Annie.”
“I’m just saying,” she persisted, “maybe you’re overreacting. Maybe it’s nothing.”
“Well, I wouldn’t exactly call what Elliot said nothing.”
“You’re right,” she said. “It doesn’t sound good. But what about this whole thing with the story of your grandmother? You’re just going to give up?”
“No,” I said, even though I knew I was, in a way. “I can always work on it from New York.”
“I think you should stay,” Annabelle said. “You have more work to do.”
“Work?”
“Yes, work for her and work for you.” Then she paused. “I know you haven’t gotten closure yet. I know you haven’t cried.”
“I haven’t,” I said honestly. “But maybe I don’t have to.”
“You do,” she said.
“Annie, all I know now is that I came to this island seeking stories about my family, seeking truth. But all I have to show for it is heartbreak—for me, for everyone.”
She sighed. “I think you’re just running away from something that you need to face. Em, you’re quitting on the last mile of the marathon.”
“Maybe,” I said, “but I just can’t run anymore.”
When I ventured out of my bedroom, I looked down the hall and noticed that Bee’s door was still closed, so it surprised me to find her moments later sitting at the breakfast table, arranging a vase of flowers.
“Aren’t daffodils just glorious?” she said cheerfully, as if we both had a case of amnesia about yesterday.
I nodded and sat down at the table, afraid to say anything just yet.
“They were your grandmother’s favorite, you know, next to tulips,” she said. “She loved the spring, especially March.”
“Bee,” I said, my voice aching with sorrow and regret. I mourned the loss of my only connection to my grandmother and her writing. “Did you destroy it?”
She looked at me with a silent intensity. “Henry is right,” she said. “You look just like her, in almost every way, especially when you’re mad.”
She walked over to her chair in the living room and returned with the diary in her hands. “Here,” she said, handing it to me. “Of course I didn’t destroy it. I spent the night reading it—every word.”
“You did?” I was grinning so big that Bee couldn’t help but grin back.
“I did.”
“And what did you think?”
“It reminded me of what a wild and impulsive and wonderful woman your grandmother was, and how much I loved her and have missed her.”
I nodded, embracing the contentment I would continue to feel even if Bee never uttered another word about my grandmother.
“I wanted to tell you, dear,” she said. “I wanted to tell you everything, just like I tried to with your mother. But every time I thought about telling you the story, the pain stopped me in my tracks. All these years, I haven’t wanted to step back to 1943. I haven’t wanted to remember any of it.”
I nodded, recalling the violets at Henry’s house. “Those flowers in Henry’s garden,” I said, pausing for a moment to read the emotion on her face, “they reminded you of Esther, didn’t they?”
Bee nodded. “They did, dear. They reminded us both. It was as if”—she looked around the room and took a deep breath—“as if she was there with us, telling us she was OK.”
I reached my hand out for hers and stroked her arm gently. The floodgates had opened, and the memories were gushing out now. I felt I could ask her anything, so I did. “Bee, the painting you gave me, it’s of you and Elliot, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” she said simply. “It’s why I gave it to you. I couldn’t bear to see it. It was a window into a life I’d never have, and it came to represent all that went wrong so many years ago, with your grandmother.”
I sighed, feeling the weight of the sorrow in the room. “It’s the reason why you haven’t been comfortable with my relationship with Jack, isn’t it?”
She didn’t answer the question, but the look on her face told me yes.
“I understand, Bee, I do.”
She looked lost in thought again. “I bet you want me to explain myself—about that night.”
I nodded.
“I was wrong,” she said, “to believe that I could fill Esther’s place in Elliot’s heart. I was a fool. And I’ll never forgive myself for driving away without knowing if we could have helped her, if we could have saved her. I blame myself for her death every day.”
“No, no, Bee,” I said. “It happened so fast. You were trying to protect Elliot. I understand that.”
“But I was protecting Elliot for selfish reasons,” she said, unable to look me in the eye. “I was protecting my own interests. I was so frightened the police would charge him with murder and take him away from me. So I sped away, as fast as I could. If Esther chose to drive over that hillside, that was her decision, I reasoned. I was angry at her, angry that she’d do something of that magnitude to hurt him. Elliot was in shock, and I wanted to protect him. It isn’t an explanation worthy of forgiveness from Esther or from you. But I want you to know—if there is someone to blame for the aftermath that night, blame me.”
We sat in silence for a few minutes before I spoke again. “Don’t you think it’s strange that they didn’t find her body?”
“I used to think about that a lot,” she said. “But not anymore. Her body must have been washed out to sea after the crash. The sound was her final resting place; it had to be. Even now, late at night, when I hear the waves on the shore, I think of her out there. The lady of the sea
. She’s where she wanted to be, Emily. She loved the sound and its delicate creatures. Her stories, her poems, they were almost always inspired by that shore.” She pointed out the window to the beach. “It’s the only way I’ve managed to find some peace after all these years.”
I nodded. “But there’s just one thing, Bee,” I said. “Elliot said something about seeing Henry’s car drive into the park that night.”
She looked up at me, confused. “What do you mean?”
“You didn’t see him there?”
“No,” she said a little defensively. “No, he couldn’t have been there.”
“But what if he was there, Bee?” I said, searching her face. “If that were the case, don’t you think he’d know something?”
“He doesn’t,” Bee said quickly. “I don’t know what Elliot told you about Henry. Sure, he may have been in love with your grandmother, but Henry was just as shocked as the rest of the island when word got out about her death.”
“Oh,” I said. “Well, I’d like to talk to him about it myself. Maybe he knows something.”
Bee shook her head. “I wouldn’t intrude on his memories, dear.”
“Why?”
“It’s too painful for him,” she said. I wondered if she was protecting Henry, the way she’d thought to protect Elliot that dark night.
“Esther affected him, Emily,” she said. “It would be too hard on him to dredge back the past. If you haven’t noticed, every time you’re around him he acts like a spooked horse. You remind him of her.”
“I understand,” I said. “But—this will probably sound crazy—I somehow get the feeling that my grandmother would want me to. I think he knows more than he’s letting on.”