Sea Change

by Karen White

  “You once told me that it would never leave your finger. That it would show your fidelity.”

  I recalled Georgina’s words of warning regarding my neglecting my husband, and his presence in the window after I’d returned from seeing Thomas, and I could not help but wonder what sorts of poison Georgina had included with her nursing.

  Trying to keep my tone light, I said, “Then I will fetch it and put it back on my finger, if that will give you ease. But first I have an important errand to run. I am leaving you alone here with Mary and Robbie, and they will take good care of you until I return.”

  He struggled to sit up. “Where are you going?”

  “The British are leaving. I need to determine when the medicine will get here.”

  Bright spots of pink appeared on his sunken cheeks. “You will go to this Dr. Enlow again, then?”

  I paused, thinking I should lie, but knowing I could not. “Yes. He is the only one who can help us.”

  “Please do not. I have need of you here. More so than any medicine.”

  I felt like a doe I had once seen caught in brambles, struggling to free herself, yet the more she struggled, the more entangled she became. My father had shot her to end her suffering, yet I had not had the heart to eat venison for a good while afterward.

  “Geoffrey, I need to go. When I have the medicine and you are well again, you can scold me as much as you like, and remind me of my vows to honor and obey. But not now.”

  He struggled to pull himself up to sit, and I had to grasp my hands together so I would not help him. “You mean to leave me. Do not go, Pamela. Do not leave!”

  I was weeping openly now, despite knowing his irrationality had much to do with his state of malnourishment and prolonged fevers. But the truth did nothing to ease the tightness in my chest as I bent to kiss his forehead. “I will be back. I promise.”

  With surprising strength, he gripped my elbows. “I will find you. Wherever you go, I will find you.”

  “I am not leaving you, Geoffrey. I am trying to save you, as I would rather die than to live one day without you. Forever, remember?”

  I kissed him again, then pulled away easily, his strength gone. “Be well, darling.” My last glimpse was of him struggling to sit up, his head falling against the pillows as I ran from the room. I flew down the stairs, fastening my cloak as I ran outside, the pistol in my pocket bouncing against my leg.

  Jemma had already harnessed the mare to the wagon and was waiting for me by the time I left the house, still shaking from the encounter. I took the reins from her and headed for Cannon’s Point.

  There were few roads on St. Simons, yet I did not pass anyone on our race to Cannon’s Point. I assumed it was because the most direct route for the British evacuation would be by boat down the Hampton River. I did not notice the cold, or the draped alleys of oak, hickory, and gum trees that normally comforted me the way a familiar blanket on a cold night would. Now they only blocked the light, distracting me from my singular goal of saving Geoffrey’s life.

  As we neared the bend in the road that led to the old fort at Frederica, I heard the sound of a horse’s hooves. I slowed the wagon, wondering whether I should seek shelter in case they were British soldiers looking to scavenge what they hadn’t already taken. Jemma strained in her seat to see ahead, then touched my arm in alarm. I began to look for a place to turn off the road when the horse and rider pulled into sight.

  The rider pulled her horse up tightly, making it rear so that her cloak fell back from her face, revealing yellow-blond hair.

  “Pamela,” Georgina shouted when she had regained control of her mount. “Thank goodness. I was afraid that I would have to ride all the way to Dunbar Creek.”

  I handed Jemma the reins, then clambered down from the wagon, uncaring of how high I had to lift my skirts. I grabbed the horse’s bridle and looked up at Georgina. “What news do you have? Did you see Thomas?”

  She began to speak, but her words were lost in a coughing spasm. She held a handkerchief to her mouth, and when she removed it I saw the telltale drops of blood, scarlet against the white linen.

  “You are ill! Why have you not told me?”

  I studied my sister for the first time in a long while and noticed how her hair lacked its usual luster, and how sunken her cheeks were. I had been so preoccupied with my husband and son that I had not noticed.

  As if I had not spoken, she said, “You must hurry, Pamela! Thomas is already at the beach, prepared to be rowed out to one of the ships. He said he could take you with him to Cumberland and see that you are returned here. But they cannot wait. It might already be too late!”

