Queen Anne's Lace

by Susan Wittig Albert

  In another studio portrait, the same pair, in the same wedding garb, were posed with a young girl—the girl with banana curls from the picture on the veranda. She was wearing a flounced white dress, with white stockings and shoes and holding a small flowery nosegay. I turned it over and saw a penciled date on the back: August 3, 1889.

  I held the photograph for a moment, studying it. Both the bride and groom looked to be past thirty, and the bride wasn’t wearing a white dress. Was this a second marriage? Was the girl with the pretty curls the bride’s daughter? And the baby, in the later photograph taken on the veranda, their child? The child of this second husband? Were the girls pictured around the swing in the oak tree their children, too? If so, then perhaps what I was looking at was a history of the Duncan family. Their story might not have been so different from many others: the bride, with a daughter from a previous marriage, marrying again in her thirties and giving birth to three more children.

  But there was one other photo—also a wedding photo—which didn’t seem to belong in this group at all. I regarded it, puzzled. The groom was clearly the same man in the other two wedding photos in front of me, although he seemed to be younger, perhaps by ten years. But the woman was different: quite young, in her late teens or early twenties, I guessed. She was blond and very pretty, smiling and with a flirtatious tilt of her head—the sort of girl who might be very much at home in a Miss Texas Teen beauty pageant today. The long satin train of her white lace-encrusted wedding dress was carefully arranged around her feet, and she wore a tulle veil and a tiara-like crown. A half dozen young bridesmaids, all beautifully gowned, stood beside the bride and groom, with tall candelabras and vases of flowers behind them. It had obviously been a lavish formal wedding. I turned the photo over. It was stamped L. Vincent, Photographers. Galveston. And two names, written in a girlish hand: Adam and Delia. A heart had been penciled around the names.

  The story in front of me—the story told by the photographs—suddenly developed another chapter and a whole new set of questions. Two weddings—one in Galveston. One groom, two different brides. Judging from the man’s apparent age, the Galveston wedding had come first, perhaps by ten years. Where was the pretty, vivacious blond bride? What had happened to her? Divorce was unlikely in those days, I supposed. Had she . . . died?

  I was pulled away from my questions by another phone call—this one from Caitie, who wanted to remind me that I was supposed to stop at the fairground on my way into town in the morning and make sure that Dixie Chick and Extra Crispy had food and fresh water.

  “I’ve already got it on my list.” I had the feeling that this wasn’t the reason for her call. Tentatively, I added, “Are you and Sharon having a good time?”

  “Uh-huh,” she said. I thought she didn’t sound as chirpy as usual. And then I found out why. “Kevin came over after supper and we played video games. But he had to go home early.”

  I waited for a moment, then said, casually, “He’s been sick, hasn’t he? Is he feeling better?”

  “Yes,” she said slowly. Then, “No.” Then there was a long pause, and she lowered her voice as if she didn’t want Sharon to hear. “Actually, Mom, he told me why he’s been sick.” She took a deep breath. “I’m not supposed to tell anybody, but that doesn’t mean you.” Another breath. “He says he’s got a brain tumor.” Her voice wavered. “Cancer.”

  “Oh, Caitie.” So that was why she had called. I clutched the phone, wanting to hold her close, feeling so far away. “I am so sorry to hear that, honey.”

  I could hear that she was doing her best to fight the tears. “It sounds sort of bad,” she said, “but he says it’s really not and I shouldn’t be worried. He says the doctors know where it is and how to get it out and what to do after that. He’s going to Houston next week. That’s where the best doctors are, he says. But . . .” She stopped, gulping down the sobs.

  I tried to sound confident. “I’m glad he has the best doctors. They’ll do whatever they can to make him well. But he also needs good friends. You’ll be that for him, I know, Caitlin.”

  “I will,” she said fervently. “That’s what I told him. But, Mom—” Another swallowed sob. “I can’t help thinking about Aunt Marcia. She had cancer, too. And she died.”

  There were whole galaxies of grief in those three words. I pulled in my breath. “Yes, she did. But that was several years ago, sweetie. Doctors are learning more about cancer every day. Your aunt Marcia was older, too, and she’d been sick for a while. Kevin is young and strong.”

  “That’s true,” she said, reaching for hope.

  “And he’s a fighter.” I managed a chuckle. “You remember how hard he fought to get that first chair away from you. I’ll bet he’ll fight this every bit as hard.”

  “I hope so,” she said, clutching the word. I heard the slam of a door and a flurry of noise in the background. “I have to go. Sharon is saying it’s my turn for the shower.”

  “Okay.” I thought of something. “When Kevin gets back, and when his mom says we can, let’s give him a party. Shall we?”

  “Sure!” she said, brightening. “A party would be great. Everybody will want to come. All the kids from school and the orchestra. Everybody.”

  “Good. Start thinking about that.” It would give her something to look forward to. “Where we should have it. Who we should invite. What you’d like to have to eat.”

  “I will,” she said. “Oh, and please don’t forget about the chickens tomorrow morning.”

  “I won’t,” I said. “Good night, sweetie.”

