Love, Alice

by Barbara Davis

  She lifted the remaining envelopes one at a time. They were thin, not more than a sheet or two apiece if she was guessing—the last threads of connection Dora would ever have to her daughter—and one last chance to let go of her guilt. Was it possible she could come away empty-handed after hearing them? Or worse, that instead of redemption, they could contain the exact opposite—condemnation? Yes. In fact, it was highly possible. But if there was a chance of finding even the faintest glimmer of forgiveness in Alice’s final words, then any amount of tears would be worth the risk.

  FORTY-SIX

  9 East Battery Street

  Charleston, South Carolina

  October 17, 1968

  My dear sweet child,

  It breaks my heart to say what I’m about to, and to do it with so little warning, but I fear the time for truth has come at last. I have been reluctant to put the words on paper, as if writing the thing will somehow make it more real. But it’s real enough as it is.

  I’ve been told my time is short.

  I’ve been doing my best to hide it—and, I suppose, to deny it—but I’ve been steadily growing thinner, and my cough finally became so persistent that Gemma insisted on sending for Dr. Ponder. When he left she called me into her sitting room and closed the door. She smiled as she invited me to sit beside her. But it was a sad smile, the kind that didn’t quite reach her eyes, and I knew the news was bad. Her chin was quivering, and I saw how hard she was trying not to come apart.

  There was a tea tray on the table in front of her. She poured out two cups and handed one to me, then passed me a plate of biscuits, which I declined. She’s always trying to fatten me up, but I have no appetite these days. She glanced away as she set the plate down. That’s when I saw her eyes go bright with tears. I pretended not to see, pretended not to know what was coming. But I did know. I saw from the way she held her shoulders that she wasn’t going to soften the blow, that she was going to tell me the truth, and I wanted to make it easier for her—easier for us both.

  Finally, she reached for my hand. “I’m afraid the doctor didn’t have very good news, Alice. It’s bad, honey. And it’s going to get worse. He suspects something called pulmonary fibrosis. It’s scarring and inflammation left over from the tuberculosis, which can happen when an infection goes untreated for too long. It’s why your cough has never quite gone away, and why it’s been getting steadily worse. Apparently, the scars continue to spread even after the disease is gone.” She lowered her eyes, letting them slide away from mine. “He says it’s not something you’re likely to recover from, that eventually . . .” Her words thickened and trailed off.

  “I’ll die.”

  “Yes.”

  She had whispered the word, gulping back tears as she turned her face from mine. It broke my heart to see her weep, and yet I felt a kind of calm, too, as if some part of me that had been holding on too tightly had suddenly let go. Because I realized that somewhere deep down, I had already known. Perhaps it’s the dream that’s been coming nearly every night now. Something is reaching for me, something I can’t see, but can feel, like invisible fingers on the back of my neck. And no matter how fast or far I run, it just keeps coming.

  “There was a girl at Blackhurst,” I said quietly. “Mary Matthews was her name. She came down with the consumption before any of the rest of us, back before they knew what it was. We watched her waste away. She grew so thin, so blue and pale that you could see the bones through her skin. She died before she could give birth to her baby.”

  Gemma was past hiding her grief. Her eyes welled as she reached for my hand. “Oh, honey, it won’t be like that. Dr. Ponder has a call in to a specialist in Columbia who’s coming up with new treatments all the time. He says with some of the new advances they’re making, you might have years.”

  I smiled and said thank you. I even pretended to believe her. But I knew better. And for all her promises, I saw that she did, too.

  Since then, we’ve been walking on eggshells, afraid to meet each other’s eyes for fear one or both of us will burst into tears. I still look after Austin on the days I feel strong enough—the doctor has assured Gemma there’s no danger in me being around him—but those days are getting more and more rare. He is my only joy now, though sometimes my heart aches just a little when I look at him. He reminds me of you, and the promise I now know I will never be able to keep.

