by Karen White
I wanted to ask him what he meant, but was glad of my increased speed and the sound of the wind rushing into the convertible that prohibited conversation. The car still had its original radio, so our choice of music was limited to whatever we could pick up on AM or FM. We sped east on I-10 toward Florida, barreling down the asphalt, each of us lost in our own thoughts.
He spent a lot of time tapping into his phone, his fingers quick and agile. I wasn’t a Luddite, and could even admit to myself that some technology—like computers and the Internet—were actually good for business. But that didn’t make me want to have a cell phone. A cell phone meant that I could always be reached by the people I’d left behind. I had a landline in my house that I used to call my aunt and grandfather, but I didn’t have an answering machine or caller ID. It made my life simple, and I liked it that way.
After a brief stop for lunch near Mobile, where we ate at a Chick-fil-A because he’d never been to one, and during which we stayed on safe topics of conversation, like the weather, we continued across the panhandle, exiting the interstate to Highway 98 heading south along the white sandy beaches of the gulf. We detoured onto Highway 30, which ran parallel to 98, hoping to run into a roadside sale, but I was disappointed. Mostly because I’d been eager to see whether James’s enthusiasm about garage sales had been genuine.
I’d grown up on the coast and had taken for granted the beauty of the blue-green water and tall pine forests, the salty breezes and thick, humid air that never seemed too hot to me. Even in New Orleans, too far inland to smell the tangy air of the gulf, the steaming days of August only made me homesick. Homesick for what had been, not what was there now.
“That looks like snow,” James said, reminding me of his presence. We were crossing a bridge near Panama City, allowing us a glimpse of the tall dunes that cupped the iridescent water of the gulf like protective hands.
“It’s sand,” I said impatiently. The closer we got, the tenser and more agitated I became. Angrier at myself. I didn’t want anybody with me to witness the humiliating return home, and snapping at James was the easiest recourse for my personal misery.
“I’m sorry,” I said. He wore sunglasses, but I imagined his eyes full of understanding, which only made me feel worse. His wife had died recently, yet I was the one holding on two-fisted to my own losses that were mostly self-induced and almost a decade old. Such self-involvement reminded me of Birdie, adding to my shame.
He rested his head against the back of the seat as if to go to sleep.
“You shouldn’t have come,” I said quietly, the words torn from my mouth by the wind rushing through the car. I shouldn’t have come, I thought. I was acting as if ten years could be stomped beneath my feet like flotsam, as if promises meant nothing and memories were short. I found myself torn between wishing this visit were already over and holding on to the hope that ten years really was long enough.
The two-lane road stretched out in front of us between tall stands of pines, the small beach towns of the Forgotten Coast—Mexico Beach, St. Joe Beach, Port St. Joe—like knots in the ribbon of asphalt. The scents of seaweed and raw fish crept into the car as we approached the Apalachicola River on 98, the smell alerting me that I was home long before we reached any recognizable landmarks.
The original city plan of wide streets and squares had been modeled after Philadelphia, although that was where the resemblance ended. I’d always been proud of that fact: that our little city had managed to keep its unique Southernness despite its origins or the devastation of fires, hurricanes, and war.
“Are we here?” James asked, his voice audible now because of my slow speed.
I understood his confusion. We hadn’t yet passed the single streetlight in town. The only clue that we were nearing civilization was the appearance of a Burger King and a Piggly Wiggly, as well as a corner lot filled with garden statuary for sale that was as familiar to me as the back of my hand.
“We’re here,” I said, feeling an odd sense of pride mixed with trepidation. I took a left on Eighth Street and pulled up onto the grass alongside Chestnut Cemetery to put the car in park. After a moment’s hesitation, I turned off the ignition and pulled out the key, not sure how long this might take.
“Why are we stopping?”
