Gullah Secrets

by Susan Gabriel

“Why?” Rose asks.

  Rose is surprised by her own directness. Directness is not a southern thing.

  Heather pauses. Is she revisiting her strategy? Or maybe choosing her words carefully?

  “I read the article in the newspaper when the Temple Garden was dedicated,” Heather says. “It said you had returned to Savannah after being away for a long time. You sounded like an outsider,” she continues. “Someone who might understand my situation.”

  “Regina didn’t understand your situation?”

  Heather rolls her eyes. “She threw me out of her apartment.”

  “Threw you out?” Rose doesn’t reveal her wariness. This is more drama than she wants to deal with today or any day.

  “She didn’t actually touch me,” Heather says, “but she strongly suggested that I leave, or she would call the police.”

  Heather sounds convincing. Not that Rose knows Regina that well, either. But why should she believe anything either woman says? Heather is Edward’s daughter. A brother she never trusted. And Regina married her untrustworthy brother. It also makes no sense that Regina would threaten to call the police. From what Rose remembers, Regina has some muscle to her. If anyone were in physical danger, it would be Heather. And why did Regina give Heather her address without even asking her?

  “I’m confused,” Rose says, uncrossing her arms.

  “She thinks I want my father’s money,” Heather admits.

  If Heather is covering up her motives, she sure is sloppy about it. At least in this current version of herself. Besides, isn’t Edward’s money now Regina’s money?

  There must be more to this, Rose thinks, feeling even more cautious.

  “I didn’t know who my father was until six months ago,” Heather continues. “When I was a kid and asked my mother, she said he was an anonymous sperm donor who was college educated and athletic.”

  “Well, he was those things, too,” Rose says.

  “He was?” Heather smiles and then twists a silver bracelet on her wrist. Is she imagining father-daughter dances and doubles tennis matches?

  “I’m athletic, too,” she adds. “I haven’t gone to college yet, but I plan to.”

  Rose can’t discern if Heather is innocent or cunning or both.

  “Edward was a lot like our mother,” Rose offers, wondering if Heather has any idea how much she looks like her.

  “What was your mother like?” Heather’s attention doesn’t waver.

  A simple search at the library would reveal a wealth of information about Rose’s mother and her mother’s wealth. Newspaper clippings from the society section don’t tell the real story of who a person is, but they do offer clues. Given Heather’s way of presenting herself, Rose would have thought she had studied Iris Temple for years.

  “Look,” Rose says. “I can’t do this with you right now.” She sounds like her mother, a fact that makes her recoil.

  While Rose withers, Heather stands taller. It seems the Temple ghosts are back after all, in the form of inherited behaviors. For as long as Rose can remember, her quest was to be nothing like the infamous Iris Temple. Or Edward, either, for that matter. Iris’s prized son. Yet, as much as Rose has tried to get away from them both, it seems they have been personified in Heather.

  After going to the bank this morning, she now knows the Temple ruthlessness goes back many, many generations. Documented proof is in the faded ledger in her purse.

  Rose softens her voice. “We’ll have to do this another time, Heather. A hurricane is coming, and we need to prepare.”

  A hurricane with the same name as my mother, she thinks.

  A flash of anger crosses Heather’s face that comes and goes so quickly Rose wonders if she imagined it.

  “I need to go back inside,” Rose says. She takes a step toward the door and stops, aware that Heather is about to follow her again. “You mentioned coming back after this storm has blown over,” Rose says. “Let’s do that. We can meet at Violet’s Tea Shop and have a talk about your father and grandmother and any other Temple you want to know about.”

  Instead of retreating, Heather steps forward, blocking her way. It reminds Rose of when Edward cornered her as a girl. Or when her mother lectured her on how she should act. Both made her feel trapped.

  Rose extends her arm and takes a step forward, refusing to play the game. “Give me a call after the storm, and we can set up a date.” A generous offer on her part. She could be like Regina and threaten to call the police.

