The Blue Bottle Club (8 page)

Tish shook her head in dismay. She didn't have any reason to believe her father had found the bottle and read its contents, but a sense of betrayal washed over her nevertheless—as if someone had discovered her diary and violated her privacy by divulging her deepest secrets. If Daddy did find the bottle, it could spell disaster for Adora—and probably for Ellie too.

She had to check. Mother's pancakes and omelets could wait a couple of minutes. Daddy was probably at the table already, sneaking bacon from the platter and talking about how the market was going to bounce back any day now.

Tish opened the door and crept up the stairs. Daylight came through the gable windows and illuminated the attic in shades of gray. She went immediately to the little alcove where she and her friends had gathered a week before, climbed up onto the trunk, and groped in the rafters.

When her hand closed over the smooth cold glass, she heaved a sigh of relief. It was still there, right where they had hidden it, untouched.

Letitia turned to step down, but her slipper caught in the hem of her robe, and she tumbled hard against a stack of boxes. She struggled to her knees, dirty but unhurt, and set about rearranging the boxes that had fallen. Why had they been piled up so high, anyway? They should be over against the wall, out of the way. . . .

She felt it rather than saw it—a slight movement, a shifting shadow She looked up.

Beyond the boxes, hanging from a rope tied around the rafters. A body.

Her father's body.

7

NIGHTMARE

L
etitia sat on the sofa in the front parlor, squeezed between her mother and Adora Archer. Everyone was there—Pastor Archer and his wife; both Eleanors, Big and Little; Philip and his parents; Mary Love Buchanan; even the Buncombe County sheriff. She had barely had time to dress, let alone tend to her hair. But this was not the time to be concerned about her appearance.

Tish took in the activity around her as if she were peering through a thick fog. Mother rocked back and forth, her tears now dry, squeezing Letitia's fingers so tightly that Tish could see fingernail marks on the back of her hand. Philip sat to one side, flanked by Mr. and Mrs. Dorn—
Stuart and
Alice,
Tish reminded herself. Adora patted her back and shook her head. Big Eleanor just sat in the chair and stared at the carpet; Little Eleanor held on to Mary Love for dear life, while Mary Love fingered a worn rosary. The sheriff paced back and forth across the parlor.

"Mrs. Cameron"— he spoke as gently as he could, but it still came out gruff—"I'm sorry to question you at a time like this, but I do need to know everything that's happened here."

"She's already told you everything," Pastor Archer interjected. "The daughter found her father in the attic."

"Did he leave anything behind?" the sheriff persisted. "Any note, any word of explanation?"

"He said things would get better," Big Eleanor moaned. "If only we would bide our time, wait this thing out—"

"Hush, Mama," Ellie chided.

"But he
said—"

"I know, Mama." Ellie let go of Mary Love long enough to pat her mother's hand. "We'll get through this, all of us." She fixed a look on Letitia that said she knew what it was like to lose a father. "The important thing right now is to support Tish and Mrs. Cameron."

Tish watched it all as from a great distance. Odd, what you thought about at a time like this. The boxes, still scattered where they lay across the attic floor. Mother's omelet, blackened to oblivion, still sitting in its pan on the stove. The acrid odor of burned mushrooms that pervaded the house.

Concentrate,
she told herself. Her eyes fixed on Mary Love's pudgy fingers, moving deftly through the beads on the rosary.
Think about the mushrooms,
the bitter taste of the coffee.
Even the blood drawn by her mothers fingernails digging into her hand was a welcome diversion—anything to keep her mind off the body in the attic.

The Body. That's how she had to think of him now. Not Daddy, not the man who doted on her and adored her and treated her like his little princess. It wasn't Daddy who fell to the attic floor like a limp rag doll when the sheriff cut the rope. It wasn't Daddy who was carried out the back door with his face grotesquely blue and his eyes wide open. It was The Body

The Body was now at the undertaker's, being prepared, she supposed, for their friends and acquaintances to view in all its mortal finality She hoped they could cover up the angry red burn around the throat, could close its eyes and restore its color and make it back into a semblance of the man so many people had depended upon.

