Page 11 of The Lost Hours
He reached out a hand toward Lucy and tucked her pale blond hair behind her ear. She responded by leaning into him like a daisy toward the sun, pulling her little sister with her. “I’ve got plans.”
Lillian tilted her head back to stare into his face. “Plans?”
His lips tightened. “Yes, plans. That don’t involve children. And if you can’t watch the girls, I’ll find other arrangements.”
She watched as Sara squatted to smell the lavender, the bow on her dress untied and dragging in the dirt. Lucy simply stood next to her father wearing the same unreadable expression, the color blanched from her cheeks like sun-bleached shells on the beach.
Lillian kept her voice light, knowing Lucy was listening to every word. “That’s not necessary, Tuck. We’ll be happy to watch the girls.” She put her hand on Lucy’s head, feeling the warmth through the fine strands of hair. “Just . . . try not to be too late. Maybe you can join us for coffee when you return.”
“Maybe,” he said, his eyes averted as he gave her a quick peck on the cheek before gathering both girls in a stiff hug.
Only Sara seemed oblivious to the awkwardness. She held out a sprig of lavender to her father. “For you, Daddy,” she said, shoving it under his nose before kissing him heartily on the cheek.
“Thanks, sweet pea,” he said softly as he straightened, tucking the sprig into the pocket of his starched buttoned-down shirt. His eyes met Lillian’s for a moment, and they recalled that he hadn’t called Sara by her nickname since Susan’s death more than a year before. It was as if that one event had renamed them all and taught them to speak in separate languages.
“Good night, Lucy,” he said.
Lucy kept her head down, her gaze firmly planted on the row of lavender.
Tucker turned and began walking toward his Jeep, then stopped. “Oh, before I forget—Helen and I rented out the caretaker’s cottage. To a genealogist. She’s doing research on families in the area.”
Lillian struggled to keep her composure. “But I thought . . .” She swallowed back the wave of anger. “I assumed that with Susan no longer here to handle the rental property that we could just close it up. . . .” Her voice trailed away, and she was aware that she’d said those very same words more than once.
His hands fisted in his pockets. “I know,” he said, his words clipped. “But then this woman called, and when Helen told me she was a genealogist, I felt obligated to Susan to say yes.”
Despair settled on Lillian like dusk in the marsh; suddenly and completely she found herself in darkness. “Tucker—what about your practice? And your girls? Wouldn’t they benefit from your time more?”
He studied her for a moment before dipping his gaze to his daughters, who stood mutely together, their hands held between them.
“I don’t think I’m a good influence on anybody right now.”
Despite the pain in her back and the need to sit down, she raised her chin. “Perhaps you’re right. But don’t wait too long. You don’t want to give yourself something else to regret.”
He glanced at her with what looked a lot like dislike in his eyes but she didn’t shrink back. “Good night, Malily.”
The three of them turned to watch Tucker climb back into his Jeep and peel out of the gravel drive, throwing up dirt and rocks behind him.
Lillian crooked each arm out, knowing the girls wouldn’t want to touch her ruined hands, and waited for each to take an elbow before leading them to the door tucked under the front porch between the twin curving sets of stairs that led upward. She’d had the elevator installed nearly five years earlier when she’d found herself unable to tackle the steps. As the door closed on the sunlight behind them, she missed being able to enter her own home from the front doors, and the old familiarity of the four Doric columns that had always seemed to embrace her and welcome her home.
The sound of the television set blaring from the back parlor welcomed them as soon as they stepped out of the elevator. Sara skipped ahead, unable to curb her energy but Lucy held fast to Lillian’s arm, making Lillian feel much older and frailer than she actually was. It seemed to her that the end of her life had come much too quickly, that there was still so much to be done. And now Annabelle was dead. For the first time in many years, Lillian wished she were young again. She wanted to scream and shout and throw things, and curse at the vagaries and unfairness of life. But even when she had been young and had the body and the energy, she would never have outwardly shown any of those emotions. Despite dreams to the contrary, Lillian Harrington-Ross had never done anything that was not expected of a gently bred Southern woman. Except once, and seventy years later she was still living with its ghosts.
Helen sat in the back parlor on the old settee with Susan’s yellow Lab, Mardi, at her feet. The old dog had mourned for his mistress for a couple of weeks, refusing to eat and wandering aimlessly around the stables and house looking for her. And then in resignation he had attached himself to Helen. Maybe he’d viewed Helen’s disability the way most people did, assuming that without her sight she was the most vulnerable of those Susan had left behind.
Helen patted the cushion on either side of her to let the girls know she wanted them to sit. Sara raced over and bounced into her seat while Lucy took the more leisurely approach by sitting gingerly on the edge. With the remote control, Helen flicked off what appeared to be theJerry Springer Showand patted each girl on the head. “I guess Malily and I have company tonight. It’s a good thing I put on my new dress.”
Lillian eyed Helen’s red silk cocktail dress, overdone, as usual, for another evening at home. Although five years older than Tucker, Helen was still long, lean, and stunning, her hair as dark as it had been when she was a girl and without benefit of Clairol. Being blind since the age of fourteen had neither blunted her beauty or her wild streak. And Helen would have liked to make everyone believe that she’d inherited both from her grandmother. Only Lillian knew how much of that was true.
Lillian sat carefully in her favorite stuffed armchair. “Your dress is lovely, Helen. Where did you find it?”
Helen smiled as she reached for her cigarette case on the table in front of her. “Thank you. I do like it. The new nanny, Emily, took me into town this morning and helped me pick this one out. I wanted red, and she promised me this was the reddest red dress she’d ever seen.”
“It’s definitely red,” Lillian said, trying hard to keep the disapproval out of her voice. But it was a lovely dress, and the silk was finely woven. It had taken Lillian a while to understand Helen’s reasons for the way she dressed but she’d eventually learned that it had everything to do with Helen’s sense of touch. It was as if instead of her hearing or taste becoming stronger when she lost her sight, everything had become focused on what she could feel at the end of her fingertips.
“You shouldn’t smoke, Aunt Helen,” Lucy said somberly. “Daddy said it would make your lungs turn black and kill you. And he’s a doctor, so he knows these things.”
Lucy looked alarmed as Helen reached toward the coffee table for her lighter. Still smiling, she flicked the lighter and moved it to the end of her cigarette. “Sweetheart, that could be true for most people. But not for me because lightning never strikes twice. I figure being blind would be enough to make the hand of fate pass right over me when handing out bad news.”
Lucy looked up at her aunt with eyes dark enough to be called black, and always appearing darker still when contrasted against her pale hair. “That’s not what Mama said. She said bad things happened to good people all the time.”
