Charlotte’s Story

by Benedict, Laura

  “Maybe I don’t want Olivia to go away. Maybe she’s trying to tell me something.”

  Rachel leaned forward as best she could. “That does sound a little crazy, honey. Are you sure you’re all right?” Her dark eyes were serious. “Press told me he didn’t think you were doing very well.”

  I looked down at my hands in my lap, noticing how bitten and ragged several of the nails on my left hand were. I didn’t remember biting them. It was an old, old habit, one that Nonie had broken me of when I was seven or eight.

  “I don’t think about her every minute, the way I have been.”

  “No one would blame you if you did, Charlotte. No one blames you for anything.” She paused. “You don’t have to pretend with me. She was your precious angel.”

  There was no stopping the tears then. I didn’t really want comfort from anyone, because I knew there was no real comfort anywhere. Eva was my child. Press couldn’t understand. Not really. Not Nonie, not even my best friend could comprehend the depth of the empty space inside me. It was a nameless, endless chasm that could never be filled—not with air or water or tears, and certainly not words of any kind. Rachel let me cry and just held my hand, occasionally squeezing it. Outside the screens, the rain fell harder, drowning out the sound of my sobs.

  I don’t know how long we sat like that. Five minutes, or an hour. When I think back, I realize that, for many reasons, it must have been a Herculean effort for Rachel. My handkerchief was limp and wet, and the area behind my eyes felt washed out and scratchy. Finally, the sound of the rain was the only sound left.

  Weeks earlier, I couldn’t have imagined myself crying as I had in front of her. And certainly not in front of the more distant friends and acquaintances who had been at the cemetery. Death had changed me; but, despite her initial hysteria over the Heasters at the house, it had not changed Rachel. She was her cool, unemotional self. The silence between us turned quickly awkward.

  “Do you want me to call Press to take you home?”

  “God, no. There’s no reason.” I ran the handkerchief carefully below each eye, remembering that I’d put on a small amount of mascara, though I doubted there was any left.

  “What can I do? Do you want me to drive you? I can still fit behind the wheel.” She patted her stomach. There seemed to be more baby than there was of Rachel.

  Once again I tried to smile but couldn’t quite make it happen.

  “Nonie will wonder where I am,” I lied. “I should go.”

  I got up to leave just as Sarah was cautiously putting down a tray with iced tea and a plate full of ladyfingers drizzled with raspberry syrup on the low table in front of us. No doubt she’d been waiting in the kitchen for me to stop crying. Had she been listening, as well? My sobbing was just more fodder for the Old Gate gossip mill.

  “Sarah, wrap up the ladyfingers for Mrs. Bliss to take with her. Her husband will love them. Here, help me up, will you?”

  Sarah was lean and hollow-eyed, younger than most of Rachel’s housekeepers. The arm she held out to Rachel looked strong, like she was used to heavy work.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  As we walked to the front door, Rachel kept her hand around my waist. We embraced on the front step and exchanged kisses. Before I turned away, I lifted the little bag. “Maybe I’ll let Michael have a bite of one. They smell wonderful. Thank you.”

  We parted, but she called out to me just as I reached the car. “Wait. I meant to ask you what you thought about Halloween. Isn’t Press brilliant for suggesting it?”

  I must have looked puzzled, because she rolled her eyes and sighed. “Press is such an idiot. He told you about the memorial for Helen and Zion, yes? He said we’d do it in your theater on Halloween. They would’ve loved that.”

  There is nowhere on earth more beautiful in the fall than the hills around Old Gate, the colors of the trees violent against the dulling earth beneath them. But I didn’t see them as I drove back to Bliss House. They could’ve been purple or black as night or in flames, as much impression as they made on me.

  I wove through town, past the library and the courthouse, past the new furniture store that had opened in May with a celebration that had included a brass band and a clown handing out balloons. I had driven Nonie and Eva into town to hear the band, and Eva had gone right up to the clown who, truth be told, was not a very good one, with makeup that didn’t completely hide his day-old beard, and a thin piece of rope binding one of his giant red shoes. The other children hung back, wary. But not Eva. She challenged the clown with her smile and asked for a second balloon for Michael, who bounced in my arms, excited by the music.

