The Lost Hours (34 page)

“So what now?” I asked carefully, unsure of my own footing. “Lillian didn’t ask me to leave. She assumed you would do it for her.”

Reluctantly, he dragged his eyes from the window opening, and I saw the struggle there—the same struggle I imagined a horse made when presented with a higher jump. Sometimes, all it took was the right lead and the conviction that flying was sometimes allowed. “I’m not sure,” he said slowly. “And I don’t think Malily is, either. She asked me to find you, you know. She’d changed her mind. But now . . .” He shook his head. “Now I think she’d probably choose to die with a clear conscience, but I don’t think she wants the world to see what she’s been keeping hidden under her bed all these years, either.”

I steeled my voice so it wouldn’t break. “I need to do this,Tucker.” I took a step forward. “Lillian said that she’s the only one left who remembers the truth. I want to know what that truth is. I
need
to know. I owe it to my grandmother.”

His jaw clenched. “You lied to me. With Susan . . .” He shook his head. “I can’t abide lying. I don’t know if I can trust you.”

I shifted my feet, reminding me of the horses and the oncoming storm. I waited, afraid of what he’d say next.

“But I can’t forget that you saved Sara’s life, either.”

The wind blew harder outside, pushing against the wood of the barn and lifting my hair, reminding me of riding into the wind on the back of a horse. And for a brief moment I allowed myself to imagine riding again. I waited for the fear to come, the indecision. But instead I felt only emptiness, with neither passion nor glory, and for the first time since my accident, I saw possibility. “Can I stay? Please? At least until I find the answers I need.” The desperation had crept into my voice but I no longer cared.

Without answering, he shot a glance outside to the darkening sky. “It’s getting ready to storm.” He stood close to me and I closed my eyes for a moment, smelling the rain and the horse and Tucker, and my world snapped for a brief moment. He touched my arm and I opened my eyes, but he didn’t say anything else as lightning flashed in the distance.

“Helen told me that you were afraid of thunderstorms.”

He shifted away, and he was lost for a moment, revisiting places I couldn’t see. “I’d forgotten that,” he said, just as the first fat drops of rain began to hit the dirt path leading from the barn. He reached out his hand. “Come on. We’ll make a run for it before it starts pouring.”

I hesitated for a moment, reading more into his words than I should have. Then I grabbed his hand and followed his lead, and couldn’t help but wonder as we ran toward the old house with its odd alley of trees if it was already too late.

A whippoorwill called out in the night, reassuring me that I wasn’t alone. The storm had continued long after Tucker brought me back to the cottage, cleansing the earth and the air and matching my mood of renewal. I hadn’t been to confession for years, and for the first time in a long while I felt the lightness of spirit caused by unburdening myself and saying penance.

But the storm continued to ravage the night, robbing me of a much-needed but elusive sleep. When it subsided I was wide-awake, my thoughts focused on my grandmother’s scrapbook pages. I needed to finish reading them in the hope that I would be given another chance to speak with Lillian. Tucker had yet to answer my question, and it was still uncertain if I would be welcome at Asphodel after tomorrow.

I listened to the rain drop from the eaves of the house and the whippoorwill calling again into the clearing sky and began to read.

 

 

 

I awoke with my face pressed against the pages of my grandmother’s scrapbook, Lola held tightly in my hands. I’d been dreaming of Mr. Harrington knocking on the door, but it wasn’t the front door to the house on Monterey Square that he banged fat fists onto but instead the door to the secret room. I waited and watched in the darkened attic, seeing the door open, but awakened before I could see who’d opened it. Blinking my eyes, I spread my palm and found the bell charm nestled between a miniature sixteenth note and a plump golden heart, representing the three women whose lives were recorded on the linked chains.

“Piper? Are you in there?”

I sat up, my head groggy and my eyesight blurred as I strained to see the clock on the kitchen wall, and then shot up out of my chair when I realized it was after ten o’clock in the morning.

“Piper?” I heard again.

I pivoted toward the front door of the cottage and saw Helen in the doorway, a bundle of papers held with both hands.

“Did you drive yourself?” I immediately felt foolish, knowing it was ridiculous but also realizing that I wouldn’t put it past Helen to be so industrious.

She laughed, then took a step forward over the threshold. “No, Emily did. Odella gave us some supplies and Emily’s getting them out of the cart. I’m sorry for walking in like this, but Emily peeked through the kitchen window and saw you there, sleeping. We thought it would be better to awaken you now before you developed a permanent crick in your neck.”

I rubbed my neck, feeling the stiffness from having slept in an awkward position. “Thanks,” I said. “Is anything wrong?”

“No. I just wanted to make sure you were still here. I figured you went to go see Tucker last night and I wanted to make sure that he wasn’t pigheaded enough to tell you to leave.”

“Not yet. He’s still thinking about it. He’s pretty angry, and I don’t blame him. But I think he understands why.”

She tilted her head to the side, reminding me of a flower as it bloomed, unable to hide its secret beauty any longer. “Yes, he would. But he doesn’t forgive easily. You’ll have to earn his trust back.”

“I know. I just hope he gives me a second chance. He said he couldn’t abide lying.”

Her sightless eyes drifted behind me, almost making me turn to see what she could. “Because of Susan. I don’t think he ever really figured out who she was. I always thought that Susan was trying to outrun her past by inventing new ones. And when she couldn’t run anymore, she used drugs to help her forget.”

I leaned against the table, unable to completely shake my grogginess .“Why would she want to reinvent her past?”

Helen shifted her eyes back to me and shrugged. “I don’t know. She never spoke about where she was from, or her family, other than they were from New Orleans.” She smiled. “That’s where Mardi gets his name—his full name is Mardi Gras Cotton Picker. But that’s about all we knew of her. She never visited any family; she always said they were all gone. We sent word when she died, but no one came to the funeral.”

“How sad,” I said, taking her elbow and leading her to a chair at the kitchen table.

She sat and looked at me expectantly. “I have a favor to ask, but first I have a little peace offering.”

For the first time I noticed what she held in her hands and I bit my lip when I saw what she was handing out to me.

I took the scrapbook pages, my hands not quite steady. “Are these Lillian’s?”

She nodded. “But not all of them—just the ones we’ve already read. Malily doesn’t know I took them—yet. Odella helped me sort through them. I promise to tell Malily later. But I wanted us to be on the same page, so to speak.”

I looked down at the old, weathered pages, recognizing the torn edges where they’d been ripped from the book. But the handwriting was different—softer, with more loops and slants whereas my grandmother’s writing had been compact, with small, bold strokes.

“I don’t want you to get in any trouble with Lillian.”

She turned her green eyes up to me. “Malily’s always been the one to tell me not to hesitate when it comes to something I want. Besides, I know that her silence isn’t about protecting her. It’s about protecting me. And I don’t need protecting; I haven’t for a long time now but nobody seems to realize it.”

I touched her hand. “Thank you,” I said, placing the pages on the table next to my grandmother’s, feeling an odd sense of satisfaction at seeing them together.

Emily appeared at the door. “Is it all right if I bring these things in and unload them in the kitchen?”

“Go right ahead. Do you need some help?”

“Nope. Got it. Don’t want you to strain yourself before we start today’s therapy session.”

I jerked my gaze to Helen. “Excuse me? I didn’t schedule anything.”

Emily looked genuinely surprised. “Helen said you were ready to start. I’m sorry—I hope I didn’t misunderstand. . . .”