by P. J. Vernon
WHEN YOU FIND ME
P. J. Vernon
For Barry.
Never meant to be has never been so much.
1
Gray
I wasn’t in the right headspace for home. I wasn’t in the right headspace for most things, but certainly not for that house—Piper Point. Not for Mamma’s company. Not for what I’d distanced myself from.
The turbulent flight from D.C. had left my nerves rattled, and the insides of my cheeks still stuck to my teeth. The faint scent of gasoline touched nearly everything in that claustrophobic cabin. I’d reminded myself the smell was normal, but I still drowned in thoughts of flammable jet fuel.
You’re so given to scaring, Gray. Mamma’s words played on a loop in my mind the entire trip.
The drive from Charleston to Elizabeth, South Carolina, clocked in at half an hour, give or take. The closer our rental car drew to home, the tighter my chest knotted.
My phone read three thirty in the afternoon. “Plenty of time to make the Christmas Eve service,” I announced to my husband. I didn’t believe in God, but Mamma could be insufferable. When it came to forcing me into a church, she became divinely so.
“And for you to take a nap,” Paul replied, eyes on the road, undoubtedly confident that his displeasure for my drinking had registered. I turned to the steepled skyline streaming by in fits and starts.
I’d gotten a head start at the bar across from our gate at Reagan National. A nine ounce pour of buttery chardonnay to take the edge off the plane ride. That’s how I’d sold the first one to Paul.
Now he fumbled with his phone, one thumb dancing across the screen while he white-knuckled the steering wheel with his free hand. What was so important that he needed to text and drive? Who was so important?
I considered asking him—coming right out and asking—but he assumed I was drunk. When I drank, I forfeited credibility with Paul. Even if I pressed him, he wouldn’t feel compelled to answer me. Not truthfully.
Instead, I prepared myself to see Mamma like a prodigal daughter sneaking home after a party. But I was twenty-nine.
My Kate Spade purse open between my knees, I unzipped the clear bag for liquids that I’d tucked inside it for the flight. Perfume, eye drops, two single-serve bottles of white wine—I hovered so Paul wouldn’t see them—and a travel-sized container of peppermint mouthwash.
I gargled the mouthwash and spit into an empty water bottle. I didn’t need to swallow everything with a measurable proof. Three mists of perfume to my neckline. Three was one too many, but I was trading Mamma’s disdain for a simple crinkled nose. Wincing, I sprayed once in my mouth. Metallic flavors stuck to my tongue like bitter glue.
“You smell fresh,” Paul said, returning his phone to his pocket and noting my wedding ring. “Have your ring cleaned while we’re in town. Heart disease fundraiser’s next week.”
I turned my ring with my thumb. Three carats of cushion-cut diamond. Flawless. Near-colorless. Only perfection for me, he’d said when he proposed.
“No white Christmas this year,” Paul added. “Not like D.C.”
“No,” I muttered.
He took the exit for Elizabeth, and the pines and low palmetto trees gave way to a quaint town, an unsubtle mix of colonial and Low Country. Only the presence of a downtown Dairy Queen kept Elizabeth from camera-readiness in a Civil War film.
A Dairy Queen and a billboard. The picture caught my eye, stuck to the board in fraying paper sheets, and panic bloomed, wrapping my fingers and toes in tingles. A handsome man with coifed hair and a distinctive Roman nose. His smile, jarring. My cousin, Matthew King. Attorney.
As a sour taste joined the lingering perfume on my tongue, I scolded myself for not recalling that the dated billboard stood there. For not remembering that Matthew’s face would greet me when we turned into town. As the image shrunk in the rearview mirror, I softened my grip on the door handle and exhaled a long, staggered breath.
We cut a left down Main Street, passing Mamma’s church, Blessed Lamb Baptist. Then civilization vanished again into bare tobacco fields beneath ash skies. Atalaya Drive was a bumpy road. Not gravel, but not exactly paved, either. Like the rest of South Carolina, it wasn’t sure what it wanted to be. Short trees and tall grass to one side, saltwater marshes on the other.
