A Long Time Gone (44 page)

It was the dog's bark that eventually drew me back to the present. I wasn't aware of how long I'd read or how long I'd been sitting on the attic floor with the book on my lap as my mind worked its way in and out of my mother's story—where it intersected with mine, and how my own past had suddenly been rewritten.

I still felt empty, and Chloe remained gone from me, but I imagined I could see a sliver of light, as a window was slowly being eased open.

Carefully, I made my way down the steps with the diary still clutched in my hand, holding tightly to the railing because of my light-headedness. The dog was gone, and I wondered if he'd been barking to tell me that we both needed to be fed. My stomach growled as I realized I hadn't eaten all day.

I paused halfway down the front stairs. Carol Lynne, wearing her old jeans and blouse, sat on the bottom step, two suitcases waiting by the door. She looked like she might still be waiting for Jimmy Hinkle to come pick her up and take her away from here, like a ghost doomed to repeat the same action over and over.

“Mama?” I'd called her that when I was a little girl. I'd forgotten that I had, and was glad she'd written it in her diary so that I'd remember.

She looked up at me and smiled. “Yes, baby?”

“Where are you going?”

Her eyes moved to the door, and then to her suitcases, then back to me. “I don't know.”

“Why don't you stay here awhile? I think I'll stay with you, if that's okay.”

“That'll be nice.”

I put my arm around her, and she rested her head on my shoulder. I
thought of all that I'd just read. We'd faced the same demons, yet had somehow found a way to fight them again and again, had found the grace we sought in the walls of this old yellow house, and the people and memories who lived under its roof. Like migrating birds we'd come back, eternal optimists who believed this house held all the second chances we'd ever need. Or maybe we were both just too stupid to ever admit defeat.

The hollowness still echoed inside my chest as I thought of Chloe, and how here I was, back where I'd started, with nothing to show for the journey and no idea where to go next. We watched as shadows moved across the walls, and I wondered if those same shadows walked inside her head.

“We've been a long time gone, Vivi.”

Tears pricked at the back of my eyes. “Yes, Mama. We have.”

There was still so much pain between us, too much to be completely erased by the words in a diary, but they were a start. And we were here. We'd both come back. Maybe that would be enough for both of us for now.

I breathed in deeply, smelling the lemony scent of her skin, and I was eight years old again and we were lying on top of the Indian mound, counting stars.

The door opened and Tommy walked in, taking in our mother and me sitting on the stairs together, her suitcases by the door.

“It's all right, Tommy,” I said, standing. “Mama and I were just deciding that she's going to stay a little while longer.”

“That's good to hear.” He looked at me, his expression somewhere between confusion and excitement. “I'm sorry I missed Chloe this morning. Tripp said it was hard.”

I grimaced. “That's one way to put it.”

“I got your watch working.” He held it out to me, and I placed it on my wrist.

I compared the time to the face on the grandfather clock in the hall. “It's dead-on.”

“Thank you.”

I looked at his face, trying to read it, but couldn't. “What is it?” I asked.

He stuck his hand in his pocket and pulled out a tiny slip of paper,
no longer than an inch and less than a quarter of an inch wide. “This is why it wasn't working. This was shoved into the back.”

I took it and then, squinting to read the tiny handwriting in black ink, read the two words:
Forgive me.

“Do you know what that means?” he asked.

Droplets of ice slipped their way down my spine. “No.” I scrubbed my hands over my face, weariness pulling at my bones and settling behind my eyes. “But I think I know who might. I just need to go lie down for a little bit so I can think straight.” I handed him our mother's diary. “I think you should read this. It will explain a lot of things.”

He studied the cover, then looked at me closely. “Are you all right?”

I shook my head. “No. Not yet. But for the first time in a long while, I'm beginning to think I could be.”

“Anything I can do?”

“I don't think so, but I'll let you know.”

Our mother was attempting to drag her suitcases up the stairs, and Tommy stopped her, lifted the bags, then followed her upstairs.

I heard Cora in the kitchen talking to the dog as I slowly went up the stairs to my room. I was nearly swaying on my feet with exhaustion, but I dug into my purse and found the remaining pill. I quickly dropped it into the toilet and flushed it before I could think twice.

