In a Dark Season (26 page)

Chapter 32

And One Found Hiding

Tuesday, December 26

T
he woman on the bed had not moved, but as Elizabeth took the chair beside the bed, her head turned. Closing her gaping mouth, she slowly winked one eye. In a hoarse whisper, she said, “E-liz-a-beth. I. Am. Here.”

A great surge of joy swept over her and Elizabeth grasped her friend’s thin hand. “Nola! Oh, thank god! Let me go get someone—they need to know you’re yourself again. They—”

“No!” The fierce whisper was accompanied by the tightening of Nola’s fingers around hers. “No! Not yet! Not until his…accounts are closed. Don’t tell. Promise me…don’t tell. Elizabeth, come back in…two days. Give me time to find out who…wants me quiet.”

“Nola, what do you—”

A voice from the doorway spoke. “You’re wasting your time—Nola’s done quit talking.”

The chubby aide came into the room, a can of Mountain Dew in her hand.

“They just shut down like this sometimes,” Michelle explained, taking a long pull at the can. “Miss Nola, she’s one of the lucky ones though, so many friends still coming to see her every day, even if she can’t talk and don’t recognize no one.”

“Oh, but she—” Elizabeth felt an urgent tug on her hand. She turned to see Nola, once again gap-mouthed and staring. The hand that had crushed her own so tightly a moment since fell limply to Nola’s side.

“—she seemed like she knew me for just a moment there.” Elizabeth stood to leave. “But I guess I was mistaken. Tell me, does Nola recognize Mrs. Holcombe? I expect she comes pretty frequently.”

“Almost every day. She don’t stay long but she always has a little something for her Nola.”

It was impossible to get the poem out of her brain. Milne’s verses about James James Morrison Morrison Weatherby George Dupree had been a favorite with the girls as children, especially Laurel, who would shriek with delight at the tale of the naughty mother disobeying her three-year-old son and the dire consequences thereof.
She hadn’t been heard of since.

The words flowed automatically without any effort of memory, as if they were following a well-worn groove.
Which is why, I guess, it was easier for Nola to communicate with memorized lines rather than have to come up with new sentences. But now she’s making her own sentences. Why doesn’t she want anyone to know she’s better? Why is she pretending to be worse? Is this just another aspect of her illness? Paranoia? Delusion? “Not till accounts are closed”—what was that about? And “come back in two days”?

Elizabeth slowed the jeep in front of the bank, trying to decide if she wanted to attempt parallel parking in the ridiculously small space left between a battered blue Chevy pickup and a massive black SUV, both of which had parked over their allotted lines, when a familiar tall, slender figure with a long flaxen braid caught her eye. Amanda was on her way into the lobby of the post office.

Feeling ridiculously like Nancy Drew, Elizabeth slid her car
(no sporty roadster, more’s the pity)
into a fortuitously empty space beyond the bank, leaped out, and hurried to the glass doors that gave a view to the post boxes. Amanda was there, fitting a key into one, though what the number was, Elizabeth could not make out. The lock appeared to be stiff and the key turned with difficulty, but at last the little metal door opened, revealing a jumble of letters and flyers.

Eagerly Amanda reached into the box and pulled out her mail. Elizabeth took a deep breath, pushed open the door, and stepped into the post office. A quick glance confirmed it. Amanda was standing before an open Box 1066. The one in the ad—the Norman Conquest date made it impossible to forget.

“Hey, Amanda.” Why did her voice sound so accusatory? “I need to talk to you.”

“Elizabeth!” Amanda whirled, letters in her hand. “I didn’t see you. I was just—”

“Amanda, I want to know about Spencer Greer.” The words were sharp and impulsive. Somehow all of Elizabeth’s reluctance to pry, her disinclination to get involved, had been swept aside. There was none of her usual careful self-editing and weighing the consequences—the words were coming of themselves. “It may not be any of my business, but Ben’s my nephew and I need to know that you came to the farm because of him, because you care for him in the way he cares for you. I need to know…oh, bloody hell, Amanda…I need to know that you’re what you say you are. I will
not
have Ben hurt again.”

Amanda stood immobile, staring in amazement at her. Elizabeth was abruptly aware of her own flushed face and of the fact that her voice had become increasingly shrill as she harangued the unsuspecting young woman.
Oh god, have I just made everything worse with that little tirade? Will she tell Ben that his aunt is too bloody crazy and thank you but no thank you, she’s outta here, so much for the idyllic life at Full Circle Farm?

Then, slowly, Amanda’s face crumpled and tears began to slide over those perfect cheekbones.

“Amanda, sweetie, please, I didn’t mean…”

Amanda shook her head and in a choked voice said, “It’s fine, Elizabeth. I understand. It’s just…I think I’m crying because I wish that my mother had cared about Spinner as much as you care about Ben.”

