AFTER SHE HUNG UP SHE CALLED JANE ANNE AND GAVE her the scoop about Nate and suggested they invite him out on their next Collateral Damage dinner, at which she scoffed but then said, “Well, it would certainly liven things up.”
When she said good night to Jane Anne, the phone rang once more.
“Mama, it’s Julia.”
“Hi, darling!” she said. “How in the world is it going?”
“Well, I’ve got the kids with me right now, but I was calling to see if I could come over for dinner on Thursday night. Glenda and Skeeter have agreed to watch them.”
Mary Ellen’s heart soared and in her mind she was already planning the menu. “Wonderful, sweetheart. I’ll call your sister and see if she can come.”
“Sounds good, Mama. Does six work?”
“Anytime works,” Mary Ellen said. “Six is perfect.”
“See you then!” said her eldest daughter. “I’m looking forward to it, Mama.”
Mary Ellen hung up the telephone and peered out of her laundry room/studio window over the garden. Her hose was spread out haphazardly from the afternoon’s escapade and her tomatoes still needed some water.
She went downstairs, turned on the porch lights, and as the moths began to flit around the lights, she filled the potted plants until they were overflowing. Though the humidity and the city streetlamps obscured the view of the night sky, she could still make out the moon above the rooftops, waxing toward full above Savage Street and Tradd Street and the harbor itself.
She turned off the hose and carefully coiled it up before slapping the dirt off of her hand. Then she walked out to the center of her garden and gazed up, thankful that while the earth could shift beneath you, and your story could take a sharp and unexpected turn, some things could be counted on. Some things were steady and loyal and reliable.
Mary Ellen wanted what everyone wants—to be loved, to be precious, to be adored. And in that moment she felt the hand of God, looming larger than even the moon. It was resting on her cheek, tenderly, the way it had when she was a girl singing in the children’s choir of her daddy’s parish, St. John’s Episcopal on West Macon Street in Savannah. And the hand she now felt just might be enough, she hoped, to move her out of her grief and on with the rest of her life.
CHAPTER 17
Etta
My half sister has been here four days. She cleaned the house and got rid of the fleas. She made sure Phydeaux kept the new white collar on, and he doesn’t itch behind his ears as much now. She took us all to Target yesterday and told us we each had one hundred dollars to pick out some new clothes and essentials like socks and underwear. And she asked Heath if she would like to buy a bra and picked some out for her and helped her adjust them in the dressing room while I sat with Charlie on the floor by the three-way mirror and watched him play a game my half sister has on her phone called Angry Birds.
It was hard to decide how to spend my money. I’d never had so much before. Finally, I settled on a new bathing suit with pink and yellow stripes, two pairs of madras shorts, three T-shirts, and some new underwear that had geometrical shapes on it. I had a little money left over, so my big sister said it was okay for me to get the sketchbook and pastels I wanted.
She let Heath get a pair of sunglasses that were orange in the front and hot pink on the sides and part two of the Deathly Hallows movie, which is the only one she hasn’t ever seen. She also bought her some special face soap for her bumps and a book called The Fellowship of the Ring that she said she would like since all Heath has done for the last three years is read the Harry Potter series over and over.
I liked the first Harry Potter, but I stopped at the third. The Dementors with their ghastly faces and frayed black robes got me. I could see them in my sleep—floating above my bed and around the house and out over the creek—and I didn’t want anything else dark like that to get into my mind.
My half sister also cleaned out the refrigerator and then took us to the Piggly Wiggly. We got chocolate milk, which was already made and mixed. It is thick and creamy. Also, we got bread and cheese and sliced ham and turkey. She cooked us spaghetti the first night we were back in the house, then the next night she baked a chicken and used the juice to make gravy, which she served over rice, and she also made a cucumber and tomato salad. Last night she made fish tacos with the trout she and Charlie caught yesterday when the tide was turning. She also put chicken necks in the old crab trap, and she says tomorrow she’ll make us crab cakes, but we are all going to have to help get the meat out. That can take hours. “It’s a labor of love,” she says. “But it’s worth it.”
