by Rachel Hauck
To get to this place and time, she’d called every Saltonstall in the Birmingham phone book until she found Hillary’s elderly aunt, who graciously listened to Charlotte’s story and after a few questions, passed along Hillary’s phone number.
The fact that Hillary lived in Charlotte’s childhood neighborhood where she played with her friends and rode her bike, the fact that Hillary might have waved at Mama as their cars passed in the street didn’t register on Charlotte’s emotional scale. Until now.
She walked to the edge of the drive and stood at the apex where Baker Street met Monarch. Seven houses on the right sat a little white house with redbrick trim, a concrete porch, and a wood-slat swing.
Charlotte strained her senses to hear, to see, to smell the essence of that house. But all that came to her were a few faded snapshots.
The upstairs, the alcove room that once had been pink with yellow daisies growing up from brown “dirt” baseboards.
Mama, standing in the driveway, dressed in her tight jeans and midriff top, hollering for Charlotte to hurry home, supper was on.
Charlotte squinted into the waving noon light. Seven houses down, only the walls remembered Mama’s voice.
Glancing back at Hillary’s, the wind coiling her hair about her face, she wondered how long Hillary had lived here. Had young Charlotte ever encountered Mrs. Joel Miller, the grieving war widow?
Only Hillary was a Warner now. Not a Saltonstall. Nor a Miller.
Taking her phone from her bag, Charlotte dialed Dix. But the call went straight to voice mail. Dixie had a consultation with a new client this afternoon so she must be getting ready. Charlotte hung up without leaving a message, stared at her phone, then dialed Tim.
“Hey.” Hesitant. Expectant. Revving motorcycle engines in the background.
“Where are you?” Charlotte scooped her hair away from her face.
“At the track. Where are you?”
“Standing at the curb of Baker and Monarch.”
“So you called her?” Tim’s voice grew louder as the background engine rumble faded.
“She lives seven houses down from where I grew up. The house where I lived when Mama died.”
He whistled. “Did you know that going over?” The creamy tenor of his voice sank through Charlotte like sweet caramel.
“Didn’t really think of it until now. It’s weird being here, Tim. I haven’t been here since Mama died.”
A thick, muffled knock resonated from his end of the phone. “Hey, Charlotte, can you hold for a second?” She heard rustling, then, “I’m on the phone, man.”
The muted, distant conversation revealed Tim needed to get off and head to the track. His heat was coming up.
“Char, I’m sorry, but I need to go in a second. So—it’s weird?”
“In a way, like Mama should be here. In that little white house with the bricks. But she’s not. What’s worse is I can’t remember much of anything about living here.”
“She’s been gone a long time, Charlotte. You were a girl who lost her mother. Now you’re a woman, making your way in life and succeeding.”
“But a girl should never get over needing her mother.”
“Who said that? Charlotte, every day people get over their mothers and fathers, siblings, friends leaving and dying. Getting over things is part of life.”
“It’s different with death. I’ve lost my memories of her, Tim. I wonder if what I remember about her is just some picture or ideal I’ve made up. I’m trying to see something clearly from my past and I just can’t. There’s no sense of her.”
“Maybe that’s a blessing.” The heavy clap of the truck door closing warned Charlotte the call would end soon.
“But memories are all I have. For all practical purposes, they are my family.”
“You’ll make new memories. Have a new family . . . someday.” His words tumbled a bit. Friend Tim wrestling with fiancé Tim.
“Hey, you need to get going and so do I. Thanks for answering.”
“Yeah, Charlotte . . . any . . . anytime.”
“Have fun. Be safe, okay? Now that you’re my friend and not my fiancé, I don’t mind telling you I hate your passion for racing those bikes over dirt tracks. It’s so dangerous.”
He laughed and the tenor of it boosted her courage. “Now you tell me. So you were going to let fiancé Tim risk his neck but tell husband Tim, ‘No way, bubba’?”
“I hadn’t gotten that far. But, yeah, probably. Something like that.”
“You should’ve told me.” The humor in his voice sobered. “Those are things a girl should tell her guy.”
“When would I have done that? We met, we talked, we kissed, we were engaged.”
