Page 64 of Dreams of Falling
I sat back, trying to place a distance between the paper and me. “What does that mean?” I knew what it meant, of course. I just needed someone else to say it out loud before I could believe it, and I was suddenly glad that Bennett was right there, sitting so close to me that I could lean on him if I needed to.
He shrugged. “I’m guessing it means that someone—I’m thinking my grandfather—didn’t believe the fire that caused your grandmother’s death was accidental. Remember, this was almost sixty years ago. They didn’t have the forensic capabilities we have now. So maybe ‘suspicious’ just means there was a lack of evidence to rule on one side or the other.”
“Is there any more of the official record in here?” I asked.
“No. Just a few clippings about hurricane damage and flooding in the area, and a couple of articles about your mother, who was a toddler at the time.” He riffled through the small pile of newspaper articles, and slid one toward me. “This talks about how Ceecee was found unconscious on the front lawn, her body thrown over Ivy’s to protect her. Ceecee was called a hero, but apparently she couldn’t remember what happened or how she managed to escape.”
I looked down at the photo of my mother, about age two, her fine hair pulled back with an enormous bow. She sat on someone’s lap—I imagined it was my grandmother’s—smiling into the camera. There was something pure and untouched in her expression, and I realized I’d never seen my mother without haunted, burdened eyes that always seemed to be looking beyond what was in front of her.
My first instinct was to put all the papers back in the folder, out of sight. To move on to something new, to forget. Because that was whatI’d always done. The whole reason why I’d left was to start over and pretend I didn’t have a past.
“What are you going to do now?” Bennett asked, his tone expectant instead of chiding.
“I don’t know,” I said without meeting his eyes. “It all happened so long ago.” I looked down at my grandmother’s photo. She was younger when she died than I was now. “I wonder if Mama might have found something—maybe that’s why she went to ask Jackson about the insurance on Carrowmore. I’ll just wait for her to wake up, I guess.”
“Larkin.” Bennett’s voice was gentle.
“I know.” I paused, taking a deep breath. “She might not.” It was the first time I had allowed myself to truly consider it, to press on that particular bruise.
“You know you’ve got people here. You don’t have to go it alone. And you’ve got your daddy. He’s dying to be a part of your life again.”
I looked away. I’d been avoiding that whole situation, hoping I could put it off till I left again. “He left a message on my phone this morning. Wants me to come over later.”
Bennett just looked at me, which was worse than him scolding. Uncomfortable, I looked at the obituary and fire record again, and the handwritten, double-underscored wordsuspicious. I thought of my quiet studio apartment in Brooklyn, the bare walls of my cubicle. The gym where I worked out every evening but knew no one’s name. That was my life now, and if I wasn’t exactly happy, I was content. The past was done; there could be no changing it or reliving it.
“Just a thought,” Bennett said, reminding me of when he tutored me in high school algebra and he was about to point out a big flaw in my calculations. “Wasn’t Bitty good friends with your grandmother and Ceecee? She might know more.”
“Does it really matter now? I don’t see the point in raising the dead.”
“Don’t you?” he asked. “Because the way I see it, what happened to your grandmother affected not only your mother, but Ceecee, too. It dictated the way you were raised. Aren’t you the least bit curious?”
“Not really,” I said, although his scrutiny was making me squirm.“It’s all tragic and sad, but even if we rebuild Carrowmore, there’s nothing we can change. Thank you for showing me all this, though. I had no idea how much I looked like her.”
He avoided my gaze by stacking folders and papers on top of the card table. “I have to go back to Columbia tomorrow. There are some work projects I need to deal with that can’t be done from here. But I’ll be back Friday—just in time for the Shag Festival.”
I was surprised by the disappointment I felt knowing he wouldn’t be just a few blocks away. Which was silly, really, because we’d been in different states for the last nine years and I’d barely thought about him. “You’re not serious about taking me to the festival, are you? Because I doubt I even remember the steps.”
He smiled, and my insides did that warm, twisty thing again. “Like I said before, it’s like riding a bike. Your body will remember what to do.”
Before I could argue, he’d stood and pulled me up with him. “I’ll do the eight-count while you hum ‘Never Make a Move Too Soon’ by B.B. King. And don’t tell me you don’t know how it goes, because you know every song ever written.”
Taking my right hand firmly in his left, he stepped backward with his left foot, making me move forward with my right. “One-and-two, three-and-four, five-six,” he said as I hummed.
And he was right. I did remember, my feet easily moving with the familiar steps, my hand held tightly in his as if he was afraid to let me go. I remembered parties in his parents’ backyard and how I used to wish Jackson Porter would stop by and ask me to dance. How I used to pretend sometimes that Bennett was him. Looking at Bennett now, I couldn’t remember why.
I kept humming until I realized he’d stopped counting, and then I stopped, too. We stood absolutely still, facing each other with our hands clasped. The space was quiet enough that I could hear the cicadas in the trees outside, and our heavy breathing that matched the rhythm of my thumping heart.
“Dinner’s ready,” Mabry shouted from the doorway. Bennett and I quickly moved apart.
“Perfect timing,” I said, hoping my voice didn’t sound as high-pitched as it did to me. “I’m starving.”
Without looking at Bennett, I followed Mabry to the house, trying to reconcile all I’d just learned with the unsettling knowledge that the past wouldn’t let me go no matter how much I wanted it to.
twenty-two
Ivy
2010