She doesn’t want to see Mama. I can tell you that much. Heath and Charlie and I have been to see Mama again but only because Glenda took us. Mama sends messages to my half sister through Glenda. “Brooke will be here Saturday afternoon. Mama will also be released Saturday afternoon. Skeeter will go get her and bring her home.”
My half sister says she will be leaving on Saturday morning. Glenda will keep us in between the time when she leaves and Brooke arrives. She has to catch a plane to a city across the Atlantic Ocean. She showed it to us on the world map hanging in Heath’s room. It looks a long way away, and it has a strange name. She says the city is divided in two by the river. There is Buda on one side and Pest on the other. She’s staying in Buda, which sounds like a better place to stay than somewhere spelled Pest, though she calls it “Peshcht.”
I haven’t spoken to my half sister, and I’m glad she hasn’t asked me to. I’m not ready. It’s not that I think she’s an enemy, at least not a direct one. But she will be leaving soon and her heart belongs to another place. Not this one, not us. I can only speak to someone who I know is with us.
A couple of times she has taken us to the post office so she can talk to a man named Simon who has a loud voice. She has a picture of him on her phone. He gave her the big dark ring and is going to marry her. She has a wedding dress and a wedding cake her friend in New York helped her pick out. She showed us a picture of the little girl who will be in her wedding. She had pretty red hair tied back in a satin ribbon and freckles. Her face was round and pretty, and she was wearing a long, creamy dress with satin ribbons woven throughout the hem and satin ribbons falling from the puffy short sleeves. “That’s Chloe, my goddaughter,” my half sister said. I’d like to be someone’s goddaughter, I thought. But I don’t think I am.
RIGHT NOW I’M ON THE DOCK, AND I’VE ALREADY USED up too many pages of my sketchbook, so I’ve decided to divide each page into fours and draw quarter-page pictures. I hear the screen door screeching and shutting behind me, and I see my half sister coming out now with her own sketchbook.
Charlie is fishing on his own now. She got him a little rod his size at Target and some fresh bait and tackle. She even asked Skeeter if she could use his boat and she took us out to a spot she said our daddy used to call the honey hole. And that our daddy used to blindfold his fishing buddies before he took them there. That made Charlie laugh and, later, daydream. She told us not to tell anyone where it is. Except maybe Skeeter or Jed in case they take us fishing after she leaves.
“Of course I know you won’t, Etta.” She winked at me. Even though she is not with us, she understands that I am the secret keeper. I like her for that.
“CAN I JOIN YOU?” SHE PULLS A PLASTIC CHAIR OVER NEXT to mine and flips back the pages of her sketchbook. Last night, when Julia was taking a shower, Heath and I snuck into her room and flipped through her pad to see what she has been drawing each night. There was one of my sister and brother and me at the dinner table at Jed’s, there was one of an egg being held up to the light, there was one of Heath reading a book, one of Skeeter helping Charlie bait a line, one of Phydeaux walking with Charlie down the dirt road. Also, there was one of me opening the door of my dad’s shed and looking back. I was wearing my white nightgown and my rain boots.
Now I nod and keep drawing. My sketch is of the afternoon sun on the creek and the marsh. I am working on the oak tree
whose limbs lean out over the water, casting long shadows. They are like the fingers of a giant old man. My half sister begins to draw the tree too, but she puts it more toward the center, not to the side like me.
I put my pad down and watch her. Her hands are nimble like mine and they are strong too. I like the way she holds the pencil, close to the tip, but loose. Every now and then she rests it between her index and middle finger when she needs to stop and stare.
“The light is changing quickly,” she says with her head toward the creek.
I look at her. She is concentrating. Trying to take a picture of it all with her mind before she goes back to the pad. I have a lot of pictures in my mind. Sometimes I can’t help but draw them. If they are about the enemy or about the light one, I hide them. For now. Because the enemy scares me. And the light one scares the others. He is like a basin of sunlight, and some people are frightened by so much brightness.