Then I dragged my suitcase out from under the bed and began dumping all of my trophies and awards and high school photos inside. Like my mother before me, it had taken me a long time to realize it was time to grow up. To stop looking toward the vanishing point where horizon met sky, and instead look around where I stood, and finally see all that I'd been given.

I left the remaining books on the shelves, thinking that if Chloe ever came back she might want to read them, then zipped my suitcase closed. Panting from the exertion, I lay down on my bed and closed my eyes; the last thing I remembered before sleep claimed me was the tiny note pulled from the watch.
Forgive me.

“Forgive me,” I repeated, the word whispered to my mother and Bootsie; to Tommy, Chloe, and even Tripp. To all of those I hadn't had the courage to say good-bye to.

Vivien Walker Moise

INDIAN
MOUND
, MISSISSIPPI
JUNE
2013

I
slept for fourteen hours straight, my head feeling clear for the first time in months. I'd kept my phone held close while I'd slept, in case Chloe called, but wasn't surprised when I saw that I hadn't missed any calls. I hit speed dial and her phone went straight to voice mail. I hung up and tried again, but this time I left a message—telling her my side of the story until I was cut off, then calling her again to tell her the rest until I was finished. She might delete them all without listening. But she might not. I had licked clean the pot of fresh ideas, and could only hope and pray that Chloe would listen, and not hate me for the rest of her life.

I had breakfast with my mother, half expecting her to ask about JoEllen, but she didn't. When I left I kissed her on the cheek and told Cora I'd be back around lunch, and then I called Mathilda to let her know I was coming. Even if she pretended she was sleeping or feeling poorly, I would sit in her old recliner and wait.

She was sitting up in her chair when I entered, an afghan spread over her birdlike legs, the television tuned to Kathie Lee and Hoda, the
volume set almost as high as it would go. Her hands were cupped together in her lap and she smiled as I entered.

“It's Vivien,” I said.

She lifted her cheek for me. “Hello, sweet girl.”

I kissed her papery cheek. “Hello, Mathilda. It's good to see you again. I hope I'm not interrupting your show.”

She waved her hand. “Oh, no. I jus' like to hear Kathie Lee laugh. I think it scares the roaches away. Just go ahead and turn it off, if you don' mind.”

I hunted for the remote and flipped off the TV, then pulled up a chair next to her.

“You brung me somethin' good to eat?”

Despite myself, I smiled. “I'm sorry—I forgot. I promise I will next time.”

“I blind, but I ain't deaf, and I can hear a world of sadness in your breathin', Vivi.”

Her sightless eyes settled on me, and I wished I remembered what they'd looked like before, how my mother and Bootsie and Adelaide had seen them.

“I found my mother's diary and read it. It started when she was seventeen and ended when she came back that last time.” I stood, hoping to ease the unbearable ache around my heart that had begun the night in the garden with Chloe. As if changing my position could possibly help. I stopped at one of the plants in the window, noticed it needed water. “She mentioned you a lot.”

Mathilda nodded, her hands remaining cupped in her lap. “I 'spect so. I knows her since she was just a tiny baby. She like my own.”

I looked at her sharply, recalling that I'd had more than one mother, too. “She wrote that you were real good at keeping secrets.” I walked slowly back to the bedside chair, trying to think of what I needed to ask. “It was your room she went snooping in when she was a little girl, wasn't it? She took something, and when you found out you asked her to give it back.”

She lifted a hand and held it out to me, and before she dropped the little ring onto my palm, I knew what it was. I stared at it, then tried to put it on my own pinkie finger, but it was too small.

“You've had it all this time.”

“For such a little thing, it be a heavy burden.”

I stared at it while I spoke. “I asked you before if you knew what happened to it.”

“You asked just to know the answer. I didn't want to tell you till you askin' for the right reason.”

I didn't understand, but knew she'd wait until I'd figured it out. I ran the ring between my fingers, a symbol of a mother's love for her child, and I had to force the next words from my mouth. “How did you come by it?”

She began to pluck at her blankets in agitation. “Can I have some water, please? All this talkin's makin' me thirsty.”

If I hadn't been so agitated myself, I would have laughed, seeing as how she'd only spoken a handful of words. I picked up a water pitcher by her bed and filled a plastic tumbler and stuck in a straw like I'd seen Cora do.

