Dreams of Falling

by Karen White

  She’d let go of my hand, then taken a rolled-up ribbon from her pocket and held it against her heart.

  “What’s that?” I’d asked.

  “A dream. I wrote it on the ribbon.”

  “Can you tell me what it says?”

  Mama knelt down in front of me, and I recalled that part because it was the first time I’d noticed how her eyes focused on me without really seeing, the way a person might pretend not to have seen a ghost. “It might not come true then,” she said. “It’s like making a wish before you blow out your birthday candles—you’re not supposed to tell anybody what you wished for.”

  She’d stood and shoved the ribbon inside a skinny opening in the tree’s trunk. The sky had darkened for a moment as a flock of martins flew overhead, coming home, their calls and chirps echoing in the sky.

  “It’s time to go, Ivy.” Mama walked away quickly without reaching for my hand like she was in a hurry and couldn’t wait to leave.

  Without hesitating, I stuck my hand inside the trunk and pulled out the ribbon, holding on to its edge until it had completely unfurled. There were words written on it, words I hadn’t yet learned to read.

  I’d looked up at Mama’s retreating back and curled my hands into little fists. Ceecee would have told me what it said. Ceecee didn’t believe in keeping anything from me because, she said, I was mature for my age. Mama only ever told me to stop pushing so hard and to just enjoy being a little girl. But I couldn’t. Because I wanted to be like her.

  I’d shoved the ribbon into the elastic waistband of my pants and run after Mama, climbing into the backseat and buckling my seat belt without being told.

  “What’s wrong?” Bitty’s hand brushed my shoulder, and I realized I’d slammed on the brake.

  “It’s . . .” I turned to Ceecee, the one person who knew my mother better than I did. “She’s here. I feel it.”

  We had reached the end of the oak-lined lane and found ourselves facing the ruins of Carrowmore. The old Greek Revival mansion loomed like a prophet in front of the bent trees, its partially missing roof and gaping window openings doing nothing to detract from the impression of a grande dame greeting her guests. Brick chimneys protruded from the second floor like raised fists. The Corinthian columns looked out at the ruined trees with calm acceptance, despite their crumbling bases and missing plaster.

  “Go around to the back,” Ceecee instructed, leaning forward in her seat as if to move us faster. “She wouldn’t have gone inside the house.”

  I wondered why she sounded so sure, so convinced that Ivy would have thought first before acting. As if she’d ever done that in her fifty-eight years. Then I realized that Ceecee was reassuring herself, the way a child does when hearing a noise in a darkened room, unable to bear any other possibility.

  I grimaced as the car ran over uneven terrain, the sound of a branch scraping the undercarriage abrupt in the silence, and stopped near a ruined wooden gate that had once protected a garden. I peered through the windshield, covered now with the carcasses of insects, and looked toward the river. The infamous oak tree stood where it had been for more than two centuries, as regal and impassive as the house, as aloof. And alone.

  “I don’t want to get stuck,” I said, turning off the ignition. “You two wait here while I go check things out.”

  As if I hadn’t spoken, both women were already opening their doors, rocking slightly to get the momentum to exit the car. “You wait here, Larkin, for your daddy and Bennett,” Ceecee said. “Bitty, you go to the tree, and I’ll go inside. If you see Ivy, give a shout.”

  I’d opened my mouth to argue when I spotted my mother’s navy blue Cadillac. Ivy had always driven the same car, just a newer model each year. Daddy bought her one annually, on the same day as his dental exam. He always said both were important to his well-being—keeping his teeth in shape and knowing that Mama was safe out on the road. If I hadn’t known any better, I might even have thought they had a good marriage.

  The back end of the car protruded from the other side of the house, making me think she’d been on her way out before deciding to stop. Or maybe she’d thought she’d missed something.

  “Mama!” I ran toward the car, knowing how it would smell (new leather and Mama’s Aqua Net hair spray) and how it would look (scrupulously clean, since Daddy vacuumed and washed it just about every day). “Mama,” I shouted again as I reached the car, running to the driver’s side to yank it open.

