Sweetgrass (23 page)

“But she eventually came out of it,” said Kristina. “I mean, she’s fine now.”

Nona looked out over the garden and wondered about that. “For a long time, she managed well enough, but she wasn’t the same. You see, Mama June was the kind of woman who always saw the glass as half full. Know what I mean? But after the accident, well, the glass was empty. It was plumb dry. No one ever went back to Blakely’s Bluff after the accident. They couldn’t stand to. And those family reunions and such, they all stopped, too. The whole family kept to themselves and tried to make it through, day after day.

“Then the new parish priest came by to see Mama June. He was young and had all sorts of ideas and he somehow got Mama June to start volunteering at the church. She started off doing just this and that, real slow. But gradually she got more and more involved. In time she was like her old self, throwing herself into her work. That glass started filling up again. Praise the Lord.”

Kristina listened, then nodded her head in understanding. “Thank you, Nona.”

Nona slowly dragged herself to a stand, grunting with the effort. Kristina sprang to help her. Nona brushed the dirt from her skirt.

“But the roots,” Kristina said. “They’re still there, aren’t they?”

She’s a smart girl, Nona thought to herself, looking at her closely. The summer sun had darkened the freckles on her nose and pinkened her skin, but she was a pretty thing, and Nona wagered Morgan thought so, too.

“It’s like I said,” she replied, looking her in the eye. “You can’t tug too hard. You’ve got to ease them up, wiggle them out bit by bit so they come out clean.”

MAMA JUNE COULDN’T RECALL
what day of the week it was. For the past several nights she’d had such dreams, so much tossing and turning, that during the day her mind was sluggish and preoccupied. Around her, the rest of the family was caught up in their routines and life marched along its normal path. She, however, felt as if she was walking in a fog, groping for landmarks.

One landmark was her husband, and she went straight to his room after dressing. Kristina smiled when Mama June entered and quickly rose from her chair opposite Preston, patting Mama June’s arm in greeting as she passed. It was just a soft touch but one that had come to mean a great deal to Mama June.

Preston was dressed and looking quite well sitting by the window with a book. Blackjack lay at his feet in a deep sleep.
The dog pried open an eye when she drew near, thumped his tail on the floor twice, then went back to sleep.

Preston’s blue eyes, however, were bright and he reached out his good arm toward her in greeting. She set the potted cyclamen she was carrying on the table beside his bed, then came close to sit in the chair across from his. Outside, dark clouds spread low across the horizon and gusts of wind rattled the wicker furniture on the veranda.

“Looks like rain,” she said. “A good day to stay indoors.”

He nodded his head, and she thought how much more muscle control he was gaining.

“Kristina is all smiles this morning, don’t you think? Did you know Morgan took her to the movies the other night? Nona tells me they’re going to the beach tomorrow. Could be we have a little romance going on right under our noses.” His eyes brightened and she knew he was as amused as she.

“It’s nice that he’s enjoying himself some. He’s been working so hard. He has some scheme for the property that he’s excited about. No,” she replied to his brows raised in question, “he won’t tell me what it is yet. He says he wants to get his ducks in a row first.” She made a face. “That’s how he put it, ducks in a row. Adele uses that expression a lot. Do you think he’s teasing?”

He chuckled and she joined him. Then her smile died as she felt the fog return.

“He’s been talking about Hamlin lately, too,” she said. She watched Preston’s smile fade, and concern mixed with sorrow shadow his expression. “Nan tells me he’s still having his nightmares. I think being home again is stirring up the mud, bringing up old haunts.”

His brows furrowed.

“That’s a good thing, isn’t it? Going over things we’ve done or said in our mind, trying to get things straight. I mean,
sometimes our memories are garbled and we have to…” She tightened her lips and looked out the window at the approaching storm. None of this made any sense to her. How could she explain it to him?

She felt his hand on her knee, and she swung her head back to meet his gaze. She saw understanding and infinite patience in them. She grasped his hand and held it, gaining courage.

“I’ve been having dreams, too,” she confided. “Only they seem so much more vivid than any dreams I’ve had before. It’s like I am reliving the past. No, that’s not quite right, either,” she said, shaking her head. “It’s hard to explain. It’s more like I am watching a film. I’m present but more detached, if that makes any sense. It started when I began talking to you about the first time we met. Remember? After that the dreams started. I’ve dreamed mostly of that first summer here, when I came with Adele. It’s all coming back. All the details. We’re all young again. I’m seeing you and Adele.” She paused. “And Tripp.” She glanced furtively at him. His expression had not changed.

“Oh, Preston, I found the letters!” she blurted out. “I went into the attic and found them and read them over and over.” She shook her head. “What’s hard for me to understand is how I could have so obstinately believed one thing, really and truly believed it, when the truth was there all along, staring me smack in the face.”

