The Lost Hours (25 page)

He nodded and continued his walk back to the stables. I remained where I was, mulling over our conversation, his words haunting me.
I never loved her enough.

I limped out of the ring, closing the gate behind me with a solid click before finding my way back to the alley of oaks, their moss-covered limbs and leaves silent in the bright light of day as if in mourning for a woman whose husband hadn’t loved her enough.

Odella stood behind Lillian at her dressing table, squinting at the hook clasp on the back of Lillian’s blouse. “I swear I’m blind as a bat when it comes to seeing small things anymore. Are you sure this hook matters?”

Lillian raised an eyebrow. “It’s all in the details, Odella. That’s the problem with society these days. Nobody cares about the details anymore. Women going about wearing less than what I used to wear at the beach, without hats or gloves or anything that marks them as ladies. It wasn’t like that in my day. A lady dressed like a lady and was treated as such.”

Odella snorted, putting a hand on her hip. “So you want me to keep trying with this hook, then?”

Lillian didn’t answer, but continued to look pointedly at her with the raised eyebrow. After more struggling, Odella eventually announced success and helped Lillian stand. As she straightened, something slid off of her lap, landing with a small thud on the Aubusson rug.

“What’s this?” Odella bent to retrieve the picture frame that had landed facedown.

Lillian reached for it. “I forgot I was looking at that. It’s been in my drawer for so long that I forgot it was there. But I was sharing my scrapbook with Helen earlier and that reminded me.”

Odella placed the frame in Lillian’s hand and she looked down at it, the image fuzzy even with her glasses, not that it mattered. She’d long since memorized every detail of the old photograph, could even recall the conversations and the perfume she’d worn. It had been taken the night of her come-out party, using Josie’s Brownie camera that Dr. O’Hare had given her for her seventeenth birthday. It had been right after Annabelle had finished with the flowers and was getting ready to leave. Lillian remembered feeling guilty that Annabelle hadn’t been invited, and insisted on including her in the photograph.

Odella looked down at the picture. “I recognize you in the middle, but who are the other two?”

Lillian smiled, remembering, and pointed to the woman on her left. “That’s Josephine Montet. She was a good friend of mine.”

“Holy heck—
The
Josephine Montet? The world-famous jazz singer whose records I still own even though I no longer own a record player? You know her?”

“Knew her,” Lillian corrected, moving a gnarled finger over the image of the beautiful young woman with the coffee skin and heavenly voice. “She sang at my come-out party.”

Lillian pulled the frame closer to see it better, noticing that Josie wore the charm necklace, even though it had been Lillian’s turn. Not wanting her father to see it, she’d given it to Josie to wear so that Lola could share in the festivities. Lillian smiled, recalling the small musical note she’d added to Lola to remember how Josie’s voice had filled the ballroom, and made the night sparkle.

Odella straightened. “So who was the third friend?”

“Annabelle O’Hare. Josie’s mother worked for her father, Dr. O’Hare.” Lillian squeezed the metal frame, as if the action would somehow bring them all back to that moment when life stretched before them, a road of shimmering possibilities. “We were thick as thieves.” Lillian grinned at the memory.

“Who’s the man?” Odella pointed to the tall man with the straw hat and striped jacket.

“That’s Freddie Montet, Josie’s brother.”

Odella whistled. “He’s what the kids today would call ‘hot.’ But are he and Josie really related? He could sure pass for white.”

“And he did. He even attended university in England, and did very well. That summer, he told me that he’d run out of funds and that he was going to work with the horses at Asphodel like he’d been doing during his school breaks to earn enough money to return.”

Odella tucked her chin into her neck. “But who paid for the rest of it? I can’t imagine he would have earned much working for your daddy during the Depression.”

Lillian blinked at her image in the mirror. “I’ve asked myself that a dozen times. To be honest, when I was young it never occurred to me to question it. It was only in my adult life that I began to wonder. His mother was the housekeeper in a doctor’s household and his father was never in the picture. I suppose he could have borrowed funds from the doctor—but I always thought that would have been a lot more forward-thinking for the times back then than it would be now.”

