I made my phone calls for the morning, including one to the magazine. The editor said no problem, they’d check back with me in ten days to see if I had any blooming roses to shoot.
“You’re very kind,” I said. “Thank you for being so understanding.”
“Believe it or not, Ms. Levine, this has happened before, but it was another rosarian who did it out of jealousy.”
“Good grief!” I said.
“Yes, ma’am! It’s a crazy world out there.”
I wanted to say, Listen, baby, I could tell you stories that would curl your hair. But I didn’t. I thanked the woman on the other end of the phone again and hung up.
I spent the rest of the morning assessing the damage to my poor roses and cleaning up the ground and the bushes with Millie and Mr. Jenkins. We filled a dozen brown paper bags with rose heads and another dozen with clippings.
“See this, y’all?” I called them to have a look. Every cut mark was made by clippers, not scissors. And they were made on a slant, just as a professional or someone who knew about roses would do. The more I thought about it, the more I was convinced that this had been done by a landscaper.
“You’re right, Caroline. Don’t you think so, Mr. Jenkins?”
Mr. Jenkins looked at Millie, glowing with affection.
“Mrs. Smoak? I think you’re so pretty in the sunshine, I could give you a kiss right here and now!”
He moved toward her and she jumped back.
“Oh! Stop, you old fool! Go on now!” Millie said, and dissolved into a fit of giggles. “Don’t listen to him, Caroline! He’s crazy as a bedbug!”
“Oh, let him kiss you, Millie!”
“That’s right! I could go any minute from natural causes!” he said.
“He’s a devil, ’eah?” Millie said.
I wondered for a brief moment how successful he was in the bedroom. I know. I’m gross.
Finally, when the sun was directly overhead and frying my scalp, I admitted to myself that it was too hot to work. I went back to the house for lunch and made a tomato sandwich just like the one I had yesterday. If anybody wants to know what they eat in heaven? Tell them vine-ripened tomatoes with a liberal smear of mayonnaise on white bread, salted and peppered. Wash it down with a big glass of sweet tea over ice and a sprig of mint. Food just doesn’t get any better than that. Pork included.
Right after one, Matthew called.
“Want to have dinner? I’ve got some steaks.”
“Sure. Why not?”
“How’s seven?”
“Perfect. The bugs will be gone and we can eat on the veranda.”
“Any news on the Rose Murderer?”
“Not so far. I think we all know what happened, though.”
“Yeah. My money’s on Eric’s theory. What a smart kid.”
“Thanks, darlin’!”
I was so glad to know Matthew would be there to end the day. I checked the pantry. I had potatoes to bake and somewhere there was a bottle of red wine. I had not seen Eric all day and I just assumed he was coming home for supper, so I set the table for three.
Later on in the afternoon, Eric drifted in wearing swim trunks and a T-shirt with flip-flops. He was turning a golden brown and the hair on his arms was bleached white. He and his cousins had probably spent the whole day by the pool, listening to music and ragging on the older generation. I remembered those days of small acts of rage against the establishment with a special fondness. I sighed hard then thinking about the world Eric and Trip’s girls would eventually enter, one by one. It would be unknown to me, to Trip, to all of us. Advances in medicine, technology, communications, and all the other fields that seem to prop up the world will be as familiar to them as their own names and all these advances will render us, the elders, dinosaurs. What a thought.
The first place he went was the refrigerator as though that’s where we hid the money.
“We got anything to drink?”
“There’s a pitcher of tea right in front of you. So, how are the girls?” I asked.
“Do you mean, did Linnie confess?”
“No, right?”
“Right.”
“Well, it will all be made clear in due time,” I said.
“Or not,” Eric said. “I mean, Mom, even if that guy Antonio did it, why would Linnie tell you? I’m gonna go wash off all the sweat. We sat by the pool for like hours.”
As I dressed for dinner I thought about what Eric had said about Linnie. Why would she admit it, even if she knew? He was right.