  Perhaps that’s why my health is failing so rapidly now, because without my promise there’s nothing to cling to, no hope for the reunion I have always dreamed of. The unfairness of it sears me, and yet so much is my fault. I should have stood up to Mam when she wanted to send me away, I should have run away and had you on my own, I should have fought the nuns when they took you. These are the things we think about when our time is ticking down, how many ways we have failed, how we could have done things better.

  There’s so much to regret, so much I miss. I miss home. I never thought I would, but I do. I miss the emerald sea and sunsets on the pier, the way the air tastes of salt and the hills are always green. But mostly, I miss Johnny, the plans we made, and the life we were going to have—all gone now.

  Gemma asked me if I’d like to go home when it’s all over, and offered to arrange it if that’s what I wanted, but I told her no. I don’t want to go home in a box. Besides, Charleston is my home now. I leave nothing behind, no legacy or mark on the world, except you, my angel—the child I never held, but always loved. I pray your life is a good one, that you are loved, and well, and happy. That’s all any mother can hope for, my dearest. Know that I hope it for you.

  All my love,

  Mam

  Dora’s face was ashen when Dovie looked up from the page, her eyes open but unfocused. “She missed the sea. She missed the air. She missed her Johnny. But not me.” Her eyes closed then, a single tear spilling down her cheek. “Not me.”

  “I’m so sorry, Dora.”

  Dora shook her grizzled head. “It’s what I deserve, isn’t it?”

  “Don’t say that. Please.”

  “How can I not? When the thing that killed her came from that place? If I hadn’t been so proud, hadn’t sent her away, she’d be alive today, instead of lying dead in the ground. I wasn’t even there with her. I should have been with her.”

  “And you would have, if you knew, Dora. You would have done anything to get here. Just like you’re here now.”

  “Too late,” she whispered as a fresh rush of tears trailed down her cheeks. “And the child . . . I still don’t know what happened to the child.”

  Dovie folded Dora’s hands together and placed her own over them. “There are only two letters left. I can read them now, if you want, or you can rest a little, and we can do it another time. They might be . . . hard.”

  Dora shook her head firmly. “No sparing, remember?”

  9 East Battery Street

  Charleston, South Carolina

  December 5, 1968

  My dearest,

  The doctor has been again today, likely for the last time. The last X-rays were not good, and the newest round of pills doesn’t seem to have made a dent. There’s nothing more to be done. No new doctors to visit, no more medicines to try. My disease must and shall run its course. And until now, I haven’t minded so very much. I breathe through a tube now, much of the time, and rarely leave my room. The days are long, and the struggle to breathe is scarcely worth the effort, so that the end has begun to seem like a blessing—a good long rest, with my Johnny waiting on the other side.

  But Johnny must wait a little. There’s a thing I must do, a promise I must extract to set things right after I’m gone. Perhaps I should have waited a little before writing this, until my temper had cooled and I was feeling stronger, but in my case, waiting could turn into dying, and I’ve already been cheated of far too much to leave the truth unsaid. Please be patient, sweet one, and forgive a sick woman�
��s rantings. I must let out the poison or choke on it.

  Where do I begin? There is so much to say, and so little time to say it, so many questions to ask and answer. How does one reconcile kindness with betrayal, joy with heartache? After so much practice, I should be better at such things. Instead, I’ve been a fool, too blind to see that deception often disguises itself as charity. When I think of how much time I wasted, and what trusting a friend has cost, I’m filled with a despair so raw it makes my bones ache. Such have been my lessons, my angel, though I fear they have come too late.

  But fate is not without its kindnesses, if you know where to look. Kindness, you see, is a stealthy thing, coming from places you least expect. A dagger’s thrust becomes a mercy. An intended cruelty becomes balm to the soul. A sworn enemy becomes a kind of friend. I will always be grateful for Harley Tate’s great kindness that day, though he meant it as no such thing. He meant to be cruel, to wound me mortally, and he has very nearly succeeded. But it’s the way a thing ends that counts, and we’ve not reached the end just yet.

