The Lost Hours (16 page)

“Thanks for offering to bring me to dinner. I could have walked.” I held on to the side of the cart, trying to press my teeth together so I wouldn’t chip them. The movement didn’t seem to bother the dog, whose large head was resting on my pink floral skirt, his nose making a wet spot on my thigh. With no place for my other hand, I let it rest on Mardi’s neck.

Helen turned her head, her beautiful dark green eyes reflecting the golden sunset behind her, matching the color of the silk shantung dress she wore. On anyone else, the dress would have looked out of place on a golf cart. She smiled. “It’s no problem. We had the supplies to bring to you anyway. But I have to confess to an ulterior motive, too.”

I stiffened, and Helen raised a brow as if she sensed my wariness. “Really?” Even to my own ears, my voice was too casual.

“My brother, Tucker, will be joining us for dinner with his two girls, Sara and Lucy. If you wouldn’t mind, please don’t mention Susan. He hasn’t . . . well, he doesn’t talk about her. Especially in front of the girls.”

I tried to hide my relief. “Thanks for letting me know.”

Helen faced forward again and we rode the rest of the way in silence, as if to pay homage to the watchful oaks as we passed under their hovering branches, a canopy of old men protecting what was theirs.

Odella jerked to a stop in front of the front garden I’d noticed before. “If you don’t mind, Miss Smith, could you take Helen inside? I got to run to the kitchen to stick my corn bread in the oven.”

“Of course. Don’t let me keep you.”

I helped Helen out of the golf cart and put her hand on my arm. She held up a finger and we waited until Odella had disappeared around the corner. “Thank you, Earlene, but I’m fine. It makes Odella feel better if she’s babying me so I let her. I don’t have my cane, so if you’ll just take me to the bottom step, I’m good to go. Unless you’d rather take the elevator inside?”

My chin seemed to jut out of its own volition, just like I remember doing whenever I was told I wasn’t expected to win a ribbon at an event. “No,” I said. “I’m fine with the stairs.”

I tried to set a slow pace as we headed toward the steps but I found myself almost jogging to keep up with her long strides. She pulled away as soon as we reached the hand railing.

“I love your dress,” I said as I executed a lopsided jog up the stairs behind her. We reached the landing and I was panting from the exertion, my knee beginning to complain. “I’m curious about how . . . well . . .” I stopped, realizing that I might be treading in sensitive territory.

“I shop by touch. If I like the way the material feels, I’ll ask a sales-person or whoever I’m with to describe the color and design. But it has to feel good first.” She headed up the last flight but went slower this time and I had a strong suspicion that she was doing it for me.

“Malily will be waiting in the parlor, where you saw her before. If we’re lucky, she’s already had a couple of drinks. And if Tucker’s already there and he’s playing bartender, definitely ask for a martini. He makes the best.”

I nodded as I followed her into the darkened foyer and then down the dim hallway beyond the stairs to the room I remembered from before. When I entered I had the impression of a queen and her court. Lillian Harrington-Ross was seated in the same gilt chair she’d been in before, but on the floor flanking her were two blond girls, their hair the color of moonlight. They wore matching yellow sundresses and were each playing with a gold-and-diamond bangle bracelet. The younger girl was holding her small arm up to the light, watching the stones reflect the greedy ray of sun that had strayed into the room, the diamonds throwing drops of light onto the walls and furniture. The older girl simply stared at hers, as if willing it to do something more useful than just be beautiful. I noted Lillian’s arm was bare at the same time I noticed the man standing by the open armoire.

I paused behind Helen in the doorway, wanting to back out of the room unnoticed, and suddenly aware that my skirt didn’t completely hide the scars on my knee. I felt Helen pulling me forward and I inwardly groaned as she propelled me into the room. We greeted Lillian first before Helen introduced me to her nieces, Lucy and Sara, and then she turned toward the man.

“Tucker, I want you to meet Earlene Smith. She’s the genealogist I was telling you about who’s renting out the cottage for a few months. Earlene, this is my younger yet less good-looking brother, Dr. William Tecumseh Gibbons—otherwise known as Tucker around here.”

