Page 43 of Twelve
“Greer Waters is chairing the Symphony Ball,” Aunt Olivia murmured, clearing away John David’s plate and depositing sandwich number three in front of me. “Between you and me, I think she’s bitten off a bit more than she can chew. She just recently married the father of one of the debs. There’s trying and then there’s trying too hard.”
This from a woman who had made me three sandwiches since I’d walked in the front door.
“Inanycase,” Aunt Olivia continued, lowering her voice, “I am just certain she’ll have CapitalOOpinions about the way your grandmother has arranged things.”
Arranged things for what?This time, I didn’t bother saying a word out loud.
“I know you must have questions,” my aunt said, brushing a strand of hair out of my face, seemingly oblivious to the fact thatI had been asking them. “About your mama. About this family.”
I hadn’t expected this kind of welcome. I hadn’t expected affection or warmth or baked goods from a woman who’d spent the past eighteen years ignoring my mother—and myexistence—altogether. A woman that my mom had never even once mentioned by name.
“Questions,” I repeated, my voice catching my throat. “About my mom and this family and the circumstances surrounding my highly inconvenient and scandalous conception?”
Aunt Olivia’s lips tightened over a pearly smile, but before she could reply, Lillian Taft entered the room wearing a gardening hat and gloves and trailed by a pale, thin woman with brown hair knotted severely at her neck.
“Always grow your own roses,” my grandmother advised me without preamble. “Some things should not be delegated.”
It’s nice to see you, too, Lillian.
“Some things shouldn’t be delegated,” I repeated. “Like party planning?” I asked facetiously, eyeing the woman who’d followed her in. “Or like greeting the prodigal granddaughter when she arrives at your home?”
Lillian met my eyes. Her own didn’t narrow or blink. “Hello, Sawyer.” She said my name like it was one that people should know. After an elongated moment, she turned to the party planner. “Could you give us a moment, Isla?”
Isla, as it turned out, could.
“You look thin,” Lillian informed me once the party planner had exited. She turned to my aunt. “Did you offer her a sandwich, Olivia?”
Sandwich #3 was literally still sitting on the plate in front of me. “Let’s stipulate that I have been sufficiently sandwiched.”
Lillian was not deterred. “Would you like something to drink? Lemonade? Tea?”
“Greer Waters is here,” my aunt interjected, keeping her voice low.
“Horrid woman,” Lillian told me pleasantly. “Luckily, however…” She removed her gloves. “I’m much, much worse.”
That, more than the advice about roses, felt like a life lesson à la Lillian Taft.
“Now,” Lillian continued, as the sound of high heels clicking against the wood floor announced the impending arrival of the apparently infamous Greer Waters, “Sawyer, why don’t you run on upstairs and meet your cousin? Lily’s staying in the Blue Room. She can help you get ready for tonight.”
“Tonight?” I asked.
Aunt Olivia took it upon herself to shoo me out of the room. “Blue room,” she echoed cheerfully. “Second door on the right.”
Icounted the steps as I made my way up the spiral staircase and got toelevenbefore I paused to take in the artwork lining the wall. A blond-haired little girl blew a dandelion in one portrait and sat astride a horse in the next. I watched her grow, mahogany-framed picture by mahogany-framed picture until a baby boy joined her in the yearly portrait, their outfits color-coordinated, her smile sweet and practiced and his served with increasingly large sides of trouble.
When I made it to the top of the stairs, I came face-to-face with a family portrait: Aunt Olivia and Uncle J.D.; the blond girl, now a teenager, sitting beside John David; and the elegant Lillian Taft standing with one hand on her daughter’s shoulder and one hand on her grandson’s. To the right of the family portrait, there was one of Aunt Olivia in a white dress. At first, I thought it was a wedding dress, but then I realized that my aunt wasn’t much older in this picture than I was now. The teenage Olivia wore elbow-length white gloves.
My eyes flitted to the left of the family portrait. A frame hung there, empty.
Maybe they were waiting for a new portrait to be finished.
Or maybe,I thought, staring at the blank space,this frame used to hold a picture of my mother.
“I am on the verge of using some very unladylike language.” The voice that issued that statement was sweet as pie.
“Lily…”
“Unladylike andcreative.”
