CHAPTER 12
Helen knocked on her grandmother’s sitting room door and then entered. “Are you done resting?”
Lillian’s voice was tinged with exhaustion. “It’s a hopeless cause. I don’t know why I bother. My back and my hands would rather keep me awake and restless.”
Helen moved to where she knew her grandmother’s chaise longue sat near the window. She felt for a nearby sofa and sat down, sensing by the lack of warmth hitting her skin that the plantation shutters were closed tight. “Can I get you your medicine?”
Lillian let out an uncharacteristic snort. “All they do is make me groggy and stupid and Odella says I can’t have anything to drink when I take one, so what’s the point? I’m miserable whether I take them or not, but if I don’t I can at least find a little relief with my wine.”
“I’m sorry,” Helen said, and meant it. Despite Lillian’s outwardly cool demeanor and her strict code of acceptable behavior, she’d essentially been the only mother Helen had ever known.
Although Lillian had never been demonstrative, Helen had always felt loved by her grandmother.
And it had been Lillian, and not Helen’s own mother, who’d slept in a cot in her bedroom when she’d been sick with fever, and had held her hand when her sight had gone to let her know that even though it was dark, she wasn’t alone.
Helen sat back in the sofa, her arm brushing papers, and felt one slide to the floor and land on her foot. Leaning over, she picked it up and handed it to her grandmother. “Sorry, Malily—I knocked this off of your stack of papers. I don’t want to replace it in the wrong spot.”
Lillian didn’t say anything, nor did she take the paper Helen held. “Malily? Are you all right?”
Lillian’s voice sounded strong but distant when she spoke, and Helen pictured her looking out the other way, toward the shuttered window.
“I sat in the garden for a spell this morning with Earlene. We talked about the merits of moonflowers among other things. And all that talk about my garden reminded me of an old friend of mine who taught me everything I know about gardening. Made me nostalgic enough that I pulled out my scrapbook pages from when I was younger. The ones I’d given to Susan. ”
Helen withdrew her arm but held on to the page in her hand, a question already forming in her head. “What happened to the cover? And the spine?”
Malily gave a throaty chuckle. “Well, that’s part of the story right there. There were three of us, you see. Three friends and one scrapbook we shared. When we . . . parted company, we each took our pages.”
Helen placed the single page on her lap and smiled to herself, recalling the pages Odella had seen on Earlene’s kitchen table. “You never told me any of this before.”
She heard the cushions sigh as Lillian moved on the chaise. “No, I haven’t. I always thought that I should share it with your mother first, but I don’t think that’s going to happen now.”
Helen jerked her head with surprise as she felt the old woman’s hands clutching at hers. She grasped them, feeling the papery skin, the misshapen joints, and for the first time saw her grandmother as an old woman instead of the heroine of Helen’s childhood.
Malily continued. “I thought that by giving these pages to Susan along with all the other family papers, she could prepare the story in logical sequence, even make it easier to understand how all the pieces fit together. But I didn’t realize how . . . fragile Susan was. It was a mistake.”
Helen clutched her grandmother’s hands tighter.
“None of us understood what was going on in Susan’s head, not even Tucker.
She seemed so upbeat and excited about being our family’s official chronicler.
No one expected her . . .” Helen stopped for a moment.
“What Susan did was her own doing. None of it was your fault.”
Lillian disengaged her hands. “You need to reserve your judgment, Helen.” She heard the throaty laugh again before her grandmother spoke.
“I should have known that Annabelle would always have the last word.” A heavy sigh filled the room like damp fog and then everything was quiet.
Helen thought for a moment that her grandmother had fallen asleep and then Malily spoke again.
“The scrapbook was Annabelle’s idea. She used to say that it was our duty as women to pass on our stories to our daughters. But I don’t think she had any more success with that than I did.”
“But there’s still time, Malily. And you’ve got me.”
“Not too much time, Helen, which is why I think Annabelle’s words won’t leave me alone. And I do have you, don’t I? You’ve never been one to rush to judgment, unlike your mother.”
