Duet for Three Hands (39 page)

N
athaniel

N
athaniel saw
Clare
coming toward him. She looked years older than when he’d last seen her. His heart constricted. Damn you, Frances. May you rot in hell.

“Nate.” She reached out and pulled him to her. “Thank you for bringing them to me.” Taken aback by the gesture, he stood stiffly for a second before softening into the embrace.

“Let’s walk. I have some rather upsetting news. I don’t think I can tell it without walking.”

She seemed unsteady on her feet, and he offered her his arm, which she took as they walked to the lakeshore and then to the end of the pier. At the edge, he felt her shiver despite the June heat. Something mimicking physical pain moved its way across her face.

“Frank called me from Atlanta. Frances showed up at the house. She was alone.” Clare paused, and her gray eyes that matched the dark smudges underneath her bottom eyelashes looked away from him, toward the hazy sky. “It’ll rain later.” At first he took this as an afterthought, but then she continued, “Like that night you were hurt. Do you remember?”

“Yes,” he said.

“Frances showed him photos. Dreadful photographs the young man had taken of her. Apparently he’s a photographer of the risqué variety. Postcards and such.”

He covered his eyes. “Oh, God.” Bile rose in his throat.

“She threatened to send the photos around to everyone we knew unless Frank gave her money, knowing he’d rather be penniless than have society see those photos of his daughter.”

“Did he?”

“He had no choice. He said goodbye to her. Forever. Frank told her to never contact any of us again.”

“She’s gone to California, then?”

“I suppose.” Her eyes had turned a dull gray and were hooded with downcast lashes.

He turned away, looking at the lake. Dozens of water bugs made rings on the water. A jay called to its mate.

“Nate, it’s nearly impossible to explain to a man what it’s like to be a woman in this time. I don’t excuse her behavior, but I know what it’s like to feel trapped in your own life. God knows I’ve been trapped in this life for so long now that I can’t even remember who I once was. Or who I wanted to be.”

There was a pebble near his foot. He kicked it into the water. “Clare, I mean no disrespect, but no one could’ve felt more trapped in his life than I.”

“Yes, I know, Nate. I know.” Tears were falling down her cheeks and onto the collar of her dress. “Nate, there’s something else. Frank went crazy after Frances left, with grief and disappointment about her, and about Whit’s choice. Frances told him. I don’t know which felt like the worse of the two betrayals. That’s how he saw them, you know, as betrayals to a southern lifestyle he spent his life trying to preserve.

“After she left with the money in her pocketbook, he called me, slurring his words the way he does when he drinks, ranting about Whitmore and Jes, saying it was all my fault, that if I’d been a better mother none of this would’ve happened. He told me he was headed up here in the morning, that he planned on giving us what we deserved.” She wiped her face, words choking in the back of her throat. “But I got a call later from the police.” Her voice sounded wooden now. “He crashed his car into a tree, that silver flask of his in his lap. He’s dead.” She paused and looked toward the sky. “A witness to the accident told the police it was like watching someone driving blind.”

J
eselle

M
ama stood
at the stove
, frying up eggs and hot cakes. She crossed her arms over her chest, looking at Jeselle’s belly. “You got big.”

“Yes. I’ve missed you, Mama.”

Mama reached out and folded Jeselle into her arms. Her sinewy frame felt like home. “Baby girl,” she whispered. Jeselle looked up and saw tears running down Mama’s face. It was the first time she’d ever seen her cry.

Mama motioned for Jeselle and Whit to sit at the table. “Got some food fixed for you.” She put a plate of hot cakes in front of Whitmore. “It’s foolish, Mr. Whitmore. What you’ve done. But brave too.”

“I guess I don’t have to tell you I’d die for Jes.”

“You’ve done proved that, sure enough.” Mama sniffed and moved back to the stove. “Don’t mean I think it’s right. None of it.”

Jeselle glanced out the window and saw Mrs. Bellmont on her knees at the end of the pier. Nate was kneeling beside her, a hand on her back. Whit and Jeselle exchanged glances.

“Go out to your mother,” Mama said to Whit. “She has something to tell you.”

