by Lexi Whitlow
Mama knows about my nightmares. She knows I don’t sleep well. She knows sometimes I don’t sleep at all. It’s a subject she’s learned not to breach, so I’m surprised when she does.
“I slept really well,” I admit, sitting down across from her. Meeting her eyes, I see her wheels turning. She’s got something going on in there. “Why do you ask?”
She shakes her head, shrugging. “No reason,” she says, giving me a sideways look. “Just making conversation.”
Mama never just makes conversation. She’s up to something. That wicked smile she gets when conjuring mayhem makes a tiny curl at the corner of her lip.
I decide to let it go.
“Is Emma still sleeping?” I ask.
She nods. “She’ll sleep ‘til Maddie gets here, just like she has since Maddie’s second week with us.”
Emma has settled down, sleeping through the nights, waking up happy. She’s not fussy anymore. She’s bright, cooing, and smiling all the time. Her favorite thing is when I take her out on the porch after supper, lay her on my bare chest, and read to her. I know she probably can’t understand what I’m reading, but she pays attention, looking up at me, her expression animated, hanging on every word.
When the paternity test came back, I was almost afraid to open the envelope to see the results. I was afraid the paper from the lab would say that Emma wasn’t mine, after all. I stared at the page for ten minutes, fighting tears when I read the report. Emma’s mine, as if I ever doubted it. Those Ballentine green eyes don’t just come along among the rabble. I can’t imagine what her mother was thinking, giving her up like she did, but her loss is our windfall. That baby girl has changed my life in so many ways I can’t quite recall what life was like before her.
I know it was emptier. I know I smiled less, slept less, cared less. The only thing that got me out of bed in the morning was Sweet Maidens. Now, I have different motivations. It’s all happened so fast, yet somehow it feels like all this was inevitable, like I was just waiting for it to come my way. I think Maddie is as big a part of that inevitable as Emma is.
“Have you shown Maddie the hatchery yet?” Mama asks. “If not, you should take her out there after supper tonight and show her around. She should see first-hand what pays the bills around here. What pays her salary, puts a roof over her head.”
Mama’s scheme is revealed. She must have seen something last night. Should I take this suggestion as Mama’s approval? I’m not sure she liked Maddie much when she first started. She ran that criminal background check despite being told by me and everyone else it wasn’t necessary. She found Maddie’s “Yankee manners” a little bit abrupt. I guess she’s warmed to her over the last month.
“I may just do that,” I say, sipping my coffee. “Now that she’s decided she likes oysters.”
I spend nine hours on the water with Manuel and the summer crew, turning oysters, checking the cages and bags, and staking new bamboos on the creek we’ve leased at Brown’s Island. As it stands today, the Sweet Maiden Oyster Company has twenty acres of the ACE Basin estuary under lease from the state. I have an application in for eight more acres next year. I’ve been talking to a seafood wholesaler in New Orleans about adding Sweet Maidens to his offerings. He’s got chefs down there who started in Charleston and Savanah, who are generally disappointed with Gulf oysters. (I don’t eat them as they have a distinct petroleum aftertaste.) He says they want mine on their menus and are willing to pay the prices we’re asking. If that contract comes through, I’m leasing more acreage and buying a couple more boats.
Getting into the New Orleans market would be a game changer for us. It would be the baseball equivalent of going from pitching for a triple-A, backwater team, to starting for the New York Yankee’s. New Orleans is Mecca to foodies of every stripe. To Seafoodies, it’s Valhalla; even if the Gulf is a polluted dead-sea and ninety-percent of the seafood served there is imported. It’s still the place where the best chefs and the best eaters congregate to worship over the almighty plate.
Coming in after a long day on the water; sweaty, with salt dried on my skin, smelling of mud and fish, I find Maddie in the kitchen making key lime pie, following a recipe recorded in my grandmother’s handwriting. Key lime pie is probably my favorite desert among all the sweet things the Southern kitchen produces, but I’m doubtful of Maddie’s ability to recreate the ambrosia of my youth with a simple, hand-scrawled recipe.
