Page 89 of Dreams of Falling
“I was afraid you were going to say that.” She handed the album to Ceecee. “I’ll be on the dock if you need me.” She walked to the foyer, then retraced her steps. “What did you mean about fulfilling an obligation?”
The tightness in Ceecee’s heart came back again, the weight of the years pressing hard against her chest. “To Margaret. Because she died so young. Before she could see her daughter or granddaughter grow up.”
“But it wasn’t your fault.” Larkin’s eyes were sad as they regarded Ceecee, her expression so much like Margaret’s that Ceecee thought her heart might break all over again. “Whether or not you needed to be, I’m glad you were always there for me.”
Larkin gave her a small smile, then disappeared around the corner. Ceecee didn’t move until she heard the slamming of the back door. Then she sat down, took the photograph from her pocket, and began to cry, only vaguely aware of it slipping from her fingers and onto the floor.
•••
Ceecee
1952
Ivy Darlington Madsen arrived on an early-February evening. Her birth was almost as quiet an affair as Margaret and Boyd’s wedding with the justice of the peace. Bitty and the court clerk were the witnesses. Ceecee remained at her mother’s house, tending roses, prickingher fingers repeatedly until her mother told her to weed the vegetable patch instead.
As promised, Ceecee visited Margaret every day of her pregnancy, making sure she ate and taking her for walks in the Carrowmore gardens. She made sure they stayed far from the Tree of Dreams, focusing instead on Mrs. Darlington’s beloved cutting garden, planted with boxwood and southern yew hedges and decorated with silver germander, sage, and dainty flowering serissa. She and Bitty drove Margaret into Charleston several times to buy supplies for the baby and the nursery. Despite the baby’s untimely existence, it would want for nothing.
Boyd was busy with his growing medical practice. Gradually, he took over more and more of the work from Dr. Griffith; his hours were long, which made it easy for Ceecee to avoid him. She could almost pretend that he was back home in Charleston, that Margaret’s husband was someone else entirely. It was easier that way.
The week of Margaret’s wedding, she’d begun to dream of drowning. The cool water of the river would sweep over her head, and she’d be looking up through the surface to see the Tree of Dreams and Carrowmore. She would drift farther and farther from shore, reaching out her hand for someone to grasp, but no one did. She’d jerk awake just as her feet touched the riverbed, gasping to fill her lungs with air.
Bitty said it was because she wouldn’t confront the reality of her life and that as soon as she did, she could sleep again. But Ceecee couldn’t let it go. The pain was all she had to hold on to. The only thing keeping her afloat.
So, each day Ceecee visited a demure version of Margaret she hadn’t quite gotten used to yet, checked on the progress of the pregnancy and Margaret’s health, and then crossed off the day on the calendar, as if she were a prisoner marking time until release.
She and Bitty were with Margaret when her water broke. Before Boyd or an ambulance could be called, Margaret announced that the baby was coming; true to the impulsive and impatient Darlington nature, the baby was born in the foyer at Carrowmore on Mrs. Darlington’s Aubusson rug. Boyd and Dr. Griffith were both on housecalls, so it was Ceecee’s mother who cut the umbilical cord and delivered the afterbirth, declaring the rug already ruined.
When she made to hand the squalling baby to Margaret, Margaret looked at it for a moment, her face a mask of pain and grief, then turned her head. So Ceecee’s mother gave the baby to Ceecee.
“What are you going to name her?” Mrs. Purnell asked gently, her gaze on Margaret.
“Ivy,” Ceecee said, looking down at the bundle in her arms. Their eyes met. When people talked about love at first sight, Ceecee would always remember that moment. Because that’s what it was between her and Margaret’s daughter. As soon as she was placed in Ceecee’s arms, Ivy quieted and began suckling on her fist, her warm round body pressing against Ceecee’s chest as soothing to her heart as honey.
“Ivy,” Margaret repeated, her voice dry. “Her name is Ivy Darlington Madsen.” Her eyes were glazed with pain, and darkened with sorrow and despair. Despite everything, Ceecee felt pity for her. Margaret had made a mistake, a permanent one. Overwhelmed by grief at the loss of her parents and the man she loved, she had snatched at the closest solution. But as Ceecee’s mother had told her more than once, making a decision in haste was like building a house on a swamp.
“Ivy,” Ceecee repeated, looking into the baby’s perfect face, pink and rounded because little Ivy had decided not to go through the trauma of a long childbirth. “She’s beautiful,” Ceecee said, surprised to find herself close to tears. “Just like her mama.”
“Don’t say that,” Margaret said, turning her face away again. “Make sure she knows she’s smart and strong. Those qualities will help her through life a lot more than just beauty.”
“Go fill a basin with warm water so we can properly wash mother and baby,” Mrs. Purnell said to Bitty. Turning to Margaret, she said, “I don’t want to move you until Boyd gets here, but do you think if we prop you up on some pillows, you would be able to nurse the baby?”
Margaret’s dead eyes fell on Ivy, as if she finally comprehended what had just happened, that she had brought another human being into the world and had absolutely no idea what she was supposed to do next.
“We bought powdered formula and bottles,” Bitty said. Ceecee could tell by her shaking hand that she was dying for a cigarette.
Ceecee’s mother gave a curt nod. “That’s probably best.” She put a gentle hand on Ceecee’s arm. “Are you okay with feeding the baby?”
Ceecee lifted her chin and met her mother’s sympathetic eyes. She’d not told her mother everything, but somehow her mother knew. Knew of her heartbreak, and her resolution to survive it. Maybe that’s what being a mother was—not so much the act of giving birth, but the sense of understanding and love born from the need to protect. “Yes,” Ceecee said, looking down into Ivy’s face as the baby began to cry a pitiful chirp that sounded like a tiny bird.
After the baby had been washed and a diaper placed on her small bottom—after only three tries—Ceecee settled into a rocking chair in the nursery upstairs. She held the bottle to Ivy’s rosebud lips. When Boyd said they could pretend the child was theirs, she hadn’t believed him. How could someone without blood ties ever love a child the way a real mother would?
But sitting in the chair and feeding Ivy, feeling the warm body relax against her own and the tiny hand encircle her finger, Ceecee knew that she could.
The door opened and Boyd was there, filling the doorway, his eyes on hers. For a brief moment she allowed herself to believe that Ivy really was theirs, that Margaret and Reggie didn’t exist, and that they were a family of three.
“Hello, Sessalee,” he said hesitantly, hanging back.
The sound of her name on his lips brought her back to harsh reality, the bottle slipping from Ivy’s mouth and making her cry. Ceecee quickly replaced it, glad for the distraction.
