The Lost Hours (13 page)

Helen heard Earlene approaching again. “Your poor brother.” Earlene’s footsteps stopped. “What about this one? It’s a small stone angel stuck by itself in the corner.” She paused and Helen pictured her leaning down to examine it more closely. “There’s no inscription on it.”

“It’s a bit of a mystery, I’m afraid. Nobody seems to know what it is or how long it’s been here. Susan was obsessed with it. I think that’s why Tucker chose to bury her nearby.”

She reached out for Earlene’s arm and felt again the reassuring pressure of her hand as Earlene brought it to the crook in her elbow—the one without the scar this time.

“Did he love her very much, then?” Earlene began to lead her toward the gate.

Helen stumbled on something soft and small and stopped to pick it up. She held it out to Earlene. “It feels like a glove.”

Earlene took it from her hand. “It is. It’s a man’s riding glove.”

“It must be Tucker’s. He comes here sometimes to clear the weeds and put flowers on Susan’s grave. He’s living at the tabby house, where you saw me coming down the path earlier. If you wouldn’t mind, could you please stick it in the mailbox as we pass it?” Mardi began nudging her hand. “It must be eleven thirty—time for his treat. He doesn’t like me to forget.”

“Smart boy,” Earlene said. “Can I take you back to the house?”

“No, just to the driveway if you wouldn’t mind. Mardi and I can find our way back from there.”

They walked back slowly in silence as Helen thought about Earlene’s question and how she still wasn’t sure how to answer it. When they reached the mailbox, Earlene stuck the glove inside and closed it.

Helen had her face turned toward the house, a small smile on her lips. “When Tucker and I lived here with our parents, we were pretty much allowed to run wild. Tucker was the most dedicated prankster I’d ever known, drove our parents crazy. He was always hiding things in the mailbox—like your toothbrush or left shoe. Once he put Mama’s new kitten in there but the mewling gave it away. He got in a lot of trouble for that, I remember.” Her smile faded a bit. “But he was so scared of thunderstorms. Whenever it rained, he’d crawl into my room and sleep by the side of my bed. Daddy found him there once and I told him that I’d been scared of the thunder and Tucker was there because I asked him to. I didn’t want Daddy to be angry with him.”

“And you’re still close?”

Helen shrugged. “As close as he’ll let me get, which isn’t too close these days. It’s like he thinks I couldn’t see what was between them, that I didn’t know. . . .” She stopped abruptly, remembering that she was speaking to a virtual stranger. She smiled brightly. “Well, never mind our family dramas. I’m sure you have your own to deal with and don’t need to add ours.”

Earlene was silent for a moment before answering. “Yes, well, thanks again for your offer to help. I know my friend will appreciate any information I can find.”

Helen tilted her head to the side. “You don’t sound like an Earlene. Is that really your name?”

There was a brief pause before Earlene answered. “It is. But I’ve always gone by my nickname.” She didn’t elaborate.

Ah.
“Then I’ll call you Earlene until you tell me different.”

“Thank you,” the other woman said, gently releasing her arm from Helen’s grasp. “I’ll call you once I get my notes in order and maybe we can meet to discuss them.”

“Sounds like a plan. Why don’t you come by for supper tomorrow night at seven? I’m hoping my brother will join us and you can meet him.”

“Thank you. I’ll be there.”

“Just wear a dress or a skirt and put some lipstick on. Malily cannot abide a woman in jeans.”

“How did you know I was wearing jeans and no makeup?”

Helen smiled brightly. “I can hear the jeans rubbing as you walk, and as for the lipstick, well, that was just a guess.”

“You’re good,” said Earlene, a smile in her voice. “Scary, but good.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment. See you at seven, then.”

“Good-bye.”

Helen waited with Mardi as she listened to Earlene head out in the opposite direction, her limp more pronounced than before. Using her cane, Helen began walking toward the house, knowing without a doubt now that whatever it was that had really brought Earlene to Asphodel Meadows hadn’t been a friend’s request and that the scars she bore were more than just the visible ones.

Lillian woke with a start, the remnants of her dream still floating in the air around her like ghosts. She moaned, the pain in her hands and back throbbing through her body, her bones knocking against one another. But she wasn’t completely sure if it was the pain or the dream that had brought her awake. More pain pills would bring relief, but they would also bring sleep. And sleep would bring back the dreams. She clung to the pain as it shot ripples through her skin, forcing her exhausted body into blessed alertness.

Stiffly, she pulled herself up in the large rice poster bed that she’d been conceived in and in which she would most likely die. It had been hers and Charles’ through their fifty-five years of marriage—years in which he’d lain next to her in the large bed, years of dreamless sleep. It was as if he’d erased her past, a dam braced against the deluge, and once he was gone she’d drowned in the memories as easily as if she’d stepped off the banks of the Savannah River and slowly sank to the silt-covered bottom.

She moved to the large window that faced the front of the house, where in the daylight she had once enjoyed seeing her garden and the sundial that were as much a part of her now as her green eyes and the shape of her nose. Behind the half-closed blinds the summer moon hung full and sultry white, daring to illuminate the bitter oak trees in the alley. Tucker had tried to convince her that they needed to be replaced with younger saplings but Lillian wouldn’t hear of it. She’d known them since her birth, had witnessed their transformation, and their humped shoulders and knotted limbs made her a kindred spirit. The years hadn’t been kind to either them or her, although it had occurred to Lillian that in their case they hadn’t done anything wrong to deserve their current state.

