I’m relieved when she automatically looks to my father, not me, in regard to the next Senate race. I feel life shifting toward its old balance, and I’m glad. It’ll be easier to tell them there won’t be a politically advantageous wedding in our garden during azalea season. I’m not ready to broach the subject yet, but I will.
Being here, seeing May and my grandmother together, makes me all the more certain of it. All the more certain of myself. “You don’t have to worry about Trent. He wouldn’t do that. He’s a friend. If it weren’t for his grandfather, Grandma Judy’s sisters never would have found her. She wouldn’t have learned the truth about her past.”
My mother’s expression indicates that she’s unconvinced it wouldn’t have been better that way.
My father’s face says otherwise. “I’d like to talk to Mrs. Crandall a bit.”
Honeybee’s mouth falls open a little. Then she pops it shut, straightens herself, and nods in acquiescence. Whatever path my father chooses, she will walk it right beside him. This is how my parents have always been.
“I think May would welcome that. We can leave the four of you alone so she can tell you her story.” Hearing it from May, in her own words, will bring it home to my father, I hope. This is our family history.
“You can stay,” my mother says uncertainly.
“I’d rather just let you have a bit of time.” Really, I want to be alone with Trent. I know he’s dying to ask how my parents took the news about Grandma Judy. He keeps looking at me through the cottage window.
He’s obviously relieved when we stand and cross to the door. Inside, my grandmother is talking about a boating trip down the river. She speaks of it as if it happened yesterday. Apparently, May bought a jon boat at one time. Grandma Judy is laughing about the four of them floating off down the Savannah River when the motor wouldn’t start.
My father moves tentatively to a chair, looks at his mother as if he’s never seen her before. In a way, he hasn’t. The woman he remembers was an actress playing a role, at least partially. For all the years since her sisters found her, there have been two people inside the body of Judy Stafford. One of them is a senator’s wife. The other carries the blood of river gypsies.
In this little cottage, on yet another Sisters’ Day, the two meld into one.
Trent is more than happy to vacate the premises with me.
“Let’s walk up the hill,” I suggest. “I wanted to grab a few pictures of the plantation house ruins…just in case this whole thing falls apart and we never come back here again.”
Trent smiles as we pass through the gate and leave the cottage gardens behind. “I don’t think it will.”
We walk the path to the edge of the trees. I think of Rill Foss becoming May Weathers all those years ago.
Could she ever have imagined the life she would live?
The sunlight warms me as we cross into the open field and start up the hill. It’s a beautiful day—one that hints at the upcoming change of the seasons. The shadow of the mansion’s ancient remains falls on the grass, making the towering structure seem solid again. My hands shake as I take out my phone and snap photos. This isn’t really why I wanted to come here. There was a reason I felt the need to move out of sight of the cottage…and out of earshot.
Now I can’t find the words…or the courage. Instead, I take a ridiculous number of pictures. Eventually, my ruse runs out.
I swallow a sudden onslaught of butterflies, try to muster up the necessary fortitude.
Trent beats me to it. “You’re not wearing the ring,” he observes, his eyes filling with questions when I turn to him.
I look down at my hand, think about all that I’ve learned since I accepted Elliot’s proposal, then moved back to South Carolina to do what was expected. That feels like a different life, the music of a different woman. “Elliot and I talked. He doesn’t agree with my decisions about Grandma Judy and May, and he probably never will, but it’s more than that. I think we’ve both known for a while now that we’re better as friends than as a couple. We have years of history between us, a lot of fond memories, but there’s just something…missing. I think that’s why we’ve avoided setting a date or making firm plans. The wedding was more about our families than it was about us. Maybe in some way, we’ve known that all along.”
I watch Trent as he studies our shadows on the grass, frowning contemplatively.
My heart flutters, then pounds. The seconds seem like taffy, sticky and slow-moving. Does Trent feel the way I do? What if he doesn’t?
He has a young son to consider, for one thing.
I don’t know exactly where I’m going in life, for another. Working with the PAC will give me time to find out who I want to be. I like setting things right that were wrong. I think that’s why I’ve dug so deeply into May’s story, why I’ve brought my grandmother and May here this afternoon.
An old wrong has been set right today, inasmuch as is possible all these years later.
There’s a sense of satisfaction in that, but now the questions about Trent eclipse it. How does he fit into the future I’ve only begun to imagine? His family and mine are so different.
His eyes catch the light when he looks back at me. They’re the blue of deep water, and for the first time I realize that perhaps we’re not as different as we seem. We share a rich heritage. We’re both descended from the river.
“Does this mean I can hold your hand?” He smiles along with the words, raises an eyebrow, and waits.
“Yes. I think it does.”
He turns his palm up, and I put my hand in it.
His fingers close over mine, a warm, strong circle, and we walk up the hill away from the ruins of a life that was.
And into a life that can be.
CHAPTER 26
May Crandall
PRESENT DAY
Our story begins on a sweltering August night, in a sterile white room where a single fateful decision is made amid the mindless ravages of grief. But our story does not end there. It has not ended yet.
Would I change the course of our lives if I could? Would I have spent my years plucking out tunes on a showboat, or turning the soil as a farmer’s wife, or waiting for a riverman to come home from work and settle in beside me at a cozy little fire?
Would I trade the son I bore for a different son, for more children, for a daughter to comfort me in my old age? Would I give up the husbands I loved and buried, the music, the symphonies, the lights of Hollywood, the grandchildren and great-grandchildren who live far distant but have my eyes?
I ponder this as I sit on the wooden bench, Judy’s hand in mine, the two of us quietly sharing yet another Sisters’ Day. Here in the gardens at Magnolia Manor, we’re able to have Sisters’ Day anytime we like. It is as easy as leaving my room, and walking to the next hall, and telling the attendant, “I believe I’ll take my dear friend Judy out for a little stroll. Oh yes, of course, I’ll be certain she’s delivered safely back to the Memory Care Unit. You know I always do.”
Sometimes, my sister and I laugh over our clever ruse. “We’re really sisters, not friends,” I remind her. “But don’t tell them. It’s our secret.”
“I won’t tell.” She smiles in her sweet way. “But sisters are friends as well. Sisters are special friends.”
We recall our many Sisters’ Day adventures from years past, and she begs me to share what I remember of Queenie and Briny and our life on the river. I tell her of days and seasons with Camellia, and Lark, and Fern, and Gabion, and Silas, and Old Zede. I speak of quiet backwaters and rushing currents, the midsummer ballet of dragonflies and winter ice floes that allowed men to walk over water. Together, we travel the living river. We turn our faces to the sunlight and fly time and time again home to Kingdom Arcadia.
Other days, my sister knows me not at all other than as a neighbor here in this old manor house. But the love of sisters needs no words. It does not depend on memories, or mementos, or proof. It runs as deep as a heartbeat. It is as ever present as a pulse.