She would grieve later, she expected, but right now the prevailing emotions were horror and emptiness. Would she ever be able to purge her memory of the sight of him hanging over her? And what would happen to them now? Who would walk her down the aisle and give her away to Philip Dorn on her wedding day?

A shudder ran through her, and her mother squeezed even tighter.

The sheriff was still at it. People who committed suicide usually left a note, he said, and that brutal word,
suicide,
sliced through her like a razor. At last Pastor Archer stood up and cleared his throat. "With your permission, Maris, I'll go up to Randolph's study and see if I can find anything."

Mother nodded, and the pastor left the room, followed by the sheriff. Adora rose and went to sit next to her mother, and Philip took the seat next to Letitia. He put one hand on her shoulder, and she could feel the warmth of his touch through her blouse.

"Now, Maris," Stuart Dorn began, "we need to talk about how we're going to handle this."

"I don't know how I'm going to handle it," Mother whispered.

"What my husband means," Alice Dorn put in, "is how we're going to
present it
to other people."

Tish looked up, and suddenly her mind registered the emotion that filled her future mother-in-law's face. It wasn't sympathy, or even compassion. It was f
ear.

"You know how people talk, Maris," Stuart continued. "If word gets out that Randolph, well, took his own life, the gossipmongers will never let it go. Your life will be ruined."

"What life?" Mother muttered viciously. "I have no life without Randolph."

Startled, Tish looked into her mother's face. She meant it, every word of it. With a flash of recognition, Tish saw her parents not from the viewpoint of a child, but with the eyes of an adult. Mother had truly loved Daddy, not for his money or his status, but for himself. Everything she did—the elaborate parties, the attempts to fit into polite society—she had done for him, out of love. Tish had known for a long time that this wasn't Mother's world, this world of aristocratic propriety and social decorum. She would have been happy in a modest little house with a picket fence and middle-class neighbors. She had done it all for Daddy.

"I know you feel that way now, dear," Alice crooned. "But eventually you'll move beyond the grief. Life goes on, you know. And you wouldn't want to be known as the widow of a man who was—well, not right."

"Not right?" Mother flared. "Crazy, you mean? Randolph was not crazy. He was troubled, certainly, by all this upheaval in the stock market, but he was not—"

Big Eleanor moaned loudly and closed her eyes.

"Maris," Stuart resumed softly, "let me say this as gently, but as directly, as I can. You must hear me, now.
You
know that Randolph was not insane. We know it. But people automatically assume that when a person takes his own life, there must be something wrong with him. Mentally."

Whatever progress Mother had made over the years in developing the social graces vanished in that instant. "Just spit it out, Stuart. What are you suggesting?"

"I'm suggesting," he answered smoothly, "that we keep the cause of Randolph's untimely demise right here, in this room. Given the circumstances, I'm sure the sheriff would agree not to disclose the manner of death."

"You're sure the sheriff would agree to what?"

Tish looked around. The sheriff and Adora's father had returned, and Pastor Archer was carrying a thick file folder.

"Ah, Sheriff. We were just discussing the necessity of keeping this as quiet as possible. For the sake of the family, of course."

"Of course." The sheriff turned toward Mother. "If that's your wish, Mrs. Cameron, I certainly understand." He took the file folder from Pastor Archer and opened it. "We did find something that helps explain this, ah, situation."

Big Eleanor roused herself and fixed a gaze on the sheriff. "Found what?"

Pastor Archer shook his head. "It's not good, I'm afraid. Everything's gone."

"What do you mean,
everything!"
Philip demanded, the first words he had spoken since his arrival.

"It appears that your husband," the pastor said with a nod toward Mother, "had all his personal assets in stocks, except for a small amount of cash we found in his desk. The business—" He retrieved the file folder from the sheriff and studied the first document. "The business is bankrupt."

"But he told me the market would bounce back!" Big Eleanor wailed. "He promised!"

Pastor Archer's eyes flickered toward Eleanor. "And he was right. The market
is
beginning to rebound. Unfortunately, if these reports are any indication, he didn't wait quite long enough. He tried to comfort people like you, Eleanor, to give them hope. But apparently he didn't take his own advice. Two months ago, when the initial panic set in, he sold everything, at rock-bottom prices, just trying to hang on. Your stocks, too, Eleanor."