She took a sip. “I found it.”

“Where?”

“In William's room—though Adelaide and them calls him Willie. I went lookin' for it right after Mr. Berlini got kilt.”

I frowned, remembering the name from the newspaper article Chloe had pulled from the archives. I'd read it thoroughly, taking notes, thinking it would be an interesting story for one of the pieces I was supposed to write. “The man who was found in the pond at the Ellis plantation with supposed mob connections?”

She nodded, her eyes focused on me in a disconcerting way and I had to remind myself that she couldn't see.

“I don't understand. Why would Adelaide's cousin have the ring—and why would Mr. Berlini's death have anything to do with it?”

“Why you wants to know? So you can bury that sweet girl with a clear conscience? Or because you think you might find the answers to you own problems? Because ain't nobody can do that for you but yo'self.”

I remembered the sliver of light I'd imagined when I'd read my mother's diary, and I couldn't stop myself from clinging to the hope that if I heard Adelaide's story it might throw the window wide-open, illuminate the path in front of me that I couldn't see no matter how hard I looked.

“Please, Mathilda. I need to know. I do want to bury her and honor her life. But I think her story might help me in some way, too. Is that too much to hope for?”

“No, Vivi. I just don' want you disappointed you don' get the answer you want.”

“I'm ready. Really, I am.”

She nodded and took a sip of her water, then began to talk.

Her story began when she first met Adelaide when Mathilda came to help her mother at the Heathmans'. She told the story of a New Year's Eve party when Adelaide had saved her, and a night when she and Adelaide had brought in a drunken Sarah Beth and put her to bed.

I walked around the room while she spoke, watering her plants, trimming them and loosening the soil. My fingers gravitated to the care of all growing things, and I found it helped me focus on what Mathilda was telling me, as if by nurturing something I could buffer the bad parts in her story.

She told me of Adelaide meeting John, and their wedding, and all their lost babies until Bootsie was born, and how she was the shining light in both their lives.

She paused to take a drink, and I was afraid that she'd stop, so I pressed on. “Even though he was involved in bootlegging, that didn't affect their relationship?”

“It did, and the man he work for, Mr. Berlini, he don' want Mr. John to quit even though both him and Miss Adelaide wants him to. I don' know why for sure, but he kept workin' for Mr. Berlini, and Miss Adelaide, she put up with it. She love him that much.”

“So where does Willie come into all this?”

“I knows he messed up with the Klan—and I think Miss Adelaide, she know this, too, but don' want to upset her uncle, who be busy with the farm and all that rain we had. My Robert, he was at Ellis the day they kills Mr. Berlini, workin' one of the stills for his uncle. They don' see him, but he saw everythin', which would get him kilt for sure if they knew. He told me it was the Klan with they robes. But Willie, he take off his hood so he can look in the dead man's pockets and Robert say he took something. I had a good idea I knows what that be, 'cause I remember seeing Miss Adelaide give him something right before Miss Bootsie stops wearing her ring. That why I go look in his room.”

She paused, her eyes moving as if she were watching the play of events inside her head.

My head swarmed with questions. “Why would the Klan have killed him? What would they have to gain?”

“They kills him because Willie know Miss Sarah Beth's sweet on Mr. Berlini, and she be in the family way.”

I sat down to digest this little bombshell, remembering dates in the newspaper articles and on my family tree. “With Emmett. So Emmett was Angelo's baby.”

She shrugged. “Sarah Beth made sure it could be both. That girl always knows how to takes care of herself.”

“But Berlini had the ring—why? And how did Willie know?”

“Miss Adelaide, she give it to him—I saw her do it, and so did Willie. I don' know why till later. But Mr. Berlini, he has a soft spot for Miss Adelaide, and Robert say Mr. John in a heap o' trouble 'cause he ain't workin' with the bootleggers no more. See, Mr. Berlini asks Robert to help him, say he trust Robert, and when the time right, he gonna give the ring to Robert to show to Miss Adelaide, let her know she can listen to him. 'Cause Mr. Berlini try to help them get away somewheres until there's no danger for them. She gives him the ring to keep her family safe.” Mathilda shook her head slowly. “She wouldn't part from that ring for nothin' less.”

I stood again and picked up the water pitcher to pour more in her glass and get one for me, and I saw that my hand shook. “But when you found the ring, you didn't tell Adelaide.”

