Lowcountry Summer (33 page)
“Don’t worry, Caroline. I’ll be sure he knows. Is there anyone else you’d like me to call?”
“No. Gosh, you know what? I don’t know. I’m having trouble thinking all this through. I just hope we don’t forget anyone . . .”
When we hung up I went looking for Trip and couldn’t find him anywhere. Chloe was back in the den in front of the television.
“Don’t you think you’ve watched enough television for a while, honey? You’re going to ruin your eyes.”
She looked up at me and crossed her eyes as hard as she could and then broke into a fit of giggles. I was not amused.
“Humph. You’d better be careful, they’ll get stuck like that. If you see your father, please tell him I’m looking for him.”
Maybe he was out on the river or who knew? I decided I would go pull up his bed and get his towels to throw in the wash. His door was closed. I opened it a few inches and saw the outline of his body under the covers. He had gone back to bed. This was not good. I closed the door and wondered what to do about it and decided to leave him alone for a while. Maybe he hadn’t slept well and just wanted to catch a nap before driving to Charleston. That was probably it. But a little voice inside my head that sounded an awful lot like Miss Lavinia said,
The man’s grieving. Let him have his time of grief. But don’t leave him to his own devices for too long.
It was true. What if Trip took his comfort in the company of Jack Daniel’s and went on a bender? That was just about the last thing we needed.
It was barely ten o’clock. I decided to go back to my house and see how Millie was progressing. She was still in the kitchen.
“How’d it go?” she asked.
“I’m not sure I did anyone a lick of good.”
I told Millie everything that had happened and she said, “Humph. That Linnie needs somebody to tan her hide.”
“You can say that again. Wait! I thought you didn’t approve of that!”
“I’m making an exception. Know what? You’d bess go down to Charleston with your brother and you drive the car. He sounds like he might be too distracted. You know, we don’t need another tragedy around here.”
What had she seen in her head now?
“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking, too. I’m kind of worried about him, Millie. I’ve never seen him like this. And those girls are lying in bed, good for nothing, and Chloe is watching television too much . . .”
“We gone pray for him, Caroline, we gone pray like mad this time.”
“Well, we sure have a lot to do before Saturday. I guess I can use Mother’s roses for flowers. The gardens are in bloom but I don’t want to strip them bare, you know?”
“I think there will be plenty. Now, if Miss Sweetie gone do all the sweets, then I gone do all the savories. I’ll make ham biscuits and pickled shrimp, and iffin that Bobby Mack can send us a pork shoulder, I can make shredded-pork sandwiches on soft rolls. How’s that sound?”
“That sounds perfect. I’ll help you. I think all that plus a few cases of champagne and white wine and we’re on our way.”
“And booze, of course. Better check to see what we’ve got.”
“I’ll do it,” I said, and made a mental note.
“I just talked to Jenkins. He’s been down to the chapel since the crack of dawn, cleaning, cleaning. Raking the ground to get rid of twigs and to level it a little bit. He’s got two men with him putting the ‘amen job’ on all the brass fittings and so on. And he says he’s got them stained-glass windows so clean you can count the hairs on Saint Peter’s head. You got to get me another picture of Miss Lavinia, you know.”
“It’s on my list.”
“Good. Now, where’d I put those silver party trays? You know they gots to be all blue with tarnish. Ain’t used ’em since Christmas . . .”
Millie was thoroughly occupied in a conversation with herself. I went upstairs with the intention of waking Eric. On the way home I’d had the thought that perhaps a few hours fishing with Trip might do them both a lot of good.
My mind returned to the plans. Should I rent a piano for the chapel? Impossible. What about a chamber group? Or just a harp? Given the logistics, violins and flute or cello were probably better than trying to push and pull a harp up that hill. I had to make more calls. And I needed chairs but how many?
“Eric?” I said softly, and opened his door. He was on the phone.
“Who are you talking to?” I mouthed.
“Dad,” he whispered to me, covering the mouth of the phone with his hand. “I’m talking to Dad. What? Oh, sure . . . he wants to talk to you.”
