Love, Alice

by Barbara Davis

  “No, I’m not one of those, as you put it, though my father was, and so are a lot of my friends. Personally, I don’t care. Men and women get together for all sorts of reasons, most of them the wrong reasons, if you ask me. So if two people do manage to find each other for the right reasons—because they love each other and understand what that means—it shouldn’t matter to anyone what their version of happiness looks like. What I do have a problem with is loving one person while pretending to be in love with someone else. That’s deception, and it’s wrong.”

  “That’s just it. He wasn’t pretending. In my heart, I know that. Maybe it wasn’t the kind of love most people think about when they think of marriage, but the bond we shared was very real. It just . . . wasn’t enough. He never meant to hurt anyone. He just couldn’t be honest about who he was.”

  “And because he couldn’t, you wound up getting hurt.”

  Dovie toyed with the napkin in her lap. “All this time, I’ve been trying to figure out what went wrong, how I could have stopped it, or changed it, and all this time it wasn’t even about me.”

  “You were collateral damage, a casualty in someone else’s war.”

  “I wouldn’t put it like that. You said it yourself, the last time we talked. Sometimes we help people keep secrets, especially when we’re afraid it’s something we might not want to know. I think you were right about that—about me turning a blind eye. I didn’t want to look too closely at our relationship, didn’t want to admit that it was different from the relationships my friends had. I guess you could say I was complicit.”

  “So you’re going to keep blaming yourself?”

  “No, but—”

  “Dovie, loving one person doesn’t give you the right to hurt someone else. What William did was wrong. You’re allowed to be angry. Hell, you need to be angry. But you think because someone’s dead, it’s wrong to be mad at them, no matter what they did to you. So you choke it down, and keep choking it down. Meanwhile, it’s eating you up inside, until you’re so numb you’re not sure you’ll ever feel anything again.”

  Her eyes went soft and wide. “How do you know that? How could you possibly know any of that?”

  “I’m a good guesser.”

  But she wasn’t letting him off the hook. “I mean it. How did you know?”

  Austin reached for his water glass and downed a long sip, stalling while he figured out how to answer without answering. He hadn’t meant to go off like that, but he couldn’t just sit there and let her beat herself up. Her darling William had been a coward and a cad. The sooner she acknowledged it, the sooner she’d get in touch with her anger. It was the anger that would pull her back. Anger could get you through just about anything.

  She was still looking at him, still waiting for some kind of response. Setting down his glass, he leaned back, arms folded. “That’s a conversation for another day.”

  Or never.

  TWENTY-NINE

  Dovie sat up, blinking against the gathering gloom, gritty eyed and sleep numb, but no longer exhausted. She peered at the clock—almost six. She’d been out for more than three hours, though she suspected her motives for crawling into bed in the middle of the day had as much to do with seeking oblivion as the need for actual sleep.

  Her tearful confession to Dora. The fact of Kristopher. An entire bag of letters she still needed to deal with. The events of the last few days had hit her hard, so hard she barely remembered stepping back out onto the sidewalk after her impromptu lunch with Austin. Of all the adjectives she might have used to describe Austin Tate, empathetic wouldn’t have made the list, and yet he had been just that, knowing what to say and how to say it. But there had been something else, too, something in his eyes and the set of his jaw that said he’d walked in her shoes, that at some point he’d experienced his own emotional storm, and while he might have managed to come out on the other side, he hadn’t come out unscathed.

  She felt ashamed now as she recalled his words. “You think because my last name is Tate I’m immune to the things that hurt other people?” It was exactly what she’d been thinking, though she should have known better. If William’s suicide had taught her anything, it was that rich parents and a pedigreed last name didn’t always pave the way to happiness.

  But there was something the Prescotts could do, if not to bring happiness to their son, to at least fulfill what Dovie was sure would have been his final wish. Before there was time to change her mind, she picked up the phone and dialed the Prescotts’ number. Amanda answered on the second ring, and for an instant Dovie considered hanging up, but there were things that needed to be said, truths acknowledged—and perhaps wrongs set right.

