He looked off, and in his mind’s eye he could still see the rambling shack that he and Hamlin had built on that island they’d claimed as their own. They’d thought it was a castle. When they sat on the rickety porch surveying their kingdom of lush palmettos, cedar and shrubs overlooking a vast view of water, they’d felt like young princes among men.
“It was a fine-looking shack, with a metal roof and a porcelain sink and even an old icebox we found at some dump. It did the job for Cokes and sandwiches. We called it Bum’s Camp. It was a special bond between us.”
“It sounds like a pretty amazing place. Is it still around?”
“It burned down,” he replied flatly.
“Oh. Gee, that’s too bad.”
“My father burned it.”
She skipped a beat. “Oh.”
“After Ham died, he found out that we were coming home from there when the accident happened. I don’t know why he did it. Well, maybe I do. But he went straight there and torched it.”
They sat awhile in an awkward silence while he wondered if she would pursue this. He hoped she wouldn’t.
“Hamlin sounds like a dream big brother.”
“Oh, yeah,” Morgan said thickly. “He was that.” A bittersweet smile shaped his face at the sudden memory of his older brother teaching him how to wield a hammer. “Hamlin could build anything. He taught me everything he knew.”
“Hamlin was older than you by quite a few years, wasn’t he?”
Morgan nodded. “Ten years. A decade, he used to say, ’cause it somehow made it sound like even more. He liked being the oldest one. I guess it made him feel in charge. Not that he needed anything to help him there. Ham was always the leader, no matter what the game. He made up all the rules.”
“And you and Nan followed them?”
“You better believe it. Not because we had to, but because we wanted to. He was just so much fun. He knew how to do just about everything, and if he didn’t, he tried it, anyway.”
“Do you? Try everything, I mean?”
“Me? No. I tend to play it safe.”
“I don’t know about that. I heard about your exploits in Montana. Throwing yourself between bison and men with guns doesn’t sound like playing it safe to me.”
“Oh, that,” he said with a self-deprecating shrug. “That wasn’t dangerous, not if you know bison. The secret is in watching their tails. If they raise them, they’re either going to charge or take a dump. In either case, your guard best be up.”
She laughed and he liked the sound of it. It was open and hearty, as if she didn’t worry if someone might look at her askance or tell her to hush. The sound of it made him laugh, too.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, sensing the change in him.
“Nothing. Just the opposite. I was thinking, it’s a new phenomenon for me to talk about Ham and laugh.”
She smiled, relieved. “I’m glad. It sounds to me like you had some good times with your brother.”
“I did,” he said, and in a rush, images flooded his mind, all of his brother, all of them with him smiling. Hamlin fixing the rigging on the sailboat, laughing at the wind. At the wheel of Mighty Moe, giving the cousins a ride in the logging cart. Dipping Nan’s pigtails in paint while she napped. Ham’s face, serene yet focused, his tanned body arching forward, tossing a net over the water with the gracefulness of a dancer. Pulling the throttle of the boat’s engine full back, his eyes shining with devil-may-care as they soared high then hit the water hard, laughing even when it hurt.
“I haven’t thought of him in a long while. At least, not about the good times.”
“Maybe you should.”
Morgan stood up, ending the conversation. His ice cream cone was dripping like a volcano spewing lava. He held it at arm’s length and extended his free hand to her.
“Are you done with yours?” he asked.
She gave him her garbage and he walked over to the metal trash bin and tossed it. He wiped the mess off his hands with the miserly napkin that came with the cone.
It gave him a minute to think. He had to admit, it hadn’t been so bad talking about his brother. After Hamlin died, he’d shut down. He wouldn’t go to his brother’s funeral. He couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat, couldn’t so much as mention his brother’s name. His parents had said he was in shock, that he needed some time, but it was more. He’d felt dead inside, as if he’d died beside his brother in that boat. He hated to go anywhere, because no matter where he went—school, church, shopping—everyone knew about the accident and everyone felt the need to come up and tell him how sorry they were, how bad they felt for him and, worst of all, how lucky he was to have survived. They wouldn’t let it just go away. So he went away instead. He’d found it easier to survive if he avoided people and hid out.