  Heather takes a step back, and Rose goes inside. She considers locking the door but doesn’t want Heather to hear the latch. Meanwhile, she can feel her presence on the other side. When Heather finally walks away, Rose takes a breath and finds herself hoping that her long-lost niece never returns. Something about this whole mess doesn’t add up.

  To Rose, the world became more complicated after 9/11. The entire country now lives with a heightened sense of danger. Reminders of how safe or unsafe they are on any given day come in yellow, orange, and red alerts. Here on Dolphin Island, they are probably safe from terrorist attacks. But Rose’s trust in humans has lessened.

  Violet enters the living room wearing casual shorts and a sleeveless top, as though ready to get to work on storm preparations. “You look upset,” she says to Rose.

  “Heather was here.”

  “I thought she went back to Atlanta.”

  “That’s what she said at the tea shop, but then she ended up back here again.”

  Violet rubs her left shoulder.

  “Are you getting a hint of something dangerous?” Rose asks.

  “No, I’m not getting anything. That’s what’s odd. Do you suppose intuition can go on the blink? I got a hit at the tea shop, and then nothing again.”

  Rose cannot relate to Violet’s sensitivity, though she did sometimes see the spirits in the Temple mansion when she was growing up.

  “Can you believe all those ghosts we put up with over at the other house?” Rose asks. “It seems the memories still haunt me. I think of them quite often.”

  “I can’t say I’ve missed that crew,” Violet says.

  “Me, either,” Rose says, thinking again of the ledger in her purse. In a way, that book is full of ghosts, too.

  Marrying Max and moving to Wyoming was a way to escape everything the Temple family represented. Rose wanted a new life, and Max gave her that. Now Rose has given him a new life back.

  “You look a thousand miles away,” Violet says.

  “Two thousand, actually. Can I tell you something unrelated?” Rose asks.

  Violet says she can.

  “I feel a little shaky with this storm coming.”

  “Do you?” Violet says, touching her arm. “I do, too.”

  “You do?”

  Violet nods. “It’s important to remember that it may not amount to anything, though.”

  “I hope you’re right,” Rose says.

  Queenie joins them near the door. Without thought or plan, the three of them lock arms like they did when they were Sea Gypsies. A celebration of lightheartedness.

  “Are we having a secret meeting?” Queenie smiles.

  Queenie was an honorary member of the Sea Gypsies, the secret club created by Rose and Violet when they were young. Rose wonders if Katie’s child will grow up to be a Sea Gypsy, too. The thought pleases her, even if he is a boy.

  “Sea Gypsies aren’t afraid of storms,” Violet says, as though speaking it will make it so.

  “They are absolutely not afraid of storms,” Rose says, her tone perfectly serious.

  “Tell that storm to stay the hell away,” Queenie says, snapping her fingers.

  “Stay the hell away!” Rose repeats with a smile, her voice raised.

  Violet snaps her fingers, too, and says the same, matching Rose’s volume.

  They laugh, the three of them snapping their fingers at the ocean to keep the danger away. As girls, they would have liked nothing better than a hurricane coming ashore to give their live
s some adventure during the long, dull days of summer. Rose sometimes wonders what happened to that little girl in her. It’s like she was never seen again after she left home. Hidden away in the scrapbook pages of her memories.

  While Rose could never get close to her mother, Queenie and Old Sally were the people she depended on to love her no matter what. They have never let her down in that regard. Rose feels better thinking these old friends will be with her during the storm. And a small part of her now thinks of it as an adventure.

  Max comes in the back door, and they unlock arms as if their playfulness is as secret as the Sea Gypsy handshake. He hands them each a roll of masking tape.

  “What’s this for?” Rose asks, although she knows perfectly well.

  “Taping the windows that don’t have storm shutters,” he says.

  They weathered plenty of storms on their ranch in Wyoming, and none required masking tape.

  “I thought we did that already,” Rose says.