  She quickly slid from her horse. “Here, take my mount. I’ll take Jemma with me, but first we will head home. Thomas told me we might need bribe money, and I have Mama’s jewelry. I will take a faster mount and meet you if I can near Mr. Gould’s light—that is where the British warships are waiting, and where Thomas said he would wait for you. But do not wait for me. I will find a way to get the jewels to Cumberland if you are not at the beach when I get there.”

  “But where is Aaron? It is not safe for you to ride alone.”

  Her face showed scorn. “He left with the British as soon as we reached Cannon’s Point. We will see how he fares in the icy-cold winters of Canada. That is where I heard they will be taken. But do not worry for me, sister. I have come this far unscathed, after all.”

  I embraced her tightly. I knew how much our mother’s jewelry meant to her, and how hard it must have been for her to offer it to me. I felt the heavy weight of the pistol in my skirt, reminding me of its presence, and I pulled it out.

  “Take this,” I said, offering it to her. “I have nothing of value that can be stolen. But if anyone tries to take the jewelry from you, you will need protection.”

  With only a brief hesitation, she took it, nodding her thanks. I had taught her how to fire a pistol when we were younger, and while she was not an excellent shot, a weapon might pose enough of a deterrent to a would-be thief. She could at least hit the broad chest of a man if he got close enough to her.

  “I will find a way to get the jewelry back to you,” I promised as I lifted my skirts again and mounted the horse without assistance.

  “I know you will,” she said, an odd light in her eyes. “Remember, do not wait for me. It is low tide now. If they have already left the beach, you may still be able to reach them. If you need courage, remember that you are doing this for Geoffrey. That will give you the strength you need to do what has to be done.”

  When she handed me the reins, I squeezed her hand. “Thank you, Georgina. I will not forget your kindness.”

  Her face stilled. “I do not do this for kindness. You are my sister.”

  Swallowing heavily, I nodded. “Geoffrey is at home, too weak to leave his bed. Please let him know that I am doing this for us, and that I will return to him as quickly as possible.” I then turned toward Jemma. “Do whatever Mistress Smith asks of you. She will ensure that you make it back home. She will send word to Master Geoffrey.” I choked back a sob. “Godspeed to us all.”

  With serious eyes, Georgina said, “Do not stop for anyone; do you understand? If there are deserters on the island, they will be desperate men in want of a horse. Or worse.”

  I nodded in understanding before turning the horse around, then dug in my heels, the wind freezing my tears as I tore down the shell-covered road, feeling nothing except for the fear that seemed to pursue me, its hooves pounding nearer and nearer as I headed toward the sound and whatever fate awaited me there.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Ava

  ST. SIMONS ISLAND, GEORGIA

  AUGUST 2011

  My leg muscles burned after the long bike ride to Christ Church, and I wished I’d thought to bring a clean and dry shirt along with the large bottle of water I’d tossed in my purse. I took a long drink before crossing the road and entering the gates to the churchyard.

  Although I had since become
familiar with the meandering paths of the cemetery, I still could not push away the lingering feeling that there were too many gravestones that didn’t belong here, that there should have been more empty space.

  I found the Frazier plot easily, relieved to see no sign of tourists or anybody else in the shady space. The scent of tuberose lifted to my nostrils from the large vase in front of Adrienne’s grave, letting me know that Jimmy had been there recently.

  I squatted in front of Adrienne’s headstone and read the inscription again. MOTHER OF UNBORN CHILDREN. My hand drifted to my swollen belly, feeling a quickening deep within my womb. It was too early to feel my baby’s movements, but I sensed it inside of me, swimming in its watery world.

  With trepidation I approached the final row of tombstones, of Geoffrey and his two sons. The confusion and grief I’d first experienced were still there, like an old bruise unexpectedly touched. But there was something else this time: a feeling of expectation. Just as I had felt earlier sitting on the bench at the beach and watching the waves tease the shore.

