Little Black Dress with Bonus Material (25 page)

“Of course it is,” I said and placed my hand very gently on Toni's tiny back, drawing the three of us together. “I can't risk Anna in our lives, not until she's been well a long while and Toni is grown. I want to raise a happy child, secure in where she comes from. I can't be afraid every day that Anna will show up and tell her things she shouldn't know.”

Jon nodded. “Agreed.”

Let her go
.
Just let her go.

I made myself smile, even though I didn't quite feel it. “You know what I think?”

“What?” Jon asked.

I snuggled nearer Antonia and whispered by way of reply, “Sweet girl, you should always listen to your father. He's a very, very smart man.” I kissed the soft pink of her cheek, and she gurgled in her sleep.

That was the last time we talked about Anna, the last time her name was mentioned in our house for years and years until my father passed.

I put on the black dress for his funeral, although I'm not sure exactly why. I kept Toni close at hand as we buried him beside my mother in the family plot, a peaceful spot atop a hill on Herman Morgan's land, just spitting distance from the river.

Toni was ten and would rather have been left to her own devices, but I would not let her out of my sight. With every shovelful of dirt they tossed upon Daddy's casket, I felt my heart breaking, over and over and over again. My eyes blurred, my head clouding, so I could hardly see faces as people approached to say, “I'm sorry, Evelyn, I'm so sorry.” I remember a redheaded woman who stood before me, weeping and begging, “Miss Evie, please, won't you let me come back?”

But I couldn't find my voice. I was so weak and dizzy and scared. I only wanted to cling to my daughter more tightly.

I saw a flash in my mind and then darkness, and Toni's small hand slipped away. Still I heard her calling, “Mother, don't leave me, please, don't leave me.”

Antonia, I'm here! I'm right here!

I cried out for her, turning around and around, only to find myself alone on the riverbank, enveloped by the too-sweet smell of lily of the valley.

Anna,
I thought, before I glimpsed her clear as day, though older than the last time I'd seen her, much older. Toni stood at her side, their faces alike, pale with pain. How sad they were as they gazed upon me. “Oh, Evie,” I heard Anna say through her tears. “Don't leave us. Please, don't go. It's not supposed to end like this.”

Then the ground vanished beneath my feet, and I was in the Mississippi's brown waters, dragged roughly down by the current. I struggled to keep afloat, but I could not fight it. My arms and legs were too weak, and I was too tired.

Don't let me die,
I thought before I saw my sister swimming toward me, moving steadily through the water, unafraid of being swept away, too.

“I'm here, Evie, I'm here,” she said, coming nearer and nearer, while I tried to stay calm and keep treading, and I wondered why she would want to save me when I had let her go, more concerned with raising my child than saving her life.

I felt hands on my body, catching me beneath my arms and pulling, trying like hell to push my head above the surface. And there was Anna's voice in my ear, urging, “Don't leave us, Evie . . . Please, don't go . . . It's not supposed to end like this.”

A burst of electricity swept through me, an energy that made my blood tingle and my heart beat faster, as if every cell within me had come alive again.

I began to slowly propel myself upward, through the unbearable weight of the water, until I saw dappled light and the white ceiling of clouds, and I broke the surface, felt the warmth of the sun on my skin.

I gasped, sucking in the air, breathing freely, and heard my sister's girlish voice from somewhere above saying, “Oh, good Lord, look at that! Evelyn Alice has opened her eyes.”

T
hat's the last of your boxes,” Hunter said as he dumped another load of Toni's things on the living room floor in the cottage. The cozy space was already so crowded that she could hardly move, so it was a very good thing that his pickup held nothing more.

“I really appreciate your help,” she told him, knowing he didn't have to do it. She'd realized in the past six weeks how much she'd misjudged him on first impression, and it was nice to get the chance to make up for that. “I would've had to rent a U-Haul otherwise, but you're a lot cheaper.”

“Like, so cheap I'm free,” he teased.

She'd been gradually relocating to Blue Hills the past few weekends, bringing a bit of her apartment at a time, ever since Evie had finally been discharged from the hospital after a grueling month of serious rehab, learning how to speak and walk again and eat with a fork and spoon. When Hunter had heard about Toni's big move, he'd offered his truck and a pair of strong arms to boot.

Toni opened a freshly delivered box, finding the throw pillows for the sofa. “I still say you're only doing it to kiss up to my mom. You do seem to have a thing for her with all your little ‘secret meetings,' ” she said, standing up and making little quote marks with her fingers.

“Someone's jealous,” he drawled as he wiped dirty hands on his jeans.