  “It’s Dovie,” she said flatly. “We need to talk.”

  There was a moment of silence before Amanda Prescott responded. “I said everything I needed to say the day you brought that man into my home.”

  “Maybe,” Dovie shot back. “But I haven’t said everything I need to. For a year now, I’ve been punishing myself for what happened, wondering how I could have missed the signs. And the other day I sat there and let you blame me for all of it. Now I know what happened—and why. The funny thing is, I think you do, too. In fact, I think you always knew.”

  She paused, waiting for some kind of response, but was met with only silence. “I deserve the truth, Amanda. And closure. So I can finally move on with my life.”

  “My son is dead. That isn’t closure enough for you?”

  Dovie chose to ignore the unspoken accusation, pressing for an answer instead. “We can do this over the phone, or we can do it in person, Amanda. It’s your choice. But there are questions I need answered, things I need to hear from your lips.”

  “I don’t know—”

  “Yes, you do. And you have from the beginning. You knew William wasn’t really in love with me—that I wasn’t what he wanted—but you pushed until he asked me to marry him. I always wondered why you were in such a hurry to get us down the aisle. Now I understand. You were afraid he’d back out. Because you knew about Kristopher. You knew William loved him. But you didn’t care what William wanted. You pushed and manipulated, until Kristopher finally broke things off. And all you cared about was that you had gotten your way.”

  “It wasn’t like that, Dovie,” Amanda whispered hoarsely. “Things would have been better after the wedding. He would have changed. You two would have made a home and started a family. He would have forgotten all about the art dealer.”

  “Kristopher. His name is Kristopher. And no, he wouldn’t have. He would have been miserable. He knew it, too. That’s why he did what he did. He couldn’t live the lie you wanted him to, so he swallowed a handful of pills to make sure he wouldn’t have to.”

  “You think . . . you’re saying it was my fault?” She seemed stunned by the thought, as if her own culpability had never occurred to her. “How dare you!”

  Dovie stifled a sighed. “I’m not saying it was your fault, Amanda. It was William’s responsibility to tell the truth about who he was and how he wanted to live his life, something he never found the strength to do. What I am saying is you and your husband didn’t make it any easier for him. He lived with your disappointment every day, about his art and, well, everything, and it eventually wore him down. He wanted to please Kristopher, but he needed to please you. There was no way to do both, so he found a way to not have to choose at all.”

  “I’m hanging up,” Amanda blurted, her voice sharp now, almost desperate. “I won’t listen to this . . . this . . . nonsense. We gave William everything he could have wanted.”

  “Except the freedom to be who he was.”

  There was another gap of silence, this one so long Dovie wondered if she’d hung up. Finally, she was there, her voice chilly and flat, as if she’d flipped some switch on her emotions. “Is that all? Do you have your closure now? Now that you’ve accused me of driving my son to
suicide?”

  “That’s not what I did. Or at least not what I meant to do. I called because I need to hear you say out loud that you knew I wasn’t what your son wanted, and that you did everything in your power to hide that truth from me. I also need you to admit that there was nothing I could have done to change what happened.”

  “I really did think I could . . . fix things. I thought if he married you he’d see that what you had together was right.”

  “Amanda, what William and I had wasn’t what you thought. It wasn’t even what I thought. I’m just beginning to see that myself. I’ve spent the last few days trying to be mad at him for lying to me, and for leaving me wondering what I’d done. But mostly, I think I’m mad at myself.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I barely understand it myself. But it’s about pretending things are the way you want them to be rather than how they really are. It never works, and people usually wind up getting hurt.”

  “You mean William?”

  “I mean all of us, Amanda. You and your husband aren’t the only ones who got hurt in all this. I’ve spent the last year blaming myself for something I had no control over, and Kristopher was devastated—is still devastated. Why not let him have the sculpture?”