  There is more to say—much, much more—but I find I haven’t the strength just now to tell it properly. I had hoped to write more, to lay it all out for you, just as it happened, but events have taken their toll. I will sleep a little and begin fresh in the morning. Good night, my sweet one.

  All my love,

  Mam

  Dovie stared at the single sheet of stationery, feeling strangely hollow. It was all so cryptic and foreboding. Alice’s health had clearly deteriorated, but something else had happened, something that had shaken her badly. She had written of betrayal and despair, the cost of trusting a friend, and perhaps strangest of all, a cruelty that had somehow become a kindness.

  Dovie stole a glance at Dora, a shade paler now than after the previous letter, but stoic, too, with her hands folded over her chest, braced for whatever the last letter might contain. Taking a deep breath, Dovie pulled opened the envelope and teased out its contents, then did a double take as she spread the sheets on her lap.

  She hadn’t noticed when putting them in chronological order that the handwriting didn’t match, but now the difference was glaring. Alice’s writing was open and loopy, even in the last few letters, where the lines tended to sag and slant, likely the result of her failing health. But the words in this final letter were tight and elongated, and with a decidedly elegant slant. She didn’t need to scan the bottom of the page to know Gemma had written it—or that Alice was gone.

  January 30, 1969

  My dearest friend—

  Yes, I will call you friend, because that’s how I still think of you, the dearest friend I ever knew. But you’re gone now—gone from me, and gone from Austin—and my heart is broken as I sit at your little desk, surrounded by things that remind me of you. Your clothes. Your shoes. And your letters.

  I found them while I was packing up your things, just where you said I would, tucked away in that little sewing basket I gave you when you first came. You must have known I would read them, and I have—every one, to the last. It struck me as odd, at first, writing letters you never expected to be read, and yet here I sit with my pen. I miss you so terribly. I miss your face, and your voice, and the silly English songs you used to sing to Austin when he was tiny. I miss our time in the garden, and our talks over tea. And so I thought, why not? If pen and paper once brought you comfort, why not me? One last letter to a dear friend, and the sister of my heart, a plea for forgiveness for what I’m about to say.

  I find I must return your letters. They sit beside me now, along with the watch you always wore, though it never ran in all the time I knew you. It grieves me to go back on my word, and I did mean every word I said that day. Truly, I did. But is it fair to hold me to a promise exacted at such a moment? With your fingers clutching at my sleeve, your fevered eyes pleading even as the light was leaving them? Surely you know it was not, and understand why I cannot do as you asked with the letters. I simply haven’t the strength, though I find I cannot keep them, either. They’re too glaring a reminder of how I have failed you. And so I have decided to return them to you in the only way I know how.

  I wish I had decided it sooner. It would have been easier to bury them the day we buried you. But nature will see to it soon enough. We have, both of us, lost so much already. Let our parting be the last of it. Fate can be cruel. I know this in my own way, though perhaps not as harshly as you, sweet friend. But some things cannot be undone. A broken promise, least of all. It was out of love for you that I made it, and out of love for another that I now find I cannot keep it. Forgive my selfishness, then and now.

  With love, and the profoundest regret,

  G—

  FORTY-SEVEN

  Dora had wept for nearly an hour, keening softly and rocking back and forth. Dovie had remained at her side, holding her hand, doling out tissues, and wondering how her good intentions had gone so terribly wrong. She’d had such high hopes for a happy ending, a feud mended, a heart unburdened. But there had been no happy ending. Not for Alice, or Dora, or even Gemma, it seemed.

  When Dora had finally fallen asleep, Dovie slipped from the room and out onto the back porch. Night was coming on, shadows stretching long dusky fingers over the marsh, turning the spartina a deep shade of blue. The rocker creaked as she eased into it and kicked her feet up onto the railing. Her head felt heavy and dull, crowded with questions that would never be answered. At least the mystery of how Alice’s letters had wound up in Magnolia Grove’s lost and found had been solved, if not the why.

