by Karen White
She stared at the words for so long that they began to blur and dance off the page, until the letter fell to the floor as if the weight of the words were too much for Edith’s fingers. She let it go, watching as it slipped beneath the new white refrigerator that had been delivered the previous week as an apology from Calhoun. She didn’t try to retrieve it, wishing that the words could disappear from her memory just as easily.
She wasn’t sure how long she stood there, staring at the small crack between the black and white vinyl floor tiles and the bottom of the new appliance, but she jumped when the hall phone began to ring. With a quick glance at the sleeping boy, she ran to answer it.
“Edith? It’s Betsy. I’m so glad to hear your voice. We all ran to the river, but Sidney and I got worried when I saw that you and Calhoun weren’t with us. Is everything all right?”
Edith was surprised at the calmness to her voice. “I’m fine. Calhoun is working late, so I was here alone.” It never surprised her anymore how easily the lies spilled from her mouth. “I didn’t want to leave the house because of C.J. He’s been sick and was sound asleep. Didn’t even wake up at the sound of the explosion.”
“It was an airplane,” Betsy said, her voice higher pitched, a tone usually reserved for neighborhood gossip. “They’re saying it exploded—just like that. Sidney said it was probably an engine catching on fire. You know how dangerous airplanes are. I took a train to visit my parents in Jackson last Christmas even though Sidney told me I should fly instead, so he can’t tell me I was wrong now, can he? It’s just tragic, though. All those people . . .” Her voice trailed off.
“How awful,” Edith said, her hands still remembering the feel of the stranger’s clothes, the image of a ringing phone in a dark hallway. The elegant handwriting in the letter. Her throat felt tight, as if the fingers of the letter writer were pressing against her windpipe. “Are there any survivors?”
“Sidney said he didn’t think so. He was outside walking the dog when it happened, and he says it was pretty high up in the sky. But the authorities are handing out flashlights to all the men to go search the fields, the river, and the marsh for survivors. A solid beam for any sign of life, and a flashing light to indicate a . . .” Her voice caught. Betsy Williams was Edith’s bridge partner, and they were neighbors. And Sidney Williams was their family lawyer. That was where their common interests ended. Betsy was content to live on the surface of life, to avoid any sharp edges that might force her to open her eyes a little wider. Betsy would tell people that she and Edith were best friends, but she couldn’t tell them anything about her except for Edith’s favorite flower and that she disliked chocolate.
“A body,” Betsy continued. “That was a while ago. Sidney sent me home, but I’m too restless to do anything. I thought maybe you could use some company.”
“No,” Edith said, a little too quickly, thinking of the suitcase in her kitchen. “I’m exhausted from taking care of C.J., and I think I’m just going to go to bed. I’m sure Calhoun is out there searching, too, and can fill me in on the details when he returns.”
There was a brief pause, and Edith pictured Betsy’s small mouth tightening with disappointment. “All right. But call me if you get nervous and need me to come around.”
Edith said good-bye and carefully replaced the phone back in the cradle, suddenly aware of the sound of voices from her front lawn. She’d already started back toward the kitchen when the doorbell rang. She stopped, unsure what to do. It wasn’t Calhoun. He would have banged on the door when he’d discovered it locked. With an eye toward the closed kitchen door, Edith smoothed down her skirt and carefully tucked her hair behind her ears before opening the door.
Two police officers stood on her front porch, their hats in their hands. She wondered if she would be sick all over their polished black shoes that reflected her porch lights or if she could make it to the side railing. How had they known about the suitcase?
“Mrs. Heyward?” The young officer on the left spoke first. She thought she recognized him, but she was having a problem focusing.
She smiled, forcing the bile back down her throat. “Yes?” She struggled to suck a breath into her lungs, the air now thick with the scent of rain. While she’d been in the kitchen, the moon and stars had disappeared as if ashamed to illuminate the scene beneath them. The splat of raindrops hitting her front walk and the leaves of the oak tree that shaded most of the front yard almost obliterated the sound of her heart thrumming in her ears. “Can I help you?” She knew she should invite them inside, just as she knew she could not.
