The Secrets She Carried (38 page)

“Who you lookin’ for?”

A man in an oversize camouflage jacket sat very still at the far end of the porch, his stringy white hair combed back from his forehead, a scruff of silver whiskers glistening along his jaw. Leslie moved down the porch, feeling the warped boards give with each step. Only when she was closer did she note the cigarette fuming in his right hand and the portable oxygen tank beside his rocker. A much-marked and well-thumbed Bible lay open in his lap.

“Would you be Landis Porter?”

“Might be.” Cloudy blue eyes narrowed behind thick, wire-rimmed glasses. His voice was a strange combination of ragged and breathless, a smoker’s voice. “Who wants to know?”

“I’m Leslie Nichols. Maggie Gavin was my grandmother.”

“And?”

“And I’ve come to ask if you remember anything about a fire that occurred on Peak Plantation when you were a boy. There was an article in the
Gazette
—it mentioned your name.”

Porter took a long pull on his cigarette, blowing the smoke out slowly. “Did it?”

Had she imagined it, or had his eyes actually shifted for the tiniest instant?

“There were three names, actually. Your brothers, I assume. I
looked for them too, but you were the only one I could locate. I was hoping you might be able to tell me something about what happened that night.”

“As I recall it, a shed burned down.”

Leslie dropped into the rocker beside his without being asked. He clearly wasn’t in the mood to make this easy. “Do you know how the fire started?”

“How would I know that?”

“The paper said the police suspected vandalism. It said you and the other two boys were questioned.”

“Questioned ain’t arrested,” he shot back, flicking his cigarette out into the wet yard. A strand of hair flopped over his forehead. He pushed it back. “Why come around now, after all this time?”

“I just moved back this summer. My grandmother died and left Peak to me.” For a moment she could have sworn she saw something like relief pass over his wizened face. “Did you know Maggie?”

“Used to do work for her mama way back when. She’d hang around sometimes.”

The front windows were slightly open, and suddenly the strains of what Leslie was almost sure was the Temptations wafted out through the battered metal screens, followed moments later by the sound of running water and the clatter of pots and pans. She glanced at Porter’s left hand but found no ring.

“You come here to talk about your grandmother?” he asked gruffly, steering Leslie back to the subject at hand. “If so, I’m afraid I can’t help you.”

“Actually, I came to ask about a woman who used to live at Peak at the time of the fire. Adele Laveau was her name.”

Porter’s face altered then, running through a flurry of emotions before hardening into a stoic blank. He closed his Bible and set it aside, then reached into the pocket of his jacket for a soft pack of Camels. His hands shook as he lit one and took a long pull.

“Can’t help you there either.”

Leslie played a hunch. “You can’t, or you won’t?”

He blinked at her from behind a scrim of smoke. “Does it matter? Doesn’t seem much point speaking of a woman who’s been dead more than seventy years.”

Leslie folded her hands in her lap and looked him in the eye. “I never said she was dead. And yet you knew she was.”

Porter began to rock, an agitated seesawing that gave away more than anything he might have said. “Everyone from those days is dead,” he said hoarsely. “Just figured this Adele woman would be too.”

“You know something, don’t you? Something about that fire?”

The rocker went still. “I’m telling you to leave now,” he said, his knobby knuckles white where they gripped the arms of his chair. “And I’m telling you not to come back.”

Leslie was unmoved. “She died that night, didn’t she? She was inside when the shed caught fire. And you were there—you and your brothers?”

Porter unfolded himself and stood, glaring down at Leslie over his glasses. “What happened to that woman has nothing to do with me.”

Leslie stood too, and looked him in the eye. “They say the door was bolted from the outside.”

“Leave me alone!” Porter bellowed hoarsely, before slumping back into his chair in a fit of dry coughing.

From inside the house came the hurried thump of heavy feet. A few seconds later the door opened a crack. “Landis Porter, what on earth—?”

The face that scowled through the narrow opening was female, stern and black as tar. “Who’re you?” she asked, pulling the door back when she spotted Leslie.

“My name is Leslie Nichols.”

But the woman wasn’t listening. Instead, her wide white eyes were fixed on Porter, hunched over on the edge of his chair, still coughing.
With a huff of exasperation, she pushed through the door, squeezing past Leslie to jerk the cigarette from his fingers and toss it away.

“Fool man!” she hissed, reaching to untangle the coil of clear tubing wrapped around the base of the oxygen tank. “You know you ain’t supposed to have those things, ’specially here next to this tank. One day you’re going to blow us both to kingdom come, and this lady too.”

Landis pushed her hands away. “Stop your fussing, Annie Mae. I’m fine, and Miss Nichols was just leaving.”

Annie Mae stood with her fists planted on her ample hips, eyes hard on them both, as if trying to make sense of the tension she had just stumbled upon. And yet, somehow Leslie couldn’t help feeling the woman knew exactly what was going on.

“Mr. Porter,” Leslie said, taking another tack. “When I walked up on this porch you had a Bible in your lap. I believe somewhere in there, there’s a passage about the truth setting you free.”

Landis Porter stiffened as if he’d been struck. “I asked you to leave once, Miss Nichols. Don’t make me ask again.”

The look he gave her made it clear he was finished talking—about Adele, or anything else. Leslie turned on her heel, almost colliding with Annie Mae, whose smooth, dark face was now a mix of wariness and dread. Her mouth worked mutely for a moment, before she dropped her head and turned away.