Tonight, however, was different. He felt as though a window inside himself had been pried open after years of being tightly shut. He could breathe a little easier. Thinking about Ham, talking about him, hadn’t been as painful as it used to be. Was it Kristina? Or maybe time was a healer, after all.
He looked over at Kristina sitting on the bench. Her profile revealed a softly rounded woman with strong bones. Soft and strong. He thought that an apt description. When he returned to her side, she stood and smiled easily into his face and he thought to himself, I feel comfortable with her. I trust her.
He wrapped an arm around her shoulder, an act that had her turn her gaze toward him, questioning. “Let’s go.”
They began walking, hip to hip, in the general direction of the car.
Nona put her hands on her ample hips and perused the kitchen garden. There were mounds of rosemary and parsley, purple spikes of lavender, flowery heads of dill, tall clumps of basil and row upon row of greens. And tomatoes, lots of tomato plants that promised sweet, warm fruit that would taste like heaven on a piece of crusty bread along with a leaf of that basil.
“That garden is making my mouth water,” she said to Kristina as she walked through the black iron gate.
Kristina sat back on her heels and smiled in welcome. Next to her was an old apple basket filled with weeds. Nona thought her smile was as bright and cheery as the violas she was planting between the tomatoes.
“It’s coming along,” Kristina replied modestly, though her pleasure rang in her voice. “I don’t know if I’ll be here long enough to gather the harvest, but I love gardening. It’s always been a hobby of mine. More of a passion, really.”
“It shows,” Nona said with admiration in her voice.
“I had a huge garden in California. The soil there is so rich! You could drop a seed in, spit on it and it would take off. The soil here is so different, though. It’s sandy.”
“Just give it lots of water,” Nona advised. “That’s the secret. Lots of water.”
“It’s such a pretty space, and someone obviously spent a great deal of time here once. It must have been incredible in its heyday.”
“This has been the house’s kitchen garden since time was. The main produce for the family was grown in the fields down the road a piece, back when this was a farm. At one time, we used to grow most everything we needed right here, aside from flour, sugar, coffee and such.”
“Morgan told me Mama June used to keep the garden up.”
Nona nodded and her eyes grew wistful in memory. “She surely did. I remember she planted herbs. And flowers. She always loved her flowers. Filled the house with them. Whenever she had a spare minute she’d be out here with a trowel.”
“It’s been a long time since this garden was tended.”
Nona shrugged and looked off. “I reckon she lost interest after a while.” Nona bent low to tug out a weed that was hidden beneath a leaf of mustard green. “It’s good to see the garden taking shape again.”
“And speaking of pretty spaces,” Kristina said as she dug her trowel deeper into the soil. “I’ve been going out to Blakely’s Bluff a lot.”
Nona nodded, her gaze on the garden. “So you’ve s
aid.”
“It’s a lovely place.”
“It has the best view of the ocean anywhere.”
“And the house! It’s wonderful. Designers like to say a house has good bones. Bluff House has them in spades. Tall ceilings, big windows, a wide staircase and a view to die for. Whoever built that house knew what she was doing.”
“He,” Nona corrected. “The man who built it was a cantankerous old Confederate soldier.”
“Says you. I say he was a wounded spirit, a visionary who needed nature to heal his wounds.” She grinned widely and Nona could only chuckle in response. “It’s kind of sad that no one goes there,” she added.
Nona recalled that occasionally a cousin of the family came by to use it, and she imagined young Chas and Harry brought their buddies up for a weekend of no good. She didn’t think any one of them did a darn thing to fix up the place as a thank-you, or even clean up after their sorry asses.