TONIGHT JULIA IS GOING TO MARY ELLEN BENNETT’S house for supper. She has bought two frozen pizzas for us and made a big salad. We are going to stay at Glenda and Skeeter’s while she goes to town. Honestly, I wish we were going to Mary Ellen Bennett’s too. I have never met her, but I know that she is Julia’s mama and that means that my father must have been married to her. Also, Julia’s sister, Meg, will be there with her family. Meg is also my half sister, and I have met her before, but only once when she wanted to meet with my mama after Daddy’s funeral. She made Mama cry, so I don’t want to see her very much.
I want Mama to come home. I miss her, her smell, her voice when she reads us stories, her touch on my shoulder, the way she playfully tugs the end of my hair when I am drawing. But I wish Julia could stay too. I wish she could teach Mama about the cooking and the fishing and the cleaning up.
When Mama comes back we won’t see Skeeter or Glenda or Jed. Mama likes to keep to herself. I think it’s because of the enemies. And I can understand that. But I will miss seeing our neighbors. I’m not so lonely when I see them. And it is nice to be around a man like Skeeter who is older and who knew my daddy.
In two days Brooke, our babysitter, will be here. Brooke is fun and makes us laugh. She can make Coca-Cola squirt through her nose, she can make her tattoo of a butterfly dance when she flexes her arm muscle, she gives Phydeaux long belly rubs, and she takes us to the beach to look for shells or to the park to shoot the basketball. Plus, she can bake brownies from a box. The brownies make the whole house smell sweet and that makes Charlie smile. He is already talking about the brownies.
MY HALF SISTER HAS TALKED TO JED TWICE DURING OUR trips to the post office. He asked if he could come to dinner at Mary Ellen Bennett’s and she said yes, then her face turned pink.
I do miss Aunt Dot, who also reads to us. She reads to us from the book about God and the basin of light. That’s my favorite book. And when I read it, I feel like I am somebody’s goddaughter. Glenda says Aunt Dot will be out of the hospital in a week, and as soon as she is able, she will come and visit us.
Now Julia shows me her sketch, and I show her mine.
“Nice,” she says. “I really like the shadow of the limbs on the water. You’ve captured the light.”
I try not to grin too hard. I look down at the floorboards of the dock. I can see all the way down to the water and to the poles driven into the pluff mud and to the little white barnacles climbing up them.
“Have you ever taken art lessons, Etta?”
I shake my head no.
Then my half sister crinkles her eyebrows like she does when she is getting an idea. She shakes her head slowly as if she is nodding yes to herself. Then she looks at her watch. And then over to Charlie, who is waiting for a bite, and then to Heath, who is laying out in her bathing suit on a towel reading The Fellowship of the Ring.
“Well, we need to take a shower and head on over to Glenda and Skeeter’s. If I don’t see my mother before I leave, she will be very upset.”
Heath stands and Charlie reels in the line. When they reach us, Charlie points to Julia’s sketchbook and says, “Etta said you only draw shapes.”
My half sister looks at me and winks. She knows I know stuff about her, but she doesn’t seem to mind.
“I do, Charlie.” She holds up the sketchbook so he can see her drawing of the tree. “But I used to draw pictures like this all of the time when I lived out here, and it feels good to do that again.”
Charlie nods his head as if he is satisfied with her answer and hands her the rod, which she rests on the railing.
Heath flips her thick brown hair back. Her olive skin is getting tan now, and the bumps on her face are better. She looks like she is a little more of a woman than a girl every day. Usually she doesn’t like that and hides herself. But today she looks proud. She smiles and holds back her shoulders and cocks her head. She won’t say it, but I can tell she likes Julia too. She has brought some sunlight with her, and I hope it will not go when she leaves.
