Page 56 of The Lost Hours
He raised an eyebrow that reminded me so much of Lillian that I almost smiled. “Because it would take more than just an interest in your grandmother’s story to entice the Piper Mills I’ve read about. Impossibly high jumps, sure, but not a cross rail. I’m right, aren’t I?”
I thought of denying it, and not just because I’d withheld the same knowledge from Lillian. It was more the threat of the unknown—of the certain understanding that my grandmother knew something about that baby, and had maybe had a part in its fate. I met Tucker’s gaze, seeing the boy who’d been afraid of thunderstorms as a child, and how he still wore that vulnerability close to the surface of his skin. It connected him to me, as if reaching out to him could heal the parts of both of us that had once seemed damaged beyond repair.
I took a deep breath. “In my grandmother’s scrapbook, I found a news clipping from nineteen thirty-nine about the body of a black baby boy found in the Savannah River. The scrapbook stops before the date of the article, so there’s nothing in it that might give me a clue about who the baby was or why my grandmother would have kept the newspaper clipping. But there had to be a reason.”
A slow rumble of thunder rolled overhead and I watched as Captain Wentworth stilled, his ears alert.
Tucker’s gaze didn’t move from my face. “Before Susan . . . died, Malily suspected she might have found a letter Malily wrote to Annabelle, apologizing for a lie. I don’t know what it was about—Malily wouldn’t tell me. But it might explain why Susan just . . . changed. Almost overnight. She stopped sleeping, and spent most of her time in the office in the cottage where you’re living now. She started using again; I was sure of it but I couldn’t find any evidence. And she kept poring over papers and Malily’s scrapbook and letters. She was obsessed. In the beginning, when she seemed to be identifying herself with Malily as a younger woman, both her doctor and I initially thought it was a good thing because she seemed to have found something that filled the void that she’d been used to filling with pills. And then . . . something. Something that made her just snap.”
I looked at him in horror. “And you think it could somehow be related.”
He shrugged. “I don’t really know what to think. All I know is what you’ve told me, and what my grandmother told me. What if Susan found whatever it was that linked their stories together; and what if it was bad enough that it sent her over the edge?”
“Like the deliberate death of a child?”
He stared at me for a moment, his eyes cold. A flash of lightning ripped through the sky outside, and the horses shuffled in unison, sensing change like blades of grass in a strong wind. Tucker shot a glance through Captain Wentworth’s stall to the small window, watching the gathering storm.
“So what now?” I asked carefully, unsure of my own footing. “Lillian didn’t ask me to leave. She assumed you would do it for her.”
Reluctantly, he dragged his eyes from the window opening, and I saw the struggle there—the same struggle I imagined a horse made when presented with a higher jump. Sometimes, all it took was the right lead and the conviction that flying was sometimes allowed. “I’m not sure,” he said slowly. “And I don’t think Malily is, either. She asked me to find you, you know. She’d changed her mind. But now . . .” He shook his head. “Now I think she’d probably choose to die with a clear conscience, but I don’t think she wants the world to see what she’s been keeping hidden under her bed all these years, either.”
I steeled my voice so it wouldn’t break. “I need to do this,Tucker.” I took a step forward. “Lillian said that she’s the only one left who remembers the truth. I want to know what that truth is. Ineedto know. I owe it to my grandmother.”
His jaw clenched. “You lied to me. With Susan . . .” He shook his head. “I can’t abide lying. I don’t know if I can trust you.”
I shifted my feet, reminding me of the horses and the oncoming storm. I waited, afraid of what he’d say next.
“But I can’t forget that you saved Sara’s life, either.”
The wind blew harder outside, pushing against the wood of the barn and lifting my hair, reminding me of riding into the wind on the back of a horse. And for a brief moment I allowed myself to imagine riding again. I waited for the fear to come, the indecision. But instead I felt only emptiness, with neither passion nor glory, and for the first time since my accident, I saw possibility. “Can I stay? Please? At least until I find the answers I need.” The desperation had crept into my voice but I no longer cared.
