Page 17 of The Lost Hours
“I’ll see you at breakfast, then.”
He answered by shutting the door in her face.
“I love you, too,” she shouted through the closed door before turning and leaving, allowing Mardi to lead the way.
As Helen made her way back down the brick walk, she heard footsteps crunching on gravel approaching her. She stopped and smiled. “Earlene?”
The footsteps stopped. “How did you know?”
“You’re the only person I know of on the property right now who walks with a limp.”
“Oh. Well. That makes sense, I guess.” Earlene’s voice was tight, like a dam had been built to prevent any words from tumbling out.
Helen smiled gently. Earlene Smith was a mystery to her. Helen usually prided herself on developing images in her head of the people she met just by listening to their voices and the way they moved. But when she tried to picture Earlene, a blank canvas flickered through her mind. “I’m sorry if I’ve made you uncomfortable. Being blind makes me notice things that seeing people deliberately overlook.” She quickly changed the subject, sensing Earlene’s discomfort. “You also sound out of breath. Did you walk all the way from the cottage?”
“Yeah, I did. Everything seems a lot closer on the map you gave me.” She rattled the map in her hand. “I was looking for the old family cemetery. It’s supposed to be near this house.”
Helen nodded. “You’re very close. This was the family home for a few years while the big house was being built. They needed a cemetery pretty soon after they moved in here, unfortunately. Smallpox epidemic. Took their two youngest children and a visiting cousin.” She held out her arm. “If you’ll give me your arm so that I don’t trip on any roots or rocks, I’ll take you to it.”
Cool fingers touched her hand and guided it to Earlene’s elbow. The skin was warm and smooth, and Helen’s sensitive fingertips felt a long, raised scar on the inner side of the elbow. “Thank you. And I’m glad I ran into you. I forgot to ask you yesterday for your deposit check. Do you think I could have it today?”
Earlene was silent for a moment as Helen guided them both back toward the house. “Would it be all right if I gave it to you in cash?”
“Yes, of course. I normally don’t even suggest it because I don’t find many people carrying around so much cash.”
“Yes, well, I’d rather just handle it that way.”
Helen nodded, thinking it odd but somehow fitting in with the mystery of Earlene Smith. “We’re going to cut to the right here and cross the lawn until we reach the live oak with the tire swing leaning on it. My brother made it for his girls last year although he hasn’t hung it yet.”
Helen heard Mardi dash past them, most likely in pursuit of a squirrel. She laughed. “I’m glad I don’t depend on him as a guide dog. I might end up in a tree.”
Earlene laughed, too. “I haven’t had a dog in a long time.” She paused for a moment and then added, “It’s hard to remember what it’s like.”
Helen turned her head toward her companion, hearing the wistfulness in her voice, and something else, too. A forced aloofness, maybe, and a fragileness, too. Helen thought of the scar on Earlene’s elbow and the limp and wondered if her internal scars were there, too, and if they were just as permanent.
Earlene brought them to a stop. “We’re at the tree. Where next?”
“To the left. In about ten yards or so, you should see a small dirt path that will lead us into a wooded part. If you stay on the path there’ll be a clearing with an iron fence around it. You should be able to see the tombstones from there.”
Earlene pulled her arm in close. “Be very careful here. There’re lots of rocks and debris in the grass.”
“Thanks. And remember not to come out here at dusk. The no-see-ums are out then and those suckers can bite. Don’t bother with repellent, either. That stuff is like vitamin water to them—makes them bigger and stronger, I think.”
They continued walking, listening to Mardi’s collar clink and his heavy panting as he bounded around them. The area around the cemetery was Helen’s favorite part of the plantation. It was the place she remembered colors the most: the blue of the sky, the mossy greens and browns of the trunks of the sweet gum and hickory trees, the buttery yellows of the asphodels that sprouted untended inside the cemetery gates like flaming arrows thrown by the gods. The memory of faces had faded with time, but the colors remained, bright flashes of light against perpetual darkness.
Helen could tell by the way Earlene relaxed her hold on her arm that they had reached the clearing. Slowly, they progressed around the perimeter of the fence to the gate where Earlene paused. “It’s beautiful here. The light here seems . . . I don’t know. Softer.”
“I know. When I was a little girl, I used to say that it seemed the sun was shining through angels’ wings.” Helen laughed. “I like to come here and paint sometimes when I can find somebody patient enough to bring my easel and paints and guide me in and out.”
“You paint?” Helen could hear Earlene’s struggle between politeness and curiosity.
“I haven’t been blind my whole life—not until a high fever at the age of fourteen. I loved to paint before and found no reason to stop now.” She could sense Earlene looking at her, hesitating. “What is it?”
Earlene took a deep breath. “I’m just . . . curious. Your grandmother’s house—it’s so dark. Being here, with this beautiful light, it just made me wonder . . .”
Helen reached out her hand and touched the cold metal of the wrought-iron fence, then slid her fingers up to the top of the arrows that pointed toward heaven and pressed her thumb down hard. “It’s always been that way, even when Tuck and I were children. What makes you ask?”
She felt Earlene shrug next to her. “My . . . aunt. She was that way, too. After she went away to live in a nursing home, I ran around opening up all the blinds. I’m thinking that maybe as we get older, our eyes must get more sensitive to the light.”
