Old Wounds

by Vicki Lane

  Finally there were only five unopened packages left. “You first, Laurie,” Rosemary had said, with the authority of her twenty-three years.

  Unwilling to cut the red yarn with which the packages were tied, nineteen-year-old Laurel had picked at the knots patiently till at last she could remove the yarn. Then she gingerly undid the paper on both packages, pausing to smooth and fold it away, finally opening the first box.

  It was a beautiful edition of the works of Georgia O’Keeffe—something of an icon to Laurel at the time. An expensive, coffee table–type book, used but in excellent condition, it was crammed with exquisite reproductions and thoughtful commentary. Laurel read the inscription aloud: “‘Merry Christmas, 1999, to Laurie, with love from Pa. Someday there’ll be a book like this of your paintings.’”

  Her voice had broken as she read the few words. Quickly she turned to the second gift. Inside the white cardboard box was another box, made of rich cherry-wood. On the lid was a spray of bay leaves, carefully carved from black walnut.

  Rosemary’s gifts had been similar: her book was a gently used first edition of Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God with the inscription: “Someday people will be collecting your first editions.” The box Sam had made for his older daughter was of black walnut. On the lid was a half-relief rosebud, daintily carved from cherry.

  Finally just one small package was left among the fallen needles. Laurel had retrieved it and held it out. “Here, Mum.” A small box and a card that read “For Liz, who has deserved better, with all my love, Sam.”

  She had understood then why the girls had been so slow, so deliberate in the unwrapping of their gifts. Sam tied this bow…and now I’m untying it. He placed this tape, folded this paper…and now I’m undoing it. This is my last present from Sam…there will be no more.

  No, no, never, never no more. The mournful refrain of an old ballad had sounded in her head as she pulled open the cardboard box. Inside was a tiny oval wooden box, smaller than those he had made for the girls. She had run her fingertips over the complex knot of initials incised on the lid and fought back the tears that had risen to her eyes.

  And within the little box, resting on a piece of folded silk, had been an antique wedding band, its warm pink-tinged gold decorated with fanciful vines and leaves.

  23.

  LOST BAGGAGE

  Monday, October 17, Tuesday, October 18, and Thursday, October 20

  “A ring, Sam gave me a wedding ring that last Christmas. I’d lost my original one and he found a beautiful old band of rose gold. I took it off when you and I…I don’t know…it didn’t seem right.”

  “No, I see what you mean.” Phillip was clearly uncomfortable with the subject, but he persevered. “I remember noticing it…before. Leaves and stuff on it. I thought it suited you…with all your herbs and flowers. Could I take a look at it? If it’s the last thing Sam gave you, it could be what we’re looking for.”

  It was in the top drawer of her bureau, in the little box Sam had crafted for it. She took the ring out, resisting the impulse to slip it onto her finger, and carried it to Phillip.

  “Nothing engraved inside.” He shook his head in disappointment. “And the design—you say you think the ring was old? No chance that he had it made?”

  “No chance at all. Sam told me that he found it in an antiques shop in Asheville. And it just felt old, if you know what I mean—all worn and smooth.”

  Phillip held the ring under the reading lamp, turning it this way and that. Finally he shrugged. “No, I don’t think this is what we’re looking for.” He gave it a last admiring glance. “It does suit you. Sam had a good eye.”

  “There was another part of the present—the ring was inside a little carved box he’d made.” She took the ring from him and absently slid it back onto her finger.

  “I didn’t know Sam was such an artist. This is really nice—great carving, all around the sides and across the top.”

  As he’d done with the ring, Phillip took the little box to study under the reading light. “He had to have worked under a magnifying glass. Amazing detail for such a small amount of surface area, and all of it carved. And these must be your initials, here on top—what’s your middle name?”

  “It’s my maiden name: Grey. Which means, unfortunately, that my monogram is—”

  “E.G.G.” Phillip returned the little box to her. He grinned. “So that explains the shape of the box and the letters. Sam did love a pun. But, damn, for a minute I thought we had a clue.”

