by Lisa Wingate
My parents would’ve told me if we were letting go of the place. There must be another explanation, but since I have no way of knowing, I return to my browsing.
In the closet, I find the rest of her appointment books stored in a well-worn barrister bookcase, right where they’ve always been. They’re neatly arranged in order from the year she married my grandfather to the present. Just for fun, I take out the oldest one. The milky leather cover is dry and crazed with brown cracks so that it looks like a piece of antique china. Inside, the handwriting is loopy and girlish. Notations about sorority parties, college exams, bridal showers, china patterns, and date nights with my grandfather fill the pages.
In one of the margins, she has practiced signing her soon-to-be married name, the flourishes on the letters testifying to the giddiness of first love.
Visited Harold’s parents at Drayden Hill, one entry says. Horseback riding. Took a few fences. Harold said not to tell his mother. She wants us in one piece for the wedding. I have found my prince. Not the slightest bit of doubt.
Emotion gathers in my throat. It’s bittersweet.
Not the slightest bit of doubt.
Did she really feel that way? Did she really just…know it was right when she met my grandfather? Should Elliot and I have experienced some sort of…lightning bolt moment, rather than the relaxed drift from childhood adventures to adult friendship to dating to engagement because, after six years of dating, it seems like it’s time? Is there something wrong with us because we haven’t tumbled in headfirst, because we’re not in a rush?
My cellphone rings, and I grab it, wanting it to be him.
The voice on the other end is male and friendly, but it isn’t Elliot’s.
“Hello, this is Trent Turner. I had a call from this number. Sorry I missed you. What can I help you with?”
“Oh…oh…” Every possible icebreaker flies from my mind, and I blurt out, “I found your name in my grandmother’s date book.”
Papers shuffle in the background. “Did we have an appointment set up here on Edisto? To look at a cottage or something? Or is this about a rental?”
“I don’t know what it’s about. Actually, I was hoping you could tell me. My grandmother has been experiencing some health problems. I’m trying to make sense of the notes on her schedule.”
“What day was the appointment for?”
“I’m not sure if she had one. I thought she might’ve called you about selling a property. The Myers cottage.” It’s not uncommon around here for properties to be known by the names of people who owned them decades ago. My grandmother’s parents built the Edisto house as a place to escape the hot, sticky summers inland. “Stafford. Judy Stafford.” I prepare myself for the change in tone that almost invariably comes with the name. Anywhere in the state, people either love us or hate us, but they usually know who we are.
“Staff…for…Stafford…” he mutters. Maybe he’s not from around here? Come to think of it, his accent doesn’t even hint of Charleston. It’s not Lowcountry, but there is some sort of drawl there. Texas maybe? Having spent so much of my childhood mingling with kids from other places, I’m good with accents, both foreign and domestic.
There’s a strange pause. His tone is more guarded afterward. “I’ve only been here about nine months, but I can promise you that no one’s ever called here about selling or renting the Myers cottage. Sorry I can’t be of more help.” Suddenly, he’s trying to shuffle me off the phone. Why? “If it was before the first of the year, my grandfather, Trent Senior, was probably the one she was talking to. But he passed away over six months ago.”
“Oh. My condolences.” I instantly feel a kinship that goes beyond his presence in a place I have always dearly loved. “Any idea what my grandmother was in touch with him about?”
There’s another uncomfortable pause, as if he’s carefully weighing his words. “Yes, actually. He had some papers for her. That’s really all I can say.”
The lawyer in me surfaces. I catch the scent of a reluctant witness who’s harboring information. “What kind of papers?”
“I’m sorry. I promised my grandfather.”
“Promised what?”
“If she’ll come down here herself, I can give her the envelope he left for her.”
Alarm bells ring in my head. What in the world is going on? “She isn’t able to travel.”
“Then I can’t help you. I’m sorry.”
Just like that, he hangs up.
CHAPTER 10
Rill
The room is quiet and wet-smelling. I open my eyes, shut them real tight, let them come open again slow. Sleep haze hangs over me so that I can’t see too clear. It’s like the river fog came crawling through the shanty windows overnight.