I peer over her shoulder as she works. “Who put you up to this?” I ask.
“Rose,” she says, confirming my suspicions. “I have no idea what I’m doing.”
“Have you ever made a pie crust?”
“No,” she states, blinking up at me. “I’ve never made a pie. Why would I make a pie crust?”
I laugh and read over the recipe. It’s written for someone who already knows what they’re doing.
“You smell like dead fish,” Maddie observes, taking a step back. “Dead fish and sweat.”
“It’s a sweet smell, isn’t it?” I cluck, putting a finger down on the paper my grandmother wrote. “Wherever the recipe calls for water, you need to use iced water. Make sure the butter you use in the crust is hard too. Don’t let it soften. It’ll feet clumpy, but trust me, it’ll work out better.”
“Do you want to make the pie?” Maddie asks, peering up at me hopefully.
“No,” I say. “For some reason, you’re makin’ the pie. I’m just offerin’ advice.” I look around. “Where’s Emma?”
“On the back porch,” Maddie says. “Justin’s watching her.”
I peek out onto the porch, finding Emma in Justin’s arms, a bottle gripped in her little hands, while he sings her a lullaby Mama taught him. She’s sucking the bottle hard, but nodding. He’s looking down on her with fascination.
“Hey,” I call softly from the threshold. “How’s she doin’?”
Justin looks up. He smiles at me. “She was hungry. She’s about to go to sleep. I changed her diaper a little while ago. It was loaded with poop. It smelled so bad I thought I’d die, and she just grinned at me while I nearly threw up.”
I can’t help but laugh. This boy has come a long way in just a month here. He was painfully shy – almost terrified of everyone and everything. Now he’s swimming, riding almost every day. He hangs out with Manuel’s son’s and they play in the woods. He’s really taken to Emma, almost like an older brother.
“Would you do me a favor tonight?” I ask.
Justin looks at me with serious inquiry. I’ve never asked a favor before.
“I usually read to Emma every night at about seven o’clock. I read for half an hour or so, until she falls asleep, then I put her down. Tonight, I want to take your Mom over to the hatchery and show her around. I was wondering if you’d fill in for me tonight, with Emma?”
Justin smiles, puffing up. “Sure,” he says. “I can do that. I got you covered!”
“Cool,” I say. “Thanks, buddy. There’s nobody else I’d trust to do it better.”
Now that I’ve got that covered, it’s time for a shower so I don’t smell like fish shit. I need to smell good for Miss Madison James.
Maddie was not trained to cook, but her first attempt at key lime pie renders a surprisingly adequate result.
“Maddie made the pie,” Mama boasts on her behalf, serving me an oversized slice. “For some reason they don’t teach girls to cook in Indiana, but I’m going to make a cook of her yet.”
Maddie smirks. I think she has an idea of what Mama is up to.
“It’s good,” I observe, downing a third bite before speaking up. “The crust is perfect.”
Mama smiles. “I was telling Maddie today about all you’ve done, setting up the first oyster hatchery in the state, and how you single-handedly re-introduced the oyster to the ACE Basin. You should take Maddie down and show her the operation.” She turns her attention Maddie. “He’s won awards all over the south for the Sweet Maiden. When Jeb came back from the Marine Corps, Blanc-Bleu was at the
point of bankruptcy. In eight years, he’s turned it around completely thanks to his hard work and those oysters.”
“Mama, I think Maddie’s heard about the oysters,” I say. “She works at Flo’s. She’s seen the press too.”
Maddie grins sheepishly. “I haven’t seen the hatchery,” she says. “Sounds interesting.”
Mama sits up straight, about to burst out of her chair. “See,” she says. “It’s interesting. I’ll keep an eye on Justin while ya’ll wander over there this evening.”
After supper, after the dishes are washed and put away, Maddie and I climb into my Land Cruiser, heading west toward the docks and the hatchery.
“Sorry about Mama,” I say. “I think she saw us last night, out back. Or maybe she thinks she came up with the idea of putting us together. She’s trying awfully hard. She means well.”
“She is,” Maddie agrees, smiling out the window. “It’s sort of funny, but it’s good to know she doesn’t hate me.”
