She slowed as she approached the Prescott family plot, picking her way past the grave of Patty Sue Prescott, killed four years ago by a drunk driver while on her way home from a football game. William hadn’t been the first of the Prescott children to predecease his parents, just the most shocking.
Why, William?
The question was with her always, when she rose, showered, ate, worked, even when she slept. The why never left. That was what her mother didn’t understand, what none of them understood—that the grief might fade, but the why would last forever. Because there was no way to know what was going through William’s mind that night, no way to understand such a cruel and final choice. She’d never been much for New Age mumbo jumbo, but she was beginning to understand why people plunked down good money to see psychics. The need to know, to finally find some kind of closure, could be crippling—was crippling.
In the distance, a growl of thunder sounded. Dovie turned her eyes skyward, wishing she had thought to bring an umbrella. She’d need to hurry if she didn’t want to get soaked.
Last week’s flowers had already been removed, she saw as she approached William’s grave: Josiah’s doing. He knew she’d be bringing fresh ones today. She bent down, placing the sunflowers in the slender bronze vase, fussing a moment before stepping back to assess her work.
She was just bending down to rearrange a few blooms when she spotted the woman. She moved haltingly, a slow shambling gait that conveyed an unmistakable sense of determination, as if each step cost her dearly. But it was her clothing that truly captured Dovie’s interest, as if she’d just stepped out of an old black-and-white film. Her jacket and skirt were decades out of date, and she wore a hat, a crumpled cloche of drab gray wool, with a sorry little feather tucked into the band. Even her black patent leather handbag looked as if it had come from a vintage shop.
Dovie watched as she drew near, thin and stooped. She had expected her to move past. Instead, the woman halted a few yards away, pulled off her wire-rimmed glasses, and stood staring at the life-size angel standing sentinel over a nearby grave.
It wasn’t unusual for visitors to stop and stare. Alice’s Angel, as the statue had come to be known, was something of a local landmark. With her graceful wings, tearstained face, and woeful upturned eyes, she wasn’t only a thing of beauty; she was part of local lore. Or maybe gossip was a more appropriate word. Thirty-two years ago, she had been erected to mark the grave of Alice Tandy, the young maid who had, to the bewilderment of locals, been buried in the family plot of one of Charleston’s richest families, fanning talk that Harley Tate had kept a mistress right under his wife’s nose.
It had always made Dovie a little sad. People came from all over, taking pictures and rehashing the gossip, but there were never any flowers that she had seen, no visitors who came because they had known and loved her.
Until now.
Something about the old woman, the unyielding posture, the profound aura of misery hovering about those stooped shoulders, told Dovie this was no amateur taphophile, here to make a rubbing and cross another monument off her bucket list. No, she hadn’t come to see the angel. She had come to see Alice, to grieve for Alice, and Dovie’s heart ached for her.
The old woman was shaking her head now, her anguish palpable as she shuffled away from the grave, a hand pressed to her lips. She wobbled a bit, then sagged onto a nearby bench, as if with Alice’s passing, some hope or dream had slipped through her fingers. And it had, of course. Death was always about the loss of hope. And about regret.
What was it the old woman regretted? Words spoken in anger? A promise not kept? Or perhaps, like Dovie, her regret was a shadowy thing, the dull certainty that somewhere along the way, without realizing it, you’d let things go terribly wrong, that one step—taken or not—had been someone’s undoing. Yes, it was there in the old woman’s face, too—the why? It was written in the lines around her mouth, the shadows in her eyes, grief etched deep. This old woman felt guilt, Dovie realized with a bone-deep jolt of recognition—the kind that bent you over and broke you if you let it.
It was all Dovie could do not to go to her, to offer some hollow word of comfort. But an intrusion, even one kindly meant, might not be welcome. Grief was a private thing. And so she took a seat on her own bench and watched, an uneasy voyeur with a head full of questions.
