Page 46 of The Lost Hours
Tucker nodded, understanding as she knew he would. “I’ll see you at supper.”
She raised an eyebrow, but didn’t risk saying anything in case he changed his mind. She watched as he walked back toward the garden gate, stopping once to pick up something from the brick path. He turned it over in his hand and studied it for a moment, then pocketed it before snapping the latch closed behind him.
I sat in the kitchen of the cottage, the air cool enough to leave the windows open. A breeze stirred the scrapbook pages in front of me on the table, the paper rustling with impatience. I’d put the scrapbook aside to go through Lillian’s papers, knowing already that I’d find nothing I needed in them. What I needed was Lillian’s scrapbook pages to read alongside Annabelle’s, but I knew Lillian wouldn’t part with them, especially to a stranger.
Dutifully, I’d taken notes on everything I’d seen in Lillian’s papers, and when Tucker had sent over a family tree—via Helen—that Susan had made, I’d plugged everything into my genealogy software if only because it gave me something to do while I waited for the answers I sought to come find me.
The blue knit sweater and baby blanket lay on the table next to the scrapbook as a reminder of why I was here. I felt the softness of the sweater again and raised it to my nose, still smelling the mothballs and dust. I was no closer to discovering who had owned these two things, or who had lived in the hidden attic room of my grandparents’ house than when I’d first arrived. But somehow I didn’t feel as despondent as I should have.
I gave the girls riding lessons four times a week—up from the proposed twice-a-week schedule because Lucy had asked and because I really wanted to. She was good—really good—with the confidence and ease of a much older rider. But she also had a hint of recklessness and fearlessness that made me outwardly scold her. Secretly, though, I applauded her sturdy little character, knowing she had what it took to be a solid competitor when the time came. Sara made me laugh with her plodding pony and Lucy made me remember what it had been like to be fearless. Through them, I found myself easing my way into days in which I didn’t dread getting up in the morning.
I stared at the scrapbook bundle for a long moment before opening it up and finding the place where I last stopped. Most of the entries I’d read so far were filled with the mundane aspects of my grandmother’s adolescent life: outings with Lillian and Josie, horseback riding on Lola Grace at Asphodel, and more mentions of Freddie. She never wrote about any romantic feelings toward him, but the sheer number of times his name was mentioned made me wonder.
With the sweater and blanket cuddled in my lap like a small child, I began to read:
May 30, 1934
I was supposed to give this book and Lola to Lily back in March, but I don’t seem to have as much time to visit Asphodel—or to write in this book. But I get sore at Lillian for saying she’s too busy to write in it, so I can’t slack off, too, or she’ll become Miss Know-it-all.
At least I know I’m spending my time constructively. Now that I’m eighteen, my father says I’m old enough to help him on some of his doctor visits, especially if the patient is a woman. He said that a lot of women, especially in childbirth, seem to relax more in the presence of another female. I don’t do much but hold hands and give to Papa whatever he asks for, but I don’t get tired of it. There’s something about bringing life into the world or helping to alleviate the suffering of those already here that never tires me. Papa said that there will be a day when there are just as many women doctors as men, but I can’t see that happening.
Today Papa went to help a woman who seemed not much older than me deliver her fourth child. Since no one else was present, I kept the younger children out of the way, playing with them and feeding them lunch with whatever scraps I could find in the kitchen.The oldest boy had a stick he pretended was a machine gun like the ones Bonnie and Clyde used to rob all of those banks. Everybody’s talking about them now because of how they were killed last week in Louisiana. I saw a picture of their car, with all those bullet holes in it, and I couldn’t help but wonder if all that excitement and passion in their lives could have been worth ending that way.
Papa also taught me to drive his Ford. It was scary at first, but now I love it and I do think I’m a better driver than he is (although I could never tell him because it would hurt his feelings). Papa said that now I’m all grown-up and taking on new responsibilities, I should start thinking about a husband and family. I didn’t answer him. I think it’s because the first thought I had was, Why I would want to settle down so soon after finding my freedom for the first time?
I’m putting a picture in the scrapbook of me behind the wheel of Papa’s car. Paul Morton, the thirteen-year-old son of Papa’s lawyer, took the picture of me and gave it to me as a gift. Papa said the boy is sweet on me and I laughed because he’s still just a child.
P.S. I’m adding a charm of a Model T to Lola.
I sat up at the mention of Paul Morton’s name. He had said he’d known my grandmother, but that was all. I smiled to myself, thinking of old Mr. Morton as a young boy with a secret crush on a girl five years older than himself and wondering why he hadn’t mentioned it to me.
I turned back to the scrapbook pages and continued to read. I skimmed over the entry from 1935, a simple laundry list of Annabelle’s household chores and her duties with her father, quickly turning the page in the hope that her next entry might be more interesting. I wasn’t disappointed.