She brought her palms to her face. “All these years I’ve let myself cling to the belief that, for all that happened, for all the pain and suffering, Tripp had loved me. Of course he didn’t! I see that now.” She dropped her hands and looked into his eyes, seeing again the compassion. “You knew that all along, didn’t you?” Her sigh ended with a short, bitter laugh. “If only I’d accepted the truth early on. When I think of how I suffered, waiting for some word from Tripp…”

She settled back in the chair. “When I think of how so many people suffered.” Her voice grew softer and she felt tired again. Across from her, Preston sat still, listening. She’d never really talked to him about what had transpired at college that fall, or how she’d learned of Tripp’s death. They’d skimmed over the details, as they had once skimmed over the murky waters of the creek in a kayak.

Now, she told herself. It’s time to tell him now.

“It was unusually cool that fall,” she began. “I was back at Converse College and Adele was my roommate again. The first few days living together were difficult, as you can imagine after all that happened that summer, but we tried to mend things between us enough so we could get along. We scarcely saw each other. She was always energetic and busy. And frankly, I was so caught up in my own worries at the time, I didn’t mind that we weren’t as close as we once were. It might have even made things easier, considering I was secretly pregnant with her brother’s child.

“I used to take long walks in the parks that surrounded the college. I remember the gold and scarlet leaves were especially bright that fall. I’d been at college for almost three months, and it had been at least ten days since I’d written Tripp about the baby. I waited by the phone in the dorm’s hall every night, pacing, biting my nails. I tried to be patient and allow time for the mail to be delivered. Then after a few more days, I convinced myself that the letter sat on the table in the foyer of Sweetgrass, waiting for Tripp to stop by the house and pick up his mail. Or perhaps for you to be sent out to Bluff House to deliver it. But more days passed and still no phone call or letter came.

“Then one afternoon I came back to the dorm from my walk. I remember it was midafternoon and I’d gotten over-
heated and sweaty. The baby might’ve been no bigger than a pea in a pod, but he made his presence known. I climbed the stairs, and when I paused on the landing to catch my breath, I heard the muffled sound of crying. I suddenly became aware that the hall was unusually quiet. This was the busiest, noisiest time of the day, when the girls came rushing back from their classes and got ready for the evening. The silence was eerie. Wrong.

“I knew that something bad had happened, I sensed that somehow I was in danger. I was walking down the hall toward my room. Some of the other girls’ rooms were open. I saw them huddled together, talking in hushed voices. They stopped talking and looked up when I passed by.

“My door was closed, but from behind it I could hear the sound of heart-wrenching sobs. I opened the door and there was Adele, lying facedown on her bed, sobbing piteously on her pillow. She had a telegram crumpled in her hand.”

Mama June closed her eyes and brought to mind that afternoon in searing clarity.

“Adele,” she said softly, approaching her with the same caution she might a wounded animal. “Adele, it’s me. Mary June. Sugar, what’s happened?”

Adele swiftly turned her head, her shoulders tense. Her eyes were swollen and smeared with mascara, forming a horrid mask of grief. She stared wildly at her for a moment, then focusing, she collapsed back on the bed.

“He’s dead!” she cried out.

Mary June’s mouth slipped open as she felt a rising sense of panic.

“Who?” she asked through dry lips, though in her heart she knew.

“Tripp. He’s dead, Mary June! Here,” she cried, thrusting the telegram at her.

Mary June stumbled back to her bed. Her mouth gasped for air that wouldn’t fill her lungs as a roaring sound, like the ocean during a storm, filled her head.

Denial was immediate. “No, he’s not!” she screamed back.

Adele choked back her tears. “Yes, he is. Read the telegram!”

Mary June looked at Adele with disbelieving eyes and then at the slip of paper she held crumpled in her hand. She did not want to touch it, to read it, to make it real.

Adele thrust the telegram toward her again, urging her to take it.

Reluctantly Mary June took hold of the crumpled yellow paper. She smoothed out the wrinkled telegram on her lap with trembling fingers and stared at it.

So few words for such an enormous message, she thought with an absurd calm. She read the words, then folded the paper, carefully pressing the creases as if by prolonging the process, she could cling longer to a thread of hope. When she could speak, she handed the telegram back to Adele.

“It doesn’t say he’s…he’s dead.”

Adele sniffed loudly and rose to sit. She grabbed a tissue from the desk and then released a great, shuddering sigh. She spoke in ragged sentences.

“I called home. I talked to Daddy. He told me.”

He told me. He’s dead.

