In a Dark Season (38 page)

Chapter 55

Breaking Up Christmas

Sunday, December 31

B
reaking up Christmas” was what Elizabeth had always called it, after a fiddle tune of the same name, and from the first years of her marriage she had inevitably honored her grandmother’s tradition of taking down the tree on New Year’s Eve. “Bad luck to have it up in the New Year,” Gramma had said as the tree went out the door and she turned to the preparation of collard greens, “to put greenbacks in your pocket,” and black-eyed peas and hog jowl—all said to bring good luck.

Well, Gramma, the black-eyed peas are simmering and we’re taking the tree down.
Elizabeth circled the tall fir, carefully removing the few glass ornaments that had been her mother’s, wrapping them in tissue, and restoring them to their compartmented boxes. Laurel, high on a ladder, was divesting the upper branches of their decorations and passing them down to Rosemary.

“It’s like running a movie backwards,” Laurel exclaimed. “A few weeks ago we pulled all this stuff out and”—she stretched to unmoor the rag doll angel from the topmost branch—“and now we’re putting it back. And we do the same thing every year, but somehow it’s not boring. It’s more…more…” She paused, looking at the rag doll, whose prim mouth and lowered eyes seemed to suggest a secret. “…more
affirming,
if that’s the word I want.”

“The wheel of the year,” Rosemary offered. “Always turning, the same thing coming around at the same time.”

“And we always have the collards and the stuff for New Year’s—it’s like continuity with the past—with your Gramma, Mum. I never even knew her, but she’s real to me because we keep her traditions.”

Elizabeth looked around her shabby, beloved living room: inherited furniture
perhaps “passed-down” would be more accurate,
decorated with inherited scratches and nicks to which were added the wear and tear of her own family. The gnawed ends of the rockers on Gramma’s sewing chair,
Dinah did that almost twenty years ago,
the burn on the dining table where Laurel had set down a hot skillet—everything told the story of their family.

And suddenly she thought of Amanda, beautiful, distant Amanda, alienated from her parents for their treatment of her beloved brother.
She has no family—unless she chooses to be part of ours. But she may be too deeply wounded. All she had was the memory of Spinner and now that memory is badly tarnished.

“Have you girls talked to Amanda about her brother? It’s bad enough that it seems almost certain those were his bones in the silo. But Tracy’s accusation—that Spinner knowingly infected her with AIDS as well as setting her up for the rape—I know it must have hit Amanda hard. She’s idolized her brother her whole life.”

Laurel’s face was serious. “Amanda’s gone all quiet and withdrawn; even Ben isn’t having much luck getting her to talk.”

Finally all the decorations were in their boxes and the boxes were returned to the trunk. The tree had been dragged from the house to await use in a bonfire, and most
never all
of the fallen needles had been swept or vacuumed up. And the girls had taken the dogs on a hike to the top of the mountain.

The corner where the tree had been looked woefully bare, and Elizabeth pondered it thoughtfully.
Maybe I could find something to put there on the end of the table.

She went to rummage in the closet where she kept seasonal odds and ends. A tall white vase caught her eye.
That would work, filled with evergreens
and she stretched to catch hold of it. As she pulled the vase down from the shelf, it dislodged a gourd she had decorated years ago. The big gourd fell, making a sharp
crack
as it struck the floor.

It was broken beyond repair.
It’s just taking up space in the closet; toss it, Elizabeth.
But she hesitated, remembering the tedious chore of cleaning the basketball-sized globe to prepare its surface for the paint, scraping out the plump, dry seeds and papery membranes from the interior. Her fingers traced the incised lines of the mountains around the gourd’s fat circumference and then the raptor soaring above the peaks. The acrid smell as her wood-burning tool bit into the gourd’s smooth tan skin, the tiny sting of smoke in her eyes—it all came back to her.

It’s hard to just throw out something I worked so hard on—
she cradled the object in both hands, noting the thinness of the gourd’s shell and the jagged crack that parted the sky and just touched the etched mountain rim of this little world.
What’s that thing I read? Some people are process-oriented—getting all their enjoyment from the doing of a thing—while others are driven by the desire for the finished product. Well, I enjoyed the process of this for sure, and the product as well. But now…

With sudden decision Elizabeth moved for the fireplace. The fire had subsided to coals.
This’ll be better than putting it in the trash—more suitable, somehow.
With a wry smile at her own silliness, she opened the glass door, laid the broken gourd on the bed of glowing red coals, and sat down on the hearth to watch.

