However, Meg had noticed. She was on her way to change out of her wedding dress into the strapless linen sundress for her grand departure on Preston’s family yacht where the guests would shower the couple with pale pink rose petals as they ran down the dock and onto the grand boat. They would tour the harbor and eat a private dinner on the bow beneath the light of the moon before starting their European honeymoon.
Then Meg pictured Marney as an eighteen-year-old college freshman—in cutoff jeans and a bikini top and a frayed Georgia Bulldogs baseball hat—hopping in Meg’s sailboat with an orange Fanta and saying, “You can drive this by yourself?”
Meg had nodded, proud to show her independence to such an older, cooler, womanly college student. “Yep,” she had said as she shoved off from the dock, looking back to her mother and Julia who were waving to them as they headed out toward St. Pierre Creek.
“That’s really cool,” Marney had said. Then she offered Meg a sip of her Fanta, which Meg took for a moment as she told Marney to take hold of the main sheet rope. Meg took a large swig and handed it back to the girl who smiled and took off her hat and leaned back with her thick, dark mane nearly touching the water, the summer sun showering her face with its light. Will I be that beautiful someday? Meg had asked herself as she watched Marney soaking up the brightness. How she had hoped she would.
“MEG? ARE YOU THERE?”
Margaret, she thought to herself, but she didn’t correct her mother.
“I’m here, Mother.” And then the words floated up from that same place in her gut. As if in response to it. “What can I do to help?”
“Oh, I was hoping you’d ask,” her mother said. “I’m in Penn Station right now. We can’t get a train out until tomorrow morning.”
“Can you stay with Julia?”
“Well, yes, Bess can put us both up. She’s got a couple of extra bedrooms, but Julia’s not even here.”
“Where is she?”
“She’s in Charleston, love.”
“Three days before her wedding? This is crazy.”
“I know,” her mother said. “I don’t know exactly what’s going on, but she asked me to plan the funeral reception, and since it will be a day and a half before I get home . . .”
“I’ll take care of it.” The words kept working their way up from the gut and out of Meg’s mouth before she realized what she was saying. Her family Christmas party, the pageant rehearsal, the trip to the Greenbriar they had planned just after Christmas, it would all need to be canceled, but it would be all right. Everything needed to be put on hold. She could be a help to Julia and Aunt Dot. And she wanted to.
“Oh, darling,” her mother said. “I was hoping you’d say that. Are you sure? I know how much you have going on this time of year.”
Meg brushed the tears away. “I’m sure, Mama. I want to do this.”
“All right.” She heard her mother exhale deeply, and Meg pulled out her notebook for the planning.
“Now, I think we need to order some finger sandwiches from Hamby’s,” her mother instructed.
“Chicken salad and pimiento cheese?”
“Precisely.”
“Done,” Meg said. “And I’ll make the tomato aspic and marinate some shrimp.”
“Wonderful,” her mother said. “And would you mind ordering some mini coconut cakes from Normandy Farms? I remember that was her favorite.”
“No problem.”
“Oh, thank you, darling. I don’t expect there to be more than two dozen people, but I want it to be nice.”
“Me too,” said Meg as she turned to find her daughter, dressed as an angel with soft feathery wings and a white dress and a gold tinsel halo, behind her.
She held up her finger to indicate that she’d be just a minute, and the girl lifted up her dress to reveal two skinned knees.
“And I’ll make some sweet tea and get Preston to handle the bar and bring some large bags of ice,” Meg continued.
“I hope Dot’s silver is in good condition. She’s not the best polisher, you know.”
“Well,” Meg said, “I’ll bring some of mine and you can bring some of yours so we should be fine.”
“You’re right.” The roar in the background grew. “I’m out on the street now,” her mother said. “I’m leaving it all in your hands, Meg. I’ll be home late tomorrow night.”
“Consider it done,” Meg said.
“I will,” her mother said.
“Oh, and, Mother? Do you need Preston to pick you up at the train station?”
“Yes,” she said. “We get in tomorrow at nine p.m.”
“He’ll be there.” Meg hung up the phone and turned to her little heavenly host. “What happened?”
