The Lost Hours (46 page)

“Annabelle was beautiful, too. But her beauty was different than yours. She seemed so strong on the outside, that people never guessed how vulnerable she really was. How easily broken.” She watched the younger woman for a moment, the delicate nose and cheekbones, the stubborn jut of her chin and the fisted hands that hid fingers permanently callused by holding a horse’s reins. “They never said that about you, did they? I’m sure it was a surprise to everyone that you stopped competing.”

Piper’s eyes were cold and unyielding. “Please don’t change the subject. When did Freddie finally arrive?”

Lillian threw the blankets off of her, the heat overwhelming. “Why do you need to know this now? Can’t you just leave it alone? Your grandmother is dead, and knowing the rest of her story isn’t going to change that.” Her words were slurred, her body trying to give up a fight her mind wasn’t yet ready to.

“When did Freddie finally arrive?”

So persistent.
Annabelle had been that way, too. Up until the very last letter Lillian had returned. Lillian lay back on the pillow, and went back to the small attic room, remembering the first flash of lightning that permeated the room with light before dipping them all into darkness again.

“I stayed in the attic room for two days, while Josie and Annabelle took turns watching over me, and making sure I ate. Sometimes they’d take the baby to stop his crying or to give him fresh water in a rag. Dr. O’Hare came up once to let us know that someone had come to the house looking for Freddie or for me, and he told them he hadn’t seen either one of us for over a month. But it scared him enough to come up to the attic to tell us none of us should come out. That we should close the window because of the baby’s cries. We’d already heard about the church fire, and the marriage records that were taken, so we figured if they were looking for me in Savannah, they’d probably already been to my daddy’s and told him what they knew. It was only a matter of time, and we knew we had to get word out to Freddie not to come, that they’d be waiting for him.”

“And then what?” Piper didn’t turn around.

Lillian tried to keep her eyes open, so she wouldn’t have to see it all again, but her lids fluttered closed, obliterating her comfortable bedroom at Asphodel and revealing the nightmare of a storm-ravaged night seventy years before.

“He came. We didn’t know it was him at first. Dr. O’Hare had gone to the store to get food. He somehow managed to put the armoire in front of the door in the attic just in case. We sat in the dark taking turns holding Samuel and trying to quiet him, daring to open the blinds only a little. A black shelf cloud lay over the city, and Josie said it was a bad omen, that we needed to prepare for the worst.”

“And did you?”

“What could we do? We had nowhere to go. We had to sit there and wait, and pray that Dr. O’Hare came back soon, and that Freddie knew not to come near.” She waved her hand over the upended sherry glass. “I need another drink.”

For a moment it looked like Piper would say no. Instead she pushed herself away from the window and retrieved the glass and refilled it, handing it to Lillian without a word. Then she returned to her post, watching the alley of oaks and the way the sun lay cupped in their branches as it began its lonely descent on a world that Lillian felt slipping away from her.

She upended the sherry like a shot glass, as she’d seen her father doing countless times without the tempering influence of a mother who would have ensured her daughter never had access to the vulgarities of men.

“And that’s when Freddie came?”

Lillian tasted the alcohol on her tongue, knowing that no amount of drinking could ever take away the bitterness that lingered in her mouth still. “Yes, he came. He must have had Justine’s key. He knew where we were—Josie probably told him—and he’d made it up to the attic before they caught up with him.”

Piper was facing her now, the light from the window behind her darkening her face so Lillian couldn’t see her eyes. “You . . . heard them?”

Lillian nodded. “We heard all of it. They beat him first, asking where his white whore was, and how they were going to teach her a lesson for defiling her race. He . . .” Her voice cracked, the memories like broken glass. “He never told them anything.”

“And Samuel stopped crying.”

Lillian slowly raised her eyes to Piper’s, glad the young woman’s face was blurred. Because every time she looked at Piper, she saw Annabelle the night of the storm, the night when they all left their girlhoods behind them.

Without averting her gaze, Lillian said, “Do you really want the truth? Because I could tell you the rest of the story where the ending is the same, but the bad guys are the ones in the black hats. And not the woman who held you as a child.”

Piper slowly sank down in the chair by the bed and Lillian saw that her hands were trembling in her lap, as if she too could hear the cracking thunder and the sound of fists colliding with broken bone.

“I want to know the truth. All of it. My grandmother would have told me herself.”

“If you’d only asked.”

Piper’s eyes flew to Lillian’s face. She jutted out her chin. “Tell me the truth.”

Lillian smoothed the blanket under her fingers, her skin numb. Her eyes didn’t leave Piper’s. “Annabelle was holding Samuel when he started to cry. She’d given him a rag but he didn’t want it. He was so hungry. The storm masked it at first, but his screams were growing more frantic. We had no doubt that we would not live to see the morning if those men heard us.”

She swallowed, her throat dry. She needed another drink so badly, but she didn’t have the energy to ask. “So Annabelle covered his mouth with her hand, to quiet him. He . . . he stopped and we all dared not move as we listened to them beat on Freddie and raid the house. And then they left, taking Freddie with them, but we stayed in the dark room, listening to the rain and the thunder. We stayed there so long that dawn was breaking before we thought to move.”

“Where was Dr. O’Hare? Why didn’t he come back?”

“Oh, he did. Paul Morton found him in the front parlor. They’d hit him over the head with a chair and broken a rib. Paul was the one who came and moved the armoire and unlocked the door for us. He told us there’d been another lynching, that Freddie was dead. They were calling it a suicide. But we all knew the truth.” She closed her eyes for a moment, dreading the act of opening them again. “And Paul was the one . . .”

