The Time Between (15 page)

“I am too tired. Maybe later.”

She stored the record back in the basket, trying to mask her look of disappointment. “I’m sure Gigi would love to hear it, too.” She paused by the door. “Since ‘All Alone’ was written by Irving Berlin, I bet I could find a copy of the piano music on the Internet. If I can rework the melody into a simple piece, I could teach it to Gigi. It might be fun for her.”

I wanted to protest but could not think of a reason that would make sense to her. She said good-bye as Nurse Weber came in to bathe me, but I sent her away, saying I was too tired. I lay in bed for a long time, remembering the words to the old song, recalling the day we had recorded it in the small studio in London. I longed for a cloudy memory, to be unable to remember my past. But my memories remained, like green leaves on an oak tree in the dead of winter, a fitting punishment for those of us who would prefer to forget.

Eleanor

I stood in the sunroom and looked out at the reddening sky, the hazy edges of the clouds like smudged memories. It would be full dark soon, yet I couldn’t bring myself to leave. The dinner dishes had been cleared away, Teri Weber was with Helena getting her ready for bed, and Finn and Gigi were on the screened-in porch that faced the marsh playing Go Fish.

I had spent a full half hour explaining the rudiments of the game to both of them, astonished that they had never played it before. Gigi picked it up right away, but Finn took longer, analyzing it for strategy and nuances that didn’t exist. I finally gave up, dealt myself out of the game, and then excused myself before I was forced to shake him.

My embarrassment over my lack of knowledge about Europe in World War II niggled at my brain, and I was determined to set things right—at least to the point where I could speak knowledgeably with Helena the next time the subject was raised.
If
she allowed the subject to be raised again. She had been flip in her comments, but I’d seen the strain in her face and the light fade from her eyes as she’d spoken.

I had left my home at seventeen because of Eve’s accident, yet I’d only been less than an hour away. But Helena had left her home because of a brutal war, had traveled across an ocean to another continent and never returned to the place of her birth. My own losses had taken years—my father’s death and then the accident; hers had been accomplished within the span of a few months. I wondered if one was easier than the other, if the pain of loss was the same as the pain of removing a bandage, if it hurt less if one did it quickly.

I turned on the table lamps and floor lamp between the armchairs, surprised to see that the opened book was still on the ottoman, the afghan on the back of one of the chairs still rumpled, as if the occupant had just stood and left the room.

I picked up the book, then glanced at the cover as I closed it.
The Art of Origami
. It was bound in clear wrap, indicating that it might be a library book, and when I opened up the back flap, my suspicions were confirmed. Stamped in red ink on the inside cover were the words “Charleston County Public Library,” and below that was the address for the Mount Pleasant location. Stuck inside the front cover was a small receipt-like paper with the date due printed across the top: February 13, 2012.

Seeing as how the book was now almost four months overdue, I placed it on a table by the door with plans to ask Helena if she’d like for me to return it to the library. It was a small task, and certainly one that would fit under my broad job description—not to mention alleviate some of the guilt I felt in sparring with an elderly woman who’d only recently emerged from death’s door, regardless of how much she encouraged it.

I focused my attention on the bookshelves that lined the doorway wall—the only solid wall without windows in the room. I’d noticed them during my brief tour of the house but hadn’t yet had a chance to find out which books the two sisters had collected. I was hoping to find a Hungarian history book. If I didn’t, I could always look in the public library, since it appeared I might be heading that way anyway.

I perused the shelves, sneezing several times as I removed books that looked like they hadn’t been touched since they’d been placed there. There were books on the history of Edisto and Charleston, on architecture and agriculture, on gardening and sweetgrass baskets, along with stacks of old
National Geographic
magazines and issues of
Good Housekeeping
.

“Can I help you find something?”

I turned to smile at Finn. “Had enough of Go Fish?”

He ran his hand through his hair, back to front, leaving it sticking up all over. He didn’t seem to be aware of what he’d done, and I was unsure if I should mention it. His hair was always so neatly combed at the office, but something about the air on Edisto seemed to change us all.