Nothing’s where it’s supposed to be. Instead of the Arcadia’s doors and windows, there’re thick stacked-stone walls. The air smells like the closed compartments where we keep crates of stores and fuel. The stink of mold and wet dirt crawls up my nose and stays there.
I hear Lark whine in her sleep. There’s the squeak of hinges instead of the soft rustle of the pull-down pallets where Lark and Fern sleep.
Blinking, I look up and make out one tiny, high-up window near the ceiling. Morning light pushes through, but it’s dull and shadowy.
A bush scrapes over the glass. Its branches raise a soft squeal. A scrappy pink rose hangs down, half-broke.
Everything comes back in a rush. I remember going to bed on the musty-smelling cot, staring out the window at the rose as the day faded and my brother and sisters breathed longer and slower around me.
I remember the worker in the white dress bringing us down the basement stairs and walking us by the furnace and the coal piles to this tiny room.
You’ll sleep here until we find out whether you’re staying for good. No noise and no carrying on. You’re to be quiet. You are not to leave your beds. She pointed us to five folding cots, the kind that soldiers use in their practice camps along the river sometimes.
Then she left and closed the door behind her.
We huddled quiet on our beds, even Camellia. Mostly I was just glad we were by ourselves again, just the five of us. No workers, no other kids watching with curious eyes, worried eyes, sad eyes, mean eyes, hollow eyes that’re dead and hard.
All of what happened yesterday plays in my head like a picture show. I see the Arcadia, the police, Silas, Miss Tann’s car, the bath line upstairs. A sickness runs over me from head to toe. It swallows me like a backwash of stagnant water, hot from the summer sun, poisoned by everything that’s fallen into it.
I feel dirty from the inside out. It’s not got a thing to do with the cloudy bathwater that was brown with the sand and soap of all the kids who’d used it before me, including my sisters and Gabion.
Instead, I see the worker standing over me while I step into the tub, turning my shoulder to hide myself. “Wash.” She points at the soap and the rag. “We ain’t got time for dallyin’. You river rats ain’t exactly known for bein’ prude anyhow, are you?”
I don’t know what she means or how to answer. Maybe I’m not supposed to.
“I said, wash up!” she hollers. “You think I got all day?” I know for sure she doesn’t. I’ve already heard her yell the same thing to other kids. I’ve heard whining and whimpering and sputtering when heads got dunked to rinse them off. Luckily, none of us Foss kids mind going underwater. The babies and even Camellia made it through the bath line without much trouble. I want to do the same, but the woman seems like she’s got it in for me, maybe on account of I’m the oldest.
I squat down over the water because it’s dirty and cold.
She moves to get a better look at me and stares in a way that raises gooseflesh on my skin. “Guess you ain’t too grown-ish to be in with the little girls after all. Won’t be long, though, we’ll have to move you someplace else.”
I turn my shoulder even more and wash quick as I can.
This morning I still feel dirty from
having somebody look me over like that. I hope we’ll be gone from here before it’s time for another bath.
I want the little pink rose outside to disappear. I want the window to change, the walls to turn to wood, the cement floor to shift, and melt, and go away. I want old planks worn down by our feet and the river rocking under our beds and the soft sound of Briny playing his harmonica outside on the porch.
I’ve come awake at least ten times overnight. In the wee hours, Fern squeezed herself in beside me, the sagging canvas pulling us together so tight it’s a wonder she can breathe, much less sleep.
Each time I let myself go under, I’m back on the Arcadia again. Each time I wake up, I’m here, in this place, and I try to make sense of it.
You’ll sleep here until we find out whether you’re staying for good….
What’s that mean…for good? Aren’t they taking us to the hospital to see Briny and Queenie now that we’ve stayed the night here and got cleaned up? Are all of us going or just some? I can’t leave the babies here. What if these people hurt them?
I have to protect my brothers and sisters, but I can’t even protect myself.
Tears turn my mouth sticky. I’ve told myself I won’t cry. It’d only scare the little kids. I promised them everything’ll be all right, and so far, they believe it, even Camellia.
