Love, Alice

by Barbara Davis

It wasn’t that she didn’t deserve to hear them. She did. It was only that just then I knew I was too exhausted to make a proper job of it. I needed her to know, to understand in the marrow of her bones, that there would never, ever be forgiveness, that what she had done to me, and to you, my little one, was a sin she would carry for the rest of her life. And so I walked all the muddy way to town—and kept polishing my stones.

  There was no warm welcome waiting for me when I reached town, only hushed whispers and long sideways stares. Mam had fooled no one with her flimsy story. I knew it the moment I passed by the chemist’s and bumped into Ellie Gleason as she came out with a yellow umbrella and an armload of parcels. Her eyes went wide, then slid toward my belly.

  “Well, well. It’s good to see you home again, Alice. I take it your . . . aunt . . . has recovered?”

  “Yes, thank you.” I tried to smile but couldn’t. I hated the way she was looking at me, her eyes sharp and glittering.

  “Nothing catching, I hope?” she inquired, hitching one iron grey brow. “I only ask because you look as if you might have suffered a bout of something yourself. You’re so thin and pale, poor thing.”

  Her voice was like treacle, as sticky-sweet as her pointy little smile, and I wondered who the pantomime was for, since we both knew perfectly well I had no aunt, sick or otherwise. I couldn’t blame her for staring. I’m sure I looked like something straight out of a cornfield, pale and reed thin, my mud-spattered dress hanging like a rag from my shoulders. All I wanted at that moment was to be away from her, and yet I couldn’t walk away and leave that simpering smile on her face.

  “It’s very kind of you to be concerned, Mrs Gleason,” I said, my voice low and grave. “As a matter of fact, I have been ill. A nasty lung infection I just can’t shake.” I paused, pressing the heel of one hand to my chest, and summoned a deep, rattling cough. “Quite contagious, I’m afraid. They say I’ll always have it, and that it might even worsen with time.”

  Mrs Gleason’s smile froze, then vanished, her umbrella faltering as she ducked behind the shield of her parcels. She took a step back, and then another. “Sorry to hear it. My goodness, will you look at the time? Give my best to Dora, won’t you?”

  And then she was gone, retreating at a near run down High Street. It was the first time I could remember smiling since the day I arrived at Blackhurst. My glee was short-lived, though, fading the moment I turned down Trimble Lane and saw the dark red roof of our cottage come into view.

  I stood outside in the drizzle for half an hour before mustering the will to go in. The mingled scents of apple, onion, and brown sugar greeted me, childhood smells that meant comfort and home. I followed them to the kitchen, where I found Mam at the counter, rolling out a round of pastry dough. She was making squab pie—no doubt in honor of my homecoming.

  She must have sensed me in the doorway, because she turned. Her eyes filled with tears when she saw me, her mouth working, gasping at the air like the fish Johnny used to catch and then toss on the bottom of his boat. I never could stand the sight of those fish, gasping and writhing. I always looked away. But I didn’t look away from Mam. Instead, I stood there, letting her survey the damage, my hollow eyes and gaunt face, the outline of shoulders and ribs beneath my soaking-wet dress.

  It hurt her to look at me. I wanted it to hurt, not just then, but always. But when her sobs began in earnest I did look away, pretending to fumble with the laces of my muddy shoes.

  “Here,” Mam whispered, her voice choked and hoarse. “Hand them to me. I’ll set them in the oven to dry for a bit.”

  I straightened, then turned, staring at her outstretched hand, reddened from the laundry she took in to help pay for my schooling. Her words stunned me, as if I’d just returned from a trip to the market. And yet I nearly did as she asked. I was wet clear through, and so very tired, my chest aching from the exertion and damp. At that moment, all I wanted in the world was to fall into her arms and hear her tell me that everything was going to be all right. It wouldn’t be, though. It would never be. Not between us. And so I picked up my shoes and moved past her, tossing them into the bin on my way to the stairs.

