She managed to keep the secret under wraps her entire freshman year, though her father had already moved all of his belongings out of the Savage Street house by Christmas, leaving her mother needy and wringing her hands. By Easter her mother informed her that he had filed for divorce.
During this time, Meg learned how to put on a mask, and she busied herself with building friendships, heading up sorority committees, putting enough work into her academic life to get above-average grades, procuring a fine wardrobe, and exercising constantly so that she looked fantastic at all of the socials she attended on Preston’s arm.
It wasn’t until the news of Marney’s pregnancy her senior year that she had to come clean. Her father was living with a woman half his age, and they were starting a second family.
Meg could remember her father showing up outside of her dorm room one October afternoon. He had driven the three hours to Wofford to break the news to her, sitting on her bed with his bushy, unkempt eyebrows furrowed in a look of concern.
“Marney’s expecting, and we’re getting married,” he had said. “I’m sorry, Meg.” He reached across the room to her, and she stepped back. “I didn’t plan for it to turn out this way,” he continued, his thick, tanned arm outstretched, his hands seeking her approval.
“You’re a selfish oaf.” She had stepped back and stared down on him in disgust. “An idiotic narcissist. And I can’t believe I got stuck with you for a father.”
He had dropped his arm and exhaled heavily. When she wouldn’t return his gaze, he looked up at the ceiling of her dorm room, his brown eyes filling with water. “You’re right, Meg.” Then he looked back to her and their eyes met. “Everything you’ve said about me is true.”
“Leave,” she’d said, and he’d shaken his head before standing and shuffling to the door. Before she swung it open, she leaned against it and faced him. “You better provide for me until I get married, Dad. It’s the least you can do.”
He had nodded. “Of course I will.”
Marney had lost that first baby, and for a few years Meg thought maybe that would be the end of it all. That they would split and he would come back to her mother. But when the woman announced her second pregnancy the same month Preston proposed to Meg, she knew that would never happen. And she would have to face her family shame at her own wedding when Marney showed up at the ceremony, bursting at the seams with her father’s child in her womb, as the old ladies clucked and the bridesmaids whispered and giggled.
Now Meg listened to the crickets whose incessant calls were filling the night: Loved. Loved. Loved. And she realized how very worn out she was. How exhausting it was to wear her masks, to build her reputation, to prove to the world day in and day out that even though her parents were fools, she was not. She was a responsible, morally upstanding citizen. She could be counted on. She was worthy of admiration. She would not shame her husband or falter in any way. She had the blessed life, and she would not squander it.
Or would she?
Now Preston was snoring so loudly in the den that she could hear him outside. It was a familiar sound, a comforting sound, and she felt sad that her pain was wearing him down. But how could she help herself?
She uncurled her legs, turned off the porch light, and walked up the stairs to the den where she shook his knee until he roused, cut off the remote, and followed her to bed.
As she checked on each of her children before she tucked herself in beside her husband, pulling her clean white sheets beneath her chin, she replayed the horrid events of the evening in her mind, and then she replayed Preston’s charge: “You were loved. You were loved. You were loved.”
It’s funny what the adult brain pulls up from childhood. There are certain seemingly insignificant moments that are forever seared in the memory. Perhaps children are interpreting the events correctly, but usually they can’t understand the full context. She had read once that children were the best recorders and the worst interpreters, and she supposed that was true.
Meg often recalled the first time she and her father went sailing down Store Creek in the 420 he had bought for her the Christmas after she won the Junior Sailing Award at the Yacht Club. She was ten years old, and she had beaten out Preston Rutledge, who had won the last two years, as well as Tricia Simons, who had won the annual Junior Regatta that July.
Her dad had been a great sailor in his youth too, winning several awards and even sailing on the College of Charleston team, and he was delighted that she enjoyed the sport. Together, they had tied the sails and put the boat in the water, and he took his place by the jib sail and followed her directions as they drifted out into the creek, tacking left and then right into the wind as it carried them toward St. Pierre Creek.
“You make a great skipper,” he had said after she yelled, “Tack!” and let out the main sheet, then ducked beneath the boom. He popped back up once the main sheet was steady again and he watched her until she met his proud gaze.
“You make a good crew member,” she had responded as she held tight to the tiller extension and steered them to the right of a motorboat.
After the passing boat’s wake faded, he reached over and patted her back. “We make a good team, you and me.”
“We do,” she had beamed back at him as the wind pushed them out into the waterway. She couldn’t stop smiling as she held tight to the tiller and mainsheet, calling out the next instruction. To have her father’s attention, to have him proud of her accomplishments, her skill, her independence. That was her true desire. To feel his love, to know that he wanted to build her up and to be a part of something she was good at, something they both loved—it was pure joy.
My dad and I make a good crew, she had thought as they made their way out to the bay, tacking left then right, the warm air filling the sails. She believed this. It was her truth. And she held it like a prized possession close to her heart until that day seven years later when he disproved it right before her teenage eyes, exposed it for the lie that he must have always quietly known that it was.
CHAPTER 23
Etta
The oldest brother did it. Preston. Not that you had any doubt, but just in case you had a shadow of one. Charlie kept jumping in front of him in the game, hitting the heavy, colored balls through the wired domes without waiting for everyone else.