Without answering, he shot a glance outside to the darkening sky. “It’s getting ready to storm.” He stood close to me and I closed my eyes for a moment, smelling the rain and the horse and Tucker, and my world snapped for a brief moment. He touched my arm and I opened my eyes, but he didn’t say anything else as lightning flashed in the distance.
“Helen told me that you were afraid of thunderstorms.”
He shifted away, and he was lost for a moment, revisiting places I couldn’t see. “I’d forgotten that,” he said, just as the first fat drops of rain began to hit the dirt path leading from the barn. He reached out his hand. “Come on. We’ll make a run for it before it starts pouring.”
I hesitated for a moment, reading more into his words than I should have. Then I grabbed his hand and followed his lead, and couldn’t help but wonder as we ran toward the old house with its odd alley of trees if it was already too late.
CHAPTER 17
A whippoorwill called out in the night, reassuring me that I wasn’t alone. The storm had continued long after Tucker brought me back to the cottage, cleansing the earth and the air and matching my mood of renewal. I hadn’t been to confession for years, and for the first time in a long while I felt the lightness of spirit caused by unburdening myself and saying penance.
But the storm continued to ravage the night, robbing me of a much-needed but elusive sleep. When it subsided I was wide-awake, my thoughts focused on my grandmother’s scrapbook pages. I needed to finish reading them in the hope that I would be given another chance to speak with Lillian. Tucker had yet to answer my question, and it was still uncertain if I would be welcome at Asphodel after tomorrow.
I listened to the rain drop from the eaves of the house and the whippoorwill calling again into the clearing sky and began to read.
February 4, 1937
Lillian is missing. Again. It’s not the first time and I’m sure it won’t be the last time, but it is the first time her father’s ever caught her. Her father arrived this morning, sweating and flustered and demanding that I go fetch her so that he could bring her home. I haven’t seen Lillian in almost a month, but I had a good idea where she was, and it wasn’t in a place or with anybody her father would have approved of. So I lied. I’ve gotten quite adept at lying lately, and I place all the blame at Lillian’s feet and on my own inability to admit to myself what I really want out of life.
Things have changed for all of us. I think it began the night of Lily’s come-out ball, but maybe the winds of change had begun to blow long before that. I suppose it’s all part of growing up in an uncertain world. I yearn for social equality for all men and women, just as I yearn to be a doctor to minister to the most needy. But I can’t seem to keep my dreams on a steady course. I feel as if I spend most of my time helping Josie and Lily determine their own courses; I’m proud that they turn to me, that they respect my resourcefulness and intelligence. But I can’t help but sense that if I don’t begin to focus on my own needs, they will be forever lost to me.
I told Mr. Harrington that Lily was making her rounds to all the society ladies in town, and that I hadn’t gone with her because I was needed to tend to my father.This all began when he’d told Lily that he expected her to be married within the year, after which she quietly went to her room without argument. He didn’t find her missing until that evening when she didn’t appear for supper, and he assumed she’d come here for me. He had half of it right, at least.
I calmed him down and told him that my father had developed a bad cough that had sent him to his sickbed for the first time I could remember (which is true). I explained to Mr. Harrington that I needed Lily with me to help care for my father, who doesn’t seem to be getting any better. I assured him that my father would undoubtedly be up and about by the weekend after an extended and much-needed rest and then we would send her home. I can only hope that gives me enough time to find her before it’s too late and her reputation is beyond repair.
I admit, too, of being a bit jealous of Lily. She is not afraid of following her passion, regardless of the consequences. I fear consequences a little too much, I think, which makes me hesitate. Lily claims that kind of behavior will get me stuck in the middle of the road in the face of oncoming traffic.Yet I fear that her relentless pursuit of passion will find her in a place in which she will have no way out. I suppose when we’re old women we will look back together and she will laugh at me and claim that her life was fun with no regrets. And I will look back and wonder if I ever did anything passionate enough to warrant any regret at all.