“I fell down on my way to the bathroom.”
Meg sifted through her purse and pulled out two Band-Aids and some Neosporin ointment.
The little girl stepped closer and hiked up her gown, and Meg cleaned her up before looking into her full cheeks.
“You’ve had a rough day, haven’t you, sweet pea?”
The little girl nodded.
“I’m so sorry.” Meg opened her arms and her child stepped inside of them and hugged her mother.
“Thank you, Mama,” Katherine said as Meg blinked back the tears and held her child tight.
“I better get back to the rehearsal,” Katherine said as Meg pulled back and kissed her daughter’s cheek before standing up.
“C’mon.” She reached out her hand, which her daughter gently took. “I’ll walk you back, and I’ll stay with you.”
CHAPTER 37
Julia
They buried Marney at noon three days later. It was the Saturday Julia was scheduled to marry Simon. She had called him the day she met with Marney for the last time and told him what she had decided. And then she called the dean of the fine arts department at Hunter College and explained why she would have to resign.
The dean was dumbfounded, and Simon was somewhere between outraged and distressed.
“You can’t throw it all away.” He flew down the day she told him and sat with her on Aunt Dot’s front porch steps as the cars whizzed down Broad Street. “It’s your whole life.” He had taken her hand and made her meet his gaze. “And our future, Julia.”
“I can.” Julia squeezed his hand back and let it go, returning it to his knee. “I’m sorry for the pain I’ve caused you, Simon. I’m really sorry.”
He studied her face as if she were a horrible mystery. “You’re not going to be persuaded, are you?”
She shook her head gently, then carefully pulled the sapphire off of her finger. He opened his hand to receive it and exhaled deeply, holding it up to the afternoon light before calling a cab to take him back to the airport.
As she watched him leave, curling his long body up into the small Prius taxi, she knew he thought she had lost her mind, but she wasn’t bothered by that. She had made a sacred promise to Marney. And in a way, she felt that her entire life had been leading to this moment. To shrink back now would be to deny the unusual charge to which she had somehow been called.
Her mother and Nate spent one night at Bess’s, then took the morning train back to Charleston, where they spent the next day helping Meg and Preston prepare for the reception at Aunt Dot’s house while Julia took the children to the aquarium. They spent several hours wandering through the dark corridors peering into windows of jellyfish and sea horses and watching the fish and the sharks and the sea turtles in the enormous two-story tank glide round and round.
The burial was at Magnolia Cemetery in the Bennett family plot next to her father’s headstone and below the headstones of Julia’s paternal grandparents. Only a handful of people were there to say their good-byes: Skeeter and Glenda, Jane Ann Thornton, a few neighbors from Edisto, Brooke, the babysitter, Meg and Preston, some nurses from hospice and MUSC, and, of course, Jed.
Julia’s mama and Meg set up the reception at Dot’s house. Jed helped them in the kitchen. Then he and Nate threw the
football with Charlie in the backyard when the little boy grew restless from all of the whispers and the clinking of silver on china.
Marney had made all of the arrangements. She had drafted a will last summer with an old attorney friend of Julia’s dad’s, citing that Julia would be the one to raise the children.
“She knew you would,” Aunt Dot said when she explained it to her the evening after Marney’s passing. “She believed you would. It was like a kind of faith she possessed. She put all her hope in it.” Aunt Dot patted her hand. “And she was right.”
In the three short days between Marney’s passing and the funeral, Julia had figured out what homeschooling curriculum the kids were using and she had ordered the updated materials. She would teach them through the spring and enroll them in school in the fall. And she had an interview at the fine arts magnet school for the visual arts director position. “You’re a shoo-in,” her former art teacher (who was retiring from the school this year) had said. “They’d be crazy not to take you.”
THE NIGHT OF THE BURIAL, AFTER THE CHILDREN were put to bed and the silver trays were washed and set on the drying rack, Jed took Julia’s hand. He pulled her out onto the piazza where he lifted her chin up in the moonlight and kissed her tenderly.