  The memory of how Eva had looked up at the clown, her arm lifted to reach the balloon’s string (Had the balloon been yellow or red? It seemed critical that I remember, and I could not.), was so strong that I also drove past the stop sign on Market Street without stopping.

  With the great blaring of another car’s horn, I came to myself in time to keep from rear-ending a car that had stopped on the other side of the intersection. My window was open and I hadn’t turned on the radio, so I heard the man who had almost hit me yelling at me as he continued through the intersection. My mouth went dry.

  Carefully, with a small wave, I drove around the stopped car. Just as I reached the edge of town, I heard a police siren behind me.

  The sidewalks and curbs had run out, so I pulled over to the shoulder in front of a lot where a new Baptist church was being built.

  Not all the county deputies were known to me, but in my sideview mirror I saw Dennis Mueller, the son of Karla Mueller who did my hair every Thursday, get out of the black-and-white patrol car. He had his mother’s squarish face and light-brown hair. My vanity hadn’t yet returned, but I touched the ends of my own hair where it brushed my ear. I hadn’t been to see her in weeks. At least it was Dennis, and not his boss, Sheriff Hugh Walters, who was a close friend of both Press’s and mine. I hadn’t seen him since the funeral, and although he’d been kind, I hoped not to see him again anytime soon.

  I rolled down my window.

  “I’m so sorry, Dennis. I don’t know why I didn’t stop. I must have been thinking about getting home.” My second lie of the afternoon.

  “It was dangerous the way you went through that intersection, Mrs. Bliss. Someone might have been hurt.”

  He was so young, only out of high school three or four years.

  “I understand. Of course. What do you need?” I fumbled in my purse for my license.

  When I gave it to him, he only glanced at it before returning it to me. The rain had stopped, but there were still a few drops scattered over his midnight-blue cap.

  “That’s all right, Mrs. Bliss. I’m not going to give you a ticket today. Just be more careful. We’ve had more than our share of wrecks in the county lately.”

  “That’s very nice of you. I promise to be more careful.”

  We fell silent for a moment. I was about to ask him to say hello to his mother for me when he spoke again. He pushed his hat back just a bit on his head.

  “I sure was sorry to hear about your daughter, ma’am. My mother was very upset, too. She said she was a sweet little girl.”

  I smiled in spite of myself. “She gave Eva her first haircut. I don’t think anyone else could have done it as well.”

  Dennis Mueller nodded. He looked sad and uncomfortable.

  “She’s given a lot of kids their first haircut. Sometimes the little girls’ daddies come in, complaining that their wives brought the girls in without telling them first. You’d be surprised how many of them don’t want their daughters’ hair cut at all.”

  I didn’t know quite what to say, but knew he was trying to be friendly.

  “I know this isn’t any of my business, ma’am, but everyone says you were at home that Monday it happened.”

  As his words sank in, my heart started to pound. Were they thinking of prosecuting me, after all? Hugh had told us not to worry. He considered it an accident and d
idn’t see any reason for there to be an inquest.

  “I. . . .” The words wouldn’t come. As I sat there, several cars passed by, but I was oblivious as to who was inside.

  He spoke hurriedly. “I only ask, Mrs. Bliss, because I thought I saw you and your husband turn up your driveway in a hurry that afternoon. I was on my way out of town to a welfare check at the other end of the county, and your husband’s car went by pretty fast. Not so fast as I would’ve necessarily pulled him over, but pretty fast. But, pardon me, everyone was saying that you were home by yourself when it happened.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  He looked down at the ground like an abashed child. “It’s not like you’re someone who would leave a couple of little kids alone in that house. I wondered when the sheriff told us, that’s all. I told him, but he said I was wrong. I just wanted to be sure.”