  In the kitchen, I poured a glass of milk and carried it out on the back porch when I let Winchester out for his last call. As he loped down the path toward the woods, he surprised a large, fully armored armadillo digging for grubs and beetles and other gourmet delights among the peppermint and lemon balm in my flower bed. The armadillo, who might have been the same one that Howard Cosell—our previous basset—loved to chase every night about this time, understood what was coming and scrambled noisily for the safety of the trees.

  Winchester let out a gleeful basset howl—Ah-ha! Now I’ve got you, you scoundrel!—and flew after the trespasser, paws pounding, ears flopping, tail flung up like a white torch in the darkness. The basset and his armadillo disappeared into the shadows of the woods. I could hear the two of them blundering through the underbrush like a pair of African rhinos, Winchester baying occasionally to let his prey know that he was still hot on the trail. Bassets aren’t exactly built for speed, but then, neither are armadillos. We still laugh about the time Howard Cosell actually managed to catch one. He brought it to us clutched in his jaws like a partially deflated football. Released, the creature floundered drunkenly through the grass as Howard ran for his water bowl to rinse out his mouth. Armadillos apparently aren’t very tasty.

  I had the feeling that it might be a while before Winchester made his way back home, so I sat down on the porch steps to wait, admiring the sliver of silver moon that hung just above the trees and listening to the sounds of the nocturnal world. We tell people that we love living in the country because it’s so quiet out here. But it isn’t, really—and especially not at night, when the wild things come out to pursue their after-dark affairs. The shrill, strident thrum of the cicadas was counterpointed by the brisk chirping of crickets and the wheezy wheep-wheep-wheep of male green tree frogs eager for a close encounter with their female kind. Down at the creek, the nocturnal green heron gave a loud, squawking kwok and then another: kwok-KWOK! (If you didn’t know this bird, you might think you were hearing the honk-honk of an old Ford flivver.) From across the meadow came the low, haunting call of the male poor-will—just two monotonous notes, poor will, over and over, a lone, lorn lover pining for an elusive sweetheart, somewhere out there in the dark. Up the lane toward Limekiln Road, the Banners’ border collie, Blitzen, added a chorus of encouraging yips to Winchester’s deep, melodic bay. And far, far across
the cedar-clad hills, a clan of coyotes yodeled, as charmed as I by the silvery moon and the diamond stars spangled across a black velvet sky.

  Yes, it was a noisy night. But these aren’t man-made noises. They are the sweet sounds of nature’s creatures going about their private business in the dark: earning a living, calling out to lovers and friends, singing to the moon, escaping a pursuer, surviving to fish another night along the creek or dig for grubs among my peppermint and lemon balm. Individual armadillos and tree frogs and poor-wills and coyotes may perish, but in all its vast and wonderful variety, life goes on.

  And on and on. As it had for the family in the photographs on my kitchen table, who had spent their lives in the house where I now spend my working days. As it would, I passionately hoped, for a young boy with a brain tumor who—if life was fair—should be worried about nothing more important than getting an A in math and protecting his concertmaster chair from his talented girlfriend. Who, no matter how cheerful he might pretend to be, must be deeply worried about the fearful possibility of dying before he could graduate high school. So, too, his family and friends. One little friend in particular, Caitie, who was already far too well acquainted with death.

  I thought about these things as the moon rose higher and the cicadas and the crickets and the coyotes and the poor-will continued to sing. I thought about houses that held the impressions of lives—happy, sad, long, short—that had been lived within their walls. About the bridges that the past sometimes builds to a distant future, embodied in photographs and pieces of antique lace and babies’ dresses. And about eyes that seemed to follow me, to watch me, out of the past.

  No wonder, then, that I dreamed about her again. About the woman in the pale taffy-colored wedding dress, who (in my dream) stepped out of the photograph and came toward me, holding out her hands, fixing me with those remarkable eyes that wouldn’t let me go.

  Who seemed to want, desperately, to tell me something, but couldn’t speak, couldn’t find the words.

  Chapter Twelve

  Pecan Springs, Texas

  October 1888

  Annie had been apprehensive about her first encounter with Adam’s wife after her return from Galveston. Deeply conscious of what she and Adam had done, she felt as if her skin were as transparent as glass, and that Delia would see right through her to the truth of what had happened.

  But Annie needn’t have worried. Their meeting didn’t occur until some two weeks after Delia’s return home—on the day after Annie saw the mustached stranger in the brown frock coat climbing the porch steps next door. Delia breezed into the workroom with her usual haughty carelessness, moved a chair closer to Annie’s, and began to chatter gaily about the glamorous parties she had attended in Galveston, about the cost of the two new dresses her sister’s dressmaker (“the very best in the city”) had made for her, the musical entertainments at the famed Beach Hotel, and the men who had asked her to dance at every party. Annie thought that there was something oddly high-pitched and brittle about her chatter, and she seemed more nervous than usual.