I close my eyes, curl around Fern, let the tears come and seep into her hair. Sobs heave through my stomach and push up my chest, and I swallow them like hiccups. Fern sleeps right through it. Maybe her dreams make her think it’s just the river rocking her bunk.
Don’t fall asleep, I tell myself. I have to put Fern back in her own cot before anybody comes. I can’t get us in trouble. The lady told us not to leave our beds.
Just a minute or two more. Just a minute or two, then I’ll get up and make sure everybody’s where they’re supposed to be.
I drift and wake and drift and wake. My heart slams hard against my ribs when I hear somebody breathing nearby—not one of us, somebody bigger. A man. Maybe it’s Briny.
No sooner does the thought come than the scents of old grease and green grass and coal dust and sweat sift into the room. It’s not Briny. He smells of river water and sky. Morning fog in the summer and frost and woodsmoke in the winter.
My mind clears up, and I listen. Feet shuffle a couple steps in the door, then stop. That’s not Briny’s walk.
I pull the covers over Fern’s head, hope she won’t wake up and move just now. It’s still pretty dim, that same faint light coming through the window. Maybe he won’t notice Fern’s not on her cot.
When I turn my head, I can barely see him from the edge of my eye. He’s big, taller and fatter than Briny by a lot, but that’s all I can make out. He’s a shadow, standing there. He doesn’t move or say anything. He just stands and looks.
My nose runs from all the crying, but I don’t wipe it or sniffle. I don’t want him to know I’m awake. Why is he here?
Camellia rolls over in her bed.
No, I think. Ssshhhh. Is she looking at him? Can he see whether her eyes are open?
He moves into the room. Moves, then stops, then moves, then stops. He bends over Lark’s cot, touches her pillow. He stumbles a little and bumps the wood frame.
I watch through the narrow slits of my eyes. He comes to my cot next, looks down for a minute. The pillow rustles near my head. He touches it twice, real light.
Then he stops at the other cots and finally leaves and closes the door.
I let out the breath I’ve been holding and suck in another one and catch the smell of peppermint. When I throw off the covers and wake Fern, there’re two little white candies on the pillow. They make me think of Briny right off. When Briny hustles money at a pool hall or works on a showboat that’s docked up, he always comes back to the Arcadia with a roll of Beech-Nut Luster-Mints in his pocket. They’re the best kind. Briny plays little riddle games with us, and if we get the answers right, we get a candy. If there’s two redbirds up a tree and one on the ground and three bluebirds in a bush and four on the ground and a big ol’ crow on the fence and an owl in the barn stall, how many birds on the ground?
The older you are, the tougher the questions get. The tougher the questions get, the better the Beech-Nut candies taste.
The peppermint smell makes me want to run to the door and look out and see if Briny’s here. But these peppermints are another kind. They don’t feel right in my fist when I scoop them up and carry Fern to her bed.
By the door, Camellia pops hers into her mouth and munches it.
I think about leaving the peppermints on the little kids’ pillows, but instead, I decide it’d be better to pick them up. If the workers come, I’m afraid we might get in trouble for having them.
“Stealer!” Camellia talks for the first time since the bath line last night. She’s sitting up in her bed, the shoulder of a too-big nighty sagging halfway down her arm. After the baths, one of the workers rooted through a pile and handed us these to wear. “He gave us each a candy. You can’t have ’em all. That ain’t fair.”
“Ssshhh!” She’s so loud, I half expect the door to swing open and we’ll all be in a fix. “I’m saving them for everybody for later.”
“You’re stealin’.”
“Am not.” Sure enough, Camellia’s back to herself today, but like usual in the morning, she’s in a mood. She don’t wake up easy, even with peppermints. Most times, I’d square off with her, but right now, I’m too tired for it. “I’m saving them till later, I said. I don’t want us to get in trouble.”
My sister’s bony shoulders sag. “We already got trouble.” Her black hair falls forward in mats, like a horse’s tail. “What’re we gonna do, Rill?”
“We’re gonna be good so’s the people will take us to Briny. You can’t try to run away anymore, Camellia. You can’t fight them, okay? If we make them mad, they won’t take us.”
