by Karen White
“Sadly, here on my parents’ porch instead of somewhere with a little more privacy.” She pressed her lips against his, hoping his head blocked her mother’s view from inside.
Boyd pulled back, his eyes searching hers. “I haven’t spoken with your father, yet, and I haven’t even begun my medical career, but I believe my prospects are good.”
He pressed his forehead against hers as Ceecee prepared to say the word “yes” without shouting it.
The front door opened again, and Ceecee started to tell Lloyd to go away, but she paused with the words still on her lips. It was her mother, her face ashen. Ceecee stood, Boyd following and standing next to her. “What is it, Mama? What’s wrong?”
“That was Dr. Griffith. On the phone.” Her gaze drifted to Boyd. “He’s looking for you. There’s . . . there’s been an accident.”
Ceecee rushed to her mother and grabbed her arms. “Is it Daddy? Is Daddy all right?”
Ceecee’s mother shook her head. “Your father is fine. It’s the Darlingtons. Margaret’s parents. They were in their car on the South Santee River Bridge, and a truck swerved . . .” She stopped, regained her composure. “Their car went over the side.”
Boyd was already struggling into his jacket and putting on his hat. “Where are they?”
She reached for Ceecee’s hand and squeezed. “Dr. Griffith needs you to bring Margaret.” She paused again, taking a deep breath. “He’s at the morgue. Both of her parents are gone.”
“Come with me, Sessalee,” Boyd said, already stepping quickly from the porch. “Margaret’s going to need you.”
Ceecee met her mother’s eyes, seeing beyond the grief and sadness the same kind of resignation she’d seen in Bitty’s eyes, a recognition of an inevitability that everyone except for her seemed to have anticipated.
twenty-three
Larkin
2010
As I walked up to my parents’ front porch, my phone beeped again. Glancing down, I saw it was another text from Jackson, letting me know he was back in town and asking if I wanted to go out on his boat. While half of my brain was already planning what sort of bathing suit to buy, the other half was shouting at me to tell him no, reminding me that I’d received the apology I’d been waiting for and should move on. I had no problem identifying which message was being conveyed by the old Larkin and which by the new.
I put my phone on “silent,” then threw it in my purse before ringing the doorbell. I felt odd not walking right in, but it had been years since I’d lived there, and even more since I’d believed the house was my home.
My dad opened the door, and his face softened in relief. “I was afraid you wouldn’t come.” He stepped back, and I walked past him into the foyer, staying beyond arm’s reach. Not that I expected him to hug me, but just in case.
He shut the door and turned to me. “Did you have trouble finding the place?”
It took me a moment to realize he was making a joke. I gave him a reluctant grin. “No. I’m familiar with the neighborhood. Had dinner a couple of nights ago just a few blocks away.”
“I know. Carol Anne invited me, but I told her you’d be happier if I didn’t go. Did you dance?”
“No. It started to rain after dinner, so we all went inside.”
“That’s a shame. Those were good times, weren’t they? Dancing in their backyard on summer evenings, watching the fireflies . . . Your mama never wanted to leave, so they always played us one more song until our feet hurt too much to dance anymore.”
Then why did you ruin it? I wanted to ask, but I didn’t. That was an argument that had lasted almost a decade, and I didn’t have the time or energy to revisit old wounds.
“So, what is it that you wanted to show me?”
He nodded in understanding, matching my businesslike tone. “It’s upstairs. Follow me.” He led the way through the small entranceway, to the steps. As I made my way after him, I noticed a painted trellis climbing up the stairwell, bunches of bright yellow flowers hanging from it. The petals looked real enough that I paused to touch one, just to see what it would feel like.
“Your mama started it right after you left. She works on it every year, adding a little each time. It’s reached your bedroom now.”
“It’s beautiful,” I said, moving up the stairs. Then I stopped on the next step, staring at the wall. Painted in a yellow sundress, so that the figure blended into the flowers, was a tiny blond girl climbing the trellis beside the blossoms.