"He was lying?"

Pastor Archer sighed. "He was just trying to get through Christmas."

The sheriff hooked his thumbs in his belt and nodded. "We found a will too, leaving everything to Mrs. Cameron. But I'm afraid its all but worthless. Even the house had been mortgaged, and the money put into stocks."

"The house?" Letitia heard herself speak as if she were floating outside her own body. "Not the house."

"You don't have to do anything about it right away, of course." The sheriff tried to sound reassuring, but it came across hollow and unconvincing. "There's a little money, enough to get by for a while. No one is going to throw you out on the street."

Tish felt Philip's hand lift from her shoulder, and a chill went through her.

"We're agreed, then, that we remain quiet about the circumstances of Randolph's death?" Alice asked with a note of panic in her voice.

"Fine by me," the sheriff agreed, and Mother nodded mutely.

"It'll be for the best; you'll see," Stuart murmured.

Philip and his parents got up to leave, followed by Mary Love and Ellie and her mother. Pastor Archer came over and took Mothers hand. "Maris, I'm so sorry about all of this. You and Letitia probably need some time alone. I'll come back later this afternoon and we'll make arrangements for the service. In the meantime, if you'll get a suit ready, I'll take it to the funeral home."

"I'll do it." Tish got up from the sofa and left her mother sitting there. She had to get away, anywhere, just to relieve herself of the sight of Philip's face. He couldn't look at her, wouldn't meet her gaze. He just moved woodenly toward the door without a word.

Tish went into her parents' bedroom and shut the door behind her. Everything was so infuriatingly
normal
—Daddy's slippers side by side under the bed, his navy dressing gown hanging on the back of the door. A pair of gold cuff buttons and several ivory collar stays scattered across the top of the dresser.

She opened the door of the wardrobe and took out his best suit—a dark charcoal-gray wool with a matching vest—and pressed it to her face. The scratchy fabric reminded her of all the times she had greeted him at the door, flinging herself into his arms and burrowing into his shoulder. The wool still bore his smell, a tantalizing mixture of pipe tobacco and the spicescented Macassar oil he used on his hair.

Carefully Tish laid the suit on the bed and brushed off the lapels. She collected a freshly starched white shirt, her favorite wine-colored tie, under-shorts and undershirt, black shoes, and socks. She picked up the gold cuff links from the dresser, but after a second thought dropped them into her pocket and rummaged in the top drawer for some ordinary bone ones. There was no telling what might happen next; she and her mother might need the gold in those cuff buttons.

At the thought of pawning Daddy's gold cuff links, a rage rose up in Letitia that threatened to overwhelm her. How could he
do
this to them? Make his escape and leave them alone with nothing, not even a house to live in?

She wanted to scream at him, to shake her fist in his face and demand an explanation. But when she tried to conjure up the memory of her father, all she could see was the limp rag doll hanging from the rafters over her head. The blue, distorted countenance, attached to the neck by a wide red rope burn.

Daddy was gone. Only The Body remained. And the memory of The Body would be with her, she was grimly certain, until the day she died.

8

WORKING WOMEN

March 1, 1930

F
or two full months Letitia felt as if she had been drowning, fighting frantically to heave herself to the surface and pull a deep breath into her aching lungs. But the sheer effort of going on with life weighed at her limbs and dragged her down. She slogged through the days in slow motion, reluctantly helping her mother pack the few possessions they hadn't sold, sort through her father's things and dispose of them, and move, at last, to a tiny cottage on the other end of Montford Avenue—a converted carriage house with two small bedrooms and a postage-stamp garden.

Then she awoke one morning to find everything changed.

For one thing, her mother wasn't crying. Instead, she sat at the little kitchen table looking out over the fallow garden, jotting notes on the back of an envelope.

Tish watched from the doorway for a few minutes and then said, "Mother?"

Her mother glanced up and smiled—really smiled. "Good morning, darling! Wonderful day, isn't it?" She gestured out the window to the sundrenched plot of ground. "Look—it's almost spring."