by Karen White
“She was just walking down the street in her gown. It was Mardi Gras night and nobody else was around, just her in the middle of the street. And then Wes . . .”
Trey cleared his throat, as if he weren’t sure he could push enough air out to form words. “What did Wes do next, Xavier?”
“Wes got in his car and started following his mama, trying to get her to get in and go home and to stop talking crazy. And then she stopped walking and turned around and she was standing right in front of the car. She said something to him and Mr. Guidry was coming from the house to tell her to be quiet, but it didn’t matter. She was out of her head with drink and her craziness, talking about how she was tired of secrets and wanted everybody to know the truth. Then she yelled something at Wes, something I couldn’t make out. And then he . . .” He swallowed thickly, shaking his head. “I heard the engine rev, and then I saw Mrs. Guidry was under the car.”
I closed my eyes, seeing it all in my head, hearing the sound of crunching metal and of a body hitting pavement.
“What did she tell him?”
Xavier shook his head. “I don’t know. But it was enough to make him crazy, too.”
We were all silent for a moment; then Trey asked, “What did they do with her body?”
“Mr. Guidry—he saw me and told me that I had to help them or I would be arrested. This was before blacks had any rights, and he didn’t have to tell me that I could be in a heap of trouble. So I did what he said. And Mr. Guidry gave Wes something in a little bag and told him to hide it with that alligator pin she always wore where nobody could ever find it. We put her in the trunk of the car and drove to Mississippi. Then we dumped her in a swamp between here and Biloxi, and I thought he was going to throw in that bag and the pin. But he didn’t.”
“Then you dropped him off at River Song and took the car so the police couldn’t find it and see the damage on it. And then you disappeared.” Trey’s voice was flat, as if he were reciting a prewritten speech.
“I dumped the car in Alabama, made sure nobody’d ever find it. Wes gave me money to disappear, but I didn’t go far. I was afraid for Miss Aimee. Afraid she’d figure it all out and that she might get hurt if she did. I saw what those two did, you see. I saw it and I was afraid for her. What they might do to her.”
“But Wes loved Aimee,” I said.
Xavier’s green eye regarded me with steely ice. “He loved his mama, too.”
I was silent for a moment, trying to push away the grief that seemed to seep from the walls. “That’s why your mother wrote to Aimee when she was in Pennsylvania, to get her to return so you’d come back. She knew you’d gone away because of her.”
Xavier nodded. “And I could never tell her. I figured the fewer people who knew the truth, the safer they’d be. But then Camille came, and I took the ring and the pin because I knew that would make them afraid I’d go take the evidence to the police. I didn’t. They were my blood kin. So I stayed and started working for them, and Mr. Guidry died. And all was fine again.”
“Until Monica found the ring and the alligator pin.”
His head dropped, and I saw his hands, still clasped in front of him. “I should have thrown them in the swamp. I would have, if I’d known what would happen. My mama always told me that all truths rise to the surface eventually.”
I looked at Trey, remembering Johnny, and what his mother had told him before she died. “Lacy must have seen Mrs. Guidry die. She must have returned to the Guidrys’ house to talk with Wes, to try to get back together again. And she saw him kill his mother. That’s why he married her and not Aimee. Because he was afraid she’d talk.”
“But who killed Aimee’s mother?” Trey asked.
“I don’t know. But I think the answer has to be here.” Xavier opened his hands, and I stood, mesmerized by the bloodred eyes in the alligator brooch, the gold ring nestled against it in Xavier’s calloused palms. The light made the red eyes glitter, but all I could see was the pointed tail of the reptile, sharp enough to break skin, and I smelled the distinctive scent of Shalimar.
I opened my hands and Xavier let the two objects fall slowly into my cupped palms. I let out a quick breath, my discovery like a punch to the chest. “Where’s Aimee?”
Xavier turned his head, indicating the top of the attic stairs and the room beyond with the single bulb hanging from the ceiling illuminating the space. I looked at Trey. “Stay here. I need to talk with Aimee. I think it would be easier for her if it were just the two of us now.”