Thirty years was a long time to grieve. Or maybe it wasn’t. She wasn’t sure anymore. Was there an acceptable length of time to put one’s life on hold? A normal length? People certainly seemed to think so. But what of the woman on the bench beside hers? Surely her life would run its course long before her grief did. It was a daunting thought, perhaps because Dovie had the uneasy feeling that she was being given a glimpse of the future—her future. Would she still be sitting on this bench in thirty years, waiting for answers that never came?
Another rumble sounded overhead, closer than the last, and more ominous, but the woman seemed not to hear. Instead, she pushed to her feet, weaving as she crossed back over the path and came to an abrupt halt before Alice’s grave. For a moment, she stood very still, as if she’d forgotten why she left her bench, and then she reached down and opened her handbag. Dovie was expecting a tissue or handkerchief, but she sat up a little straighter when the woman produced what appeared to be a letter. She stood staring at it for a moment, then pressed it to her lips and with heaving shoulders laid it at the angel’s feet—a penitent’s offering.
Dovie watched her turn and shuffle away. A letter. Of course. It was simplicity itself. But what did one write in a letter to the dead, when there was no hope of an answer? Or maybe it wasn’t about answers. Maybe it was about emptying yourself of anger and guilt and grief, letting it bleed out onto the page until you were finally free of it, a catharsis of pen and ink. Once again, she found herself wondering about the old woman’s regrets, about the kind of anguish that survived decades. What became of it after so many years? Did it fade, or merely harden?
Another rumble of thunder sounded. Dovie eyed the sky, then the pale envelope lying at the angel’s feet. It would be ruined. A ridiculous thought, since no one would ever read it. And yet the idea of leaving it there, until its pages were soaked through, its words blurred and lost, sent an irrational wave of panic through her.
She didn’t realize she’d made a decision until she got to her feet. She wouldn’t read it. She’d just take it home for safekeeping, then return it tomorrow. Surely there was no harm in that. Still, she hesitated when she reached Alice’s grave. It wasn’t easy to find yourself eye-to-eye with an angel, even one made of stone, and not feel as if you’d just been caught in some heinous act, particularly when you were about to commit one. She stood there a moment, waiting for a bolt of lightning to split the sky, a crack of thunder to warn her away. But as she stared up into those cool stone eyes, she found no censure, no disapproval or warning of any kind. And so she plucked up the letter and dropped it into her tote.
She was preparing to slip away when she saw the old woman’s glasses lying on the bench, forgotten in the emotion of the moment. She had no idea what to do with them, but again, leaving them to the coming storm felt wrong. She scanned the grounds, looking for Josiah, but didn’t see him anywhere. She’d ask on Monday. Scooping up the glasses, she dropped them into her tote and kept walking, anxious to be gone before she was confronted, and what—arrested? It was a letter, not a kilo of cocaine, or the launch codes to a Soviet missile silo. Still, her conscience niggled. Never in her life had she taken something that didn’t belong to her—and now this. Perhaps her mother was right. Perhaps it was time to talk to someone.
FOUR
Dovie dropped into her favorite rocker and propped her legs up on the deck railing. The tide was going out, the narrow estuaries that snaked through the salt marshes beginning to empty, leaving behind pungent mudflats teeming with microscopic life. It was the smell of her childhood, of summer days spent with her mother a
s she painted on the banks. She filled her lungs, then let the breath out, watching a pair of herons wading in the shallows. Taking a long sip of merlot, she savored the velvety warmth as it went down. She hadn’t drunk much since William’s death, a promise she’d made to herself not to become one of those women who lived on red wine and melodrama. She hated those women. But tonight she needed something to dull the voice of her conscience—or to prop it up. She wasn’t sure which.
The letter weighed almost nothing as she lifted it from her lap. No more than a page, surely. She turned it over, and then over again. There was no writing on the envelope, no clue on either front or back as to the identity of the woman who had written it or what her relationship to Alice Tandy might have been. Not that it mattered. It didn’t belong to her, though she couldn’t say with any certainty who it did belong to. Alice was certainly past reading it. And hadn’t the author relinquished her claim when she left it in the cemetery and walked away? Perhaps it belonged to no one. Or, perhaps, by some inexplicable twist of fate, it had been left for her to find, a message from a kindred soul, a woman whose grief, while nowhere near as fresh as her own, was clearly just as raw—a woman who understood.