  Upstairs, I peeled out of my dress, slip, and stockings, letting them fall to the floor, and stood gazing around the room I had grown up in. After the crowded wards at Blackhurst, it felt both empty and claustrophobic. One bed instead of a dozen narrow cots. One small window overlooking a stony shoreline, instead of six peering out over chalk-coloured cliffs. I shivered, recalling the sad-eyed girl—Kathleen—who had hurled herself out into the deep blue nothingness beyond those cliffs rather than live another day at Blackhurst.

  But I’m not Kathleen. I have survived Blackhurst and all its miseries, not unscathed, perhaps, but I soldiered through it, paid my penance. And now I have a promise to keep—the promise I made to you, little one—though just now I don’t know how I’ll do it. I have no money, and no idea where to begin.

  I thought again of Marianne, of her face as I left her in the chapel that day, desolate and shiny with tears. She had wanted so badly for me to understand her choice, and I wanted her to understand mine, but we were simply too far apart, our hearts too much at odds to ever mend our fences. I was surprised to see her waiting by the gate as I was leaving, her eyes full of pleading. She said nothing as she threw her arms around me, her damp cheek pressed tight to mine. I just stood there, arms at my sides, unwilling to forgive. After a moment I pulled away, pretending not to notice the folded note she slipped into my pocket. I already knew what it said. She was sorry. It was for the best. God had a plan.

  Perhaps he does, but so do I. And all Marianne’s tearful apologies won’t help me see it through. And yet, as I stood there in my room, staring down at my discarded clothes and the weeping stain they were making on the bedroom carpet, I found myself thinking about that note, wondering if it was still in my pocket, or if it had dissolved during my lengthy trek in the rain.

  Crossing to the closet, I pulled out the first skirt and blouse I laid my hands on and dragged them on. They swam on me, as if they belonged to someone else, but I didn’t care. I only wanted to be warm. Then I crouched down, retrieved my sodden dress from the floor, and fished the damp note from the pocket. It was wet but intact, the writing only a little smeared. I smoothed it flat against the grey wool of my skirt, my hand trembling at my mouth as I read the single line scribbled there:

  Sacred Heart Children’s Society. Charleston, S.C.

  TWENTY

  PALMETTO MOON MOTEL

  CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA

  OCTOBER 14, 2005

  It was near midnight when Dovie folded the fifth letter and laid it on the stack with the others. Across the table, Dora sat as pale and still as stone, her silver lashes starred with tears.

  Dovie looked away, her throat thick. She didn’t want to imagine what it must be like to hear your own daughter say such terrible things—bitter things no mother could ever forget—or to acknowledge that she was the reason Dora had just heard them. She had tried several times to stop reading, but each time Dora had pressed her to continue, absorbing each page like the lash of a whip, a necessary penance. Now, despite Dora’s urging, Dovie found herself unable to go on. The rest of the letters would have to wait.

  Josiah told her once that people had their reasons for taking their secrets to the grave, and that sometimes it was better that they did. Perhaps he was right. Dora was certainly no better off for having heard her daughter’s words. She was weeping into a handkerchief now, shoulders hunched and shuddering.

  “I’m sorry, Dora. I never should have told you about them. I should have realized—”

  Dora choked back a sob as her head came up. “I wanted to know the truth, didn’t I? Those letters are the truth.”

  “But some of the things she wrote were—”

  “Deserved,” Dora said, mopping at her eyes. “I did a terrible thing, Dovie. She had
every right to hate me. I just wish I’d had the chance to tell her I was wrong. I tried when she came home, but she wouldn’t listen. She just shut me out. And then one day I woke up and she was gone.”

  “There was no note? Nothing saying where she was going?”

  “No. But I knew. She made no secret of the fact that she meant to look for the child, or that when she left she would never be back. I didn’t believe her, of course. I thought she was only saying it to punish me. Other than Blackhurst, she’d never been out of Sennen Cove. I couldn’t see how she’d ever manage it, but she did, clever girl.” She sighed, mopping her eyes again. “There was a tin I used to keep under the kitchen sink. I used to put my laundry money there every week, savings for when it was time to send her to university. She took it, can and all. And the gold watch and chain my own mam left me. The thing hadn’t run in ages, but I guess she thought she could get something for it.”