  “That she didn’t die alone?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  It was like Karla Mueller to have a son who noticed things. She knew everything about everyone, and could tell if you were having a bad day the moment you put your hand on the doorknob of her shop.

  “No, Dennis. I was in the house. I’m the one who was responsible.”

  “But I was sure I saw you late that afternoon, ma’am.”

  “It must have been my friend, Rachel, coming to the house with my husband.” Though I had never thought to ask why she had already been there when I awoke. Of course it had been the farthest thing from my mind after I learned what had happened to Eva.

  He watched me a moment as though trying to decide if I was telling the truth. If I hadn’t been in a mild state of shock from the suddenness of his question, I might have accused him of being rude. He had said “that house.” I realized that he wasn’t as concerned with what I had or hadn’t done as he was that it had happened at that house.

  Chapter 9

  Suspicions

  As I came up the shadowy drive, my heart gave a little jump when I saw Nonie, head down and slightly bent at the waist, pulling Michael in Eva’s Radio Flyer wagon. Nonie’s coat, the color of a gold chrysanthemum, and the red wagon were cheerful splashes against the hay-colored grass and brown-red leaves of the oaks. Eva had liked to pull her dolls in the wagon while Michael rode in his stroller, but one day she had insisted that she be allowed to have Michael in the wagon instead of her dolls. Press and I had watched as she pulled the heavy wagon, her little face reddening beneath her curls, as she pretended it was no effort at all.

  “See? It’s easy, Mommy.”

  Press had laughed behind his hand, but I whispered for him to stop. It seemed so important to her that we be impressed.

  Before reaching them, I stopped the car and turned off the ignition. When I rolled down the window, I heard raindrops falling from leaf to leaf as though it were still raining. Nonie wore a scarf over her hair, and she’d put a cap and light jacket on Michael. She didn’t believe in keeping children indoors all day, no matter what the weather.

  “He saw the wagon and would have absolutely nothing to do with his stroller. Fussed like a banshee.” Nonie glanced back at Michael, who was waving a giant yellow maple leaf that had blown over from beyond the driveway.

  “You gave in? That’s not the Nonie I know.” But of course she knew he was missing Eva. Though she was always strict, she was also genuinely kind. “Doesn’t that hurt your back? The handle’s so short.”

  “Not all of us are troubled with generous height, Lottie. Sometimes I think you forget that,” she teased. She looked down at Michael. “You’d better hope you have your mother’s height, Michael. Or she’ll make fun of you too, one day.”

  I laughed, surprising myself. It felt natural, and I was momentarily grateful to her. Poor Michael had seen plenty of tears and sadness and was likely to see more.

  “Your husband is home.”

  “So early?”

  “It’s not as though he keeps a schedule, is it? There was a decorator’s van here a little while ago. But it’s gone now.”

  “Decorator?”

  Nonie shrugged. “I have no idea.”

  I blew Michael a kiss and reminded Nonie to come inside if it began to rain again. She nodded, humoring me, and they moved on. I waited until they were well past me before I restarted the car.

  I parked in front of the house and left the keys in the ignition. There were some things that Terrance took care of that I very much appreciated, and parking the cars in the garage for us was one of them. The original carriage house had burned around the turn of the century, and the inside of the new carriage house set off to the east of the house was a gray, grim place, with cinderblock bays for three cars and an unused apartment built above. But the bays themselves, though plain, had exposed beams and dark corners. I’d once looked up—I’m not sure what led me to do it—to see a copperhead curling along one of the beams, and I hadn’t wanted to go in there again.

  As Terrance opened the front door of Bliss House for me, I suddenly remembered the black snake in the lane. Had that been what spooked the Heasters’ horse? It had to be. I wondered if anyone else had seen it, or if I was the only one. Only Zion and, perhaps, Helen would know. Helen would have been frightened of the snake. She was a woman of the city and, given the way she’d talked about the inadequacies of Old Gate, I had the impression that she was never truly comfortable here. Of course, they had lived in Old Gate proper, in a cluttered cottage with several cats. I doubted they had a snake problem.

