59

UNABLE TO WAIT TO TAKE TURNS, Stephen and I huddled cheek to cheek with Bernice over the images as Christopher sat across the table with a satisfied grin. Somehow working his magic, he had produced a remarkably legible copy of what Nettie had added to Charlotte’s journal.

My dear Miss Charlotte,

It feel so wrong to be writing in your book and with you gone from this world. We done laid you to rest last night beside Mister Jonathan and the babies. But I couldn’t leave you out there alone. So I just lay down by your grave. Both me and little miss. I know you ain’t there. But that be the closest thing I got to being with you. Jeremiah he done tried to bring us in then finally give up and just lay down side us. When the sun come up, I knew I got to rise with it even though my hearts been dug out of my chest. I fear I ain’t ever going to stop bleeding on the inside. You been my world, Miss Charlotte.

How you laid a husband and five precious babies in the cold dark earth then kept on living, I do not know. You took a part of me to the grave with you. But you done left me a precious piece of your heart too. And she will keep me going. She and God above.

I’s sitting in your chair, little miss asleep on my lap. I done read back through all you wrote, hiding it in my heart. Now I’s looking out the window straight cross to where you’s buried. Same as you did all them years, watching over your loved ones. I wish we could of carved a stone for you like you had someone do for Mister Jonathan and your babies, but Jeremiah says we got to leave at sundown. So I’s writing in your book then will hide it in the trunk with all the Promised Land dresses you and me sewed.

I got out two of them to give to little miss so she can have something made by her mama’s hand. I done put your candelabras from Mister Jonathan’s family in the room for safe keeping. Maybe little miss can have them one day. Then Jeremiah will close up the hole.

You talked bout me coming back here one day after the world get changed. I’s keeping that hope in my heart, but my bones tell me I ain’t seeing this place ever again. We going west, Miss Charlotte. That’s always been the plan. Going to Colorado where the color of a person’s skin don’t matter so much, Jeremiah says. Where the mountains touch the sky and the rivers and streams run cold as ice all year through. I just want a place where little miss can grow up free. I will fight to give her that, your daughter and mine. I promise.

You’s already praying for us from the other side I know, I can feel it, you watching down from wherever you are. No matter my days left on this earth, I will live each one pining to see you again. Until that day comes, my precious daughter, I remain your loving Nettie.

“Colorado,” Stephen whispered as we all wiped our eyes.

“And she as much as told us where the family graves are,” I said, standing.

The three of us headed to the back door as one.

“Mind if I come too?” Christopher asked.

“Of course,” I called back, “and bring your camera!”

I felt like a child on a scavenger hunt as we hurried across the backyard toward the tree line. But with every joyful step, images of that terrible final night played in my mind—the last time the train had run from Gardenia Blossom Trace. I pictured young Maisie, and my heart hurt for her. I imagined Dahlia bursting from the woods in the dark to save her daughter, only to die at Achan’s hand.

Determined to stay on a straight course, I kept glancing back up at the master bedroom window where Charlotte’s chair had been. We paused at the edge of the woods, panting, and Stephen peered through the thick line of trees—then muscled through the stand of pine and poplar and disappeared. Christopher followed, leaving Bernice and me to stare at each other.

“I’m game if you are,” I said.

“Here goes nothing!” she called out.

Limbs scratched at my arms and face, and halfway through we found Stephen holding back branches to reveal a small clearing where an enormous tree stump stood in the dappled sunlight. Time seemed to stop.

“Under the massive oak canopy,” I said softly.

We each grabbed a stick and fanned out, careful where we stepped, and began pushing aside leaves, looking for the grave markers Nettie had mentioned.

“Over here!” Christopher pointed to a stone mostly covered by dirt and weeds.

The rest of us joined him, and Bernice knelt to delicately clear away the underbrush from a small gravestone. It stood about two feet high and had been cut from marble, rounded at the top and bearing a flower motif.

She ran a hand along the edge. “Children’s gravestones were generally smaller back then, so that’s probably what this is. I can’t make out the name or the dates.”

“Let me see if the camera can do any better.” Christopher brushed more dirt away.