“Is that supposed to be me?” I asked, pointing toward the beginning of the trellis at the figure, which was wearing a mortarboard and standing in front of a tiny sketched skyline of New York City.
Daddy squinted, leaning in closely as if he’d never noticed it before. “Well, don’t that beat all,” he said, straightening, then moving up a step. “I guess it is—from when you graduated from college.”
“You didn’t know?” I asked.
He shook his head, his eyes troubled. “Your mother always did her own thing. I just came home from work one day, and she’d taken off the wallpaper and painted all these yellow flowers on the wall. I didn’t mind them, so I didn’t say anything.”
“And you never thought to ask her why she was painting the stairwell?”
He didn’t answer right away. “Do you think it would have made any difference?”
I continued to walk up the stairs, watching milestones in my adult life depicted in miniature: the Brooklyn Bridge, the prewar building on Madison Avenue where I worked, a tube of lipstick for a large ad campaign I’d worked on. Even the small figure of me wore bright red lipstick as a nod to the product.
It was as charming as it was humbling. How had Ivy known all these details about my life? The few times we spoke, it was always in generalities like the weather or popular songs on the radio, nothing too personal. I’d kept my simmering anger at her near the surface, not allowing her to get too close. She’d disappointed me once, and I clung to that, knowing it was one more reason why I could never go home again.
I stood back, blinking away the pinpricks of tears. A wave of emotion engulfed me, and I found myself again fervently hoping she’d wake up so I could ask her why, during all those years of my growing up, she had allowed me to believe she never noticed.
My dad had reached the top of the stairs, and I followed him across the short hallway into my childhood bedroom. It contained the same type of four-poster bed and dressing table I had at Ceecee’s, the same yellow ceramic lamps, except here I’d been allowed to express my various interests. There were all sorts of art projects hung on the walls, and my karaoke machine still stood in its place of honor in the corner along with my elaborate costume collection, including a fringed jumpsuit that would have made an ABBA fan drool.
Science projects hung on fishing line from the ceiling, and on the bookshelf between the windows, shoved between dog-eared copies of Gone with the Wind, the Harry Potter series, and the entire collection of Lurlene McDaniel and Sarah Dessen books, were the leather-covered notebooks I’d asked my mother to buy for me to contain my epic manuscripts.
It was so different from my bedroom at Ceecee’s, where, despite her encouragement, she always tucked my artwork in boxes to be stored under the bed, and claimed the karaoke machine gave her migraines. Staring at my participation trophies lined up on my dresser, I blinked hard, feeling as if I might cry. Despite all the verbal encouragement Ceecee had given me, it seemed to me now, looking at the detritus of my childhood, that it had been my mother who had allowed me the freedom to explore whatever passion struck me.
“I keep telling your mother that we can make this room into an art studio for her, but she won’t hear of it. She says you’ll need a place to come back to whenever you’re ready.”
I wiped at my eyes so he couldn’t see my tears. I was about to correct him, to remind him that I had a beautiful room always ready and wa
iting for me at Ceecee’s house, but I stopped. That was a room to sleep in, a comfortable guest room neatly curated for the casual visitor. This room was a slice of my childhood, an integral part of my growing up. Of beginning my journey to who I really was. How had I been so blind to the world around me that I had never recognized this? My equilibrium shifted, like I was staring in a fun-house mirror, seeing my past being turned on its head.
“Look over here.” My father was leaning against my childhood desk—white wood with yellow gingham-patterned knobs—pointing at an Apple desktop computer on the top. “I bought this computer for your mother a few birthdays ago, and put it in here so she could have a bit of office space.” He shrugged apologetically. “It’s the only desk we have. Anyway, she was just starting up her furniture-refinishing business, and I thought she could use this to make flyers, create a mailing list, prepare invoices—that kind of thing, or even design a Web site. To be honest, I don’t know if she ever did any of that.”
