A Lowcountry Wedding

by Mary Alice Monroe

  Carson took the velvet bag, which was surprisingly heavy. As she tipped the bag, a large piece of jewelry fell into her palm. The large circular brooch had diamonds in a starburst pattern around a large sapphire. Carson could only stare, speechless, it was so stunning.

  “My mother gave it to me to wear on my wedding day. It’s been in the family for ages. Bought at Croghan’s back in the day the store was still in Mr. Croghan’s home. That piece is a part of your history.”

  “Oh, Mamaw, it’s too much.”

  “Now, Carson, that brooch is meant to be worn with that dress, and it will give me the greatest pleasure seeing you wear it as I did. Right here.” Mamaw touched Carson’s left shoulder. “You can’t wear your black pearls on your wedding day. It wouldn’t be seemly. You don’t want to wear pearls anyway. That dress was designed to show off my swan’s neck. Or rather, like it was, once upon a time.” Mamaw smiled tenderly. “Wear it, dear. It’s your something blue.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  This is our adventure, right? Our weddings. We’ve never been afraid before. Let’s not start now. Like you said, the future begins today.

  May arrived with a heat wave. The lowcountry shot from spring to summer. By the end of the month the trees had exploded with color, flowers overflowed their boxes, residents caught short were racing to plant their gardens, and local children were crossing off days on calendars till the school doors opened and they were set free. Talk on the streets was of how warm the waters were already, always a predictor of hurricanes. Some thought the sea-turtles season would begin early. Folks were selecting programs for the upcoming Spoleto Festival.

  At Sea Breeze, however, the only thing on the ladies’ minds were the impending weddings.

  Outside Sea Breeze, large tents were being erected for the rehearsal dinner the following night. Mamaw was standing on the deck at a safe distance overseeing the workmen. She didn’t have any directions to give them, per se, but felt they needed watching nonetheless. The house would not be open to guests, but a crew was inside buffing the floors and washing the windows until they sparkled in the sunshine. The porch had been transformed. The wicker table and chairs had been removed, to God only knew where, and replaced with a handsome bar and several long tables that a woman was now covering with a pile of silvery linens. Men were delivering potted plants, and three women in green butcher aprons emblazoned with WILDFLOWERS INC. were hanging lush ivy, greenery, and flowers from a poled framework over the porch. All this under the direction of a bubbly, talkative, happy-go-lucky woman with the eye of an eagle.

  Dora, her blue eyes bright with excitement, came to join Mamaw on the deck. Dora was dressed to work in white pedal pushers and a blue T-shirt that had SEA BREEZE BRIDES in script across her breast. The girls had ordered T-shirts for all of them, but Mamaw couldn’t bring herself to wear hers.

  “Mamaw!” Dora exclaimed. “There you are. Isn’t this exciting? It’s all beginning. It’s wedding time!” Her enthusiasm could not be contained.

  “I might get excited once I see the tent securely up. There’s mud back there.” Mamaw shook her head. “I hope it will hold.”

  “Don’t worry, Mamaw, these guys know what they’re doing. What can I do to help?”

  “Thank heavens you’re here. Would you supervise what’s going on in the living room? I can’t be in two places at once. Carson is inside talking to the Legares. Cru Catering hasn’t received the shrimp from the Captain yet. I know they’ve been culling the best shrimp from the crop and I’m grateful, but they have to get a move on. You can’t make a Lowcountry Boil without shrimp!” Mamaw brought her handkerchief up to dab at her brow and upper lip. “Is it just me or is it hotter’n Hades out here?”

  “It’s hot. Don’t get flustered, now, Mamaw. Harper’s given everyone a time line with strict instructions to follow it. We all know where to be when.”

  Mamaw fanned herself with her clipboard. “Let’s hope so. Harper doesn’t want any surprises.”