  “There are still a few left upstairs,” he tells them. “Iris’s ETA is about nine hours from now,” he continues. “She’ll come ashore somewhere, we don’t know where. But we might as well be prepared.”

  Queenie and Violet leave, and Rose leans into Max’s broad shoulder. “Tell me what your gut says. Do you think we’re in danger?”

  After thirty years of marriage, Rose trusts Max’s hunches.

  “Honestly?” he asks her.

  “Yes, honestly.”

  Max pauses, his brow furrowed. “Truth is, nobody has any idea what this storm is going to do, but my guess is we’re in for a humdinger.”

  “Then let’s get ready for it.” Rose thinks of Heather again. She has no idea what Heather is going to do, either. But there’s no time to worry about that now. With masking tape in hand, Rose sets off to prepare for their unexpected summer adventure.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Violet

  Violet makes sandwiches enough for everyone in case the power goes out. She puts them in a cooler and then packs chips and fruit to go with them. Whatever happens, they will have food.

  With a few more minutes of light left, Violet decides to go on a short walk down the beach. She breathes in the salt air, letting it take her tiredness away. After all those years of dreaming about having a different life, it seems she is finally living her dream. Not only of owning her tea shop but having a purpose to her days. A life in which she is learning about her Gullah ancestors from Old Sally and creating a written record.

  Though she is half-white, like Queenie, she can relate more to the Gullah side of her family. A side more mysterious than she ever realized. Increasingly, Violet can hear Old Sally’s thoughts when the intention is set. A gift she is counting on to continue after Old Sally returns to the ancestors, as her grandmother calls it. And a gift she hopes will make what feels unbearable more bearable.

  Darkness falls quickly now. Violet stops before getting to the lighthouse, uncertain of why she even headed in this direction. She usually walks down the beach instead of up. Violet makes an X in the sand before turning around and going back. A ritual that is written in her notebook of Gullah secrets. She isn’t sure why the X is essential, except that many of their rituals are related to avoiding lousy luck or attracting good fortune.

  Violet glances at the lighthouse before turning around. For years, it faded into the background of her life, as though hidden behind an invisibility cloak, like in the Harry Potter books her daughters have read. Then one day she started seeing it again. Violet has done this with people, too. For many years she took her Aunt Queenie for granted until she found out that Queenie was her birth mother. Then memories of her always being there for Violet rushed forward.

  The water birds on the beach move frantically along the shore, using the last seconds of daylight to eat their fill. All the while, several pelican formations head north, zigzagging up the coast like an airplane pulling a banner behind to advertise tours of the island. Other than these clues, it would be impossible to imagine a storm on the way. What was it like for her Gullah ancestors who didn’t have Doppler radar and advanced warning systems?

  Violet remembers the mermaid story Old Sally told her yesterday and hopes that if someone has captured a mermaid they soon return her to the sea.

  Home again, Violet is grateful the foundation of the house was raised eight feet during the renovations. A suggestion made by their contractor. With this hurricane, this could be a crucial eight feet. Even a thunderstorm can be dangerous when you live on a barrier island and are exposed to the elements.

  Leaving her sandy sneakers on the top step, Violet shakes out the small, colorful rag rug outside the front door and wonders if Old Sally is up from her nap. Every evening Violet sweeps sand from the wooden floors, something she remembers Old Sally doing when Violet was a girl. Tradition gives her comfort these days. The knowledge that some things carry on, despite death and natural disasters.

  The only voices in the kitchen come from the television someone left on in the corner. A different weather reporter talks about a best-case-scenario, which has Iris skirting the coast with winds of 80–100 miles per hour. A storm surge of 4–6 feet. That would have waves breaking against their front steps before returning to the sea.

  This is the best case scenario? she asks herself.

  Violet goes to check on Old Sally. She knocks gently and then opens her door. Eyes closed, Old Sally lies on the bed. Violet watches for her gentle breathing, the movement of her chest up and down—signs of life. When someone is Old Sally’s age, the end is expected. Like the hurricane, it cannot be ignored and falls somewhere on the prediction spectrum between a Watch and a Warning.