Chapter 33

Spinner Greer

Tuesday, December 26

S
pinner Greer was…Spencer Greer is my brother. My half-brother. I’m trying to find out where he went.”

They had moved from the too-public post office lobby to Elizabeth’s jeep. Amanda, seemingly relieved to be sharing her secret, had been more than forthcoming. The words had poured out of her.

“When I was little and just learning to talk, I couldn’t pronounce ‘Spencer.’ So he was Spinner to me and, eventually, to everyone. It suited him, in a weird way. He spun from one enthusiasm to another—music, theater, tennis—he was good at everything but nothing held him for long. It was like he was always looking for something that would be
It,
whatever It was.” Amanda paused to blow her nose. “I was only seven when he went off to prep school. But he sent me funny postcards and letters all the time. And when he was home, on vacations, he was just wonderful. It was Spinner who taught me to ride a bike, to roller-skate, to swim. He had all the patience in the world with me, and I absolutely idolized him and lived for the times that he was home.”

“He sounds like a wonderful brother.” Elizabeth reached out to touch the girl’s hand. “But, I have to confess, Amanda, I talked to my sister this morning and asked her about Spencer Greer. Among other things, she said that your brother had died in an accident or of some illness. Did she have that wrong?”

Amanda drew a shuddery breath and turned to face Elizabeth. She was calm now; only her reddened eyes hinted at the storm of emotion that had just passed.

“I was away at summer camp, actually a camp here in the mountains near Brevard, when it supposedly happened. The director called me into her office and told me, oh very kindly and gently, that my brother was dead. She said that my parents felt that it would be best for me not to come home but to stay at camp. All she could tell me was that Spinner had caught some terrible disease and had died quite suddenly. I knew that he was taking a year off from college to travel—I’d had some postcards from different places.”

Amanda’s soft gray-blue eyes brimmed with tears again. “I still have the postcards—all soft and fuzzy on the edges from being handled so much. I spent most of the last month of camp on my bunk, crying and reading and rereading those cards—Atlanta, Asheville, Charleston, Baltimore, Boston, New York—Spinner said he was looking for a place he belonged.”

“When camp was over, I didn’t fly home with the group of Tampa girls; instead, Papa came for me in the car.”

Amanda looked out the window, watching the few pedestrians hurrying along Ransom’s nearly deserted sidewalks. “It was the strangest, most surreal experience, Elizabeth. For once, Papa wasn’t in a big hurry. He took me to Asheville to see the Biltmore House and to Cherokee and then we went to a big amusement park near Charlotte. It took almost a week to get back to Tampa, and all that time he let me cry and carry on and talk about Spinner. And I did too, all the way through North and South Carolina and Georgia. But when we got to Florida and stopped in Lake City to spend the night, Papa said that when we got home, I was never to mention my brother’s name again.

“‘You’re going to have to be very grown up now, Mandy,’ he said. ‘Your mama isn’t dealing with this loss very well. Any mention of Spencer is painful to her, so I want you to promise me not to talk about him with her—it’s easier for her right now just to carry on as if Spencer never existed.’

“So I came home to a house where there was absolutely no trace of my brother. Instead of his room with the dark green walls covered with posters and the jumble of books and magazines and tennis clothes, there was a guest room—all shiny yellow and white and smelling of fresh paint. Nothing of Spinner was left—even his furniture had been replaced.

“My mother was changed too—a different hairstyle, a new hair color, and her face that had been soft and sweet had become thin and brittle. She hugged me, asked how camp had been, and then, before I could even get out the placemats I’d woven for her, she excused herself to go lie down. ‘A little headache,’ she said.

“She had headaches all summer, and after that summer, my life was a succession of boarding school, summer camp, boarding school, summer travel, holidays with my parents but almost never at home.” Amanda’s brief laugh was humorless. “Wherever home was. When I came home the first Christmas, they had moved to another, fancier house and it got harder and harder to remember Spinner. I felt like I’d lost everyone—Spinner was gone, Mama and Papa weren’t the same, and I didn’t know anymore who I was.”

“According to my sister, you were on your way to becoming quite well known as a model. That’s an achievement a lot of young women would envy.”

Amanda shook her head. “It’s all smoke and mirrors, that world. There I’m just a hanger for the clothes. What I do now—actually creating beauty with my hands and brain—is much more satisfying.”

She looked at Elizabeth and her eyes shone. “After so much unhappiness it’s been like a miracle to find myself here. I’m finally doing something I love, with someone I love. Don’t worry, Elizabeth—I’m totally serious about Ben. He’s the best thing in my life since Spinner, and in a way it’s because of Spinner that we ended up together.”

Elizabeth raised her eyebrows. “I don’t understand.”

