by Karen White
She shoved the last piece of luggage into the back of her Lincoln Navigator, breaking a long red nail in the process. After making sure her ten-year-old son wasn’t within hearing range, she let out an expletive while she examined the damage and tried not to cry. It wasn’t the biggest tragedy of the past year, just the latest in a long line.
When she’d been a flight attendant for Delta she’d taken such pride in her hands. She’d considered it a job requirement and had always received compliments. Robert had said it was the first thing he’d noticed about her. He’d been so handsome in his pilot’s uniform that she’d thrown his compliment back in his face, sure he told that to all the girls. He’d been genuinely hurt that she’d doubted his sincerity. They were married six months later in her hometown of Gulf Shores, Alabama, by a justice of the peace. Robert’s daughter from his first marriage hadn’t been there for the wedding, nor for any event in the intervening eleven years. Not even for his funeral.
Loralee studied the house they’d bought together, the driveway looking bare without Robert’s car or Owen’s bicycle and insect terrariums, the lawn naked without the family of cement bunnies she’d purchased at a garage sale because she’d known they’d be perfect in front of their house. She’d dressed them up for the various holidays until the homeowner association had made her stop.
The front door stood open, allowing the hot sun to spill into the empty entranceway, illuminating the bare rectangles on the stairwell where a happy family had once smiled at visitors.
“Owen? Come on. It’s time to go.” She’d always told Owen it was bad manners to yell, but she didn’t want to go back into the house. She’d already said good-bye and was afraid that if she had to go inside again, she might never be able to leave. With her high heels clicking on the pavement, she tapped her way up the walk and climbed the three steps to the front door but went no farther. “Owen? We really need to get going. We’ve got a long drive ahead of us, and you know I don’t like driving at night.”
The emptiness of the house echoed like a continuous sigh. But somewhere in the depths of the small house, Loralee thought she heard a sob. Dropping her pocketbook on the threshold, she ran as quickly as she could in heels up the stairs and into the only bedroom Owen had ever known.
He was kneeling inside his empty closet in front of the access panel to an attic crawl space. He held a LEGO airplane in his hands as carefully as he could while his shoulders shook with sobs. Without a word, Loralee knelt beside him on the carpet. Out of habit she took off his glasses and cleaned them on the edge of her skirt before settling them back on his face.
“Did you forget to pack something, sweetie?”
Owen nodded. “Daddy and me made this together. I put it back here so it wouldn’t get broken.”
“I remember. It’s a seven forty-seven, right?”
Owen rolled his eyes. “It’s an MD-eighty.”
Loralee smiled. “Glad you got your daddy’s brains.”
Owen didn’t look up. “What if it gets broken in the car? I might not know how to put it back together.”
“I bet the two of us could figure it out.”
Owen looked at her as if she’d just said she was only going to wear flats from now on.
“We could try,” she offered in her defense, although it was more of an attempt to make him stop missing his daddy so much.
“I don’t want to move to South Carolina.”
Loralee shifted from her knees so that she was sitting on the carpet, anticipating another long conversation. “We’ve already gone over this, sweetie. It’s time for you to meet your sister.”
He looked at her again as if she were speaking a foreign language, as if he knew how desperation could make a person do crazy things. Like driving to another state to meet a sister who never wanted to know you existed.
“Besides, it could be worse. We could be driving all the way up to Maine. Lucky for us Merritt has just moved to South Carolina and will probably be happy to know somebody in town. I’m sure she’ll be happy to have us there to help get her settled.” Loralee tried to make her smile appear natural, as if she actually believed everything she’d just said instead of worrying whether Merritt had even had a chance to move into her new house yet. Not that it mattered. Loralee and Owen were leaving that day no matter what. Loralee had simply run out of time.
“Does Merritt want to meet me?” His bright blue eyes stared at her from behind his thick glasses.
“Who wouldn’t want to meet you, Owen? You’re smart and funny and always have something interesting to say. She’ll love you the moment she sees you.”
“The kids in my class didn’t.”
She reached over to smooth down the cowlick that refused to be tamed. “That’s because they’re just a bunch of rednecks who don’t appreciate intellect.”
He gave her that look again and she wondered how long it would be until he just quit listening to her. “Will I have to be homeschooled in South Carolina, too?”
Loralee concentrated on combing her fingers through his thick, dark hair so that she wouldn’t have to meet his eyes. “Probably not. But it’s not so bad, is it? Just you and me at the kitchen table?”
She kissed the top of his head, pretending that he wasn’t rolling his eyes again. “We need to go, sweetie.”
He twisted away, his eyes hopeful. “Maybe I can change my name, since we’ll be in a new place.”
When he was born, all she’d wanted to do was give him a name as far away as possible from the trailer park where she’d been born. His daddy was a pilot, and the boy shouldn’t be stuck with a name like Bubba for the rest of his life. She’d read the name Owen in a People magazine a passenger had left behind on a flight, and had torn out the page and stuck it into her Journal of Truths for future reference. She’d wanted a name that sounded sophisticated and couldn’t be shortened or ruined by adding an -ie at the end. She’d just had no idea that choosing a name that began with the letter O would be considered abuse in some circles. Like fourth grade. Or that Owen’s myopia would require him to wear glasses that boys in his class said made him look like an owl. It didn’t help that he was so much smarter than most of the other kids and that he’d compensated by deliberately failing tests and not turning in homework. When he’d come home with the name Owen the owl painted on his backpack, she and Robert had decided she would homeschool.