She braced her arms on the windowsill, the pain still intense but moving out now to other parts of her body, slowly dissipating. Her nightgown stuck to her skin despite the central air-conditioning she’d installed in the house when she’d redone the tabby house, but it was no match for the humid summer air and her dreams. Biting her lip, she pulled back the blinds, then slid open the window lock and raised the sash, letting the wet, sticky air hit her face. The smell of the boxwoods by the front door rose to greet her, reminding her as they always did of home, and a whippoorwill called out from the lane of oaks. Long ago, Josie had told her the legend of the whippoorwill, how they were lost souls come back to remind the living how tenuous was the line that separated them.

The whippoorwill called out again and Lillian shivered despite the heat. A horse whinnied from the direction of the stables, and she thought of the horse Tucker had been working in the lunge ring and wondered who was winning that battle. She hoped it was Tucker. He needed to win at least one.

Lillian sank down in the stuffed chaise lounge Odella had arranged for her in front of the window and felt her eyelids sag despite the pain. She was so very tired. She wondered why God kept her alive and she didn’t like the answer when she thought about it. How did a person seek redemption for a sin committed long ago against people now dead? Lillian had always imagined that when Annabelle died her guilt would pack its bags and leave like an unwanted houseguest. But it remained, a suitcase of memories left behind.

She thought again of Annabelle’s granddaughter and her letters and a thread of doubt began unraveling in her head. What if she’d done the wrong thing by turning her away? Shifting in the chair, her old bones rattled inside the loose flesh of an old lady. Funny, in her mind she was still the young Lillian Harrington, beautiful and lithe, the pride of her father. It was only when she saw herself in the mirror that the truth found her and she was confronted with the old woman she’d become, the lines on her face and crooked fingers the price she paid for keeping secrets.

Closing her eyes, she let her head sag against the back cushion of the chaise as sadness, like a moth, fluttered to her chest and settled there. Her useless fingers found the angel charm she still wore around her neck and she twisted the chain tightly until she could feel it pressing into the soft skin of her throat, a noose of lost chances and broken promises.

When Lillian woke again, the sun streamed through the open window and a dawn chorus from Carolina chickadees and song sparrows had replaced the nocturnal call of the whippoorwill. She kept her eyes closed, clinging to the respite of a dreamless sleep. For a moment she allowed herself to imagine that she was a girl again, to the time before knowing that growing older meant giving up things you loved, and that making choices could reach farther than into the next day. She teased herself with the thought that today was the day she would tell her secret, that she would at last be free from it. But she thought of Tucker and the shadow of grief that followed him, and of Helen who loved her and thought of her as the mother she never really had, and Lillian knew it was too late. Not now, when Tucker’s grief was as raw as broken glass and Helen’s love kept Lillian from dissolving her past in alcohol.

Her heavy lids drooped, and she allowed herself to drift off to sleep again, just for a few moments she promised herself. The music was already playing as her eyelids closed and she was dancing with Charlie and they were laughing because the first four names on her dance card were his. It wasn’t until she opened her eyes and felt the wetness on her cheeks that she remembered where she was and that the worst thing that could happen to you could happen twice.

I slid on a pair of cream-colored cotton walking shorts, checking the length to make sure they covered my scarred knee and then slid on my sandals. After gathering up my purse and notebook, I checked the handwritten map Helen had given me, looking for the best way out of the property. I studied the neatly drawn lines and lettering, precise enough that it almost didn’t appear hand-drawn at all, and I wondered who’d made it.

I traced the line of the road I’d come in on, and it appeared that my GPS had taken me the long way. Glancing at my watch, I calculated how much time I had if I wanted to make it to the library in downtown Savannah before dinner at Asphodel Meadows at seven. The Bull Street branch of the Savannah library had a genealogy and local history room and I’d already figured that one morning and afternoon probably wouldn’t be enough time to find all the information I needed, but it was a start.

I threw everything on the passenger seat of the Buick, then slid onto the hot vinyl seat, the backs of my legs through my shorts feeling scorched. After starting the car I blasted the air-conditioning and rolled the windows down all the way, sticking my face outside to suck fresh air into my lungs. The old familiar smells that always made me think of what could have been startled me at first, and made me remember where I was. I slumped in my seat, feeling my heart squeeze, remembering defeat like a phantom limb. It was like an old war wound that ached in cold weather, and being on a horse farm was like moving to a perpetually arctic climate. Quickly, I slid the windows up again and put the car into drive.

Slowly, I drove down the drive that I remembered from before, the golf course on one side and the oak alley of twisted trees on my right. Ignoring my GPS’s commands to turn around, I followed Helen’s map instead, and continued to drive down the red dirt road past the alley of trees. Shortly after that, the road became nothing more than two bald tire tracks on a pate of red clay, the grass on the sides tall and rising from marshy water. This made sense since Asphodel had once been a rice plantation with fertile bottomlands near the river. Although the old rice fields weren’t marked on the map, I figured I’d found them, the first piece of history I’d actually discovered since coming here.