Maddie’s left hand rests on the seat beside her. I slip mine around it, squeezing firmly. “Why would she hate you?” I ask. “That’s ridiculous.”
She turns to me, recalling me to the night I asked her out and she refused me.
“That woman, ‘Deb’, said your mother didn’t like her,” Maddie says. “She looked like the kind of woman any man would be happy to be with, and any mother would be happy to welcome. She was gorgeous, obviously from money, and into you in a big way.”
Amazing what women see.
“She’s also a high-maintenance shop-a-holic,” I say. “Her soon-to-be-ex-husband owns the biggest charter fishing outfit at Hilton Head, but his income isn’t sufficient to keep her satisfied. She needs a billionaire, not a fisherman,” I say. “And she’s not that attractive. She’s salon groomed, with Botox and saline enhancements. Not my thing. She wasn’t even my thing in high school and I’ve done a lot of growing up since then.”
“And what’s that shown you?” Maddie asks as I pull into the gravel lot in front of the hatchery.
I sit quietly for a few moments, considering her question.
“It’s shown me that adversity makes a stronger person; a kinder person. Having it easy can make you callous and entitled, but getting burned in the world makes you think hard about what other people go through.” I squeeze her hand again, then lift it to my lips and kiss her knuckles. “You really want to see the hatchery? If not, we could just sit here and talk.”
“I really want to see the hatchery,” Maddie says. “Your Mom’s counting on it.”
I show her the operation, from the seawater pumps and piping, to the microscopic, embryonic oysters, just hatched and still swimming free and clear in two-hundred-gallon tanks above their crusty, hard-shelled parents. I show her the baby-spats, with their tiny shells, settled on the bottom of a tank reserved just for juveniles. I show her the sorting tanks, and the maturing tanks. I show Maddie station after station of the Sweet Maiden oyster’s path back to the salty water of the Coosaw river.
“When they’re a quarter inch long, we put them out in these bags,” I say, showing her the hardware. “The farm supports a few hundred million oysters now. In another year, we’ll double that.”
“Why double?” Maddie asks. “You’re doubling production?”
I nod, smiling. “It’s looking like we’re expanding into New Orleans and Southern Louisiana. Maybe even Galveston. It’s not a done deal yet, but it’s promising.”
“I’m surprised Rose didn’t tell me about that too,” Maddie says. “She spent all day singing your praises. She’s awfully proud of you.”
“I know,” I admit. “She can be a little pushy with the public relations. She didn’t tell you because she doesn’t know. Nobody knows about it. When it’s signed and sealed, then I’ll let people know. Until then, I don’t want to jinx it. You’re the only person I’ve told.”
Maddie seems heartened. “I won’t tell anyone,” she says. “Mum’s the word.”
“Thanks.” I reach forward, taking her hand in mine, pulling her closer. “Let’s get out of here. There’s something else I want to show you.”
We drive back toward Blanc-Blue in the pitch dark, bouncing along the narrow dirt lane. Instead of turning toward home when we reach the farm, I drive past the big house, turning into the visitor’s parking lot on the far eastern edge of the compound.
The lot faces a stand of ancient oak trees, their trunks massive and twisted, their branches spread wide into a low canopy. There are ten trees in total, planted in two rows, creating a wide grassy lane leading directly toward the eastern wing of Blanc-Bleu. The lane is lit with path lights. The house is illuminated with bright, solar powered spotlights so it can be seen by passing boats out on the water.
“That’s impressive,” Maddie observes, peering at the scene through the dusty, bug-specked windshield.
“Let’s take a walk,” I suggest. “Get a closer look.”
Maddie works all the time. She’s either taking care of Emma, or slinging seafood and drinks at Flo’s. When she does have time off, she spends it with Justin; taking him to the library, or the movies, or the beach, or skating, or anything at all to just be with him. I know for a fact that even though she’s been here a month, she hasn’t had an opportunity to see Blanc-Bleu up close.
We walk, holding hands, under the cover of the trees, passing their massive trunks.
