A Sound Among the Trees

by Susan Meissner

  The boy followed her. “But why do they do that?”

  “Because … I suppose because you learn things by experience that you can’t learn just by reading about it in a history book.”

  “Huh?”

  Adelaide stepped aside as a caterer swept past them with a tray of sliced ham.

  “They do it for fun,” she continued a second later. The outside air was just steps away.

  “Yeah, but everybody knows how it ends. You can’t pretend that part. The North won. Everybody knows that. What’s the fun in pretending if you can’t pretend what you want?”

  “Who says you can’t pretend what you want?” Adelaide stepped across the threshold, caressing the door frame as she walked past it, her eyes scanning the garden for her Blue-Haired Old Ladies.

  arielle sank into a white padded folding chair and kicked off one open-toed pump. She plunged her bare foot into the succulent grass and let the coolness soothe the skin on the balls of her feet. Behind her the quartet was playing a racing tune that made her think of birds in flight. Guests were seated in chairs all around, on the grass and the stone patio, eating off glass plates and sipping drinks. The lilt of their subtle Southern accents lifted above the music as her brother, Chad, spoke to her from across the table.

  “Wow. Quite the party,” he said.

  Marielle settled back in the chair. “This is how it’s done in the South. Or so I’ve been told.”

  Chad smiled. “How what is done?”

  “A proper garden party.” Marielle waved toward the buffet tables and gloved catering staff. “Carson thinks all this finery is Adelaide’s way of making up for not being at the wedding last week. I would’ve been fine with tapas on paper plates. But she wanted elegance.”

  Chad’s smile widened. “Do they even know what tapas are here?”

  Marielle kicked off her other shoe. “I told Adelaide that Carson and I had the rehearsal dinner in Phoenix at a tapas bar, and she thought I said topless bar.”

  Her brother tossed his head back and laughed. Marielle joined him.

  “Funny, right?” Marielle said. “Oh, and this morning I asked her if the local grocery store here has cilantro, and she told me she’s never seen any label from a place called Salon Trowe.”

  “You sure you’re ready for this?” Chad said, laughing harder.

  “It’s a little late to have that conversation again, don’t you think? Have you noticed what I’m wearing?” She grabbed a fold of wedding dress above her knee and fluffed it upward. The gentle fabric fell away like water when she let go.

  “I suppose you’re right about that.” His smile, half its weight now, graced just one side of his mouth.

  Marielle cast a glance about her. Carson was several yards away, talking to a man from his office in DC. Hudson and Brette were far off in the lower part of the garden with her and Chad’s parents. Adelaide was eating a piece of cake at a table on the edge of the garden, surrounded by her elderly friends, all wearing Easter-colored polyester. “You’re still happy for me, though, right?”

  Chad raised his champagne flute. “Of course I’m happy for you.”

  She watched him take a sip and place his glass back on the table.

  “I really do know what I’m doing,” she said.

  “I thought you didn’t want to have this conversation again.”

  “I don’t.”

  “Fine, then let’s not have it.”

  “Just because we’re not having it doesn’t mean I don’t know what you’re thinking. I have a right to be happy with someone. I’m thirty-four, in case you’ve forgotten. You still had zits when you married Lisa.”

  He grinned. “I did not still have zits.”

  “You were twenty-three. You still had zits.”

  “Hey, I totally agree. Not about the zits; about you having the right to be happy with someone. If you’ve met your soul mate in Carson, then I’m genuinely happy for you. Really.”

  Marielle crossed her arms across the tabletop. “But there you go. You said ‘if.’ You don’t think I have.”

  Chad cocked his head. He opened his mouth, then shut it.

  They were quiet for a moment. One of the tiny asters in Marielle’s hair fluttered to the table. She gently slid it back into her hair.

  Chad stroked the stem of his glass. When he spoke again, his voice was tender. “Look. I really like Carson. And his kids. And if you’re totally fine living in the same house where he lived with his first wife, then more power to you. Just please tell me you’re not sleeping in the bedroom she slept in.”

  “Not that it’s any of your business, but no, we’re not. We’re sleeping in a room Sara never spent any time in.”