  “That’s what this call is about?”

  “Partly, yes. Because it’s what William would want.”

  “My husband has already decided that matter.” Her voice sounded brittle, and dangerously close to breaking.

  “Mrs. Prescott—Amanda—you loved your son. I know you did. And in some warped way, you thought you were doing what was best for him in trying to get him to marry me, but I think we both know that wasn’t true. If it was, William would still be here, and we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

  “I never meant to hurt him. You have to know that, Dovie.” She was sobbing now, choking on her words. “I just didn’t understand. Maybe I didn’t want to. Harold was disgusted by what William . . . by what he was. And he expected me to be, too. I had to choose sides. My husband or my son. And now you’re asking me to choose again.”

  “I’m asking you to do what’s right, Amanda. Only that.”

  There was another long stretch of silence, but something about this one felt different, less hostile somehow. Dovie held her breath, determined not to open her mouth and say something that might darken the mood again.

  “Fine.”

  “Fine, as in Kristopher can have the sculpture?”

  “Tell him to take it. I’ll deal with my husband.”

  “Thank you, Amanda.”

  “I know you think we’re terrible people, Dovie. And maybe we are. Maybe we care too much about what other people think. Maybe we’re insensitive. And maybe we’re selfish. But we never meant to hurt our son.”

  “Of course you didn’t. There was never any question of that, Amanda.”

  “Thank you for that.” Her voice was hushed, still thick with tears. “I think it would be best if we didn’t have contact going forward. It would be . . . awkward.”

  “Yes, I suppose it would. Take care of yourself, Amanda.”

  Dovie felt numb as she ended the call. She had expected to feel victorious, pleased with herself for seeing justice done. Instead, she felt emptied out, painfully aware of the fact that every word she had said to Amanda was true. She had been lying to herself and, for a very long time, mourning a happily-ever-after that was never meant to be.

  William once told her that before her there had been no other women. She had written it off as gallantry. But in all likelihood, he’d been telling the truth. Like Amanda, she had been in denial, consciously or unconsciously ignoring the signs—both those that were there and those that weren’t. Things like the sheepish way he would always turn up on her doorstep after one of his prolonged absences, bearing wine and flowers, as if he had something to make up for. Or the way he would sometimes glance at his phone when it went off, and then slip out of the room to answer the call. And perhaps most telling, how, toward the end, he would claim to be too tired for sex, even after they’d been apart for more than a week. Their sex life hadn’t been bad—far from it, in fact. William had been a skilled lover, always tender, always slow and thorough. But in retrospect, she had to admit that his attentions had felt a bit deliberate at times, as if he were methodically going down some checklist, making sure to tag each base before moving to the next. Should she have guessed the truth? She still couldn’t say. But she knew it now.

  And suddenly, she knew there was something else she needed to do. In the hall, she opened the closet and dragged the nylon garment bag from the back, tugging down the zipper. The satin glimmered ghostlike in the dim hall light, a pale reminder of a past that had never truly existed. For a moment her fingers hovered, almost touching but not. Instead of letting her fingers have their way, she tossed the gown over her arm and headed for the front door, stalking toward the green plastic can beside the garage.

  She should take it to a consignment shop, she told herself as she lifted the lid and peered down at the can’s grimy bottom, or maybe run one of those sad classifieds in the Post and Courier. For sale: Designer bridal gown. Never worn. But suddenly the urge to get rid of the dress—to get it as far away from her as possible—was more important than the month’s salary it had cost her. It was therapy, she reminded herself as she stuffed the dress into the can and slammed down the lid. It was closure.