“After suffering four back-to-back defeats, I gave up. There really isn’t a point to the game, is there?”

“Not at all,” I said. “Next time I’ll teach you the game of war. That one’s even more pointless. Although I have to say that I spent hours and hours with Lucy and my sister when I was a girl playing cards. I didn’t seem to think there had to be a point to our games.”

He studied me with sober eyes. “I’m glad you’ll be spending more time with Gigi. She needs to know someone who can teach her how to play like a child. After all she’s been through, I have to remind myself sometimes that she’s only ten years old.”

“She’s a great kid, and I enjoy spending time with her. And I don’t mind teaching her how to play the piano. If she wants to pursue it after I’ve taught her the basics, I’d be happy to help find someone who’s a much more suitable teacher.”

He had the same look in his eyes that Helena had when she was ready to argue, so I turned back to the bookshelves. “I’m looking for books on Hungary. Your aunt spoke a little today about Hungary during World War II, and I’m embarrassed to say that I was clueless. I want to brush up a little on my history so I won’t embarrass myself again.”

He came to stand next to me, using his height to scan the highest shelves. “I really don’t think you’ll find anything here. They were proud of their Hungarian roots but fiercely proud of being American. They never really talked about their later years in Hungary. It was almost as if they wanted to pretend that their lives had started in 1944, when they moved here.”

“But they taught you the traditional Hungarian courting dance.” I looked up at him, unable to resist a smile.

“Yes, they did that. I think mostly because it was a happy memory from their own childhoods and they wanted to share that with me. Much like your piano playing, I would think.”

I stared at him for a moment, then looked away, confused. My music had been the happiest part of my childhood. But I had locked it away when my father died, as if it were a part of him instead of me. It had never occurred to me that it was something to be shared or celebrated as part of my past. To me, my past was like the ocean, hiding riptides that could suck you under when you least expected it.

Eager to change the subject, I said, “Do you speak Hungarian?”

“Only a little—learned from my grandmother, Magda.”

“Helena said something the other day, and she translated it for me, but I wondered if . . .” I didn’t finish, realizing how what I wanted to say would be interpreted.

A corner of his mouth lifted in a half smile. “And you wondered if she might be embellishing it or telling you something else completely.”

“Yeah. Something like that,” I said, smiling back.

“What did it sound like?”

I bit my lip, thinking hard about the odd vowels and consonants. “Like ‘Mindankee a maga shar . . .’”

“Ah, yes.
Mindenki a maga szerencséjének kovácsa
,” he said, pronouncing it expertly. “I only know it because it was something my grandmother said often, usually directed at my father when he and my mother were arguing about me.”

I brought my eyebrows together. “Helena said it had something to do with the relationship between sisters.”

“In some ways, I suppose it can. But an exact translation is more like ‘Everyone’s the blacksmith of their own fate.’”

I looked outside the broad wall of windows, wondering what Helena had been trying to tell me. A flash of light arced across the sky like a silent wish, and I found myself heading for the door. “I think I saw a shooting star,” I said, not waiting for Finn to follow.

We stood in the grass staring up at the summer sky littered with stars. The quarter moon hung high, a dim nightlight that allowed the stars to glow against the darkness. We stayed like that for a long time, each of us knowing that we’d missed the shooting star, but still holding out the hope that against all odds we’d see another in the same corner of the sky. As if, somehow, we both could still believe in possibilities despite all evidence to the contrary.

The music of the night marsh flooded my ears, transporting me back in time to this same place, but to a time when music filled my heart, too. Finn stood close to me, close enough that I could hear him inhaling deeply.

“‘If moonlight could be heard, it would sound like that,’” he said softly.

I faced him. “Nathaniel Hawthorne, right? Daddy used to say that all the time.” The memory made me smile, something I’d never managed to do before when remembering my father. I wondered what had changed. Maybe I was just growing older, the time between my childhood and now like a river heading toward the ocean, changing slowly until it was nearly unrecognizable at its end.