Oh, great, I thought. Just what I need.
Paging Ms. Levine! Dr. Pathetic on line one!
“Sure,” I said evenly, and took the receiver. “Richard?”
“Caroline! What a shock this is! Terrible! Simply terrible! How’s Trip managing?”
“Not so well right now, but you know, the wound is still fresh.”
“Yes, of course. Well, I imagine it must have been rather a trauma to pay a visit to the morgue. Vile business, all that. Body pulled out of a cubby in a wall on a stainless-steel tray like an unbaked loaf of bread. I’m sure she had no color. Was she very cut up? Very bloody? Dear God! Must’ve been awful for you, too.”
“It wasn’t great. I’d rather have been at a Bob Ellis shoe sale, that’s for sure.” Did he actually want the gory details? “These things are more explicit on
Law & Order,
I’d say.”
“Well, do you have Trip’s number? I’d like to give him a call. You know, offer my condolences.”
“Sure,” I said, and gave it to him. “So, you’re well?”
“I’m okay, I suppose. You know, still putting one foot in front of the other and making it from Monday to Monday. You?”
“Well, that’s good. Me? Oh, I’m fine. Just this horrible loss . . . it’s a lot to cope with. You know, Frances Mae is away . . .”
“Oh? Where is she?”
“Um, she’s receiving a little counseling out in California on the virtues of sobriety.”
“Again?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, my! Was this precipitated by her usual theatrics?”
“You don’t want to know.” Did he really think I was going to tell him everything as though we were two old friends gossiping over the hedgerow? I didn’t think so. Why did he set my nerves on edge? The mere sound of his voice was enough to get me going. “Anyway, we have her four girls, and now with Rusty gone, I imagine a lot of their care will fall to me. They’re not going to be too happy about that.”
“Ah! I can see it all now! You are gearing up for a hot Lowcountry summer?”
“Oh, Richard . . . you’re such an ass.”
“Thank you, my dear. And you are still my treasure.”
“Thank you,” I said. Suddenly I wanted to beat a hole in the wall with the receiver of the telephone while he was still on the line, crack his skull via Verizon.
“Well, let me call him and see if I can help him get through this.”
“Great. That would be great. Thanks. Take care.”
I handed the phone back to Eric, smiled like Miss Lavinia, and left him to finish his conversation with his father. My ex-husband. Whom I had been completely freaking insane to marry.
I spent the rest of the morning doing all the things that needed to be done. It was Millie who pointed out that McAlister-Smith’s would be glad to come out here on Saturday and oversee the service.
“They got chairs, tents, something to put down in case the ground is wet, and everything else you need. It’s what they do, ’eah?”
“Yes, but I don’t want those ugly metal chairs, you know? I want something elegant, you know, like ballroom chairs? Is that too over-the-top?”
“Not to me.” Millie stopped, put her hands on her hips, and looked at me. “What are you trying to do here? Control the whole world? Girl? They can probably get ballroom chairs for you. Ask them! Then it’s one less thing for you to worry about. They can get them dropped off, placed in position, picked up. You don’t need all this fool mess to be worrying about!” Then she dropped her hands and smiled. “Sorry. I just . . .”
“You’re right, Millie. You are actually one hundred percent right. I’ll ask them.”
“Good! Now, do you remember where we put up the punch bowl? I’ve been looking high and low . . .”
I e-mailed the addition for Rusty’s obituary after a conversation with one of McAlister-Smith’s directors, who was very, very helpful. Yes, they could acquire all the walnut-finished ballroom chairs with tan leather seats that we needed. And of course, they would put up a twenty-by-twenty tent just in case of foul weather. And did we want a guest book? A podium to hold it? Pens? Everything was decided by phone, fax, and e-mail, even the urn, and I was so relieved. The last place I wanted to take Trip was to the funeral home. It would be bad enough for him on Saturday when they delivered Rusty’s ashes to the chapel.
Two o’clock came around faster than I thought it would and the next thing I knew I was driving with Trip to the airport to pick up Owen.
