“I don’t know. Have you spoken to the twins and the boys?”
“No, but I figured I’d invite them all for Christmas and let them stay until New Year’s Day if they wanted to. I mean, the year 2000—it’s a big deal. I thought it would be special if we were all together. I could even rent another house, you know? What do you think?”
“I think that’s a great idea. What’s the Island doing to celebrate?”
“I don’t know, but I imagine there will be fireworks and so forth. Probably a special service at Stella Maris, don’t you think?”
“Yeah. God—2000. Amazing, huh? I can’t believe it’s almost ’eah.”
“Yeah,” she said. “Grab a jacket and let’s sit on the beach.”
I put on one of the boys’ windbreakers and off we went. We kicked off our shoes and crossed the yard, climbing the walkover that protected the dunes. On the other side, we sat on the bottom step and at the same moment, we dug our toes deep into white sand to stay warm. Its touch was cool to my skin but soothing. This burying of feet was another insignificant or maybe not so insignificant tradition that tied us together. Despite our many differences, we were sisters to the bone, locked into little habits and special words that bound us together. More importantly, we searched each other to build new similarities and to stay relevant to each other.
“Susan? I gotta tell you something,” Maggie said. “I really thought that Grant was having an affair. Thank God I was wrong. I was so happy that the matches were Bucky’s I didn’t even want to punish him.”
“I don’t blame you,” I said. “I would’ve kissed Bucky.”
“Right. But I know that infidelity’s possible, ’eah? That hospital’s crawling with young, beautiful nurses and others who spend two hours getting all spiffed up for work in the morning. Their sole purpose in life is to trap a doctor—married or not. Grant leaves me in my nightgown looking like I’m crawling out of a train wreck and comes home late to find me looking like a tired old bag.”
“You’re too hard on yourself, and I told you Grant wasn’t screwing around. He just wouldn’t do it, Maggie.”
“Listen, remember Livvie? She said, ‘Trust ’em and they throw you!’ She always said that.”
“Well, it can’t hurt to keep your eyes open, but I seriously doubt you have anything to worry about. It’s not like Tom’s disease is contagious.”
“I don’t know about that. Grant could’ve found another pack of matches in Bucky’s room and just lied to me.”
“Jesus, Maggie. What is this, Perry Mason? Do you really think Grant would do something so devious?”
“You never know,” she said.
The tide was going out. It was another beautiful South Carolina day. There was so much blue sky it was amazing. The beach was empty, except for a couple strolling together, farther down the Island. We could see them throwing a stick to their dog and the dog running around, obviously having a wonderful time. Where else was there so much endless beauty and serenity?
The beach always gave something to me, something akin to checking the cosmic e-mail. I could talk to God on Sullivan’s Island.
“Getting chilly, ’eah?” I said.
“Winter’s coming,” Maggie finally answered after her eyes scanned the entire beach.
“’Eah, gone be in the fifties tonight. Time to turn on the furnace.”
“Yep. Hey, do you remember the time we caught Daddy fooling around with his secretary?”
It wasn’t exactly on the front row of my mind, but given her suspicion of Grant’s behavior, I could see why she dredged it up. “Who could forget that?” I said.
“You think Momma ever knew?”
“Yeah, she knew. Livvie told me.”
“But she never said anything to us. Amazing.”
“That was her attempt at dignity in a war zone. You know, in my middle age, I’m starting to realize a lot of things about old MC that I never could understand before.”
“Such as?”
I picked up a handful of sand and let the fine white particles run through my fingers. Looking out over the horizon, I spotted a cluster of shrimp boats, nets down. I thought for a moment about which thread to pull to begin unraveling our mother’s story.
“Such as, nothing ever prepared her for the life she had. Life threw her one disaster after another. I’m not so sure I could’ve tolerated all she did. I probably would’ve run away from everyone.”
“You don’t mean that.”