  The popping sound, followed almost instantly by the ding, made Rosemary catch her breath. Her dark eyes flicked to the bottom of the laptop screen where a flashing icon proclaimed INCOMING MAIL. Abandoning the story she was working on in mid-sentence, she opened her in-box. A smile spread slowly across her face. Yes!

  The e-mail began abruptly:

  I wish it were Thursday night already. I can’t believe what’s happened: the skinny little kid who lived next door—all long legs and big eyes—has turned into a college professor…and a beauty. She’s back in my life and Thursday we’ll be together again.

  You can’t know, Rosy, what it means for me to be with you. You’ve brought something back into my life that I’d almost forgotten. I hope that we can spend a good portion of your fall break getting to know each other again—and much better.

  But I’ll save all of this for Thursday night. I just couldn’t resist e-mailing, to remind myself that you’re out there.

  BTW, I’ve been thinking over what you said about that retarded man (Cletus?). You’re right: he was definitely spooky and he did seem somewhat fixated on you little girls. I remember once he tried to get Krystalle to go with him up into the woods. He told her he would show her a nest of flying squirrels, or something like that. Of course, Patricia the über-mom was on the case and yelled at Krysty to come inside before she got her clothes dirty.

  All of which proves nothing. And you tell me the man in question is dead. It may be hard at this point to prove anything. But I trust your instincts here and I respect your desire to pursue the question to some sort of resolution. I, too, would like closure.

  Till Thursday night,

  Jared

  She read the e-mail through a second time, then printed it out and deleted it. She was reading the hard copy for a third time when a knock at her office door demanded her attention.

  “Come in.” Rosemary slid the printout into her desk drawer just as one of her colleagues, an anxious-looking gray mouse of a woman, skittered in. “Hi, Letitia, you look harassed. Is there a problem?”

  “No, not a problem, as such.” Letitia perched on the edge of one of the office chairs and looked around the room as if in search of something. Her slightly prominent front teeth and almost nonexistent chin intensified her resemblance to a small rodent. She always looks around like that, like she’s afraid a cat will pounce on her. Or maybe she’s just looking for cheese.

  “Well, Rosemary, as you know, Katherine, Nancy, Marion, and I have been planning a little trip over fall break—Charleston, Savannah, and the low country. Such an evocative area and so much fine writing has come out of there. We have all our arrangements and reservations at some really nice bed-and-breakfasts. And now Katherine says she won’t be able to go.

  “We think…” The mouse leaned forward and lowered her voice. “We think she’s gotten involved with a man. So we were wondering…I know it’s dreadfully short notice—but then, you don’t have any family responsibilities, so we thought…we wondered if you might like to take Katherine’s place. With four of us to share expenses, it’s really a quite affordable jaunt.” Her nose quivered. “Would you be interested? We plan to leave early Thursday morning.”

  “Thanks, it sounds terrific. But I have an appointment in Asheville on Thursday that I can’t miss.” She suppressed a fleeting desire to add, And I think I’ve gotten involved with a man.

  It wasn’t as if she’d never been involved with a man before, Rosemary reflected
, driving toward Asheville on Thursday morning. There had been a few unsatisfactory interludes, none of any significant duration. The first had been during her freshman year, when she’d convinced herself she was in love with a tall, slim Bangladeshi graduate assistant who spoke beautifully accented BBC English. Hasibul had quickly disillusioned her: first, by suggesting that she bleach her hair; and second, when she declined to become a blonde, by finding someone who was. With a slightly guilty feeling of relief, Rosemary had returned to a life of chastity and scholarship until grad school.

  Connor, of the pale skin, black hair, and piercing blue eyes, had been a fellow student, enrolled in many of the same seminars. This had led to late night study sessions at his apartment, which had led to very early morning sessions on the lumpy futon in his bedroom. It might have continued indefinitely—or at least through grad school—had she not dropped by his apartment one day to retrieve an overdue library book. There had been no answer to her knock, so she had used her key to let herself in.

