Page 54 of Dreams of Falling
“Please wake up, Mama. There’s so much we need to talk about.”
Larkin seems so near tears, and my heart breaks a little more. She’s pulled out that gold necklace Bitty gave her, and she’s playing with it. I didn’t want Bitty to give it to her. I thought she was trying to tell Larkin she could choose where she belonged. As if she could call anywhere else home. I understand the pull of this place, how you can’t leave no matter how hard you want to. When your blood runs with salt water, you might as well drop anchor and get comfortable.
“We’re having a consultant meet with us at Carrowmore on Friday to see if it’s salvageable. It’s Daddy’s idea, and he says he’s working for our best interests.” She reaches for a tissue and blows her nose, the sound like a flock of geese flying across the room. “It would be so much easier if you’d just wake up and tell us what you think. I know it will all belong to me, but only because you gave it to me, and I’d like your thoughts on what I should do. I really would like to know why you went to Carrowmore that day of your accident. I think the ribbons you put in the tree are some kind of clue, but I can’t figure it out.”
I want to answer her, but I can’t because I no longer remember why. I struggle to recall, but my memory keeps taking me down the same path, to me refinishing a desk in Ceecee’s detached garage, then parking my car at Carrowmore before walking toward the Tree of Dreams with a ribbon in my hand. One ribbon. Not two. A shock of light flits through my body, and I’m transported upward again, and I’m looking down at my bed and at Larkin, who’s taken my hand in hers.
She’s talking, and I’m listening carefully because I know this is important. “I think I understand what the first ribbon is about—the one that said ‘I miss you. I wish I’d been given the chance to know you.’ That’s about Margaret, my grandmother, isn’t it? You never got to know your mother because she died when you were so young. I get that. I also believe that’s the same reason why you never wanted to own Carrowmore, and gave it to me instead.” Larkin lets go of my hand and leans back in her chair.
She tilts her head to look up at the ceiling, and for a moment I wonder whether she can hear the crackling, see the light creeping through the openings. But then I see she’s doing it so that she can cry without the telltale tears running down her face.
“I wish I’d known about Ellis. Then maybe I would have seen your need to always try new things as a desperate need to be happy. We might have been able to figure out how to be happy together. And I wouldn’t have made myself so miserable trying to be someone I wasn’t.
“I don’t blame Ceecee, you know. I was so angry with her when I left—yet another reason why I stayed away. But my therapist helped me see that Ceecee had made lots of mistakes trying to cover for your absence and to make me feel special. It’s hard to find fault in someone who just has love in their heart for you, you know?”
The crackling noise continues, and behind it I hear the rumble of a car engine. For once I want to tell it to go away, that I need to hear what Larkin is saying.
“I don’t understand the other ribbon, Mama. The one that said ‘Forgive me.’ Who are you asking? And why?”
Silence again, and I know she’s really holding out for me to answer her. I see the flash of a yellow dress somewhere over in the corner by the window, and I know it’s my mama because Ceecee said that yellow was Mama’s favorite color. It’s why when I made clothes for Larkin, I used a lot of yellow. Sort of as a nod to us Darlington women. I always felt that despite everything, we had that bond.
Larkin’s question lingers in the room, the machines keeping me alive pumping and moaning like floundering fish. And I’m remembering something, too—something in one of Ceecee’s stories she’s been telling me, something important about Mama. I couldn’t answer Larkin’s question even if I could speak. Because I didn’t put two ribbons in the tree, just one. And the one I stuck in the tree’s opening didn’t sayForgive me.
•••
Ceecee
1951
Ceecee struggled to fit back into her old life once they returned from Myrtle Beach, but it was as if she’d returned from summer camp and found that all of her school clothes no longer fit. She wondered if hermother noticed how her feet no longer seemed to touch the ground when she walked, or how she daydreamed through most of her days while going through the motions of her chores. She barely even protested when Will Harris stopped by for supper and Ceecee’s mother had her sit next to him, and even suggested they sit out on the front porch while she brought them lemonade. She did protest, however, when Will leaned over to kiss her, turning her head just in time for his wet lips to glide across her cheek.