Finn started to say something but stopped when the back floodlight was switched on, erasing the marsh and the river and the sky in a blinding pool of light. We turned toward the sunroom and saw Teri Weber waving a can of insect spray at us.

As if on cue, I slapped at a mosquito that had landed on my arm. “I need to get going,” I said. “It’s getting late.”

He nodded, then followed me back into the house. During the long drive home, I drove slowly with the window down, listening for the marsh music and wondering what Finn had been about to say.

Eleanor

“H
i, Ellie.”

I looked up from the smooth leather of the new client folder in which I’d been stuffing company information and the cover letter signed by Finn, “Hampton P. Beaufain.” Gigi’s dark gray eyes smiled at me from the edge of my desk, her father standing behind her. He was wearing another dark suit, his hair perfectly combed, his face serious. I wondered how soon after he crossed the McKinley Washington Bridge onto the mainland the transformation began, and if the mental or the physical changes were harder to accept.

I stood, aware of Kay Tetley watching from her desk. “Good morning, Genevieve. Mr. Beaufain.”

Gigi smirked at my formality but didn’t say anything. I looked up at Finn, surprised to see him. He was usually in his closed office when I arrived in the morning, went out with clients for lunch, and was back in his office alone or with clients when I left in the afternoon. He still brought back food from lunch on the days when I stayed at my desk—days when I came in late or left early for Eve’s doctor’s appointments and Wednesdays when I headed to Edisto.

“Hello, Eleanor.” Finn’s hands rested on Gigi’s shoulders, and he wore an expression on his face that I didn’t recognize. If it had been anybody else, I would have thought it was uncertainty.

He cleared his throat. “I have a favor to ask.”

Gigi piped up. “I was supposed to be with Mommy this week, but my camp was canceled and she can’t stay with me all day and I don’t want to stay with Mrs. McKenna because all she wants to do is play bingo and watch her soaps.” She rolled her eyes. “And I
need
to go shopping. Mommy was supposed to take me, but now she says she can’t.”

My mind backpedaled to the first part of her discourse and replayed it back in my mind at a slower speed. “Your camp was canceled?”

Finn spoke again. “It was a French immersion camp. Her mother’s idea.” His face remained inscrutable.

I raised my eyebrows, hoping either Gigi or Finn would explain how a French immersion camp segued into a favor.

Finn continued. “Since her mother can’t take her today, I told Gigi that I could take the day off, but she says that won’t work. All she’ll tell me is that she needs to go shopping today for something she wants to keep secret from me, and would only discuss it with you.”

“One minute,” I said. Taking Gigi’s hand, I began walking toward Finn’s office. “We’ll be right back.”

He nodded, then leaned against my desk with his arms folded, the relaxed position doing nothing to soften the severity of his suit or demeanor.

Ignoring the look from Finn’s secretary, I pulled Gigi into the office and shut the door. “So, what’s the big secret?” I asked.

Her eyes widened, her expression more serious than I’d seen before. “Daddy’s birthday is Saturday, and I need to get him a present.”

“Ah,” I said, straightening. “So you need somebody else to take you and your mother can’t.”

“Yes, ma’am. And since you’re just sitting at your desk all day, I figured you’d probably have more fun shopping with me.”

“And you mentioned this to your father?”

She quickly nodded. “I didn’t tell him
what
I was shopping for, but I told him that I needed you to go with me.”

Grinning, I led her back to her father. “I’d be happy to take Gigi today. But I’ve got the new client folders to put together. . . .”

“Kay will do it. Take as much time as you need, then call me on my cell when you’re done. I’m going to try to cancel some appointments I have scheduled this afternoon so I can spend it with Gigi.”

I glanced over at Kay, who was frowning at the little girl who had wandered over to my desk chair and was spinning it in faster and faster circles. In a lowered voice, I asked, “Are you sure that’s okay? I can work on the folders when we get back, or even stay later if I—”

“I’ll take care of it, Eleanor. It’s more important that my daughter doesn’t feel as if she’s being passed around. Her mother . . .” He stopped himself. “I’d really appreciate it,” he said instead.

“Should I tell Kay . . . ?”