  Connor and Cassandra, a fluffy little MA candidate, hadn’t made it as far as the futon. They were a tangled, half-clothed beast with two backs on the sagging old sofa. Ignoring Cassandra’s squeals as she scurried for the bedroom and Connor’s half-indignant, half-abject attempts at explanation, Rosemary had stalked to the table where she’d left the book, retrieved it, and stalked out the door, tossing the apartment key over her shoulder.

  “We’re all in this alone” had become an unspoken motto. Men betrayed you or wanted to change you. Happy marriages might exist—Mum and Pa’s had been happy, eventually, in spite of those two …indiscretions, surely nothing more. But then Pa had been killed, leaving Mum with a burden of grief that had oppressed her for years.

  Baggage, that’s what the pop psychologists call it, Rosemary thought. It was all that baggage weighing me down, making me so cautious about getting involved with anyone. I guess I just decided that a life alone was better than disappointment, betrayal, and loss.

  She smiled as she caught sight of the foothills, rising in the distance. It’s odd, I seem to have lost that baggage somewhere along the line. And so has Mum. She and Phillip are so sweet, pretending that nothing’s going on between them.

  Elizabeth checked the car clock for the third time. It was almost one and still no sign of Rosemary. She glanced up at the façade of the shopping mall and grimaced at the bold green letters proclaiming that this was the home of Trish Trantham Lifeworks. I am not going in there to talk with Patricia Mullins unless Rosemary’s here. And I don’t want to talk to Trish Trantham either. Whatever she calls herself, I call her a—

  “Mum!” Rosemary was rapping on her car window. “There was a huge traffic jam just outside Asheville or I’d have been here sooner. Let’s go!”

  The emerald green door was opening as they approached it, and a plump young woman, her brown hair skewered atop her head in an unbecoming and uncompromising knot, emerged. Her arms cradled a towering stack of padded mailers and she called back over her shoulder, “All right, I said I would, didn’t I? Give it a rest, Trish.”

  Catching sight of Elizabeth and Rosemary, she smiled sourly. “Oh, my! Old home week!” Protuberant blue eyes studied them briefly through thick glasses. “She’s waiting for you.” The young woman bared her teeth in an unpleasantly knowing smile. “In there. Let the games begin.”

  GRAMMER GREY

  September 1986

  MUM’S MOTHER, GRAMMER Grey, had finally come to visit. At least five times since they had moved to North Carolina, Grammer had called and said that she was coming—just for a few days, just to see her darling grandbabies. Each time, a whirlwind of cleaning and mowing and finishing incomplete bits of the house had made life unbearable for several weeks, and each time there had been the last-minute phone call. Mum’s face would go all blank, and after a few words she would hang up and say, Well, girls, Grammer says to tell you how sorry she is, but she can’t come up after all. She’s…not feeling well.

  Rosemary remembered her grandmother Grey…sort of. She had pale blond hair, red-lipstick lips, and was very thin. Grand-mère was what she had taught Rosie to call her, back when the Goodweathers lived in Florida. Only “Grandmère” was hard to say and it had turned into “Grammer,” no matter how much Grace Howell Grey protested.

  Grace Howell Grey, that’s what Mum said when she talked about Grammer to Pa. Grace Howell Grey says we should send Laurie to Montessori school—there’s one in Asheville, Mum would say in a prissy kind of voice; or Grace Howell Grey says Rosemary needs to go to dancing class; or Grace Howell Grey wants to know when we’re getting indoor plumbing.

  Never, if it’ll keep that old harpy from coming here, Pa had said.

  But finally Grammer had come—not to the farm, but to a big hotel in Asheville. She had driven out to the farm for lunch and been taken on a tour of the house. Everything looked beautiful, Rosemary thought. Mum and Pa had stayed up late the night before, waxing the living room floor till the broad oak boards shone. She and Laurie had skated on them in their sock feet till it was time for Grammer to arrive.

  There were big vases of flowers everywhere. Rosemary had helped pick them first thing in the morning—lavender chrysanthemums, black-eyed Susans, the dangling pink begonias whose seeds looked like paper airplanes. Even Laurie had picked a bunch of those inky-blue wildflowers that Mum called Great Lobelia.