“It wasn’t always like that,” Nona replied. “The family used to go to Bluff House all the time. They had outings and reunions there, and big barbecues. Someone was always going out to the bluff. Mr. Preston, he had this old shrimp boat he loved to tinker on. Lord, he’d go down to work on that boat every spare minute. He called the boat The Project on account of that’s what he always used to say whenever Mama June would ask him where he was headed. ‘I’m going to work on my project,’ he’d answer.” Nona chuckled at the memory. “Those kids used to have good times there.”
Kristina handed Nona a bottle of cold water from the cooler and paused to take a long sip of her own.
“I suppose things changed after the accident,” Kristina said softly.
Nona drank from her water, gathering her thoughts, then reached out to pull on another weed. She wriggled it in her strong hands, easing it from its grip in the earth. “See this weed here?” she asked Kristina. “It’s not so big when you look at it on the surface, but sometimes the roots go real deep. You have to be careful when you tug on them, so’s they come up clean. Because if they break, they won’t die and they’ll come up again, stronger than ever.
“That’s the way it is with the pain in this family. The roots go deep and the pain spreads to all of them. Everyone’s afraid if they tug too hard something’s going to break and the pain will grow all over again. So they just leave it be. But underneath, those roots just keep growing stronger and stronger.”
She sighed heavily and looked at Kristina, deciding.
“Hamlin Blakely was a fine boy,” she began. “Full of life and mischief, like a boy should be. He was the dickens, I tell you, and the apple of his mother’s eye. He was but eighteen when he drowned. A terrible tragedy it was. I loved him and mourn him like a son, but my pain can’t hold a candle to the fire Mama June endured. Lord, when she got the news I thought she would lose her mind. Ranting and raving and pulling at her hair. Even today I can’t bear to think of it without a shudder. Hard times, they were.
“Mama June fell into a deep, deep despair. She wouldn’t come out of her room. Wouldn’t get out of her bed, not to clean herself or cook or care for her children that lived. They surely needed her, especially young Morgan. He was in the worst way. A lost lamb.” Nona sighed heavily. “But I don’t blame her. I don’t think she cared about her own life, that’s for true. There were days Elmore and I didn’t think the family would make it through. We prayed on it. Lord, how we prayed!
“She stayed in her room for weeks and weeks. The doctors and the priest came, but nothing helped her snap out of it. In time, she came down on her own. She tried to do simple chores, but her heart wasn’t in it. The slightest mention of young Hamlin’s name or anything that even made her think of him would send her back to her room. After a while, the family used to call them her ‘spells.’ They kind of became a normal part of life around that house. Mama June’s spells…”
“But she eventually came out of it,” said Kristina. “I mean, she’s fine now.”
Nona looked out over the garden and wondered about that. “For a long time, she managed well enough, but she wasn’t the same. You see, Mama June was the kind of woman who always saw the glass as half full. Know what I mean? But after the accident, well, the glass was empty. It was plumb dry. No one ever went back to Blakely’s Bluff after the accident. They couldn’t stand to. And those family reunions and such, they all stopped, too. The whole family kept to themselves and tried to make it through, day after day.
“Then the new parish priest came by to see Mama June. He was young and had all sorts of ideas and he somehow got Mama June to start volunteering at the church. She started off doing just this and that, real slow. But gradually she got more and more involved. In time she was like her old self, throwing herself into her work. That glass started filling up again. Praise the Lord.”
Kristina listened, then nodded her head in understanding. “Thank you, Nona.”
Nona slowly dragged herself to a stand, grunting with the effort. Kristina sprang to help her. Nona brushed the dirt from her skirt.
“But the roots,” Kristina said. “They’re still there, aren’t they?”
She’s a smart girl, Nona thought to herself, looking at her closely. The summer sun had darkened the freckles on her nose and pinkened her skin, but she was a pretty thing, and Nona wagered Morgan thought so, too.
“It’s like I said,” she replied, looking her in the eye. “You can’t tug too hard. You’ve got to ease them up, wiggle them out bit by bit so they come out clean.”
