The Lost Hours (2 page)

I hadn’t thought about that hot afternoon for over a decade: a non-event in a busy life filled with friends, parties and my never-ending quest for accolades and excitement in the saddle on the back of a high-jumping horse. I had thought myself indestructible, immune to the fears and disappointments that had stolen the color from my grandmother’s face the same way the setting sun creates a world of shadows.

My delusion was understandable to my grandfather, who knew the source of it. After all, he was the one who’d told me that being the sole survivor of an accident that took the lives of both my parents meant that God was saving me for something important. I took this to mean that I had already experienced the greatest tragedy of my life and nothing bad would ever happen to me again. My grandmother claimed I was merely tempting the devil. But I was content to exist in my make-believe world, where I was infallible until the day came when I was forced to realize how very wrong I’d been. Life is like that, I suppose: always slapping you in the face when you least expect it.

The doorbell rang, erasing the smells of summer grass and damp earth. I rose slowly from my chair in the front parlor, scanning my eyes over the worn furniture with the eyes of a person who hadn’t become accustomed to its growing shabbiness for over twenty years. The house still smelled of flowers although the last of the wilted funeral arrangements had been put out at the curb the previous evening with the rest of the garbage. I had hoped that keeping the flowers in the house would help me feel the grief I knew was living somewhere under my skin. I had done enough grieving in my life by the age of six that I guess my body figured I just couldn’t do it anymore.

The doorbell rang again and I walked stiffly to the door, my back and right knee protesting every step. Humidity hung over Savannah in the summer like a veil, antagonizing my injuries as much as any cold weather would. I’d long since reached the conclusion that there was no climate that would coddle my bruised bones, so I might as well stay in this ancient city and old house that had been in my mother’s family for four generations.

I swallowed back my disappointment as I pulled open the door and revealed my granddaddy’s lawyer, a man about ten years younger than the grandfather I had just buried. His skin was tinged gray like the color of dried marsh mud and he had down-turned eyes that always seemed to look anxious.

“Mr. Morton,” I said, stepping aside to allow him through the doorway. “This is a nice surprise.” I had hoped it would be one of my old friends from my equestrian days, the friends whose visits had trickled down to a slow drip in the last years. They’d gotten tired of asking me when I was going to ride again, and stopped visiting, as if whatever I’d contracted that kept me on the ground might be contagious. I had no classmates, having been homeschooled for most of my life, and my friendships had centered around the show circuit. A few had made an appearance at the wake, but that was all. Even Jen Bishop, my oldest friend and closest rival, had merely sent a flower arrangement and a note.

Mr. Morton grunted and led the way to the parlor. I indicated for him to sit only a moment after he’d taken his place in my favorite chair, the same chair my grandmother had sat in each evening with her endless knitting.

“Can I get you something to drink?”

“Why don’t you get me something to drink, dear?”

I paused, wondering if it would be polite to suggest he put in his hearing aid.

“What would you like, Mr. Morton? Tea or lemonade?” I watched as he ran his finger across the dust on the side table, etching out a single line of accusation about my lack of housekeeping skills. “Or maybe arsenic?” I added softly.

He blinked slowly up at me, and for a horrible second I wondered if he’d actually heard me. “A Co-Cola would be nice. It’s a hot day.”

I left the room and returned with two glasses of Coke filled two-thirds with ice. I’d only had a partial can and rather than try to go through the motions of explaining this to Mr. Morton, I figured it would be easier to just go with what I had.

“Thank you, Piper,” he said as he took a long sip, then wrinkled his nose before setting it on a coaster.

“What can I do for you, Mr. Morton?” I asked loudly, sitting on the worn sofa next to his chair.

He placed his briefcase on the coffee table in front of him and made a big show of opening it and taking out a large manila folder. “I’ve got some papers for you to sign concerning your grandfather’s estate.” He slid the stack in front of me and handed me a thick black pen. “There’re also papers regarding the continuation of your grandmother’s care that you’ll need to look at and sign.”

I looked up at him, realizing for the first time what my grandfather’s death would really mean for me. Along with the deed to the house, all its furnishings and his 1988 Buick LeSabre, I had apparently also inherited the care of the grandmother who no longer recognized my face.

I signed the papers where he indicated and slid them back to him. With meticulous precision, he stacked the papers and placed them in his briefcase. But instead of standing up and taking his leave, he sat back in his chair and took another sip of his watery drink and blinked at me through thick glasses.

“Is there anything else, Mr. Morton?” I asked.

He looked at me, not comprehending. Placing his bony hands on his black-clad knees, he said, “There’s one more thing, Piper.”

I didn’t bother to reply.

“As you know, I’ve been acquainted with your grandparents since I was an errand boy in my father’s law practice. They were good people.” He looked down for a moment as if to compose himself and I wished that I could borrow some of his grief.

He continued. “Annabelle—your grandmother—was a beautiful young woman. Her father was a doctor of some reputation. He treated patients regardless of their social class or the color of their skin—a rarity in those days.” He lowered his head, his bushy eyebrows like avenging hawks in a downward spiral. “And Annabelle was no different. Always putting others first and taking care of people.” His voice softened when he said her name and I glanced up at him, but his eyes didn’t give anything away.

I looked down again, impatient, and curled my toes inside my shoes to keep my feet from tapping as Mr. Morton took his unwanted stroll down memory lane in my parlor. My gaze strayed through the window to East Taylor Street out front and to Monterey Square beyond it with its statue of Revolutionary War hero Casimir Pulaski. This view had been my world since the time I was six years old and moved in with my grandparents. The sound of the bells at St. John’s in nearby Lafayette Square mixed with the gentle conversation of my grandparents on the balcony below my bedroom had been my nighttime lullaby. For a brief while my talent for jumping higher and faster on the back of a horse had taken me around the world. But my horse was long since gone, and I was back where I started from, staring at the statue in Monterey Square and the implacable face of General Pulaski.