January 15, 1936
Tonight is a night of celebration. Thurgood Marshall, a lawyer for the NAACP, has successfully won his case to admit a black student into the University of Maryland Law School. Freddie told me it would happen and he’s so persuasive that I think that even I believed it a little. But now it’s fact, and the course of public education in this country is bound to change.
Papa said that there might be trouble brewing in the streets tonight and that I should stay home. I didn’t want him to worry, so Josie and I snuck out of my window with Freddie’s help and we went to an establishment on West Bay Street that I knew Papa wouldn’t approve of, regardless of his liberal views of society. I was the only white woman, but I felt safe and protected by Freddie, who commands a great deal of respect wherever he goes. I had my first taste of whiskey (Papa definitely wouldn’t approve!) and I almost swooned, which made Freddie laugh and that alone was worth the embarrassment of being such an ingenue. He doesn’t laugh a lot, and it always makes the world a whole lot brighter when he does.
Josie ended up singing on the bar where some of Freddie’s friends had lifted her and I was amazed again at what a presence she had and what an incredibly beautiful voice. She’s been talking a lot about moving to a northern city, where there are more opportunities for women of color. I love her like a sister, but I can’t be selfish and demand she stay with me. She tells me that she’s not serious, that even the famed Josephine Baker was called a “Negro wench” in theNew York Times,and she would starve or worse if she left Savannah. But I think she should follow her dreams, wherever they might lead. I confided in her something I’ve never told anyone: that I want to be a doctor like my father. I have no idea how I’ll accomplish getting into medical school, but if Josie has the courage to pursue her singing, maybe I can do this, too.
I spend a little bit of every day in my garden. Josie’s mother, Justine, has officially handed it over to me, putting me in charge of the herbs and vegetables that she uses in the kitchen in addition to my beautiful blooms. She says I have a way with flowers, that all I have to do is touch dry earth and something beautiful springs from it and that my mother was the same way. It makes me feel close to the mother I barely knew, imagining her working by my side as I dig holes for bulbs or tie back vines that have become unruly. Justine told me that my mother liked her garden a little wild, so I’ve let a section of lantana go without pruning, and I like the way it makes its way to the back porch—like a reminder that even flowers have their own wild nature if left to themselves. My garden is a bit like my soul, I think; its blooms like refreshing rain to my spirit. I’ll take a few rose clippings to Lillian next time I see her as a sort of peace offering for her own garden, a permanent tie between us and the gardens of our hearts.
I haven’t been up to Asphodel Meadows in over a month. Lillian hasn’t written or called—she says she doesn’t have time because she’s too busy with her social life and her horses. I know there’s something else, but she won’t admit to it. It doesn’t matter—she’s the sister of my heart and I forgive her for everything. Always.
Her new horses aren’t the pure breeds she was used to, but instead horses whose owners have abandoned them because they could barely feed themselves, let alone an animal. She’s acquired four so far and her father says that feeding them will bring them all to ruin, but Lillian’s being allowed to keep them.
Freddie is still working at Asphodel and says he’ll take me this weekend to see Lillian and to ride. It’s been so long and I wonder if my restlessness is because I haven’t ridden Lola Grace in so long, or if it’s because of something else I feel shimmering on my horizon. Maybe when I’m at Asphodel with Lillian, Josie, and Freddie this feeling will go away as I sink back into the comfort of how it was when we were younger. But I’m afraid something has changed for all of us; maybe it’s just because we’re older now. Or maybe it’s something else entirely.
I wore Lola to the celebration party, and the charm I added was a dove, which symbolizes peace—a hopeful symbol that all Americans seeking education shouldn’t be denied.And that the rumblings of war in Europe that Papa is always grumbling about won’t touch us here.
Yet when I turn off my light at night, the restlessness returns like a persistent insect, pecking at me until I finally manage to fall asleep.
I stared at the picture of my grandmother standing in front of an old black sedan next to an older man I imagined to be her father. She was holding a large black doctor’s bag and smiling a secret smile that made me think of her dream to be a doctor.
I pushed the scrapbook pages away from me, their splayed position like that of a dead bird, then gathered the blanket and sweater in my hands, burying my face in their softness.My grandmother had wanted to be a doctor.I felt as if I stood before a locked room and I couldn’t shake the impression that Lillian held the key high above my head, where I couldn’t quite reach it.
And yet I felt no compunction to continue reading. I was like a person stumbling down a hill trying to stop my descent, knowing that reaching the bottom would hurt. I knew how my grandmother’s story ended; but I didn’t know the part in between that had turned an independent-minded young woman who loved horses and wanted to be a doctor into the thin shade of a person I had known. There was a large part of me that didn’t want to know the truth, didn’t want to see the part of her that might be a part of me, too.