CHAPTER 18
Julia
Julia changed her outfit three times. How absurd, she thought to herself as she put lipstick on for the first time all week, but she did it nonetheless. She had started with a yellow sundress with little red wildflowers, one she bought on a whim without even trying it on the other day when they were in Target. She had been sweating like a pig in her jeans and long-sleeve shirts, and she needed a few light things to wear around the house as the temperature climbed to the low nineties. The dress felt a little too young for her—the thin straps and the flouncyness of the skirt. It was like something her students might wear, so she changed. Next she put on her well-worn traveling jeans and a taupe tunic that went with everything, but she was burning up by the time she dried her hair—the air-conditioning was barely limping by in the old cottage—so she went back to the sundress and a pair of old gladiator sandals she’d stuffed in her luggage as an afterthought when she was packing for Budapest last week. She grabbed a red gauzy shawl from her bag and tied it around her shoulders. Then she pulled her hair up into a French twist and put on some drop pearl earrings her mother had given her a few Christmases ago.
After getting a pizza and salad ready, tracking down Etta in the woods, and then convincing Charlie to change out of his filthy, polyester Spider-Man costume into a clean pair of shorts and a T-shirt, Julia finally loaded the kids in the car.
She glanced at her phone as they pulled out of the dirt driveway in her little red rental car. Three messages waiting for her, two from Glenda and one from Jed, but she wouldn’t be able to listen to them until she got over the bridge where she could get reception. She’d see Glenda in a moment anyhow.
They were all perspiring so she turned her little rental car’s AC on full blast and they fought for a cool stream of air as she pulled out onto Peters Point Creek Road and then back down the next driveway into Glenda and Skeeter’s.
As the sand and gravel crunched beneath the tires while the kids shoved one another back and forth, she noticed that the house looked awfully quiet. She had half-expected Skeeter to be out on the dock getting some lines ready for Charlie. As she pulled up to the front door, she looked back to the kids. “Let me go make sure everything is okay.”
“Just keep the air on,” said Heath as Etta nodded.
“Let me sit in the middle, Jewel-a!” Charlie said.
“I’ll be back in just a minute.” Julia left the car running and closed the door. The air was thick, thicker than syrup, and she slowly made her way up the stairs to the house.
When she knocked on the door, Glenda opened it, a little hunched over and looking rather green. She was in her nightgown and slippers. “Oh, Julia, I left you a couple of messages.” She leaned on the doorway and held her gut. “That stomach bug that’s been going around at the PO has hit us both over the last two hours. It’s an ugly one. They say it came from the cruise ships in Charleston, but I don’t know.” She cleared her throat. “Anyway, I don’t think we can keep the kids, and I would hate for y’all to get this. Especially you before you
head out on Saturday.”
Julia backed away from the door. She did not want to be yacking on an international flight. “Okay. I hope you feel better. Let me know if you need anything from town.”
“I will, child,” Glenda said, then she closed the door quickly and padded away.
Julia hopped back in the car and turned to look at the children in the backseat. Both Etta and Charlie were peeking beneath the tinfoil-wrapped pizza on Heath’s lap.
“Well,” she said. “I’m not sure what to do.”
“What’s wrong?” Heath pulled the pizza away from them and gave them a stern look.
“Glenda and Skeeter are sick. They’ve got a bad stomach bug.”
Charlie screwed up his nose. “Yuck,” he said.
Etta’s eyes were wide. She looked nervous and Julia wanted to put them all at ease. She exhaled and wrinkled her brow. Then she looked each of them in the eye one at a time. “How do you all feel about going to my mother’s house with me?”
Heath shrugged her shoulders. “Fine by me.” She held up her book. “I’ll be fine.”
Charlie’s eyes lit up. “What food does she have? You think she’ll have a cake?”
Etta looked down at her long, narrow fingers. Then she rubbed her palms on her legs.
“Etta, are you okay with that?”
She nodded slowly to her knees.
“Well, I’m not even sure if that is what will happen. I have to call my mama and ask her, but let’s head on over the bridge and figure out what’s next.”
JULIA PULLED OVER AT THE HESS STATION IN HOLLYWOOD and left the kids in the car with both the radio and the air-conditioning on. Halfway down the road she had given in to Charlie’s request for a slice of pizza, and he had already smeared his white T-shirt with tomato sauce.
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