“Let’s take my car,” I said.
“Why?”
“Because I’m the oldest and you have to do what I say. Besides, I need gas.”
“Fine,” he said, and climbed in.
We drove to the end of Parker’s Ferry Road and turned right onto Highway 17. Trip was silent. I thought, Well, okay, he’ll talk when he wants to, but the silence went on for so long it became very unsettling.
“So, Trip?”
“What?”
“Feel like talking?”
“What is there to say? I never loved anyone in my life like I loved Rusty, and I lost her. In the space of a few seconds she was here on earth and then she was gone. Poof! Just like that. If one person tells me it was God’s will, I’m gonna hammer them.”
“I sure don’t think it was God’s will. Not for a second. And I don’t think it’s karma either.”
“Explain it to me, then, because I just keep telling myself it doesn’t make any sense. It makes no sense at all.”
“It depends on your view of the world, you see?” I gave him a quick glance and he was looking out the window. “Look, we’re going to start with some very basic Western Christian assumptions, okay?”
“Such as?”
“There’s God and there’s the devil. There’s heaven and there’s hell. Are we okay with that?”
“Whatever. Okay.”
“Okay. So, there’s God’s work on the grand scale—nature, humanity, and all the good stuff on earth and in the heavens.”
“Where are we going here?”
“Hang with me for a few minutes, Mr.
AD
HD. So? Ever since we were little children, we were told that we’re here to love and serve God, right?”
“Yep.”
“Then there’s free will. This
tragedy
is where free will comes in and the devil gets fat. Free will is the enemy here. Say you’re driving an eighteen-wheeler and you get a text from your girlfriend’s friend to say she saw your woman cheating on you in a bar last night.”
“Lovely.”
“Right? So you’re pissed, so pissed that you want to text your girlfriend and tell her to kiss it, right?”
“Yep.”
“So you know you’re not supposed to text while driving, but some little devil in your head gives you a poke in the brain and says, ‘Oh, go ahead,’ and so you do. You hit the send button and run across your lane into oncoming traffic and kill somebody. Not exactly God’s will.”
“Look, I don’t believe any of that shit.”
“I’m not asking you to. I’m just saying it’s a way of explaining it. In the cosmic sense. It’s a little win for the bad guys when somebody innocent gets taken out before their time. Anything that can make you rant and rave against God is good for them.”
“Do you really believe that crap?”
“Sometimes I do and then at other times I don’t know what I believe. But I know this much: I’d sure rather believe there’s something out there that can save us from ourselves than to believe that everything is just random.”
“Yeah, me, too.”
“Gimme your paw, you sorrowful son of a bitch.” I held my hand out to him and he took it. I gave him a good squeeze and said, “I ain’t leaving you, Trip. Ever.”
“Thanks,” he said, and squeezed my hand back.
O
WEN WAS STAYING WITH TRIP
for the simple reason that he preferred to be in the house where his sister had lived. Perfectly understandable, even though Trip was running out of beds. But Owen wanted to look at Rusty’s things and envision her there, to remember how her life was. I thought that was awfully sweet, really. I mean, let’s be honest; sensitive, sentimental straight men are on the endangered-species list. He wanted to get to know Trip and even his young hellions he had heard so much about.
The unfortunate thing about this arrangement was that Trip was not up to the job of playing the gracious host. In fact, he was so bereft that he had canceled all of his appointments for this week and the next. Taking two weeks off seemed dangerous and excessive to me, but I was keeping my big mouth shut about that. He was such a pitiful mess, I found myself running back and forth to his house to preside over meals and everything else. I didn’t mind. It was only for a few more days and I thought Trip managed his emotions a little better with people around to whom he felt marginally accountable for keeping that upper lip stiff. And if I hadn’t learned anything else from Miss Lavinia, I had learned that in times of sorrow sometimes it was best to
pretend
that everything was going to be all right. It made terrible things somewhat easier to endure. So I showed up for every meal to at least try to make the girls feel that life was still happening and that things were close to normal, given the facts.