From Atalaya Drive, you could see Piper Point for nearly a mile before arriving. Beneath an overcast sky, the house sat like a rotting log concealing secrets beneath its moist belly. A malignant tumor latched onto the surrounding marsh-side bluff. The King family home. My family home.
Named for the sandpipers and killdeer that flitted about the property, Piper Point was a white antebellum with a double wraparound porch. Six Corinthian columns supported a steep roof dotted with half as many dormers. The Christmas candles in each window did little to lessen its long shadow. They turned the home into a twisted jack-o’-lantern. Ready to swallow me whole. Ancient oaks wept Spanish moss, and the palm fronds kept their green well into winter. The whole scene could be picturesque, and growing up, it mostly was. I’d etched it into my memory that way on purpose. But I’d put more than simple distance between myself and Piper Point.
Skidding against gravel, Paul braked halfway round Piper Point’s circle drive. He parked behind Charlotte’s Mercedes SUV. My sister had driven in from Raleigh. She’d done well for herself after the divorce, and I was happy for her.
Before I managed to step out of our car, the front door opened, and a rail-thin woman no older than thirty walked towards us. The new housekeeper Mamma had gone on about.
“Hello, Gray. Paul.” Her smile lit up an otherwise mousey face. “I’m Cora. I’m your mother’s new live-in.”
I nodded a hello as she stepped to the rear of the car where Paul hoisted our bags onto the driveway. The fact that Cora was a white woman relieved me. I know it did the same for Paul. Mamma had no concern for optics. The blacks in town loved her, she repeated fondly. Too often.
Mamma had little to worry about in Elizabeth, but Paul and I were different. We lived in D.C., where optics were all that counted, and even more so with Paul’s political future. The wooden steps up the front porch creaked beneath my ballerina flats.
Since Daddy passed, Mamma had ignored much of the home’s upkeep. A bizarre oversight for a woman preoccupied with appearance. And the closer one got to Piper Point, the more apparent the neglect became. White siding peeled like curling fingernails. One upstairs window wouldn’t close and another had been painted shut forever. Snaking vines withered into stringy skeletons rather than grow lush.
Crossing the threshold, the air inside struck me first. It was the same stale air my family had breathed for two centuries. So stagnant mosquitoes could breed in it.
In the foyer, sliding parlor doors cordoned off the joint dining room and salon to my left and the library on my right. Ahead, the staircase climbed to a second story with slouching steps, plateauing in a landing halfway up.
“I’ll take your things to Gray’s room,” Cora announced.
“I’ll help you,” Paul replied, refusing to hand over our rollers. “This isn’t Downton Abbey. Despite what Joanna thinks.” What people thought mattered quite a bit to Paul. In that way, he wasn’t so different from Mamma. And they got along well. Well enough for the occasional, “Be kind to your mom, Gray,” to fly from Paul’s lips.
The only family he had left, an invalid mother, recognized his face less and less over time. I guessed Mamma took on an outsized importance to him because of it. Sometimes at my expense. But even he’d been unusually eager to get me out of the city. The suspicion I held over his phone extended to this, too.
“Where’s Mamma?” I asked Cora as she started up the groaning stairs behind Paul.
“In
the kitchen,” she answered. “Making your favorite, if I’m not mistaken. Banana pudding. Charlotte’s out back with the twins.”
They abandoned me in the foyer. Clutching my handbag and the wine nestled inside it, I made for the kitchen. As I passed the polished stairs, I caught my reflection in the mirror on the landing. The swollen knot in my chest pulled tighter.
At least ten feet tall, the enormous piece of glass was set into the wall, stretching up from the baseboard. Crown moldings—prewar, Daddy called them—framed the immense mirror. In Manhattan, prewar meant before World War II. In South Carolina, we had longer memories. Daddy had the mirror taken down and stored in the cellar decades ago when it first broke, but Mamma must’ve set it back into the wall at some point, strangely unrestored. A single crack cut diagonally from one side to the other in a near-perfect line. It gave the appearance of a guillotine. Top and bottom blades meeting like clenched teeth.
A tingle crossed the nape of my neck.