  I have decided to return them to you in the only way I know how. I wish I had thought of it sooner. It would have been easier to simply bury them the day we buried you. But nature will see to it soon enough.

  Only nature hadn’t seen to them. They had resurfaced thirty years later, not to answer questions but to open old wounds. Dovie’s thoughts drifted to William, and the secret he had gone to such lengths to hide—a drastic and desperate act taken not to wound, but to avoid consequences he was simply unable to bear. Had Gemma’s motives for disposing of the letters been similar? And if so, what consequences had she feared?

  Had something happened between Harley and Alice that she felt compelled to hide? Given Harley’s dislike for his son’s nanny, not to mention Alice’s failing health, it seemed unlikely. Nor was it likely that Alice would omit such an occurrence when she’d been so candid about everything else. Gemma had written about a promise not kept, one that had been extracted as Alice lay dying. But what kind of promise? She’d read each letter half a dozen times, studying them line by line, but there was something she’d missed—or something that had fallen through the glaring gaps between Alice’s final letters.

  The sound of the kitchen phone ringing gradually penetrated, dragging Dovie back to the present. She hurried to catch it, afraid it might wake Dora. Her mother was talking almost before she could say hello.

  “Dovie, honey, it’s your sister. She’s in the hospital. It’s the baby.”

  In the fluorescent glare of the waiting room, Rowena Larkin’s face looked like a punching bag, mottled and dark, her eyes so puffy they were little more than slits, her nose swollen and an angry shade of red. She pressed a crumpled tissue to her mouth when she saw Dovie and got to her feet.

  “She’s in trouble, Dovie. They’re both in trouble. They let Roger go in with her, but it isn’t good.”

  Dovie’s stomach gave a sickening jolt. “What kind of trouble?”

  “It’s her blood pressure. They’re doing everything they can, but she’s not responding, and the baby’s heartbeat . . .” Her voice trailed off in a fresh gush of tears.

  Dovie took her mother’s hands, folding them together as she pressed them to her lips. “It’s going to be all right, Mother. They’re both going to be all right.”

  “They said they’ll have to take the baby soon, if she doesn’t start responding.”

&nb
sp; A hundred questions crowded into Dovie’s head, none of them the kind of thing her mother was likely to have answers to, and none of them reassuring—the what-if questions. What if they couldn’t get Robin’s blood pressure under control? What if the baby wasn’t strong enough to survive? What if Robin—?

  No. She was going to stop right there. Nothing good could come from those kinds of questions, and right now she needed to keep a clear head, to be the strong one in the event that the news wasn’t good.

  After getting her mother back into her chair, she went in search of the cafeteria, returning a little later with a pair of large coffees. Something told her they were in for a long afternoon, and a cup of coffee would at least give them something to do with their hands.

  Rowena took the proffered cup and lifted the plastic lid. “Thank you. Did you bring sugar?”

  Dovie reached into her jacket pocket, producing several packets. “Any word?”

  “No. I keep asking, but no one will tell me anything. Maybe you’ll have better luck than I did at the nurses’ station.”

  A few minutes later, Dovie returned, dropping down beside her mother with a shake of the head.

  “Let me guess,” Rowena grumbled. “There’s been no change. The doctors are doing everything they can. As soon as they have any new information, someone will be out to speak with us.”

  “Pretty much word for word. I guess all we can do now is wait.”

  “And pray.”

  Dovie stole a sidelong glance at her mother, noting the fresh tears clinging to her lashes, and was suddenly filled with anger. “Why is she even doing this?”

  Her mother seemed startled by the question. “Doing what?”

  “Having another baby, for heaven’s sake! She already has two. Isn’t that enough, for crying out loud?”