  “Really, Annie, you should go to Galveston,” Delia advised at the end of a long tale about a friend who had found an exciting new beau at a luncheon party at the Beach Hotel. “You’d be sure to snag a husband there, and one with a better future ahead of him than anyone here in Pecan Springs.” She leaned forward, her expression avid. “Why, there are bankers and lawyers and doctors there, and ever so many of them! My sister Clarissa says that the men outnumber the women almost three to one, and I do believe it. Wherever I went, I found several of them just as eager as they could be for conversation with a woman they find attractive.”

  “It sounds like everyone has a great deal of leisure time,” Annie said noncommittally. She understood that the society women might not have much to do at home, but didn’t the men have to work?

  “Well, of course,” Delia said, as if it were a silly observation, and hurried on. “One of those gentlemen—a Mr. Simpson—even followed me here, to Pecan Springs. Why, he actually came to call!” She waved her hand in a dismissive gesture. “Of course, it was very silly of him. He came bringing a box of candy, but I didn’t give him the time of day. I sent him on his way immediately. The poor fellow didn’t even have a chance to set foot in the house.” She leaned forward and added, in a confiding voice, “I just wanted you to know, in case you might have seen the gentleman at my front door and thought I might be entertaining him.”

  Well, that explains it, Annie thought, remembering the stranger she’d seen. She wondered why Delia was going to such lengths to make a point of how peremptorily she had treated the man—and why she cared about her neighbor’s opinion anyway. But Annie wasn’t going to flatter Delia by asking for details, even though the report contradicted what she had seen. The man had set foot in the house, although Annie had no idea how long he’d stayed.

  Instead, she just laughed. “Why would I want to go looking for a husband in Galveston?” she asked lightly. “I’ve already had one husband—a very good one. I can support myself. I have everything I could possibly want.” Which was a lie, of course, because she could not have Adam. “Would you like to work with us today, Delia?” she added. “If so, just pull up another chair while I get the lace that you started the last time you were here.”

  Delia rose hastily. “No, never mind, Annie. I just dropped in to say hello.”

  Annie’s feelings toward her neighbor had changed over the summer, and quite remarkably. Before, she had envied Delia her marriage to Adam; now, she pitied her, for she knew that the marriage was an unhappy charade. Adam didn’t love or desire his wife. He loved and desired her, and while they couldn’t have each other, the awareness of that glorious truth was like a secret treasure chest spilling over with beautiful and valuable jewels that were hers alone. She had no idea what lay ahead, but she felt enormously confident about one important thing: that what she and Adam had shared together had changed them both in ways beyond measure. To go back to his wife’s bed would be a betrayal.

  But it wasn’t long before she learned that her confidence might be misplaced.

  Some weeks earlier, Mrs. Crow had given Annie some dried hibiscus blossoms, sent to her by a friend in South Texas, where the shrub blossomed reliably. Annie had used the flowers regularly to brew a pretty red hibiscus tea for her workers, and they liked it so much that she decided to get more. A day or two after Delia’s visit, she left one of the girls in charge of the workroom and walked down the street to Mrs. Crow’s boardinghouse. She had just turned off the dirt path along the street when the boardinghouse door slammed open and Delia rushed out, clutching a handkerchief. Her face was pale and she seemed to have been crying. She brushed past Annie with a sweep of her wide skirts, scarcely saying hello.

  Surprised, Annie watched her hurry down the street, then rang the bell. When Mrs. Crow appeared behind the screen door, she said, “Oh, hello, Mrs. Crow. I came because I wanted to get some more of what you gave me earlier, that wonderful—”

  “I’m sorry, but I don’t have any more wild carrot seeds at the moment,” Mrs. Crow said firmly. “Another lady came for it, too, and I’ve just told her the same thing. I’ve been meaning to go out and gather more, but I won’t have time to do that in the next few days. As I told that lady, if you really must have it now, you can easily get it for yourself. I saw a patch of it in the vacant lot behind Purley’s General Store, between the store and that little strip of woods along the railroad track. The flowers are already dried out and the seed is ready to be harvested.” She smiled and added, “But do be careful, my dear. There’s hemlock growing there, as well, and you don’t want to get the two confused. It’s poisonous.”

  Wild carrot seeds? Annie stared at the woman as the truth began to sink in. If Delia had come to buy wild carrot seeds, it was for the same reason that she—and Annie, too—had purchased them some weeks before. Because she didn’t want to have Adam’s baby. Which meant
. . . which meant that she and Adam were sleeping together again.

  “I see,” Annie said slowly, thinking that Delia wasn’t exactly the kind of person to go out to a vacant lot to gather seeds. That might account for the distress she had seen on her face as she left the house. Or perhaps she was distressed because she needed the seeds now, to counter the possible result of something that had happened the night before. She took a deep breath, steadying her voice. “As it happens, I didn’t come for wild carrot, Mrs. Crow. I’d like to buy some more hibiscus flowers. The girls who work with me love the tea.”

  “Oh, yes, indeed,” Mrs. Crow said happily. She pushed the screen door open. “Well, then, come in, dear. I have plenty of hibiscus. Did you know it’s medicinal, too? All the old books say that hibiscus is good for the heart. And if you have trouble falling asleep, just add a little lemon balm and St. John’s wort and drink it at bedtime. You’ll sleep like a baby.”