The Time Between (5 page)

I headed out of his office, sensing his gray eyes following me until I’d closed the door, belatedly realizing that I’d left his jacket in a heap inside a Piggly Wiggly bag on the floor. I stared at the closed door to his office for a moment, telling myself I would tell him no regardless of what my mother and Eve said.

But I was unable to erase from my mind the image of a young boy on the dock sailing paper airplanes up into the air, weaving an invisible ribbon in the wide sky, then watching them crash into the water.

Eve

I
knew Eleanor was home even before I heard her key turn the latch. Ever since I can remember, my sister has been an extension of me, a disembodied limb that I have no control over. But she belongs to me, just the same. When she was born, Daddy put that tiny baby in my arms and said she was mine. Mine to love and take care of. I don’t think he ever imagined things turning out the way they did.

“Mama?” Eleanor stood inside the door, bringing with her the scent of rain.

I looked up from the dining table, where I’d been sewing row upon row of endless sequins on a majorette costume for a sixteen-year-old. Mama’s arthritis had gotten too bad to do the fine work, but I’d surprised us both by taking over with stitches as straight and precise as hers had once been.

“She’s resting,” I said, watching Eleanor slide out of her wet shoes, the blue pumps that had been polished so many times that they rubbed the inside of her ankles blue. “And Glen’s working late again.”

I watched her closely. I could read her face as if it were my own, but there was something in her expression now that I didn’t recognize, something that reminded me of a long-ago birthday when she’d handed me a present and told me what was inside because she couldn’t stand waiting any longer for me to open it.

She walked over to the table and turned on the overhead light. I hadn’t noticed how dark it had grown outside or how I’d been straining my eyes. I blinked in the glare. “Thanks. Mama said to go ahead and start supper when you got home. She’ll need to take her medicine when she gets up.”

Eleanor nodded without seeming to really hear me, a nearly imperceptible humming zinging off her skin and scalding me like a spray of boiling water. As an afterthought, she turned to me. “I forgot to go to the store on the way home. I guess we’ll do leftovers.”

Her gaze strayed down to the majorette costume, to the tiny silver stars stitched within the sea of sequins. “You’re as good as Mama.” Her short, clipped nail touched one of the stars, making it move and shimmer in the overhead light.

“I’m trying,” I said. I didn’t want praise from her, from the baby who’d been given to me to protect but who’d forgotten our decreed roles along the way.

She nodded as she turned away to disappear into the kitchen, and I soon heard the refrigerator door being opened and closed, followed by the banging of pans.

After dinner, as the three of us sat swallowing the last of the reheated macaroni casserole and the salted tomatoes Mrs. Crandall had brought from next door, Eleanor put down her fork and straightened the napkin by the side of her plate.

“Mr. Beaufain has offered me another job. Not to take the place of the one I have, but something extra. Just five or so hours a week to start, and then we can adjust if I need to.” She paused, as if trying to gauge our reactions. “He said he’d pay me twice what he pays me now.”

Mama was frowning, but I could tell that the mention of the money had piqued her interest. “Doing what?” she asked, and I felt embarrassed for a moment for Eleanor, thinking of that dirty bar where she played the piano. I had never pretended not to know why she would come home late, and I knew this was why she avoided my eyes now.

“Acting as a sort of companion to his great-aunt. She’s been in the hospital and she’s coming home, but Mr. Beaufain doesn’t want her to be alone with just her nurse. She lives on Edisto.”

She had our mother’s full attention now. “I don’t remember any Beaufains on the island.”

Eleanor shook her head. “She’s his grandmother’s sister. Szarka is the last name.”

I saw recognition in my mother’s eyes. “Helena and Bernadett?”

“Yes. They lived in the big white house on Steamboat Creek. They always had the best Halloween decorations and candy.”

I sat back, remembering the two old ladies with their dated clothes, and the reek of mothballs that clung to them in the same way I imagined the memories of their homeland did. My mother was shaking her head as she stood and pulled a newspaper from the stack on the step stool. She flipped through a few pages before pulling out a middle section and placing it on the table in front of Eleanor. Pointing at an article, she said, “This Helena and Bernadett Szarka?”