They watched him hobble out. As Whit came upon his mother, Nate helped Mrs. Bellmont to her feet, and she held out her hands to Whit. “What is it?” Jeselle asked.

“Frank Bellmont’s dead. Drove his car into a tree.”

“Drunk?” asked Jeselle.

Mama continued to look out the window toward the lake. “No. I did it.”

“What do you mean?”

Silence.

“Mama?”

“Remember when the birds kept up and dying?”

“Yes.”

“I figured what berry was doing it, months ago. So I gathered some and snuck down to Atlanta. Ground them up and put them in his flask. Made it so it’d look like drink that done it.”

“Mama. No. Why?”

“He told Miz Bellmont he was coming to kill both of us and you and Whitmore too.” She turned toward Jeselle, tipping her chin between her calloused fingers. “You’ll learn this, Jessie, once you hold that baby in your arms. No one will ever harm her if you have any say in the matter. Mama bears, that’s all we are.”

“What if you get caught?”

“I won’t. But it don’t matter if I do because you’ll be safe, and that’s all I care about. All I’ve ever cared about.”

“Oh, Mama, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. You’re the best thing ever happened to me, and don’t you forget it.”

“Does Mrs. Bellmont know?”

“No. And Mr. Whit can’t know either. Do you understand?”

“Starting a marriage with secrets, Mama?”

“It’s better they don’t know. When you love someone like we do Miz Bellmont and Whit, well, sometimes you have to protect them from the truth when it would hurt more than the lie. You understand?”

“I think so.”

Jeselle sank into the window seat, watching as Nate walked toward the car.

Her eyes shifted back to Whit and Mrs. Bellmont. Mrs. Bellmont gazed at the ground, holding on to Whit’s arm. Her mouth moved, surely telling him the dreadful news. As if someone punched him in his aching ribs, he flinched, stepping away from Mrs. Bellmont, like an animal anticipating a trap but jerking away at the last moment. A shudder went through his body. He stooped over, his back rising and falling. Then, he stood to his full height, peering back at the water, his hand hovering over his forehead to shield his eyes from the blazing sun. After a moment, he turned and took Mrs. Bellmont into his arms and held her against him. Whit’s mouth moved, and Jeselle imagined he said something of comfort—a mention of the future that she could cling to with all her might, as they had done. And in that posture, that gesture, Jeselle saw both the past and the future. Standing there was both the man he’d become and the father he would be. Perhaps feeling Jeselle’s eyes upon him, he turned toward the house. When he saw her at the window, he placed his hand over his heart and, like so many times before, they anchored to one another. He tucked his mother’s arm into his own. And they walked together, toward the house.

T
he supper Mama
put out for them of cold fried chicken and slices of fresh bread slathered with Mama’s butter and cold cider from the cellar tasted better than any meal Jeselle could ever remember.

“I hope there’s fried chicken in France.” Whitmore grinned.

Mrs. Bellmont put down her piece of chicken and wiped her hands delicately with a cloth napkin, ironed so carefully by Mama. “Some southern traditions need to come with us. Fried chicken being one. And your mama and I. We’ve discussed it, and we’re coming too.”

“Mama, really?”

“Well, Miz Bellmont needs me.”

“I surely do.”

“And we don’t want to be an ocean away from our babies,” said Mama.

“Will you have us?” asked Mrs. Bellmont.

“Mother, of course,” said Whitmore, rising from the table to embrace her.

Jeselle put her hand on her belly, feeling the baby move, as if reacting to the news too. It was then that she first realized what Frank Bellmont’s death meant. Whit and Mrs. Bellmont were free to do as they pleased with the family’s fortunes.

When Mama put out a peach pie, the discussion turned to the future.

“I think you should buy land in France’s southern region, where grapes grow,” said Mrs. Tyler.

“How do you know about that?” Nate asked her with an amused expression.

“I read it in a book. And it’s nothing to tease me about, Nathaniel Fye.”

They all laughed, even Mrs. Bellmont, who had watched Lydia Tyler all evening with a curious yet reserved expression.

“You will visit, won’t you, Nate?” asked Mrs. Bellmont.