Ceecee wasn’t allowed to use the telephone in their house—it was solely for church business, just in case a parishioner needed her daddy—so she had to walk over to Bitty’s house or wait for Bitty or Margaret to pick her up and take her to Carrowmore to make a quick call to Boyd. They’d say hello and then hang up; then Boyd would call right back so he’d take care of the long-distance phone charges.
The calls would be short with only quickly whisperedI love yous and, before they hung up, a reminder of how many days they had to wait until they’d see each other again. Ceecee couldn’t remember two weeks dragging by so slowly, and kept a calendar under her mattress where she could painstakingly mark an X through each day as it ended.
At the very least, it told her how many days she had to tell her parents about Boyd. That he was kind, and smart, and a gentleman. A doctor. And that she’d met him in Myrtle Beach and he was planning on coming to Georgetown to meet them, and to speak with Dr. Griffith about taking over his practice when it was time for the older doctor to retire. She knew they’d love Boyd once they met him, but they would be highly suspicious of him until then since they hadn’t known him since birth, and didn’t know who his people were. Which was why she was waiting until the very last moment to tell them, giving them less of a chance to interrogate her.
She didn’t mention that Margaret’s new beau was Boyd’s brother and that she was already dreaming about being real sisters with Margaret if they should marry brothers. Ceecee knew that any connection with the Darlingtons wouldn’t endear Boyd to her parents, so she kept silent. She also had no doubt that if they did discover they’d been toMyrtle Beach unchaperoned for two weeks, they’d put her in a convent, Catholic or not, and never allow her to see Margaret or Bitty or Boyd ever again.
Reggie called Margaret every day, but not from Charleston. He’d decided to visit a law school buddy in Charlotte to give himself some thinking time. Even though Margaret pressed him for decision, he told her to wait. She’d told her parents that she’d met a nice young man, and when Mr. and Mrs. Darlington said they knew of his family and were suitably impressed with Reggie’s lofty ambitions, they approved him as a worthy beau for their daughter and allowed the phone calls. Margaret hadn’t mentioned Reggie’s proposal, or her plans to forgo college, but as with everything else in her life, everything would go her way. It always did.
The three young women were at Carrowmore in the middle of the second week following their return, Boyd and Reggie not due for their visit until the following Monday. Margaret met them on the front steps, and Ceecee could see right away that something was wrong. Her eyes were swollen, her nose pink—neither of which detracted from her beauty—and when Ceecee and Bitty approached her, she started to cry.
They moved to either side of her, led her up to the porch, and sat her down in the middle of the porch swing before joining her. “What’s wrong, Margaret?” Ceecee had never seen Margaret cry, at least not as if what she was crying for really mattered.
“Reggie didn’t call today when he said he would.”
Ceecee felt enormous relief. “Well, that could be for any number of reasons. Maybe he’s sick, or had an unexpected family obligation. Did you try phoning him?”
Bitty lit a cigarette, after making sure Mrs. Darlington was still safely inside the house. “Why, goodness, Ceecee, every properly brought up young woman knows it is simply tacky and ill-bred to call a gentleman.” She rolled her eyes, then blew out a mouthful of smoke.
Ceecee frowned at her over Margaret’s bowed head. “Of course you shouldn’t call—you don’t want your future in-laws to think you’re fast.” She put her arm around Margaret. “I’m sure there’s areason and he’ll call tomorrow, and next week when he’s here with Boyd, we can all laugh about how worried you were.”
Margaret lifted her head, her damp eyes like a blue crystal vase Ceecee had once seen at Berlin’s department store in Charleston. “Do you really think so?”
“Absolutely,” Bitty said. “And if for some reason he doesn’t, I will get on the phone myself and call and pretend I’m the housekeeper at his dormitory back at school and say he left a watch or something behind and I’m trying to get it to him. Seeing as how I don’t mind lying to strangers to get an answer or calling a man’s house, I’ll be happy to do it.”
Margaret giggled, and Ceecee relaxed. Throwing her arms around her two friends, Margaret said, “You gals are the best friends I could ever have hoped for. What would I do without you?”