Eleanor leaned over to read, the thrumming energy that had been pulsing through her since she returned home diminishing like a dying firefly. “It says only that Bernadett died of natural causes.”

“And that it’s under investigation,” my mother pointed out.

“But that’s usual when a person dies in the home, isn’t it?”

“That might be, but they don’t explain why Helena was almost dead when they found her. That doesn’t sound right.”

Eleanor was shaking her head, the movement almost frantic. “Mr. Beaufain explained that after Bernadett died, Helena stopped eating, not able to imagine life without her sister. But she’s better now. She’s coming home to Edisto to get better.”

I heard the desperation in her voice, like the sound of a small animal caught in a trap.
Welcome to my world,
I thought. The thrumming had returned, making me wonder what it was about this job offer that was causing this reaction.

Mama continued. “Last weekend I ran into our old neighbor from Edisto, Mrs. Reed. I hadn’t seen her in years, and there we both were at that huge discount fabric store on Sam Rittenberg Boulevard. She told me about poor Miss Bernadett and how people were talking about how strange it was that there was no funeral announcement. There was more gossip, but I don’t see the need to repeat it.” She shook her head. “The fact is, things aren’t all right in that family, and I don’t like the idea of you being all alone in that big house with an old woman. Besides, we need you here. Eve needs you. Especially now.”

Mama shot a glance at me, and I knew what she was about to say. It had been my secret until that morning, when Mama had caught me throwing up in the garbage can after breakfast, and I wasn’t sure I was ready to tell my sister. Eleanor looked at me, too, with no sign of understanding.

Turning back to Mama, she said. “My hours would be completely dictated by me, and he’d give me the use of a car so I could get there and back quickly. And they have a grand piano. I would be allowed to play it. . . .” She stopped suddenly, as if just now hearing our mother’s words. “What do you mean, ‘especially now’?”

Mama’s smile was triumphant. “Eve’s pregnant. She and Glen are going to have a baby.”

The blood rushed from her face so suddenly that I thought she would pass out. I turned away, unable to look at her pain. Despite our past, which lay like an unweeded garden between us, she was still my sister.

She managed a smile, the corners of her lips not quite making it. “Congratulations,” she said, leaning over and surprising us both with a kiss on my cheek. But her lips were cool and I thought I felt a tremor go through her before she pulled away.

Mama spoke again. “She’ll have a lot of doctor’s appointments. With Glen’s long hours, and my arthritis making it difficult for me to drive, you’ll be the one who’ll have to take her to most of them.”

Eleanor stood and began to gather the dinner plates, including the empty one she’d put on the table for Glen just in case. I knew she’d make him a plate of food and leave it warming in the oven. When we were younger, I’d wished to be just like her: strong and confident. So brave. But that was the old Ellie, the one I’d sent away the day I’d fallen from a tree and awakened to a broken body and an anger directed at the one person I could blame who wouldn’t fight back. I made her understand that she had to work for my forgiveness.

But forgiveness is an elusive thing, like trying to hold a song in your hand. It was because of this that I didn’t correct my mother by telling her that Glen and I could manage, that we didn’t need Eleanor. Because I held the songbird tightly in my fist and I no longer knew how to let it go.

Eleanor surprised us by coming out of the kitchen immediately instead of doing the dishes. She stood with her hands gripping the top of Glen’s empty chair. “They have a Mason and Hamlin grand,” she said again, and in those words I heard her defiance overruling my mother’s objections, saw the reckless, wild girl I’d once admired, and averted my eyes.

Yes,
I thought, unable to say the word out loud. Just as I’d always been unable to tell her that I’d seen the Gullah woman that day, too, had heard what she’d whispered into Eleanor’s ear. Nor could I tell her what the words had meant. She’d have to figure that out on her own.

Without returning to the kitchen, my sister headed outside into the rain, barefoot and without an umbrella, while Mama and I watched her go.