  I stared inside, waiting for the sight of my mother’s purse on the passenger seat and her keys in the ignition to register. Then I looked in the backseat and popped the trunk, just in case.

  “Is she here?” Bitty asked, panting with exertion, as she reached me, her face dewy with perspiration. Several yards behind her came Ceecee, pressing a tissue to her forehead and looking like she might pass out.

  I shook my head. The panic I’d been pushing back ever since I’d received Ceecee’s phone call in New York was rising up in me. “Did you bring your phone?” I asked Ceecee as she caught up to us, wheezing.

  She nodded.

  “Good. Call Daddy. Tell him I found Mama’s car and that I’ve gone inside to find her. You two are going to wait right here.”

  The brick steps, more holes now than bricks, led to a wooden door that might once have been painted black. The four window rectangles at the top were broken, and a hole gaped where the knob should have been.

  Ceecee found her voice. “Where did you learn to be so bossy and opinionated?”

  Without responding, I climbed the steps, carefully placing my feet on whichever brick looked more permanent than its neighbors.

  “She was raised that way,” Bitty said, and I couldn’t tell whether her tone was full of admiration or condemnation. Not that it mattered. It had been the ruin of me and not something from which someone could easily recover.

  I pushed open the door and listened as the hinges protested. Inside, it smelled of smoke, and damp wood, and the passage of time. Splinters of smudged light came in through broken windows, the remaining glass covered in grime. The room I’d entered was open, most likely a sunroom once, surrounded by windows and filled with plants, the view of the oak tree and the river the only art and window treatments. I moved forward carefully, stepping over moth-eaten rugs and broken furniture, and found myself in what must have once been an impressive central hallway.

  A curved staircase crept up one side of the wall, its banister solid and elegant despite the mildew-covered wallpaper and the missing risers, the wood having long gone to termites. I looked up and saw a darkening sky, the edges of the ceiling peeled back in charred lines, the floor around me covered in old soot and ground-in ash.

  “Mama?” I called, my voice too quiet, as if I were afraid to wake whatever was left there. “Mama!”

  Only the scurry of unseen animals rippled through the dusty silence. What happened to you? I turned slowly, taking in the scorched and ruined house, wondering why my mother had come there. And why she’d brought me there when I was a girl.

  Then I stopped, teetering off balance, and grabbed the banister to keep from falling into a gaping hole I’d thought was a shadow on the floor. The wood appeared fresh and dry, the pale blond color a garish smear against the blackened and soiled floorboards.

  “Mama!” I shouted. I dropped to my knees and peered into the utter blackness beneath me. With shaking hands, I pulled out my cell phone and turned on the flashlight.

  The circle of light illuminated the prone figure of a petite woman wearing purple sandals and a pair of jeans, her wavy blond hair matted with red and covering her face.

  “She’s here, she’s here!” Not wanting to turn my attention away from my mother in case she moved, I yelled, “Call an ambulance—she’s hurt!”

  But my mother wasn’t moving. Her eyes were closed, and one of her arms was bent the wrong way. I couldn’t hold the
flashlight steady enough to see if she was still breathing, and I was glad, because if she was dead, I didn’t want to know. I didn’t want to believe that I wouldn’t have the chance to talk to her again, or that all of the years spent not talking had been filled with “laters” that wouldn’t ever get here.

  I heard Ceecee and then my daddy’s voice telling her to stay back. Two sets of footsteps made their careful way toward me.

  “I’m in the center hall—be careful,” I shouted. “Mama fell through the floor.” I still wasn’t crying, my brain somehow shifting to survival mode. But I could taste tears, hot and metallic at the back of my throat. Tempting me to be less of the person I wanted people to see.

  Then my daddy’s hands were on my shoulders, dragging me backward, and another set of arms was holding me back.