She looked up, surprised to see that Piper was handing her a tissue and that her face was wet with tears.

“He took Samuel out of Annabelle’s arms and gave him to me.” Lillian looked away, unable to meet Piper’s eyes. “He wasn’t breathing.”

Piper was shaking her head, her shoulders shuddering. “No. No!”

Lillian gazed past the young woman, toward the window, where she could see the brittle ends of the uppermost tree limbs. “She hadn’t meant to. It was an accident.”

Piper stared at her for a long time, horror and recrimination battling in her eyes. “And you’ve blamed her all these years. You could never forgive her, and that’s all she wanted. It destroyed her, that guilt.” She shook her head and swiped at her eyes with the back of her hand. Leaning forward, she said, “She saved you, and Josie. And you couldn’t forgive her?” She pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes.

Lillian stared at Piper’s bowed head, remembering their conversation about the moonflowers and how she’d called them courageous because they dared show their ugliness in the bright light of day. She almost told her the complete truth then, but hesitated still. She’d never been courageous like Annabelle, and that was why Lillian hid from the truth even now, when forgiveness was so close at hand.

“It wasn’t about forgiveness, Piper. It was about survival. I saw my baby son’s face every time I thought of Josie and Annabelle. That’s why there was never any contact between us. Why we divided the scrapbook and never looked back.”

Piper’s eyes were reddened, and tears for a child she never knew stained her cheeks. “The angel gravestone in the cemetery. That’s where they buried him.”

Lillian nodded, pressing her tissue to her mouth. “My father allowed it, but only if I’d marry Charlie. He still loved me, despite . . . everything. And my reputation was saved because my father turned in Freddie’s friends to the same mob that lynched Freddie.”

Piper stood, her movements stiff.

“Are you glad now that you know the whole story?”

Piper shook her head, agitated now. “But it’s not, is it? What was in the letter that Susan found?” She moved closer to the bed, looking down at Lillian. “And why have you been living in the dark all these years? What aren’t you telling me?”

Lillian watched her chest rise and fall, and thought of Helen. “There’s nothing. I’ve felt guilt because of what happened to Annabelle, which I’ve tried to deal with every day of my life. But I forgave her long ago. I’d hoped she would have forgiven herself, too.”

Piper looked at her oddly. “But she never knew you’d forgiven her, did she? So how could she ever forgive herself?” She looked away, sniffing loudly. “I need to go now. Should I send Odella in?”

Lillian managed a brief shake of her head before sinking down into the pillows. “No. I’m going to rest now.”

Piper nodded and headed for the door.

“Piper?”

She turned around. “Yes?”

“I loved your grandmother like a sister. I never stopped.”

“You had a funny way of showing it.” Lillian thought she saw pity in her eyes. Quietly, Piper opened the door and left.

As Lillian’s eyes fluttered closed, the words she’d been longing to say escaped her lips, spilling out into the empty room the way lightning in a storm diffuses the darkness for one brief moment, and then is gone.

I stood outside Lillian’s room, hearing the last words Lillian had spoken, not intending me to hear.
Forgive me.
The words chilled me, leaving me wondering for what she needed to be forgiven.

Odella had left, but Helen sat in the chair outside the room. From the stricken look on her face and her reddened eyes, I knew she’d heard every word. She raised her hand toward me and I took it. We stayed like that for a few minutes without speaking, as if in mutual agreement that their sins weren’t ours. And that the fall of years was like pierced lace over old secrets.

I released her hand, then walked blindly from the house, not even aware of where I was going until I’d reached the stables. It might have been force of habit that made me seek out horses when I needed a place to think, but a part of my decision to stand in front of Captain Wentworth’s stall had to do with what Lillian had said to me about my grandmother. Not about the horrible thing that had happened in a dark attic room years ago, but about the brave woman who’d fought battles that didn’t have to be hers, and who’d remained a loyal friend to the very end. She was a person I was proud to have known, and to say she was my grandmother. If only I’d figured that out when she was still here to tell her.

The words that Lillian had said before continued to taunt me.
Because if you were different, you’d still be jumping fences.
I wasn’t all that sure she’d said them to hurt me. She told me that she’d loved my grandmother, and I believed her. And maybe she understood that Annabelle wouldn’t have wanted me to be sitting on the sidelines of life like she had, as if she wanted me to figure what had eluded her for so long, that disappointments didn’t have a limit, but the number of lives we had did.

I rested my hands on the stall door, my knuckles white.
Because if you were different, you’d still be jumping fences.
I couldn’t help but think that Lillian’s words were meant for Annabelle as a form of forgiveness, too late to help my grandmother, but maybe not too late for me.

I looked into the stall, surprised to find it empty, at the same time noticing the name tag on the door.
Captain Wentworth.
Gingerly, I let my fingers touch the engraved letters, thinking of Tucker ordering it for me.

“Captain Wentworth?” I called out, not expecting an answer, but eager to dispel the eerie silence of the stables. I emerged from the other side of the barn, the side that faced the riding ring, and forced myself to stop.

Lucy had managed to tack up Captain Wentworth by herself and lead the huge gelding to the mounting block, oblivious to his size and temperament in relation to her size and experience. I didn’t run, not wanting to scare either one of them, but I walked rapidly toward the ring, where Lucy had already stuck one booted foot in a stirrup and was getting ready to mount.

When I was close enough, Lucy glanced at me and quickly lifted her right leg over the horse before I could say anything.

Captain Wentworth shifted uncomfortably, but remained still, allowing Lucy to gather up the reins and move him away from the mounting block in a smooth walk.