Helen lifted her head. “I’m a good listener. Maybe you can tell me your story. And I can tell my mother when she’s ready to hear it.”
“She already knows parts of it. I shared it with her too soon, I think. But she was almost transfixed by the angel charm I’ve always worn—that’s part of the story, you see.
And I thought that if I told her the story of the necklace, she’d want to learn the rest. And she did—to a point.
She asked me to stop before I’d reached the end, so I did. ”
“Is that why she left? Because she didn’t want to hear the rest?”
She heard her grandmother swallow. “There are many reasons why your mother left, Helen—and none of them have anything to do with you or Tucker. I think mostly it was because she couldn’t live with someone who’d never confused guilt with regret.”
Helen smiled softly, turning her face toward her grandmother.
“Like that story you used to tell us as children—about the boy who gets caught stealing candy and feels guilt over breaking the law but doesn’t regret trying.
I always got the impression that you didn’t think the little boy was all bad.
That he learned his lesson and wasn’t going to do it again, but that he should have been proud to have had the courage to at least try. ”
Lillian’s voice held the hint of a smile.
“You and Tucker both understood that, but your mother couldn’t.
Or wouldn’t. We all know that stealing is bad.
But what if the little boy was stealing to feed his starving family?
Does that make him bad? Or just his actions?
And does the end justify the means? Your mother’s been traipsing all over the world ever since, trying to find the right answer. The one truth.”
Helen cupped her chin in her palms as she leaned forward, her elbows braced on her legs. “But there isn’t just one.”
“And there you go,” said Lillian triumphantly. “But some people live their lives as if there could only be one right answer. Life would be easier that way, I imagine. But it wouldn’t be better.”
Helen closed her eyes and tried to picture her mother, but found she no longer could.
“Then tell me. Tell me your story.” She reached her hand behind her where the loose pages lay on the sofa.
“Read these to me so I can understand. And maybe one day I’ll be able to explain it to my mother. Or my daughters.”
Lillian was quiet for a long time, her breathing slow and steady.
Helen didn’t move, knowing she hadn’t fallen asleep but was searching for an answer.
But it brought back memories of the first time her mother had gone away, when her mother was packing her clothes into a suitcase.
Despite her mother’s insisting that her leaving had nothing to do with Helen, Helen hadn’t been convinced.
Her answer had haunted Helen for a very long time.
Some things are best kept tucked inside yellowed newspapers in the attic of our memories.
And then her mother had gone back to her packing, promising to be back soon, and that next time she would take Helen and her brother with them.
But the next time Helen had been blind and Tucker wouldn’t leave her.
Lillian’s voice brought Helen back to the present. “I suppose it’s time, then.” Helen felt her grandmother take the paper from her lap. Then she took a deep breath, and after a brief pause, she began to tell her story.
“There were three of us: Josephine Montet, Annabelle O’Hare, and me.
We weren’t friends at first. Josie and Annabelle were—Josie’s mother worked for Dr. O’Hare and Josie lived in the housekeeper’s room with her mother and they’d known each other since they were small—and they were only two years apart in age.
I was a year younger than Josie—three years younger than Annabelle—but I was allowed to tag along most of the time when my father and Dr. O’Hare had business together and they pretty much ignored me. Until we bought the necklace.”
She explained to Helen how they’d seen the necklace in the store window and had purchased it together, making a pact to share it and record in a scrapbook what they did while they had the necklace. And then they would add a charm to the necklace that they had named Lola.
Helen sat up. “That’s where your angel charm comes from—the one you used to always wear around your neck on a chain.”
“And still do.” Malily’s voice was tired. “This is the only charm with a duplicate because we all bought one when we started. It’s all I have left of the necklace.”
Helen opened her mouth, ready to tell Malily about the necklace Odella had seen in Earlene’s cottage, but stopped.
It had become obvious to her that Malily wasn’t the only one hiding secrets.
But Helen needed to find out more, and she knew that neither woman would be forthcoming if they suspected Helen knew more than they were willing to tell her.