I EASED THE DOOR CLOSED AND FUMBLED FOR THE light switch. The skeins of wool lay piled in Lavinia’s rocking chair, just as I’d left them. The rest of the furniture had been my mother’s, most of it dark and heavy, more appropriate to the ancestor who had occupied this room a century and a half before. I crossed to the dresser and turned on the lamp, its soft glow spilling over the yellow silk upholstery of the chaise pulled up beneath the window.
The dark oak box held not a trace of dust as I skimmed my fingers across it. The action left a streak of moisture on the old wood, and I realized my hands were perspiring. I wiped them on my sweatpants and darted another anxious glance behind me.
“Knock it off,” I said out loud, but softly, as if the walls might record my unforgivable violation of Lavinia’s privacy. I drew a long breath and let it out slowly. “In for a penny,” I whispered and threw open the lid.
The flash of gold I remembered from my childhood revealed itself to be a locket. I lifted it out, and it twirled on its chain, glittering in the lamplight. I set it carefully on the top of the dresser and removed the handful of papers. Beneath them was a photograph, old and slightly creased, its black-and-white edges torn a little from repeated handling. It was a young Lavinia, her Afro standing out from her head like a dark nimbus, a baby settled comfortably on her left hip. She was laughing, her head partially thrown back, her eyes nearly closed. The child—it had to be Thaddeus—grinned, too, his toothless gums exposed. They looked happy, a mother and her son caught in a moment of delight. I had never seen Lavinia in such an unguarded, abandoned moment.
I dropped the photo back into the box and riffled through the papers. Thad’s birth certificate brought back sad memories of Judas Island and the grisly find Erik and I had made. I shivered in the warm glow of the lamp. Insurance policies and a couple of Thad’s report cards slid through my fingers, along with the order of service from my mother’s funeral. I paused over that, then moved quickly on.
The envelope was plain, no printed matter or return address. Just the Judge’s handwriting, bolder and less shaky, so that I assumed he’d tucked the contents inside before his strokes had affected even his one good hand: TO BE OPENED IN THE EVENT OF MY DEATH.
It was sealed.
I turned it over and over in my hands. No more than two sheets inside, or at least that’s how it felt. I passed it under the lamp, but nothing of the contents revealed itself. I stroked the words, my mind racing with tales from old mysteries: trembling fingers clutching purloined letters over a whistling tea kettle. Did it actually work? I wondered. And did I have the nerve?
“Bay?” Red’s voice drifted up the stairs. “Where are you?”
I jumped and clutched the envelope to my chest. This had to be it. Lavinia had been lying when she said the Judge had never given her any papers to keep. I knew it. Here, in my sweating hand, I was convinced I held the answer. My sister. Julia Simpson.
“Bay? Honey?”
I couldn’t. There had to be another way. I thrust all the papers back in the box and dropped the gold locket on top, hopefully just the way I’d found it. As I lowered the lid, another slim piece of paper, tucked up against the side, caught my eye. It was a newspaper clipping, old and a little yellowed. I could see the word drowned in the part of the headline just after the fold, and a date: July 7. Without conscious intent, I lifted it out and tucked it into my pocket, then used the sleeve of my sweatshirt to remove any moisture I might have left behind on the lid. With a pounding heart, I switched off the lights and slipped into the hallway.
“Coming,” I called, more loudly than necessary, and nearly ran down the steps.
“Where’d you get to?” Red asked when I carried the tea tray into the parlor.
Unlike the more formal rooms at the front of the house, this had been the place where we’d gathered as a family on the rare occasions we were all home at the same time. My mother had grudgingly allowed a television to be installed, and it was often here the Judge had taught me the finer points of baseball as we followed the Braves and the amazing Hank Aaron’s demolition of Babe Ruth’s home-run record.
“Just checking out some things,” I said, not meeting his eyes as I set the tray on the low table in front of the sofa.
I poured, then curled up beside Red and tucked my feet up under me. Firelight danced off the polished pine floor, and I found myself staring at the flickering patterns. I smiled, remembering the times I’d snuggled like this against my father, babbling about the high and low points of my day at school, the smoke from his cigar wafting up toward the ceiling. Those evenings had been few—and precious to me in a way I hadn’t thought about in too many years. Somehow we’d drifted apart, and I could only partially blame it on my mother’s alcoholic mood swings and often bizarre behavior. Somewhere along the way, I’d learned to harden my heart, to guard myself against caring too much. Rob had scaled the walls, and now I’d allowed Red to do the same.
