CHAPTER 9 #3
The dining room with its crimson walls and ornate ceiling was dimly lit, the candles on the table throwing shadows like draped lace.
The blinds were closed on the four floor-to-ceiling windows, the enormous crystal chandelier and matching wall sconces that lined the walls losing the battle to encroach upon the darkness.
Tucker sat Lillian at one end of the table and then held the chairs one by one for the rest of us before taking his place at the other end.
Odella had already set all of the serving pieces and utensils on the table and we began by serving ourselves before passing the food in a clockwise motion.
Tucker was to my left and Lucy on my right.
I’d thought she’d need some help with some of the heavier dishes, but she seemed determined to do it all herself without any assistance.
I watched as Tucker placed the food on Helen’s plate and then Sara’s, cutting into small bitefuls everything on both plates before standing to pass the platters on to Lillian’s end of the table.
I studied him surreptitiously from the corner of my eye, watching his serious expression as he sawed a knife into meat, saw his face relax as he addressed Helen, saw the slightly bewildered looks he gave to his daughters.
It made me think of the dead Susan, and where she would have fit at the table, realizing with a start that I was most likely sitting in her seat.
Maybe that was why he seemed to be avoiding looking at me altogether.
Helen turned to her grandmother. “Malily, it occurred to me while I was talking with Earlene the other day that you might be able to help with some of her research.” She chewed thoughtfully on a forkful of ham.
“She’s working on a project for a friend, researching all the families in the area.
Anyway, we were in the cemetery looking at Grandpa Charlie’s obelisk and I realized that I really know nothing of your life here at Asphodel before you were married.
Maybe if you could share some of that with her, maybe give her some of the names of people that were here at that time, that would probably be a big help. ”
Helen’s sightless eyes rested on me for a moment, and although I knew she was blind, I could almost believe that not only could she see me, but she could see inside me, too. And I wondered if she realized how much she and Lucy were alike.
Lillian was on her second glass of wine and her eyes had taken on a faraway look. I figured that Helen had probably realized this and that was why she’d planned her first foray into her grandmother’s past at the dining table.
Lillian’s words were softly slurred, the ending consonants dropping off slightly as if they’d fallen down a short incline.
“I was born here at Asphodel. Right up there in the bed I sleep in every night. I was probably conceived in that bed, too, but that wasn’t ever a subject a properly brought-up young lady would ever ask her parents.
” A slight twitch lifted one side of her face in a gruesome smile.
She took another sip of her wine. “That was in nineteen nineteen, just a year before women won the right to vote and blacks couldn’t despite the fifteenth amendment that said they should, and well-bred women were expected to have no bigger aspirations than to get married and have children.
” She paused, sifting through years of memories.
“I was an only child, although it wasn’t for lack of trying.
There are four graves in that cemetery of the brothers who didn’t make it past their first year.
I never knew my mother. She died when I was eight and before that she was too busy crying over her dead babies.
” She stared into her wine. “I suppose that’s why I have no patience for people who can’t move on. ”
Lillian stopped abruptly, her gaze flickering over Tucker, who’d gone very still. She drained her glass. “Doctors weren’t sure whether it was the hard births or the grief that finally took her, but I always thought that she was relieved to go.”
Lillian sat back in her chair, holding her empty glass close, and a dreamy look settled on her face as if she’d moved on to a different place, leaving us all behind.
She closed her eyes. “It was a lovely time to be alive, to be young. It was just me and Father, and all of my lovely, lovely horses. I rode every day. Even in the rain or when it was too cold or too hot to do much of anything. All of those lovely horses,” she said again, her words slurring.
“What about Grandpa Charlie? You’ve never told us how you met.”
Lucy and Sara were dutifully eating a bit of everything from their plates, including their vegetables, although it looked like most of Sara’s peas were rolling off her plate and onto the starched white linen tablecloth.
Although she was sitting on several phone books, her chin was barely over the edge of the table, but still she persevered.
She wore a look of determination and I wondered if she’d gotten that from Tucker or Susan.
Lillian picked up a piece of ham on her fork and considered it briefly before returning it to her plate. “My father introduced us. Charlie was an up-and-comer at the bank and Father thought we would be suitable for each other.”
“And you fell in love?” Helen asked.
I glanced over at Helen to see if she’d meant it to sound so hopeful.
“Charles was the most beautiful dancer. He could do all the old dances and the new dances equally well. He’d take me to parties and we’d dance all night until I’d worn a hole in my dancing shoes.”