“I’ll take care of it,” he said again, and I wondered if his need to be in control had been something taught to him by his father or something circumstances had made a necessity.

“All right, then.” I put my hand on my chair, stilling it, then grabbed my purse from a drawer. “I’ll call you when we’re done.”

Gigi hugged her father, receiving a kiss on her forehead. “Listen to Eleanor, Peanut, and try not to talk her ears off.”

She was still giggling as we left, making a detour to the restrooms. We had to pass the accounting department along the way, and I found myself hoping that we wouldn’t run into Lucy. As much as I missed our commute together and our daily conversations, I’d found myself avoiding her so that I wouldn’t be tempted to explain how Finn was different on Edisto, and how he’d told me that the happiest memory of his childhood was the night he’d stood outside my house and listened to me play the piano.

Lucy was standing by the water fountain just as we reached the restroom, and after a brief hello, I made to follow Gigi. Lucy grabbed hold of my arm and held me back. “What are you doing?”

“I’m taking Fi—Mr. Beaufain’s daughter to go buy a birthday present.”

“Finn? You’re calling him by his first name now?”

“Not here at the office,” I said in a hushed voice. “But you know how it is on the island. It’s a lot more casual and makes sense to call him by his first name while I’m working in his great-aunt’s house.”

“Um-hmm,” she said, doing that neck thing that said so much more than words ever could.

“Her mother was supposed to take Gigi today but she can’t, and she needs to buy a birthday present for her father, and she wanted me to take her. It’s really nothing.”

This time she just gave me the look she must have learned from Dah Georgie when we told her it was too hot to go looking for sweetgrass.

“Lucy, come on. You know me. And this job has become a real lifesaver for me—and not just because of the money, either.” I stopped as Rich Kobylt, the human resources manager, walked past with a steaming cup of coffee. I nodded in greeting and waited until he’d passed. “Eve’s pregnant.”

If I’d expected her to hug me or offer words of sympathy, I would have been mistaken. All she said was “Good. Now maybe you can grow flowers in your own garden. This is a good thing for Eve and Glen.” She wrinkled her forehead. “For you and Glen.”

She tucked her chin into her neck like a bull getting ready to charge, and I braced myself. “You don’t be needing to hang around with Mr. Beaufain, neither. You’re just jumping out of the pot and into the frying pan.”

“Wow, Lucy. Two clichés in the same conversation. That might be a record.”

“Um-hmm. You wouldn’t be sounding so defensive if you didn’t know I was right.”

“I’m not being defensive.” I stopped, hearing myself. Gigi came out of the restroom and I sent her a grateful glance. “We’ve got to go. I’ll talk to you later.”

“You can be sure of that. Um-hmm, you can be sure of that.”

I followed Gigi out the door, pretending I hadn’t heard Lucy’s parting words.

After I’d made sure that Gigi was buckled into the backseat—she was still too small to sit up front with the air bag—I turned to her. “So—any ideas as to what you want to get for your father?”

She looked up at the car ceiling while tapping her pink-tipped nails on the armrest. “Aunt Helena said I should get him a nice book about the stars and the sky at night. She said he used to like looking at them when he was a little boy.”

I nodded. “That’s an idea. How much money do you have to spend?”

She reached inside her pink beaded purse and pulled out a small envelope. “Aunt Helena had Nurse Weber put some money in here to buy something nice for my daddy. And I put all of my allowance in there, too—eleven dollars and twenty-five cents.”

“Can I see?”

She handed me the envelope, and I was surprised by how thick it felt. I slid it open and looked inside. Ten brand-new and crisp fifty-dollar bills sat nestled beside two crumpled fives, a one, and a loose quarter. I looked up at Gigi in surprise. “Did she give you any idea of how much you were allowed to spend?”

She shook her head. “No, ma’am. All she said was that this would be enough to get a nice book and maybe something else.”

I debated with myself about calling Lucy for her opinion, then remembered our last conversation and quickly dismissed the thought. We sat in the car for a minute in silence with the engine running and the air-conditioning blowing while I tried to figure out what to do. Eventually I turned back to Gigi.