  Chad crinkled an eyebrow. “Okay, well, that just doesn’t seem possible. She grew up in this house, right? You told me her mother practically abandoned her and Adelaide raised her here. This house is big, but it’s not that big.”

  Marielle’s gaze rose involuntarily to the gabled windows of Holly Oak’s second floor. All the bedroom windows looked the same from that part of the garden. A long exhale escaped her lungs. “It’s big enough.”

  Chad paused a moment before continuing. “You know, Carson seems like a nice guy, Elle. He seems like the kind of guy who would understand if you wanted to have your own place.”

  Marielle lowered her eyes to meet her brother’s gaze, “Carson would have moved us into our own place if I had insisted. I didn’t insist. This has been the kids’ only home. I didn’t want to do that to them.”

  Chad’s forehead wrinkled in puzzlement. “Do what to them? You and I moved four times when we were kids. It’s not the end of the world.”

  “This is their home.”

  Her brother leaned back in his chair. “Yeah, but any house can be a home if you’re with the people you love and who love you. I’m sure I read that on a poster somewhere.”

  Marielle shook her head, and another aster fell from her curls. “Well, I don’t live my life on poster philosophy. I’m sure you don’t either.”

  Chad nodded, but his thoughts were unreadable. She couldn’t tell what he was agreeing to.

  “I didn’t insist,” she continued in a gentler tone. “I could’ve, but I didn’t. This is a lovely house. A beautiful house.”

  “Adelaide’s house.”

  “And she’s going to be ninety on her next birthday. In the not so distant future it will be Hudson and Brette’s house.”

  “I suppose.”

  Marielle huffed a breath past a quick smile. “What’s to suppose? She’s old. She’s frail …”

  “She doesn’t look frail to me. I’m surprised she didn’t come to the wedding—”

  “She likes staying close to the house. And she’s going to be ninety, Chad!”

  Her brother raised his glass and drained the last of his champagne. He nodded as he swallowed. “You’re right. It’s a beautiful house.” He set the glass down.

  Marielle narrowed her eyes. “What?”

  “What do you mean, what?”

  “What else are you not saying?”

  “I’m out of champagne.”

  “Coward.”

  He smiled. An easy, relaxed smile. Different than the ones from the last few minutes. She waited.

  “Funny that you would call me a coward, Elle. Because I think you are very brave.”

  “Ha ha. So very funny.”

  He lifted his glass toward a passing waiter who held a tray of champagne flutes. “It’s true. You are brave. You fell in love with a guy you met online and dated for just four months, and now you’re living in his dead wife’s house, with the grandmother who raised her, and you’re mothering her children, and you’ve moved far away from the desert and everything that’s familiar. And you’re okay with all of it.” The waiter handed Chad a new glass, and he saluted her with it.

  The gesture felt like an unexpected jab from a trusted ally. She flinched from surprise and the tender sting of her brother’s candor. “That was low,” s
he murmured. “You’d say that to a girl in her wedding dress?”

  Chad set the glass down and reached across the table for her hands. “Hey, I wasn’t being sarcastic. I meant every word. You are brave. Braver than me. I’m in awe, actually. It’s a compliment, Elle. I promise you.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s not what it felt like—”

  “I’m totally serious. I’m the coward. And you’re the brave one.” He released her hands.

  “Tell that to Mom and Dad. That’s not what they think. Or my friends back in Phoenix. They think I married Carson because I was desperate.”

  “No, they don’t.”

  “They do. They just won’t say it. But they do. I see Mom looking at me and looking at Carson and these two stepgrandchildren I’ve thrown into her lap, and I know she worries I’d grown desperate and that’s why I married Carson. And I’m pretty sure Adelaide thinks it too, and she barely knows me.”

  “Marielle.”

  He waited until she looked up at him.

  “You know what I think?” he asked. “I think you need to stop wondering what everyone else thinks. You love him. He loves you. That’s all that matters, right? Love is enough. I know I saw that on a poster somewhere. Love and cilantro. I will make sure to send you some seeds so you can grow your own.”