I stared through the iron fence of the old cemetery, seeing the funerary art that had managed to become a tourist attraction for those visiting Apalachicola or passing through on their way to St. George Island. I’d always known it as the place where most of my ancestors had been buried for the last two hundred years. In more recent years, a little girl named Lilyanna Joy had been laid to rest beneath one of the towering oaks that huddled over the tombstones with bent limbs. There were no more interments in the ancient cemetery, hadn’t been in a long time, but an exception had been made because there was just enough room in our family plot for such a small coffin.
“I needed to catch my breath. I’d feel better if I had a game plan.”
He slid off his sunglasses and I could read the amusement in his eyes. “A game plan for seeing your family? Are they that difficult?”
I loosened my death grip on the steering wheel, focusing on getting the blood flow back into my hands. “Not so much difficult as . . . damaged.”
He nodded as if he understood, but he couldn’t. Not really. “Has it been a long time since you’ve been here?”
I leaned back in my seat, focusing on pressing my shoulders against the leather. “Almost ten years.”
He was silent for a moment, as if trying to remember what he’d promised about not asking questions. “Is there anything I should know before we go any farther, so that I don’t say the wrong thing?”
“I don’t think we have enough time for that,” I said quietly before glancing at my 1953 Bulova watch and subtracting fifteen minutes to arrive at the actual time. It was another one of the stupid games I played with myself, this one meant to keep me punctual. “It’s four o’clock, which means you can check into your hotel room. Why don’t I drop you off there now? That will give me time to head over to my grandfather’s house and break the ice, and at least let me warn them that you’re here and that they need to be on their best behavior.”
He raised his eyebrows.
“I don’t think they’ll throw anything or shoot anybody, but I promise that it will be awkward. My sister and I don’t get along. And our mother—Birdie—is . . .” I searched for the politically correct word for crazy, quickly discounting all the words my aunt Marlene had used to describe her sister-in-law. “Not in her right mind,” I said, deciding on something ambiguous enough that he could draw his own conclusions. “She doesn’t speak anymore, although we’re pretty sure she hears and understands everything that goes on around her. She just chooses not to involve herself. Oh, but she does sing.”
James was silent for a moment. “Or I could go with you, to deflect some of the awkwardness. And I’m a big guy. I could even deflect a blow or a bullet if necessary.”
He said it lightly, but I didn’t think he was joking.
“Why would you do that for me?”
“Because it’s my china that’s brought you down here.”
“True,” I said ungraciously. I sighed, ready to admit the truth that had been niggling my mind ever since we’d left New Orleans. “But I needed to come back eventually. You just sped up the inevitable.”
“So let me come with you. I can check in later.”
I frowned. “Why are you being so nice to me?”
He was serious again. “Because I come from a large family that I only really learned to appreciate when I had to face the worst thing I’ve ever had to face in my entire life.” He smiled softly. “Isn’t home supposed to be the one place where they have to let you back?”
Despite myself, I felt part of my mouth turn up. “I’ve heard that. I guess I’m about to find out if it’s true.”
I pressed my foot on the brake and stuck the key back into the ignition. “Just promise me one more thing.”
He faced me with an expectant expression.
“Promise me that you won’t listen to anything my sister, Maisy, says about me.”
“Are they all lies?”
I turned the key in the ignition. “Sadly, no. Most of the things she says are true.”
chapter 5
The male drone’s sole purpose in life is to mate with the queen. The successful male will die during the midair act, and the unsuccessful drone will be kicked out of the hive to starve to death.
—NED BLOODWORTH’S BEEKEEPER’S JOURNAL
Maisy
Maisy looked up from where she sat in the study of the old house, grading papers. The sight of Georgia’s Cadillac convertible didn’t surprise her. She’d seen it often enough during her girlhood at its place at the end of the driveway that it was what she dreamed of when she imagined her sister finally coming home.
She held her breath, listening. The sound of the bay through the window screens facing the back of the house seemed to intensify, as if it had been holding its breath, too, and was finally allowing an exhale. Maisy had even imagined during those long years of absence that the house had contained an air of expectation, each room she entered feeling as if someone had just exited.