  Harper was in her office finishing wrapping up the cookbooks she had created from Lucille’s recipes. She was proud of the project. When she’d blithely come up with the idea, she had no idea of the number of hours of concentrated labor all the testing of recipes would take. Just deciphering the yellowed and stained cards and scraps of paper she’d found with Lucille’s chicken scratch all over them was a labor of love. Harper had made what she called “loving changes” to the recipes, partly because she didn’t want to cook with bacon fat or lard and partly because she couldn’t read the writing. But she was finally done. She stood back and admired the wrapped books with pride. She was giving them to her sisters, as well as all the ladies in the family, tonight as wedding gifts.

  “Harper!”

  Taylor’s voice boomed through the house. He was in the attic working on his project. She smiled, thinking of him up there doing what he needed to do to make this house feel like his own. Although, she thought with a sigh, why he had to start the project right before their wedding was beyond her.

  She hurried to the hall in time to see his head pop out from the attic. “What is it, honey?”

  “You’d better come up and take a look at this.”

  Something in his tone told her not to waste any time arguing. She hurried to the pull-down stairs and climbed monkey-style up into the attic.

  Taylor took her hand and helped her climb up at the top. The air in the attic was thick with dust motes shaken up from all Taylor’s hammering and moving things around. It was nearly empty now. Mamaw had cleared the attic of all her belongings when she’d moved out the previous fall. They’d had quite a party sorting through the boxes of memorabilia. Only a few unwanted pieces of furniture had remained. These Taylor had shoved out of the way of his labors until he could get help moving them out. Some of them were immense, which was the reason they’d remained in the attic.

  Taylor led her to the far left end of the attic. “Careful where you walk,” he called out.

  “Oh, look at that!” she exclaimed, mesmerized by the small fort that had been constructed in the corner. It was shabbily built of miscellaneous pieces of wood nailed together. Its door opening was so small that an adult would have to crawl through to get inside. Most arresting, however, were the letters—large, malformed, and crudely written—and drawings in paint. There was a sun, a moon, stars. A rough sketch of a skull and crossbones, and a long grassy mound that looked like a mole’s tunnel.

  “I found it behind the bookcase when I moved it,” Taylor told her. “That thing was heavy as hell. Hadn’t budged in years. Was this your playhouse?”

  “No.” She shook her head in wonder. “At least not mine. I don’t know about Carson and Dora. But I doubt it.” She pointed. “It says NO GIRLS ALLOWED.” She clutched Taylor’s arm. “Oh my God, Taylor. It must’ve been my father’s.”

  She bent at the waist to peer in. Its window was grimy with dirt, but some light peered through, giving her a glimpse of the space. Someone had constructed a wood floor and painted more drawings on the inside. There were words, too, that stood alone—COURAGE, MAGIC, BELIEVE, HEART, PERSEVERE. These were written in a neater, more mature script. Other than a ratty-looking red blanket piled in a corner, it was empty.

  “Have you gone in?” she asked Taylor over her shoulder.

  “Not yet. Not sure I can squeeze through the opening.”

  This was one of the times Harper was glad she was small. She got down on all fours, relieved she was wearing jeans today.

  “Be careful,” Taylor warned.

  “I’ll be fine.” She slowly crept into the fort, eyes on the lookout for mice or spiders. Once inside, she sat Indian-style and looked around. The space was tight and cozy, a right proper fort, she thought to herself, and smiled. Just the kind of place she would have loved to hide out in as a child.

  “See anything?” Taylor was on his hands and knees, peering in.

  “You can fit through. But it might be tight.” Poised to leap back, she reached out an
d gingerly lifted the red blanket, half expecting a mouse to scamper out. She released a long sigh when one didn’t, but she was surprised nonetheless. Under the blanket was an ashtray filled with butts.

  “That’s weird,” she said.

  “Not really. Parker probably came up here to sneak a smoke.”

  Nasty habit, she thought as she leaned over to grab the ashtray. The floor under the ashtray teetered beneath the weight of her hand. Catching her balance, she set the ashtray aside, then lowered her head and inspected the floor.

  “The wood floor in here has been cut. I wonder . . .” She wiggled the wood a bit, getting one side to rise up a few inches. Grabbing the edge, she lifted the board off. “I knew it. It’s a secret compartment!” She was filled with admiration for her father’s cleverness. It’s exactly what she would have done if she’d had a fort like this.

  “What’s in it?”

