The Lost Hours (11 page)

Josie picked the guardian angel because of the book in the angel’s hands but I was the one who chose the inscription that would wrap around the angel’s wings:
Perfer et obdura; dolor hic tibi proderit olim.
I’d learned it in Latin class and Mama had liked it enough to start a needlepoint sampler with it. She’d died before she finished it, so I thought it would be a sort of tribute to her, a way to finish her last story.The words are tiny, so they could all fit on the charm, but it doesn’t matter if we can read it or not.We all know what they are and what they mean and that’s the most important thing.

 

I flipped the page and saw a pencil sketch of the necklace I’d found in the tin box my grandfather had buried in the backyard. Except this necklace only had the one, single charm of an angel holding a book and with pierced wings to allow a slender gold chain to slip through them. I tapped my fingers against the page, the sound echoing in the silent room, somehow knowing that to touch the necklace again would make this journey irreversible. But I thought of my dream, and the knitted blue sweater in my grandmother’s trunk, and realized that this journey had never really had a return option.

Sliding the scrapbook aside, I stood and limped into the bedroom, where I dragged the box from under the bed, where I’d put it. I wasn’t sure why I’d felt the need to hide it. The only person who would recognize any of the contents would be Lillian Harrington-Ross and I couldn’t see the old woman coming inside the cottage to snoop. Maybe I’d only meant to hide it from myself.

I tossed the box on top of the quilted bedspread and slowly lifted the lid. I peered inside at the necklace, its once shining gold now burnished to a dull bronze. Picking it up, I let the odd shapes of the charms slip through my fingers like a rosary, the words forgotten. I spotted a bell, a musical note, a high-heeled shoe, a heart, a rearing horse, and a sailor’s knot. My eyes blurred, obstructing my vision of the rest of the charms. “So you must be Lola,” I said to the empty room, gingerly touching the forgotten memories and smiling at the innocence of young girls, wondering if I’d ever been so naive.

I put Lola back in the box, the tapping sound of metal against metal like impatient fingertips. My smile faded quickly as I spotted the yellowed news article. My hand hovered over it for a moment before delicately lifting it with two fingers, then held it as I read it again:

I dropped the article back into the box and lifted the lid to shut it, but my gaze caught on one of the charms on the necklace that I’d noticed once before. I studied the tiny needle-sized spokes of the wheels, the sunshade and handle of the baby carriage spun from gold and began to feel sick.

I slammed the lid shut and shoved the box back under the bed before flipping off the lights and closing the door. Fingering the gold angel around my neck, I returned to the scrapbook and closed the pages with a quiet thud. I stared at it for a long time, feeling as if Fitz and I had just taken that final jump again and were still falling in a timeless void, waiting to hit the ground.

Helen listened to the jangling of Mardi’s collar tags to help guide her to the old tabby house, not that she really needed a guide. She’d lived at Asphodel Meadows her entire life and could easily have found her own way. But she pretended for Mardi’s sake, because the Lab strongly believed that she needed his help.

Using her cane in front of her, she walked slowly but purposefully toward the Georgian four-over-four house that had been the principal residence of Harringtons while the main house was being built back in eighteen seventeen. It was where her parents had lived briefly during their endeavor at domesticity and the births of their two children and where they stayed on their infrequent trips home from whatever remote corner of the earth they were attempting to civilize. Even Malily’s remodeling of the tabby structure and updating it with every modern convenience hadn’t been enough to entice her only daughter to come home to stay.

It was where Tucker had moved two years ago with Susan and the girls after he’d given up his medical practice in Savannah in an effort to focus on Susan’s needs. It really had never occurred to any of them how insurmountable her needs had been, or how the end of her life could offer no answers.

As Helen stood on the brick walk leading up to the house, she turned her face upward, picturing the double chimneys and graceful portico that had been added to the tabby facade in the last century. She remembered it as being a lovely house on the outside, but the interior during her childhood there with her parents had been decorated with loneliness and disappointment and even now she avoided it as much as she could.

She didn’t bother to knock using the large lion’s head knocker. She simply turned the handle and walked inside, then followed Mardi up the staircase to the upper level. After pausing outside Tucker’s door for a moment, she threw it open. One of the advantages of being blind, she always thought, was that people forgave a lot of bad behavior. It also allowed them privacy when they were lying in bed stark naked.