As he snapped images from different angles, the rest of us continued to carefully edge back undergrowth. And one by one, what had been hidden for so long was gradually revealed—four more short markers and a larger one. Most of its lettering was gone from age, but we could decipher JONATH and 18 . . .

While Christopher captured images of all the markers, I knelt and placed my hand on the cool, damp soil of the unmarked, weed-ridden plot beside Jonathan’s. “Thank you, Lord,” I whispered as I felt Stephen’s hand on my shoulder. “Rest in peace, dear Charlotte.”

“And you too, sweet Nettie,” Bernice added beside me. “Wherever you ended up in this world.”

I felt as if we were on holy ground. Christopher silently motioned that we should all stay in place, and he took several pictures of us kneeling by the graves. After a moment, Bernice slipped away, leaving just Stephen and me.

He looked deep into my eyes, and I rose, smiling. He slipped his arm around my waist, and I leaned into him—and into an eternal strength that far exceeded our own.

As we walked back to the house, Bernice and Christopher got ahead of us. Seizing the moment, I paused. “Stephen, I need to ask your forgiveness.”

A shadow crossed his face.

Ashamed and tempted to look away, I forced myself not to. “I need you to know that I know you are not to blame for Bryan’s death. I was so wrong to hold it against you all these years. I carried such guilt for being out shopping for a party when our son died, so I told myself that if I’d been there, I could have made a difference. That I could have saved him. But . . . you were, and are, a wonderful and loving father. I needed to blame someone, and . . . I’m just so, so sorry.”

He pulled me to him. “Shhh,” he whispered. “It’s all right. That gave me no excuse to do what I—”

“I know, but still . . .” I pulled back to see his face. “Jane told me I needed to forgive God, but I really think it has more to do with surrendering to him than forgiving him. And I have not been living a surrendered life like I should have been.”

He brushed a kiss to my forehead. “You’ve always been worlds ahead of me in that regard, Claire. But I’m determined to grow.”

“I know you are. I already see change in you. I feel it.” I wiped my tears. “Jane told me that Maggie has come to you for years for stories about Bryan.”

He looked away. “Claire, I’m sorry. We never meant to—”

“No, I did that to myself. But I want us to start talking about him again.” My voice broke. “I want Bryan’s memory to live on in our family. For all of us.”

His eyes shone with a light I hadn’t seen in a long time, and he pulled me close again, his soft laughter in my ear. “Maggie loves hearing how Bryan used to throw that little red Nerf ball at her, and she would fall down like a ton of bricks.”

I laughed. “And he’d get so tickled, he’d fall down beside her, and they’d lie there and laugh until they cried.” I grabbed his hand. “Come with me.”

When we got to the house, we passed Bernice and Christopher in the kitchen, rummaging through the fridge. “Be right back,” I said, winking at her as we passed.

Upstairs in the bedroom, I retrieved the bright-red storage container from the armoire and placed it on the bed. From it I removed the little blue train shirt I’d brought with me on the plane and handed it to Stephen.

He held it tenderly. “It’s so small,” he whispered.

I laid several pieces of Bryan’s clothing on the bed, along with the colorful wooden train he had loved, its paint worn from constant play. Then I found the Nerf ball. “You should give this to Mags.”

“We should give it to her.”

He laid the ball on the bed, took my hand, and kissed it. Once, twice. The blue-gray of his eyes deepened, and my pulse kicked up. I stepped closer. But he didn’t move.

“At your pace,” he whispered, his gaze on my mouth.

“I want to take it slow,” I said.

He nodded, while his wry smile said that would be difficult. He kissed me tenderly at first, then more deeply, and I gave myself to it. Finally, he broke the kiss, leaving us both breathless.

He smiled. “We’ll take it slow.”

“Yes,” I whispered, wishing we didn’t have guests downstairs.

We headed for the stairs when he paused and looked back at the hole leading to the hidden room. “Believe it or not, the moment I first dared to believe that we might still have a future was when you told me you took a sledgehammer to that wall. That gave me hope that you might still feel something for me, at least.”

I looped my arm through his. “You want to know my first moment?”

“I do.”

“When I realized that God had led you to buy this house, despite my not wanting to come here, despite your not knowing what you were buying. God knew. He knew I needed Charlotte and Nettie’s journey to complete my own. To get me where he needed me to be. Where we both needed to be.”