He looked away, embarrassed, and I wanted to reach out and tell him I understood what it was like to live with blinders on because that’s just the way you’ve always seen things.
“I helped her create a screen name on an e-mail program, and then I put your e-mail address and a few others in her address book to get her started. But that’s the last time I saw her using it.” He wiggled the mouse, and the computer came to life, showing an e-mail screen. “Until this. Your mama was sending you an e-mail the day she had the accident. She either forgot to hit Send, or intentionally didn’t send it. I thought you might want to read it.”
“I . . .” I looked at the computer, the thought of my mother owning a computer and even having an e-mail address hard to comprehend. She’d always hated technology and been slow to give up her VCR and her cassettes. As far as I knew, she still used a first-generation flip phone. “She’s never sent an e-mail to me.”
“She wrote letters to you plenty of times. Just most of them never got mailed. She’d fill a wastebasket with them. She knew you were angry with her. I think she was just waiting for you to tell her why.”
I sat down in the desk chair, my heart hurting. I hadn’t written to my mother at all, except for a once-a-year birthday card where all I wrote was Happy Birthday. “I was angry because she stayed with you,” I said softly. “I felt as if I’d been lied to my whole life, believing her to be strong and independent. It was like the whole world had been lying to me about everything, not only Mama, but Ceecee and my friends.”
“And I made it worse,” he said.
“Yes, you did.” He met my eyes and didn’t flinch. I turned back to the computer. “Can I read it?” I asked.
“Of course. I guess it belongs to you anyway.” He put his hand on my shoulder, and I didn’t want to shake it off, instead appreciating the warmth and the gesture of being in this together.
My Dearest Daughter,
You’re probably wondering why I’m writing to you out of the blue like this. That reads funny, doesn’t it? Because you’re my baby girl, and we should be telling each other everything. That’s not your fault. It’s nobody’s fault. Everything I’ve ever learned has brought me to this one conclusion—we are all thrown into this world without a road map, and it’s up to us to muddle through. We are free to make a mess of it or to make a success out of our lives. Most of us choose something in between.
I need to talk to you about something important. About something I found out about Carrowmore and the night it burned. I can’t talk about it with Ceecee or Bitty. Just you. You’re the only person who can help me make sense of this. Nothing is as it seems, Larkin. I thought I knew what it was like to make sacrifices for love, but I didn’t. Not really.
I thought about picking up the phone and calling you, but I know you’re so busy with your life in New York, and I didn’t want to bother you. Maybe you can call me tonight? After work? It’s really important.
Love,
Mama
PS: I found an envelope full of old photographs while I was refurbishing my daddy’s desk. There’s one of you and me when you were a little girl, and you’re wearing a ballet tutu, a tiara, and those Wizard of Oz red Dorothy shoes. It’s my precious daughter the way I remember you—so clever and so courageous in your choices. So confident. I always wished I could be more like you. I guess that’s why I mothered you from behind. I didn’t want who I was to rub off on you too much, like a weak spirit was contagious. I’d like to send the photo to you. You can let me know tonight when we talk if you’d like me to mail it.
I read the e-mail twice, then looked at my dad, who was sitting on the edge of my bed. “Did you read this?”
“Yeah. I thought it might be important.”
I looked back at the screen, trying to picture my mother sitting there at the desk and typing it, and I realized I couldn’t remember the exact shade of her hair. “Do you know what she’s referring to?”
He shook his head. “I don’t have a clue. And I can’t find the envelope of photos, either. I’ve torn this house apart looking for them.”
I thought for a moment. “She mentioned something about her daddy’s desk. Is that here?”
“No. She used Ceecee’s garage to refurbish furniture. That’s where you’ll find it.”
I nodded absently, my gaze traveling around the room again, taking in the artwork and the costumes, the shadow box containing every single issue of the school newspaper that I had edited. I noticed a small frame by my dresser that I didn’t remember having seen before and saw it contained my SAT and ACT scores. They were better than average, but by no means stellar. I remembered asking Ceecee to have them framed, her telling me later she’d misplaced them, and then finding them in the kitchen garbage can. I’d thrown them into my desk drawer and forgotten them.
