by Karen White
She wanted to go to Margaret, to offer words of comfort, but she remained where she was, unsure of what she would say. They had never spoken the same language, their words always seeming to get lost in translation. And Caroline would always, always be the child who had lived instead of the beautiful boy who hadn’t. She thought she could see that every time she looked in her mother’s eyes.
A small cluster of fireflies rose out of the grass and onto the porch, encircling Margaret. They bobbed up and down around her head, like little pats of a mother whispering hush to a crying child. Her mother bowed her head, her sobs now intermittent and her shoulders still. The loon called out to the restless moon, its voice closer and more insistent.
Gently Caroline let the screen door close, then backed away, leaving her mother to her own grief and the cries of a lonely loon.
Jewel watched her father’s truck back out of the driveway before throwing on her bathing suit, grabbing a towel and goggles, then racing out the door toward the dock. She was in time to see Caroline staggering from her own house, a can of Coke clutched in her hand. Dark circles ringed her eyes, and her pale lips blended into her face, making her look like she didn’t have a mouth.
Jewel slid out of her flip-flops. “I’ve got some concealer and lipstick if you want to borrow some.”
Caroline regarded her with half-open eyes. “No, thanks. I like the zombie look.” She looked pointedly to where Jewel’s flip-flops and towel lay on the dock. “Did you bring your cordless phone?”
“Nope. I figured we’d have time to go inside my house after the lesson and before the school bus comes. Don’t know if the signal would go this far.” She smiled at Caroline’s disbelieving smirk. “Promise. I won’t go back on our deal.”
Caroline plopped herself down on the dock and took a big swig of Coke. “All right. But first things first.” Her gaze slid up and down Jewel’s bikini—the same bikini that Jewel had twisted her dad’s arm to get him to buy for her. “If you show up for tryouts in that bathing suit, you’ll be laughed out of the pool. Don’t you have a one-piece or at least something that is guaranteed to stay on your body when you dive in?”
“You mean I can’t work on my tan and swim at the same time?”
Caroline took another swig of Coke and stared at her with raised eyebrows. “You’ve got a lot to learn. Go change.”
With an exaggerated sigh, Jewel jogged toward the house.
“Could you bring me another Coke? I need all the caffeine I can get.”
Jewel stopped and faced Caroline. “Is all that caffeine okay for you to drink—I mean, with your heart and all?”
Caroline sounded annoyed. “Yes, it’s fine. Unless you want me keeling over in a dead sleep.”
“All right, all right.” Jewel turned and began her trek back to the house, but couldn’t resist calling over her shoulder, “I guess the worst all that caffeine could do would be to curl your hair, which might be an improvement.” She heard the empty Coke can hit the grass behind her, and she laughed as she ran up the steps to the back door.
Five minutes later, wearing a boring but acceptable one-piece bathing suit, she found Caroline sitting on the edge of the dock, her chin resting on her pulled-up knees. She was staring at the water like a person would look at somebody she used to know but couldn’t remember their name.
Jewel took a long look at the water, too, before closing her eyes and searching for her mother’s face. She could see it sometimes against the light-tinged blackness of her eyelids, and she looked for her whenever she needed a swift shove from behind. Find the one thing that scares you the most and do it. With a deep breath Jewel broke into a run, dashing past Caroline. “Cannonball!” she yelled before hitting the surface of the lake and creating a huge wall of water that went crashing toward the dock.
Surfacing, she laughed at a drenched Caroline, who was trying to rework the wet strands of her hair into another ponytail.
“No—leave it down.” Jewel was about to add, It looks better that way, but decided that would be the best way to get Caroline to scrape her hair back again. Instead she said, “It’ll dry faster.”
“Gee, thanks for the advice.” Jewel could tell that Caroline was trying very hard not to smile. “New swimming rule. Ten push-ups for every splash.”
“No fair! I guess some people just can’t take a joke.” She stayed where she was, not yet willing to swim farther away from the dock. “Hey, I can touch the bottom.”
