On Folly Beach (37 page)

LULU TURNED HER HEAD AT the sound of running feet approaching on the gravel drive, expecting to see Heath and disappointed to see it was that Emmy woman instead. She thought about ducking behind a piling and avoiding her altogether, but realized she’d already been spotted.

Emmy was covered with perspiration, her oversized gray army T-shirt darkened with moisture, her face a bright red from exertion. Her eyes were wet, but Lulu wasn’t sure if it was from tears or the running. Eyeing Emmy up and down, Lulu could see clearly that Emmy wasn’t the running type, and she made a mental note to ask Heath what in the hell he thought he was doing.

Emmy stopped and put her hands on her hips, breathing heavily and staring back at Lulu. “Can I help you?”

Ignoring her, Lulu jutted her chin at Emmy. “Is that your husband’s?”

Emmy looked down to see what Lulu meant, then nodded. “Yes. I don’t own any T-shirts of my own.”

The girl looked so small and fragile in the oversized shirt, her eyes wide in her reddened face. But there was something arresting about the eyes—something that made Lulu think of a battle between giving up and hanging on that reminded her so much of Maggie and the way she’d been after Jim. And Peter. “Are you still angry?”

Emmy’s delicate eyebrows dipped, like the wings of a gull. “Angry? At whom?”

“Your husband. The army. The bad guys. The whole world, even. With your husband for leaving you.”

Emmy looked at Lulu, pretending she didn’t understand. But Lulu knew a lot more about grief than most people, and she recognized anger behind everything Emmy did: the way she walked with her chin jutting out, her avoidance of other people—not that there was anything wrong with that—and the way she still pretended as if she were here on Folly just as a visitor. An angry person would resent the need for change in the first place, would be mad at everyone who put her there. At least until she turned the anger on herself for ever letting him go. But maybe Emmy had passed all that already, and was just waiting for another emotion to take its place.

“I’m not . . .” Emmy began, then stopped before dipping her head. When she looked up, her eyes were clear. “How long does it take? How long before I’m supposed to stop missing him?”

Lulu was silent for a minute, her thoughts on Jim. “Long enough. You’ll know when it’s been long enough.” Lulu scrutinized the younger woman, trying not to see so much of Maggie when she did. “Where’d they bury him?”

Emmy surprised Lulu by not crying as she would have done when Lulu had first met her. She still appeared delicate and fragile, but the girl had a backbone in there somewhere.

Sticking out her chin, Emmy said, “Back home, in Indiana. On his family’s farm next to his grandfather, who was a World War II vet. Why?”

Lulu examined the amber bottle she held in her hand. “Curious, I guess. It’s nice to have that, I guess. Cat’s husband, Jim—the one in the photograph. They never did find him. Figure he was drowned or blown up on the Oklahoma.”

“Poor Cat. How awful not to be able to bury her husband.”

Lulu tilted her head back and laughed. “Don’t ever say poor Cat out loud, or she’s likely to come back and haunt you. She wasn’t one who solicited a lot of pity—that’s for sure. Except from Maggie.” Her face darkened. “That’s another one who was never found.” She shrugged, studying the bottle in her hand. “But I think that’s where she’d want to be, in the end.”

Emmy stared hard at her. “What do you mean? Because she loved the ocean? Or because she had a thing for Jim?”

“Oh, we all had a thing for Jim.” Lulu began to move past Emmy, already tired of the conversation. She heard Emmy’s footsteps following.

“What do you mean? Did Maggie have an affair with Jim?”

Lulu swung around to glare. “Be careful which thoughts you decide to say out loud. Jim was true to Cat every day of their married lives, and that’s all I’m going to say about that.” She began to walk faster, already pulling out the keys to her golf cart.

“Why are you here?”

Lulu held up a bottle. “Needed this shade of glass for a tree I’m working on, so I substituted another one for Heath’s tree. He won’t mind. It was only stuck on there temporarily anyway. I’ll be back to solder it on, once I’ve figured out that I’m done.” She was already seated in the golf cart before Emmy caught up to her.

“I forgot to ask you this when you and Abigail came to the house. Heath told me that he found documents showing a sale of your house on Second Street to a Peter Nowak in February of nineteen forty-three. Is that the same Peter who gave you and Maggie the books?”

Lulu paused as she focused on sticking the key into the ignition, imagining she heard Maggie humming “String of Pearls.” There was no trip down memory lane faster than riding a guilty conscience. She turned the ignition and listened to the motor whir.

“Yes, it’s the same Peter.” She turned the wheel and began to back into the street.

“Why did she sell it to him for only ten dollars—was it a gift?”

Lulu nodded without looking at Emmy, trying to focus on the road to see if anybody was coming. “Yep.” She put the cart in drive.

“What kind of a gift?”

Lulu paused. “A late wedding gift. To Cat and Peter.”

Lulu pressed the accelerator, not caring if she sprayed dust and gravel at Emmy. Maybe it would make her leave, make her stop asking questions that made the dead walk through Lulu’s dreams at night.

Without looking back, Lulu headed down East Ashley, afraid to see Maggie’s accusing eyes staring after her.

CHAPTER 19

FOLLY BEACH, SOUTH CAROLINA

August 1942

The months that followed Cat’s revelation became what Maggie would always think of as the sleeping time. She sleepwalked through her days, insulated from any emotion. She’d been this way after Jim was killed, too, but at least then she’d had a tangible grief to hold on to. What was she holding on to now? It didn’t matter that she still loved Peter with a desperation that scared her. Peter’s love had proven to be nothing but a fantasy, a romance from one of her favorite Bette Davis movies. Still, she clung to what she thought it had been, in the same way she imagined baby turtles clung to dreams of their mothers as they plunged into the foaming ocean.