  “An ambulance is on the way, Larkin. It’s going to be okay.”

  It was Bennett, and if it had been anybody else, I would have relaxed into his arms and let myself cry. But I couldn’t. Not then, not ever. I remained stiff, my gaze focused on the hole as we waited for the sound of an approaching siren.

  I was led out of the house and stood with Ceecee and Bitty as we watched my mother being taken out on a stretcher and loaded into a waiting ambulance. I felt one knee buckle when Daddy told me she was alive but hurt real bad, that they were taking her to the hospital and I should meet them there.

  I began walking toward my car, but Bennett pulled me back, forcing me to look at him. He was just as tall as I remembered, his face achingly familiar, his muddy green eyes as wary and unreadable as the last time I’d seen them on the banks of the Sampit River.

  “You shouldn’t be driving. Leave your car here, and I’ll drive you all to the hospital.”

  Knowing he was right, I nodded, unable to thank him. That would have meant speaking, and I wasn’t sure I could.

  He held open the passenger door of my dad’s car before helping us all inside, then followed the ambulance down the unpaved road, its screaming sirens making a mockery of our slow progress.

  It began to rain, heavy drops beating down on the car and the ruined house, darkening the ground and wetting what remained of the roof and the exposed floors, a final insult and ignominy for what had once been a place of beauty and pride. A place that had been kept hidden from me. Except once.

  I turned my head to get another glimpse of Carrowmore, seeing the surprised faces and sightless eyes of the hanging gourds, and I remembered my first trip there, as a girl. The ribbon my mother had placed inside the trunk of the old tree; the words I’d finally read:

  Come home to me, Ellis. I’ll love you always.

  Hot tears slid down my cheeks. I wasn’t sure if they were tears for the mother I didn’t really know, or for a stranger my mother had once promised to always love.

  five

  Ivy

  2010

  The pain that radiates through my body tells me I’m not yet dead. But I’m not exactly alive, either. Maybe I’m a ghost, if that’s what being half in this world and half in the next is like. Or maybe this is all a dream and I will awaken and everything will be like it was before.

  Except I’m not sure that’s what I want.

  All I remember now is the desperate need to be at Carrowmore. And I remember the pain, different from the pain that throbs in my head and echoes through my back and my limbs. Pain that presses on the heart and makes me forget to breathe. Like what I felt when they brought me the news about Ellis. My heart hurts, but it’s not about him. Not this time.

  Ceecee. It’s something to do with her, but I can’t think of what it could be.

  I had something in my hand. Yes. I’d needed to bring something to Carrowmore. I hadn’t been there in years, visiting it only in my dreams. The same dream, over and over. I’d be in the house, and it would have a roof and floors and furniture. I’d be standing at a door with my hand raised to turn the knob. Ruffles covered my wrist and hand, a much smaller hand, like that of a little girl. But it was mine. I was sure it was mine.

  I never knew what happened after I turned that knob. Those were the nights I woke up screaming, Mack trying to calm me down, his words like a teaspoon trying to bail out the ocean.

  My nightmares are why Larkin’s so obsessed with dreams. It’s why she’s such an expert at analyzing them. She always believed that if she could figure out what they meant, they’d go away. I wish that she could have, for both of us. That together we could have vanquished whatever it was that haunted me in my sleep. It would have been something for us to share, besides the color of our hair and the shape of our noses. Something that would have made her happy. Or at least happy enough that she’d stop wanting to be like me.

  I hear her voice, and my chest lightens. She’s here, and I want to think she’s come to see me, but I can’t be sure. There’s something about mothers and daughters, I think, that makes us always want to hold close at the same time we try to push each other away. I think she blames me, too, for what happened with Mack. And for that, I couldn’t disagree.

  I don’t deserve her, this daughter of mine. God made a mistake when he gave a perfect child to this imperfect mother, and I think Larkin’s always known this. Even as a baby, she’d cry when I held her, quieting only when placed in Ceecee’s or Bitty’s arms. It was as if she knew there was something missing inside me, something I was looking past her to find. That’s the other thing about mothers and daughters—we always know where it hurts.

