Islands (35 page)

“So would we,” Linda said, and hugged me.

We ate the velvety cold asparagus soup she had made for our lunch, and walked back out on the dock one more time before we left.

“Lewis and I saw a bobcat here the first night he brought me out here,” I told Henry. “Right over there. Lewis said not long before…not so long ago that he saw tracks again right on this spot. It couldn’t be our bobcat, of course, but I’ve always liked to think one of his offspring didn’t want to leave the river, either.”

“Probably got fifteen grandchildren by now,” Henry said comfortably. “Anny, can I ask you what you intend to do with Sweetgrass? Ultimately, I mean. You said you were okay for money, but I know you don’t want to let it just sit here and deteriorate….”

“No. I think I’m going to deed the whole thing to the Coastal Conservancy, with the stipulation that whoever is in the big house, and the Cousins and their kin—like Tommy—stay for their lifetimes, if they like. Lewis always wanted to see this stretch of the river safe from development.”

“It’s just what he’d do himself,” Henry said warmly. “Want me to call Fleming Woodward about that, too?”

“Well,” I said hesitantly, “it probably ought to be me.”

Henry began to laugh.

“Of course it ought to be you. What was I thinking? But can you really afford to do all that? You don’t need money from the sale of Sweetgrass?”

“I’m fine,” I said. “Besides the trusts for the children and bequests to Robert and Linda, and a separate trust to maintain Sweetgrass, it all came to me. There was more than I thought. Lewis was good with his money. I know that the lovely and talented Sissy had a go at my inheritance, but Fleming blew her out of the water and only told me about it later. People have been doing my work for too long. I don’t want to start to dislike myself.”

“No. Don’t do that.”

It was just dark when we pulled up to the turnaround in front of the creek houses. I was drowsy and satiated, as if I had had a heavy meal, but I knew it was simply relief at finally getting Sweetgrass in order. It had the feeling of a long-put-off job well done.

“Where is everybody?” Henry said, and I looked at him. His fair brows were knit. I looked toward the houses. Mine and Simms and Lila’s were dark, but Camilla’s blazed with lights, as it should have, of course. But then I saw that the front door stood wide open, and that Gaynelle’s truck was gone.

Henry and I were out of the car and into her house before the doors had slammed shut.

There was a Post-it note stuck on Camilla’s screen door.

C. fainted in bathtub and cracked her head open
, it read.
I’m taking her to Queens emergency. Please come.
It was signed
G
.

Henry called ahead and barked orders to the nurses’ desk and we drove back down the dark, moss-tunneled road toward Charleston in silence, and at a speed I would not care to repeat again. As we went over the West Ashley bridge, with the great hospital complex shining ahead in the night like a lightship, I said to Henry, “Let’s decide something now. I think it would kill her to move her, either back home or to some kind of facility. Later, maybe, she can go to Gillon Street with some help, but for a few months, let’s try our best to keep her at the creek, and let’s stay with her. That vow we took means everything to her. I’d like to promise her we’ll stay, if she’s not too bad. Obviously, if she’s seriously hurt or ill, we can’t. But can we try?”

He looked over at me, his thin face lit green in the light from the dash.

“Are you willing to give up that much more of your life?”

“What else have I got to do?” I said. “Sooner or later I’ll have to make some long-range plans, but one of the things I’ve loved best about the creek is that nobody pushes me. It’s like being a kid just after school’s out, with a whole, endless summer before me. Do you remember that sense of limitless time and space?”

“Best thing about summer,” Henry said. “Okay. If we can, let’s give it till fall. We can tell her that. It should ease her. I know she’s been afraid we’d go off and leave her. She talks about it a lot.”

“Will you mind just letting things drift for that long?”

He grinned. “You bet I won’t. Lila has been trying to get me paired up with some nice lady for weeks now. I’ll bet she’s asked me to dinner ten times. I’m scared to move back home.”

I laughed a little. It was true. An eligible bachelor in Charleston is worth his weight in Georgian silver. Never mind his age or circumstances. If his provenance is downtown, he can eat dinner out for the rest of his life, providing he is compos mentis. I’ve even wondered sometimes if that requirement was cut in stone. Some of Charleston’s greatest and most engaging eccentrics come very close to mania, and they do just fine if they have a decent tux and know whose dining room they’re in.

“Nobody is after me,” I said. “Should I be hurt?”

