2

EVERLY

Present day

I know this: we’re made of stories, legends and myths just as we are made of water, atoms and flesh. Once you know it, you can’t un-know it; you can’t pretend that everything that happened before you were born doesn’t have something to do with who you are today. Still, everything can change in an instant, a flash, a blink of an eye. A story can shift completely with the screech of a car tire, the flash of fire or the words of someone you love. It can all happen as Papa had once said: “And then everything changed.”

And yet the truth sometimes slipped from me and I forgot for moments and months at a time. The day Oliver asked for my help, I’d come to believe that a day was just something to get through without anxiety winning the hour.

The tall floor-to-ceiling windows of my classroom allowed the midday sunlight to fall so brightly that it formed a spotlight on the dust mites, giving them a place to dance. The building with its ancient bones was one of my very favorites in all of Savannah. Which said a lot because there were buildings in this city I loved so much I’d stand in front of a wrecking ball to protect them. The fact that I was able to teach history in this fortress was more than I’d hoped for during the long years of postgraduate work. But there I was: Dr. Everly Winthrop, professor of history. This was the only school I’d applied to teach at, Savannah College of Art and Design—SCAD for those who loved her.

The students gathered their backpacks and ever-dinging cell phones and began to filter out of the room, calling to one another, planning study groups or a night on the town. They had long hair, dreadlocks, spiked hair, pink hair. They were full of life and a vibrancy I not only missed in myself but thought long gone.

From the corner of my vision, I saw a man leaning against the doorframe as casual as if he were posing for a photo shoot. I took him for another student preparing some excuse why he’d missed this or that or the other. I’d heard it all.

From the scarred wooden desk, I gathered the essays my students had dropped next to the art history textbook with the bright cover of Van Gogh, but the man remained and I felt his presence as if he tapped me on the shoulder with his gaze. I turned with the full expectation of reminding him of my office hours.

My breath first told me it was Oliver as it caught in my chest and didn’t move. I’d known that one day I’d see him again—it was inevitable—but I’d imagined it happening much later, long after I’d prepared myself with the correct words and penitent apologies. But here he was. He hadn’t changed much since I saw him over a year ago—his sly grin, his dark hair wafting back as if there were a breeze, and eyes so brown they seemed made of earth. But, like me, the unseen parts of his life had been completely altered, I knew.

“Hello, Oliver.” I held the pile of paper-clipped essays in front of me like ineffectual armor. The overhead light from the hallway bounced off a neon painting of a woman with a snake around her waist. “How in the world did you get in here?”

He took a step closer but did not enter the room. He shrugged with that grin that usually got him what he wanted. “I followed a student in.”

“And what are you doing here?”

“I came to see you.” His voice was void of Savannah’s accent, the lilt and sway of it—he was a California boy. He straightened in the doorframe and rolled back his shoulders.

He stepped into the classroom. “I wanted to talk to you and if I called, or even texted, you’d ignore me or make some bullshit excuse.” He grinned to soften the words we both knew were true.

“So, you decided to trap me in my classroom?” I, too, smiled; it was hard not to.

He sat at a desk as if he were a student eager to learn art history—we were on the madness of Van Gogh this week, moving toward Picasso.

I set the papers on my desk and leaned back against it to face him but aimed my gaze to where a timeline of postimpressionist works hung crooked on the plaster walls. “What’s up?” My words echoed in the high-ceilinged room.

“I need your help.” He held his hands out in supplication.

“How so?”

“It’s a mystery to unravel. An exhibit to build. A collection to curate.” He laughed and paused with a wry grin. “In other words, it’s another consulting job at the museum.”

I moved toward him, sat across from the desk and took him in for a minute. He’d always appeared kind, with warm eyes, a relaxed smile, a square jaw and always with an ear toward me as if he were ready to listen. “You’re still at the museum?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?” He moved and the chair rocked, uneven on the warped floor. A swath of sunlight shot through the window and landed between us like a sword.

“I just thought that . . . I don’t know.”

“That I wouldn’t be able to stay because of all the reminders?”

“Yes.” I’d thought a hundred times, maybe more, exactly what I would say when I saw Oliver again. But those words dissipated. In the silence between us came faint sounds of Savannah’s bustle: a siren blared, a woman laughed and a dog yapped.

Finally, Oliver exhaled and rubbed his forehead. “Listen, Everly, I miss Mora. Every single day. Just like you. But I can’t quit my job and run from it.”

“Like I have?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You implied it and it’s true. I realize you miss her, too, but she was my best friend.”

“She was my fiancée.”

“It’s not the same.” I forced myself to look directly at him. I wouldn’t turn away as I burrowed deep for a few of my long-practiced words. “I knew her since childhood—I don’t remember ever not knowing her. She was part of my life in every way, every single day, all my life. Even more so than my sister.”

He placed his palms on his knees and leaned forward. The pain that crossed his face was as real as if I’d taken a stiletto and sliced with precision. “This is not a contest of grief, Everly. That isn’t why I’m here.”

“Then why are you here?” My face felt hot and my neck prickled with sweat in the over-air-conditioned room. What if he said the words I believed he kept folded in the unspoken places—it should have been you? I found my hands balled into fists and slowly unfolded them. If I held tight, a panic attack would find me, and the last thing I wanted was for Oliver Samford to see me come undone.

“I’m here about work. And, trust me, if I thought I could find someone else, I would.”