After a year of therapy in New York, I’d realized that Ceecee had always been good at telling me how wonderful I was as long as the assessment was subjective, but she’d not been a big supporter of hard evidence to the contrary. I stared at the scores now, wondering why my mother had thought to have them framed.
I stood, my knees shaky. “Thanks, Daddy, for showing me.”
“Of course.” He smiled, but his face was tired and worn, his eyes sad.
“You still love her,” I said, the truth of it settling in my bones with a jolt.
“I never stopped.”
I didn’t drop my gaze. “Are you still seeing that woman?”
He didn’t look away. “I haven’t since you left, Larkin. It was a mistake, and I knew it at the time, and I’ve regretted ever since that I hurt your mother that way. And you. I don’t think I can ever forgive myself, and I can only dream that you and your mother will find it in your hearts to forgive me.” He rubbed his hands over his face, his palms raspy over his unshaven jaw. “You have no idea how hard it is to love a person with all your heart and know that they only have a piece of their own heart to give back. It’s a pathetic excuse for what I did, but there you have it. For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”
“Oh, Daddy.” I closed my eyes, remembering the ribbon I’d pulled from the tree all those years ago. Come home to me, Ellis. I’ll love you always. I couldn’t condone what my father had done, but I couldn’t blame him, either. “Oh, Daddy,” I said again, taking a step forward and embracing him. I couldn’t remember the last time we’d touched, but the feel of his chest under my head and the scent of him brought me back to when I was a little girl who knew her father could do no wrong.
We stayed that way for a long time, until my phone vibrated with a text and we broke apart. It was Jackson again, telling me he’d pick me up at five o’clock and that he was bringing a picnic supper, even though I’d never responded to his invitation. I glanced at the time on my phone. “I’ve got to go buy a bathing suit. I didn’t pack one, and Jackson’s taking me out on his boat for dinner.”
“Jackson Porter?”
&nbs
p; I slid the strap of my purse over my shoulder, not eager to rehash the same conversation I’d had with Bennett. “Yes, Jackson Porter. We’ve reconnected since I’ve been back.”
“Isn’t he the one who started all that ruckus your senior year?”
I took a deep breath. “That was a long time ago, Daddy. Stupid high school stuff, you know? We’re not kids anymore.”
He frowned. “Is Bennett going, too?”
I moved to the doorway. “I doubt he was invited.”
I could sense his disapproval. “One more thing,” he said. “While looking for the photographs, I found this in your dresser drawer. Not sure if you want it.”
He picked up a bottle from the top of my dresser and handed it to me. I recognized the bottle of Jackson’s cologne I’d bought in high school and felt myself coloring. “Thanks,” I said, throwing it into my purse as I avoided his gaze. “I’d forgotten all about this.”
When I turned around to leave, I noticed the painted trellis from the stairwell had crept around the corner from the hallway and into my bedroom, the small figure standing on a pale yellow wall, the trellis beneath her as yet unfinished. I stepped closer to get a better look, seeing that behind the girl were the columned ruins of Carrowmore, flames shooting out from the rooftop while four purple martins soared overhead, a ribbon clutched in each beak.
I looked closely at the painting, trying to pick out any details that would tell me what I was looking at. I felt my father come up behind me, and I said softly, “I wonder if this has anything to do with what Mama was wanting to talk to me about.”
“Could be,” my father agreed, his eyes sad again.
My fingers lightly brushed the painting, and it was as if I were a little girl holding my mother’s hand again. My phone vibrated with another text, and I headed into the hallway and down the stairs.
My father called after me. “I’ve got about a dozen casseroles from neighbors in the freezer on account of your mother being in the hospital. You should join me for supper sometime so they won’t go to waste.”