Lillian leaned forward and placed the frame on her dressing table. “Not that it matters anymore. Freddie’s been dead for a long time. Before I married my Charlie and that was almost seventy years ago.”

“That’s a shame,” Odella said as she held on to Lillian’s elbow until the older woman had grabbed her cane. “A real shame.”

By the time they’d reached the dining room, Lillian was exhausted. The memories pressed down on her, as heavy as the layer of years, making her stumble. She turned to Odella to ask her to take her back to her room, but her eyes settled on Earlene instead.

Earlene stood behind her chair in conversation with Helen, across the table. She was angled slightly, so that her back was partially turned to Tucker in a not-so-subtle gesture. Tonight she had her hair pulled back, showing her profile, and her long elegant neck. And, despite the shoulders that Earlene seemed to force into a rounded position, she held her head regally, as if she’d once been used to being looked upon with admiration and hadn’t quite learned how to hide it completely.

But there was something else that drew Lillian into the room toward her seat at the head of the table. It was the feeling of familiarity she felt with Earlene, of having found a friend. It was odd, considering their age difference, but maybe a love for flowers and horses was the great equalizer—the ties that bound the generations together like smocking on a dress.

Lillian’s ruminations were interrupted by Tucker as he came to her side to escort her to the table while Odella returned to the kitchen. He kissed her on the cheek and cupped her elbow in his hand. “I’m sorry we missed you for cocktails, but I made your favorite and it’s waiting by your plate.”

He pulled out her chair and seated her before returning to his chair and waiting for everyone else to sit before joining them. Conversation was light while they passed the dishes that Odella had brought in, and Lillian carefully watched the skittishness between Tucker and Earlene, like two magnets of the same pole.

Lillian turned to Tucker. “Where are Lucy and Sara?”

Tucker wiped his mouth with a cloth napkin. “They were exhausted from horseback riding and from swimming in the pond for most of the afternoon. Emily’s making them grilled-cheese sandwiches and tomato soup and putting them to bed early. She didn’t have classes tonight and offered to stay.”

“Are they here or at your house?” Lillian took a long sip of her cocktail but even that wasn’t taking the edge off her impatience with her grandson. To outsiders it would appear that his cup of grief was bottomless, and maybe that was true. But she’d seen Tucker’s face when they’d pulled Susan from the river, and the look of relief that had initially crossed it. The grief had come later, but Lillian had never been completely convinced it had been grief over Susan’s death.

Tucker set down his glass of wine. “They’re here. Emily is off at nine and I . . . have plans for later tonight. I didn’t think they should be left alone at the tabby house.”

“No,” said Lillian tightly, “I don’t imagine they should be.”

They ate in silence for a while, the clink of silver against fine china the only sounds. Lillian kept stealing glances at Helen, who seemed unusually restless. Her fingers played with the unused utensils, flipping them over and dropping them on the tablecloth.

Finally, Helen’s fingers stilled and she leaned across the table toward Earlene. “How is your research coming along?”

Earlene took her time chewing her food and washing it down with wine, as if buying time to figure out an answer. “Very well, actually. Thank you. I’ve finished going through Miss Lillian’s papers and those have been very helpful in gathering the names of people who would have been in the area in the earlier part of the last century.” She turned to Lillian. “The plantation business records have been particularly interesting, and make a good illustration of the business decline during the Great Depression. I noticed that by nineteen thirty-seven your father had sold about thirty of his horses and was down to one stable hand. That must have been hard for you.”

Lillian took a large sip of wine, sensing Helen’s interest. She raised her eyebrow, hoping to convey uninterest and a real desire to steer the conversation away from where she was afraid it might lead. “One’s lack of funds is generally considered to be a difficult thing. Losing one’s favorite horse to the highest bidder would be another one.”