  Dora closed her eyes, letting her handkerchief flutter to the floor. “What kind of mother does what I did, Dovie?”

  “The kind who wants what’s best for her daughter,” Dovie said, reaching for the fallen handkerchief and pressing it back into Dora’s hands. “Even if she’s wrong about what that might be. What you did, you did out of love.”

  “That’s what I told myself, too. But the truth is, I did it for me—because I was ashamed. There was no end to the talk when I arrived in Sennen Cove with a baby on my hip and no ring on my finger. I told everyone my husband had died, but they knew. Somehow they knew. Maybe my face gave me away, I don’t know. Or maybe I just tried too hard to look respectable. Nothing I did mattered. The talk spread like wildfire. I was stared at, whispered about, even by the church ladies—especially by the church ladies.”

  She paused, squaring her shoulders, as if she could still feel their eyes between her shoulder blades. “It took a long time for them to let me in, and some never did. I didn’t want that for Alice. I knew what the whispers would sound like. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Like mother, like daughter. I couldn’t bear it. So I kept my secret—and became as cruel as the people I wanted to protect her from.”

  Out of words, and near tears herself, Dovie stood, picking up Dora’s mug of cold tea and carrying it to the kitchen. The facts were the facts, and a fresh cup of tea wasn’t going to change them, but it was all she knew to do. Her mother always made her tea with honey when she was down with a cold. But Dora wasn’t suffering from a cold. She was heartsick, broken deep down in places tea couldn’t reach.

  Dovie tidied up a bit and inventoried the cupboards while she waited for the Earl Grey to steep, then carried the mug to the bedside table. “Time for your medicine and sleep, I think. We can talk more tomorrow, but right now you need some rest.”

  Dora rose stiffly and lumbered toward the bed. “Tell me again why you’re being so kind to a dotty old woman.”

  “I wouldn’t say I’ve been particularly kind to you tonight. All I’ve done is dragged up a lot of bad memories and given you more to beat yourself up about. Which makes me all the more determined to help you find out the rest of Alice’s story.”

  Dora stared into her darkening tea. “I’ve resigned myself to never knowing.”

  “And you might not,” Dovie told her. “But there are still things to try. I’m going to get online and see what I can find. Maybe I can find something about Blackhurst, and the babies who were born there. It might wind up being a total dead end, but it’s at least a place to start. But if I should happen to find something else, something unpleasant . . .”

  Dora’s mug came down on the nightstand with a bang. “You’ll tell me. Whatever it is, Dovie, I want to know. Promise me you won’t ever try to spare me anything.”

  Dovie nodded, though it was against her better judgment. “All right, I promise.”

  “Good. Go on now. You look tired, and I need to sit with all this for a day or two.”

  “Good night, Dora.”

  Dovie laid a hand on Dora’s shoulder, a gesture that was as much about guilt as it was comfort. Maybe Josiah was right. Maybe she had been fooling herself, blurring the lines between Dora’s need for closure and her own. She’d begun it as a kind of mission, hoping to soothe the grief of a fellow sufferer. But she had never stopped to consider the very real possibility that she would uncover things that might prove more damaging than healing. Now, if there was a way, she needed to put the lid back on Pandora’s box.

  TWENTY-ONE

  It was different being at Magnolia Grove on a Sunday. There was a different feel to the grounds. More people milling about. Church clothes instead of work clothes. Adults with children. Adults with aging parents. A sense of ritual, of family, and tradition. A collective grief that was more distant, mellowed by years of weekly visits.

  Dovie pulled in a lungful of air, savoring the crisp, leafy scents of fall, or what passed for fall in the Carolina Lowcountry. Josiah had already been by, she saw, to tidy the headstones and remove last week’s wilted blooms. He did it for the families, he said, so they’d know their loved ones were being looked after. It was this kindness that had drawn her to him in the first place, along with his crusty brand of wisdom.