“Yeah—so remember, no diving.” Caroline’s forehead wrinkled. “Haven’t you been in the lake before?”
Jewel shook her head. “My dad doesn’t let me swim where there aren’t any lifeguards. He always takes me to the pool in Truro.”
Caroline nodded. “Well, just watch out for the sharks.”
“What?” Jewel jumped forward and swam toward the dock.
Caroline threw back her head and laughed out loud. “It’s a lake, silly. There aren’t any sharks in there.” Then she stopped laughing as if somebody had flipped a switch. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. I forgot that you were afraid of the water.”
Jewel shrugged. “That’s all right—it was pretty funny.” She took a deep breath, just now feeling the chilliness of the water, and looked up into Caroline’s face. “You look pretty when you laugh. You should do it more often.”
She wished she hadn’t said that, because Caroline’s eyes seemed to close while remaining completely open.
“Yeah, well, I’m an accountant. Accountants aren’t supposed to laugh.” Caroline leaned forward as if she were about to stick her hand in the water to test the temperature, then pulled back. “Your teeth are chattering—let’s get you moving. Why don’t you show me your freestyle stroke?”
Jewel looked apprehensively behind her. “Can I swim right in front of the dock or do you want me to go deeper?”
“You can just swim parallel to the dock. That way your feet can touch bottom when you need to rest.”
Jewel nodded, looking down at the greenish-brown water. She could see her hands beneath the surface, but they were distorted and blurred, like dream hands. She felt the muddy silt beneath her toes, and something small bumped into her calf, making her want to leap back onto the dock. Instead she looked up at Caroline. “Will you stay right there, and not go anywhere else while I’m in here?”
“Yeah. I’ll stay right here. Promise.”
She swished her arms in the water, feeling the cool push of it against her skin. “I’ll try not to do something stupid like drown, since I know how much you hate getting in the water.”
Caroline looked surprised for a moment, then gave her a half smile. “Thanks. I appreciate that. Now start swimming so I can see how much work we have to do.”
Jewel swam for half an hour, showing each stroke to Caroline and then working on part of each one until her muscles burned under her skin. She focused on the light of the sun and the woman sitting on the dock as she swam back and forth, and tried not to think too hard about the unseen things beneath her. Her mother had taught her how to do that, how it was important to pay attention to the things in life that offered light and hope, and not to worry about the things you couldn’t see.
She stopped for a moment while working on her butterfly kick, needing to catch her breath. Standing near the dock, she slid her goggles down to her neck and saw Mrs. Collier coming from the house and walking toward them. Caroline didn’t turn around to look, but Jewel could tell she knew by the way her shoulders straightened and her whole expression changed, looking like a person getting ready to slap a mosquito.
Mrs. Collier stopped next to Caroline. “I brought some sunscreen. You know how easily you burn.” She squirted lotion on her fingers and bent toward Caroline.
Caroline lifted her hand, blocking her mother’s fingertips. “Mom, I’m perfectly capable of doing it myself.” She took the lotion from her mother and began applying it to her own face.
Mrs. Collier’s lips tightened as she studied Caroline.
“Make sure you get the tips of your ears and the back of your neck.”
Caroline paused in the middle of slathering the back of her neck. “This isn’t rocket science, Mom. I know how to apply sunscreen.”
Mrs. Collier brushed at the skirt of her dress. “Well, how was I to know you were so smart? You’re the one sitting out here without any sunscreen on.”
Jewel wanted to laugh at the identical expressions the two women had on their faces. It reminded her of a cat she used to have that would stare at herself in the mirror, never realizing she was seeing her own reflection.
They both looked at Jewel, then rolled their eyes, and this time Jewel did laugh, hiding the sound by quickly ducking under the water, watching the bubbles rise to the surface toward the sun.
Caroline’s eyes fluttered open and she had a brief moment of panic, wondering where she was. But then her gaze settled on the pale pink walls and the yellow stuffed dog in the corner and she closed her eyes again, hopelessly wishing she were back in her white apartment in Atlanta.