  “Just a minute.” She wiped her brow, feeling the heat of the attic. Behind her, Taylor had climbed through the door to his waist and was watching over her shoulder with keen interest. She handed him the pieces as she pulled them out.

  There were three watches sans bands. A black velvet bag. A few empty gun shells. A World War II medal, a few pennies so green with age she couldn’t make them out. On the bottom of the compartment were three slim books. She pulled them out and set them on her lap.

  “Are they yours?”

  Harper was wildly wondering the same thing. Could her father have gotten hold of books she’d written as a girl, perhaps from Mamaw, and had them printed? “Wouldn’t that be lovely?” she said with a child’s delight. To think he might have read them, cherished them enough to bind them up. Her hands were dusty. She wiped them on her apron before inspecting the first book on her lap. She carefully opened the navy cover.

  “It’s not mine. It’s a self-published book. Oh, Taylor, this might be one of his books. My God, it might be the only copies we have of something Parker wrote.” Her heart beat faster.

  She reverently turned the page and read the title. Tideland Treasures. She looked up at Taylor and grinned with anticipation. She began to read aloud.

  On a small barrier island there lived children who sat only on towels when they went to the beach, swam only in chlorinated swimming pools, who never picked up a fishing rod, and who never, ever ventured from the paved path.

  And then there was Atticus and his sisters, Dora, Carson, and Harper.

  Harper’s voice faded until the last word, her own name, came out a mere whisper. She felt the heat of the room like a furnace, and her head grew dizzy as all the comments, gestures, glances, and clues that had been floating in her head the past few weeks fell neatly into one inevitable conclusion.

  Those eyes. Those incredible Muir-blue eyes.

  She looked at Taylor. His green gaze was hooded, masking his emotions so he could better gauge hers.

  Harper closed the book and licked her parched lips. “We’d best get Mamaw.”

  Atticus sat at the granite counter of his condo, hands folded, head bent, praying for guidance.

  Mamaw had called to tell him the cat was out of the bag. His sisters had discovered he was their brother. Something about a fort found in the attic and a book Parker had written. Tideland Treasures was the story of a boy named Atticus who had three sisters: Dora, Carson, and Harper. How ironic, Atticus thought bitterly, because none of the three were mentioned at all in the terrible book he had read. He looked at the marked-up, tattered manuscript lying on the counter.

  He dropped his forehead to his palm. He felt overwhelmed with shame, panic. All that he’d built with his sisters—trust, confidence, even affection—would be soured by this. They’d only know that he’d lied to them.

  Why hadn’t he just told them the truth? He’d asked himself this same question over and over for weeks now. What madness convinced him to agree to that lie in the first place? And how did he and Mamaw think they wouldn’t be discovered and not hurt the very ones they had hoped to protect? Now nothing was left for him to do but man up and face them. To let them vent their anger.

  He looked outside the window at the ocean sparkling in the distance. He’d come to love living here, being near his newfound family. God help him, he was going to miss having them in his life. Leaving them—leaving the lowcountry—would be the hardest thing he’d ever had to do. Mamaw and his sisters had filled the hole inside him. And now he’d ruined it. They’d never trust him again. Atticus squeezed his eyes tight, feeling the hole in his heart opening again, fathomless.

  After a moment, he reached out to pick up Parker’s manuscript from the table. This, he now knew, was the only copy of their—and his—father’s book. It was the treasure for which the girls had been searching for so long. Not because it was an outstanding novel and would bring great wealth; sadly it wasn’t. But because the book was Parker’s life’s work. That made it priceless. At the very least, he could give them their father’s book as a parting gift. He slowly set down the manuscript, resting his hand upon the tattered pages. At least with that, having met him wouldn’t be a total loss for them.

