by Tory Jane
“A woman? Why haven’t I heard that story before?”
“Another night. It’s a short story. I wasn’t a successful lesbian.”
We laugh and he kisses me goodnight. “May I call you? Will you see me again?”
He's kissing my neck, and I want to melt. I nod and hand him my phone. He does the same, and we enter our information into each other's contacts.
“I added my address. You should start gathering up pebbles. No big rocks, the windows are old and fragile.”
“I’ll collect them in a jar by my bed. Maybe I’ll find pretty beads that you can braid into your hair again?” He smiles and runs his fingers through my waves.
“I will see you soon, Belle. You’ll trust me again. I promise.”
“Whatever, coolio.”
He kisses me again and nips my bottom lip. “Bella Belle. You'll see.” He tucks me into my car and closes the door.
As I start the engine and pull away, he stands there and watches me with that look on his face. Is Jack wooing me? I try not to crash my car as I drive away. I hope I look cool.
***
Home in my cozy little carriage house, I curl up on the couch with a cup of tea. Looking around, I realize I've recreated the fairy tale cottage we shared on Johns Island. I've upgraded a bit, but I still adore my mismatched china teacups. I even have a little garden in the back. I can grow a mean tomato, and the delicious fragrances of basil, rosemary, and mint fill the courtyard.
I miss my gardens. Jack helped me dig the plots. Over five years, they surrounded all sides of the cabin. I grew vegetables, herbs, flowers and, weed. While Jack surfed, I spent my weekends in the dirt, cultivating our garden oasis. I loved the feeling of my hands in the soil, the satisfaction of picking a ripe tomato warm from the sun and biting into it, letting the juices run down.
While she didn't approve of all aspects of our lifestyle, my mother loved Jack, and our parents spent many nights with us as we entertained. On weekends, she joined me in the gardens, and we puttered around together with our straw sunhats, hands sunk into the dirt (she studiously avoided a certain garden patch, which she referred to as the “other herb garden”). She taught me nearly everything I know about gardening. I grew closer to my mother during those days than we'd ever been before. We spent entire days together talking. I learned my mother was a fabulous storyteller.
My gardens produced more vegetables and herbs than we could consume, so we began selling to local restaurants. I started our third business. Organic, local produce from Tucker-Cliff Farm. Of all my incarnations, I never expected farmer to be in the mix.
Jack has moved on. Am I living in the past? Julia and Wallace would scold me. They would point out all that I have accomplished in the last five years.
I am a grown-up. I handle my shit. Even during my darkest days, I've managed to run two successful businesses. I pay my taxes. Hell, I remember to get the oil changed in my car. I've been alone for five years. Alone means learning how to do everything yourself or knowing whom to call to pay someone to do it for you.
I may still adore my boho-chic style, but I’ve evolved.
What does it say that Jack Cliff makes me giggle and curl up to him like a kitten after all this time?
Five years have passed without a word. I should be furious. I should be yelling and demanding an explanation. Are we going to discuss what happened? Why he left, and I never heard from him again? Why he didn't take me with him?
At the time, he didn't view me as an equal but as a whimsical child. Did he think I would be a burden? That I would hold him back from accomplishing his dreams?
He’s been back for two months. He has taken two months to contact me. I can’t forget he also has a child. Why has he shown up now to woo me?
I remind myself to call my mother in the morning. I have questions for her.
If he’s wooing me, should I give him a chance? I still love him. The man still makes me dizzy. Desire and love with a scoop of confusion on top.
Lunch with Mama
In the morning, I jump out of bed, make coffee, and call my mother.
“Good morning, Mama. How are you?”
“Annabelle, darling. Are you okay?”
“Of course, why?”
“Baby, it is 7:00 in the morning on a Sunday. Your father and I are just having our coffee.”
“I’m sorry to call so early, Mama. I wanted to catch you before church services and before I went into the shop. I was hoping you could come by today and pick out something for the holidays and then we could sneak out for a quick lunch?”