“Don’t look now, Charlotte, but I think you’re making my point about postponing our wedding.”
“I’m hanging up now. But, Tim, be careful.” The sun’s yellow hue paled as a gray cloud drifted by and marred the blue sky.
“Good luck with Hillary. Just be yourself. She’ll love you.”
Charlotte tapped End and tucked her phone into her purse. When she turned around, a tall, slender woman with salt-and-pepper hair was watching her from the edge of the lawn.
“Are you Charlotte?”
“Yes, and you’re Mrs. Warner?” Charlotte moved to shake her hand, surprised by the sheen of tears in the woman’s eyes.
“Please, call me Hillary.” She wore jeans and a blouse and white canvas sneakers. Her short hair blew free in the wind and curled about her face. Kindness radiated from her brown eyes. “Can I ask what’s so interesting down the street?”
Memories. “I lived in the white house down on the right—the one with the bricks—when I was a girl.” The sun’s golden rays fought back the drifting rain cloud.
“Did you, now?” Hillary stepped into the street, leaning to see around the trees and a passing car. “Greg and I moved in twenty years ago, and there were a lot of children running around these streets, riding bikes. They’re all gone now. In fact”—she pressed her fingertips against her lips—“there was a skinny dark-haired girl who used to ride a purple bike around the neighborhood. She peddled zip-zoop.” Hillary smacked and slid her palms. “I used to tell my husband if we had a girl—”
“I had a purple bike,” Charlotte said. “And long dark hair.”
“Down to your waist. Never could keep it in a ponytail.” Hillary peered at her.
“Never.”
“Well, now”—her gaze narrowed—“so that was you. How do—”
“Small world.” Charlotte’s pulse raced.
“I told Greg, if we ever have a baby, I’d want her to be a girl like that one. On the purple bike.”
Charlotte warmed at the idea. “I remember in the summer the smell of barbecue coming from your backyard. And at Christmas, your house had the prettiest decorations and the most lights.”
“My husband loved to cook out on the grill. I wasn’t much of a cook myself, so it was a win-win. But Christmas, that was all me.” Hillary motioned toward the house and started walking. “Your mother died, didn’t she?”
“When I was twelve. In a car accident.”
Hillary stopped in the shade of the front walk. “I’m sorry. What about your father?”
“Never knew him. Still don’t. I went to live with Mama’s friend Gert.”
“I had no idea.” Hillary hesitated, staring out over the lawn. “I had no . . . idea.” She peered at Charlotte for a long moment, then turned for the house. “I baked cinnamon muffins.”
The inside of the house matched the outside. Neat, inviting, homey. The carpet was new and thick, the furniture modern. The air was tinged with the scent of fresh paint with a touch of cinnamon. Hillary crossed the living room to a bright enclosed sunporch.
“Sit here,” she said, patting the top of a burgundy rocker. The matching one sat on the other side of the end table. Both faced the windows and the yard. A bird book and pair of binoculars sat on the table.
Charlotte t
ucked her purse beside her in the chair. She’d seen this room many times from the outside. So Hillary had watched her ride her bike. It was her last big gift from Mama. A year later Charlotte was an orphan living with Gert—who backed over Charlotte’s bike the week she moved in.
“Here we go.” Hillary set a white plate with steaming muffins on the table. “What’s your pleasure? Milk, coffee, tea, water, Coke. No diet. Drink the real stuff ’round here.”
“Milk, please.” Sounded good. Charlotte squeezed her arms against her sides, warmed by Hillary’s frank but tender demeanor.
Over glasses of milk and cinnamon muffins, the women chitchatted, getting to know each other. Hillary had been a nurse in the navy, then at St. Vincent’s.
Charlotte owned a bridal boutique.
Hillary had married Greg when she was in her forties. He was a retired naval officer who worked as a civilian contractor.
Charlotte was thirty and still single.
They both loved sunny, hot days. Dogs. And Michael Bublé.
“Are you successful?” Hillary leaned on the chair’s arm. “Your shop, I mean.”
“Five years and counting. I’m in the black most of the time. Tawny Boswell recently bought her wedding dress from us.”