Tripp was always so alive…. She felt suddenly cold and longed to climb under the covers of her bed and curl up, to bury her face in her pillow. Her mind darted to waking up at Bluff House in Tripp’s bed, his arms around her as they lay like spoons. She’d felt so warm then.

“Mary June, do you hear me?” Adele shook her shoulders. “Mary June?”

She blinked, feeling as if she’d just been shaken awake. “I hear you.”

“You scared me, sitting like that for so long.”

Mary June shook her head, trying to clear it. She felt the storm still coming. “It can’t be true,” she told Adele with a stupor. “It’s a mistake.”

“It’s no mistake! Mama can’t talk to anyone,” Adele went on, dabbing at her eyes. “Daddy says the doctor’s given her something to calm down. And Preston…”

Mary June swung her head around, her chest tightening. “What about Preston?”

“Daddy says Preston and Tripp had a terrible fight over at Blakely’s Bluff. It was a brawl like never before. They really tore the place up. Press came home bloodied. Mama about died on the spot. But when Daddy went to Blakely’s Bluff to lay down the law, Tripp was good and drunk and wouldn’t listen. He took the boat out. Daddy couldn’t stop him. That’s why he had the accident. He’d been drinking. And it was dark. Otherwise he never would have hit that oyster bed.”

“Oh, God…” Mary June buried her face in her palms as a wave of despair swept over her. She was devastated yet, strangely, tears would not come. Perhaps because in her mind she’d already faced that he’d left her. Or perhaps she’d already cried so many tears, there just weren’t any left. She wished she could cry, loudly and violently. It would be so much better than the cold numbness that spread through her veins as though she, herself, were dead as well.

Adele began shredding the tissue into little jagged strips. Gentle knocks on the door and the worried inquiries of the other girls went ignored. After a while the knocks ceased and the girls went to the dining hall.

Adele stilled her hands in her lap and fixed her gaze on Mary June.

“The only part I can’t figure out,” she said in a strained voice, “is what made Tripp and Press fight like that. Daddy
said they were like to kill each other. Sure, they fought before, but never like that. Do you know why they’d fight like that?” Her tone was prodding, even accusing.

Mary June lay down on her bed, bringing her knees close to her chest, and knotted the end of her pillow in her fists. She knew, instinctively, that
she
had been the reason the brothers had fought so bitterly. She knew Adele had to suspect this as well. Yet neither of them could dare give it voice.

Hadn’t Adele warned Mary June about Preston’s feelings? She’d told Mary June not to date Tripp. She’d been dead set against it. They’d had words about it. But Preston had never declared himself, and despite his feelings for her, she knew that reason alone wouldn’t have caused a fight like this. No, she thought with a shudder. She could only think of one thing that could. She turned her face into her pillow.

“The afternoon that we found out Tripp had died in the boating accident,” Mama June told Preston, “we both cried and cried. It was so sad. Such a waste! Adele told me that you’d fought with Tripp and she’d wanted to know if I knew why. I suspected then that she knew about the baby. We were roommates, after all. She was sitting on the edge of her bed, watching me, waiting, I think, for me to tell her.

“I wanted to tell her. Oh, Preston, I wanted to tell someone about the baby! I was so afraid and lonely. I needed to vent with my friend, my roommate, Tripp’s sister. My chest felt ready to burst with pain and secrets. But I thought, what good would it do to tell Adele about the baby now? Tripp was dead. I’d only just learned that and I needed time to figure things out. I was afraid Adele would be furious with me for being so stupid or for somehow besmirching her brother’s memory with a scandal. I knew she’d end up making me feel worse. Adele’s fury can be cruel. I couldn’t handle a
direct confrontation just then, and in the end I knew it would solve nothing.

“The shame was mine to bear alone. I’d brought it on myself. If I told Adele the truth about the baby and it became public, the shame and dishonor would carry over to Tripp and your whole family. I felt the least I could do was spare you that.”

Preston squeezed her hand and she felt the power of his consolation.

“You know the rest.” Mama June wiped away a tear that coursed a trail down her cheek. “What’s done is done.”

Mama June knew that with that decision made so many years ago, made with all good intentions, Mary June Clark had begun weaving the elaborate web of lies and silences that would bind her in the silken threads of deception for years to come.

That night, Mama June stood at her bedroom window and stared out at Blakely’s Bluff. The clouds had rolled in, obscuring the moon and blanketing the sky in inky blackness.

She stood staring until her body grew heavy with fatigue and her lids drooped, eager to close. Reluctantly she climbed into her bed, turned off the light on her bedside bureau, then brought the sheets and thin summer coverlet over her shoulders. They were cool, as was the pillow. Laying her head down, she caught the refreshing scent of sage that Kristina had sprinkled on her linen to soothe her sleep.