  She could do with a little of that wisdom now. On the off chance that he was still roaming the grounds, she settled on her usual bench and turned up the collar of her jacket. She was surveying the bouquet of chrysanthemums and roses she had just placed on William’s grave when she spotted a man coming down the path. She knew at first glance that it wasn’t Josiah. He was too tall, for starters, and his stride was all wrong, long and rangy, and distinctive somehow as he moved in her direction.

  He slowed as he drew near but seemed not to see her, his attention focused on the neat rows of stones to his right. When he came to a halt in front of William’s grave, she sat up a little straighter. He wore a slate-colored duster over black slacks and a matching turtleneck, and gave off a faintly European vibe. Dovie racked her memory, trying to place him. There was something about his posture, about the set of his shoulders, the way his arms hung down at his sides, that seemed familiar, and yet she’d swear she’d never laid eyes on him.

  And then she realized what it was that seemed so familiar. It had nothing to do with his height or the color of his hair; he was in mourning. She knew the signs all too well, the bowed head and brittle shoulders, the hollow-eyed stare of someone whose life had caved in. But who was this stranger to William? A friend? A relative?

  Dovie couldn’t say if it was curiosity or an inexplicable pang of possessiveness, but suddenly she was on her feet, approaching almost stealthily, until she had come to stand just behind his left shoulder. He seemed not to notice her at first, his eyes fixed on the neat block letters etched into William’s headstone. Finally, he turned, blinking at her as if he’d been shaken from a dream. His face was all angles, sharp bones and dusky hollows, the kind of face that might have been chiseled from some exotic species of stone, smooth and pale and cool to the touch.

  “You’re her,” he said, startling her with a dismissive flick of cold blue eyes. “Dovie.”

  Something in his voice, the faint hint of distaste when he said her name, set Dovie’s teeth on edge. “And you are?”

  “Kristopher Bloom.”

  Dovie studied him another moment. He wasn’t unkempt, exactly, but there was something faintly scruffy about his appearance, something that didn’t quite fit his clothes. His hair was raked back from his forehead, dark and longish, just grazing his collar in back, and his jaw was shadowed with stubble—not the kind sported by movie stars and GQ models, the kind that hinted at abandoned habits.

  “You’re William’s agent from New York.”

  “I was William’s agent, yes.”

  He had a slight accent, his vowels long, his S’s soft. Not British, but definitely European. She held out her hand. He took it, squeezing a little more firmly than was necessary. “You
’re prettier in your pictures.”

  Dovie’s eyes widened, stunned by both his grip and the bluntness of the remark. So stunned, in fact, that she could think of no reply. For one thing, it was probably true. She hadn’t bothered much with her appearance since William’s death—not that it was his place to point that out. Especially when he looked so untidy himself.

  “Yes. I’m her,” Dovie said when she had finally recovered. “I don’t recall speaking to you at the funeral. In fact, I don’t recall seeing you there.”

  “Because I wasn’t.”

  “Oh.” It was all she could think to say, though she found it odd that as William’s agent he hadn’t bothered to attend.

  “I came later,” he added, as if reading her thoughts. “After everyone was gone.”

  Dovie nodded, wishing she’d had that choice. “I think half of Charleston was here that day. William’s parents know everyone from here to Savannah.”

  “Yes, well, I wasn’t sure I’d be welcome. I decided to err on the safe side.”

  “Not welcome? Why?”

  Bloom smiled, a fleeting curl that was gone almost as soon as it appeared. “Come on. Let’s not play games. Billy’s parents hated that he chose art over a real career. I was the one who told him he was the real deal. And he listened. As far as they’re concerned I wrecked his life.”

  Dovie said nothing. It was true. William had always credited Kristopher with encouraging him to follow his passion for sculpture. And he was spot-on about the Prescotts. When it came to William’s art, they had never been supportive, treating it like a phase he would eventually grow out of. In fact, she was pretty sure that was why his mother had been in such a rush to see them married. She was hoping that once her son took a wife he would see the folly of pursuing art as a career and would follow his father into the world of finance.

  “He was, you know,” Kristopher said. “The real deal.”