The Lost Hours (38 page)

Tucker made her climb in front of him when they reached the attic stairs because they were steeper and narrower, and she wondered if he was thinking of her safety or merely forcing a distance between her and George.

She knew they’d reached the attic from the wall of heat that seemed to slam into them as they stepped through the threshold.

“Hang on. I’ll open the windows,” Piper said, her footsteps moving to the opposite side of the room.

“You might want to consider putting air-conditioning up here, Earlene, especially if you plan to continue using it as storage. All your ribbons and trophies are up here and I’m sure you don’t want those to be ruined by the heat and humidity,” George said as he managed to move between Helen and Tucker.

Tucker walked away. “Pretty impressive collection, Piper.” Helen heard a cabinet door being tugged open. “Nice cover photo of you on
Eventing
magazine.” He cleared his throat. “ ‘Piper Mills wins Eventing’s greatest prize, the Rolex Grand Slam,’ ” he read out loud.

George turned to Helen. “That’s consecutive wins at Kentucky, Badminton, and Burghley. She was the first person to ever do that.”

“They expected Fitz and me to do it again in two thousand four and make the Olympic team,” Piper said.

“But you had your accident,” Tucker said softly.

“Yeah. At the Kentucky Rolex Three-Day, during the cross-country portion. I made a stupid mistake.” Piper’s voice was lighter somehow, as if the burden of loss and regret had at least packed its bags although not completely left. She walked across the attic and Helen heard the cabinet door shut with a final thud.

“It’s hard to believe that I’ve managed to have such an accomplished athlete give beginner lessons to my daughters.” Tucker’s tone was light, but couldn’t disguise the fact that he hadn’t completely forgiven Piper yet.

“You didn’t mention that, Earlene. It’s hard to imagine that you’d voluntarily go anywhere near a horse,” said George.

Helen listened as Piper walked around the perimeter of the room, opening windows to create a cross-breeze. Warm air blew over Helen’s face, and she turned to catch the breeze head-on.

“It’s . . . complicated. And I don’t want to talk about it right now.” She banged on a window and it opened, creating a strong movement of air. “George, let’s show Helen and Tucker what we found.”

George led her forward. “We pushed aside this armoire and found a door behind it. Mr. Morton, her attorney, gave Piper a key after her grandfather died. He’d instructed Mr. Morton to deliver it to Piper following his death. I guess her grandfather didn’t want to have to answer any of her questions.”

“Or maybe he didn’t know the answers,” Tucker said as he followed them through the doorway and into the airless attic room. “He might have been doing just what his wife had asked him to do.”

It was even more stifling in the hidden room, but Piper made no move to open the windows, as if she wanted to spend as little time in there as possible. “What’s in here?” Helen asked, pressing her hand to her nose to smell anything but the heavy dust and sadness that seemed to linger still.

Piper’s voice was matter-of-fact. “There’s a small single bed, stripped of all of its linens. There’s a small table beside it with a washbowl and basin, and an empty chest of drawers.” She paused and Helen heard her swallow. “Behind the door is a baby’s bassinet, where I found the hand-knit blanket inside. The yarn seems to be identical to the yarn used to make a baby’s sweater that I found in my grandmother’s trunk. There’s also a basket in front of the windows with a stack of old magazines.” Helen listened to the rustle of paper. “There’s a
Good Housekeeping
on top from nineteen thirty-four and a
Life
magazine beneath it from nineteen thirty-seven.”

Tucker stopped in front of Helen and she heard him pivoting, studying the room around him. “I’ve never seen one of these; I’ve only read about them.”

“One of what?” asked George, patting Helen’s fingers that rested in the crook of his elbow.

“A disappointment room. My partner in the medical practice—the psychiatrist—he’s the one who first told me about them. They were created to hide imperfect children—basically any child with a mental or physical defect. They would be fed and clothed, but they remained in their little rooms, hidden from the world and never acknowledged.”

“Like Margaret Louise,” interjected George. “I was doing some research for Piper and came across her name. She’s listed in the family Bible as having been born in eighteen ninety-eight, but there’s no official record of her having lived at all. This room could have been created for her, and family members would have known about it. And maybe that would explain the bassinet and the blanket. I haven’t had a chance to check the burial records at local cemeteries, but I think I’ll start with Bonaventure Cemetery.”

“Their burial records are easy to access,” said Piper, sounding thoughtful. “But what I’d really like to do is sit down with Mr. Morton. I think he knows a lot more about all of this than he’d like me to believe. I found his picture this morning in my grandmother’s scrapbook. He was apparently working with her and Freddie Montet in the NAACP chapter here in Savannah.”

Helen turned around to where she knew the door she’d entered was and slid her hand down the wood. “There’s no door handle on this side.”

“No, there wouldn’t be,” said Tucker. “A disappointment room was just another name for a prison, really.”

Helen took a few steps to the right and her hand brushed against wicker. “What color was the blanket?”

“Light blue, like the little sweater I found,” Piper said.

Tucker moved to Helen’s side. His voice was agitated. “But what does any of this have to do with Malily?”

The hot air in the room settled heavily on Helen, like a winter coat worn on an August day. But it wasn’t just the heat; there was something else in the room that wearied her. Maybe it was the stark picture she had of it in her head, of the bare mattress and the empty bassinet; or maybe it was a lingering despair that had never been allowed to leave.

“I’m not sure,” Piper answered. “All I have are the letters my grandmother wrote to her, asking for Lillian’s forgiveness for something. I haven’t spoken to Lillian yet about any of this, but Helen has and we’re both convinced that Lillian isn’t going to tell us anything she doesn’t want us to know. She wants to tell her story—the one that’s recorded in her scrapbook. But both her scrapbook and my grandmother’s end before the baby was found in the river. Which means the end of the story will be whatever Lillian chooses to tell us.”