Eleanor

I dreamed of the old Gullah woman again that night for the first time in a long while. I’d walked in the rain for more than an hour, unaware of how wet I was, or how rough the pavement beneath my bare feet. I could feel only the startled panic I’d felt at learning of Eve’s pregnancy and recall the flicker in Mr. Beaufain’s eyes when he’d told me how his aunt had died. Maybe my mother was right to be concerned. But at that moment all I could think about was getting away from Eve and Glen and my mother, of having something in my life that had nothing to do with them. Whatever secrets Mr. Beaufain and his aunt kept, they couldn’t touch me; I was already too numb.

When I lay down to sleep, the rain from my hair seeping into my pillow, I dreamed of Edisto, of the sunset over Russell Creek and the feel of pluff mud beneath my toes. I sat on a pier, the same pier where I’d waited for my father, and I knew I was waiting still; I just wasn’t sure for what. And then she was there again, sitting on the pier next to me with her sweetgrass as she wove each strand in and out, her fingers like words as they told a story of the basket she was making.

Her dark skin gleamed with sweat, although I didn’t feel hot at all but could feel the cool breeze of the ocean as it kissed my skin, bringing with it the tang of salt and my own sweat. These were the smells of my childhood, the background scent of the music I had created there with my father. A cold dryness swept through me, a desolate wind of grief that wound itself into a ball in my throat, choking me.

I wanted to cry, but I felt the hard, dark stare of the woman beside me and I reluctantly turned to meet her gaze, afraid I’d miss whatever I’d been searching for on the horizon.

Must take care of de root for to heal de tree.

I wasn’t sure if she’d spoken aloud or if I’d just heard the words in my head. But I knew I wasn’t alone in fighting my demons, and the tight ball in my throat suddenly unfurled, like a thread pulled on a hem until all the stitches were gone.

I leaned toward her to ask her what she meant, but I was back in my bed again, the pillow still damp from my rain-drenched hair. I sat up, wondering what had awakened me. I blinked in the predawn light, noticing that my door was open.

“Eleanor?”

I swung my legs to the floor, feeling dizzy as I sat up. “Glen? What are you doing in here?”

He closed the door softly behind him but stayed where he was. “I wanted to talk to you—alone. To see . . .” His voice drifted off, but I knew what he’d been going to say. He’d always been very easy to read.

“Congratulations,” I said, my voice at odds with the word. “You and Eve must be very excited.” We stared at each other through the dimness, the hazy light of early morning like smoke on a battlefield.

“Eve wants children. . . .” Again he seemed unable to finish his sentence.

“I know,” I said, wanting to scream at him or cry but remaining silent instead. My heart ached as I watched him, longing to smooth his hair, still damp from his shower—wanted him to want me enough to take a step forward. But he stayed where he was and I nearly sagged with relief.

He opened his mouth to say something else, but I held up my hand, unable to bear it. “She’s your wife, Glen. You don’t need to justify anything to me.”

His jaw clenched and he stood ramrod straight, just like the soldier he had once wanted to be. “I hope you can be happy for us.”

“Of course,” I lied. “I’m going to be an aunt.”

He winced. “I didn’t mean for this to happen. Not the baby part,” he explained quickly, “but you and I.”

I remembered his hurried words before I’d headed out to Pete’s Bar and his promise that things would be different. He just hadn’t told me how much. I couldn’t help but laugh, the sound like the dry wind over the desert. “There’s never been a you and I. Besides, I don’t think the universe cares too much about what we want.”

A slice of sun pierced the crack between my curtains, illuminating his face in time for me to see him flinch. The sound of an alarm from down the hall startled us both.

“I just wanted to make sure you were okay,” he said, pausing for a moment before opening the door and sliding from my room as stealthily as he’d entered it.

I listened as the house awoke, listened to the gurgling sound of water running and my mother’s careful steps on the old wooden floorboards, as if nothing had changed. I rose from the bed and headed for the shower, listening to the soft murmur from my mother’s room as she said her morning prayers.

The cold spray of the water felt good on my warm skin, reminding me of my dream of sitting on the pier and staring at the horizon as I waited for something I could not name, and I wondered how it was possible to mourn what I had never even had.