It was a perfectly gorgeous Lowcountry evening. Although the sun had already slipped into its sleeping place, the sky was streaked with the most beautiful colors—dark peach that bled into red the color of rubies and slivers of purple, like regal stripes on the robes of a queen. It was impossible not to stare until it all disappeared and night overtook the day.
About half an hour earlier, while there was plenty of light, Eric and Matthew decided to take a walk down by the river. Matthew wanted to talk and Eric wanted to show him some new gadget, a depth finder, I think, that Trip had gotten for his boat. I was fussing around with the table, making sure I had everything that we needed out there for dinner. No, I had thought of it all and I was pretty pleased with myself. Since Millie wasn’t around—she and Mr. Jenkins actually went to the movies together to see some animated film about penguins—I was on my own to test my domestic and culinary mettle. To tell you the truth, I don’t know why I was always so insecure about my abilities in the kitchen. Maybe it was because I wanted to be a great cook, not just a capable one.
The grill was ready and I looked up to see Eric and Matthew ambling along the path, returning for dinner. I liked the sight of them together. They were good company for each other and I especially liked the way Matthew treated Eric. He made him feel whole. Come to think of it, he made me feel pretty much the same way. Whole. I felt something wobble in my throat. Nerves, I guess. I was in love with the man and not sure what to do about it.
I was struggling with the corkscrew, pushing the cork farther and farther into the neck of the bottle, except for the chunk that I pulled out when the cork broke into two pieces.
“I’m such a spaz!” I said. “Help!” I called to them.
“You want me to open that bottle of wine?” Matthew called out. “Hang on for a minute!”
I threw my arms up in surrender. He rushed up and took the whole mess away from me and removed the rest of the cork easily. Eric went into the house.
“Wow,” I said.
“You do realize this is the second time I’ve rescued you today?”
“And I hope the service comes with a fee,” I said, whispering. Oh, you bad girl.
“It does.” He wiggled his eyebrows at me like the landlord in the old Dudley Do-Right cartoons. “But it might be hard to deal with.”
Really? How hard?
“Then charge me double,” I said, and giggled.
“What are y’all whispering about?” Eric came back out of the house, popping the top on a can of soda. “Aw, God, Mom! Are y’all being gross?”
“What? Eric! You shock me! Mother’s never gross!” I said, and laughed.
“Your mother is a paragon of virtue, son! A paragon!”
“Well, I don’t know if I’d go so far . . .”
We were at the table soon, and if I may say so myself, the steak was the best I’d had in ages. We were having a wonderful time, gobbling up the meal, dissecting Frances Mae’s return, under an oath that our cat talk would stay among us and never be repeated, when lo and behold! As though we were calling to them across the breezes, here came Trip, Frances Mae, and Linnie.
I stood to greet them and then Matthew and Eric stood, too.
“Hey!” I said. “Did y’all have supper?” Note: The last thing I wanted was to share my dinner with Frances Mae. Or that little snit, Linnie.
“We’re all set,” Trip said.
Linnie’s attitude was showing and Frances Mae didn’t look too ha
ppy to be in my company either.
“Well?” Trip said.
“Fine! I came to say I’m sorry, Caroline,” Frances Mae said. “I want us to get along and I know I make it complicated to do that, so that’s what I wanted to say.” She looked from face to face and then to Trip, who nodded in approval. “Okay. I said it.”
I shrugged my shoulders and thought, Okay, for Trip’s sake, I’ll lie through my teeth.
“I’m sorry, too, Frances Mae. We’re family, you know? It would be nice for us to get along better than we have in the past.”
I didn’t mean a word of it and we all knew it. I was about as sincere as she was. If she made one false move for the rest of her life, I’d let her have it.
“And Linnie wants to tell you something, too, Caroline,” the old bag said.
“You tell her, Mom!”
Frances Mae reached over and yanked a handful of Linnie’s hair so hard I thought it would come right out of her head. Linnie yelped, I gasped, and Trip’s eyes opened wide as if to say, See? This is why we need old F.M. at home!
“OW!”