She existed in a black-and-white world, as if she’d suddenly been struck with color blindness. Even noises seemed muted, tastes dulled. She imagined that life underwater must be like this, looking up toward the filmy surface from her liquid cocoon, and seeing the rest of a world that she was no longer a part of.

The only color that still existed in her world was Peter. When they were forced to share company, he was solicitous to her, even kind. The way a stranger might treat a stray dog. But his eyes—those beautiful amber eyes—shone with startling clarity as he watched. And he was always watching her, as if waiting, the way the wind waits for rain before a hurricane.

At least she’d been spared the wedding, as Peter had balked at being married in a Catholic church, adamant that a conversion would not be considered, so instead Cat and he had gone to Charleston and been married by a justice of the peace. Lulu had been sick, so Maggie stayed home, glad for the excuse to not attend the ceremony. She didn’t know or care whom Cat had chosen as a witness instead.

Maggie and Lulu had moved all their belongings into Lulu’s old room so that Cat and Peter could have the larger bed, and through the whole process, Maggie was glad of the numbness. As she tucked the corners of the fresh sheets on the bed where Peter and Cat would sleep, she felt nothing. Instead, she began to plan. She and Lulu would have to move. Not just to another house on Folly, but to another corner of the world. Not that it would matter, really. No matter how far away Maggie could go, she knew it would never be far enough. It reminded her of something Jim had told her—something like wherever you go, there you are. And she finally knew exactly what he’d meant.

She was glad to have Folly’s Finds because Cat had stopped working there. The pregnancy was proving to be a difficult one, and most days she didn’t get out of bed. It seemed that the mere act of placing her feet on the floor made her retch, and she’d lost so much weight that Peter had called the doctor to come to the house and demanded to know what was wrong. The doctor assured them all that nausea was common in early pregnancy and should be disappearing after the fourth month or so.

Shortly after the wedding, Maggie heard Cat crying out during the night. She pressed her pillow over her head until Lulu nudged her, telling her that Cat was calling for her. Maggie rose from her bed and threw on her robe and crossed the hall. Peter, still fully dressed, stood by the bed, his watchful gaze lighting from Maggie to Cat, then back again. Finally, he took a pillow and went downstairs. Maggie stayed for most of the night, trying to console a miserable Cat while wondering how long her mother expected her to keep a promise made so many years before.

She barely noticed her exhaustion at Folly’s Finds the next day. The store had been busy with people eager to purchase newspapers because of all the news about the capture of the Nazi saboteurs who’d landed in New York and Florida. The war had finally come within the United States borders, and people were scared.

It was near dusk by the time Maggie made it home from Folly’s Finds. No lights shone from the house as Maggie dragged herself up the front steps. None of the blackout curtains had been lowered yet, which meant Cat was lying up in her bedroom in the dark.

Peter was gone even more than before, and when he was home, he spent a good deal of time at McNally’s on Center Street. When he came home, he was reeking of cigarette smoke but never of alcohol. And if it had been Maggie’s business to question, she’d have wondered what he did for all those hours at Folly’s biggest nightspot.

With trepidation, Maggie slowly climbed the stairs, pausing outside her old bedroom door, hoping Cat was asleep.

“Mags? Is that you?”

Maggie stepped forward into the room and went to the window. The room smelled of vomit even though Martha had been in earlier to clean out the basin. “Yes, Cat. It’s me.” She closed the blackout curtains, then turned on the small bedside lamp.

Cat lay on her back, her skin sallow against the white of the pillowcase, her small frame shrunken under the bedclothes. She looked like a scared child and not like a mother-to-be.

Maggie remained standing. “Why are you lying here in the dark?”

Cat attempted a smile. “Because I didn’t want to catch sight of myself in the mirror. I know I’m a fright.”

Maggie said nothing to reassure Cat. It wasn’t out of animosity or any feelings, really, except that her gaze had strayed to the empty spot in the bed beside Cat.

“Have you had anything to eat?”

Cat shook her head. “Martha made some chicken soup but I didn’t have the energy to get any. The doctor said I needed to eat so the baby will be strong and healthy, so I’m going to try.” She licked dry lips, her hands with chipped red nail polish clutching at the sheets. “Since I’ve got nothing to do all day, I’ve been thinking of names. If it’s a boy, I’m going to name him after your father. But if it’s a girl, I’d like to call her Margaret. After you.”

Maggie frowned as she studied the dip in the blankets where Cat’s pregnant belly lay. It was the first time she’d associated a name with the unborn child, making it more real. A tiny person. Peter’s child. “You have plenty of time to think about it, Cat. Besides, Peter might have other ideas.”

Cat turned away. “Peter liked the idea of naming our daughter after you.”

For a brief moment, Maggie was filled with hope until her eyes settled on the simple gold wedding band on Cat’s left hand, and she was glad Cat couldn’t see her face.

Cat turned back to face Maggie, her eyes wet. “You blame me for this, don’t you?

Maggie quietly regarded her cousin, the once-beautiful gold hair now matted and dark with dirt. The question surprised her. In all of her internal battles, she’d only ever blamed herself for being so gullible. But now, staring into Cat’s troubled eyes, Maggie thought she knew the answer. “No. I don’t. I feel sorry for you, but I don’t blame you. We should all share a portion of the blame somehow.”