For a moment, nothing happened. Then transparent orange-and-blue flames appeared, licking at the base of the gourd. Elizabeth leaned closer, enthralled by the sight. Now, with a sigh, a soft
pumph
of sound, there was fire inside the hollow sphere, and a faint smell, fleetingly reminiscent of cooking squash, wafted toward her, only to disappear as the gourd was engulfed in flames.

The disfiguring crack widened, revealing the interior inferno.
This is beautiful!
she thought, as half of the gourd, now only a brittle charcoal shell, collapsed, leaving a black jagged wall pointing upward. This lingered, then, as part fell away, assumed a new shape.

It looked like an Indian…and then like a pointing hand…and now it’s a hanging man. You could use this, like tea leaves, to read omens. It doesn’t matter what means you use—tea leaves, clouds, animal entrails—all you’re really doing is freeing your subconscious to work.

She was lost in thought, still staring into the fireplace, now returned to a slumbering bed of ashy coals, when Phillip came into the room.

“Lizabeth? You okay?”

With a start, she jerked back to the here and now. “I’m fine. I was just…freeing my subconscious.”

The hanging man. A sign of ill omen. Maybe that’s why I always hated those damn baby dolls, hanging on the porch at the stand house. At least they’re not there anymore.

With a start, she remembered just where they were—in the bottom of her big, rarely used shoulder bag.
I was thinking about burying them but maybe that’s a bit…a bit dramatic. What if I wrapped them up and put them in the trash? That way I wouldn’t have to see their creepy little hands waving at me.

As she pulled the pinkly obscene creatures from the bag, she noticed that the head of one was screwed round so as almost to face backward, giving the creature a particularly horrible, demonic look. On her way to the kitchen and the garbage pail, she fiddled with the head, trying to put it right.

It fell off in her hands and she made an involuntary sound of disgust.

“What
are
you doing to that baby doll, Miz Goodweather?” Phillip asked, watching with amusement.

Elizabeth didn’t reply but stood looking into the interior of the headless toy.

“There’s something in here,” she said at last. “Paper.”

A sheet of paper, folded and refolded, was wedged into the chest of the doll. She pulled it out, unfolded it, and scanned its contents.

“It’s a letter from Spinner to Tracy, dated December 11, 1995.”

“Dear Tracy,

Please believe me that I didn’t mean for that to happen—all the others. It was Hollis came looking for me and found you and me and then he called Vance and the Mortons. I wasn’t part of it—what happened. Hollis made me stay and watch. He said it would make a man of me but I think it made me see that if that was being a man, I was happier to be what I am. I left town as soon as I knew you were safe—I told the Cat Man where you were and he promised to go get you out. If I’d been braver—but I wasn’t.

I’m back in Ransom now and I’ve tried to find out where you’ve gone but no one will tell me. Your uncle has promised to forward this letter and I’ve told him how important it is that you get it right away.

Because this is the terrible thing I have to tell you—”

Elizabeth looked up at Phillip, her eyes brimming. “He’s writing to tell her that he’s just found out he has AIDS and that she should go get checked right away.”

“And Revis just kept the letter—maybe thinking to use it for more blackmail. God, what a sick—”

“Did you see the part at the bottom, where he tells Tracy about his little sister and how much he loves her and how afraid he is of losing her love because of being gay and having AIDS?”

Elizabeth stood and headed for the back door and the path to Ben’s cabin. “I think we need to let Amanda see this letter—and then let Tracy know about it too.”

When Elizabeth returned from the cabin, her face was shining. “Do you know what Amanda said, Phillip? She said, ‘You’ve given me back my brother.’”

Chapter 56

New Year’s Eve…with Distant Fireworks

Sunday, December 31, and Monday, January 1

H
ave you thought about it, Lizabeth?”