A figure moved from the shadows of the porch, and she recognized the police chaplain as he stepped inside the arc of light. She blinked in surprise, wondering why he was there with the officers.
A flash of lightning lifted her gaze from the three men to the scene across the river, and she found herself holding her breath. Dozens of blinking flashlights came from the shore and from boats on the water like hovering fireflies, spots of light marking the souls of the departed.
“Edith?” The chaplain stepped closer, so she could now see his kind eyes and the deep creases around his mouth placed there like scars during the war. “I’m afraid we have bad news.”
“Mama?” C.J. called from the kitchen.
Edith turned to the chaplain in a panic. “I’m sorry; I have to see to my son. . . .”
He reached out to take her hands, his fingers as icy as hers. “There’s been an accident. Calhoun’s car was found off of Ribaut Road up against a tree. An eyewitness said it looked like he was distracted by the explosion.” He paused. “He . . . he didn’t survive.”
She felt as if she were free-falling from the sky, the lack of oxygen making her light-headed and strangely calm. She felt nothing. Absolutely nothing. “Was he alone?”
The men shuffled their feet in embarrassment, but it was the second officer who finally spoke. “Yes, ma’am.”
Edith nodded, feeling inordinately relieved that they hadn’t come because of the suitcase. Her son called out from the kitchen again, distracting her from the sight of the blinking lights. She knew she needed to say something, to pretend that she cared that Calhoun was dead, to pretend that she felt anything except relief. She thought instead of the feel of her mother’s cold hand in hers, and her father’s voice saying something about her being free from pain. Edith let out a sob, then pressed her knuckles against her mouth.
The chaplain spoke again. “Can I get you anything? Or can I call someone to come stay with you?”
She shook her head, blinked back the tears. “No. I’ll be all right. I just need to be alone right now with my son. I’ll be in touch in the morning to see what needs to be done. Thank you, gentlemen.” She closed the door on their surprised faces, her last glimpse that of the chaplain’s knowing eyes.
The storm outside intensified as she pressed her forehead against the closed door, feeling guilty that instead of thinking of Calhoun dying alone on a darkened road, her thoughts were occupied with the letter under her refrigerator and the woman who’d written it. Edith felt an odd kinship with the unknown woman, the bond of a secret the other woman would never know she’d shared. A secret Edith knew she’d take to her grave.
Before she turned from the door, a gust of wind pushed at the house, unfastening a shutter on an upper story and slamming the limbs of the old tree against the roof of the porch. As she began walking slowly back toward the kitchen, she heard the wind chime cry out into the troubled night like a prayer to accompany lost souls to heaven. She shivered despite the humid night, then closed her eyes for a moment, hearing only the sound of glass.
chapter 1
MERRITT
BEAUFORT, SOUTH CAROLINA
MAY 2014
Fires can be stopped in three different ways: exhausting the fuel source, taking away the source, or starving the fire of oxygen. Whenever Cal was worked up or upset he would repeat small facts he’d learned at the academy like reciting a prayer. It sometimes worked, whic
h is probably why I’d taken up the habit after he was gone.
My logical and organized curator’s mind wouldn’t allow me to completely push away the thought that my own recitation was some kind of unanswered plea for forgiveness. Because no matter what they told me, Cal’s death wasn’t an accident. I was reminded often that he was a firefighter and walking into burning buildings was what he did, and sometimes a roof collapsed and firemen got trapped. And they were right, of course, because that was how Cal had died. But it didn’t explain why.
I looked up at the address on the thick white door casing of the old brick building, then back to the letterhead of the law firm Williams, Willig, and White, 702 Bay Street. I stared at the brass numbers, my mind still unwilling to grasp how I’d ended up more than a thousand miles from home.
I climbed the three steps, holding down my skirt so it wouldn’t expose the ridged scar on the side of my leg. I pulled on a heavy brass doorknob, needing both hands to open the large door, then stepped into a well-appointed reception room that looked like it had once been a foyer to a grand home. Old pine floors, polished to a sheen that didn’t quite obscure the centuries of heel marks and scratches that gave the wood character, creaked beneath my feet as I walked toward a large mahogany reception desk.