Slowly, I climbed the stairs, not sure what I expected to see. I found Aimee sitting on a sheet-covered wing-backed chair, a white satin gown spread over her legs and cascading onto the floor. A trunk was beside her, its lid open.
“Aimee?”
She was looking out the window at the blackened sky and didn’t turn when she spoke. “This was my mother’s wedding dress. I’d hoped that one day Monica would wear it.”
I approached and gently closed the trunk lid before sitting on it. She finally looked at me, her eyes larger and bluer under the white bandage on her forehead.
Aimee smiled. “Are you here to find out what happened after the hurricane?”
“You married Wes,” I said.
“Yes. He’d asked Lacy for a divorce, figuring that Johnny was sort of his leverage, that Lacy would never let it be known that Wes was a murderer because of how it would affect her son and their position in the community. That’s what he’d wanted to tell me when we spoke on the phone that morning. That’s why she chased him down to River Song with Johnny, to try to change his mind.” She shrugged. “Camille brought a change of heart, I suppose. Being near death does that to a person.”
She faced the window again, the lights from the city casting the distant sky in purple. “We were very happy in the years we had together. We had our difficulties, of course—all families do, but we had a good life. We had Johnny, and then his children, and I thought that if we could just keep looking toward the future we wouldn’t need to dwell on the past.” She smiled softly to herself. “And then I gave that Abe Holt book to Monica and told her the old rumor about how Caroline had run off with the artist. Monica was such a romantic, and I thought she’d enjoy telling her friends about the family connection.” Her voice hitched on the last word.
Gently, I prompted, “But being Monica, she had to get to the bottom of it, find out the whole truth of what really happened, and was curious when she couldn’t find anything to substantiate the rumor.”
Aimee nodded. “It wasn’t until after you arrived here and I knew that Monica had given you the portrait that I started putting some of the pieces together. I figured that Monica must have hit a dead end looking for Caroline until she found the brooch and the ring and confronted Wes. He must have told her the whole story, expecting her to understand why they couldn’t tell anybody else. Which, knowing Monica, he should have known wouldn’t sit well with her. That’s why she felt she had to leave. She couldn’t live with herself and keep the secret, yet she wanted to protect her family from such an awful truth.”
“When did you know that Caroline Guidry killed your mother?”
Her eyes met mine. “I didn’t. Until today, when Xavier showed me the alligator pin and the wedding ring. That’s when I remembered that my mother wasn’t the only one who wore Shalimar.” She swallowed. “It must have been what Caroline shouted at Wes before he killed her. It’s the only thing I could think of that would have sent him into such a blind rage.”
I opened my hands, the two inanimate objects in my palm more powerful than if they’d breathed air. I studied the pointed tail on the ridged back of the alligator, wondering if too many years had passed to find DNA evidence. Tears pricked at the back of my eyes. “Monica was an optimist. Despite all the evidence she’d found, she took the portrait and found me, hoping I’d have some information regarding Caroline being with Abe, living with my family. Hoping to find out that she was wrong. That her family wasn’t what she’d discovered th
em to be. And that her grandfather hadn’t been holding on to a secret all those years.”
Aimee was silent for a long moment as we watched a yellow butterfly settle on the window glass, its wings beating in slow motion, making me wonder why it was out at night. “We lie to ourselves and to those we love sometimes because we think it will protect them. Just like I did, and Wes did.” She turned to look at me, her blue eyes dark. “Just like your mother did.”
I started to pull away but she placed her hand on my arm. “Your father and your brother chose to believe that Chelsea wasn’t coming home. But your mother chose to believe she was, and she taught you to believe, too. It gave you purpose to your life, a reason to go on. It brought you here and to River Song. To us.” She smoothed her hands against the creamy satin of the gown, the blue veins on her hands like sharp arrows. “Sometimes, Julie, we search and search, looking for what has been right in front of us all along.”