  But Grammer hadn’t seemed to notice the flowers. Her sharp blue eyes had darted everywhere as she came into the house and her high heels had tap-tap-tapped on the shiny floor. Well, Elizabeth, she had said to Mum. Here I am.

  Mum had hugged Grammer and said, I’m glad you’re here. I’ll show you the house and then we’ll have some lunch. I’ve made chicken salad by your recipe.

  Pa was holding two interesting shopping bags with crackly pink tissue paper sticking out of them. Thank you, Sam, Grammer had said, taking them from him. These are for the girls.

  They had both been disappointed to see that the presents were just clothes, but at least Rosemary knew enough to smile and say Thank you, Grammer; it’s very pretty—even though she hated dresses and wasn’t crazy about pink either.

  Laurie, prompted by a nudge from her mother, had reeled off a ThankyouverymuchGrammer, then had completely ignored the smocked green velvet dress in favor of putting the shopping bag over her head and clumping straight-legged about the living room pretending to be a robot.

  Well. Grammer had said after the tour of the house. It’s rather small and rustic for my taste. And why in god’s name you don’t have a proper bathroom, I cannot understand. When I was a child in Alabama we visited relatives once—second or third cousins—who lived out in the country. They had an outhouse. I didn’t think it was cute then and I don’t think it’s cute now.

  Mum had put pretty place mats and napkins on the table and the silver had been polished too. There was chicken salad on a lettuce leaf and a hot cheesy bread Mum said had a French name—something like goo-jeir. Grammer ate most of her chicken salad but only took one bite of the cheesy bread. Too rich for me, Elizabeth, she said, and put it to one side of her plate. I have to be careful if I don’t want to put on weight. And speaking of weight, how much have you gained since you’ve been here? I hate to see you letting yourself go this way.

  Three bloody pounds! That’s what I’ve gained! And not a single nice thing could she find to say about the house, the view, the garden, even the girls. Rosie’s too quiet and Laurie’s too loud…and why didn’t we give them family names instead of naming them after herbs? If we’d had a boy, would we have named him Basil? I tell you, Sam, there’s nothing I can do to please her.

  Relax, Liz. She’s leaving tomorrow. We’ll go in, have a nice dinner, and say good-bye. We’ll all be polite and pleasant to the old harpy and that’ll be it for a year or so. Maybe longer if we don’t tell her we’re having a septic tank put in next week.

  Rosemary could hear Mum fussing as she and Pa got dressed. They were all going in to Asheville
tonight to have dinner at Grammer’s fancy hotel. Very much against her wishes, Laurel had been put into the new green dress—I want to wear my striped overalls, she had insisted. Rosemary hadn’t argued; that was for babies.

  Pa and Mum came into the living room. Rosemary was reading Where the Wild Things Are out loud while Laurie stomped around pretending to be Max in his wolf suit. Mum looked at them with a funny smile. I have to say, Sam, Grace Howell Grey has an eye for clothes. Don’t they both look beautiful?

  Pa smiled too. They do clean up right good, Liz. He made his voice sound like Miss Birdie’s husband, Luther. Fact is, yore a right handsome woman yore ownself, Miz Goodweather.

  Mum was wearing a soft-looking white blouse and a dark swirly skirt that had little purple and green squiggles in it. Pa had on a pale blue shirt and gray pants and a dark blue coat. There was even a tie around his neck. Rosemary didn’t think that she’d ever seen Pa with a tie on. She hadn’t even known he had one.

  Come on, all you fine-lookin’ women, Pa said. We’re off for dinner with Grammer. Best behavior, Miss Laurie Lou!

  Laurel’s red curls bobbed as she nodded vigorously. I’ll be very nice to the old harby!

  By the time the dessert came, Laurie’s eyes were heavy. She spooned up her ice cream laboriously, her eyelids drifting shut between mouthfuls. Finally Mum took Laurel from her chair and held her in her lap, where Laurie immediately went fast asleep.

  Rosemary had been sleepy, too, but the arrival of her crème brûlée and the intense joy of cracking her spoon against the brittle caramelized sugar had awakened her. She ate the delicious creamy dessert very slowly, taking tiny spoonfuls to make it last.