“Maybe,” she said, a part of her reluctant to let go of her original dream. “Or maybe kids in South Carolina appreciate intelligence and won’t care that your name starts with the same letter that the word owl does.”
His sigh shook his narrow shoulders, his gaze focused on the LEGO plane. “I’m going to leave this here.” He leaned into the crawl space and carefully placed the toy on the floor, tucked against the wall to the left of the opening.
“You don’t have to, Owen. I promise to drive carefully so that it doesn’t get broken.”
He looked at her again with magnified eyes. “It belongs to the old Owen. I’m not going to be him anymore when we get to South Carolina.”
Tears pricked the back of her eyes. He was wise, but she knew he was sensitive about that word and its connection to owls. Instead, she nodded and reached past him to close the little access door for the last time.
She hugged him, feeling his small bones beneath her hands, noticing how his jeans were too short because he was growing too fast for her. She hadn’t bought new ones because she didn’t want to acknowledge the fact that he was getting older. Loralee kissed the top of his head, promising herself that they would stop at a mall before they reached South Carolina. It was important to Loralee that Owen’s sister didn’t think his mother wasn’t taking good care of him.
“It’s all going to be fine,” she said. She made a mental note to add one more thing to her Journal of Truths. Sometimes it’s necessary to tell a lie when the truth will break a heart.
They walked out of the house together, neither one of them turning around, as if they both kn
ew that some good-byes were forever. After making sure that Owen was buckled securely into the backseat, Loralee put the SUV in drive and made one more note to add yet another newfound truth to her journal.
Sometimes bravery can be just another face of desperation.
chapter 2
MERRITT
The auto-ignition temperature of any material—including paper—is a function of its composition, volume, density, and shape, as well as of how long it’s exposed to high temperature. I remembered Cal telling me that once as the reason he hated the title of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451: because it was misleading. I repeated the words to myself one more time before opening my eyes.
I wasn’t sure how I’d ended up sitting on the leather sofa in Mr. Williams’s office, or when Ms. Difloe had entered with a tall glass of water, its sides weeping with sweat. And then I remembered my impromptu confession and how I’d started gasping for breath.
I closed my eyes for a moment, remembering gentle hands leading me to the sofa, and I felt my shoulders hunch with embarrassment. My eyes felt raw and swollen, as if I’d been crying for the last one thousand miles, but I knew I hadn’t. I was an expert at keeping all my emotions inside. Had been for years. But there was something in the way Mr. Williams had looked at me, something that reminded me of my father and the little girl I’d once been before everything changed.
Ms. Difloe placed the cold tumbler in my hands and I brought the glass to my lips, dripping water down my chin because I couldn’t steady my fingers. Mr. Williams brought out a pressed linen handkerchief from his trouser pocket, and as he gave it to me I noticed his embroidered monogram in navy in the corner. It told me everything I needed to know about Mrs. Williams, and I felt oddly comforted.
“Thank you,” I said, dabbing at my chin but ignoring my eyes, as if I could hide my tears by blinking them away.
Ms. Difloe quietly exited the room while Mr. Williams sat patiently in a pulled-up chair that matched the nail-head couch I was propped up on. He looked at me expectantly, and I thought about how Southerners were supposed to be so slow about everything, and I suspected he’d sit there waiting indefinitely until I finally spoke.
After taking another sip from the glass, I put it on the side table on a delicate lace coaster that I also imagined Mrs. Williams had strategically placed to protect the antique furniture in her husband’s office.
I clutched the handkerchief, watching my knuckles whiten as I tightened my fist around it, then looked up in surprise when Mr. Williams spoke first.
“When we talked on the phone, you said Cal had died in a fire. That he was a firefighter and his unit was responding to an emergency when he died.”
I nodded. “Yes,” I said, my voice barely louder than a whisper.
“Were you there?” he asked gently.
“No.”
He patted my arm. “Then it was an accident, see? It’s normal to want to blame ourselves when a death is unexpected.”
I pulled my arm away from him and stood. “Thank you,” I said, forcing a smile. “I’d like to see the house now, if I could. Before it gets dark. All of my things are in my car, and I’d like to unpack while I can still see.”
Mr. Williams glanced out the wide window. “Did you haul a trailer or leave most of your furniture in storage?”
“I only brought what I needed. I sold or gave away everything else.”
His eyes were compassionate, as if he understood the meaning behind my words. “Really, Merritt, please stay with Kathy and me at least for tonight, and as long as you need to while you decide what you’re going to do. I promise you that the house isn’t in move-in condition.”
I looked at him as the reason for his reluctance became clear to me. “Did Edith die in the house?”