“Yes. Lydia and I would love to,” said Nate.

Jeselle glanced over at Whit. He saw it too. Finally Nate had found happiness with the right woman. They fit, just like us, she thought. Now her eyes stung. She went to the sink to hide her tears and put her hands in the soapy water, thinking of every dish Mama had washed, every meal made, the mountains of laundry washed and ironed. The room fell silent. It was all there, between them, like a photograph of a troubled time: the injustice of inequality, the reality that money had the power to change circumstances.

Then, quietly but with a firm resolve, Mrs. Bellmont spoke, “Cassie, wherever we live, you’ll have a room of your own, upstairs. Next to mine.”

Mama raised an eyebrow. “Won’t have none of that unless I continue to look after you. I take care of folks and their homes. That’s what I do.”

“I defer to your good judgment, Cassie Thorton,” Mrs. Bellmont said.

“I might like to learn to read,” said Mama.

Jeselle stared at her. “Mama? After all these years?”

“Well, Miz Bellmont needs a new student,” said Mama.

Mrs. Bellmont clapped her hands together. “I surely do.”

T
he remnant
of the pie was nothing but sticky sauce on the bottom of the dessert plates when the conversation turned to Europe, of the troubles there: Hitler’s quest for global power, his hatred of Jews and belief that white Germans were the supreme race. To Jeselle, the descriptions of this by Mrs. Tyler sounded eerily familiar. The crease between Mama’s eyebrows deepened. “Surely the hatred we know is better than moving halfway round the world to hatred we’re ignorant of,” Mama said to Nate.

“I understand your fears,” Nate said. “But there’s no better place for you now, with the way things are. Someday it’ll be different.”

“Not so sure ’bout that,” Mama said, gathering up the supper dishes. She muttered to herself at the sink, scrubbing the plates and silverware like they’d been rolling around in cow manure. Nate and Lydia exchanged worried glances, but Mrs. Bellmont motioned for them to stay silent as she took a sip of her tea. Jeselle understood; Mama might fuss all the way to France, but nothing would keep her from getting on that boat.

“Clare, I wonder if you might allow me to play at the piano one more time?” asked Nate.

Mrs. Bellmont looked startled. Her teacup clattered as she put it back on the saucer. “Play?”

“Lydia and I play together, Clare,” he said, a tiptoe quality to his voice. “Three-handed on two pianos. But tonight, two-handed on one.”

Mrs. Bellmont suddenly seemed quite concerned with smoothing a nonexistent wrinkle from the tablecloth.

“We might have a tour in the future.” He spoke in the same soft voice.

Mrs. Bellmont raised her chin, gazing at him with sorrowful eyes. “Oh, Nate, is it possible?”

“It is, Clare. After all this time, a second chance,” said Nate.

“I’m so pleased.” Mrs. Bellmont reached across the table with her delicate hand that always made Jeselle think of fine bone china and patted Lydia’s broad hand. “It would be lovely to hear you play together.” The women smiled at each other, shy almost, like two children meeting for the first time.

T
he two musicians
sat straight-backed on the piano bench, his right hand and her left hand poised over the keys, their free hands resting between them, almost touching. Nate whispered the time as their torsos moved together in preparation. And then, as if one player, they began. It was the Gershwin piece—music of their collective story, their shared pain. Jeselle shivered and reached for Whitmore’s hand. Mrs. Bellmont, a lace handkerchief neglected on her lap, let tears roll down her cheeks unhindered. But as the music continued, Jeselle detected something else enter the room, almost a physical entity that moved about, loosening the ache they all held and replacing it with a tenderness that only comes from forgiveness of the past and acceptance of the now and hope for the future.

M
rs. Bellmont
and Jeselle walked with linked arms in the twilight. The birds were quiet, asleep for the night so the only sound was of water lapping against the shore, bringing a sense of tranquility. They stopped at the roses, in full glorious bloom. The petals seemed to drip fragrance, having warmed in the afternoon sun. Mrs. Bellmont held a yellow rose in the palm of her hand, caressing the petals between her thumb and middle finger.

“I’m sorry about Oberlin,” said Jeselle.