She stares hard at me, her brown eyes squinted into slits so that she looks like the Chinamen who wash river town laundry in big, boiling kettles along the bank. “You think they’ll take us, for sure? Today?”
“If we’re good.” I hope it’s not a lie, but maybe it is.
“Why’d they bring us here?” The question chokes her. “Why didn’t they just leave us be?”
My mind scrambles around, trying to figure it out. I need to explain it to myself as much as to Camellia. “I think it’s a mistake. They must’ve figured Briny wasn’t comin’ back to look after us. But Briny’ll tell them soon’s he finds out that we’re gone. He’ll tell them this is all somebody’s big mistake, and he’ll take us home.”
“Today, though?” Her chin quivers, and she pushes her bottom lip up hard, bolts it the way she does when she’s about to pick a fight with a boy.
“I bet today. I bet today for sure.”
She sniffs and wipes snot with her arm. “I ain’t lettin’ them women get me in that bathtub again, Rill. I ain’t.”
“What’d they do to you, Camellia?”
“Nothin’.” Her chin pokes up. “They just ain’t gettin’ me in there again, that’s all.” She stretches a hand toward me, opens it. “If you ain’t gonna give them candies to everybody, let me have ’em. I’m starved.”
“We’ll save the rest for later….If we get to go outside where the kids were yesterday, I’ll pull them out then.”
“You said Briny was gonna come later.”
“I don’t know when. I just know he will.”
She screws her lips to one side like she’s not believing it for one minute, then turns herself toward the door. “Maybe that man can help us get away. The one who brung us the peppermints. He’s our friend.”
I’ve already thought about that. But who was the man? Why did he come in here? Does he want to be our friend? He’s the first one who’s been nice to us at Mrs. Murphy’s house.
“We’ll wait for Briny,” I say. “We’ve just gotta be good till then, that’s—”
The door handle rattl
es. Camellia and I fall into our beds both at the same time and pretend we’re sleeping. My heart pumps under the scratchy blanket. Who’s out there? Is it our new friend or someone else? Did they hear us talking?
I don’t have long to wonder. A brown-haired lady in a white dress comes in. I watch her through a thin place in the blanket. She’s stout as a lumberjack and round in the middle. She isn’t one of the women we saw yesterday.
At the door, she frowns, then looks toward our beds, then at the keys in her hand. “All of you, out of bet.” She talks like the family from Norway whose boat was tied up down the way from ours for a month last summer. Bed sounds like bet, but I know what she means. She doesn’t seem mad, really, just tired. “On your feet, and folt the blankets.”
We scramble up, all except Gabion. I have to rustle him from his cot, and he stumbles around and lands on his rear while I take care of the blankets.
“Someone else was in this room duringk the night, yes?” She holds up a key pinched between her fingers.
Should we tell her about the man with the peppermints? Maybe he wasn’t supposed to be in our room? Maybe we’ll get in trouble if they find out we didn’t tell.
“No’m. Not nobody. Just us,” Camellia answers before I can.
“And you are the troublemakingk one, I am tolt.” A hard look comes Camellia’s way, and my sister shrinks a little.
“No’m.”
“Nobody came in.” I have to lie too. What else can I do now that Camellia told a fib? “Unless it happened while we were sleepin’.”
The woman pulls the chain on the lightbulb overhead. It flickers, and we blink and squint. “This door shouldt have been lockedt. It was, yes?”
“We dunno,” Camellia pipes up. “We was in our beds the whole night.”
The woman looks at me, and I nod, then make myself busy with cleaning up the room. I want to get rid of the peppermints, but I’m too scared to, so I keep them stuck in my hand, which makes it hard to fold the blankets, but the lady doesn’t notice. Mostly, she’s just in a hurry to get us out of there.
When we leave the room, I see the big man standing there in the basement, leaning on a broom handle next to the fat black boiler stove with slats that look like the mouth on a Halloween pumpkin. The man watches us go by. Camellia smiles over at him, and he smiles back. His teeth are old and ugly, and his thin brown hair hangs down around his face in sweaty strings, but still, the smile is nice to see.