  “Good afternoon, Miss Charlotte.” Terrance nodded.

  I turned back to look down the lane for Nonie and Michael, worried that they might come across the same snake. Certainly the black snake was harmless and would hurry into the grass if it weren’t already hiding there. If it didn’t hide, I would be more worried for it than I would for Michael and the very protective, stick-wielding Nonie.

  “Hello, Terrance. Can you tell me where Mr. Preston is?”

  There was a fire laid in the library, even though it was probably still over seventy degrees outside. Press stood at the desk, a Scotch in one hand. The ice cubes were still large, so he probably hadn’t had it very long. My father didn’t understand why a man would put ice in a single malt, but then he still didn’t understand why some grown men didn’t bother to take their hats off when they went into buildings.

  More than any other room in Bliss House, the library, with its smell of old books, polished wood, and low afternoon light, suited Preston. Even though his body was quite athletic, he had an old-fashioned, almost antique look about him, and his strong features made him seem almost roguish. His face would be right at home in the portrait gallery of some Old World museum: Amsterdam, perhaps. Or Rome.

  “You went out!” He put his drink down on the desk beside a small pile of open boxes and strode across the room to me. “I’m so glad, my love. How is Rachel?”

  “She sent you these.” I was determined to speak to him about the memorial plans, but knew it was always best to approach him carefully about things we might disagree about. I definitely thought having the memorial at the house was inappropriate. I turned my head so he could kiss me on the cheek, then handed him the small paper bag, which was spotted with grease from the butter in the ladyfingers.

  He opened it and looked inside. “These smell damned good. That new housekeeper of hers . . . what’s her name? Cynthia? Susan? I can’t keep up. She’s a decent cook. Jack and I both told Rachel she needs to be nice to this one.”

  Setting the bag on a table, he took out a ladyfinger and popped two-thirds of it into his mouth. “Damned good,” he said with his mouth still a little full. “Do you want one?”

  “They’re for you. But you might save part of one for Michael.”

  “Of course. If you think Nonie will let him have one.” He said this with a look of mischief in his eyes.

  I had loved this playful Preston. I was still drawn to him, even though there was a wall inside me then that didn’t want to let him pass. He was not th
e way back to Eva.

  “What’s in the boxes? I didn’t see any mail on the table in the hall.”

  He glanced back at the desk.

  “Want a drink? It’s after five.”

  I wondered how far a drink would go to dispel the wall inside me, but wasn’t tempted. The last champagne I’d drunk had made me sleep so deeply that I’d let my daughter drown.

  “Water is fine. Ice too, please.”

  While Press poured my water, I went to look in the open boxes on the desk. Both were full of rich velvet fabric. Midnight blue, deep scarlet, ruby red with shiny gold threads woven through it. Green with outlines of large, abstract stars, also in gold. I lowered one of the cardboard lids. “J. C. Jacquith Designs, NYC” was neatly hand-lettered on the return label. I took out one of the fabric pieces and carried it to the window to get a better look. The velvet was lush, but the gold threads were sharp as though they were made of actual metal and caught at my fingertips.

  “What are these for?”

  I wasn’t a fool. I already knew what they were for.

  “Samples that J.C. sent down weeks ago. I was getting ready to throw them away. The curtains up in the theater are moth-eaten. It’s Mother’s fault for letting them get to that state.”

  There was a note card that had fallen between the two boxes. I picked it up. The paper was heavy stock and scented—something peppery and arresting. The note was dated more than two months earlier, only a week or so after Olivia had died.

  “Darling Press, Again, I’m just crushed about your dear old mummy. I hope you’re still holding up like the brick that you are. Here are the samples I promised. The red velvet with the gold is what they’ve put in the studio at Carnegie. Too much? Maybe! Call with the measurements. I’ll bring them down and supervise installation myself. It’s going to be spectacular! Love to you and Precious Bride—J.”