  “Mama? Can you hear me?”

  I try to open my lips, but it’s like somebody else’s body is attached to my brain. Still, I know it’s my Larkin. I can tell by her scent. Since she was a baby, she’s always smelled like sunshine and salt air. Not something a person can shake is what I told her when she said she was headed to New York City for college instead of the University of South Carolina. She and Mabry had already picked out matching bedspreads for their dorm room.

  I should have expected it. Should have known she was never mine to keep. I’d spent most of her childhood letting other people raise her. She looked and acted too much like me, and it scared me.

  So I stood back and watched, trying to distance her from me, mothering behind the scenes, filling in the missing pieces. Ceecee and Bitty were so good at mothering, anyway; I let them take all the credit.

  A warm, soft hand folds over mine, and I know it’s Larkin’s. Her heart has always been as wide as the moon even though it shouldn’t be. Her ability to love easily made those who loved her most call her perfect in every way until Larkin believed it.

  I want to open my eyes, to tell her I’m sorry, but I can’t remember for what. I’m so tired, and I can hear Ellis’s Mustang. It’s not too far away, and it’s coming closer, and all I know for sure is that I’d better have it all figured out before he gets here.

  * * *

  • • •

  Larkin

  I stood outside my mother’s hospital room without moving, unaware of people walking past me. I’d stared at the bruised and bandaged woman in the bed, spoken to her, and touched her hand. I’d even willed some kind of emotional response, but it was like squeezing a dry rag.

  Until I’d remembered her asking me once if I thought dying would be like dreaming. It had been after one of her really bad nightmares, one about being in the river at night. The memory jarred me, made me wonder why she’d been found at the burned-out ruins of an old house by the river. And it reminded me of how little I knew my mother.

  When I was five years old, Ceecee told me that the woman I’d always called Ivy was my real mother. I’d told Mabry and Bennett that I didn’t have a mama, and they’d said that everybody had one. So I’d run home and cried to Ceecee, who explained it all to me.

  Ceecee was the one who packed my lunch box and drove me to school, who took me shopping in Charleston and planned my birthday parties. But Ivy was my mother, the beautiful woman with ha
ir just like mine who took ballet lessons and sang in various bars and music festivals and who wore colorful clothes she made that matched the watercolors on the walls of our house that she’d painted. That’s when I started calling her Mama, so everyone would know she was mine.

  My therapist in New York had once asked me if I believed my mother loved me. I’d said yes immediately. Of course she did. I’d always felt it, and she’d told me often, usually right before leaving the house for a class or event or art show. She never took me with her, no matter how much I begged, telling me to find my own dreams, that hers were too sad to share. It made her even more irresistible to me, more mysterious. At least until my therapist asked me what it was in my mother’s past that made her so sad, and I couldn’t answer. I still couldn’t.

  But I never doubted that she loved me, any more than I doubted that Ceecee and Bitty did, too. I was still working with my therapist to understand how three such women could love me and still mother me into the disaster I’d become.

  “Larkin?”

  I jerked my head up.

  “It is you!” Mabry was still a head taller than I was, just as slender, her hair just as dark, her skin a golden tan.

  I considered ducking back into my mother’s room, but that would have been postponing the inevitable. Mabry was never able to resist a challenge. Instead, I attempted a smile and raised a hand in a stupid little wave.

  Ignoring my hand, Mabry enveloped me in an unexpected hug, my face pressed against her green scrub top. I remembered my father telling me she was an operating room nurse now, but it hadn’t occurred to me that I might run into her here. She pulled back to hold me at arm’s length, just like Ceecee, her green eyes scrutinizing me. “You look great,” she said, dropping her hands.

  “So do you,” I said, looking away, embarrassed by her close examination.

  “I’m sorry to hear about your mother.”