Moon Over Edisto

by Beth Webb Hart

  THE DAY JULIA WAS HEADED TO THE AIRPORT, SHE couldn’t find her passport. She had tucked it away in a safe, obvious spot, only she couldn’t remember where. It finally appeared in the zipper of the old brown leather jacket she always wore on flights because it was light and smooth as butter and made a wonderful pillow when rolled up tightly. She made it to LaGuardia with hours to spare, got her boarding pass, and was standing in the line of the international flights terminal when an unrecognizable number with a Charleston area code flashed on her screen. With time to kill and a concern that it could be her mother calling from work battling her old anxiety about Julia flying, she answered it.

  “Juuuul-yah.”

  “Aunt Dot?” she said. The old woman’s voice sounded faint and a good deal frailer than it had a few weeks ago. “Are you all right?”

  “If you count being carted to the hospital with a fractured hip as all right, I guess I’m dandy.”

  “What?”

  “I slipped and fell in the bathroom at Marney’s last night and now I’m at Roper Hospital awaiting surgery. Going to get that hip replacement a little sooner than I expected.”

  “Oh no. I’m so sorry.”

  “Me too. Marney just had her operation two days ago and she’s hardly even coherent according to Dr. Young, her surgeon. Anyway, I had to get your daddy’s old friend Skeeter to come watch the kids while they hauled me off in an ambulance, but he can only stay until sundown because he still works nights as a flounder gigging guide, so if you can’t hop on an airplane and get down here, I’m going to have to call Mary Ellen and ask her to take off some time from work and help.”

  “My mother?”

  Aunt Dot clucked her tongue. “Yes. I’m out of options, Julia.”

  Now Julia’s heart pounded like an angry fist in her chest. Her mother hadn’t been out to Edisto in eons. Could she even withstand a trip to that house with her husband’s second family and all of the old memories? She’d been doing so much better.

  “But Meg.”

  “Meg’s not an option. She just isn’t. You have to trust me there.”

  Julia exhaled slowly. She was starting to see spots, and she blinked hard as a man behind her cleared his throat dramatically, indicating that the line was moving forward and she needed to keep up.

  She turned back to the man, gave him a grumpy look, and hauled her suitcase and carry-on bag forward as she balanced her cell phone between her shoulder and her ear.

  “Julia. You know what you need to do, don’t you?” Aunt Dot said as Julia came to a halt behind the woman in front of her.

  Julia bit her lip as she watched the woman in front of her take off her boots and tuck them beneath her arm as the muffled security guard called through a crackly megaphone, “Take out all liquids and place them in a separate scanning container.”

  There was a pregnant silence on the other end of the line. Julia knew Aunt Dot was still there, waiting for a response. She tried to swallow, but her throat was too dry. She pictured her mama driving out to Edisto, holding back the dread and the fear of facing the loss she’d worked years to put behind her. Plus, there was the reality. Her mother’s employers were kind but demanding, and how would they feel about her suddenly taking off a week or two to look after her husband’s children? Yes, Julia’s mother needed that job for the extra financial security, but more importantly, she needed it for the steady routine, for a sense of being useful, and for playing a role outside of the hundred-year-old walls and slanted hardwood floors of 10 Savage Street. Could Julia stand herself if she was hopping around Budapest painting the banks of the Danube with her mother’s emotional state and work life falling apart back in the States?

  “I’m on my way home,” Julia said, surprising herself.

  “Good girl,” Aunt Dot said. “I knew you would be.” And the old woman hung up the phone.

  NOW JULIA STEPPED OUT OF THE LINE AND ROLLED her luggage down the corridor and back to the ticket counters for domestic flights. She walked over to the Delta counter. “I need a ticket to Charleston, South Carolina.”

  As the woman’s long, silver manicured nails clicked on the keyboard, searching for direct flights to the low country, Julia texted Simon. I know it’s crazy, but I’m going home.