“It happened last year, when I was staying with my parents for a few weeks until they left for Palm Springs. They always have this huge bash just before Christmas—you know, several hundred of their closest friends. Anyway, I was getting dressed for the party and managed to trash the only pair of pantyhose that would work with this really short dress I was wearing. So I went down the hall to my mother’s dressing room to see if she had any. Guests were already beginning to arrive and Mama and Papa were both downstairs and I was frantically pulling open drawers looking for pantyhose.”

Amanda held up the little handful of flyers and junk mail she had taken from Box 1066. “This is the only kind of mail I’ve gotten so far. But I keep hoping for an answer to my ad because of what my mother had hidden from me—a manila envelope marked ‘Amanda’ and it was full of letters to me from Spinner—all but one were unopened and most of them were postmarked either ’94 or ’95
—two years
after he was supposed to have died.”

The Drovers’ Road XI

The Fine Thread

Many would deem it an auspicious augury when the jurors’ deliberations are prolonged.

Lydy paused in his endless circuit—a ludicrously curtailed three steps away from the window wall and three short steps back—to glance dismissively at his cell mate. Then he shifted his attention to the square of gray sky visible through the bars. The despairing slump of his shoulders suggested that he did not share the Professor’s optimism. He stood for a moment longer, then turned to continue his pacing.

The Professor closed the small leather-bound book with which he had been attempting to divert himself and returned it to his breast pocket. Even Homer’s sublime words, he muttered, pall upon too frequent perusal.

Lydy, I beg of you, my young friend, relate to me more of your peregrinations. I collect you continued on the Drovers’ Road after your brief return to Gudger’s Stand; it was at a later date the unfortunate events leading to your incarceration occurred, if I do not mistake. Pray, tell me of your journey to South Carolina.

At last the restless pacing ceased and Lydy dropped down on his bunk. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, his big hands drooping.

We was on our way early the next morning. I’d not had a word alone with Luellen but from the way she wouldn’t look at me when she was serving out the breakfast, I come to think she must have suspicioned what had passed betwixt me and her stepmother. Belle weren’t about that morning—and we had had but a few words the night before. But, like I said, I knowed that now there was nothing for me with Luellen. Right afore we left, ol’ Luellen come sidlin up with a poke of fried pies for me and begun to say something but I made out I had to be on my way and left her standin there with that little calico poke still in her hand.

Belle’s scent was on me yet as we took to the road and I looked back to the house, where I seen her standin on that upper gallery, that dark hair of hern like a storm cloud around her head. She didn’t throw up her hand nor make nare sign but I felt the pull in my loins as if she’d bound me to her by a fine thread.

Lydy closed his eyes. God help me, I feel hit yet, a-drawin me to her.

The Professor cleared his throat. I have little experience of these stock stands. On my journey from Charleston to Warm Springs, I had occasion to put up just outside Asheville at a fine hostelry was called Sherrill’s Tavern. It, so I was told, served as a stock stand in the fall and winter months. But as I was there in the early summer, the custom was, in the main, from the Albany coaches. I found it a most commodious inn, set among pleasant fields, only somewhat marred by the muddy condition of the road leading to it. On the day I arrived, there had been a heavy downpour that morning and all the male passengers were obliged to remove from the stagecoach and push.

Lydy roused from his reverie. I just called to mind a quare thing I heard about at one of them stands. They was a feller there named Aaron come in whilst we was there with a great pack of goods on his back: sewing notions and fripperies fer women-folk, razors and pocketknives fer men and all manner of things fer sale. He was a funny little dark-complected feller and he talked the quarest you ever heard. A man told me this Aaron was from someplace over the water and that most of the year he traveled the back roads where there weren’t no stores. He was said to be a Jew, like the ones in the Bible, but he didn’t wear no long robe, just an ordinary black coat and britches like anyone.

He was a talky feller and he got to tellin about where all that he’d traveled and what all that he’d seen. He said as how he had come through South Carolina back in the spring and in a place called Mount Airy he seen two yaller-skinned brothers, joined at the breast by a band of flesh. They was born that way, he said, in some far-off land and hadn’t one never took a step without the other one had to come too.

Now this Aaron told hit fer a true story and I might of believed him till he went on to say these brothers was married to two sisters and they had two houses and took hit in turns to pass a night in each house. He said they had any number of young uns, though wasn’t none of them joined nowhere. I believe he must have been a liar though. You can’t trust a furriner to speak the truth.

As a matter of fact, Lydy, I believe your peddler was alluding to Chang and Eng, the renowned Siamese twins. I myself, some years ago—

A thump of boots and the rattle of the chain that secured the door of the cell interrupted the Professor’s observation. Lydy stiffened expectantly as the door creaked open a cautious few inches. A grizzled face appeared in the crack and a rough voice said, Lydy, there’s three of us out here come fer ye and ever one of us armed. You step out and come along peaceable like and they won’t be no trouble. The jury’s ready with the verdict.