She’d had the dream again, the one where she was walking along a dark path with an unseen companion beside her. It didn’t frighten her; instead she was left with a feeling of knowing where she was but still feeling lost. She closed her eyes again, hoping to reclaim sleep.
Her eyes popped open as she registered the note taped to the inside of her door. She shuffled to the door and read on her mother’s embossed stationery, I had to run a few errands but I’ll be back by lunchtime. I made oatmeal for you—it’s already in the microwave, so all you have to do is push the start button.
Caroline wrinkled her nose at the thought of the dry, organic oatmeal her mother made for her each morning. If she hurried, she could make a batch of pancakes and coat them with butter and syrup before Margaret got back—assuming her mother even kept those contraband items in the house.
She caught a glimpse of herself in the dresser mirror as she opened her bedroom door and almost laughed at the reflection of the girl in the Mickey Mouse T-shirt and the hair that looked like she’d had a nasty encounter with a light socket. She didn’t care. Nobody was there to see her, and besides, she had pancakes to make.
Racing around the kitchen, she found all the ingredients she needed, including real eggs and butter, and felt a flash of irritation at her mother that she’d been holding out on her.
After making the batter, Caroline reached under the cabinet where all the seldom-used appliances were kept and held back a groan. The pancake griddle, about twenty years old but still shining like new, was the same one she and Jude had used as kids—the one on which heat never went higher than low. That would add at least ten minutes to her cooking time. Glancing at the clock over the stove, she estimated how much time she had left and shoved the plug into the electrical socket on the wall. She’d eat her pancakes in a locked bathroom if she had to.
Unable just to stand and watch the slow progress of her pancakes, she wandered into the great room, her gaze alighting on the piano and drawing her toward it. She stared at it for a long time before sitting down on the bench and lifting the cover off the keys. Striking the first note, she held it down with the pedal, closing her eyes and listening to the sound as it faded.
When she was a young girl, she would lie under the grand piano in her mother’s living room, listening to Jude play. The sound would overtake her, rolling her under like a wave in the ocean, until she could no longer tell the difference between music and water. But the piano was her brother’s domain, and no prompting by their mother had ever convinced Caroline to learn to play. She could never compete with the beauty of Jude’s talent, and she was happy simply to listen, then leave the room when her mother would join Jude on the piano bench for a duet.
Her hands sat on the keyboard, her fingers stroking keys from a memory she didn’t remember having, playing the melody of a song she’d heard long ago. This newly discovered ability surprised and frightened her. It was a bit like finding out the truth about Santa Claus when she was eight; she’d been shocked to find her letters to Santa in her mother’s desk drawer, then had not been able to sleep for days figuring out the Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy and wondering what else her parents had lied to her about.
She pressed her fingers against the keys with more confidence, marveling at the sounds she created, hearing the melody in her head and then transferring it to the keyboard. She pressed the pedal down with her right foot, instinctively knowing when to sustain a note and when to release it. It was like diving into the cool depths of the lake, surrounding herself with something that made sense in her heart.
Something thumped behind her. She jumped off the piano bench and whirled around. Drew Reed stood there wearing a tool belt, with sawdust in his hair. Jewel stood next to him carrying what looked like a table leaf. Drew smiled. “Sorry, didn’t mean to surprise you, but you didn’t hear us knocking.”
Caroline reached behind her and closed the keyboard lid with a thump. “That’s all right. I was just making breakfast.”
He was staring at her hair and she could tell he was trying not to smile. “How do you make your hair go like that?”
Pushing past him with as much dignity as somebody who was wearing a long Mickey Mouse T-shirt and floppy slippers could muster, she walked into the kitchen to rescue her pancakes from the griddle, smelling the acrid scent of burned batter.
Drew followed her into the kitchen, Jewel tagging along behind him. He leaned against a counter. “So you do play piano, then.”