“Damn it, Helen. Why do you do that?” The words were accompanied by the rustling of bedsheets.

She smelled the alcohol in the room and it made her want to gag. As she made her way to the window to pull open the curtains and slide open the sash, she asked, “Are you alone?”

Her question was answered by a pillow being thrown at her back.

“You shouldn’t throw things at blind people. It’s mean.”

Another pillow followed the first, hitting her on the side of the head as she turned to face the bed.

“Go to hell,” Tucker mumbled, sounding as if he were burying his face back into the mattress.

She moved toward the bed and crossed her arms as Mardi leapt onto the mattress. “I could just follow you, couldn’t I? You seem to be well on your way already.”

When he didn’t say anything, she turned away from the bed and felt her way to the bathroom to turn on the shower, then returned to the room to begin opening the rest of the windows. “It stinks like an ashtray that somebody poured bourbon on in here. At least you’re alone.”

The bed creaked as she pictured Tucker sitting up, listening to the bristling sound of his hands running over his face.

“I wouldn’t do that. My girls live here.”

“Yeah, well, not really. They spend more time at the big house than they do here and they weren’t here last night. I thought you could at least show them the courtesy of having breakfast with them this morning. Malily and the girls just sat down, so if you hurry, you could make it.”

With what sounded like a growl, Tucker stood and trudged to the bathroom. She followed him, pausing by the doorway. “Susan died, Tuck. Not you.”

The steady beat of the water against slate tiles agitated the silence between them. “It’s not that, Helen. It’s never been that.”

“Don’t you think I know that? Regardless of what people might think, I see an awful lot. But guilt will only carry you so far. And your girls need you.”

She heard him turn on the faucet and drop the cap to his toothpaste tube in the sink but he didn’t say anything.

“I’ll see you at breakfast, then.”

He answered by shutting the door in her face.

“I love you, too,” she shouted through the closed door before turning and leaving, allowing Mardi to lead the way.

As Helen made her way back down the brick walk, she heard footsteps crunching on gravel approaching her. She stopped and smiled. “Earlene?”

The footsteps stopped. “How did you know?”

“You’re the only person I know of on the property right now who walks with a limp.”

“Oh. Well. That makes sense, I guess.” Earlene’s voice was tight, like a dam had been built to prevent any words from tumbling out.

Helen smiled gently. Earlene Smith was a mystery to her. Helen usually prided herself on developing images in her head of the people she met just by listening to their voices and the way they moved. But when she tried to picture Earlene, a blank canvas flickered through her mind. “I’m sorry if I’ve made you uncomfortable. Being blind makes me notice things that seeing people deliberately overlook.” She quickly changed the subject, sensing Earlene’s discomfort. “You also sound out of breath. Did you walk all the way from the cottage?”

“Yeah, I did. Everything seems a lot closer on the map you gave me.” She rattled the map in her hand. “I was looking for the old family cemetery. It’s supposed to be near this house.”

Helen nodded. “You’re very close. This was the family home for a few years while the big house was being built. They needed a cemetery pretty soon after they moved in here, unfortunately. Smallpox epidemic. Took their two youngest children and a visiting cousin.” She held out her arm. “If you’ll give me your arm so that I don’t trip on any roots or rocks, I’ll take you to it.”

Cool fingers touched her hand and guided it to Earlene’s elbow. The skin was warm and smooth, and Helen’s sensitive fingertips felt a long, raised scar on the inner side of the elbow. “Thank you. And I’m glad I ran into you. I forgot to ask you yesterday for your deposit check. Do you think I could have it today?”

Earlene was silent for a moment as Helen guided them both back toward the house. “Would it be all right if I gave it to you in cash?”

“Yes, of course. I normally don’t even suggest it because I don’t find many people carrying around so much cash.”

“Yes, well, I’d rather just handle it that way.”

Helen nodded, thinking it odd but somehow fitting in with the mystery of Earlene Smith. “We’re going to cut to the right here and cross the lawn until we reach the live oak with the tire swing leaning on it. My brother made it for his girls last year although he hasn’t hung it yet.”

Helen heard Mardi dash past them, most likely in pursuit of a squirrel. She laughed. “I’m glad I don’t depend on him as a guide dog. I might end up in a tree.”