I waited for the hurt and anger to wash over me, for the denials to spring to my tongue. But the weight that had begun to shift while I was at the police station in Massachusetts shifted more, carving out more room in my chest. I wanted to cry and laugh and shout, all at the same time, but I couldn’t. Instead I breathed in deeply, filling my lungs, feeling lighter still.
“Thank you,” I whispered instead, not sure if she heard me but knowing she understood.
Aimee touched my hand. “Give those to Trey. He’ll know what to do, and I’m all right with that. Even if Wes is found guilty, there really isn’t anything they can do to him.”
I nodded and stood, sensing her need to be alone for a little longer. “Thank you,” I said again, louder this time, so that Monica, Chelsea, my mother, and all those who had brought me to this place could hear.
Something tapped on the glass, and we both looked up at the window, watching as a cluster of yellow butterflies hovered together, suspended, it seemed, by sheer force of will in the dark night. And then, as quickly as they had appeared, they flew off, leaving only the view of black sky and the memory that they had ever been there at all.
CHAPTER 31
It is only in sorrow bad weather masters us; in joy we face the storm and defy it.
—AMELIA BARR
Julie
Death and loss, they plague you. But so do memories. The memories I have of my lost sister and of Monica are still fresh—full and ripe like summer fruit. I imagine they always will be. But there is room now in my heart for more memories, carved by a letting go that I could find only by coming home to a place I’d never been. I think Monica knew that, and that was why she brought me here. Unable to heal herself, she’d chosen to heal me instead.
On my way back from buying supplies for the housewarming party, I head down what has become my favorite stretch of Beach Boulevard, the long blocks between Gill and Rodenberg avenues where three Katrina trees stand interspersed with tall, leafy oaks.
There’re an egret, a dolphin, and a pelican: all solitary statues with resolute expressions hewn from solid wood. Sometimes I’ll park the car to get a better look at them, to touch them so that perhaps I can better understand why I feel such affinity for them. I’m in no rush to figure this out. I’ve decided that Beau and I are staying in Biloxi at River Song, and it’s hard to imagine a time when I doubted this outcome.
I’ve begun to take for granted the blue-painted Katrina lines on telephone poles around town showing the various heights of the storm surge, and names like Tchoutacabouffa, Atchafalaya, and Bogafalaya, now roll easily from my tongue as if I’ve been saying them my whole life. And the five-o’clock train whistle has become as familiar to me as wearing shorts in February and the sound of water rolling toward shore. I think this is a good thing.
As I pull into the drive, Trey steps out onto the wide lawn in front of River Song, the white house with black shutters now standing on new pilings. A swing hangs from the old oak in the front yard, and hammocks and rocking chairs on the wide porch creak in the breeze. If Monica drove up now she’d recognize her beloved house, new, but old, too, as if the yarn of years and memories has been unwound and tucked into the new joists and wooden beams, preserved for more generations.
Trey kisses me, then takes the bags from the back of the van. I smell the wood smoke from the barbecue pit in the backyard, a whole pig spinning slowly on a spit. We’ve invited everyone we know to share in the resurrection of River Song, of building up what had been torn down, of restoring hope where there’d been only fragmented memories. Among the two hundred or so guests, Carol Sue and Walker King, newly engaged, will be here, and Kathy Wolf is driving down with Aimee and Xavier. Even Ray Von has promised to come. We’re having a mini ribbon-cutting ceremony with Steve and Julia Kenney from Kenney-Moise Homebuilders officiating. I don’t know if Monica would have wanted all the pomp, but there’s so much to celebrate.
On the day the last of the construction equipment had rolled away, Ray Von came to see me to deliver the note Monica had included with the portrait of Caroline Guidry.
“She stuck this into the note for me, but told me not to give it to you until I thought you’d decided to stay. And I guess now is as good a time as any.” Without further explanation, she’d handed it to me and watched as I read.
Dear Julie,
Please tell Aimee and Trey that I’m sorry, that I never stopped loving them. Looking back, I’ve seen that I could have trusted them more. But I was young and headstrong, and I made my choice. By welcoming you and Beau into their lives, I know they’ve forgiven me.