His eyes held the same haunted expression I remembered from the horse pasture, but his lips were definitely twitching themselves into a smile. “We’ve met, actually, although I didn’t catch her name before. She was making friends with the new horse.” His lips broadened into a smile and his skin seemed strained from the effort.

Helen turned to me. “I thought you were afraid of horses.”

I flushed with annoyance and mortification, remembering how I’d lain supine on the ground as the horse had searched my pockets for a treat. “I wasn’t ‘making friends.’ It was after my car got stuck and I was trying to find my way back to the house to get help by crossing through the pasture. The horse . . . surprised me and I tripped.”

“And Tucker didn’t offer to help you?” Lillian asked, leaning forward, her fingers tucked tightly around a sherry glass.

Without meeting anyone’s eyes, I said, “I didn’t think to ask. My only thought at the time was to get away from the horse.”

Helen raised two fingers to Tucker and he pulled out two martini glasses. He spoke as he mixed the drinks. “Although, as I told her at the time, she’s the first person he’s shown any interest in at all. Either he sensed your fear or . . .” He handed me my drink. “Or it was something else entirely. Maybe a familiarity with horses, even.” He walked over to Helen and placed a drink in her hand. He returned to the armoire and picked up a double old-fashioned, the bottom filled with amber liquid.

I realized that everyone was looking at me, expecting an answer. I took a large gulp of my drink, my head already spinning. “I used to ride—a long time ago. But I fell off and I haven’t had the need or desire to get back in a saddle again.” I took another sip of my drink, alarmed that I was at the bottom of the glass already, and forced a smile. “Like every young girl’s horse obsession, mine ended and I grew up.”

The younger girl, Sara, had scooted over to sit by my feet. I was wondering what to do with my empty martini glass when I felt a small hand on the bare skin of my leg. “You’ve got a big boo-boo.”

I looked down at her, wide crystal blue eyes turned up at me. Her forehead was creased with worry, her lower lip quivering. As much as I knew it would hurt, I squatted in front of her so that I would be at eye level. “It’s an old boo-boo and it’s all better now.” I wondered how much I should tell her, knowing that because she was a young girl being raised around horses, I should leave out the part about how a large horse had caused my injury. Instead, I asked, “Have you seen
The Wizard of Oz
?”

Sara nodded emphatically.

“So you know the Tin Man. Well, the doctors put a piece of metal in my knee so that it would work better.” I tapped on it. “See? Right as rain.”

She continued to frown. “It must be rusted because you walk funny. Maybe you need some oil.”

“That’s enough, Sara,” Tucker said as he approached and lifted Sara into his arms.

I stood, my knee stiff, and caught Tucker’s gaze. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “Children . . .”

“It’s all right. She was just curious.” I looked at Sara, who’d gone back to playing with her bracelet, and noticed how awkwardly her father held her, as if he didn’t do it very often. He saw me looking and quickly set her down, her dress twisted and creased in the wrong way. Without thinking, I bent down to straighten it. As my fingers sifted through the tulle and cotton, I had a flash of memory of my grandmother braiding my hair before a big event, her worn hands pressing down my jacket and brushing off any lint.

I stood, feeling dizzy, the memory fresh, the guilt heavy. I’d never remembered her at my events, but she must have been there. Who else would there have been to make sure my riding costume was beyond reproach?

“Are you all right?” Tucker’s eyes had narrowed with concern.

I was spared from answering by Odella’s appearance at the door. “Supper’s waiting on the table. You’d best get at it before it gets cold.”

Tucker moved to assist his grandmother out of her chair and lead her from the room as Helen called for Sara to come take her hand. That left the older girl, Lucy, and me. To my surprise, Lucy walked somberly over to me and slipped her hand into mine.

She spoke quietly, each word pronounced with care as if she were used to being misunderstood. “You can lean on me, if you need to. I don’t mind. I think your knee must still hurt you and that’s why you limp. Aunt Helen’s blind and Mama was . . .” She stopped, and I willed her to continue. “What I meant to say is that we’re used to people with handicaps.”