  Marielle smiled as the tense moment evaporated. “And serrano peppers, too.”

  “Want to change the subject?” Chad asked.

  “Absolutely.”

  “Kirby tells me there’s a cannonball buried in the stonework on the north side of the house. Compliments of the Yankees.”

  “Oh right. The cannonball. I’ll get Carson, and he can show it to you. I suppose Kirby told you the house is haunted, too?”

  “By a ghost named Susannah. A spy, I hear. A spy for the Union.” Chad rose from his chair.

  “A spy? Who’d you hear that from?” Marielle slipped her shoes back on her feet and stood.

  Chad motioned with his head toward Adelaide’s table. “One of Adelaide’s cronies over there.”

  Marielle turned toward the table at the edge of the sun-drenched garden. Adelaide lifted her head at that moment and met her gaze. The two women regarded each other from across the patio. Marielle tipped her head in a silent greeting, and Adelaide slowly returned the nod.

  As she and Chad moved away from the table, an aster fluttered from her hair and landed on the grass by her feet.

  rom her table at the edge of the patio Adelaide watched Marielle and her brother approach Carson as he talked with a colleague. She saw Carson brighten at her approach and lift his arm as almost an afterthought to encircle her waist. Marielle said something to him; the colleague leaned forward in interest.

  “Cannonball!” the man exclaimed.

  Carson said something, and then the four of them moved away, toward the back of the house.

  “She’s a nice girl, Adelaide. And my goodness, she’s tall,” Pearl said.

  Adelaide swiveled her head to face her three table companions, women she had known since their children were in diapers. On her right, Pearl sat in a coral-hued dress and hat. Deloris and Maxine, one in creamy yellow and the other in lavender, sat across from her. A fourth woman, Frances, whose jet black hair warred with the deeply set wrinkles in her eighty-five-year-old face, slowly ate her piece of cake. She was new to Fredericksburg and her circle of friends at First Presbyterian—definitely not one of the Blue-Haired Old Ladies. Maxine had brought her.

  “I never said Marielle was nasty and short,” Adelaide said.

  Maxine laughed.

  “So what does she do?” Frances asked.

  Adelaide rearranged the napkin on her lap. “She writes grants for environmental groups.”

  Several blank faces stared back at her.

  “What exactly does that mean? What’s an environmental group? Is she one of those the-sky-is-falling liberals?” Deloris’s brow crinkled in disdain. “Does she think we’re all melting the North Pole?”

  “I seriously doubt she thinks the sky is falling, Deloris,” Adelaide replied. “And I don’t think she spends much time thinking about the North Pole. She’s lived in Arizona all of her life. Her specialty is desert conservation. Or something like that.”

  “The desert. Her specialty is the desert?” Deloris’s tone was dubious. “What on earth is she going to do here in Fredericksburg?”

  “She’s not going to try to find a job right away, is she?” Maxine asked. “I mean, those children haven’t had a mother in four years. The least she could do is be here at the house for them when they get home from school.”

  Three blue-haired heads and one raven-haired one turned to Adelaide, the unspoken observation obvious on their faces. If Marielle wasn’t going to be working, then what would she do all day while the kids were in school? in Adelaide’s house?

  “I don’t know what Marielle’s plans are. They’ve only been here for a few days, and I’ve tried to give them as much privacy as I can.” Adelaide brought her teacup to her lips. The liquid inside had cooled. She looked about for one of the waitstaff she’d hired to freshen her cup. No sign of one.

  “So how exactly is that working out?” Deloris leaned forward in her chair. “I mean, the privacy thing and all. With your bedrooms on the same floor.”

  “Deloris!” Pearl blushed crimson.

  “What? They are!”

  Adelaide turned back to face her friends. “Holly Oak is plenty big enough for the five of us, Deloris. I am sure we’ll manage to stay out of each other’s bedrooms.”

  “I haven’t seen Marielle spend much time with the children today.” Frances cocked her head toward Hudson and Brette, who were on the lower level of the garden near the entrance to their mother’s former art studio—and the last remaining echo of slave quarters at Holly Oak. Marielle’s parents and Carson’s mother were with them, talking quietly together while the children played with a lop-eared rabbit, Hudson’s new pet.