“Just let him play around,” the other brother, the younger one who smiled at me, had said. It was what I would have said too.
When Charlie hit one of Preston’s balls, one of the blue ones, while Preston was looking the other way, his face puffed with anger once he turned back and realized what had happened. Then he jumped right in front of my brother and said, “My turn!” With that, he swung the club back hard and clocked Charlie right on his forehead, a little left of the center, so hard I could hear the knock of club on bone. It was no accident.
“What are you doing?” the younger brother hollered to Preston as I ran to Charlie, who had fallen on his rump and was stunned into silence himself, the way one is just after a bee sting or a fall from a swing that leaves you winded.
“It’s okay,” I whispered to him. But this was before he had fully inhaled or let down his hand from his forehead to see the blood. It scared me, both the blood and his silence, and he saw the fear in my eyes and that’s when he drew in one large breath and shrieked a horrible shriek, then stood up and started running around in circles.
The grown-ups showed up quick after that, and Julia protected me from an enemy as she held my brother in her arms and stopped the blood from coming so fast. Heath and I followed her directions on the way to the hospital, and we took turns holding a bloody napkin on Charlie’s forehead in the emergency room as Julia filled out the papers on a clipboard and insisted that the doctor see us as quickly as possible.
Two nights have passed and Charlie seems fine now as we sit on the little spit of land that shows up in the center of our creek at low tide. We are all in our bathing suits and life jackets swimming around and throwing chicken nec
ks into the murky water where almost always one or two blue crabs is on the other end nibbling as we carefully pull them out. Jed will be here soon to collect all of the crabs. He’s making us supper tonight.
Tomorrow Julia leaves, and I feel uneasy about her leaving. She spent the last two days recleaning the house, washing the sheets and clothes and towels, cleaning out and restocking the refrigerator, and running the vacuum cleaner. She changed Phydeaux’s collar and still has not let him back inside, though Charlie snuck him onto the porch a few times. She also made us pick up our rooms and clean out our drawers and refold all of our clothes. Julia helped Charlie with this, but Heath and I were on our own. Heath hemmed and hawed about it at first, but by the end of the day yesterday we all felt better. Our rooms haven’t been this clean since one of the enemies came by to inspect a few years ago. It feels good to put things in order.
Last night Heath came into my room to see how I was coming along. “Let’s try and keep it this way,” she said.
I nodded, and she walked up to me and rubbed my back. We are both eager to see Mama again. And we are excited to see Brooke too. But we are both going to miss Julia. She is part of our family, after all, even though she does not like my mama and would do anything in the world to avoid her.
Yesterday Julia called her old art teacher and told her about me, and she left a note with a check and the woman’s number and e-mail address. She wants me to have some private lessons at the local arts school if Mama says it’s okay. She also wants me to send her a copy of my work after I have the lessons because she wants to see my progress.
“Do you think you will be Etta’s art teacher one day?” Charlie asked last night as we played go fish on the porch after supper.
Heath looked up from her hand to correct him. “Art professor.”
“Maybe,” Julia said and winked at me.
I looked down at my hand of cards and smiled.
NOW AS I THROW MY CHICKEN NECK OUT INTO THE DARK water, I can’t help but think of Mary Ellen Bennett’s house and how beautiful it was, like a scene in a book or a movie. Everything was fancy and neat and there were a lot of paintings framed in gold and a lot of photographs of Julia and her sister when they were younger. There was even one with Daddy in it. He had his arms around his daughters, and he looked very happy and very proud and very strong. His hair wasn’t all the way white like it was when I knew him, and his middle wasn’t quite so wide.
And then there was the garden where the awful croquet game took place. The garden was a lot like how I picture The Secret Garden because there were stone walls on two sides and walls of thick green bushes on the other two. There weren’t roses in the garden the way there are in the story, but the scent of roses was strong in the air. I peeked through the bushes and found some next door, several bushes in a kind of maze of seashells and bricks.
My dad’s first family in his first home must have been a lot different than my family. They must have had a clean, ordered life with good health and good food and perhaps no enemies. I guess I am a little jealous of Julia. She had Daddy all the way until she grew up. And she didn’t have to see him go. I wonder why.
I guess the sunlight man knows the answer. Or maybe even Aunt Dot.
“Are you feeling okay, Etta?” Julia says to me now. She walks over and puts the back of her hand on my forehead. “You look awfully pale.”
Come to think of it my stomach does feel like it’s twisting itself up, but I think it’s because some sand got in the peanut butter and banana sandwiches we brought to the island for lunch.
Julia hands me a bottle of water. “Drink some of this. We’re going to pack up and head home in a little while.”
Just as she says this, we see a boat coming around the bend in the creek. The man driving it has on shades and a T-shirt and a bathing suit that’s navy blue with white tropical flowers on it so I hardly know who he is at first. Then I see that it’s Jed in his little Boston Whaler.
“Hey there!” Julia waves to him.
“How’s it going?” he says as he circles back and throws his anchor.
Julia rubs my back. “Okay,” she says, looking at me. “I think.”