I hoped I wouldn’t live to regret it.
“Relax,” I heard Red whisper against my hair. “You’re wound up like a spring.”
He pulled away from me a little, and his strong fingers worked the muscles bunched below my neck, careful as always to be gentle with the scar tissue on my left shoulder, an ugly reminder of how close I had come to dying with my husband that terrifying day his small plane exploded on takeoff.
“Mmm,” I murmured, squirming around to give him a better angle, and the fold of newspaper crackled in my pocket. I slipped my hand in and smoothed it out.
He finished the massage, and I leaned back into the crook of his arm.
“Would you want to live here again?” he asked, and I pulled back to look into his face.
“Why?”
I’d spoken more sharply than I intended, and his brow crinkled in a frown.
“It’s something you’ll have to face, if not now, then in the not too distant future. Even if the Judge survives this, he might need more care than Lavinia can give him. And when he passes away, you’re going to have to make a decision about the house. I know he deeded it over to you last year on your birthday, but what will you do with it after . . . after he’s gone?”
I felt myself stiffen. None of your damn business was the phrase that sprang immediately to mind, but I knew that wasn’t fair. Red had proposed. I had accepted—sort of. I’d been secretly relieved when the damage to my finger had postponed my wearing his ring. I’d get over that feeling of panic. It would be okay. In the meantime, he had a right to question me about my future. But no law said I had to like it.
I blew out the sharp retort on a puff of air and said, “I haven’t thought about it.”
“You need to,” he replied softly.
“I know.” I burrowed closer, and his other arm came around me. “Just not tonight, okay?”
“Okay,” he said and kissed the top of my head.
I awoke to the deep chimes of the grandfather clock in the hallway and found the fire had nearly burned itself out. I was alone. At some point, Red had eased my head onto a throw pillow, tucked an afghan around me, and taken himself off to bed. I sat up, my left shoulder stiff and a throbbing pain in my thigh keeping time with my heartbeat. I shivered in the chill room.
I rubbed sleep from my eyes and reached for the cell phone I’d left on the table next to the tea tray. No missed messages. I switched on the lamp behind the sofa and squinted in the sudden glare. My reading glasses were in my bag in my old room, but I thought I could make do without them. With a quick glance behind me, I stood and slid the newspaper article out of my pocket, then dropped back onto the sofa and pulled the afghan over my bare feet.
It was short. The portion of the header that would have told me the name of the newspaper had been cut away, but the location of the story made me sit up straighter:
Charleston—The body of a local attorney was pulled from the Atlantic Ocean yesterday, a tragic end to the Fourth of July weekend celebrations.
Brooke Garrett, 40, of Edisto apparently drowned while on a holiday outing. She was reported missing by a family friend, and a frantic search by local volunteers and the Coast Guard failed to locate her until her body washed ashore late last night.
The coroner will make an official ruling next week but the death is being treated by local officials as an accidental drowning.
See obituary, page 6
I sat for a long time staring at the few words, my mind unable to grasp what significance this woman’s death had or why Lavinia would have so carefully preserved the notice of it among her private papers. Maybe it had been a relative, although I’d never heard her mention anyone named Garrett.
I flung off the afghan and carried the flimsy paper into the Judge’s room. I found pen and paper in his old desk, now used more as a serving table, and copied the article word for word. I turned off the light and stood for a moment looking out over the Sound. The moon was setting, and only a slim trickle of light played across the water. Out toward the ocean, a faint hint of approaching dawn touched the edge of the night sky with a shimmer of gold.
I let the tears come, not even bothering to wipe them away. Once before I’d been forced to think about a world without the powerful force of my father’s personality in it. I’d fought then, risked everything to see him safely home. But how could I fight age and infirmity and the inevitability of death?
Some time later, I dried my eyes on the sleeve of my sweatshirt and climbed the stairs. I tiptoed into Lavinia’s room and carefully replaced the stolen scrap of newspaper in the old wooden box. Back in my own bedroom, I felt my way around in the dark and slid the copy into my bag. I set my cell phone next to the bed, slipped in beside Red, and nestled into the curve of his back.
When the phone rang, it was full light, and Red was gone.