“Tawny Boswell. Miss Alabama? Well, well.”
Charlotte smiled. Hillary didn’t seem the kind to know about beauty queens.
“I can tell by your face you’re surprised I know about Miss Alabama.” Hillary rocked back in her chair, bringing her coffee mug to her lips. “I was a Miss Teen Alabama finalist in 1962.”
“Really?” Charlotte said, smiling. “You just don’t seem like the beauty pageant type.” Why did it sound like an insult? “I mean, the fuss and pretend. The phoniness.”
“Twenty years as a navy nurse will get the frippery out of you.” She drank her coffee. She didn’t sip. She drank. “You don’t have to look sheepish. I’m not the same woman I was then. Nor the woman I thought I’d be when I reached sixty-five. So tell me, why’d you come? You said you found something that belonged to me?”
“I was hoping you could help me solve a mystery.” Charlotte took the silk sachet from her purse and handed it to Hillary. Bethany had returned it, sample sachets already made, and Charlotte tucked the dog tags back inside the original. “I found this in a trunk I bought at an auction.”
At first Hillary didn’t show any recognition. But when her fingers touched the silk, they were trembling. Her nose and eyes reddened. “Well, mercy—” Emotion watered her voice and her eyelids fluttered. “I didn’t ever expect to see this again.”
“The dog tags are inside. Did you put them there?”
“I take it you finagled a way to open up that trunk?” Hillary poured the tags into her hand and closed her fingers over them. “I wanted to burn the whole kit and kaboodle the night after his funeral.”
“I read his body was never recovered.”
“He was blown to pieces. There was no body to recover.” Hillary reached down beside her chair for a tissue. “I didn’t think anyone would ever get into that trunk after I torched it closed.”
“It wasn’t easy. My friend had to cut it open.”
“Guess I’m not the welder I thought I was.” The soft curve of Hillary’s smile caught the slow drift of a solo tear. She caressed Joel’s dog tags. “I still miss him. Forty some-odd years later, I miss him.”
“You were married before he left?”
“We had the loveliest backyard wedding at my parents’ home—not far from here, actually. Joel was set to leave and I wanted to marry him so bad. I had a year left of college, but he’d be in Nam. I thought we should seal our love with a wedding. I just knew our love was stronger than death.”
“Maybe it is, Hillary. You still love him, right?”
Hillary wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand. “Our love wasn’t bulletproof. It didn’t keep him alive. I don’t know how it was with losing your mama, but with Joel I found it awfully hard to have closure on a life that never got started. All our dreams were on hold while he did his tour.” Hillary rocked back in her chair. “And there they are now, still on hold. Rusty and dusty on the shelf, lonely ’cause I never look at them anymore. He didn’t want to get married, but—”
“What happened? I mean, you got married, right?” Charlotte pictured Hillary’s and Joel’s names on the brittle cake invoice.
She smiled softly. “I’d already decided to throw him a party before he shipped out. We talked and argued about getting married, but Joel insisted he didn’t want to leave me alone, didn’t want the possibility of leaving me a widow at such a young age. The going-away party was fine, but not a wedding. I invited all our friends from college, our families. I was cleaning out the basement when I found the trunk and the dress.”
“You didn’t know it was there?”
“I had no idea. Neither did my parents. Boy, if I didn’t take that gown as some kind of sign.”
“What did Joel say?” Charlotte leaned into Hillary’s story.
“I didn’t tell him. About killed me to keep my mouth shut.” She smiled, a wrinkled nose smile that Charlotte felt in her spirit. “I wanted our last couple of weeks to be happy. Not arguing about weddings and marriage. But”—Hillary speared the air with her finger—“what I didn’t know was Joel had changed his mind about waiting. We were about halfway through his party when he got down on one knee and proposed in front of our family and friends.”
Tim had proposed in front of his family and friends too. But that story was for another time.
“The next week was a blur of wedding preparations. We got married on a Friday night, he shipped out the following Friday, and that was the last time I ever saw him.”
Charlotte sat back—no words she could conjure would fit the moment. Then, at last, “Hillary, I have the dress.”