Back in the car, Leslie sat shivering behind the wheel, staring straight ahead and waiting for the heat to thaw her fingers and toes. Eventually, when her circulation had returned, she pulled away from the curb, but as she turned to head back down Old Church Road, she had no doubt that Porter knew exactly what had happened the night the woodshed caught fire, and that whatever had happened was tied to Adele’s death. She also knew nothing would ever make him admit it.

It was full dark and pouring buckets when Leslie finally pulled into the drive, and unfortunately, she hadn’t planned for either, too distracted as she bolted out of the house with Landis Porter’s address to grab an umbrella or turn on the porch light. Pulling her jacket up over her head, she darted for the front door and nearly tripped over the packet lying on the doormat.

Inside, she tossed her keys and purse on the stairs, flicked on a lamp, slipped out of her coat, and dropped into the nearest chair. Letting her head drop back, she closed her eyes, wishing now that she’d never gone to Level Grove. All the way home, and even now, all she could think about was the telling look on Annie Mae’s face as she stood on Landis Porter’s sagging front porch. She had no idea whether Annie Mae was Porter’s wife or his housekeeper, but she was certain the woman knew something. Maybe if she went back to talk to her when Porter wasn’t around, though when that might be she really had no idea. The man was almost ninety; he was hardly likely to schlep off to work every day.

God, she really didn’t want to think about it right now. In fact, she wasn’t even sure she still wanted to know what had really happened to Adele. It was all too dark and too sad. She was all stocked up on sadness these days; she didn’t need any more, especially when it had nothing to do with her. Opening her eyes, she glanced down at the manila envelope resting heavily in her lap. With Christmas around the corner, she had just assumed it was junk mail, a catalog of some sort. Now she noticed the envelope was completely blank, no address of any kind.

Tearing open the back flap, she shook out the contents. Her breath caught as the stack of pages slid into her lap, astonished to find Jay’s manuscript and a brief handwritten note.

Leslie’s belly churned as she read the note for the third time. A part of her wanted to believe what he said, that before Maggie died she had somehow set all this in motion, that what Leslie had initially taken as betrayal was all just part of some great cosmic plan. But the other part, the part that couldn’t forget the look on Jay’s face when he saw her holding the manuscript, wasn’t ready to accept that.

And yet, the pages beckoned.

It seemed she wasn’t as done with her fixation on Adele’s death as she’d like to believe, or with Jay either.

Adele

Y
ou never love a thing more than when you must leave it.

I am miles now from the green girl I was, that foolish girl who sat in Susanne Gavin’s parlor with her eyes on the carpet. I have scars now, wounds that worked themselves so deep into these bones that they live with me still, oozing fresh beneath all this rocky soil.

Too late, I learned how tightly we hold to things, to the stuff and the lives we gather around us. When the time comes—when the smoke comes—letting go is impossible. We grasp and claw, unable to relinquish what has been our breath, our heart, perhaps even our ruin.

Henry is due back from Smithfield tonight. He’s been gone three days, talking to some men he knows about a new way to cure tobacco. I have missed him keenly. We made up before he left, or rather, I decided to let the matter of the boys drop. When it comes down to it, Henry’s right. I have no say in how Maggie is raised or who she’s allowed to run with.

The cottage is quiet, the supper dishes put away, a plate warming on the stove. I’ve put up my hair the way he likes, and I’m wearing my best dress, the one he brought back from Raleigh for my birthday.
Jemmy is finally asleep, all arms and sun-browned legs sprawled over the settee, pajamas rucked up around his little belly. It startles me sometimes to see how he’s grown, how his limbs have stretched and the baby fat has started to melt away. He’s growing into such a solemn little man, his manner so like his daddy’s that at times it takes my breath away to see it.

I scoop him up in my arms and carry him upstairs. He smells of baby shampoo, milk, and my molasses cookies. His mouth puckers at nothing as I tuck the covers up under his chin, a leftover from the thumb-sucking he seems suddenly to have outgrown. My heart swells as I finger springy bronze curls still damp from bath time, and I wonder if Mama ever felt like this. Like she might burst with all the love that seems to gush up from nowhere. He’s mine—mine and Henry’s—not an heir, but a son. Our son.

Henry.

After all the years—and all the hurt—my heart still turns over at the thought of him. When he is away I can almost believe I hate this place, its lies and charades and heart-tearing sacrifices. And then he comes home, and I know why I have stayed, why I’ll always stay.

Back downstairs, I hunt for something to do. I pick up my sewing, then a book, but my nerves are too thin for sitting still. I decide to lay a fire, but the wood’s run low. I tie an old scarf over my head and button on my coat, then cock an ear at the bottom of the stairs. If I hurry I can fetch the wood and get back before Jemmy wakes. Poor lamb, he’s still so afraid of the dark.

I can see my breath as I make my way to the woodshed behind the cottage. Moonlight bounces off the old tin roof, thin and white. I shiver and pull up my collar, but not from the cold. There’s a kind of prickle between my shoulders. Mama used to call it the third eye. I turn to see Susanne at her window. She has taken no pains for Henry’s homecoming, I see. With the light behind her she looks like
a ghost, her face pale as ash, her hair floating out around her head like a storm cloud.