  BY EIGHT P.M. JULIA TURNED OFF OF HIGHWAY 17 ONTO Highway 174 in a small red rental car. 174 was an old two-lane highway that led to the bridge that connected the mainland to Edisto Island. She hadn’t traveled this road in a long, long time and she was shocked by its lack of change—a church every couple of miles, trailers set on cinder blocks, rusted mailboxes leaning this way and that, an old barn nearly swallowed by kudzu. An unexpected lump formed in her throat as she drove over the tall bridge that connected the mainland to Edisto. The sun was beginning to set, and the way it glistened on the river and the green marsh and the mud banks was shockingly picturesque.

  She knew she was not prepared to face her old home and her half siblings, but she didn’t realize the visceral assault that the beauty of the South Carolina coast could have on her. It was heart wrenching not only because it was scenic but because she was only now realizing how much she had longed for it.

  She couldn’t deny it at this moment as she hit the crest of the bridge—she had missed the magical, soulful home of her childhood, her happy childhood, the setting where she’d hooked her first spot-tail bass, thrown a cast net, driven a johnboat, pulled a seine, caught a blue crab, harvested vegetables, fired a rifle, kissed a boy, and painted a sunset. She rolled down the window and breathed in the smell of pluff mud and the salty air thick as a wool blanket. She blinked back tears. It was almost too much to take.

  Lord, have mercy, she said to herself. And then, Get a grip, Julia. Get a grip. The phone in the pocket of her leather jacket vibrated and she answered.

  “Julia, what is going on?”

  It was the first time she’d heard from Simon since she’d texted him back at LaGuardia.

  She found her voice beyond the lump in her throat just as her car touched down from the bridge. “I’m on Edisto Island.”

  “Are you insane?” His voice was slurred and high pitched. It was one in the morning there and he must have been out celebrating his son’s graduation or carousing with old Eton friends.

  “Yes,” she said. “Yes, I’m insane. I don’t know what I’m doing, but my aunt was keeping the kids and then she fell and broke her hip. It was either me or my mother, and I couldn’t let my mother shoulder this, could I, Simon?”

  He cursed under his breath. Then he inhaled slowly, surely taking a drag of the cigarette he relished every time he went back home. She had never actually seen him smoke.

  “I’m sure it will just be for a couple of days. A week at the most. Until I can find someone to take over.”

  “Our trip to Istanbul is in thirteen days.”

  “I’ll make it,” she said.

  She could imagine him shaking his head in disbelief and annoyance. “I really can’t believe you’re walking directly into this backwoods nightmare. Don’t expect to come out of this without scars.”

  Her heart raced with dread and she thought about how to respond. You’re probably right, she wanted to say, then she realized she no longer had service and Simon was suddenly an ocean away and would be until she drove back over the bridge to call him again.

  The road darkened as the sun quickly set, shooting dusty beams of soft white light through the live oak trees, the Spanish moss, and the scrub palmettos. The oaks formed a tunnel over the old road like an open mouth that was growing darker by the moment, swallowing her and her little rental car whole. She passed an abandoned gas station, a tomato farm, the old Presbyterian church, and then a field with a burning trash heap. How strange it was to see smoke rising and not feel the need to call 911.

  After she passed the Old Post Office restaurant and then Store Creek, she turned onto Peters Point Creek Road, and the road narrowed further. She passed Cousin Bertram’s house, the Seabrooks, the Reids, the Quattlebaums
, the Belsers, the Walters, Red House Road. Finally, toward the end of the gravel drive she saw the old mailbox she and her father had secured into the ground when she was eight or nine years old. She had stuck the glossy silver stickers with the numbers on herself and the letters that went down the stake that held the mailbox. BENNETT.

  As she pulled into the driveway, a girl in a long, white nightgown and bright red rain boots ducked back into the pine trees beyond the long dirt drive. She rolled down the window to speak, but the girl was hiding and she didn’t want to force her out. These kids were probably as nervous about getting to know her as she was them. Then again, maybe they had no idea she was coming.

  She pulled on down the road. It was dark now, and the mist from the cooling earth was lifting itself up in eerie ribbons she sliced through with the nose of her car. Eventually she saw the house set several yards back from the salt marsh creek with its rickety old dock and the plastic molded owl—meant to keep pesky gulls and varmints from congregating—still at the top of its post.