“An arborist came out here about five years ago to have a look at these trees,” I tell Maddie. “He said he thought they were between five and six-hundred years-old.”
“They look it,” Maddie says, then slows our pace, considering what I’ve said. “Who planted them?”
I shrug. “No clue. I’ve talked to some experts who say the Native-Americans who lived here didn’t plant trees, and wouldn’t have put them in rows, even if they did. It’s more likely they were planted by some Spanish explorer who intended to come back and claim the property, build a house here. The trees were here when my ancestor’s built Blanc-Bleu, and already very old. There’s another grove and path just like this on the west side of the house.”
Emerging from the grove into the side lawn, Maddie takes in the scale of the house. It’s so much bigger than it appears at distance. It’s massive, which becomes apparent when you get near.
“Can we go inside?” she asks.
I shake my head. “It’s all locked up at night. Alarms set, and the only lights inside are emergency lights. It’s a museum property. Nothing has been updated since my great-great-grandfather’s day right around the turn of the last century. It’s only open for visitors and events during daylight hours. At Christmas we do a candle light tour.”
“Wow,” she says, peering up to the second level, wrap around porch. “It must have been amazing to live here a couple hundred years ago.”
I’ll agree with that, but probably not the way Maddie imagines it. It was great for the family who owned the property. For the hundreds of others who worked here, generation after generation, un-paid, mostly underfed, it was a wretched existence, and a fact of this place that’s never far from my thoughts.
We wander around the perimeter of the house, with Maddie pausing occasionally to approach the brick foundation level, which is the first floor of the three-story structure. She peers into windows and doors. It’s too dark to see anything.
“I can’t imagine having this,” Maddie wonders as we stroll around the rear of the house. She gazes up at the matching cisterns, one attached to each wing-addition of the house. She asks me what they are and is astonished to learn they had running water here in the 18th century.
“It’s gravity fed,” I remind her. “The water pressure isn’t great, but it was quite a luxury back in those days.”
We pass the smoke house, the ice house, the root cellar, and the detached kitchen, passing under the covered breezeway with its brick-paved path, leading to the main house. Finally, we approach the outhouse, having almost completely circled the perimeter. The outhouse
is a favorite destination for a lot of the people who come here to see how the wealthy lived in an earlier era. They find it astonishing to see eight seats in one open room, and no distinction between men’s and women’s necessities. Maddie is equally shocked.
“Eight people all used this at one time!?” she laughs. “Seriously?”
I nod. “I think all those hooped skirts helped keep things a little more modest,” I tell her, echoing my mother’s well-rehearsed spiel. “I have no idea what the men did, but it’s clear none of them were as concerned with privacy or bodily functions as we are.”
“Astounding,” Maddie giggles. “Why eight? Why so many?”
I cock my head. “The house has fifteen bedrooms, a ballroom, two dining rooms, and two parlors. It was a party house, built for entertaining. I’m sure this outhouse saw lots of use, with lines all the way to the water.”
“Wow,” she says again. “Just wow.”
“Yeah,” I agree, taking Maddie’s hand again. “C’mon. One last thing to show you.”
I lead her across the lawn, toward the oaks, toward my favorite part of the grounds. It’s difficult to see in the darkness, so I feel my way, relying on memory. We’re almost upon the swings before I realize it, reaching out, feeling for the thick iron chains hanging from branches above.
“Oh! This is cool!” Maddie cries, grabbing a chain, finding the plank seat hanging a couple feet above the grassy ground under our feet. She plops herself into a swing, launching forward. “Justin would love this.”
She swings slow, easy, cruising back and forth in the night air.
There are three swings. I take to another one, shoving off hard, lifting high, just like I did when I was a kid.
“I’m surprised Justin hasn’t discovered these yet,” I admit. “Maybe he has, and you just don’t know about it.”
“Probably,” she laughs, swinging higher. “If he has, I hope he doesn’t break his neck.”
We swing for a while, before slowing down, hanging in the dark, listening to the music of insects and night creatures. The cadence of the night-time forest is syncopated and loud, musical, and damned romantic in its own way.