“If you opened the trunk, then I guess you do. Please tell me you’re not getting married in it.”
“No, I’m not getting married. But the gown is . . . like new.” Charlotte started for another muffin but drew her hand back. “It’s like it’s never been worn.”
“I wore it, Charlotte.” Hillary eyed her, brows raised.
“Did you alter it?”
“Didn’t have to. That was the strangest thing. My mother and grandmother couldn’t get over it. The dress fit like a glove. Like it was made for me.” Hillary cradled her mug against her chest. “The style was timeless. I loved it. Tell me, does it still have an empire waist with pearls and—well, I guess it does if it’s been in the trunk all this time.”
“Yes, it does. It’s perfect.”
“I wanted to burn that dress. But Daddy wouldn’t let me. I was just about to set fire to the trunk, the dress, and the dog tags when he caught me. I was crazy with grief. I didn’t even get to see Joel’s dead body, to kiss his cold, blue lips. I would’ve too. I wouldn’t have cared if his spirit wasn’t really there. After the funeral I fired up the blowtorch and welded the lock. I didn’t want anyone to ever, ever wear such a sad gown again.” Her gaze snapped to Charlotte. “I never thought I’d find love again. Then I met my husband, Greg, right after I turned forty. He saved me. I tell you, he saved me.” Hillary opened her fingers and peered at the dog tags. “It’s incredibly hard to be wedded to a ghost.”
“Hillary, where did the dress come from? Do you have any idea?”
“The house. The trunk and the dress belonged to the house.”
“To the house?” Charlotte turned slightly in her chair for a better angle at Hillary.
“I found it in the house. I left it in the house. It belonged to the house. How did you find it?”
“I bought it at the Ludlow Auction. Up on Red Mountain.”
“Forty-four years later, that dang trunk makes its way up to Red Mountain.” Hillary squeezed her fingers around the dog tags. “We moved when the house was razed to make room for a shopping center. I never asked Mama what she did with the trunk. I was gone, half crazy by th
en.”
“So you have no idea how the trunk wound up at the Ludlow auction forty years later?”
“None whatsoever.”
Dead end. And she’d been doing so well. Charlotte jumped when her phone broke the contemplative moment. She fumbled for it, not recognizing the number that paraded across the screen. “Hello?”
“Charlotte, it’s Jared.” Dr. Hotstuff. “Dixie gave me your number.”
“Jared, is everything all right? Is it Dix? The shop?” Charlotte turned cold in the warm, bright room.
“Dix is fine. She’s too stubborn to get hurt. The shop is fine as far as I know. But again, you left Dix in charge.” He sighed in a way that raised chills on Charlotte’s arm. “I just arrived for my shift and, Charlotte, it’s Tim. He’s been airlifted to the hospital. I thought you’d want to know.”
Chapter Sixteen
Emily
Taffy slipped the final fitted gown over Emily’s head. She closed her eyes, letting the sensation of warm rain on a hot summer afternoon wash down her arms and swish into a pool about her feet.
“I don’t know that I feel altogether right about this, Emily. Your mother seemed rather insistent about wearing Caroline Caruthers’s gown.”
“I feel perfectly right about this. I’m the bride. Not my mother. Isn’t this my day?”
“You’re not so naïve as to believe it’s not about families too.”
“No, but this is a simple little thing. I’m not stubborn, Taffy. But this is my wedding day, my wedding dress. I’m. Choosing. This. Gown.” Emily gazed into the seamstress’s mirrors. “I feel loved in this dress.”
“And is your man the one who loves you?” Taffy knelt to measure the hem, coughing over her shoulder. She’d canceled her visit to the Cantons’ due to sickness. So Emily found Big Mike and made the trip to 5th Avenue. “Miss Emily, hold still so I can get this done. And get you on out of here. I don’t want anyone catching us together, getting you in trouble. Plus, I don’t want you carrying my sickness to your mama’s house.”
“I won’t get in trouble.” Emily smoothed her hand over the bodice. Yes, her man loved her. Didn’t he? The dress was beautiful. Shiny, silky, and if possible . . . “Taffy, I do declare this dress appears to beam light.”