  She parked the car next to an ancient Ford pickup truck that must be Skeeter’s. She took a deep breath. Her heart was pounding, but she was too tired to get all worked up. Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy.

  “Well, lookey here.” Julia heard the screech of a screened door in need of WD-40 and then spotted Skeeter in the back doorway with a little boy with tufts of blond hair and huge brown eyes eyeing her suspiciously. The boy shimmied out from behind Skeeter’s leg and darted toward the north side of the house, shooting Julia as he went with some sort of imaginary gun.

  “Warm welcome,” she muttered.

  “Julia Bennett.” Skeeter hobbled over to her car with his cane and spread his arms wide. “Haven’t seen you since Charlie’s funeral, and even then you were gone before I had a chance to get a good look atcha.”

  She inhaled. Skeeter smelled like he had when she was a child. Like the earth and like a slow-roasted hog. He had a toothpick in his mouth. His skin was leathery, a well-worn hide. He’d slimmed down a good bit and had more of a forward lean than she’d remembered, as if his shoulders were just too heavy to hold him upright anymore.

  He must have been in his early seventies by now and looked too frail to guide a flounder gigging expedition. But then again, her father had always said he was one of the best fishermen around.

  “Get over here, son,” Skeeter said when the boy peered around the house and aimed for Julia’s chest.

  Charlie sauntered over. “This here is Julia. Your daddy’s eldest. Now, reach out your hand like Dot taught you.”

  “How do you do?” The boy was stunning. Even more so than the vista over the bridge. He had long dark lashes and a little birthmark on his right cheek as if a sculptor had seen fit to give him one little smudge so he could appear believable. “Nice to meet you.”

  “Nice to meet you.” Her voice was hoarse. How could a boy be so striking? Looking at him was a kind of torture.

  A light lit up the porch and in seconds two moths were encircling it. There was a girl, maybe eleven or twelve, standing there. She was the spitting image of her mother when she’d been young and healthy. Thick mane of hair, full lips, and sharp, deep-blue eyes. The girl blinked slowly. She appeared to be biting the inside of her cheek.

  Julia had met the girl briefly at her father’s funeral, but she reached out her hand. “I’m Julia,” she said. “And you are Heath, the oldest, right?”

  The girl nodded and cautiously extended her hand. Julia had to take a few more steps to meet it.

  Then Heath raised her head and looked out at the woods behind the house where a twig had snapped. Julia followed her gaze. She didn’t see the girl she had seen when she drove in, but she knew she was out there. Etta was her name. The middle one. She turned back to Heath and their eyes locked.

  “Are you the enemy?” The question came from Charlie, but it was the same one that was written all over Heath’s face.

  “Enemy?” Skeeter laughed and slapped his thin thigh. He bent down to look Charlie in the eye. “She’s not the enemy. She’s a relative, boy. And you better be good ’cause she’s going to be taking care of you for the next few weeks until your mama gets back.”

  Julia’s eyes widened. Oh no, no, no, she wanted to say. I’m not here for a few weeks. I’m here for a few days until I can beg, borrow, or hire someone to take care of these kids.

  Charlie was narrowing his eyes toward Julia, and she could practically feel Heath’s gaze boring a hole through her skull. She thought she’d better be quiet for now.

  “Well.” Skeeter patted her shoulder and ambled back toward the screened door as Heath stepped back into the shadows. “Let me show you around, and then I have to scoot. C’mon, Julia.”

  CHAPTER 9

  Julia

  Julia woke to the smell of bacon. She’d had a fitful sleep in the guest cot at the top of the stairs, and her arms and legs itched like they never had before. Now she felt something light on her hand and she slapped it instinctively. The white morning light beamed through the window, and when she pulled back her hand, pinched the black speck between her fingers, and held it up to the pane, she realized it was a flea. Fleas!