She closed her eyes, blotting the envelope from view, if not her thoughts. The right thing—the decent and respectful thing—would be to put it back where she found it. Unread. And yet the need to know what it contained continued to gnaw. What harm could there be in appeasing her curiosity, in seeking some thread of insight in the words of a fellow sufferer? The girl was dead, after all, the old woman a stranger she wasn’t likely to see ever again.
Flipping the envelope over, she ran a finger over the flap. Such an easy thing—a mere flick and it would be open. And then, with almost no effort, it was done. Inside was a single sheet of paper, the same creamy hue as the envelope, carefully folded. A brief pang of remorse reared its head as she teased the page free, then spread it open on her lap. There was still time to do the right thing, to close it up and put it away. Instead, she began to read.
My dearest girl—for so you still are,
You have been gone from me so long that I scarcely know how to begin. And yet I must. I have crossed an ocean in the hope that your heart might have softened toward the woman who did you such a terrible wrong. If you’re reading this you have refused to see me. But please, for the sake of the mother who always loved you, and loves you still, read on. What I have to say has been on my heart too long to think of taking it to my grave unsaid. You must know, my girl, that all I did—my God, can it really be forty years now?—I did with love. You were so young, so unschooled in the ways of the world. You hadn’t learned yet how cruel life can be. But you did learn, and you have me to thank for that lesson. In my anger, I spoke of sin. Now I know the sin was mine. To turn my back, close my heart against my own flesh and blood, was unpardonable. No words can undo the horrors you were made to suffer, or restore what was taken from you. If there were, I would say them now. You said when you left that you would never be back, that you were through with me, and with Sennen Cove, and you’ve kept your word. I know nothing of your life. You’ve taken pains to make sure of that, which is a fitting punishment, I suppose. When my letters came back unopened, it broke my heart, but I understood. You didn’t want me in your life. And so I left you alone. But time passes, and a mother’s heart still hopes. I’m old and unwell, and my time is short. I don’t pretend this means anything to you, but it grieves me to think of leaving this world without seeing you once more, without knowing you’re well and have found some measure of happiness. Or without begging one last time for your forgiveness, my beloved daughter, for a mother who meant no harm, but did great harm just the same. I have taken a room at the Palmetto Moon, should you change your mind and want to see me. I pray you do. If not, I understand.
With more regret than you can possibly know—
Mam
Her mother, then, Dovie thought bleakly as she refolded the letter. A mother who hadn’t known her daughter was dead until she’d crossed an ocean, from—where? Dovie let the single sheet of stationery flutter to her lap, wishing to God she’d never read it. No insight, no comfort. Just pain and more questions. She polished off the last of her merlot, then closed her eyes, trying to imagine coming halfway around the world in search of forgiveness, only to find you’d come too late.
FIVE
Sundays were busy at Magnolia Grove, the one day a week Dovie usually skipped. But she had come today, determined to return the letter and separate herself from the questions that had plagued her dreams, questions that lingered even now—about shadowy sins and a mother’s plea for forgiveness, about mistakes, and grudges, and broken hearts. What was the woman’s story to her anyway? Before William’s death she would never have done such a thing, would never have let her emotions run away with her, never been tempted to cross such a line. But she had crossed it, because somehow in her jumbled head and heart, the letter had become about William, about the need to comprehend the incomprehensible, to wind back the clock and right some unnamable wrong. Except none of that could ever be. And so she waited. For the flowers to be left, and the prayers to be said, and the endless parade of families to leave, so she could undo yesterday’s terrible mistake.