“Okay?” Charlie hollers at Julia as if she’s just made the understatement of the century. “It’s going great, Jed!” He tries to lift up the bucket to show him our catch. He can’t do it so Heath goes over to help him. We must have caught at least twelve blue crabs plus there are a lot more in the trap by the dock. I can hear the little creatures clacking their claws together as Jed anchors the boat and hops out where he momentarily loses a flip-flop in the pluff mud.
“Impressive, little man.” Jed finds his shoe, slides his large foot in it, and walks over to the bucket to take a look inside. He raises his eyebrows. “Extremely impressive.”
Then he bends down with his hands on his knees, takes off his sunglasses, and lets them fall so that the rope he has tied around his neck catches them. “Let me take a look at that head of yours.”
Julia leaves my side for a moment and stands by Jed, who begins to examine Charlie’s forehead, looks up at her, and then back to Charlie again.
Jed looks at Julia as if he could eat her up, but he tries to hide it. Julia’s cheeks are turning a little pink so she lowers her sun hat and takes on a more serious, teacherly look.
Now Jed puts both of his thumbs on Charlie’s forehead, concentrating now, and turns his chin up toward the light. It looks a whole lot better than it did two days ago. The swelling has gone down and Julia has had him dunk it in the salty water of the creek twice a day and let the sun dry it. She says that’s what she had to do once when she cut her shin real bad on an oyster bed as a kid at Edisto, and it worked.
Jed looks Charlie in the eye, puts his hands on his little shoulders, and smiles. “Doesn’t look bad at all.” He turns to Julia now. “I don’t even think it’s going to leave a mark.”
Charlie smiles back and puffs up his suntanned chest. I can tell he feels good being around a fellow man, a big man, a man who knows how to examine gashes and how to predict how they will heal and how to cut diseases out of people. He shakes his head and then runs over to grab another chicken neck. “Want to try?”
“Sure,” Jed says. “I haven’t done this since I was a kid.”
Jed ties the rope to the neck and then to a stick and tosses it out in the water. A few minutes later he is reeling it in, and he obviously forgot how to pick a blue crab up because he goes right for the back and gets pinched pretty bad on that tender little flap of skin between his thumb and forefinger.
“Son of a—!” he hollers and shakes his hand until the creature lets go.
“Let me show you how to do it,” Charlie says, and he strides after the large blue crab, grabs him by his last set of hind legs so that his pinchers are facing out, holds it up to Jed, and then drops it in the bucket.
Everyone laughs, especially Julia.
“All right,” Jed says. “You’re showing me up today, big man. Let me have another go at it.”
“Go ahead.” Charlie beams, and then he and Jed stand side by side, reeling in one crab after the next as my stomach really starts to cramp.
“You don’t feel good, do you?” Julia walks back over to me. I hold my stomach and shake my head.
Jed notices what’s going on. “Let me give y’all a ride back to the dock.”
“That would be great,” Julia says. Then we gather up our towels and cooler and bucket and nets and hooks pretty quickly, and Jed goes over to the boat and holds out his hand and helps us all in one by one before driving us quickly back to our dock.
On the way back, I can’t hold it any longer and lean over the side of the boat and lose my lunch.
“Ew!” Charlie hollers. Then he leans toward me. “Whatever you do, don’t get it on the crabs, Etta!”
“Shut up, Charlie,” Heath says. “I don’t feel so good either,” she tells Julia.
“Uh-oh.” Julia turns to Jed, who is sucking on his wound between his
forefinger and thumb.
“Might be that Norovirus that’s going around—the one Skeeter and Glenda had.”
“Oh dear.” Julia holds back my hair with one hand and rubs my back with the other. By the time we get to the dock, Heath is losing her lunch too as Charlie covers the bucket of crabs with a towel and rests his body over it.
Jed stays outside with Charlie, and they hose off the boat as Julia gets us both inside and takes us to the two different bathrooms. She pulls back my hair into a ponytail and tells me it’s okay as I lean over the toilet, feeling a little bad about messing it up after she’s just scrubbed it clean. After I don’t think there is any more to come, Julia helps me to my bed and then she helps Heath to her bed too.
I hear her as she goes outside and asks Jed if he will go to the store to get some ginger ale and saltine crackers and Pepto-Bismol.
“Can I come?” Charlie asks, jumping up and down.
“Sure, sport. Then you can help me clean the crabs.”
“I don’t think we’re going to be able to do dinner. Glenda said this was a pretty violent twenty-four-hour bug.”
“No problem,” Jed said. “Maybe I can bring some over to you after Charlie and I rustle it up.”
“Okay,” she said, and within the half hour I can hear Jed’s voice again.
“Another one down, Julia,” he calls from the screen door. Julia comes running out, picks up Charlie, and races him to the bathroom. Now I can hear Heath snoring in the next room as I curl myself up into a ball under my sheets and hope that the fist squeezing my belly will decide to release it soon.
“I’ll check in a little later,” I hear Jed say.
“Okay,” Julia says. “Thanks for helping.” And in a few minutes his Rover is pulling out of the dirt driveway and Julia is delivering little cups of ginger ale to each of us.
Moon Over Edisto Page 17