  She leapt up and threw on a pair of running shorts and ran downstairs to find Heath at the kitchen counter spreading peanut butter on toast with little Charlie by her side bouncing on the balls of his feet.

  “Chocca chocca milk.” The little boy tugged on his sister’s T-shirt. He had a crazy bed head with a tuft of tangled curls in the very back that resembled a bird’s nest. He started to scratch the tuft and she could only imagine what a field day the fleas might have in there.

  “In a minute.” The girl handed him the plate, and he ran to the screened porch where he turned on an old portable television and sat down in a well-worn rocking chair to take in a fuzzy version of Curious George.

  Julia surveyed the old kitchen of her childhood summers. It looked as though it hadn’t changed or been upgraded at all in twenty years with the exception of a pink microwave in the far right corner beneath the cabinets and an icemaker beneath the island that appeared to be leaking and had been for some time, considering the mold lining the baseboard beneath it. She noticed that no one had bothered to replace the far left windowpane above the sink, still cracked from where her father threw a football at it when he was teaching Meg to catch back when she was in middle school. The windows didn’t look like they had been washed in decades either, and the appliances were worn out with rusty handles and layers of grime. Julia noticed a large cockroach clicking out from a crack between the dishwasher and the counter. It scurried down to the ground and across the linoleum floor where Heath stamped and nodded approvingly as it crawled beneath the oven.

  “CHOCCA MILK!” the voice from the porch hollered.

  Heath rolled her eyes, pulled out a plastic cup from the cabinet, and poured two heaping spoonfuls of powdered Nesquik into it before pouring in a little tap water and stirring it with her finger.

  She shrugged and muttered, “We’re out of milk.” But this remark seemed more addressed to the window overlooking the dock and the salt marsh creek than to Julia. “He can’t tell the difference.” The girl walked the cup out to the boy and set it on the wooden floor beside him. When she returned she took an overripe banana, sliced it, lathered it in peanut butter, and walked out toward the dock where she sat down on a bench, the light breeze picking up the strands of her thick brown hair.

  Julia took in the scene in the morning light. The dock framed with live oaks, Spanish moss dripping from its limbs like a Dali painting, the almost iridescent late-spring green of the salt marsh, the creek water pulling outward, always pushing and pulling itself one direction or another, and the sun piercing through the scrub palmettos and pines on the little spit of land beyond the creek. As she noticed a pale gray heron alight from a tree and settle on a nearby mud bank, Julia swallowed back a wail somewhere deep in her gut. She couldn’t tell if it was a cry of grief or of longing, of
beauty or of horror. What in the world was she doing here? How had she allowed herself to be cornered into this?

  “More chocca milk!” The high-pitched voice was both warm and demanding.

  Heath ignored it, so Julia walked, as if pulled by the same force of the tides, out to the porch, picked up the plastic cup, and filled it with water and two scoops of powdered chocolate. She found a spoon in the drying rack and stirred it.

  “I want Mama.” He didn’t look at Julia but instead fixed himself on Heath, who had walked quietly out onto the dock with her rotten banana.

  Julia found her voice. “I’m . . . I’m not sure when she’s coming back.” She noticed the dirt beneath his fingernails as he licked his thumb and pressed down on his plastic plate to pick up the last crumbs of his toast. “But I’m going to try to find out today.”

  Then he turned to face her. “How do you know me?”

  It’s the first time that he’d let her gaze into his rich brown eyes. She noticed the curve of his chin and his furrowed brow. Though his hair was a lighter shade, she was unable to ignore the resemblance. Looking at Charlie was like looking at pictures of her father as a young boy, barrel-chested, sharp-jawed, bright-eyed. He was handsome. He was angelic. He was filthy.

  He glanced toward Heath, who had propped herself on the dock railing. “Etta said you’re my sister.” Then he met her eyes again. “I didn’t know I had you.”

  She exhaled deeply. “I’m not your sister the way Heath and Etta are.” She shrugged.

  “Why not?”

  She bent down and looked him in the eye. “Would you like to take a bath?”

  “In Mama’s room?”

  “Sure.”

  He glanced at the television. “After George?”