“Did you ask your grandmother about any of this?” Tucker asked, his voice strained.

“Not until it was too late. I’d been knocking around this house with my grandfather for nearly six years and I didn’t think to look in my grandmother’s trunk or ask her about her life until after my grandfather died. I took the sweater to my grandmother in the nursing home and she seemed to recognize it. It . . . it made her cry.”

“Did she say anything?” Tucker asked.

“Yes. She did. She said, ‘He’s gone.’ ”

Tucker walked across the room toward Piper. “That was all? She didn’t say anything else?”

With a voice thickened by tears, Piper said, “She did, actually. She said something about . . . about how every woman needs a daughter to tell her stories to. I left then. And two days later she died.”

Helen’s skin felt as if it might sag from the weight of the room. She remembered those words, of course. They were the same ones she’d heard from her own grandmother. There were so many missing pieces to the puzzle that it was hard to focus on just one. She touched the wicker bassinet again, as if it might hold an answer for her, or at least a clue. Her fingers plucked at a loose strand, pulling it free from the weave until it stood alone.
What’s missing?
she asked herself, wondering why the unwoven strand held such significance to her. The answer sidled up to her and shook her.

Helen turned toward Piper. “What about Josie? We haven’t talked about her at all—probably because we don’t have her scrapbook pages. But she’s as much a part of all of this as Malily and Annabelle. She was mixed-race but her skin was dark; couldn’t the baby have been hers? Maybe the three of them made a pact that they would never tell anybody about what happened. That’s why they tore up the scrapbook, and went their separate ways.”

“It’s possible, I suppose,” said Piper. “She did leave for New York around the time the news story appeared. But Josie’s dead. And there’s still the fact that my grandmother wrote to Lillian, asking for forgiveness for some unknown sin. There wasn’t any mention of Josie.”

Helen turned to Piper again. “Maybe Josie had children—a daughter. And maybe she told her daughter the story.”

“And maybe none of this is connected at all,” Tucker said, and he sounded hopeful. Almost as if he couldn’t believe that his grandmother could have been involved in anything as horrible as a room that hid things not fit for the outside world, or the mystery behind a baby found in the Savannah River. Or that Susan had known, and the knowledge had killed her.

“I’ll have a lot of research to do today, then,” said Piper. “The library on Bull Street has a local-history room as well as quite a few genealogical resources, where I might be able to find more information on Josie. Then I’d like to go to the Georgia Historical Society at Hodgson Hall on Whitaker Street to see what else I can turn up about my grandmother and Josie and see if I can find any more news articles about the baby.”

George stepped forward. “Earlene, come on. What are we—chopped liver? You have here six willing hands to help you, so please let us. Why don’t we split up? Helen and I can make a visit to the library, and you and Tucker can go to Hodgson Hall. We’ll get twice as much research accomplished in half the time. As long as you tell us what we need to be looking for.”

Helen looked away, not wanting anyone to see her face. He’d said
six willing hands
, not four. She pressed her hands together, if only to keep her from doing something stupid like cry.

“All right,” Piper said. “If everyone’s in agreement, we can do that.”

Tucker and Helen murmured their assent.

“Let’s go then,” said George as he touched Helen’s arm and led her through the door of the small room and back into the attic.

They waited until Tucker and Piper followed; then Helen paused, turning slightly back toward the secret room. She thought she’d heard something—something that sounded like a baby’s crying but could have been a bird in the chimney or the moaning eaves of an old house.

With a shudder, she turned her back and allowed George to lead her from the attic, aware all the time of the little room with more secrets than could be contained in a mere span of years.

I’d made the walk so many times from the house on Monterey Square to Forsyth Park that I probably could have made it with my eyes closed. In my early days in Savannah, when I was just starting to learn the secrets of her garden, my grandmother would take me to the park to study the flowers. We didn’t study them as a botanist would, captivated by their propagation and their ability to survive in the heat of summer. We studied them instead as a photographer would, focusing on the individual elements of each bloom: the shell-like interiors, the tiny veins inside delicate petals, and web-thin stamens that most people never bothered to see. But the beauty of the flowers was dependent on these elements, and my grandmother and I would smile at each other, sharing our private knowledge of the wonderful, secret world of the garden that seemed to exist only for us.

Tucker and I walked without speaking, being careful to make sure our arms didn’t touch. As we passed the edge of the park along Gaston walking toward Whitaker, Tucker finally spoke. “You and George, are you . . . ?”

I almost choked. “No. Definitely not. I think he would probably like to, but, well, no. If I had a brother, that’s probably how I would feel about him: nice enough, but not somebody I’d want to kiss.”

Eager to change the subject, I turned to Tucker. “I appreciate you doing this. I know you have other places you could be.”

His pace slowed. “Please don’t make me out to be some kind of a hero. I have my own reasons.”

“I know. Because of Susan. But I still think you’re a bit of a hero.”

He stopped and I stopped, too, and we faced each other on the sidewalk. “Why?”

I didn’t even have to think about my answer. “Because you get out of bed each day. Because you try. Because you love Lucy and Sara even though you’re still not sure how to show it. But you try.”

He stared at me, his eyes darkening, and I wondered if I’d made him angry again. Finally, he said,“I could say the same thing about you, Piper Mills.”

I blinked in confusion and looked away, then continued walking toward Hodgson Hall, feeling his presence next to me as he caught up.