“When you first came to live with them, your grandmother planned to give you something that had meant a lot to her when she was a young woman.” He paused briefly, his brows furrowed with seeming incomprehension. “I guess she never found the right time to give it to you because your grandfather gave it to me for safekeeping when he put Annabelle in the home. I thought that you should have it now.”

I dragged my attention away from the window, aware that he was awaiting a response from me. I struggled for a moment to capture his last words. “Something from my grandmother?”

Mr. Morton took a sealed envelope from the inside of his jacket and handed it to me. There was a small lump inside and my name had been written with my grandmother’s meticulous cursive. I glanced at Mr. Morton and he nodded his head in encouragement before I dug my nail under the flap of the envelope and ripped it open.

I peered inside, looking for a letter or a note. I cupped my hand and tipped the envelope over, shaking it until whatever had been stuck at the bottom came tumbling out into my palm.

Mr. Morton leaned toward me and we both stared at my prize, a gold charm of an angel holding an opened book. I shook the envelope again, waiting for the chain to fall out, but the envelope was empty.

“There’s not even a note,” I said, turning the charm over in my hand, wondering why she had held on to it for so long without giving it to me and feeling an odd disappointment.

Mr. Morton took my hand, squeezing it hard enough to almost be painful. “No, there wouldn’t be. Annabelle had always planned to give it to you in person. It’s a part of your grandmother’s history—part of her life she would want you to know.”

I stood, uneasy with his intensity. “I’ll take good care of it. And I’ll look for the chain, too. Maybe it’s somewhere in her old room.”

He stared at me for a long moment and I thought he hadn’t understood what I said. While I prepared to paraphrase slowly and clearly, Mr. Morton said, “You do that, young lady.” He stood and faced me, a concentrated look on his withered face. “You never know what you’ll find.”

Uncomfortable, I waited for him to gather his things, then quickly led the way back to the foyer.

“You’re a pretty young lady, Piper. I’m sure your grandfather would want you to move on. To find a young man and get married. Start a family of your own.”

“You mean sell the house?”

Mr. Morton shrugged. “That’s certainly a possibility. Even after making allowances for your grandmother’s care, with the remainder of your parents’ and grandparents’ estates, you’ll have a nice little nest egg. Maybe you’ll want to travel for a bit.”

I opened the front door, hearing the distant sound of the church bells. “There’s no place I want to go. Besides, with my back and knee, I don’t think long-distance travel would be a good idea.”

He regarded me quietly. “It’s not always the distance of a trip that determines its value. Sometimes the best trips are only as far as the circumference of your heart.”

Before I could ask him what he meant, he said, “Speaking of trips, Matilda and I are going on a four-month excursion around the coast of South America. It’s been a dream of hers for a long time and I finally figured that now’s as good a time as ever. You might be able to reach me by e-mail, but that would be sporadic at best. If you need something immediately, you can call my office and George will be happy to take care of you.”

“Thank you,” I said, trying not to flinch at the mention of George’s name and impatient now for Mr. Morton to leave. His words had unsettled me and all I wanted was to go back to my darkening parlor and think about all I had lost.

He stepped outside onto the brick steps and pulled an old-fashioned gold watch out of his pocket. A gold key fob dangled from the chain as he studied the clock face and frowned before shoving it back in his pocket. “One more thing. Matilda asked me to find out if her family tree is ready yet.”

Dabbling in genealogy and delving into other people’s family secrets had been the riskiest behavior I’d allowed myself to be involved in since my riding accident six years earlier. I frowned, knowing that my answer would not be something Mrs. Morton would want to hear. “Tell her almost. But I haven’t been able to find any connection between her family and the British royal family as she thought there might have been. Although I have found a family connection to sheep farmers in Yorkshire.”

He stared at me blankly for a long moment. Finally, he said,“I’ll let you tell her that yourself.”

“Just feed me to the alligators instead,” I muttered to myself as he turned away. I imagined his imperious wife, whose aspiration to grandiosity was equal only to her disdain for me for having had the bad taste to have been born north of the Mason-Dixon Line, regardless of the fact that both my parents had been born and raised in Savannah.

Mr. Morton faced me again abruptly, almost making me startle. “I heard that, you know.”

I smiled, my face feeling stretched and unused to the movement of turning up my lips. “Good-bye, Mr. Morton,” I said as I closed the heavy door with the black wreath hanging from it.

I watched him through the leaded glass of the door, trying again to find the tears for the grandfather who had raised me since I was six. I absently fingered the small charm in my hand and blinked hard, willing the grief to find me. But I could only stand there, dry-eyed, as I watched Mr. Morton slowly make his way down the walk toward the square with the statue honoring a fallen war hero. And I wondered, not for the first time, if dying in the quest for glory wasn’t far better than surviving with the livid scars of failure for all to see.

I woke up with a stiff neck and something small and hard pressed into the side of my hip. I’d fallen asleep on the sofa again in the absence of a grandfather to tell me to go upstairs to bed. I sat up, rotating my neck while digging under my hip for the protruding object. It was the small gold charm and I picked it up, a misplaced sense of excitement filling me for a moment. I wasn’t sure why. Maybe because a quest for the missing chain might distract me long enough that I might forget about the rest of my life.