  I stared down at the cold stone, wondering why I couldn’t get past a niggling thought that I was missing something important. I waited a few moments longer, imagining I knew what Geoffrey looked like and wishing I could find a portrait of him to see whether he had blue eyes. Because then at least I’d know…what? That he was the man I saw in my dreams? That he was real and that I somehow knew him?

  Eventually I turned around and began walking toward the front of the enclosure, examining the other graves sandwiched between generations. I stood and walked toward the back of the plot, seeing the graves of Matthew’s parents, who had died while he was in college, two of his grandparents, and intermittent gray slabs of ancestors who’d come in the generations between Geoffrey Frazier and Matthew.

  I hadn’t expected to find Georgina here, but I allowed my gaze to glance at each name as I walked by, which was probably why the name didn’t register with me at first, and I had to retrace my steps after I’d already passed it.

  ROBERT WILLIAM FRAZIER

  B. DECEMBER 13, 1806, D. MAY 9, 1879.

  The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be;

  and that which is done is that which shall be done;

  and there is no new thing under the sun.

  Robbie! I almost shouted aloud. It had to be him. His year of birth followed the births and deaths of the two boys buried with Geoffrey, and he would have been eight and a half years old when his parents died. I knelt in front of the gravestone, my vision blurry as the dates and letters danced in front of my eyes. He had survived and lived to be an old man. And, judging by the nearby graves, he’d had a wife and children of his own. I sat back on my heels, doing an estimated calculation, figuring that Robbie was most likely Matthew’s great-great-great-great-grandfather.

  My fingers brushed over the engraved name, a name so familiar to me, but for no reason that rational thought could produce. Yet I could see his blue eyes and dark curls, knew what his small hand felt like pressed into mine. I knew his scent, and that he liked to be read to before he fell asleep but not sung to.

  I pressed my hand against my mouth. Was this what it felt like to lose one’s mind? Or were things that Matthew said were illogical somehow possible in a universe we were still struggling to understand? Mimi’s ancestors claimed that the life of a man is a circle from childhood to childhood. I didn’t know the answer. But maybe I didn’t need to.

  I stood, a feeling of contentment stealing over me. Robbie had lived out his days on his beloved island, near the ocean and marshes that were like the blood that ran through his veins. He had married and raised his children in the house where my unborn child would live. It was a circle, a continuation of a family connected like the estuaries and creeks that surrounded us, a watery womb to nourish us.

  Realizing I still had much of the cemetery to go through, I stepped away from Robbie’s grave, then paused, remembering something the curator had said, something Tish had reminded me of. Something about Nathanial Smith. He ended up selling everything, then moving up north with his son and a freed slave.

  I turned back to Robbie’s grave. If both of his parents had died in 1815, then who had raised him? Could he be the son that Nathaniel brought up north and raised? If there was an exhibit of artifacts from his estate at the Savannah History Museum, it was certainly possible that I could find out.

  I returned to my stroll through the cemetery, my thoughts as twisty and wandering as the paths, my hope that by finding Georgina, all the other puzzle pieces would finally fall into place. My dreams had stopped, my flashbacks leading me only as far as my childhood in Antioch. But I needed to know more, needed to know what had happened to Georgina and Pamela. And Thomas. Because somehow all of this was connected to me. To Adrienne. I couldn’t explain it, but I knew that whatever driving force was pulling me apart from Matthew had its roots in something that had happened before I was even born.

  I found several clusters of Smith graves, and even that of a girl named Georgina. But her last name had been Hamilton, and she had died at the age of seven. I had covered nearly the entire cemetery when I found myself near the four graves of Jimmy’s family.

  Like Adrienne’s grave, they were well tended, the faces of the stones wiped clean of dust and dirt, and fresh yellow gladioli placed at the base of each grave. A faint smile touched my lips as I recalled Jimmy telling me about his sisters, and I thought, too, of his burned hands, and how he had tried to save his family from a burning house.