“Annabelle, darling, that sounds lovely. Thank you. Are you sure you’re okay?”
Exasperated, I sigh. “Yes, Mother. Can’t your daughter want to see you without some drama involved?”
Silence. “Mama. I can hear you smirking.”
She laughs. I knew it. “Yes, of course, darling. I'll come by after church services. Can't wait to hug your neck. I love you.”
“I love you, too, Mama.”
She ends the call, and I feel slightly guilty. She knows I have ulterior motives.
***
When Jack left, I became a child again. I ran back to my mother and cried. She held me, fed me, and coddled me for precisely three days. Then, with a kindness and gentleness for which I will always be grateful, she pushed me out of bed and back into the world.
I don't know if she ever discussed the impact Jack's departure had on me with his parents. She promised me she wouldn't. She assured me that it was between Jack and me. Over the past five years, she has remained resolute that we would find each other again and reunite. How has she been able to maintain faith when I abandoned it?
When I ran to my mother, I never returned to the cabin. Grabbing the bare minimum, I fled. I wanted to erase every memory. I tried to make myself invisible, changing my phone number, moving with no forwarding address.
Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way, does it? Those memories are indelible. Permanently etched on my brain and my heart.
Nonetheless, I did not want or need constant reminders. My mother sent house cleaners, and my father arranged for movers to pack up everything and place it all in storage. To this day, I have not dared to go through the storage unit or any boxes. There was little of value. I should call the storage unit and tell them to junk it all. I want only two things. I wish I had the pine farm table Jack built for us, and a box he made for me.
The box. It was dangerous. Perhaps the riskiest item. Sure, it looked harmless enough. It was a beautifully carved, hinged small hope chest that I kept by the bed.
In truth, it was a treasure trove of history. It contained every note, letter, card, keepsake that Jack had ever given me. Five years ago, I couldn't have it near me. I envisioned myself spending every night sifting through that box, looking for clues, and trying to fill up the hole he blew through my heart when he left.
No one would have ever guessed, but Jack was a prolific letter writer. Jack wrote. Real letters on beautiful paper. No e-mails or pages torn from spiral bound notebooks. Letters in his perfect penmanship; he wrote like an architect, a style he taught himself and I adored. I kept it all. Even the notes he left that read, “Gone to the grocery store. I love you, my Bella.”
We lived together and talked constantly, and yet he found the time to write long letters detailing his hopes and dreams or sharing his favorite memories. I loved the stories he told of his childhood. I've never met another person who could write a letter like Jack. Of course, I saved them. They were treasures.
Over the years, I’ve longed for that box of memories. A reminder that at one time in my life, a man loved me.
Did he write me letters after he left? Why has that not occurred to me before now? If he sent them to the cabin, the post office would have returned them, “addressee unknown.” Maybe he sent them to my parents' house. Did my mother receive them and hide them from me? To protect my broken heart?
I picture a stack of unopened letters tied up in
a bow, hidden in my mother's house.
My parents had to know that Jack was back. If they knew he had returned, they also knew that he came back with a small child in tow. They are still protecting me. I know it. Maybe they are all in cahoots. Both sets of parents, deciding what is best for their children. Their grown-ass children.
***
My mother strolls into the shop at 11:30. She is beautiful in a Chanel suit, stockings, pumps, and her Chanel pocketbook. She has pulled her blonde hair up into an elegant chignon. Her make-up is perfect. Royalty has just entered the boutique.
My mother is a tall, slim, fair-skinned blonde. A modern day Grace Kelly, she always looks perfect. Julia looks more like her daughter than I. I am small and dark. A foundling left on her doorstep in the middle of the night.
“Annabelle, darling.” She envelopes me in a cloud of Chanel No. 5, and I snuggle into her.
“Mama. You look stunning, as always. How’s Daddy?”
“You know your father. He dropped me off to go home and watch golf. Why do men watch golf? I’ll never understand. He sends his love and insists that you come for dinner.”