I’m giving you my two most precious possessions—Beau and River Song—because I know you will be more than just their caretaker. If I’d told you in advance what I wanted you to do after my death, you would have reasoned your way out of it. Forgive me, and know that I love you like the sister I never had.
Survival is like a stone wall, and kindness is a door. You have taught me this.
MMG
I keep the note in my purse, wrinkled now so that it’s almost illegible. But I keep opening it, trying to understand what she was trying to tell me. Survival is like a stone wall, and kindness is a door.
Johnny is coming to the barbecue today, too. Even Trey agreed that he should be here. Before sunset, a small group of us will kayak over to Deer Island and bring Monica’s ashes to sprinkle into the sound. It will be a homecoming of sorts, a return to a place that she never completely left. I hope that Johnny’s presence here will be a forging of new bonds with his son and grandson. Monica would have wanted that, and I can’t help but think that she’d planned it all along.
Trey is working on Wes’s defense and getting him declared incompetent to stand trial, but we’ve managed to keep it out of the media and the prosecutor’s office is moving very slowly on the case. Johnny hasn’t acknowledged it, but I don’t doubt that he might have had a hand in that. We’re all hoping that the preparation for the case outlasts the number of months Wes has left.
Trey takes my hand, leaving the bags on the kitchen table, where an assembled team of cooks has already taken over. “I want to show you something.”
He leads me upstairs to the sleeping porch, where everything smells new, and evidence of Beau’s and Charlie’s presence is everywhere, with discarded sandals, sand toys, and pajamas littering the floor. I leave them there, thinking that the presence of children makes River Song the home Monica always imagined it should be.
Trey brings me to the last twin bed against the wall. “Lie down here and face the ceiling.”
I look at him with a question but lie down anyway. I watch him go to the farthest bed against the opposite wall and lie down, too.
And then, as if he is lying next to me and whispering in my ear, I hear, “I like you a lot, Julie Holt.”
I jerk my head at him in surprise, amazed at the acoustic marvel that Kenney-Moise has been able to re-create the way Aimee and Monica had remembered. And, apparently, Trey.
“I like you, too, Wesley John Guidry the Third,” I whisper, turning
my head to see Trey as a slow grin spreads over his face. We look at each other across the room and the three beds between us, imagining the years of stored secrets of children that still seem to live in the long, windowed room at the back of the house.
The front screen slams and the pounding feet of children race up the stairs, and I listen for the creaks on the second, ninth, and twelfth steps and I picture Monica laughing at my attention to detail. Charlie and Beau appear, already dressed in their bathing suits, with Carol Sue eventually appearing at a more sedate pace. Jax II, Beau’s new puppy, races from behind her and jumps on me, giving my face a good cleansing with his pink tongue.
On the day Beau neatly tucked his mother’s red hat into the bottom drawer of his dresser to “save it for later,” I’d cried, amazed at this child who’d suffered so much loss but could figure out how sometimes you need to leave things behind if you’re going to move forward. The next day, I brought home Jax II.
I adopted him from a shelter, imagining he’d be a good hunting dog for Beau when they were both old enough to go out with Trey. Trey had been kind in telling me that a cocker spaniel–poodle mix wasn’t necessarily a good hunting dog, but would certainly make a good companion for a young boy. And Jax II never stops showing his gratitude every time he sees me.
Beau scoops up the little dog and begins bouncing on the bed. “You said we could go swimming when you got back. Can we go now? Huh? Can we go now?”
I sit up slowly, resigned to fulfilling my promise made under duress while packing up our things from the rental house. It had seemed far enough in the future at the time that promising to go swimming with Beau as soon as we were settled at River Song had seemed like a small thing.
With a sigh, I sit up and go to my bedroom in the front of the house and pull on my new bathing suit—purchased while on a forced shopping trip with Carol Sue to New Orleans. I hadn’t had a bathing suit since I was a child, and Carol Sue thought that it was time now that I’d planned on taking up permanent residence in Biloxi.