Moving to the kitchen, the sound of a wooden spoon beating a bowl greeted me. Mamma could never be idle when guests arrived. The moment she’d heard our car pull around, she’d likely sprinted to the pantry, squawking at Cora that she planned to make banana pudding. My favorite.
“Hummingbird.” She smiled as I stepped onto the tiled floor. “If I had known you’d be here so soon, I would’ve had this pudding done an hour ago,” she lied.
Mamma had aged well. She’d let her hair fade to a sophisticated silver which she styled meticulously. Her breath was always scented spearmint with whispers of cigarette. A string of pearls hung in a graceful knot from her neck, no matter the outfit. An iridescent hangman’s noose.
“How was your trip?” Her drawl had thickened with time.
“It was okay. Bumpy.”
She sat the bowl on the counter and paced towards me. “It’ll be so wonderful to have you and Paul and Charlotte and the kids together at church.” Mamma’s way of decreeing we would each be attending the Christmas Eve service, even though I’d already planned on it.
She squeezed me in an embrace that grew tighter the older she got. She never hugged me so close when I lived at Piper Point.
“There’s alcohol on your breath, Gray.” The hug vanished as she recoiled. “I can smell it through the perfume you’ve splashed all over yourself.”
I stood silently as my face flushed. Very rarely did I resent Mamma for telling the truth. She’d had a difficult relationship with it my whole life. But the instant honesty became convenient, she wielded it like a dagger.
“Paul’s spoken to me more than once about your drinking. You think you can hide it by swimming in fragrance? You smell like a drunk who got hold of too much cologne.”
I cleared my throat in an attempt to stifle embarrassment. At once, I was a child again—a bad girl—the tips of my ears burning after being caught misbehaving. “I don’t like flying. I drink when I’m nervous.”
“Save the perfume next time.” She pursed her lips, scowling. “And have a cup of coffee. Jesus might’ve spent time with drunks, but I’d rather not bring one to church.”
Itching to change the subject, I looked over her shoulder, outside. “Cora said Charlotte’s out back?”
“She is. Brush your teeth before you kiss those twins.”
Mamma’s voice and its distinct edge dwindled as I spied the door to the cellar. I locked my knees and whitened my knuckles around the strap of my handbag.
Perhaps it was being a little day drunk or maybe just the feeling of being home again—choking me with invisible hands—but for an instant, I was nine years old. Standing before the cellar door while Matthew loomed behind. His belt buckle pressing into the back of my skull. He turned the brass handle and pushed the door open. A lurching groan like a foundering ship followed a wave of cold air. Moist and musty.
I shook my head and the cruel memory away. But the ground still rocked and swayed beneath my feet.
Go on down, Gray. Go see where the Devil lives.
2
Gray
Spots danced before my eyes. I’d arrived only moments ago, and I already craved fresh air. Mamma said Charlotte’s out back. Clasping my throat, I made my way to her.
Dead ferns in porcelain planters and one Christmas tree, very much still alive, stood in the conservatory off the kitchen. Passing through, I stumbled out of the French doors and onto the patio. The brick courtyard beyond had been better maintained than the rest of the house. I guess Mamma kept a landscaper on payroll.
Taking deep breaths, I passed the babbling fountain that served as the garden’s centerpiece. A stone angel with lichen-covered wings spit an arc of icy water.
At high tide, the water’s edge stopped twenty yards or so from here. But now, only saw grass and festering mud surrounded Piper Point’s naked dock. Charlotte tossed a foam football with her children, Joseph and David, in the crabgrass a safe distance from the marsh.
She spotted me approaching.
“Gray,” she shouted, waving both arms. “Merry Christmas!”
“Charlotte,” I said, taking my sister by the hands as I reached her. I seemed to find a mooring again, and my anxiety uncoiled a little. “Look at you. You look lovely.” I was thin, but Charlotte was thinner. She’d always been bony, and the divorce hadn’t helped.
A couple sharp “Aunt Grays” sounded as my nephews latched onto me, a four-year-old on each leg. Runny noses and two shaggy mops of soft hair. I gave one a shoulder squeeze and the other a head pat. I couldn’t distinguish between the boys and had given up trying.