13
Basket makers use a sewing awl they call a “bone.” Years earlier, this tool was made from an actual animal bone. In modern times, most sewers use the hammered-and-filed stem of a silver teaspoon. Many sewers grow attached to their bone and would be lost without it.
MAMA JUNE COULDN’T RECALL what day of the week it was. For the past several nights she’d had such dreams, so much tossing and turning, that during the day her mind was sluggish and preoccupied. Around her, the rest of the family was caught up in their routines and life marched along its normal path. She, however, felt as if she was walking in a fog, groping for landmarks.
One landmark was her husband, and she went straight to his room after dressing. Kristina smiled when Mama June entered and quickly rose from her chair opposite Preston, patting Mama June’s arm in greeting as she passed. It was just a soft touch but one that had come to mean a great deal to Mama June.
Preston was dressed and looking quite well sitting by the window with a book. Blackjack lay at his feet in a deep sleep. The dog pried open an eye when she drew near, thumped his tail on the floor twice, then went back to sleep.
Preston’s blue eyes, however, were bright and he reached out his good arm toward her in greeting. She set the potted cyclamen she was carrying on the table beside his bed, then came close to sit in the chair across from his. Outside, dark clouds spread low across the horizon and gusts of wind rattled the wicker furniture on the veranda.
“Looks like rain,” she said. “A good day to stay indoors.”
He nodded his head, and she thought how much more muscle control he was gaining.
“Kristina is all smiles this morning, don’t you think? Did you know Morgan took her to the movies the other night? Nona tells me they’re going to the beach tomorrow. Could be we have a little romance going on right under our noses.” His eyes brightened and she knew he was as amused as she.
“It’s nice that he’s enjoying himself some. He’s been working so hard. He has some scheme for the property that he’s excited about. No,” she replied to his brows raised in question, “he won’t tell me what it is yet. He says he wants to get his ducks in a row first.” She made a face. “That’s how he put it, ducks in a row. Adele uses that expression a lot. Do you think he’s teasing?”
He chuckled and she joined him. Then her smile died as she felt the fog return.
“He’s been talking about Hamlin lately, too,” she said. She watched Preston’s smile fade, and concern mixed with sorrow
shadow his expression. “Nan tells me he’s still having his nightmares. I think being home again is stirring up the mud, bringing up old haunts.”
His brows furrowed.
“That’s a good thing, isn’t it? Going over things we’ve done or said in our mind, trying to get things straight. I mean, sometimes our memories are garbled and we have to…” She tightened her lips and looked out the window at the approaching storm. None of this made any sense to her. How could she explain it to him?
She felt his hand on her knee, and she swung her head back to meet his gaze. She saw understanding and infinite patience in them. She grasped his hand and held it, gaining courage.
“I’ve been having dreams, too,” she confided. “Only they seem so much more vivid than any dreams I’ve had before. It’s like I am reliving the past. No, that’s not quite right, either,” she said, shaking her head. “It’s hard to explain. It’s more like I am watching a film. I’m present but more detached, if that makes any sense. It started when I began talking to you about the first time we met. Remember? After that the dreams started. I’ve dreamed mostly of that first summer here, when I came with Adele. It’s all coming back. All the details. We’re all young again. I’m seeing you and Adele.” She paused. “And Tripp.” She glanced furtively at him. His expression had not changed.
“Oh, Preston, I found the letters!” she blurted out. “I went into the attic and found them and read them over and over.” She shook her head. “What’s hard for me to understand is how I could have so obstinately believed one thing, really and truly believed it, when the truth was there all along, staring me smack in the face.”
She brought her palms to her face. “All these years I’ve let myself cling to the belief that, for all that happened, for all the pain and suffering, Tripp had loved me. Of course he didn’t! I see that now.” She dropped her hands and looked into his eyes, seeing again the compassion. “You knew that all along, didn’t you?” Her sigh ended with a short, bitter laugh. “If only I’d accepted the truth early on. When I think of how I suffered, waiting for some word from Tripp…”
Sweetgrass Page 21