I stared down at this young girl, amazed at her astuteness and my own ignorance. Since the accident I’d never once thought of myself as handicapped—wounded and victim, sure, but never handicapped. For the first time I saw myself as others must, and the portrait made me cringe.

The dining room with its crimson walls and ornate ceiling was dimly lit, the candles on the table throwing shadows like draped lace. The blinds were closed on the four floor-to-ceiling windows, the enormous crystal chandelier and matching wall sconces that lined the walls losing the battle to encroach upon the darkness.

Tucker sat Lillian at one end of the table and then held the chairs one by one for the rest of us before taking his place at the other end. Odella had already set all of the serving pieces and utensils on the table and we began by serving ourselves before passing the food in a clockwise motion. Tucker was to my left and Lucy on my right. I’d thought she’d need some help with some of the heavier dishes, but she seemed determined to do it all herself without any assistance.

I watched as Tucker placed the food on Helen’s plate and then Sara’s, cutting into small bitefuls everything on both plates before standing to pass the platters on to Lillian’s end of the table.

I studied him surreptitiously from the corner of my eye, watching his serious expression as he sawed a knife into meat, saw his face relax as he addressed Helen, saw the slightly bewildered looks he gave to his daughters. It made me think of the dead Susan, and where she would have fit at the table, realizing with a start that I was most likely sitting in her seat. Maybe that was why he seemed to be avoiding looking at me altogether.

Helen turned to her grandmother. “Malily, it occurred to me while I was talking with Earlene the other day that you might be able to help with some of her research.” She chewed thoughtfully on a forkful of ham. “She’s working on a project for a friend, researching all the families in the area. Anyway, we were in the cemetery looking at Grandpa Charlie’s obelisk and I realized that I really know nothing of your life here at Asphodel before you were married. Maybe if you could share some of that with her, maybe give her some of the names of people that were here at that time, that would probably be a big help.”

Helen’s sightless eyes rested on me for a moment, and although I knew she was blind, I could almost believe that not only could she see me, but she could see inside me, too. And I wondered if she realized how much she and Lucy were alike.

Lillian was on her second glass of wine and her eyes had taken on a faraway look. I figured that Helen had probably realized this and that was why she’d planned her first foray into her grandmother’s past at the dining table.

Lillian’s words were softly slurred, the ending consonants dropping off slightly as if they’d fallen down a short incline. “I was born here at Asphodel. Right up there in the bed I sleep in every night. I was probably conceived in that bed, too, but that wasn’t ever a subject a properly brought-up young lady would ever ask her parents.” A slight twitch lifted one side of her face in a gruesome smile.

She took another sip of her wine. “That was in nineteen nineteen, just a year before women won the right to vote and blacks couldn’t despite the fifteenth amendment that said they should, and well-bred women were expected to have no bigger aspirations than to get married and have children.” She paused, sifting through years of memories. “I was an only child, although it wasn’t for lack of trying. There are four graves in that cemetery of the brothers who didn’t make it past their first year. I never knew my mother. She died when I was eight and before that she was too busy crying over her dead babies.” She stared into her wine. “I suppose that’s why I have no patience for people who can’t move on.”

Lillian stopped abruptly, her gaze flickering over Tucker, who’d gone very still. She drained her glass. “Doctors weren’t sure whether it was the hard births or the grief that finally took her, but I always thought that she was relieved to go.”

Lillian sat back in her chair, holding her empty glass close, and a dreamy look settled on her face as if she’d moved on to a different place, leaving us all behind. She closed her eyes. “It was a lovely time to be alive, to be young. It was just me and Father, and all of my lovely, lovely horses. I rode every day. Even in the rain or when it was too cold or too hot to do much of anything. All of those lovely horses,” she said again, her words slurring.

“What about Grandpa Charlie? You’ve never told us how you met.”

Lucy and Sara were dutifully eating a bit of everything from their plates, including their vegetables, although it looked like most of Sara’s peas were rolling off her plate and onto the starched white linen tablecloth. Although she was sitting on several phone books, her chin was barely over the edge of the table, but still she persevered. She wore a look of determination and I wondered if she’d gotten that from Tucker or Susan.