“I missed you,” one said.
“Me too,” said the other, coughing from the sprint over. “Christmas is tomorrow, and Mom told Santa to bring presents here instead of our house.”
“I’m sure she did, and I’m certain Santa will. I missed you guys.” A pang of guilt shot through me as I avoided naming them. “So much.”
Charlotte retrieved the football and tossed it towards the courtyard, sending them both chasing after it.
“You can’t tell them apart, can you?” Charlotte asked. From her tone, I was unsure if she was genuinely offended.
“You know that’s not true.”
She deftly changed topics. “Have you seen old Hattie? I can’t believe she’s still alive.”
Hattie the Cattie. The sharp guilt from not naming the twins blossomed into something worse. I’d forgotten about Hattie.
“Queen of the Lost Cats of Piper Point,” I added. She’d be an astounding twenty years old now. “Where is she?”
“Funny she’s the only one that stuck around.” Charlotte motioned behind my left shoulder. “Maybe she’s the monster that killed all her brothers and sisters that year.”
I turned, and sure enough, the cat crept through the grass, cautiously headed my way. A tangled mess of mottled black and white fur, she stalked as though unsure if I was still an ally. Hardly the monster Charlotte joked she was.
“Don’t bring her in the house.” she chuckled, but she wasn’t kidding. “The boys are just as allergic as I am.”
Though survival was never guaranteed for yard cats, Hattie had been the only one of her unnamed mother’s litter to make it. In fact, every kitten but Hattie had vanished the year I turned nine. The mamma cat, too. And the shrill cries of the tomcats went silent shortly after, like something had chased them all off or killed them or both.
After outlasting the others, Hattie—as I came to call her—deserved a little pampering. I made a habit of stealing her away to my bedroom. But whenever she’d been inside, Charlotte’s eyes started watering and her throat tightened. She hated the two of us for it.
The mottled cat threaded herself through my legs in a figure eight. I stroked her back. In an instant, Hattie transformed from lingering ghost to companion.
“I’m still your friend,” I whispered, running my nails down her knotty spine.
Charlotte sighed impatiently. “We’d better get ready for church.” She started for the house, but pa
used. “You doing alright these days, Gray?” The earnestness of her question startled me. But she’d been here for a day already. Plenty of time to fill with talk from Mamma.
“Of course, I’m okay,” I answered, standing up and forcing a grin. “I’m gonna walk out on the dock, and then I’ll be in for a bath and a change.”
Charlotte crinkled her nose. “That stinking thing? Low tide’s grown nothing but smellier.”
I smiled at her again as she collected her boys and made for the house. When they’d vanished inside, I turned back to the marshes. Charlotte was right. They stank like briny vomit.
Dusk settled over Piper Point, and the planks groaned as if in pain as I walked to the end of the dock. To each side, swarms of frail sand crabs darted across pocked mud. People said you could sail all the way to New York City without ever venturing out to sea via the Intracoastal Waterway, of which our marsh was an extension. I didn’t know if that was true. I’d never bothered to check.
Hattie had followed me to the water before stopping at the shoreline. Now she cried, calling me back to the safety of land. As a rising moon tugged on the tide, the slopping murk began its creep back towards the house. Barnacled pylons shouldering the dock’s final planks stood in lapping seawater again. Gulls cried in shrill squawks, and the salt in the air did little to mask the stench of rot. Useless, like my perfume.
* * *
My bedroom hadn’t changed a lick.
Mamma called it the Yellow Room. She’d had the walls painted a calming canary and strewn yolk-colored pillows everywhere. Charlotte had the Red Room, done accordingly in hues of scarlets. The Green and Blue Rooms were for guests—Cora took the colorless carriage house.
Mamma’s preoccupation with colored bedrooms stemmed from Daddy’s failed presidential bid. She’d never live in the White House, so she’d done her best to replicate what parts of it she could at Piper Point.
Daddy had flamed out early in the Republican primaries, failing to clench even a third of South Carolina’s vote. If he couldn’t win his home state, there’d been no point pressing on. It was a spectacular failure, and he had only himself to blame. Himself and a tape recorder.