  The Muir women congregated in Harper’s office, seated on chairs clustered around the coffee table. Everyone hastily called to this gathering and pulled from a wedding task on an already busy day now sat stunned and wide-eyed at the news that their father’s old fort had been found in the attic, with the children’s books authored by him nestled within. Outside the room, the calls of workmen echoed and the hammering was distracting. Inside the office, it was as silent as the grave. Tension crackled in the air as Harper read the line from their father’s book:

  “ ‘And then there was Atticus and his sisters, Dora, Carson, and Harper.’ ”

  The silence continued. Mamaw looked at each girl’s face. Dora sat far back on the settee, her blond hair pulled back in a sloppy ponytail and her eyes wide as saucers. Carson sat beside her and dropped her face in her hands. Harper closed the books and sat stiffly, ankles together and lips tight, like a marionette.

  “He’s our brother,” Dora said in a flat voice. “Our brother!” she exploded. “Daddy’s illegitimate son, born just months after Harper. Both women must’ve been pregnant at the same time. For God’s sake, didn’t Parker ever keep his pickle in the jar?”

  “Dora!” Mamaw exclaimed, shocked. It was one thing to think it, another to shout it out so crudely.

  “I can’t believe Atticus lied to us,” Harper said, her voice high with emotion. “After all his talk about honesty.”

  “I know,” Carson agreed. She shook her head disbelievingly. “I should’ve trusted my instincts. There was something about him that seemed like we’d met before, a deeper connection than just a minister or a friend. And then, those blue eyes. And you, Mamaw”—Carson pointed her finger at her grandmother accusingly—“you covered for him. That’s what threw me off the scent.”

  The three girls turned their heads to look reproachfully at Mamaw.

  “I did not cover for him,” Mamaw said sternly. “There was no covering up at all. He came to see me that first day, and we decided, Atticus and I, not to tell you the truth about all this until after the weddings. In fact, it was my idea in the first place not to tell you. Atticus didn’t like the idea of lying. And by the way,” Mamaw said with emphasis, “we didn’t lie. I told you that Atticus was a minister and that I asked him to marry you. All that is true.”

  “You just omitted the little part about him being our brother,” Carson spat out.

  “Only temporarily. We were going to tell you after the wedding. I thought it would be too stressful for you to deal with.”

  “And this isn’t?” Harper’s voice was an octave higher than normal.

  “You weren’t supposed to find out.”

  “Well, we did,” Carson fired out. “And I feel like I’ve been betrayed. That my trust was betrayed. I told him very personal feelings. I believed him.”

  A knock sounded at the door.

  “Taylor i
s furious,” Harper added. “I had to stop him from going over and having it out with Atticus.”

  “It’s not Taylor’s issue to deal with.” Mamaw’s voice was harsh with outrage. “I will not have it.”

  The knock sounded again. “Mrs. Muir?” a voice rang out from behind the door. “It’s Beth from Wildflowers. I have a quick question for you.”

  Mamaw closed her eyes tight a moment, then composed, called back, “I’ll be there in a minute.” She felt the tension rising in the room. Everyone had a million tasks to attend to, which only exacerbated the already-short tempers. This had to be the worst time for the news to come out.

  “You stirred the pot,” Dora said to Mamaw. “Bringing Atticus in here under false pretenses. Of course we’re upset. What did you think would happen when we found out?”

  “I didn’t think that far ahead,” Mamaw admitted honestly. “I was so thrilled to meet my grandson. And I was so pleased with the way you were all getting along. You did get along. You can’t deny it.”

  “But it was all based on a lie.”

  “I don’t want him to marry us. Who knows if he’s even a real minister?”

  “He was taking advantage of us.”

  “How do we know he really is our brother?”

  The girls’ voices all rose over each other until Mamaw couldn’t bear the backbiting any longer. She clapped her hands. “Stop it! Be quiet,” she said in a controlled fury. She looked at each of her granddaughters without hurry. “Atticus Green is your brother. The only brother you have. And he is my grandson. And as such he is as dear to me as every one of you.”

  The three women stared back at their grandmother, summarily silenced.

  Another knock sounded on the door. “Excuse me, Mrs. Muir. It’s Dan with the tent. Would you come take a look?”

  “One moment!” she called back in a frustrated shout. She could feel her heart accelerating. Everyone seemed to want a piece of her today. And it felt as if her granddaughters were ganging up on her. It was all too much. She looked down at her hands and saw them shaking. Clasping them together, she lifted her chin and faced her granddaughters.