“Tell her, girl or there’s plenty more where that came from.” Linnie said nothing. Frances Mae took another handful of her hair and was about to obliterate the child’s best asset when she finally spoke.
“All right! Quit it! I’ll tell her! Aunt Caroline? I’m sorry for what happened to your roses. I didn’t have nothing to do with it, though. It was that stupid Antonio I used to hook up with? Remember I told you back when Belle graduated that we both broke up with those guys? Well, we did. But Antonio didn’t want no part of that. Oh, no. He just wouldn’t accept that we was finished. He kept calling and calling and sometimes I would talk to him because you know what? I was sorta scared not to. I mean, I didn’t want him to think I hated him, I just didn’t want to be with him anymore.”
“And?” Frances Mae said, very excitedly as though she was in a hurry to leave, which I hoped she was. “Finish your story!”
“Fine! But back off, okay?”
Frances Mae stepped back and gave Linnie a good slap across her face. “You don’t ever tell me to back off, do you hear me?”
“I’m sorry, Momma,” Linnie said, rubbing her cheek.
“Fresh mouth,” Frances Mae said, and her face turned scarlet. Even she had enough sense to know it was iffy at best to whack the shit out of your teenage daughter in front of others.
“In our house this is behavior modification therapy,” Trip said with the smile of a saint.
“Hey! Whatever works,” I said with a newly found sense of benevolence toward Frances Mae.
While Frances Mae’s method of discipline had yet to synchronize with the “proper time and place” theory of when to deliver the whack, the slap, or the yank, I had to admire the swiftness of her delivery and the heft behind it. Frankly, at that moment, I was so happy to be relieved of the responsibility of those girls, Linnie in particular. What the hell was I thinking when I thought she could be tamed?
“That’s right,” Frances Mae said. “So, missy?”
“Okay, so,” Linnie said, trying to gather her thoughts again. “Anyway, Antonio isn’t so easy to get rid of, you know? He just—”
“Oh, hell’s bells, girl, I’ll finish the story,” Frances Mae spat. “Otherwise we’ll be here all night! So, Caroline, when the girls saw what happened this morning, they were all talking about it, except my Linnie here. I knew she knew something she wasn’t telling, so I took her aside, and after I screamed at her for an hour, she finally told me what she thought. So I said, gimme your phone. I called this Antonio, who just happened to be on speed dial even though my Linnie here claims to have lost interest in him, and I said, ‘You listen to me, boy. You leave my daughter alone, do you hear me? She don’t want no part of you! And we know you came over here last night and we know what you did. Shame on you! We can send you to jail if we want to, do you understand?’ And he’s all like sí, sí, señora and I’m like, ‘Well, my sister-in-law is gonna deal with that part but if I ever see you coming around here again, I’m gonna blow your brains out and tell the cops I thought you was a robber! Do you need help to understand this?’ And he says, no, no, señora. Anyway, you can have at him, Caroline. Here’s his number.”
She handed me a piece of paper with a phone number on it. I looked at it and then I looked at her in wonder.
“Frances Mae? That was brilliant!” I said, and meant it. “What you did, I mean! Where do you get the courage? What if he comes back here to slit your throat?”
“Let him try,” Trip said.
Frances Mae actually smiled. “I’m her mother, right? I’m just defending my kid, that’s all. I told you I was coming back to get my family and get them straight and I’m doing it.”
“Well, okay, then!” I said. I mean, listen, I didn’t like this woman, never had, never would, but I had to admire her spunk. “Would y’all like to stay for some pie?”
“No, we gotta be getting along, but thanks. See y’all later.”
And then I saw the strangest thing happen. Trip got in between Frances Mae and Linnie and put his arms around both of them and gave them a squeeze. They rested their heads on his shoulders. I was breathless. He loved them. My eyes weren’t lying. My brother, the same man who could terrify an entire courtroom packed to the rafters, preferred to let Frances Mae be in charge of the family. And she was the drill sergeant who was up to the task. He wanted his family intact, too. And, wonder of the world, the son of a bitch still had it going on for Frances Mae Litchfield.