“What?” She waved him off. “Of course I'm not.”

“But you're wrong, you know. It's not Evie I'm trying to butter up.”

“Oh?”

“It's you.” He shot her one of those crooked grins that made her heart twang every time. She hated to admit that her mother had been right about small-town boys and their charms, but, yep, she'd been dead on the money.

“Uh-huh.” Toni plucked a pillow from a carton and hugged it to her chest, hoping he couldn't hear how loudly her heart was beating. “Hey, don't forget, dinner's on me tonight,” she said, quickly changing the subject. Although she highly doubted it would slip his mind since it was Evie who'd extended the invitation.

“Technically, I think dinner's on your mom,” he said, brushing dust from his sweatshirt. “I mean, we're eating at her place, and Bridget's doing all the cooking. Seeing as how you can't boil water, I'd say we're all safer in that regard. But I'm sure you'll add plenty to the meal with your sparkling conversation.”

“Funny!” she said, tossing the pillow at him.

It smacked him right in the crotch, and he held his midsection, wincing. “Good arm,” he said in false soprano.

“You're such a goof,” she replied, shaking her head, as she cut through the maze of boxes to reach him, nudging him toward the door. “Now get out, or we're going to be late.”

“Okay, okay, I'll head home to shower and change and leave you with this mess,” he told her and paused at the threshold. “I'll see you at your mom's then?”

“I'll be there with bells on.”

“I can't wait.”

Their shoulders brushed as he started past her then he turned abruptly, leaning in to kiss her. It was short and sweet, but quite enough to cause a familiar tingle up her spine. A warmth spread through her, too, at the memory of the vision the black dress had put in her head, of her and Hunter making out in front of a big stone fireplace—much like the one across the room, in fact.

“All right then.” He drew apart and cleared his throat. “Later, gator,” he said and gave her a backhanded wave as he headed out.

“In a while, crocodile.”

He grinned as he ambled off the porch.

Toni watched him climb into his truck and roll away in a spit of gravel and quick toot of his horn. She waved before closing the door, sighing happily as she looked around her.

Beneath the jumble of her belongings that would take her at least a week to put away, the cottage was clean, a fresh coat of palest yellow paint on its walls. Even the oversized fireplace was in working order now that the birds had left and the chimney sweep had cleaned the flue.

It needs to be loved again,
her aunt had said.
Things fall to ruin if they're neglected.

“I already love you,” Toni told the room and pushed aside a laundry basket filled with sweaters so she could plunk down on the settee.

She rubbed her neck, stiff with tension from everything she'd had to deal with these past few months. Like the cottage, her life seemed to be getting a fresh start.

Once Evie's recovery was on sure footing, Toni had dared to return to St. Louis for a few days to take care of two Very Important Things. The first had involved delicately breaking it off with Greg and giving back his apartment key, along with a fair-sized chunk of his heart.

“I knew something was wrong,” he had told her. “You were different once you went to see Evie. It's that guy, isn't it, the one from the overdone Tuscan restaurant?”

Toni had honestly answered no, because Hunter Cummings wasn't what had come between them, not really. Her friendship with him—and that was all she dared call it at the moment—was one of the lovely by-products of coming home again. “There's no third party involved,” she tried to explain, wanting like hell to avoid the clichéd “it's not you, it's me,” but that was truthfully the case. So she'd gone ahead and said it, despite Greg's ensuing grimace.

They both deserved someone who would love them unabashedly, the way that her parents had loved. “You're a great guy, Greg McCallum,” she'd said in parting, feeling like an honest heel, but a heel nonetheless. “Keep looking. You'll find her.”

Then she'd left his place and driven off, heading south on the highway toward Blue Hills. Five minutes in, she'd punched a Best of Def Leppard CD into her stereo and wept like a baby all the way home.

She was
way
better at beginnings than endings.

The second Very Important Thing had been figuring out how to transfer her business down to Blue Hills. Vivien had talked her into keeping a satellite office in the city—with the capable Ms. Reed in charge, of course—while Toni ran a branch of Engagements by Antonia out of the Morgan Vineyards. In fact, she was planning a huge “Grand Re-Opening” of the winery come May to celebrate the move and the launch of Evie and Hunter's first batch of ice wine. Until all the dust had settled, she'd have to do a bit of traveling back and forth, which she didn't mind, not when she considered the payoff.

“Love . . . you,” had been the first thing Evie had said when she was strong enough to try to speak. Though faint and raspy, Toni didn't figure she'd heard two more wonderful words, not ever.