Helen’s empty gaze was focused on her plate and I wondered if she’d also realized that Lillian hadn’t answered her question.
I cleared my throat. “Helen and I went to the family cemetery yesterday. His monument is very striking.” I waited for her eyes to find me so I could gauge how much I could press on.
Her eyes were filmy and unfocused, although her expression had lost none of its haughtiness.
I continued. “In the back corner, near the large oak tree, is a small gravestone, marked only by an angel. Near the moonflower vine. I’m curious as to who might be buried there and wondered if you might know. ”
Her expression didn’t change, but something flickered in her eyes as her gaze settled on me.
“I’m afraid I don’t. I’ve always assumed it was one of my little brothers.
He could have been stillborn and never named.
” Carefully, she placed her wineglass on the table and picked up her fork, her hand shaking almost imperceptibly.
“It was a long time ago, you understand. My memory isn’t as good as it used to be.
” She speared a bite of roasted potato and lifted it to her mouth.
“What about any friends, Malily? Did you have any close girlhood friends?” Helen asked, her face turned toward her grandmother.
I stared at Helen, wondering how she’d known which question to ask. I turned to Lillian, and waited for her to answer.
She lifted a bite of food to her mouth and forced herself to swallow.
Then she dropped her fork on the plate, the metal hitting the china and echoing in the still room as we all watched her.
Slowly, her hand moved to her neck, where she wore her angel charm, identical to the one I’d remembered to remove before I came, and her ruined fingers grasped it.
“No,” she said softly, and I watched as Helen stilled. “A few, perhaps. But no one in particular.” Her thin chest rose and fell as if with heavy exertion, the angel charm winking at me in the candlelight.
I watched as Helen reached for her bread roll and Tucker slid the butter dish over to her, tapping it against her plate.
She took the butter knife and I watched as she cut a perfect square of butter and placed it on her plate.
Her voice was studiously nonchalant, as if she’d known Lillian’s answer for the lie it was.
“Are you still in contact with any of them?”
Helen faced me, her eyes meeting mine, and I had the uncanny feeling again that she could actually see me, could know why I held my breath as I waited for Lillian to speak again.
A sigh rolled out of Lillian’s bony chest, a sigh that carried with it past years, and the lost hours gone without remark, but missed in retrospect.
“They are all dead now. There’s no one left who remembers .
. . who remembers . . .” Her voice trailed off as her hand reached for her wineglass, then stilled when she realized it was empty.
“Who remembers what, Malily?” Tucker asked, his own utensils held aloft, suspended as we all waited for her to speak. A clock in the hallway chimed the hour. I counted eight chimes and considered how quickly the time had passed.
She stared into her empty glass, a soft smile on her face. “Him.”
“Grandpa Charlie?” Tucker asked, his silverware now resting on the edge of his plate.
Lillian straightened in her chair and looked around as if realizing where she was. She shook her head as if trying to clear it. “No,” she said. “I’m the only one who remembers. . . .”
I watched as Lillian focused her gaze on Sara, reached over, and stroked the soft skin on the back of her hand, the way a mother touches her baby’s face. A cold chill crept up my spine, needles of apprehension teasing at my nape.
“Who remembers what?” Helen leaned toward her grandmother, her gaze turned toward the window, where the feeble light of the closing day glowed beyond the closed shutters.
Lillian’s last words were barely audible, so quiet that I could almost believe that I hadn’t heard them at all.
Lillian’s face paled and Tucker stood, his chair skidding behind him. He rang a small bell that sat at the edge of her plate and took her hand. “I think this heat is getting to you, Malily. Odella’s going to come take you to your room so you can lie down, all right?”
Odella appeared carrying a tray with coffee for the adults and ice cream for the children. She looked at me. “If you wouldn’t mind taking care of this, I’ll get Miss Lillian up to her room.”
I nodded, watching with concern as Tucker helped Lillian stand, her hands shaking so badly that they couldn’t hold her cane. Tucker watched as Odella took hold of Lillian’s shoulders and gently guided her from the room.
All eyes were focused on me as I turned to the dessert tray and began pouring coffee, Lillian’s words swimming in and out of my head like the tide, settling and disturbing sediment at the same time.
The truth, she had said. And I remembered the way she’d touched Sara’s hand, and the blue baby’s sweater and blanket I’d found in my grandmother’s house, how Lillian had lied about not having any particular childhood friends.
But I’d heard her say The truth. And I wondered if Lillian’s truth could be the spray of light I needed to shine into the darkest corners of my own grandmother’s past.