She pulled back and caught her breath. “That was unexpected.” Then she couldn’t keep herself from falling back into his sturdy arms. She felt so very vulnerable. As vulnerable as the kids, perhaps, and scared. And while she knew she could count up her times with Jed over the last two decades on one hand, she was sure he was someone she could be vulnerable with. Be honest with.
“No, it wasn’t,” he said as he embraced her tightly. “You knew it was coming. And you also know I’ve been waiting twenty-five years to do it again.”
She smiled through her tears and pulled back.
“I meant what I said, Julia.” He gazed at her with his soft brown eyes. “I want to help you raise these kids. And I want to court you too. And I know that’s a whole different event, and I’m willing to wait for you until you’re ready.” He rubbed her back with his large strong hands and continued, “And if for some reason you don’t think we’re right for one another, I’ll understand. I don’t want to push you. All I want to do is help and be a part of your life. No matter what.”
She felt her heart pounding in her chest. And even though it was an unseasonably chilly night in Charleston with a low of thirty-five degrees, she felt warmer than she’d felt in a long time. As if there was a kind of heat radiating from her core, knocking off the chill and all the years of sadness she’d become so accustomed to lugging around.
“Why not?” she said. “This has been a year full of unexpected turns, but the truth is I feel more at home and at peace than I ever have.” She squeezed his arms. “I just want to do right by the kids. I want to raise them well. I always wanted a family of my own, and I guess this is the one I have now.”
“It is,” Jed said as he leaned down and kissed her once more. The warmth between them grew so strong she had to pull away and say good night.
“I’m heading out to Edisto this coming weekend,” he said as he stepped down the steps toward his car. “Can I cook you all dinner on Friday night? And maybe wet a line with Charlie on Saturday?”
“Yes,” she said. She cocked her head and tried to contain her grin. “That sounds great.” And then she closed the door and stepped back into Aunt Dot’s old house, which had hardly changed at all since her childhood. She turned off each lamp, gathered up the few linen napkins from the reception that had been crumpled up and discarded around the living room, and put them in the laundry room. Then she took off her pumps and padded up the stairs to check on each child. Both Heath and Charlie were sound asleep, cocooned in their thick comforters, but Etta was up with the bedside lamp on, drawing, and when Julia tapped on the door, the girl pulled the sketchbook to her chest and looked longingly at her big half sister.
Julia came in and sat on her bed and patted her legs beneath the covers.
“We’ll pack up tomorrow and head home to Edisto, okay?”
The girl nodded gently.
“I know your heart is broken, Etta,” Julia whispered as the child continued to meet her gaze. “But I’ll be here for you, sweetheart. If and when you’re ready to talk, I’ll listen.”
Etta nodded as she bit her rosy bottom lip. Then she stood and plopped down into Julia’s lap, curling up each long and gangly limb of hers until she was a tight ball, a ball just the right size to nuzzle into Julia’s chest. Julia held her this way, tightly, for a long time as she rubbed her knobby back and rocked her back and forth on the end of the bed. When she felt the child’s breathing slow and then turn to a light snore, she lifted Etta up and laid her on the old mattress where she tucked her tightly beneath the covers.
Then, before she turned out the light, she lifted up the sketchbook so that Etta wouldn’t crumple it in her sleep, and as she instinctively turned it over, she saw an image of a bowl with light emanating from it, ray upon ray shooting out far and wide to the ends of the page and beyond.
As Julia stared at the rays, she was struck with a knowledge that though there was much mourning ahead for each of these children, they would be all right. They would get through it. And she would be all right too. And the unlikely family they would form would provide healing and strength for one another, and most of all, a place for this light to grow. Then she uttered as she did when there was nothing more to say, Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. And she leaned down and kissed Etta on the forehead before pulling down on the metal string of the old lamp.
READING GROUP GUIDE
1. Do you think Marney was a good mother? Why or why not?
2. Main characters need to be capable of change. Trace the journeys of Julia, Mary Ellen, and Margaret (Meg). In what ways have each of them changed by the end of the story?
