Dreams of Falling
Page 44
Bennett climbed out of the truck, and I slid over so that he could help me out. I loved the way his arms felt around my waist as he swung me around before gently placing me back on the ground. It was the main reason why I loved riding in his truck so much.
“We’re the first ones here,” he said. “Want to take a stroll?”
He reached out his hand, and I took it, never tiring of the warm jolt of electricity every time we touched. We walked slowly down toward the tidal river, the edge at low tide showing its bald spots of pluff mud and spiky spartina grass. I took a deep breath, loving the scent, which always reminded me of home. We passed under the martin houses strung among the branches of the old trees, swaying in the river breeze and causing the sunlight to wink at us.
My daddy was maintaining them now, but only until Bitty regained her strength. She’d survived radiation and chemotherapy, which had successfully shrunk the tumors in her lungs, and now we were just waiting to see how permanent her recovery would be. She kept insisting that she was strong enough to move back to Folly Beach, but Ceecee and I wouldn’t let her. I think she was secretly pleased, but her independent nature had to fight us, if only for show.
“Do you think Donna will come with your dad?” Bennett asked.
It had taken my daddy almost six months after my mother’s passing to ask my permission to start dating Donna. I’d seen her a few times at the hospital where she worked as a nurse, and I knew she was the woman with whom my father had had the affair. He’d asked for my forgiveness, and I’d told him he didn’t need it. As my granddaddy Boyd wrote in his letter, we all make mistakes. To survive them, we have to learn to live with our choices.
I think my new understanding of my mother helped me see that, to know that my parents had loved each other, but sometimes love isn’t enough when it’s not given from a heart that’s free. I know Mama is with Ellis now, so it’s only right that Daddy find his own happiness.
“Probably. I hardly see him without her anymore. They both like to garden and brew beer, so they spend a lot of time together. It’s nice to see,” I said, surprising myself by how much I meant it.
We stopped beneath the Tree of Dreams, the hole now sealed courtesy of the National Forest Service, the recipient of the land donation made in my mother’s honor. It wasn’t that I didn’t believe in the tree’s power. But I believed in the power of human imagination more, of projecting our dreams and wishes into a safe space where we could place our disappointments if they didn’t come true.
“Just think—this could all have been a golf course community with condos,” Bennett said.
I gave an exaggerated shudder. “Please stop, or you’ll give me nightmares.”
“You’ll have them soon enough when you start getting the invoices for the house restoration.”
“I’m sure—although I know you’ll cut a deal. I mean, Meghan Black is practically ecstatic. It’s going to be her thesis work. I think the title’s going to be something like From the Brink: Restoring a Nineteenth-Century Rice Plantation Home While Bankrupting the Owner.”
“You should suggest that,” Bennett said, laughing. “Though didn’t Meghan say she’d planned to exhaust all grant possibilities first?”
I nodded. “She has a leg up on that since Carrowmore is going to be used for field study by graduate students during the work in progress.”
“It’s a good thing Ceecee agreed to spend funds for the restoration,” Bennett added. “As executor, she could have shut this all down.”
“All true. I’m just hoping that we can come through with support from the Land and Water Conservation Fund before I deplete the money in the trust.” I bit my lip and sighed. “Meghan says Congress has fully funded the LWCF only twice in its fifty-year existence, though, so I’m not going to hold my breath on that one.”
“You can use some of that legendary Darlington good fortune and wish it to be so.”
“I do love your optimism,” I said, kissing him softly on the lips.
His eyes stared into mine for a long time, as if he was waiting for me to say something else. When I didn’t, he said, “You know, for someone who’s so good with words, your vocabulary is sadly lacking.”
I stood back. “Please don’t tell me that Mabry read parts of that old manuscript.”
“You mean the one with ‘purple-headed love dart’? Nah—she didn’t have to. It’s been etched in my brain since I first read it ten years ago.”
I frowned. “Then what are you talking about?”
“After my fight with Jackson, when you were putting ice on my eye, I told you that I loved you, and all you said in response was, ‘Oh.’ I haven’t said it again, because I’m not good at rejection, but I guess being here and standing under this tree, I’m feeling optimistic.”
I stood on my toes and placed my arms around his neck, then kissed him in a way I hoped showed how I felt. “I love you, Bennett Lynch. I wish I’d realized it sooner, but know that I have every intention of making up for lost time.”
“Me, too,” he said. When he kissed me back, I imagined the ground trembling beneath my feet, my hands clutching at him tightly so I wouldn’t fall over.
He looked back toward the ruins of Carrowmore. “You know, this is going to be a lot of house for just one woman to live in all by herself.”
“You think?” I asked.
“Yep. I think maybe adding a guy who’s handy with a hammer and maybe a passel of kids would fill it out nicely.”
“A passel, huh? How many is a passel?”
“Not sure, but just so you’re forewarned, twins run in my family.”
“Oh,” I said, and we both laughed while a white-hot shard of longing shot through me at the prospect of raising a family with Bennett at Carrowmore, sitting on the front porch, and watching the seasons pass just as generations of my family had.
He stepped back, but his gaze was focused on something behind me. “Hang on a sec,” he said, then walked toward the marshy edge of the river and leaned down to pluck something from the sucking mud. “Look what I found.” He placed it in my outstretched palm.
“A shark’s tooth,” I said. “Aren’t those supposed to be good luck?”
Bennett nodded. “Even as a kid, I was always surprised to find them in riverbeds and marshes. It’s crazy how far they can travel. I guess the pull of the marsh will always bring the outcasts home eventually.”
I looked up at him, meeting his eyes. “Are you calling me an outcast?”
With a smile, he said, “No. I’m calling you mine.”
He kissed me again, until the sound of arriving cars pulled us apart. We left the tree and the river behind us as we walked hand in hand back to the house.
That night, I dreamed again of falling. But this time I wasn’t afraid. I allowed myself to enjoy the feeling of weightlessness, almost as if I were flying. And when I awoke, I understood that I hadn’t been afraid, because I finally knew where I would land.
Throughout our lives we are all falling. Falling down, falling out, falling away. Falling in love. The trick is finding someone to catch us. And sometimes we surprise ourselves by finding out that person is us.
Questions for Discussion
Friendship is everlasting—or at least that’s how the old saying goes. Why do you think CeeCee and Bitty continued to stay friends even after everything that happened?
To err is human; to forgive, divine. Forgiveness plays a prominent role in the book—everyone needs to learn to forgive one another, but also themselves. Would you be able to forgive as the characters did?
The past can define one’s future—or one can build her own future. How does Larkin decide not to let the past define her and to live life the way she wants to live it?
Love can blind us—and even cause us to keep secrets from those we love. Would you keep a secret, as CeeCee did fr
om Larkin, all in the name of love?
Honor and duty tears many of the characters’ relationships apart—including that between Boyd and CeeCee. Do you agree with Boyd’s decision? Or regret it, as he did in the end?
True love is one of the subjects of the book—but true love exists not only in a romantic sense but also in a motherly sense. How did you feel when you realized that through Ivy’s murals, Larkin learned she was really her mother’s true love?
Bennett patiently waited for Larkin—would you be able to do the same?
Karen White is the New York Times bestselling author of more than twenty previous books, including the Tradd Street novels, The Night the Lights Went Out, Flight Patterns, The Sound of Glass, A Long Time Gone, and The Time Between, and the coauthor of The Forgotten Room with New York Times bestselling authors Beatriz Williams and Lauren Willig. She grew up in London but now lives with her husband and two children near Atlanta, Georgia.
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