Bundled against the freezing temperature of the clear, windless night, Elizabeth and Phillip stood side by side at the porch railing. Behind them the rich strains of Yo-Yo Ma’s cello reached out to enfold them in the caressing embrace of a Bach composition. In the distance beyond the river, a fireworks display was in progress, and the higher-flying rockets were gloriously visible. At that moment a glowing ball of cherry red soared heavenward, then opened into a golden-ribbed umbrella that released a shower of tiny red and green stars.

“Yes, I have—almost constantly.”

Without taking his eyes from the sky, Phillip said, “I’d really like to start this year by marrying you, Elizabeth. But if you’ve decided it’s not what you want, then we can go on like we are. If what you’re getting ready to tell me is no, I’ll accept that.”

Elizabeth leaned against him. “Phillip, my love, I made up my mind, that day on Max Patch. Somehow, up there, I saw how ridiculous all my doubting and hesitating was. And I haven’t changed my mind. I want to be your wife—for better or for worse, and all the rest.”

The cello suite that had surrounded them ended and the speakers hanging on the porch gave a little cough, then slipped into a doleful mountain ballad.

“Don’t give your heart to nary man…”
The singer’s voice was raw with pain and longing.

Elizabeth turned a rueful face toward the speakers. “I didn’t know
that
was on the changer. Hardly appropriate for the moment. She’s so sad and I’m so happy.”

“Happy’s good.” Phillip put his arms around her. “You make me happy, Lizabeth Goodweather.”

They stood at the porch railing, arms snug around each other, and watched as the fireworks display in the distance reached its climax.

Behind them in the empty house the telephone rang. One, two, three, the muffled sound was lost in the mournful song that drifted on the cold air of the dying year.

“…for men ain’t what…they oftimes seem…”
the singer warned.

In the little office, the answering machine clicked on.
“This is Full Circle Farm. Leave us a message.”

“Hello, Elizabeth. It’s Aunt Dodie. I thought it would be fun to wish you a Happy New Year but I expect you’re out at a party or something. It gets harder and harder for me to stay awake till midnight, but I’ve done it since I was a child, and just because I’m eighty-three I see no reason to give in and go to bed. But the television’s so dull and I didn’t feel like reading, so I decided to pass the time by cleaning out the old gentleman’s desk. It hadn’t been touched since he died and that would be—well, let me see, he passed away back in ’75.

“And here it is just a few minutes till ought-seven and in all that time I haven’t been able to bring myself to disturb the big old rolltop desk in his study. Of course, all our business matters were in the other desk, you know the one I mean, that tall glass-fronted secretary in the parlor. The rolltop desk was where he kept his personal correspondence and the notes for the memoirs of his years in the Navy he said he was working on, though I’m well aware that most of the time he was in the den he was napping or reading those Hornblower novels. Poor dear, I know that time hung heavy for him after all those years of being in the thick of things.”

The sound of a sudden crash alarmed James, who had been curled comfortably in the office’s big leather chair. His head came up. There was no repetition of the loud noise, and as the voice on the machine continued its flow, the little dog’s eyes slowly closed and his head drooped till his nose rested on the chair seat. A soft snore emanated from the small furry body as Aunt Dodie rattled on.

“Oh, excuse me, Elizabeth dear, I dropped you on the floor—or at least, your answering machine. Now, what was I…oh, yes, well, I was talking to an old friend the other day, of course at my age that’s about the only kind there is, and I asked her what she was doing and she said she was putting her house in order—
death
order was what she said actually—so that her children wouldn’t have to deal with her personal letters and things that might be meaningless to them after she’d passed on, though she’s in perfect health as far as I know and younger than I by several years.

“But what she said got me to thinking that I’d do the same for my New Year’s resolution and I realized that I ought to go through the old gentleman’s desk—some of his Navy things might be of interest to the Maritime Museum in Beaufort and I could just burn the rest. So I began by taking things out and sorting them into piles—you know, newspaper clippings, documents, old photographs—and there was the sweetest one of you and Sam when you came through here on your honeymoon; I’m having a copy made and will send it to you; you both looked so happy, but oh dear, then I found the letter from Sam…

“And some of the things Sam said were so strange, and he had questions for the old gentleman about someone he was working with whom he didn’t quite trust—someone he called the Hawk—and—oh, thank goodness, there’s the clock striking midnight—well, I’ve made it through another New Year’s Eve. Happy New Year, Elizabeth dear. May it be filled with all the happiness you deserve.”