A brass nameplate with the name Donna Difloe introduced the middle-aged woman behind the desk. She looked up at me and smiled as I approached, her rhinestone cat’s-eye glasses beneath a cap of frosted blond hair catching the light from her desk lamp. She smiled at me with brightly painted pink lips, and I wondered whether I’d need to start wearing at least lipstick now that I’d moved down south.
“May I help you?” she asked.
“Yes. I’m here to see Mr. Williams. I have an appointment at eleven.”
Her eyes quickly took in my navy skirt and white blouse and makeup-free face, but her smile didn’t fade. “Merritt Heyward?” She said my name as if she recognized it.
I nodded. “I’m a little early. I don’t mind waiting.”
She rose. “He’s expecting you. This way, please.”
She led me down a hallway where a dark green runner had been thrown over the wood floors to cocoon all sound. Pausing outside a thick, paneled door, she said, “I’m sorry for your loss. I remember Cal when he was growing up. Such a sweet boy.”
It had been almost two years since Cal’s death, and her condolences surprised me. But no more so than her calling Cal a sweet boy. The person he’d grown into had been hard to know, an impenetrable character hiding inside the imposing body of a man strong enough to scale ladders and carry people out of burning buildings. A man whose own anger smoldered inside of him like a fuse, waiting for a spark.
“Thank you,” I said, wishing I could tell her that Cal remembered her, too, and had said nice things about Ms. Difloe. But he’d never spoken of her, nor of his family or Beaufort. And I had never asked, feeling it a fair trade to avoid questions about my own family. Ashamed, I looked away as she opened the door and stepped back.
The office was large, with a wall full of floor-to-ceiling bookshelves filled with the requisite heavy leather-bound legal texts, and framed diplomas decorating a side wall. A large desk, even larger than Ms. Difloe’s, looking to be about the same vintage as the house, sat in front of the bay window facing the street but slightly above street level.
The man who stood to greet me was completely white haired, but appeared to be in his sixties. He looked like a lawyer should, complete with wire-framed glasses, a sweater vest, and the aroma of pipe smoke heavy in the room. He came from around his desk and took both my hands inside his large ones.
“Mrs. Heyward. So nice to meet you in person. And may I say again how sorry I am for your loss.”
Like Donna Difloe, when he said my name it was with familiarity. I assumed he must have known Cal, too, as a boy. He led me to a chair on the other side of his desk and waited for me to sit before returning to his own chair. He didn’t say anything at first, as if waiting for me to speak.
Unnerved, I smiled, then blurted out, “I didn’t know Cal was from Beaufort. In the seven years we were married he never spoke about his family, or growing up here. I always assumed that he had no family.”
Years of being a lawyer had schooled Mr. Williams’s face into a smooth mask of concerned evaluation, hiding any emotions my words might have evoked. He patted his hands on a neat stack of papers, his only concession to his surprise. Clearing his throat, he said, “The Heywards are an old Beaufort family, since before the Revolution.”
“Yes, you explained that on the phone. You said their house was built in the seventeen hundreds.”
“Seventeen ninety-one, to be exact—although generations have made changes and additions so it looks more Greek Revival than Federal. It’s why Cal’s grandmother left it to him, wanting to keep it in the family, you see. She wasn’t aware that he’d predeceased her.”
I swallowed, as if the reproach I heard in his voice were directed at me. “Of course. Which must seem so odd to you now, to be speaking with me about it.”
His smile was gentle. “You were his wife, and I’m sure Cal would be pleased to know that his family’s home is in good hands. Especially someone like you, who is an expert in old houses.”
I blushed. “I was a curator for a small art museum in Maine. Although I have an advanced degree in art history, I don’t think that makes me an expert in much of anything.”
Again, the lawyer patted the stack of papers. “Yes, well, we are all glad you’re here to see about things and settle the estate. As we discussed over the phone, I know the Beaufort Heritage Society would be interested in acquiring the property for a house museum. Of course, the distribution of the house and its contents is completely up to you, but I’m sure someone of your background is aware of its value in more than simply monetary terms.”