“No.” She looked down at her neatly manicured hands, at the pink nail beds and yellowed tips. “She would ask Willie how he got the ring. She not used to lyin', and even though she try to protect me sayin' she took it, he would have known she lyin'. I don't think a day pass afore I end up in the pond, too, or worse.”

“So you kept the ring all this time, and didn't tell anybody.”

Her milky eyes settled on me, and I shivered. “I never say that.”

“Then who did you tell?”

She took a deep breath, and a small pearl on a chain popped out from the neck of her nightgown, teasing my memories of her leaning over my bed when I was small. “You wants to tell my story or you wants to be patient and let me tell it the way I remembers it?”

I squeezed my hands together, feeling the ring, trying to force myself to be patient. “I'm sorry, Mathilda. Please continue.”

“Only if you stops squeezing your hands together so tight. You likes to stop the blood goin' to your heart.”

I stared at her in surprise. “How did you know what I was doing?”

“Because Bootsie and Carol Lynne both do that when they's agitated-like. You do it, too, when you's little. Don't take no workin' eyes to see sometimes.”

I slid the baby ring onto the tip of my little finger and forced my palms flat on my thighs. “All right. I'm listening.”

She told me of the rain, and the flooded fields, and Adelaide's garden, and how Adelaide saw it all as just an opportunity to start over. She spoke of Sarah Beth's last visit, and how Mathilda had stayed in the room and listened to every word.

“So that's how you knew that Adelaide and John were planning on going away to Missouri as soon as they could.”

Mathilda nodded. “And Sarah Beth, now she know, too. I never see her so angry, and I know it a matter of time afore she makes Miss Adelaide sorry. She in a bad way, and even Miss Adelaide don' know how bad.”

“What do you mean . . . ?” I stopped when her eyes settled in my direction.

She took another sip of her water, and I would almost have accused her of enjoying herself, but I saw that her hands were no steadier than mine.

“I had to just wait and sees what I can do to help.”

Her hand moved up to her neck, where her stiff fingers pressed against the single pearl glowing like a star against the dark skin. I held my breath, wanting to ask about it, but afraid she'd stop talking if I did.

“I wish Robert never gives this to me. I thinks everythin' might be different. But maybe not. Everythin' happens for a reason.”

“Why?”

“Because it made people notice me. Because Sarah Beth, she had to lie and say she gives it to me, even though we both know Robert steals the pearl he found on the ground and gives it to me.”

I didn't know anything about Emmett's mother, but from what I'd heard so far, Sarah Beth didn't seem the type to defend a servant. Or lie for her. “Why would she do that for you?”

She turned her sightless stare on me, and I forced myself to lean back in my chair, resisting the urge to fist my hands together in a ball.

“Because we knows a secret about the other.” She began to cough and she took another sip of water. “The day of the flood Mr. Peacock calls, and say Mr. John need Adelaide to come to the store right away, and Miss Adelaide, she thinks it's so they can go north, so she brings that sweet baby with her.”

I could tell it was getting hard for her to talk, that her emotions were welling in her throat, her words slower now.

“We can stop now, if you like,” I said. “Maybe continue another time.” I held my breath, hoping she couldn't tell.

With her head down, she shook her head slowly. “I can' promise I be here tomorrow to finish. And maybe my soul rests a bit easier if this all out.”

“All right,” I said, leaning back in my chair. “Whenever you're ready.” I unclenched my fists and forced them to lie flat again.

“I watch Miss Adelaide leave with that sweet baby, and they's nothin' I can do but pray she and Mr. John and Bootsie get to Missouri likes they plans.”

She was silent so long that I finally spoke. “But she didn't. Somehow she was killed and her body buried in her own yard, and her baby ended up with Sarah Beth.” I took off the blue watch and stared at it, reading the inscription on the back.
I love you forever.
“And so did her watch. She gave it to Emmett and said to make sure Carol Lynne got it when she was older, but I don't think she told him why. It didn't work, and he tossed it in his spare-parts box.” I clipped it back on my wrist, my fingers rubbing the smooth enamel. “It didn't work because she put a note inside of it that read ‘Forgive me.' What did she do, Mathilda, that she needed to be forgiven for?”