He seemed taken aback at my direct question, but quickly composed himself. “Yes. In the front parlor. I had a professional team come and do a thorough cleaning and dispose of the sofa. The house was completely aired out, and the ventilation system sanitized.”
I realized what he was trying to say without actually saying it out loud. I didn’t glance away, although I had the impression that he wanted me to. “How long was she dead before they discovered her body?”
He reached into his pocket for the handkerchief he’d already given me, his hand stilling as I held it up to him. He took it and hastily folded it before returning it to his pocket. “The coroner estimates she’d been dead between a week to ten days. Heart attack. Her neighbor noticed her newspapers stacking up on her porch steps and called the police.”
“That’s horrible,” I said, finally glancing away. I wiped my palms against my skirt as if what I’d just heard had made them dirty. “You don’t have to come with me. Just give me the address so I can plug it into my GPS.”
His face softened, and I imagined him recalling our phone conversation when I explained to him that I had no family except for Cal. “It’s no bother at all, and it would be an honor to show you the house. It truly is a fine example of some of the beautiful architecture here in Beaufort. Let me grab my car keys and the house keys, and we’ll be on our way. I’ll call my son to bring your car in a little bit so you can enjoy the scenery on the way to your new home.”
I was relieved that he didn’t expect me to drive yet, as my hands were still a little shaky. He smiled, but he couldn’t hide the look of worry behind his eyes. And I was too exhausted to explain to him that I was no stranger to sadness, and that it had become second nature to wake up each morning expecting the worst. I didn’t want to be surprised anymore. Hearing the story of an elderly lady I didn’t know dying alone merely pinged at the glass wall I’d erected without even leaving a chip.
We exited through a rear door that opened up to a small parking lot that faced a large green park area and behind that a wide expanse of water. I shivered despite the temperature, watching cars traverse a long bridge to another spit of land, while boats wandered aimlessly beneath it like a scene in a postcard from somebody else’s life. Heat rose from the asphalt, baking the soles of my shoes, and I shifted my feet.
“That’s the Beaufort River,” he said to my unasked question. “You can see it from your house.”
I nodded to show I’d heard, then followed him for a short distance until he stopped in front of a black Lincoln Town Car.
He opened the door and stood back. “It’s a hot one, that’s for sure. Don’t touch any metal, and I’ll get the air-conditioning going right away.” He pressed a button on his key fob and the car windows lowered. I breathed deeply, trying to catch a cross breeze as it moved through the car. “This Lowcountry heat takes a bit of getting used to,” he said apologetically as he started the engine.
He drove slowly, so slowly that I found myself pressing an imaginary accelerator on the floorboard in front of me. Not that he could have driven faster. Everybody else seemed content to plod along at or below the speed limit. We left the downtown area as we drove parallel to the river, where the houses became larger and older, with lush gardens full of unfamiliar blooms that most likely couldn’t survive a New England winter. The reds and pinks seemed brighter, the greens deeper, as if I’d stumbled into an exotic, foreign place. Compared to my small, three-bedroom, midcentury ranch, I realized I probably had.
I spotted an enormous tree whose trunk seemed as wide as the Lincoln, and whose branches were dressed in frothy green moss. It was something out of a movie set, and I half expected to see a woman in a corset and hoop skirt step out from behind it. I was so busy staring at it that I was barely aware of Mr. Williams pulling into a gravel driveway leading to a detached garage with a drooping roof. The bays had tall, arched entrances, making me think it had once been a carriage house. Only the bravest or best insured would actually park a vehicle inside it.
But the garage was quickly forgotten as my attention was drawn to the enormous house that dwarfed it. Six large Doric columns supported double porches the width of the house and a hipped roof with three visible chimneys. The porch
railings and spindles had once been white, but now were mostly peeling. Several spindles were missing, making the porches resemble Halloween jack-o’-lanterns. Divided steps made out of what appeared to be cement led up to the front porch from a raised basement and to a massive front door that hadn’t seen a coat of paint for decades. A clear fanlight with a cracked pane and rectangular glass sidelights surrounded the door, the glass murky, as if passing time had left its fingerprints in a layer of dirt.
I stood beneath a limb of the enormous oak tree, relishing the respite from the beating sun, and stepped back to see two dormer windows in the roof, possibly in an attic, and I wondered how hot it would be now in the middle of summer. A lone air-conditioning unit in an upstairs window flipped on, disturbing the quiet.
I looked up at the house and it seemed to be considering me, too. A broken path led around to the side, where a wooden door with peeling white paint sat within a high wall with crumbling plaster, blocking my view of what lay behind it. A flowering vine had flung itself over the top of the wall like an escaping prisoner. There was an air of expectation, a held breath, as if the house and I were both waiting for something to happen.
“The house is in good structural shape, although, as you can see, there are quite a few aesthetic issues. Edith’s husband died in 1955—in a car accident—and I don’t believe she made a single improvement to the house since. I’m afraid there’s no central air, but there is indoor plumbing, of course, and a functional kitchen.” He rubbed his hands together like a father trying to convince a child that a piece of fruit was just as desirable as a candy bar. Mr. Williams continued. “If you’ll turn around, you’ll see the real beauty of the property.”