She stood, then methodically slid her chair under the desk, as if by slowing her movements she could postpone the inevitable.
She found her grandfather and Birdie in the living room watching one of the twenty-four-hour cable news stations, a woman with bright blond hair and impossibly white teeth saying something about gas prices and spring break. Birdie’s eyes were focused on the heavy Victorian wood paneling on the wall behind the television. Maisy often wondered what her mother saw inside her head, and if it really was so much better than the reality of the life that swirled around her. Despite visits to numerous doctors, and a drawer full of prescription bottles, nothing had ever helped. Her mother had simply decided to check out, a constant condemnation of the family that had failed to interest her enough.
“Georgia’s here,” Maisy said, letting them know so they could take over the homecoming and allow her to escape upstairs.
Her grandfather’s hands clutched the arms of his chair as a deep-seated smile settled over his face. “That’s good news.” He turned to Birdie. “Georgia’s home. Isn’t that good news?”
Her mother continued to stare at the wall while Grandpa switched off the TV and stood, the process taking longer than even a few short months ago.
“I’ll be upstairs, checking on Becky’s homework,” Maisy said, already backing out of the room. She’d made it to the bottom of the carved wooden balustrade—with two bite marks still on the edge of it from a lost bet she’d once made with Georgia—when she heard a male voice from the other side of the front door. Curious, she paused, and by the time she’d made up her mind to run up the stairs, she’d already seen the watery image of her sister through the stained-glass sidelights and knew she’d been spotted. She waited to see whether Georgia would turn the handle, as if she thought of the monolithic Victorian house as still her home.
Instead, there was a light tap on the door. Maisy glanced toward the living room, where she heard her grandfather trying to cajole Birdie into leaving her chair. With a sigh of resignation, Maisy moved to the door and pulled it open.
The first thing she noticed was that Georgia hadn’t changed at all. Still breathtakingly beautiful. Still small and delicate-looking, her blond hair straight and shiny, her dark brown eyes not lined by makeup that she didn’t need anyway. She wore a ridiculous floral-print dress that dwarfed her, made her look insufficient and vulnerable, two things she knew her sister wasn’t. Maisy wondered whether that had been the intended effect.
“Hello, Georgia.” Maisy’s gaze moved behind her sister, looking at the tall man with the piercing blue eyes for the first time. She stared at him a moment longer than necessary, trying to place him. He wasn’t the type of man Georgia had always been attracted to. This man was attractive, but not in the broad-shouldered, long-haired, overtly sexy way that had always annoyed their mother and turned Georgia’s head. And she was pretty sure Georgia hadn’t slept with him. Not yet, anyway. It was in her sister’s eyes, a look that was devoid of shame and self-recrimination.
“Hi, Maisy.” There was an odd note of expectation and anticipation in Georgia’s voice. After an uncomfortable pause, she said, “This is James Graf.” Georgia stepped aside to allow Maisy a better view of the stranger. “He’s the client I mentioned on the phone.”
Maisy wondered at Georgia’s story, even imagining her to have made it all up just so she’d have an excuse to bring in a buffer; somebody to deflect the blows. She just as quickly dismissed the thought. Georgia was impervious to hurts of all kinds—both those she inflicted on others and those intended for her. She’d always known how to shed arrows the way ducks shed water, walking away unscathed and unconcerned with the carnage left behind.
Maisy nodded at the man and was about to step back to allow them entry when James held out a big hand to shake hers. “It’s a pleasure meeting you. Georgia has said a lot of good things about you.”
Maisy caught a sharp glance Georgia directed at her companion, but he didn’t seem to notice. He stepped back to look at the Queen Anne Victorian house, with its wedding-cake-white trim, hipped roof, and asymmetrical round turret on its left side, taking in the bay, side yard, and apiary. She and Georgia had always called it a castle, the wide expanse of water behind the house their personal domain. It sat on the bay side of Bay Avenue, a wide vista of water visible from every window at the back of the house, the front with its circular drive of crushed oyster shells welcoming visitors.