“Well, thanks for that.” I stood. “Nice way to ask, Oliver.”

“Please sit. I don’t know why I keep saying the wrong damn thing with you. What I meant is that I knew asking might cause you discomfort, and you’d probably say no, but you’re the only one who can properly do this job. I need you to be the guest curator. As usual, if you say yes, I’ll give you everything you want: You can choose the hall, move partitions, change the color of the walls. You can select the graphic artists and extras. Just let me tell you about this project. I do need you.”

“Need?”

“Yes.”

I didn’t sit but I didn’t walk away either. My linen dress was sticking to my spine and my hair to my neck. I nodded for him to continue.

“We’re doing a major exhibit of the steamship Pulaski.”

“The Pulaski?” The rich smell of tobacco, Papa’s deep voice, and the roar of the library fireplace flashed in my memory. My curiosity flared slightly, like a lit but damp and sputtering match. “Why now?”

He dropped his voice to a deep baritone that surrounded the words with mystery. “Because, Everly,”—he grinned and cocked his head—“they just found her.”

“What?” A chill skittered up my arms.

He stood to face me, drew closer. “Thirty miles off the coast of North Carolina, a hundred feet deep. They found her.”

“And it’s her? For sure?”

“For sure. I have proof if you want to see it.”

I reached out my hand. “Let me see.”

“You have to come to the museum—I have photos there. And a story to tell you.”

I shook my head. “I know you very well, Mr. Oliver Samford. You deliberately didn’t bring photos so you could lure me to the museum. You think if I show up there, I’ll say yes.”

“Maybe.”

“What kind of proof?”

He paused, lengthening the suspense in his way. “A candlestick . . . with the name of the ship engraved on the bottom. There’s gold and silver and jewelry and . . .” He clapped his hands together. “Do I know how to tempt or what?”

An elevator in the middle of my body dropped; I turned away.

“Everly, you know what I meant. Listen, this is a story worth telling. It’s the sudden disaster, the ripping of time into before and after. It’s the wasted lives.”

He could have been talking about us, about Mora, about life and its brokenness that came without warning. But he wasn’t talking about us, or Mora. He was talking about a shipwreck.

“I only have one class left until summer break and I was planning on taking a bit of a rest. The anchor? Have they found that? Or the bell?”

“Not yet. They will. No more excuses from you.”

“Okay, then, here it is: This is not a good idea. Us working together is not a good idea.”

“No one else has the expertise or skills you do. You’ll find the stories. You’ll make it all come alive. I can pay you well.”

“I don’t want your—”

“I know. But don’t say no out of hand. Think about it? Come by the museum in the morning. If you say no tomorrow, in the museum with the pictures in front of you, I will never ask again. But if you don’t . . .” He held up his palms and shrugged. “I will pester you to the ends of the earth.”

“Oliver . . . there are others who can do this, I am sure.”

“Do you need me to tick off the reasons why it should be you?”

I fidgeted from one foot to the other, shook my head.

“I’ll do it anyway. You’re a fine historian, one of the best I’ve ever worked with. You’re obsessed with stories of the sea. You know the Pulaski disaster. You’re from Savannah generations back. You know how to dig up obscure documents and construct a narrative from them as if you saw it all right in front of your eyes. You are the exact right person for this job and you know it, Everly.” He paused. “Maybe we can solve the mystery of what happened to Lilly Forsyth.”

“She’s a myth. She’s a story we all liked to whisper about when we were little kids and believed in ghosts.” I shook my hands and made an O form of my mouth as if scared.

“She was quite real,” Oliver insisted.

“Maybe she survived the shipwreck but not the aftermath. It could be as simple as that. Why does it matter?”

“It always matters. You know that. If anyone can help me unravel the story of what happened that night, it’s you. But if you’re sure . . .” He took a few steps toward the door, then stopped and turned back. “I’ll see you tomorrow. And Everly, it’s really good to see you.”

I waved him off without answering. When his footsteps faded down the hallway, I dropped into the wooden desk chair and ran my sneaker back and forth over the warped floorboards. They’d buckled and settled many times through their hundred-year tenure. I waited for a decision inside of me. Since Mora’s death, I knew better than to move too quickly in response to unexpected events.

The request from Oliver should have sounded exciting, and that was the problem—I knew what things should feel like, yet they merely felt dull, like the dentist poking at my lip and asking, “Is it numb yet?”

It wasn’t that I couldn’t feel anymore. It was that I felt only a small range of emotions when before I’d had all the world’s sensations at my fingertips. Since Mora’s death, three emotions dominated: sadness, anxiety and guilt. All else—joy, excitement, sweet melancholy—approached me tentatively and then ran for the hills. And yet now, imagining the artifacts of the shipwreck, I felt the tingle of something more move up my spine. A memory of who Mora and I were together flashed—friends constantly seeking adventure and uncovering hidden stories.

I wanted to ask Mora: would you want me to do this? But, of course, she couldn’t answer. Even if she were alive, she wouldn’t tell me what to do. She’d ask me all the questions that would lead me to my own answer.

“Do you want to do this?” she might ask. “Do you want to unravel a mystery and find out what happened that night?”

“Yes,” I’d answer. “But I don’t think it’s a very good idea. Not at all.”

In my imagination she didn’t answer. And that was part of the problem. I’d stopped hearing her.

I’d even stopped hearing myself.