Equally wonderful was the fact that her mother was on the mend, recovering from the stroke that had touched them both in ways Toni would never forget. She was learning about Evie in a whole new light, having seen her mom at her most vulnerable, without her Wonder Woman suit on. It was difficult sometimes watching Evie struggle with the simplest things when Toni was used to her strength, but it was reassuring in a weird way to be the strong one for a while. Evie had her to lean on when she needed her, and that was different. It felt nice.

“Miraculous,” Dr. Neville had called her mom's recuperation, and Toni thought it was exactly that, in more ways than one.

Evie had started therapy as soon as she was off the ventilator, and, within a few weeks, her slurred speech had become easier to comprehend, the words seemed to be returning, and even the muscles on her left side had gotten noticeably stronger.

“Give her time to heal,” the doctor had said. “She's a fighter, your mother. I wish every patient had such a strong will to survive. She's very lucky to have people around her who care for her.”

Toni felt pretty darned fortunate, too.

Fortunate to have come home when she had, discovering parts of her past she'd never known and finally meeting her long-lost aunt, Anna. She wasn't sure what might have happened if not for Anna's appearance at Evie's bedside, coaxing her sister back from the brink of nowhere, and if not for the dress, too, with its mystical energy, shocking her mother's soul into believing that her fate was to live.

They were coming together, the three of them, Toni mused, even if the path had started off rather bumpy. Everything would work out in time, she felt sure of it, and the rest didn't worry her; not the way it might have before she'd come back to Blue Hills.

Her future was rooted in the soil that Herman Morgan had planted with Norton grapes more than a century ago. What she'd been searching for—everything her heart was seeking—had been right here in Blue Hills all along.

S
top fussing,” I grumbled to Anna, who hovered above me as though I were a young girl primping before her first prom. She'd brushed my hair and even applied a spot of rouge to my cheeks, undoubtedly to make me look less like death warmed over. “It's dinner with Toni,” I reminded her, “not a beauty pageant.”

Though my words were still slurred, Anna could always understand them.
I have learned another language,
she had told me,
and it's called Evelynese.
It felt a bit like being kids again, talking in a secret code.

“Hunter is coming, too,” she said, her voice calmer now but still as girlish as I remembered, “and Bridget, don't forget.”

How could I forget Bridget, when she was here so often these days that she may as well have moved in? And I had invited her to do so—and Anna, of course—because my sister had been spending more time at the Victorian, too. The house-on-stilts had so many steps besides, and neither of them was getting any younger. I knew I could never climb those stairs again, and I was but three years older. The stroke had aged me a decade beyond.

It's something just to be alive,
Toni had said when I'd complained to her about the nurse who came by to stay with me nights and the endless therapy sessions to improve my speech and mobility.

Easy for her to say. She wasn't the one clomping around on a walker. It felt like a marathon just to get myself to the toilet, but I refused to ask for help, not when I could do it alone with a bit of effort. Dear Toni had finagled Hunter's assistance and moved a bed into the study so I wouldn't have to attempt the staircase. I didn't mind the temporary relocation as much as I'd thought I would. It was far better than being stuck in the hospital. I'd always loved the room besides, the way it still smelled of my father's cigars and Jon's Aqua Velva. I breathed them in every night before I drifted off to sleep.

The only thing I did not like were the portraits of my grandparents hanging above the mantel, frowning as if I'd done something terribly wrong. I had never been able to please Charlotte in life and now I felt as though I couldn't even please her in death (hers, not mine). I made a mental note to find a pretty painting at an antiques store in Ste. Gen as soon as I was more mobile; perhaps a landscape to put up in place of my scowling ancestors.

“Voilà!”
Anna declared as she finished toying with a scarf she'd tied about my neck, fluffing up the ends. “You look like a million bucks.”

“Oh, goodness, thank you,” I said politely and my drifting mind returned to settle on her face.

She smiled, though it wasn't quite the “I've got the world by the strings” way she used to. The dimples were still there, but the mischief was gone from her eyes. The “spunk” that Grandma Charlotte had been so fond of seemed to have vanished. I didn't know much about my sister's time inside the sanitarium, and I never asked. If she decided to speak about it, she would do so at her own pace. It was enough that we were speaking to each other at all, and for that I was grateful.

When I had awakened from unconsciousness to find Anna with Toni at my bedside, I felt awash with forgiveness, for myself and for my sister.

“Don't say it, Evelyn,” she had told me, when I still couldn't speak, when I had that awful tube stuck down my throat that made it hurt even to swallow. “The past is dead, and we are not. We must look forward, as your daughter so wisely advised me.”

