I’d looked forward to the drive out to Edisto, a morning away from the office. Maybe, I hoped, the cat would do me a favor and ride quietly, distracted by her fake mouse. But Delores called in sick, so now I have my mother in the backseat, with the howling cat, and Carmen in the front with me. Carmen’s amazingly calm, resigned to the cat’s moods. Or maybe she’s just exhausted from the commotion of the past few days. She closes her eyes, rests her chin on her paws. I wish I had her attitude.
“We need to go back to the condo!” shouts my mother.
“But you like plantations!” I shout back.
“We forgot Ed!”
“Ed can’t come today, Mom.”
In the rearview mirror I watch her face crumple, and then, as we pass Rutledge Avenue, the tears rolling down her cheeks, little rivulets through the makeup she applied by herself, too heavily. I’m thinking I’d better turn around, go back home, call Shenille to see if she can stay with Mom. And then I see him: the old man in the black hat and overcoat, walking with a cane up Gadsden Street. It’s Simon Witowski. The wind’s blowing hard against him, and just as I pass Gadsden, it lifts his hat and tosses it into the air. He turns to search for it, and something about this—the old man by himself, the hat sailing down the street—convinces me to turn the car around.
“Oh, hello!” he says when I pull up next to him.
“I think it blew into those bushes,” I say, pointing.
“Is that Ed?” asks my mother.
“No, Mom.”
We never find the hat. He was just out taking his morning walk, he says. He tries to get out every day unless it’s raining. But it’s colder than he realized, so yes, it would be nice to take a little ride; it’s been a long time since he visited Oak Bluff. Yes, that would be nice. For old times’ sake.
And that’s how Simon Witowski ends up in the backseat with my mother, the cat in her carrier between them, quieter now. “She’s a gorgeous creature, isn’t she?” he says.
“Thank you!” my mother answers, though he wasn’t talking about her.
* * *
“Lila refused to pave this road,” Simon says as we bump along the dirt road to the house. “She always said she wanted people to slow down, so they would notice the world around them. Look—that’s a big one, isn’t he?” The buck’s antlers catch the sunlight before he darts into the brush.
“We can’t stay long,” I explain. “Gail’s just meeting me here so that she can lead me to her trailer—we’re going to meet her boyfriend there.” But I know my mother will enjoy seeing the house, and Simon has already assumed the role of tour guide.
“Oak Bluff was constructed about 1800,” he says. “By then Lila’s great-great-grandfather, who built it, had gotten rich off sea island cotton, a variety that was only grown on the islands of South Carolina, Georgia, and northern Florida.” I stop the car, and before I know it, Simon’s helping my mother out, a maneuver he somehow accomplishes while leaning on his cane. “There’s a story that the Pope’s garments were made from Edisto Island cotton. “
“The Pope was here?” asks my mother.
“No, but the Marquis de Lafayette was entertained at a plantation just down the road,” says Simon. “Of course, the wealth would not have been possible without slavery. All the planting and the picking was done by hand. It was backbreaking labor.” He looks down toward the river. “Lila loved this place, and she could be sentimental, but she was also an expert on its history. I think it haunted her.”
Beatrice knows she’s home. With a shrill “meow” she demands to be let out of the carrier. “Not yet,” I say, lifting it. “Wait till we get inside.” Carmen’s already bounded out of the car, and we wait while she relieves herself behind a camellia bush. “Okay, honey,” I say to her, “if you behave yourself, you can come in, too.”
There’s a fire in the fireplace on the ground floor, a stack of wood at the end of the hearth, and Lila’s old quarters have been swept and dusted, the books removed from the long table behind the sofa and put back on the bookshelves, the papers organized in neat stacks on the desk. “Ah,” says Simon, “she loved this room in winter. So much cozier than the ones upstairs.” There’s something simmering in a pot on the stove, but Gail’s not in the kitchen. I settle Simon and Mom on the sofa in front of the fire, the cat in Simon’s care.
The beagle follows me up the stairs. Gail’s in the dining room, sorting through the papers on the long table. “Oh, I didn’t hear you come in,” she says, and when she turns toward me I see the purple bruise around her eye, the red mark across her cheek.
“What happened?”
She touches her face. “Billy.”
The story she tells is a variation of the one I’ve heard in my office a hundred times: This isn’t the first time, but it’s the worst. I’ve finally made up my mind. She hopes it’s okay that she’s been staying here for a few days. “He was lying to me the whole time,” she says. “He has a wife and two kids in North Charleston. The trailer belongs to her. I guess she had enough sense to get away, too.”
“I’m sorry,” I say. “You should get a restraining order.”
“He won’t bother me anymore,” she says. “Not after what I did to him.” He’d chased her around the trailer, pushed her against the refrigerator, “but I grabbed a saucepan off the stove. It wasn’t hot or anything, but I hit him pretty hard. For a minute I thought I’d killed him … and you know what? I wasn’t even sorry. It was like … when he came to, he had this whole different look on his face, like he finally understood he wasn’t going to mess with me anymore. And you know what else? Since I been here, it’s almost like she … It’s hard to explain, but I feel like Lila’s here with me, that’s she’s proud of me.… Where’s Beatrice?”
“Downstairs. I brought my mother, and an old friend of Lila’s. I hope that’s okay.”
“Sure.”
“The house looks great, by the way. You’ve been doing a lot of work.”
“I just thought, as long as I was here I might as well.… And I was thinking that when the weather warms up a little I can start painting the outside. But if you’ve found someone else, I can be out tomorrow.” She touches the bruise again. “My sister lives up in Summerville; she has an extra bedroom.”
“Before I drove out here I felt you were the best choice, but I was concerned that you didn’t want to live here. But if you’ve changed your mind, that’s ideal. It’s what Lila wanted—for Beatrice to live here.”
“So I can stay?”
“As long as you’re willing to take on the responsibility.”
“I feel like … like it’s kind of an honor. To be chosen.”
“What about your other cats?” I remember what Tony said about cats being territorial.
“Billy wouldn’t let me take them. He’s nicer to them than he is to me.”
“So, you feel okay about staying here alone? What about the ghost?”
“It’s funny, since I been here—since I got away from Billy—I’m not afraid of anything anymore. And I won’t be alone. I’ll have Beatrice.”
“Come downstairs and meet Lila’s old friend, Simon Witowski.” But I hear Simon and my mother across the hall, in the living room, and Beatrice, loosed from her carrier, has found Gail.
“Good heavens!” Mom says, peering into the living room. “This place could certainly use a decorator!” She’s breathless from the climb.
Simon’s at one of the big windows. “Look, Margaret,” he says, his arm on her elbow again, “from here you can see the river, and beyond that … see?… the ocean.”
But Mom is busy surveying the room. “It could be a showplace, but it would take a lot of work,” she says. “And even if we could afford it, the problem is finding good help. These days it’s almost impossible to find good help. So I think it might be too much for us, don’t you?”
Simon’s response is perfect: “You’re right, Margaret. It would be too much. But we can enjoy the visit, can’t we?”
“And besides,” she says, “my daughter says there’s a ghost.”
“There’s a ghost, all right,” says Simon. “But he’s a friendly one. He was in love here, and though it turned out badly for him, he keeps coming back—looking for her, hoping she’ll change her mind. I’m the ghost.”
“But you’re not dead!” she says.
“It’s the ghost of my younger self,” he says. “He’s a dreamer. He just won’t give up.”