Helen tilted her head, her brow wrinkled. “The remaining stable hand would have been Freddie, right, Malily?”

Lillian dabbed at the corners of her mouth with her napkin, nostalgia tugging her backwards. Her gaze found Earlene. “Yes. Probably because Papa didn’t have to pay him the same wages he’d been paying the Irishmen. Were there any accounting records of my come-out ball? I was discussing that with Helen just this morning.”

“Yes, actually, there were. For the wine, and the flowers, and your dress. It must have been a beautiful evening. The guest list was there, too, but I didn’t see your gardening friend—Annabelle.”

Lillian slowly chewed a forkful of food, but didn’t taste anything. “I suppose I’ll have to admit to a little spite. I believed at the time that she and I had romantic aspirations about the same man, and I didn’t welcome the competition.” She took another sip of her wine. “Besides, Annabelle was busy crusading against public ills and wouldn’t have come anyway.”

“But she helped with the flowers,” Helen added.

“Yes, she did do that,” Lillian answered, once again smelling the calla lilies and the gladiolus, and feeling the warmth of Charlie’s hand on the small of her back. Exhausted again, Lillian leaned back in her chair and regarded the other table occupants through half-closed eyes, her attention grabbed by Earlene, whose hand had slipped into the collar of her blouse, her fingers moving around the circumference of her neck as if she were searching for something.

Lillian shifted her attention to Tucker, giving in to a fit of restlessness brought on by her memories of Annabelle that clung to her like a too-tight riding jacket. She placed her forearms on the table and leaned toward him. “Tucker, remember how you used to describe people and things to Helen so she could picture them in her head? It just occurred to me that Earlene has been here for over a week, and shared our dining table twice, but Helen has no idea what she looks like. Why don’t you describe Earlene to help Helen out?”

She wasn’t sure who looked more uncomfortable: Tucker or Earlene. Both looked as if they wanted to flee from the room and Earlene even had the knee-jerk reaction of sliding her chair back. But the tension in the room helped ease the ache around Lillian’s tired heart and bones, a diversion that made her look forward to something again.

Helen, despite her skill at determining people’s emotions, seemed more intent on joining Lillian in her game than sparing Tucker’s or Earlene’s feelings. She clasped her hands together and Lillian was afraid for a moment that she would actually clap. “Yes, please. But first, let me describe you the way that I see you and then Tucker can tell me if I’m right or wrong.”

Earlene looked down at her plate, a small flush coloring her cheeks. She took a deep breath, then glanced up at Helen and managed a small smile. “All right, I’m game. Go ahead.”

Helen closed her eyes, her long, elegant nails, tipped with her signature scarlet red nail polish, splayed on the white tablecloth. “If I make any mistakes, my only excuse will be that once I discovered that you were a horsewoman, all of my assumptions about you were clouded by the way I think a horsewoman should look.” She drummed her fingers on the table and took a deep breath. “Your voice is very soft, which makes me think that you’re petite—maybe five foot three or less. Your hair is very straight, and you wear it in a low ponytail, not because you particularly like it that way, but because that’s the way you’ve been wearing it since you were a little girl and needed to fix your hair so that it stayed beneath a riding helmet.” She smiled in Earlene’s direction. “How am I doing?”

“Keep going,” Earlene said, her eyes on Helen and her face closed.

“I think your hair is dark blond. When you’re in the sun it lightens up, but since you’re a genealogist I don’t think you’re in the sun that much anymore, so it’s dark. And I picture your eyes being blue or gray—something that goes with blond hair, although that’s just a guess.” Helen puckered her lips for a moment before continuing. “I think you’re very slender. I determined that by listening to you walk. When you limp, it doesn’t seem as if you’re throwing that much weight around, so I figured you probably don’t weigh more than a hundred and five pounds or so.” She held up her hand in Lillian’s direction. “I’m blind, remember, which means that I can freely discuss other people’s handicaps so you don’t need to say anything.”