There was no sign of the old woman. Dovie couldn’t decide if she was relieved or disappointed. She was, however, dismayed when Josiah broke from a nearby stand of oaks. He changed course the minute he spotted her, sweeping off his Panama as he approached. “Didn’t expect to see you today. Thought you took Sundays off.”
Dovie cocked an eye up at him. “I thought you did, too.”
He studied her a moment, then frowned. “Something up? You’re lookin’ kinda pasty, like you seen a ghost or something.”
Dovie forced a smile but let the remark pass. She didn’t believe in ghosts—not the real sort anyway. “I had some time on my hands, and it was such a beautiful day. I thought I’d get out in the sunshine.”
Josiah’s eyes narrowed as he settled his hat back on his head. “I might be wrong, but I hear they’ve got places for folks to enjoy the sunshine. Call ’em parks, I think. Hear they’re pretty popular, too.”
Dovie fixed him with her best scowl. “I see we had a big bowl of clown for breakfast.”
Josiah smirked, showing off one gold incisor. “Nope. Chess pie.”
“Did you save any for me?”
“I told you I’d bring you a piece on Monday, didn’t I?”
“Humph. A bribe, to keep me off your back, but I’ll take it.” She paused a moment, weighing what she was about to say. “Josiah, what do you know about Alice Tandy?”
The question clearly caught him off guard. He pushed back his hat, eyeing Dovie cannily. “What you askin’ about that poor girl for? All this time she’s been right there near your William, and you ain’t never once wondered about her.”
“I know, but yesterday there was a woman—an old woman—who came to visit Alice’s grave. She was so sad, so . . . I don’t know . . . broken. I just wondered if you knew who she was, or what her story might be.”
Josiah shrugged. “No idea about the old woman, but I remember the day they planted that girl in there with all them Tates—like poking a dandelion right in the middle of a rose garden. Raised a lot of eyebrows. As far as anybody knew she wasn’t no relation to any Tate, living or dead. But then, rich folks do as they like, and who’s gonna tell ’em no?”
“You don’t know who she was, or where she came from?”
“The girl?” He shook his head. “No. She and me wouldn’t have run in the same circles back then. Worked for Mrs. Tate as a maid or something, though talk around town was she did more for Mr. Tate than for his wife, if you catch my meaning. Folks like to talk like that, even when they don’t know what’s what, so no telling if there’s any truth in it. I just know there was a stir for a while, and no one in town could shut up about the Tates. Some say it’s her�
�the face on that angel—but I doubt there’s any truth to that. Could be, I guess. When you’ve got enough money you can do just about anything. And the Tates surely have their share.”
Yes, Dovie thought, they certainly did, and they’d just given a sizable chunk of it to the museum. And she was in charge of spending it, or at least recommending to the board how it should be spent. It was a rather unsettling coincidence that she now found herself knee deep in a family spat involving Mrs. Tate’s dead maid.
“It’s odd, though, don’t you think?” she said, staring up at the angel’s tearstained stone face. “Burying a maid in the family plot, then placing such a fancy marker on her grave?”
Josiah’s shoulders heaved again. “Like I said, rich folks do as they like. Why you so curious all of a sudden anyhow?”
“I have her glasses,” Dovie told him, rummaging in her purse for proof. “The woman I told you about—she left them on the bench. I was hoping you’d know who she was so I could return them.”
“Can’t help you there. Never saw her. Just leave ’em at lost and found. If she comes for them, that’s where she’ll go.”
Dovie blinked up at him. “The cemetery has a lost and found?”
“Sure do. Over to the office. You look surprised.”
“I am, a little. I never thought of a cemetery having a lost and found. It seems, I don’t know, weird somehow.”
“Why? Folks leave all sort of things behind.”
Dovie perked up. “What kinds of things?”
Josiah scrubbed at the grizzled stubble along his jaw. “Hats and umbrellas, mostly. Gloves. Glasses. The usual things. But there’s other stuff, too—stuff you wouldn’t expect.”
Dovie’s curiosity ratcheted up another notch. “Like what?”
Love, Alice Page 4