  “I be awake,” Old Sally says, her eyes still closed.

  “Did you have another dream?” Violet asks.

  Old Sally pats the bed beside her, and Violet comes to sit. When Old Sally opens her eyes, there is a weariness there that Violet hasn’t seen before.

  “These days, the ancestors come every time I close my eyes,” she says.

  “Does it scare you?” Violet asks.

  “Oh my, no,” Old Sally says with a chuckle. “I welcome them.”

  Violet wonders if she will be like Old Sally when her time comes. Not fearing death but looking forward to it as a family reunion. Old age is a privilege, not a birthright, Violet heard somewhere. Not everyone gets to grow old.

  “My grandmother came again in the latest dream,” Old Sally begins. “She was braiding my hair on the old front porch, and I sat cross-legged a step below her with my favorite rag doll in my lap. It was a brown doll she made me that wore an outfit that was made from the same fabric of her favorite dress,” Old Sally continues. “That doll had black buttons for eyes and black yarn stitched on for her hair.” Old Sally pauses as though seeing the doll anew. “In the dream, I could feel Granny’s breath at my back. Her soft touch working to tame my hair into a braid after rubbing the oil into it that makes it relax.”

  Violet’s scalp tingles.

  “You feel her presence, too?” Old Sally asks.

  “I do,” Violet says, “at least I think I do.”

  “That be your great-great-grandmother,” she says.

  Violet soaks in the feeling of another presence in the room. The vibration is like a fan on its lowest setting, except it makes no breeze. The tingling spreads from her scalp into her torso and then down into her arms and legs.

  “Why do you think you have so many memories from back then?” Violet asks.

  “Because it be close to my time.”

  Violet lowers her head.

  “No, sweet girl,” Old Sally says, with a gentleness Violet has come to expect. “Don’t be sad for me. I have been here long enough. I am ready for the Great Beyond. More than ready. I overdue.”

  Violet never thinks of people being overdue, as in late to depart this life. A jar in the kitchen is full of change for when it takes Tia and Leisha longer to finish a library book than the due date allows. Ten cent
s a day for an overdue book. She wonders what the cost is for an overdue person.

  “I’m worried more about me than you,” Violet says. “I hate thinking of you not being here anymore.”

  “But I will be here.” Old Sally smooths out the wrinkles on Violet’s forehead with her warm, soft touch.” And we can still talk to each other.

  Violet hears the last statement in her thoughts, transmitted on a secret Gullah airwave. A few months ago, she would have never thought it was possible to talk to her grandmother this way. Violet still questions sometimes if she imagines it.

  When Violet looks up, Old Sally is watching her.

  “What’s troubling you?” she asks.

  “I hate it when you talk about going,” Violet says. “I know you’re ready to go and all that, but I’ve learned so much from you, and I don’t know what I’ll do without you here to teach me.”

  “I felt the same way about my grandmother,” Old Sally says. “It was much harder on me when she died than anyone else in my family. But after a bunch of years, I finally figured out that this is exactly how nature works,” she continues. “We’re like flowers that bloom for a while and then fade away to make room for the next blooms.”

  Violet thinks of the blooms on her African violets at the tea shop. They love the window they sit in front of and bloom for months on end. She likes to think of people flourishing that way if they find the right spot to thrive.

  Except for the mother she thought she had lost when she was a little girl, Violet hasn’t lost anyone close to her. Jack’s mother died a few years ago, but Violet and her mother-in-law didn’t have a close connection like she does with Old Sally. Old Sally raised her. Violet lived with her for the first twenty years of her life until she married Jack. Besides Queenie, Old Sally is the most constant presence in her life.

  But Violet doesn’t want to bloom at Old Sally’s expense. “I’m not sure what to say.” Words feel inadequate to express the weightiness of the moment.

  Old Sally touches her hand. “You don’t have to say anything.”

  “Will you tell me what you need me to do? I mean when the time comes?”