3. This novel is told from several different points of view. What do Etta and Jed’s perspectives add to the story?
4. Painting plays an important role in the novel. How do the images Julia and Etta paint mirror their inner struggles and/ or reveal their hearts?
5. When Julia returns to Edisto for the first time, in what way does the setting itself soften her outer shell? How can nature impact our lives? How can it shed light on our confusion and push us out of our grief?
6. Etta, the secret keeper, has a condition called selected mutism. What do you think brought about this condition? Is it healthy or unhealthy? Explain.
7. The idea for this novel was sparked by a question: What would be the most difficult thing to forgive someone for? Can you come up with some scenarios that would be nearly impossible to forgive?
8. Do you think Julia forgives her father and Marney by the end of the story? Should she forgive them?
9. Consider the impact Aunt Dot has on the characters in the story, especially Julia and Etta. In what ways has she helped them along their journeys?
10. Imagine the characters five years from now. What do their lives look like?
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Once again, I am thankful to my editor, Ami McConnell, my copy editor, Rachelle Gardner, and my agent, Claudia Cross, whose literary skill and support made this novel possible. And thanks to the Thomas Nelson fiction team: Allen Arnold, Daisy Hutton, Katie Bond, Becky Monds, Ruthie Dean, and Jodi Hughes. You make it all happen.
If I were to make a list of the folks who have taught, encouraged, and shepherded me along the way, it would take up several pages. Here are just a few of the names that would be on that list: Joe and Betty Jelks, James and Peggy McKinney, Jim and Libby Johnson, Al and Elizabeth Zadig, Peet and Jenny Dickinson, Rick and Annie Belser, Jean and Johnnie Corbett, Tim and Kathy Keller, Hamilton Smith, John and Carolyn Pelletier, Meghan Alexander, Bret Lott, Kelli Hample, Jeannie Lyles, Amy Watson Smith, Karen Turner, Meredith Myers, Elisabeth Hunter, Rachel Temple, Avery Smith, Rene Miles, Rachel Barrett Trangmar, and Evie Cristou. Thank you.
I’m gra
teful to the belles I blog with at www.southernbelleview.com: Lisa Wingate, Marybeth Whalen, Rachel Hauck, and Shellie Tomlinson. Sharing conversation, stories, and life with you on the cyber porch each week is a downright delight.
Thanks also to the booksellers who hand-sell the stories every day, especially Jill Hendrix at Fiction Addiction in Greenville, SC, Jonathan Sanchez at Blue Bicycle Books in Charleston, SC, Tom Warner at Litchfield Books in Pawleys Island, SC, Christine Meredith at Saints Alive in Charleston, SC, and Karen Carter at the Edisto Bookstore on Edisto Island, SC.
My deepest gratitude goes to my husband, Edward, and to my children, Frances and Edward. Your love has made all of the difference.
And most of all, thanks to the One who continually transplants my heart. We’ve clocked a lot of hours in the operating room together. You are my lifeblood.
AN EXCERPT FROM LOVE, CHARLESTON
The Reverend Roy
Jessup Summerall Jr.
APRIL 3, 2008
Roy’s right eyelid began to twitch when he sat down in the small antique chair across from Bishop Boatwright. He pulled at his stiff white collar. It was an XXL, but it fit his thick neck snugly, and he often undid the metal tab toward the end of the day to give himself a little relief. He repositioned his broad frame, and the small chair creaked. Then he rubbed his wide, sweaty palms on his khaki pants and looked up to meet the bishop’s gaze.
“Church of the Good Shepherd is thriving, isn’t it?”
Roy nodded his head. “I can’t tell you what a blessing it is to serve in my hometown, Bishop. It couldn’t be better for me and Little Rose.” Roy had a thick South Carolina sandhills accent, very different from the slow, round tidewater drawl of Charleston. The sandhills accent was clipped and most of Roy’s e and a vowels made the short i sound so that the words heck and hack both sounded like hick. It was the kind of accent folks in the metropolitan areas of the state called country or redneck, and he tried to temper it when he met with the bishop, whose office was at the Cathedral of St. Luke and St. Paul in the center of downtown Charleston.
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