“Did you see that?” I said.
“Yep,” Matthew said.
“Think I should file charges against Antonio?”
“Nope,” Matthew said, “let him garden for you all summer at no charge. I’ll work it out.”
I was so in love with Matthew then I thought I might faint.
“Hey! Wait!” Eric called out to them, and they stopped, turning back to face us. “Mom? Is it okay if I go over there to play Halo?”
“Of course!” I said.
“Can I come with you?” he called out to the others.
“Come on, boy!” Trip called back, and waved him over.
We watched, Matthew and I, as Eric ran to join them.
“He doesn’t need my permission to do that. He’s almost twenty.”
“Funny, that’s the same thing he told me.”
“What?”
“That I didn’t need his permission.”
“To do what?” What was he talking about?
“Ask you to marry me. Not that I really did, but you know, he’s your son and all and I wanted him to be a part of everything. And I gotta tell you, I love that kid. Love him to death. Anyway, I asked Trip’s permission, and he said, please marry her, for God’s sake. I thought that was pretty funny.”
My jaw dropped.
“Apparently, Trip thinks since I’m here all the time saving you from one thing or another that you probably really do need me.”
“I do! I do need you!”
“Good! That’s settled! And I think the thought of your ex-husband showing up really scares him, especially if you’re in the house alone. He said that old dude is a very scary guy. I have to agree with that.”
“He is.”
“And I don’t want you running around with other guys. It makes me really crazy.”
“It does?”
“Yes, of course it does. I want to kill them in cold blood. Except for Bobby Mack. I liked him well enough. So, there it is. What do you think about all that?”
“I think, I think . . . I don’t know what I think! I mean, Matthew! Are you sure you want me? I mean, you see what my family is like!”
“What? Caroline? I have been in love with you all my life. Your family doesn’t scare me. In fact, I know more about your family than I do about my own! So, is it yes? Wait! I almost forgot. Come with me!”
He grabbed my hand and started running.
“Where are we going? Matthew, slow
down!”
Dusk was long gone, night was settling in, and the moon was on the rise. We were heading for the dock, running like two fools on the slick grass, slipping and sliding. He was going to kiss me in the moonlight and I was going to tell him how much I loved him. I would tell him over and over until he told me he believed me.
When we got there he said, “Whew, I’m winded!”
“Me, too!”
“Okay,” he said. “You stand right there. No, wait. You sit. I have this all rehearsed in my mind and I don’t want to blow it. I mean, how many times in your life do you do this? Right?”
“Right!” I said, and nodded like a bobble-head doll.
I sat on the old bench. It was so quiet then, just us and the sound of the Edisto lapping against the pilings and my heart pounding against my ribs. He reached in his pocket, pulled out a ring, and dropped to one knee.
“I love you, Caroline. Say you’ll marry me and make me the happiest man in the world.”
“Dear, sweet Matthew, put the ring on my finger and make me the happiest woman alive!”
It was a large, round white diamond solitaire, so brilliant, in fact, that it took my breath away. It flashed its significance even in the dark.
“Matthew! It’s beautiful!”
“It was my mother’s ring. I know that if she had lived long enough to know you, that she’d want you to have it.”
I started to cry and I was embarrassed because he probably thought I cried too much, but it made me think of my own mother. Miss Lavinia was probably standing on our dock with his mother, somewhere in the shadows, watching this moment when their children declared their love for each other. What would my mother say to me? I wondered, and then I knew. She would say that she was proud, proud of me living my own life, an authentic life, that I was bold and she loved that I was bold. She had been bold once and wasn’t this act of commitment to Matthew me truly living up to her reputation? I was going to marry again and this time I was going to marry for love.
Matthew handed me his handkerchief. I just loved men who carried handkerchiefs, but I think I may have told you that before.
“Don’t cry, baby. I’m going to take care of you for the rest of your life.”
I looked at him straight in the eyes. His eyes were brimming with tears, too.