Page 30 of Dreams of Falling
Ceecee forced herself not to swallow the sudden lump in her throat, afraid Larkin might hear her. “Of course. Can it wait until morning? I’m simply exhausted...”
“No. It really can’t. It’s about the fire at Carrowmore.”
Ceecee glanced up the stairs to make sure Bitty wasn’t at the top, listening.
“All right. Come into the parlor and we’ll chat. Can I get you a glass of sweet tea or a piece of cake?”
Larkin shook her head. “No. Thanks.” She moved into the parlor and dropped her purse, but didn’t sit down. Instead, she headed to the mantel and absently picked up Ceecee’s wedding photo. “Bennett told me about my grandmother. About how she died.”
Ceecee decided she should sit down even if Larkin didn’t. “It wasn’t his place to tell you.”
“No, it probably wasn’t. But I suppose we were both wondering why nobody thought to mention it to me before. I’m twenty-seven years old, Ceecee. When did you think I’d be old enough to know that my grandmother died in a house fire? Or that the house she died in still belongs to our family and will belong to me when I turn thirty?”
“I...” Ceecee rubbed her arms under her housecoat, feelingsuddenly very, very cold. “It was such a horrible thing. And it happened long before you were born. Your mother...”
“She was there. Bennett said she was in the house. And so were you. You saved her, but you couldn’t save my grandmother.”
Unshed tears filled Larkin’s eyes, and Ceecee felt her own eyes filling. “It was the worst night of my life, something I never want to think about. I never talked about it to Ivy because she’d been there and I didn’t want her to suffer any more than she already had. Not that she ever really forgot. She remembered it in her nightmares. You remember those.”
“Her dreams of fire.” Larkin moved to an armchair and sat down heavily. “It’s why I started analyzing dreams. So I could help her understand them. So I could help her stop. But I only ever thought they were nightmares—not memories from her past.”
Ceecee hugged herself, the cold now penetrating her bones. “I didn’t talk about it with you for the same reason I didn’t talk about it with your mama. Some things are too sad, and best left in the past. I just wanted to protect you both.”
Larkin looked up at the ceiling. “That never works, you know.” She met Ceecee’s eyes. “You saved Mama’s life. I would have liked to grow up knowing that.”
Ceecee avoided meeting Larkin’s eyes, turning instead to look at the photo on the mantel. “Would it have made a difference?”
“Maybe.” Larkin’s voice sounded less confident than she’d probably intended. “Maybe if I’d known about Mama’s first husband, and how she’d lost her mother in a fire, I might have been able to help her instead of dogging her every step.” I swallowed. “I might even have avoided the disaster I became.”
“You were never a disaster. Ever. It seems to me that the more we try to dissect our pasts, the more we try to go back and relive them. Trust me, it’s more important to pick up the pieces and move forward and live our lives the best way we can. I’ve never been a fan of leftovers.”
She pushed herself to her feet, feeling more tired than she remembered feeling in years. “If you’re done with your questions, I’m going to bed. Please turn off the lights before you head up.”
Larkin stood, too. “Bennett also said that Ivy was trying to challenge your trusteeship so that Carrowmore would be mine now instead of waiting for three more years. Did you know that? Did she say anything to you? And why wouldn’t the house be held in trust for Mama instead of me?”
Ceecee heard herself gasp, felt the space around her heart exhale. “She never wanted anything to do with Carrowmore, which is why, after you were born, she and your grandfather set up the trust. But, no, she never said anything to me about changing anything.”
“She also went to see Jackson Porter to ask him about the insurance policy on the house when it burned—who the beneficiaries were. In case you were wondering, he didn’t know—all the records were lost in the Hurricane Hazel flooding in 1954.”
Ceecee began walking toward the bottom of the stairs, each step seemingly interminable. She looked at the heavy carved balustrade, focusing on it. If she could reach it, and hang on to it, she could make it to her bedroom without collapsing. “I don’t know. You’ll have to ask your mother when she wakes up.”
“Mack said that developers have approached you about selling Carrowmore. Maybe Mama found out about that, and that’s why she started questioning the trust.”
Ceecee leaned against the newel post, all the fight in her gone. “They did, and I didn’t give them the time of day. As for the insurance money, it’s all in the trust waiting for you. Along with other Darlington assets that belonged to your grandmother at the time of her death. I’ve never touched a cent.” She took a deep breath. “Good night, Larkin. I hope Ivy wakes up tomorrow so we can ask her all of these questions. Because she’s the only one who can answer them.”
“Good night, Ceecee.” Larkin watched as Ceecee slowly climbed the stairs. She paused at the top, then walked toward Ivy’s bedroom. When her husband had died, Ceecee had slept in Ivy’s empty bedroom, unable to bear the emptiness of her own room, of the cold sheets in the bed next to her. In the beginning, she’d slept on his pillow, smelling his scent, balling up his pajamas so she could press them against her heart. But eventually she’d had to launder the sheets,replacing his scent with that of the detergent. That was when the emptiness began. The search for another place to sleep so she could pretend she was traveling somewhere alone where she wouldn’t expect another person in the bed with her.
But tonight, she couldn’t. She could almost hear Ivy slamming the door in her face, blocking her out like she’d done so many times as a teenager.Why, Ivy?The question burst like a bubble out of her heart, stinging her in the chest.Why did you go to Carrowmore?
A loud bout of coughing came from Bitty’s room, and Ceecee walked over to the closed door, hovering her fist over a raised panel and preparing to knock. She stayed that way for a long moment before silently lowering her hand and walking toward her bedroom.
She crawled into bed and lay on her side for a long time before rolling over and grabbing the other pillow, smelling it deeply as if it might still hold his scent. Instead, she imagined she could smell Joy perfume, the cool touch of the stopper on the inside of each wrist. Then she closed her eyes and remembered.
•••
Ceecee
1951