“This reminds me a lot of my grandmother’s home on Long Island. A real architectural masterpiece.” He smiled broadly at her.
“Thank you,” Maisy said slowly, warming slightly. “So, you’re from New York?”
“Yes. Born and raised. You have a very beautiful town here.”
She glanced at her sister, waiting for Georgia to fill her in on the full story and reason for the visit. As expected, Georgia was looking past her.
“Georgia.” Grandpa came up behind Maisy, Birdie clinging to his arm, her long red nails digging into his sun-darkened skin. He opened up his free arm. “Welcome home.”
Maisy pretended not to see the moisture in her grandfather’s eyes as he hugged Georgia, or the way Birdie stared at her oldest daughter like a princess at a tiara. She was about to excuse herself and head upstairs when Becky burst out of her bedroom and ran down the stairs.
She skidded to a stop. “Aunt Georgia?”
Georgia looked at the young girl and it was almost as if the two were staring at their own reflections: both small and delicate-looking except for their determined jaws and a way of looking at a person that made you know they were paying attention.
Their grandfather released his hold on Georgia. “Sweetheart, this is your niece, Becky. You haven’t seen her since she was just a little thing.”
Georgia stepped toward the girl. “Becky?”
Becky answered by throwing herself into Georgia’s arms. “I’m so glad to meet you! Mama said it would be a snowy day in hell before you ever showed your face in Apalach again.”
James coughed into his hand as their grandfather frowned and said, “Watch your language, young lady.”
Georgia’s hands fluttered like uncertain butterflies before enveloping Becky in a hug. “It’s good to see you,” she said, her voice thick. “It’s been a very long time.”
Becky looked into her aunt’s face, their eyes almost level. “We’re practically the same size.”
“Yeah. I noticed that.” Georgia’s voice broke and she swallowed hard.
Maisy took hold of Becky’s arm and pulled her away from her au
nt, trying to tell herself it was Becky’s use of a banned word that was getting her sent back to her room. “That’s enough, young lady. Go upstairs and finish your homework. I’ll call you when it’s time for dinner.”
Becky resisted. “Is Aunt Georgia staying for dinner?”
“No—” Maisy began.
“Yes, I think I will,” Georgia interrupted before turning hesitantly toward James. “If there’s enough for two more.”
“Of course there is,” her grandfather said, reaching out his hand toward James to shake. “I’m Ned Bloodworth.”
“Nice to meet you, sir. James Graf. I’m a client of Georgia’s, and I’m afraid I’ve intruded on your family reunion.”
“You’re not intruding,” Georgia and Maisy announced together, equally grateful for his presence.
Maisy glared at her sister before facing the visitor. “You’re not intruding, Mr. Graf. We’re having lasagna, so there’s more than enough for all of us. We’d love to have you stay.” She’d included Georgia in the “we,” knowing they both welcomed the buffer of a stranger at the dining table.
Birdie stepped forward, and for a moment Maisy thought her mother was trying to get a better look at the newcomer. But then Birdie flipped her hair over her shoulders and smoothed her yellow sundress as if to accentuate how small her waist and how rounded her bosom still were. Something like annoyance flickered in Georgia’s eyes. It was the one thing they’d always had in common, a shared disdain over their mother’s behavior in front of a good-looking man.
“Hello, Birdie,” Georgia said, not moving closer to hug her or offer a kiss on the cheek, and Birdie didn’t seem to expect it. “It’s good to see you.”
Birdie’s gaze slid over to her daughter, lingering on the high cheekbones and strong brow that were so much like her own. So much like Becky’s. But like a child quickly having lost interest in a new toy, she returned her gaze to James, who was making heroic attempts not to notice her scrutiny.