“I certainly do mean it. Maggie, look at her life. Six kids. That alone is justification to pickle your own liver. Can you imagine believing that using birth control would send you to hell for all of eternity? And she had her parents to contend with and Daddy. I don’t know how she did it all, how she bought into it. I couldn’t.”
“I couldn’t either. But she was from another time, another generation.”
“Guilt, honey,” I said. “Good old-fashioned Catholic guilt. Her parents spread it on her like mayonnaise on white bread, and then they stuffed it with bologna. And you know what else? Here’s the big revelation coming.”
“Okay, I’m ready.”
“Even though Livvie made it possible for us to survive all the insanity, I grew up and committed the stupidest sin of all.” Feeling dead serious, I stood up and walked a few paces away. “Come on, let’s walk.” I turned to pull her up and rolled up my pants legs to under my knees. I wanted to tell her things we had never discussed. We walked along the water’s edge, the startling cold water of early November washing our bare feet.
“Maggie, I despised Daddy.” My voice was low and strong.
“For good reason.”
“You are always asking me why I can’t let his death go. I think he was murdered.” My voice rolled over the sound of the ocean. If the wind was right, half of the Island probably heard me. “All these years I have struggled to accept the heart attack story, but something in my guts tells me it ain’t true.”
“Susan, there was an investigation and an autopsy. The investigation proved nothing and the autopsy showed a heart attack.”
“Daddy didn’t die of a heart attack. I’m sure of it! He may have had one in the process of being run off the road, but I just know that his death was no accident. And the fight we all had with him didn’t help.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. What fight?”
“What fight? When I hit him with that branch!”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. You hit who?”
“Daddy! Why can’t you remember this?”
“I don’t know.”
Maggie had one of her classic psychological trauma blocks. The wind was picking up and the fine sand was swirling and blowing, stinging our feet and faces. I had other things to tell her about Daddy’s death, but for the moment I was more concerned about her and Grant.
“Just don’t do what I did, Maggie. Because of Daddy, I grew up with a frozen heart and married somebody who did the same thing to me that Daddy did to Momma.”
“That’s not unusual,” she said.
“Look, you’ve been thinking some very bad stuff about Grant—that he’s possibly, just possibly, screwing somebody else. I’ve had a lot of time to think—almost a year. When I first found out about Tom what did I do?”
“You kicked his butt out.”
“Well, not exactly. He left. But I let out a blue rage of fury I didn’t even know I had in me. In truth, I did to him what I always wanted Momma to do to Daddy. How’s that for introspection? I was trying to get even for Momma! And what have you done about Grant?”
“Basically, ignored it so far.”
“Right, you’re doing exactly what Momma did.”
“Yeah, but let’s face facts, as long as we’re being so honest. You’re anti-men, and you’ve been gunning for them since you were a girl.”
“You can think whatever you want, but that’s not true. I was unprepared for the whole business of marriage, terrified of men, and frankl
y, my dear, so were you. We’re getting a little off track.”
“So where’s the wisdom in this discussion?”
“The wisdom is that I couldn’t believe that anyone would ever love me after the way Daddy treated Momma. Plain and simple. And when Tom betrayed me, as I always suspected he would—because in my mind, that’s what men did—my anger outweighed my disappointment.”
“What are you saying? That you never loved Tom? You loved Tom, you know you did.”
“I’m not saying I didn’t think I loved Tom, I’m saying I didn’t know what love really was! How could I? Daddy was an abusive, unfaithful son of a bitch of a husband and a sadistic bastard from hell. How are you supposed to learn about healthy love relationships from that?”
“Good point.”
“Here’s the clincher. I didn’t miss Tom when he left. That bothered me a lot, that I didn’t miss him. But then I saw! How could I miss a love I couldn’t feel? One that was never a full emotional investment? Oh sure, my pride was annihilated,” I said. “But hurt pride is not the same thing as a broken heart. I get mad at him when he jerks me and Beth around about money and custody visits. But mad is different from the soul longing for reconciliation. Tom was nothing more than some psychological canvas on which I continually repainted my relationship with Daddy.”