  Back inside, she eyed the dusty bag of letters on the kitchen counter with a mixture of dread and curiosity. She knew Dora was desperate for answers, but there was something else she needed to take care of first. Fishing her cell from her tote, she pulled up Kristopher’s number and hit DIAL. She couldn’t help smiling when she heard his voice. No matter what awaited Dora in those letters, for now at least, she would be the bearer of welcome news. Later, after she had showered and scared up a little dinner, she would sort through the letters and begin the business of putting Alice Tandy behind her, too. Josiah was right; it was time to be done with dead people.

  THIRTY

  9 East Battery Street

  Charleston, South Carolina

  January 13, 1963

  Dearest little one,

  My heart was coming out of my chest this morning as I boarded the bus for downtown. I lay awake most of the night, rehearsing what I would say when I got to the Tates’ house. I would get off on Meeting Street, ask directions to the Battery, which Cathy told me was down near the water, and then walk the rest of the way. I also found myself praying that I hadn’t been duped. For all I knew, the address on that paper didn’t even exist and Danny was somewhere counting his money and laughing up his sleeve.

  The thought left me queasy, but not as queasy as my first glimpse of Charleston Harbor as I rounded the corner onto East Battery Street. The sight of so much water, churning pewter grey as far as the eye could see, reminded me of the long trip over and the seasickness that had plagued me most of the time.

  I craned my neck as I continued down the sidewalk, past crisp white balconies, clever little courtyards, iron gates wound through with honeysuckle vines, and more chimneys than all the houses in Sennen Cove put together. I had never seen such grandeur in my life, and I marveled that a child of mine—a child born within the abysmal walls of Blackhurst—could have ever come to live in a place like this.

  My heart began to hammer when I spotted the shiny brass plaque engraved with the number 9, and suddenly my legs seemed made of lead. I couldn’t move, or remember any of the things I was supposed to say. I just stood there, counting windows and chimneys, trying to ignore the gallop of my heart against my ribs.

  And then it was time to walk through that fancy iron gate and do what I had come to do. Somehow I made my way up the brick-paved walk and the front steps, wondering with every step how I had found the cheek to even come to such a place and demand the return of my child. It was pr
eposterous, of course, this notion that they would believe me. And yet I reached for the brass knocker.

  My mouth went dry all over again when the door swung open, whatever I’d meant to say shriveling in my throat. A black woman in a starched white uniform stood there eyeing me up and down before eventually pulling back the door and ordering me in.

  “The missus been expectin’ you,” she said, giving me another sharp once-over. “You’re early. Agency said you’d be along about ten.”

  I opened my mouth, but no words came. There was only one reason they’d be expecting me. Danny must have gotten caught. My stomach lurched as I imagined him trying to save his skin, blurting out my plans to Mrs. Jennings. Suddenly, I was glad I had skipped breakfast.

  “Landy, has she come?” The voice drifted to the foyer from somewhere deep in the house, high and musical, and I shot a frantic glance over my shoulder, looking for a route of escape. And then she was there, the lady of the house, coiffed and gracious as she stepped into the foyer.

  “Welcome,” she said, holding out a manicured hand. An enormous diamond winked from her ring finger. “I’m Gemma Tate.”

  I took her hand, somehow, and might have smiled. “Alice,” I mumbled. “Alice Tandy.”

  “You’re English. How lovely! They didn’t tell me that. I assumed you’d be . . . well . . . never mind. We’ll have some tea, then, shall we? Landy, can you bring a pot of tea into the parlor?”

  Landy gave me one last look as she turned away with a sniff that reminded me of Mrs. Jennings. I held my breath as I watched her go, trying to reconcile the woman’s open disapproval with Mrs. Tate’s warm welcome.

  “Why don’t we sit and have a little chat? We should get to know each other a little, don’t you think?”

  I nodded, though I had no idea what she meant. I shuffled behind her, too anxious to take in my surroundings, except to note that I had seen pictures of palaces that weren’t half so grand. Everywhere I looked, something seemed to be gleaming: chandeliers, mirrors, mahogany tables, even the foil wallpaper in the enormous front parlor. I did my best not to stare but failed miserably.