Page 107 of Dreams of Falling
Bennett nodded.
“Good. I hope he looks worse than you. If not, I’ll go hit him with my pocketbook until he does.”
Ceecee sat down at the kitchen table with the bowl of water and dipped a dishrag in it with a little soap. “I’m guessing that Jackson wasn’t the nice boy I thought he was.”
Bitty’s laugh became a cough as she gave a gentle fist bump to Bennett’s bruised hand.
“No, Ceecee. Jackson is definitely not a nice boy,” I said.
She nodded, her lips pressed tightly together. “Glad you had this nice boy to help you figure that out.”
I glanced at Bennett. His good eye was on me, his lips lifting in a half smile. I blushed, recalling what he’d said outside on the porch.That was the night I realized I was hopelessly and pathetically in love with you. I still am.I quickly looked away, pretending to mix the soap into the water. How had I not known how he felt? I had a strong suspicion that Jackson had something to do with it. Not to mention the pervasive cluelessness I’d clung to like a life raft since I was old enough to talk.
Eager to change the conversation, I said, “I just picked up a voice mail from Gabriel. He found something interesting in the mural Mama painted in his shop.”
Bitty sat up straighter, and Ceecee seemed to be very focused on looking for Band-Aids in her kitchen drawer.
“You know how Mama liked to hide pictures in her murals? She did in Gabriel’s, too. I saw it before—it’s a beautiful scene of you two with my grandmother at Carrowmore, sitting near the Tree of Dreams. I think it’s somehow tied to the mural in my bedroom at Mama’s, where she painted four martins flying in front of Carrowmore, each with a ribbon in its mouth.”
“Four, huh?” Bitty said, her hand twitching as if searching for a cigarette. “I wonder what Ivy meant.”
“Gabriel said he found something else while he was moving tables in the shop. He saw two more people inside the house. One was a man, and it looked like he was carrying a child.”
Bitty and Ceecee glanced at each other, but didn’t say anything.
“Well,” Bennett said, his gaze focused on the pink water in the bowl, “she painted five people inside the house when it was on fire—three women, a man, and a little girl. We know that Margaret and Ceecee were in the house, so my guess would be that they’re two of the women.”
“One of them had red hair,” I said, looking at Bitty, whose fingers continued to twitch as she tried to appear uninterested.
“The man could have been a firefighter,” Bitty said helpfully.
I shook my head. “No—Mama was found with Ceecee outside the house when the firemen arrived. Could it have been Granddaddy?”
“He was at the hospital,” Ceecee said without hesitation. “He’d called me earlier and said that’s where he’d be for the duration of the storm. He was looking for Margaret and Ivy. Margaret was supposed to have taken Ivy to Augusta, you see...”
“And she didn’t?”
“No.” Ceecee dropped the washcloth in the bowl, then took the ice Bennett had been holding up to his eye and stood to empty it in the sink. “She said she felt safer at Carrowmore. It had been standing for more than two hundred years and had withstood so many storms already.”
“Just not fire,” Bitty said softly.
“Assuming the other two figures are Bitty and Granddaddy, why would Mama paint them in the house if they weren’t there?” I picked absently at my chipped nail, worrying it with my thumb.
“When she wakes up, we can ask her,” Ceecee said, letting the faucet run. But even her optimism had waned, her words as empty as our hope that my mother would wake up.
I continued to flick my cracked nail, faster now as if trying to keep up with my racing thoughts.
“Remember when I was at Carrowmore, and I found two ribbons in the tree? They were both new, so I assumed Mama put them there. One said, ‘I miss you. I wish I’d been given the chance to know you.’ I’m pretty sure thatwasMama, and she must have been talking about Margaret. She was only two when her mother died.”
No one said anything until Bennett asked, “And the other one?”
“It said, ‘Forgive me.’ The words were painted, instead of written with a marker, so it was hard to tell if the handwriting came from the same person. Hang on. I’ve got them upstairs—I’ll go get them.”
I made to stand, but Ceecee touched my arm. “Let’s talk about this in the morning, after we’ve all had some rest. I’m so exhausted, I can barely hold my eyes open. Bennett, you are welcome to sleep on the couch. Let me get you some fresh ice for your eye...”
“No.” The word came out as a shout. My emotions were raw, my patience having already run its course. I didn’t want to wait. I’d been a passive bystander to my own life for too long. “I’ll be right back.” I ran upstairs and joggled the vanity drawer to get it to open, the cigar box on top sliding toward me from the movement. I shoved it back, snagging my nail again, then grabbed the ribbons and ran back downstairs.
Three sets of eyes were watching me as I placed the ribbons on the table. “See?” I flipped on more lights to get a better look. I studied the words more closely, this time noticing how different they were, how the shapes of the letters were completely separate.