“Wait a minute, you’re practicing psychiatry without a license now.”
“Don’t you see?” I insisted. “If you never invest that much of your heart in your marriage, you don’t lose much when it comes to its inevitable end! It’s like wading in the water instead of swimming!”
“Are you saying that you always knew your marriage with Tom would end?”
“No. I’m saying that I’ve only just realized what a fool I’ve been all my life.”
“I need a glass of wine. It’s the weekend. I can justify it. This is pretty heavy and I can’t see how it’s gonna help me figure out what to do about Grant.” She pulled her jacket around her and zipped it.
“Look, forget the wine for a minute. I gotta go soon anyhow. Just think about this. Beth is us when we were young. I work so hard to keep her relationship with Tom functioning. You know why? Because I want desperately for her to have a father. Tom’s no Prince Charming, to be sure, but he’s not half as bad as Daddy was. Girls need fathers to love or it’s hard as hell to love a husband. But, what about me? Will I ever let myself really love somebody? I mean, this is all assuming that I’m not too ancient to attract someone normal with a pulse, but let’s say I do. What then? Wouldn’t it be the finest tribute I could pay Momma if I lived my life with not just my mind but with my heart too? Wouldn’t it somehow redeem her suffering?”
“I don’t know. I think she really loved Stanley, don’t you?”
“No way. Marriage of convenience. Period.”
Stanley was our mother’s second husband.
“Well, yeah, probably. Do you think that maybe I don’t love Grant? Is that what you’re thinking?”
“No. Of course not. I’m saying we should both really look at ourselves. If you want your marriage with Grant to work, then you gotta really love him. Talk to him! If I’d loved Tom with all my heart, it would’ve been an honest failure, if it was meant to fail.”
“Having second thoughts? Good grief, Susan.”
“Good Lord, no. But the guy taught me the most valuable lessons I’ve learned in twenty years. Maggie, if you can’t really love somebody, you’re only half alive. If you’re only half invested, you can’t lose too much. It’s the dishonest method of dealing with fear.”
“What fear?”
“Of being hurt.”
“Do you think it’s too late for Grant and I?”
“Grant and me.”
She smiled at me and I warmed all over. Finally, she understood what I was saying. “Let’s go back, Susan, I’m freezing.”
“Maggie? All I’m saying is don’t cheat yourself like I cheated myself. And I cheated Tom.”
We walked back down the beach together and across the yard toward the Island Gamble. Gamble. If you don’t gamble, you can’t win. The house, the Island, every lesson of life worth learning was right there.
In my mind’s eye, visualizing as Livvie had taught me to do, I could see MC standing up from a rocker on the front porch and smiling at all of us, her children, returning safely from the beach. I could feel her relief. She had loved us. With whatever was left, after life squeezed her dry, Momma had truly loved us.
Maggie reached over with her hand and completely goofed up my hair, which was already windblown into a thousand knots. “You mussy got you’self a busy little factory gone in there, now don’t you, chile?”
“Shuh, ain’t nothing, nothing in there a-tall, nothing but a mess of worms.” I threw my arm around her shoulder.
It was unfair that trouble consumed you in landslides and understanding arrived with the miserly drip of a faucet.
Maggie stopped and picked up a small piece of driftwood. She turned it over, looking at it. “I could make a doorstop out of this,” she said.
“What?” She was going to recycle the world. “Hey, Maggie?”
“What? Don’t you think that if I stained and varnished this that it would be pretty? Look at the shape of it!”
“Nice. Listen. I found something weird on microfilm in the library archives.”
“What?”
“A picture of old Fat Albert holding a fire hose on a bunch of black women and children back in 1963. It was a small civil rights march in Conway. Freedom Riders. The picture was from the State paper in Columbia.”
“What would Fat Albert have been doing at a civil rights march in Conway? That’s like a hundred miles from here.”