I held up the envelope. “I’m going to hang on to this for you, all right? Now, go ahead and take off your seat belt. We’re going to Market Street and then King Street. It’s a bit of walking, but easier than finding parking. I’ve got an idea.”

She grinned conspiratorially at me as she leapt from the car, my own grin softening as I recalled Lucy’s words about growing flowers in my own garden. I wanted to pretend that I didn’t know what she was talking about. But Lucy had known me for too long, had sat with me while we watched Dah Georgie build her baskets, asking us what kinds of baskets our lives would be. I knew what Lucy was telling me. I just wasn’t ready to hear it.

Three hours later, Gigi and I had two packages stashed in the back of the Volvo. We were hot and sticky from the long walk, but I had the air-conditioning on full blast. I fished my cell phone out of my purse and dialed Finn’s number.

“Finn Beaufain.” His words were short and curt.

“Um, I’m sorry, Mr. Beaufain?”

There was a brief pause. “Eleanor? I’m so sorry. I’m dealing with a small crisis right now and I didn’t look at my caller ID. Did you need something?”

“You, um, asked me to call you when Gigi and I were done. I fed her lunch because it took us longer than I’d anticipated.”

“Thank you, Eleanor.” There was another pause. “Look, I’m not going to be able to get away from the office anytime soon. Gigi is spending the night with her mother. Could you please drop her off there? Harper is home and is expecting her. Then you’ll have the rest of the day off.”

“Sure. Not a problem. But I can come back to the office. . . .”

“I’ve got everything under control. I’ll see you in the morning. And please tell Gigi that I’ll call her tonight before she goes to bed. I’ll text you the address.”

He said good-bye, and then I turned to Gigi. “Looks like there’s been a change of plans. I’m going to bring you to your mother’s house, all right? And your daddy promised to call before you went to bed.”

I watched for any look of disappointment or reluctance, but she only smiled at me. “Thank you, Ellie. I had fun today.”

My phone beeped and I looked down to see the text from Finn. I put the car in drive, meeting her eyes in the rearview mirror. “Me, too.”

It was a short drive to the white single house on Queen Street. Harper Beaufain Gibbes’s house was another picture-perfect example of Charleston architecture, with the side double piazzas and overabundant front garden with scents and colors vying for attention. Here again, I noticed the absence of any signs of occupancy, as if the house was merely a false front to use in a magazine spread.

I parked at the curb in front of the house and was still unbuckling my seat belt when I heard Gigi’s unclasp and then felt her finger poking me in the shoulder. “Don’t forget to only call me Genevieve. Mommy doesn’t always have good days, and saying Gigi won’t make it any better.”

She regarded me with such sage and knowing eyes that I had to remind myself that she was only ten.

“Got it,” I said, stepping out of the car. I followed her up the brick steps to the front door, which in any other city would be considered a side door despite the fact that it faced the street. It led onto the front piazza and the actual front door.

I rang the doorbell and waited, surprised to find myself hoping a housekeeper would answer instead of the lady of the house. I remembered what Finn had told me about her, and how she’d cut short her stay on Edisto because she’d found it lacking. Trying to push those thoughts aside, I plastered a smile on my face and waited for the front door to open.

The woman who opened the door was definitely not the housekeeper. She was tall and slender, with chestnut brown hair and bright blue eyes. Despite the fact that she was at home, she wore high heels and a pencil skirt, and a beautiful white silk blouse with a low V cinched in with a thick leather belt. This woman was the epitome of a New England yacht club member, but then again with her bone structure and elegant clothing, I would assume she hailed from anyplace that had exclusive country club memberships and boarding schools. With a start, I realized this was what my mother would have looked like if she’d married the sort of man she was supposed to instead of my father. Two months ago, I would have thought this was the kind of woman Finn Beaufain should have married. But when I pictured him with his ruffled hair as he made a paper airplane on the porch of the Edisto house, I was no longer so sure.

“Mommy!” Gigi threw herself at the woman, confirming her identity.