“I promise. The shop has been busier than ever. I've been keeping long hours here. I'm not complaining. I love it when the shop is bustling. We're still having family Christmas supper, aren't we?”
“Of course. We’ll go to Midnight Mass and then spend Christmas day together. I hope you’ll join us?”
“You know I would never miss Christmas with you and Daddy. The house is always so beautiful and festive. I may skip sleeping in my old twin bed on Christmas Eve. My body can’t handle a lumpy thirty-year-old twin mattress anymore. You do know you don't have to keep my bedroom a shrine to my childhood, right?”
“Annabelle. If I got you a big girl bed, you’d sneak in boys.”
We both laugh the same girlish laughter that takes our friends by surprise.
“Now show me around the shop. It looks gorgeous. Do you have anything an old lady can wear? You know I can’t pull off your bohemian chic look. There’s nothing worse than an aging hippie.”
“How would you know, Ms. Chanel? And you are not an old lady.”
“Darling, I was young once. I experimented with different looks, too. Haven't I shown you pictures of my flower child days in the Seventies? My hair looked like yours. I loved it. I would braid it and wear these amazing caftans.” Her eyes mist over, and she looks wistful. “Oh, I had one that you would love. It was this lovely long white dress, embroidered with tiny mirrors sewn into it. I wonder where I stored that; I'm sure I would have kept it. I should find it for you.
“Your father had sideburns, and plaid pants. Of course, he still wore suede bucks and bowties. It wasn’t his best look.
“The Eighties hit us in our mid-twenties. What a disaster that was. Me with big hair and massive shoulder pads and your dad in double-breasted suits. Fortunately, you were still a little one in your beautiful smocked dresses and Mary-Janes.”
I roll my eyes at her.
“Don't roll your eyes at me, Missy. You were precious. A perfect Charleston child.”
“That’s why I’m rolling my eyes. Look at me now. Thirty-six and still rebelling against those smocked dresses.
“Now let me show you the old lady section.”
She pinches me and giggles.
I show her the velvet blazer that Wallace bought, and she chooses the forest green. It looks perfect with her coloring. We pair it with an ivory silk blouse that loosely ties at the neck and a green and black, watch plaid pencil skirt. Perfect for Midnight Mass or Christmas dinner. Then I talk her into a pair of silk, men's style pajamas in midnight blue with white piping and a matching robe. Christmas morning pajamas. I catch her sneaking a matching pair for me. I almost object, but there's no point. Besides, I love them.
“Darling, I love what you've selected for the shop this season. Everything looks elegant. I will be sure to send my friends in to see you. You know Mrs. Cliff will go crazy. Has she been in lately? That woman is a complete clothes horse.”
“Please send her in. I’d love to see her.”
“Well, you’ll definitely see her over the holiday. You know the family always comes over for cocktails on Christmas day.”
I choke at that, but my mother’s face reveals nothing.
“Now let me treat you to lunch. Can you leave the shop for a bit?”
“I’d love to. Let me check with Cecelia and make sure she doesn’t need a break before I go.”
***
We stroll down to Charleston Place. It’s one of the few places on lower King Street suitable for my mother, with tablecloths and cloth napkins. I don’t tell her that I was just there last week. I’m not about to turn down a fancy lunch.
I almost expect to run into Jack again. I’m secretly disappointed when I don’t see him. This is not good. Hope and expectations can be dangerous for my mental health.
Once we’re seated, settled in and have chitchatted, I finally broach the subject.
“How long have you known that Jack moved back?”
My mother’s face breaks into a grin. “I’ve been wondering how long it would take for you to ask me that. Your father and I had a bet going.”
I laugh aloud and then lower my voice. “Mama, you’re terrible.
“Well, how long have you known?”
“Darling, I’ve known for several months.” Her mouth turns down and she looks at me with concern. “Should I have told you? I didn’t know what to do.