“Exactly. He was also in charge of the investigation of Daddy’s death, wasn’t he?”
“I think so. I don’t remember.”
“All the facts are in the library. I know it. It’s all in the microfilm somewhere. I just have to keep digging.”
“You’re gonna drive yourself crazy and for what?”
“Peace of mind. I’d like to know that it wasn’t me beating Daddy over the head that caused his heart attack. I’d like to know what really happened and I have this new theory about Fat Albert.”
She stopped and looked at me with the most serious face I’d ever seen on her. She said, “Susan, I hate to see you doing this to yourself, but you know what? You just might be on to something. In those days men were capable of some pretty hideous things.”
“That’s right. Please, rack your brain. Do you remember anything else about Fat Albert?”
She took a deep breath and looked away from me. I followed her up the steps to the front porch. She put the driftwood on the floor in the sun to dry it out. We stood rubbing the sand from the bottoms of our feet and put our shoes back on.
“I remember this,” she said. “Fat Albert came around the house to warn Daddy about something, didn’t he?”
“God, yes, when was that? I remember it, but when? I’ll have to ask one of our brothers.”
“Save yourself the phone call. It’s all coming back. Don’t you remember him coming around the house and kicking us out of the kitchen so the grown-ups could talk? It was about the new school. Remember? That’s when Daddy was having all that trouble?”
“Wait! I think you’re right! God, I always thought Fat Albert was a creep.”
“Well, not that it proves anything, but I distinctly remember the week before Daddy died. There were those gunshots through the house and all kinds of stress going on. Uncle Louis was hanging around all the time. Remember?”
“Fat Albert probably fired the shots himself.”
“Probably.”
“I have to think about it. It’s so vague now. I just remember feeling guilty.”
“Take my advice, get over it.”
“You’re right, I’m sure, but I have this thing about knowing the truth.”
“Well, the holidays are coming. I think you need to have a
little more fun and stop worrying so much. Hey! I have an idea,” Maggie said suddenly.
“Not another blind date, please!”
“Nope, let’s call Simon and invite him to come for Thanksgiving.”
“Simon? My Simon?”
“Yeah, your Simon. I wonder if he still has a sports car?” Her eyes met mine. It was a double dare. “It’s less than five hours to Atlanta if you push it a little. Simon could drive it with no sweat. He could even come with Henry if he comes.”
“Okay,” I said slowly. “I’ve been thinking about Simon, but I just wasn’t ready, you know? And Thanksgiving is rough, Maggie. There’s never been one that I don’t relive what happened to Daddy.”
Fourteen
Thanksgiving 1963
I heard the solid clunk of a closing car door, but struggled to ignore it. My eyes were still shut as I hung in the hazy balance between waking and dreaming. What had I been dreaming? Were Timmy, Maggie, Henry and I all dancing together in a circle? Yes. Was it a celebration? Livvie was out in the yard happily digging a hole. What was she planting? It was pampas grass, already blooming. Enormous plumage. She looked over to us. We each took a spear and paraded down Sullivan’s Island. Then the image was gone.
Outside, birds rustled through the bushes, singing, whistling and scavenging their morning meal of cassina berries and small bugs. Noisy things, I thought, gathering my quilt around my shoulders. I felt chilled. Slivers of daylight threaded their way through the edges of my eyelids. I was awake then and remembered it was Thanksgiving. I decided I might as well get up.
Knock! Knock! Knock! Knock! Knock! There was the distinct rapping of knuckles five times on the back screen door. The ill-fitted, slightly warped door complained in response to each whack.
What in the world? Below my window I could just make out the color and model of Mr. Struthers’s car, parked under the palmetto tree. A thick cloud of morning fog covered the yard. This can’t be good, I thought. What time was it? I bumped my way down the hall to Maggie’s room and shook her awake.
“Maggie! Get up! Mr. Struthers’s here!”
“What?”