  “Oh, Frances. It’s a wedding reception. Look at all the guests Marielle has had to greet,” Pearl said. “Isn’t that right, Adelaide?”

  Adelaide’s gaze traced the sloping lawn to the vine-covered walls of Sara’s studio and her great-grandchildren playing in front of it. She looked first to Hudson and then Brette.

  “Hudson and Brette are adapting very well to Marielle’s being here,” Adelaide said absently.

  “Did you know Carson and Marielle are taking the children with them on their honeymoon?” Deloris said, turning to Frances. “They’re spending a week in Orlando. At Disney World. Can you imagine? Children on your honeymoon?”

  “I think it’s very sweet of them,” Pearl said. “Those children are as much a part of this marriage as the two of them are. I think it’s a lovely thing to do. There will be plenty of time for Carson and Marielle to have trips of their own.”

  “Well, it just seems odd to me. Especially taking them out of school for four days when there’s only a month left.” Maxine said, but Adelaide had slowly disengaged from the conversation. Her gaze lingered on Brette, off in the distance playing on the front step to the studio, bending down to touch the rabbit, and squealing as it hopped away from her.

  Frances pushed her plate away. “I suppose they need this time alone together to bond as a family. That’s what I heard on the TV. When two people marry and there are kids already, it’s like a new family is being forged out of untried steel.”

  Adelaide watched Brette run to Marielle’s mother, Ellen. The woman reached down and adjusted the bow in Brette’s hair. Brette said something and Ellen laughed. Ellen knelt down and hugged the girl, and Brette’s slender arms easily went around Ellen’s neck. Adelaide marveled at the intimacy, and it took her several seconds to remember Brette didn’t meet Ellen for the first time last night as Adelaide had. Brette met Ellen at the wedding. Brette stayed in Ellen’s house. Ellen had bought her a bracelet made by Hopi Indians.

  A name on the periphery of her consciousness tugged at Adelaide as she w
atched Brette disengage from Ellen’s tender embrace.

  Caroline.

  “So you haven’t heard from Caroline, then,” someone at the table was saying.

  “Frances,” another voice said, in quiet reproof.

  Adelaide turned back to the table. “What was that?”

  “I just asked if you’d heard from Caroline.” Frances replied as the other women stared at her.

  Adelaide lifted her teacup and nearly raised it to her mouth before remembering it had grown tepid. She set the cup back down. “No. I haven’t.”

  Pearl patted Adelaide’s hand.

  “What?” Frances looked about the table, from old woman to old woman. “Isn’t that her daughter’s name?” Frances faced Adelaide. “Isn’t that your daughter’s name? I was told that was her name.”

  Adelaide licked her lips. “That is her name.”

  Maxine leaned across the table. “And I also told you not to bring it up!” she growled in a half whisper.

  “You told me she probably wouldn’t be at the reception. That’s what you told me. You didn’t say I couldn’t say her name!”

  “I most certainly did say that,” Maxine muttered.

  Pearl clucked her tongue.

  “What? Why can’t I ask where she is? Is she in prison somewhere? Is she living in a commune in San Francisco?” Frances directed these questions to Pearl.

  An uncomfortable silence stretched across the table. Again, Adelaide’s gaze sought her great-granddaughter’s form, now in the dappled shade of a crab apple in bloom at the garden’s westernmost edge. “She could be in either of those places, I suppose,” Adelaide replied.

  “What?” Frances blinked.

  “Adelaide, we don’t have to talk about Caroline,” Deloris said.

  “What did she say?” Frances turned to Pearl. “Did she say she’s in both of those places? They have communes in the prisons in San Francisco?”

  “Honestly, Frances!” Pearl exclaimed.

  “What?” Frances’s voice rose in multiple decibels.

  “I don’t know where Caroline is,” Adelaide turned to address Frances and her glistening black hair. “I don’t see her very often, Frances. It’s been four years since I’ve seen or heard from her. And I haven’t known where Caroline is in decades.”