“I was actually hoping to live in it.” The words sounded even more ridiculous said out loud rather than just as jumbled thoughts in my head. They’d been the reason I’d left my job and sold my house and driven from Farmington, Maine. I was still surprised at how far a person could go fueled only by quiet desperation.
Mr. Williams cleared his throat. “Perhaps I didn’t make it clear when we spoke. I was in the house last week to assess the situation.” He closed his mouth, as if afraid something he didn’t want to say might leak out. After a moment he continued. “Miss Edith was a recluse. And to my knowledge nobody’s been inside the house in two decades—about the time Cal left. The last time I saw her was about a month before she died, when she came to see me about her will. She knew she was ill, and wanted to get her things in order.”
I adjusted myself in my seat as he waited for me to say something. But I was a New Englander, more comfortable with silence than small talk.
He cleared his throat again. “There’s one other thing I preferred to speak to you about in person. Although Miss Edith left Gibbes a generous sum, she left the house and all its contents to Cal, since he was the eldest. Since Gibbes was raised in that house, I thought that perhaps I could prevail upon you to allow him to choose an item or two of furniture. We’d have it appraised, of course, and he would reimburse you for the value, but I know he’d appreciate having a part of his childhood.”
“Gibbes?”
“Cal’s brother. Ten years younger than Cal.”
I imagined that my look of surprise mirrored his own. “Cal has a brother?”
Mr. Williams’s face remained impassive, but I detected a slight raising of his brows. “Yes. He’s a pediatrician here in Beaufort. Didn’t Cal . . . ?” He stopped, his words suspended between us, mocking me. Mocking my marriage to an apparent stranger.
“No,” I said, struggling to hide my embarrassment.
Mr. Williams smiled, making him appear as the warm grandfather he probably was. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Heyward. My family’s firm has been legal counsel to the Heywards for more than four generations, but even I wasn’t privy to their private matters. I kn
ow Cal left suddenly and it broke Miss Edith’s heart. There was some sort of estrangement but she never spoke of it. I don’t mean to pry into your life or Cal’s life. I’m just glad you’re here to settle things for the Heyward family, and do what you think is fitting. To lay old bones to rest, so to speak.”
He continued to smile, but the chill that swept down my back at the mention of old bones made me shiver.
“Mrs. Heyward . . . may I call you Merritt?”
I nodded, glad to hear my name spoken aloud, needing something solid to anchor me to this place of strangers who were telling me things that couldn’t possibly be right.
“Merritt. Miss Edith and my mother, Betsy, were best friends, and I was sort of a father figure for Cal and Gibbes after their parents died. You could say I loved them both like my own.” His eyes misted. “I’ve been very eager to meet the woman who finally managed to tame our Cal.”
I looked down at my hands, feeling very close to tears. “I didn’t tame him, Mr. Williams,” I said, knowing that such a thing would have been like pushing back a hurricane wind with my hands. I paused, taking deep breaths as he waited for me to speak. “I killed him.”
* * *
LORALEE
MCDONOUGH, GEORGIA
MAY 2014
In her thirty-six years on earth, Loralee Purvis Connors had learned the three main truths about life: Time was a slippery thing, pain was temporary, and death wasn’t something to be afraid of. This last one she hadn’t learned from all the tent revivals her mama had dragged her to when she was a little girl. Life itself had taught her that when somebody you loved died, it was almost a relief not having to worry anymore when it would happen. Because we all die eventually. Finally knowing the answer of when took away the unbearable part of wondering.
She had also learned that being born dirt poor didn’t mean you had to stay that way, and that it wasn’t a sin to use the face and figure God gave you to get ahead in life, as long as it was legal. Although those things were important, they weren’t the things that she wrote down in her Journal of Truths each day. The journal was meant to go to Owen one day, and she didn’t figure he needed to know about using his physical assets to get ahead. He wouldn’t need to. With his mama’s looks and his daddy’s brains, he would do just fine.