Caroline was careful not to look at him. “No, I really don’t. I play a little by ear, that’s all.”
“That’s interesting. Your mother made it sound like you were tone-deaf.”
With a heavy sigh, Caroline scraped her blackened pancakes into the food disposal, making sure to wash away all evidence. “Well, that’s because I didn’t really try to play until now. I guess being bored to death makes a person desperate.” She poured dish soap and water into the sink to wash the mixing bowl and griddle.
Caroline looked over her shoulder and saw both Drew and Jewel studying her. “Pardon me for asking, but why are you in my house?”
Drew straightened, adjusting his tool belt. “Your mom asked me to make a worktable and benches for the living room. Jewel’s been helping me carry them over. They’re out on the porch, ready to bring inside, if that’s all right with you.”
Caroline’s stomach grumbled as she rinsed the last of the pancake batter down the drain. “Don’t let me stop you.”
After she finished washing, drying, and putting away the dishes, she walked into the living room, noticing that all the existing furniture had been pushed against the walls and an enormous pine table now stood in the middle of the room. As she had expected, it was a marvelous piece of work. A month ago she would have bet a large sum of money that she would never call a pine worktable art, but now, staring at Drew Reed’s handiwork, she was speechless.
All four legs of the table were different, she noticed as she knelt in front of the first one. The foot of each leg was a human foot, and the table leg was made up of short puffs of ocean waves, breaking into froth on the underside of the table. As Drew and Jewel brought the benches in, Caroline examined another leg. This one had the foot of a young girl, and the leg was a patchwork of different patterns like a wooden quilt.
She faced Drew as he arranged a bench under the table. “Please—let me just take a picture of this table and send it to my boss. I believe you’d be pleasantly surprised at what I think we can offer you.”
He glanced up at her face and something flickered in his eyes. After a pause that anybody else would have missed, he said, “No, thanks. And please don’t ask me again.”
Caroline opened her mouth to do just that when Jewel plopped herself on the bench and caught Caroline’s attention. “I read somewhere that sometimes people with organ transplants suddenly get a talent that they never had before and they find out that the person whose organ they have once had that talent. Isn
’t that neat? Maybe the person whose heart you have was really musical or something. Could you find out?”
The coldness started at the top of Caroline’s head and stole down her body until she felt as if she’d fallen under ice and couldn’t find the hole to come up for air.
The front door opened and Margaret walked in, sparing Caroline from searching for an answer. Margaret greeted everyone, raising an eyebrow at Caroline’s appearance as she moved toward the table. “It’s beautiful, Drew—just like I knew it would be. Thank you so much for the rush order.”
“It was my pleasure.” He leaned down to allow Margaret to place a kiss on his cheek.
Margaret smiled. “Why don’t you two sit down and I’ll get you something cool to drink and Caroline can go get some clothes on.”
Everybody’s voices seemed to be coming from far away, as if muffled by the ice that seemed to surround her. She found her own voice. “Yes. I’ll go do that.”
As she walked toward her bedroom, she heard Margaret call out, “Did something burn? I definitely smell something burning.” And then, as Caroline reached the sanctuary of her room, Margaret said, “Caroline! Why is your oatmeal still in the microwave?”
Caroline’s response was the sound of her door snapping closed.
CHAPTER 10
June 21, 1987
Mama let me pick where I wanted to go on summer vacation, so we’re on Sullivan’s Island again. Next to Hart’s Valley, it’s my favorite place in the world. Maybe it’s because I’ve always lived near the water. But with a lake you can see the beginning and end of it, unlike the ocean that seems to go on forever. Sailing from one end of the lake to the other is nice, but you always know where you’re going. I’d like to sail to the other side of the ocean, just to see what’s there. Jude says it’s because that’s the way I look at life—it’s so much more exciting when you don’t know what’s on the other side of the day you’re in. You just expect the best, deal with the bumps, and pray that your boat doesn’t fall apart under the big waves.
