He demonstrated the aiming process and blabbed endlessly about the trigger and firing. Finally, he handed her the rifle. “Got that?”
Millie took the rifle and cocked it. “Like this?”
“Don’t point it at me, goddamn it!” He nearly knocked the rifle from her hands. “Didn’t that useless father of yours teach you anything? Never point a loaded weapon at somebody unless you mean to fire it.”
She took exactly five steps backward, her heart pounding. The words she heard in her head weren’t Russell’s but instead, her dear, sweet papa’s.
“That’s the girl, Millie,” he’d said. “Plant your feet wide to absorb the shock of the recoil. Sight it. Hold your breath. Pull down steadily on the trigger.”
Russell was tipping the flask up to his lips. His eyes widened in disbelief. Millie held her breath and pulled.
The blast echoed across the field and knocked her onto the ground. Slumbering birds rose up, squawking from the treetops, but Millie was momentarily deafened. She stood up, her ears ringing, knees shaking badly, her hands still trembling.
The minutes ticked away slowly. Finally, she forced herself to walk back to the truck. The single shot knocked Russell onto his back in the bed of the truck. The silver flask, her engagement gift to him, was still clutched in his hands. She picked it up and tucked it into the waistband of her slacks. Somehow, she managed to push his body backward far enough to close the tailgate.
Millie slid behind the wheel of the truck and clutched the steering wheel with both hands, trying to still the waves of nausea and panic.
The first few purplish-pink streaks of sunlight broke over the distant treetops. It was nearly dawn. She had to get back to the house. Finally, when her hands quit shaking, she pulled out the flask and drank the last few swallows of bourbon.
She was searching for the cap when out of the corner of her eye, she saw movement. As she watched, wide-eyed, a buck emerged from the tree line. His rack was so magnificent it seemed like he might topple over from the weight of it. He walked slowly into the emerging daylight, swung his head in the direction of the truck and, for just a moment, seemed to be staring directly at her. Two seconds passed. The buck turned his muzzle upward, alerted to something. Finally, with a swish of his white tail, he bounded back into the tree line, back to safety.
“Goodbye, Zeus,” Millie whispered.
Swallowing her fears, Millie gripped the steering wheel to head back to the mansion. Just as she was about to pull onto the main road, she heard a car coming and stopped, just short of the intersection. It was the roadster! She dove for the floor, praying she wouldn’t be noticed, and by the time she pulled herself back to a seated position, she saw Josephine’s dark hair whipping in the breeze, and Gardiner, upright in the passenger seat, beside his sister.
She felt a deep wave of longing and regret—and something else—as the car passed. And then Millie squared her shoulders and drove back toward Shellhaven. She allowed herself to feel nothing. Except relief.
82
Brooke stood up and kicked off her shoes. She unzipped the sleeveless black sheath dress she’d worn to the funeral and pulled it off over her head. “Who’s up for a swim?” she asked.
Lizzie and Felicia jumped to their feet and immediately began to strip.
“Come on, Marie,” Lizzie urged. “There’s a first time for everything.”
“Yeah, Mom,” Brooke said, reaching down to help her mother stand.
“Oh, my goodness.” Marie giggled. “I’m too old for this nonsense.” But she turned around to allow her daughter to unzip her chic black silk dress, then folded it neatly and placed it on top of the basket with the wine bottles.
“I’ll just swim in my bra and panties,” she said.
“Nuh-uh. No way,” Felicia said. “Skinny-dipping means naked.”
“As a jaybird,” Brooke agreed, tugging at the back of her mother’s bra.
“Y’all going in without me?” Varina struggled to get out of the lawn chair.
“Auntie Vee! Of course we’re not going without you.” Felicia and Lizzie each took Varina by the arm. She stood, and her fingers fumbled as she tried to work the buttons on her blouse.
“Let me,” Felicia said, and a few minutes later, the old lady stood naked and beaming up at the full moon overhead.
By unspoken agreement, the five joined hands and walked slowly toward the waves, pausing as the warm ocean lapped at their ankles, wading farther in until the water was neck-high on the tiny nonagenarian Varina.
“Ooh, this feels so good,” Varina squealed. “But don’t let go, y’all. You know I can’t swim. I’m afraid that tide will pull me clean out to sea, and I’ll end up naked in some country where they don’t even speak English.”
“We’ve got you,” Lizzie promised, clutching Varina by the elbow.
The old woman let the water sweep her off her feet, and for a few minutes she floated, bobbing tranquilly in the gentle waves, until one swept her under and she emerged, sputtering and coughing, then giggling at the sheer absurdity of the situation.
*
It was nearing midnight as the women, laughing and talking softly, finally made their way back to the Packard.
It took two tries, but finally the engine turned over, and Marie carefully backed the car onto the pavement. They were passing the lighthouse when Lizzie tapped Varina on the arm.
“Varina, do you ever think about that night? The night y’all skinny-dipped and then slept at the lighthouse keeper’s cottage?”
“Hmm?” Varina yawned. “Sometimes I do. Other times it seems like everything that happened that night and the next day was all a dream, it was so long ago. I miss my old friends Ruth and Millie. And now Josephine. Can’t hardly believe I’m the last one here.”
Lizzie gave her a conspiratorial look. “Since everybody else is dead now, it wouldn’t hurt, would it, if you told us where Russell Strickland is? I mean, it would make such a powerful ending to my magazine story if we knew.”
“Hush!” Felicia said fiercely. “She doesn’t want to think about that. Or talk about it.”
“It’s all right, honey,” Varina said. “I don’t reckon it matters anymore. Maybe it would give C. D. peace to know it.”
“You really don’t have to tell us,” Marie assured her.
“No. I think it will be like finally owning my own story,” Varina said. “Go on down the road here a little ways, Marie, then turn like you’re going to the dock. When you come to the two oaks that look like they’ve grown together, right before the road to the dock, you take a right at that fork, and you keep going until you see the creek running in front of you.”
Marie drove slowly, following Varina’s directions until the pavement ran out, and they were on a narrow shell road that grew narrower still, and darker, with the thick oak canopy overhead nearly blocking out the moonlight.
Varina peered into the inky night. “I hadn’t been back here since that night. We all swore we’d never come near here again.”
“It’s okay,” Marie assured her. “You don’t have to do this. I’ll back out of here, and we’ll go on back to the house.”
“No,” Varina said stubbornly. “It’s right up here. See that break in the trees? Stop there.”
Marie cut the engine but left the headlights on. The warm night air folded in on them like a blanket. They heard the insistent thrum of cicadas and the croaks of tree frogs. From somewhere overhead, a pair of owls hooted from the tops of opposing trees.
A swarm of stinging gnats descended upon them, and soon the women were frantically slapping and trying to wave them away.
“This is the place,” Varina said solemnly. She opened the car door and stepped out, clinging to the side of the car for balance. The others followed suit, with Felicia taking her great-aunt’s arm.
“Just a little ways up here,” Varina said. Her steps quickened, and in two minutes they stood in a clearing dominated by an imposing oyster shell mound.