  A bright pop of yellow at the rear of the plot caught my attention. It was Jimmy’s gardening gloves, and I knew he’d be missing them. Stepping carefully around the graves, I bent to retrieve them, noticing as I straightened something I hadn’t seen before.

  A small trellis had been erected slightly behind Mary Anne’s grave, between her headstone and Scooter’s, a blooming passionflower vine now creeping up the base. A brilliant orange Gulf Fritillary perched on one of the blooms, its wings moving slowly in the heat. The vine had not been there the last time I was at the cemetery, when I saw Jimmy and he told me about Scooter and Skeeter, and how his mother had loved her garden.

  I walked back to the front of the stones, an eerie sense of déjà vu tiptoeing across my brain. I remembered standing here with Jimmy and taking photographs for Tish. I’d had them developed but hadn’t yet given them to her. There had been something off about the pictures I’d taken of Jimmy’s family, something that had given me the same feeling I was getting now: the feeling of somebody walking over my grave.

  I stared at the stones again, and read the single inscription on Mary Anne’s grave: FROM THE WITHERED TREE, A FLOWER BLOOMS. It was a beautiful epitaph, but I wondered where it had come from. Jimmy had been only fifteen when his parents died, and he’d had no other family, which was why he went to live with the McMahons. But even if the McMahons had been generous enough to pay for the burial and headstones, I couldn’t imagine a stranger would have written that epitaph.

  The butterfly left the vine and fluttered in the air until it found purchase on the smooth stone of Mary Anne’s marker. My gaze traveled down to the inscription, to the death date that was the same on all four headstones, and the skin over my skull tightened. JUNE 30, 1980.

  I recalled the phone conversation I’d had with my mother after I’d met Jimmy, when I’d asked her whether she’d remembered the family, or the tragedy. We’d already moved, so I don’t remember too much. It was a hectic time for us, with your granddaddy getting sick so sudden-like, and your daddy having to move up to take over the business. And your brothers begged to stay to watch the Fourth of July fireworks on the pier, which meant we ended up sleeping on mattresses, because the movers had already come. It’s no wonder I don’t remember much of anything else happening that summer.

  But my father had worked for the coroner’s office before he became a funeral director. If there had been a major fire with four deaths, he would have known about it. Most likely he wo
uld have been involved in the recovery of the remains. Which meant my mother would have known about it in every excruciating detail. And your brothers begged to stay to watch the Fourth of July fireworks on the pier.

  I focused again on the death date: June 30, 1980. Five whole days before the Fourth of July. The butterfly continued to move its wings up and down in a hypnotic rhythm, but it was as if I were no longer seeing it, but instead was watching a movie of me participating in my own life.

  I took a step backward, smelling ashes, like a harbinger of a storm, as gooseflesh rippled across my back. I could see the tall flames and hear crying and shouting and little pops and hisses as the world around me caught fire and exploded. I saw coats hanging above me and I knew I was in a closet, just as I knew that I had run there to hide. I reached out into the dark space beside me and found it inexplicably empty. And I realized then that that was why I could hear crying outside of the closet where I hid. Because we were not together. Because I was all alone.

  I dropped Jimmy’s gardening gloves onto the dusty ground and I stared at them, surprised that I was still in the cemetery instead of inside the waking nightmare. Spots began to dance in front of my eyes, and I lowered myself to a sitting position, afraid I would faint. I wrapped my arms around my legs and placed my forehead against my raised knees, hoping to make it all go away.

  But the smell of smoke and ashes was even stronger now, the sense of fear and danger erasing my defenses like a flame slowly burning paper. I sat holding my knees, but I was in the closet again, and I was coughing and trying to shout, but I couldn’t. I didn’t want to, because the crying outside the door had stopped. I was so tired, I leaned my head against the wall, and my eyes started closing even though I didn’t want them to.

  And then the door opened and familiar arms were reaching for me, and then I was being lifted and carried outside, the scent of flowers heavy in the night air. I was tucked under a large and leafy plant that smelled of summer, and watched the sky turn red. The warm arms left me and I was alone in my soft bed of dirt and flowers, the scent reminding me of my mother.