“I heard the two of you ran into each other last week. Did it go well? You're okay?”
“I am. Confused, but okay. There are too many unanswered questions. Mama, I think he's trying to woo me again. He stopped by the shop to see me, and last night we went out for a quick cocktail after work. He kissed me. I mean, that man kissed me.”
“Annabelle, why are you so surprised? Haven’t I always told you the two of you would find each other again? That boy has been in love with you his whole life.”
It is time to test her. “It's been five years, and I haven't heard a word from him. Why now? He moved back two months ago. Why did he wait so long to find me?”
My mother’s demeanor changes. She flags the server and orders a bourbon on the rocks. She is preparing to tell me something.
I planned this, but now I don't know if I'm ready to hear it. She is going to tell me something I don’t want to hear. He is married. That child is his.
I request a Crown and ginger.
As we wait for our cocktails, I stare her down. She averts her eyes and glances around the room, waving to people she knows. If she doesn’t talk soon, I’m going to leap across the table and shake her.
Our drinks arrive, we clink glasses, and both take polite sips. Then I hiss, “What are you hiding from me, Mama? You need to tell me everything before I lose my mind.”
“I’ve kept things from you to protect you.” I knew it.
“When Jack left, you were in a dark place. Your father and I didn't know what to do. You ran and asked us to handle everything. We were terrified that we would lose you. We talked to Jack's parents, and we made a decision.
“Over time, you grew stronger. You started seeing a therapist. Your business was thriving. We’ve been proud of you and your success.” She takes an unladylike gulp of her bourbon. She's crying. “God. We should have told you years ago. We learned that once we told the lie, it was impossible to undo the damage. Annabelle, I’m sorry. We fucked up.”
My mother is chugging bourbon and dropping the f-bomb. This is bad. I suck down my drink through a cocktail straw and signal the server for another.
Tears are coursing down her face. She tilts her head back and dabs her eyes delicately with her napkin. When she looks at me, I see the pain.
“He wrote to you. He sent the letters to our house.”
“When? Letters, as in plural?”
“I found the first letter at the cabin. He left it for you. Then he wrote regularly. The entire tim
e he was gone. Over fifty letters. I also have your box. I wouldn’t let your father put it in the storage unit.”
I am weeping. “Mama. What have you done? Does he know I never received them? I thought he left me. I’ve been grieving for five years. How could you have kept them from me? It wasn’t your place to decide.”
“I am your mother. I needed to protect you. I wanted you to move on and to find yourself, and you have. Then he came back to town. He begged us for information. He was devastated that you disappeared and never responded. He never stopped loving you.
“I admitted to him what we did. He's not happy with us.”
“Nor am I. When did you tell him the truth?”
She speaks softly, “Two weeks ago.”
“Jack's been here for months, and he didn't come to see me until last week. He came when he found out the truth, didn't he?”
“Yes, Darling. He was afraid to see you. He thought you had moved on.”
“I can’t believe the four of you thought this was a good idea.
“I want them. I want the box and all of the letters. You better have every single one.”
“Of course. I’ll bring them to you tonight.”
“Is there anything else you’re not telling me?” Like the fact that he brought a child back with him, I think.
She hesitates. “No, that’s all we did.”
My mother is still protecting me. I narrow my eyes at her and purse my lips, daring her to tell me more.
“He's here now and wants to be with you. It's not my place to tell you his story. I'm sure he'll tell you everything himself.”
“Do you know how much pain you could have avoided? I pleaded with you.”
I down my drink in one long swallow and wish I had five more. I have to get out of here. I have to go back to the shop. I need to scream and cry.
“I need to leave. Y’all were wrong. Please have Daddy bring me everything tonight.”
I stand and turn my back on her. I force myself to walk away.
I march to the hotel bar around the corner in the lobby and order two shots of tequila and a pack of cigarettes. I tilt them back in quick succession and feel the burn. It feels good. I haven't bought cigarettes in years, and here I am doing shots and smoking again.
