Page 6 of Dreams of Falling
She watched their faces with her bright blue eyes, until Ceecee couldn’t take the suspense anymore. When the three of them went to the movies, she was always the one with her hands over her eyes during the scary parts.
“What, Margaret? Tell us!” she shouted.
“I’ve gotten permission from Mama and Daddy and my aunt Dorothy for us to stay with my aunt and my uncle Milton for a whole two weeks at their house in Myrtle Beach the day after we graduate! Mama said she’ll smooth it over with your parents—you know how good she is at that—and we can take her Lincoln Cosmopolitan convertible!”
They squealed with excitement and jumped around the room, avoiding the wet paint, their arms thrown around one another. This would be the trip to say good-bye to their girlhoods, Ceecee thought. To embrace the women they’d someday become. And maybe have some fun along the way.
Margaret ran to her dresser drawer and pulled out a rolled-up ribbon. “Hurry, y’all. It’s going to rain, and we need to get this done before Mama makes her phone calls.” She stopped, facing them with a solemn expression. “This marks the beginning of the rest of our lives. I want you both to always remember this moment.”
They raced down the curving front stairs, through the wide central hall to the back door, which had been left open, a screen filtering in the scent of rain and the tidal river at low tide. Angry clouds sat on the horizon, casting out the sun and dulling the colors of the river and marsh.
As they ran, Ceecee looked back—just once. She loved seeing the great house of Carrowmore from a distance and never tired of its graceful lines and perfect symmetry. But the clouds had dimmed the vivid brightness of its white paint, making the old house and familiar landscape appear as a fading memory.
Hollowed-out gourds hung from the limbs of the river birches, elms, and oaks that dotted the lawn past the formal gardens. It wasnear sunset, and a large flock of purple martins dipped and swirled as they returned to the gourds, their nests for the night. Ceecee stopped for a moment to look up, hearing the chirps and rattles. She realized she’d never hear them again without remembering right now, this threshold they were all crossing.
The ancient oak tree, with its sweeping drapes of moss, waited at the end of the lawn near the river, its arms seemingly outstretched in welcome. Margaret walked right up to the opening in the trunk and stuck her ribbon inside.
“Hurry—the rain’s going to start any minute, and I’ve just washed and set my hair.”
“But won’t somebody be able to reach in and take ours out and read them?” Bitty said.
Margaret shook her head. “The birds will come and take them and use them in their nests. Granddaddy used to say they were the go-betweens from this world and the next. You want them to take your words and bring them where they need to go.”
“What does yours say?” Bitty said.
As she spoke, a streak of lightning flitted across the sky, and a fat drop of rain landed on her cheek.
“Hurry,” Margaret said, already taking two steps back toward the house.
Bitty and Ceecee rolled up their ribbons and stuck them inside the tree, neither indicating how crazy this was. Margaret Darlington had the kind of power that made sane people do insane things.
The sky opened up with a sudden, drenching downpour as they ran back across the lawn to the old white house.
“What did you put on your ribbon?” Ceecee called again, her voice nearly drowned out by the loud bark of thunder above.
Margaret laughed her laugh that always turned heads, throaty and melodic like a movie star’s. “The same thing you did!” Her long legs helped her overtake her two friends, so that she made it to the back porch first, her blond hair darkened by the rain to the color of sea oats in autumn.
A strong wind pushed at Ceecee’s back, and an odd sound floatedthrough the rain toward her. She stopped and turned, saw the birdhouse gourds swaying from their tethers, their round holes like tiny mouths opened in surprise as they keened in the wind.
Shivering, Ceecee began to run again, spotting Margaret on the porch, dripping with water. She looked more beautiful than ever, her hair slicked back, revealing the fine bones of her face. Ceecee felt anger again, at the “more” Margaret always seemed to achieve without trying. Angry, too, that the wish she’d carefully written on the ribbon had to be shared.
It didn’t occur to Ceecee until much, much later that all legends and myths have a drop of truth in them. And that she should have listened to her mother about being careful what she wished for.
four
Larkin
2010
On the hour-and-a-half drive from the Charleston airport to Georgetown, I thought I’d get acclimated to being home. I listened to the radio, eventually settling on a station playing mixed rock hits, songs I could identify before the first chorus. There was something reassuring about that, a reminder that I hadn’t completely shed my skin.
It had been nearly a year and a half since I’d been to South Carolina, having skipped the past Christmas visit. I’d said I had plans to go skiing with friends. It was a lie, but sitting home alone in my Brooklyn apartment was so much easier than returning to my childhood. Each visit was like slowly peeling off a Band-Aid, and my pattern of avoidance was now a habit.
After landing in Charleston, I sped up Highway 17, worry over my mother pressing my foot a little harder on the gas pedal. I made the mistake of rolling down the windows. As soon as I caught the redolent scent of the marsh and saw the first roadside sign advertising butter beans and bait, I knew I’d traveled much farther than the six hundred or so miles separating me from New York. Whoever said you could always go home again had never met my family.
Both Bennett and my daddy called twice while I drove, but I didn’t answer, citing road safety as my reason. Like I needed one. At least by the time I pulled into Ceecee’s front drive, I’d managed to stop crying and pretend I had it all together. I’d had a lot of years to practice.
Now, not ten minutes after I’d arrived, I was heading down Ceecee’s driveway again. Ceecee had promised to tell me where we were going while I drove, but she and Bitty were too busy interrupting each other for much of the story to emerge intact.