Anna had changed, I realized. My sister was less volatile and more even-keeled, more a Morgan than a McGillis. I gave no thought to whether it was caused by age or medication; what mattered was building a bridge between us. It would not be easy, but it was something we wanted and surely worth the effort in the end. I felt the same about Toni. I had some mending to do in that area, too, and I could do it far more easily with my daughter moving back to Blue Hills and into Herman's cottage.

Antonia and Anna, Anna and Antonia.

The idea of my sister spending time with Toni had horrified me once, but now I was eager for them to get to know each other. I'd had one brush with death already. I had no clue how long I'd be left on this earth before I went to sleep for good and woke up in Heaven with Jon. It would serve Toni well to have someone around besides myself and Bridget, to keep an eye on her and love her just as much.

“Perhaps we should tell her,” I said out of the blue, making mincemeat of the words. But Anna clearly had mastered enough “Evelynese” to understand what I meant.

She held the hairbrush aloft and stared at me, stricken. “No,” she said simply.

Just plain “no,” without embellishments.

“But you gave her life—”

“You're wrong,” Anna interrupted, shaking her head. “I gave birth to Antonia.
You
gave her life. She is yours, Evelyn Alice. You're the one who saved her, the one who raised her to be the woman she's become.”

I couldn't believe what I was hearing.

“Please,” my sister said, “please, just let me be her aunt. Let her learn to love me in her own time. I have so much to catch up on. Give me a while to soak it all in. Once I have, if you still feel strongly, we can talk about it again.”

“Yes, we will do that,” I managed to answer, though her compassion left me stunned.

The Annabelle from my past had been—dare I say it?—selfish, more concerned with what she wanted than the consequences of her actions. For her to consider my needs and Toni's before her own rendered me speechless.

“Evie? Are you ready?” She touched my shoulder, and I patted her hand.

“Yes, Annabelle, I do believe I am.”

Before she helped me up, I caught our reflections in the mirror, my baby sister beside me, and I thought of how magical my life had been. How many people ever got the chance to do things over and get them right?

The doorbell chimed, and I heard Bridget shout, “I'll get it!” as we headed out of the den and toward the parlor.

“I never told you everything, Evelyn,” Anna said as she walked beside me while I plodded, “about what I saw when I put on the dress the night before I was to marry Davis Cummings.”

“You mean there's more?” I replied, because she had once described seeing Antonia, all grown up and betrothed to a Cummings boy. The more I had gotten to know young Hunter, the better I liked the sound of that.

“Toni wore the most beautiful gown with a white lace train and full-length veil, and she stood at the altar with a handsome man”—her breathy voice paused and she sniffled—“and you and I looked on from the front pew with tears in our eyes.”

“Go on,” I said, because the image was lovely and it took my mind off my plodding.

“I heard the pastor ask, ‘Do you, Hunter Edward Cummings, take this woman to be your wife?' Which is when I knew without a doubt that I could not marry Davis, and I had to stay away until the time was right.” She stopped, her hand on my arm, and I leaned upon the walker as her blue eyes searched my face. “Davis had to marry Christine and bear three sons with a wife who was not me, two before I could come home, pregnant with Antonia. I would have spoiled everything if I'd stayed to wed him or if I'd dared come back too soon. Don't you see?”

“Yes, I see,” I assured her. But then, I always had.

Without the black dress directing Anna, there would have been no Antonia and no Hunter. There very likely would have been no Jon Ashton for me to wed. Because without Anna running off and leaving the dress, I might never have fallen in the river and Jon may not have come along to drag me out.

What Anna had seen all those years ago—what she'd done the night that changed everything—had altered all of our paths in ways I could hardly imagine, both for better and for worse.

“Toni has it now, you know,” she whispered.

“I do,” I said, because my daughter had mentioned as much; in fact, had assured me the dress had been what saved my life.

“You must warn her about it—”

“She's a smart girl,” I said. “She'll be fine.”

Annabelle sighed.

“Mother? Aunt Anna?” Toni's lilting voice called out before I heard the tip-tap of her heels on the floor and saw her coming toward us, smiling and wearing the little black dress.

“You look lovely,” I told her as she approached and kissed our cheeks then began prattling on as we made our slow progress, talking about the cottage and all the boxes she'd be unpacking for weeks to come.

I watched her as she moved, saw the way the dress sparkled, and I hoped it would only ever show her good news, brilliant visions. She was stronger than my sister, perhaps stronger than I, far too self-possessed to let the magic destroy her, as it nearly had Anna. I thought it was evil at first, what the dress had done to us. And then I realized it had only made happen what we wished for, even if we hadn't understood what those wishes were.