“ ‘Thank the living God that made you,’ as the guy says in ‘Gunga Din.’ Besides, I think you scare the ladies of Charleston.”

“Why on earth would I do that?”

He looked over at me.

“You’re a thoroughly nice woman, Anny. And a pretty one, even if you don’t think so. And now you’re a rich one. Are you kidding? They’re scared those quote ‘eligible bachelors’ will be after you, instead of their cousin from Columbia, or their best friend who just got a divorce. They’ll be overjoyed to hear that you’re staying out at the creek.”

“So we’re agreed,” I said, as he pulled up before the Queens emergency room. His face was closed again.

“We’re agreed,” he said.

Camilla was still in the emergency room when we got there. The hospital waiting room was full of tired, silent people. Gaynelle sat among them. She jumped to her feet and ran to us when we came in.

“What have you heard?” Henry said.

“They’ve still got her in some little room back there,” she said. “Nobody will tell me anything. I feel just terrible about this; she asked for a cup of tea, and I made it and came back, and she was lying half in and half out of the bathtub, unconscious, bleeding like a stuck pig from her forehead. I didn’t know she wanted a bath. She was in bed writing in her book when I left her to make the tea. If anything bad is wrong with her, I’ll never forgive myself.”

“Whatever it is, it is assuredly not your fault,” Henry told her. “She knows to call you when she wants to go into the bathroom. Let’s just see.”

He disappeared into the warren of cubicles through the swinging door of the ER, and Gaynelle and I sat down to wait. In the lurid fluorescent glare, she looked bone weary, and older than I had ever seen her. I probably did, too. I took her hand and squeezed it.

“You can’t read her mind,” I said. “Nobody can do that. You know how she hates being dependent. She probably thought she could manage a bath by herself….”

Gaynelle’s head was tipped against the sofa back, and her eyes were closed.

“I’m not leaving her alone again,” she said. “I’m going to be with her every breath she draws.”

“You think that’s good for her? She hates to be hovered over.”

“It’s good for all of us,” she said.

Henry came back presently and sat down with us.

“It’s not too bad,” he said. “At least the cut isn’t. The ER doc took a couple of stitches, and she’s had X rays and an MRI. There’s maybe a little concussion, but nothing to worry about. I’m admitting her, though. This time she’s getting the full workup. Tab Shipley’s writing the order now. She wants me to stay with her; she’s really shaken up, so I think I will. You all go on back home. I’ll come give you a report in the morning.”

“When will you sleep?” I said.

“In the on-call room. In an empty room. In the linen closet. You learn your intern year to sleep anywhere. I’m going to knock her out, and she’ll sleep till morning. I’ll have plenty of time to rest.”

Gaynelle and I didn’t talk much on the drive home. Once she said, “I wish he’d stay in the room with her.”

“Why on earth? She surely isn’t going anywhere in that hospital room.”

“You never know,” Gaynelle said.

Henry came home in time for breakfast, just before I left for work. Gaynelle had come in, even though I had told her to sleep in while she could. She had made French toast, and Henry fell on it like a starving man.

“She’s awake and fairly comfortable,” he said. “Her head hurts and she’s several different colors of purple, but her vitals seem okay. They’ll get the blood work and the other stuff done today. Depending on what we find, I might be able to bring her home tomorrow or the next day. I’m worried about her bones. In the X rays they looked as porous as screen wire.”

The test results came back, and had Henry stern-faced.

“Blood work’s okay, though she’s a little anemic. That probably causes some of the dizziness. Her heart rhythm is a little slow. Her blood pressure is low. But it’s her bones that worry me. Her ankle and wrist aren’t healing at all like they should, and there’s a big area on one sacrum that looks like Swiss cheese. She could break a hip just by turning over in bed, and that would be the end of living out here. She knows all that. I made her promise that from now on it’s going to be a wheelchair. I don’t want any pressure on those bones. She’s not happy, but I think she knows it’s the only way she can stay at the creek. I promised her we’d all stay, like we agreed, so long as she behaves. Gaynelle, do you think you can manage her in a wheelchair? We can easily get some more help out here.”

“I’m sure,” she said. “In a way, it’ll be easier. I won’t have to worry so much about her pussyfooting around places she shouldn’t be.”

Camilla came home two days later with a shiny folding wheelchair accented with dark blue leather, a carful of flowers, and a black eye that covered half her face. It was lunchtime, and we had asked Lila to come and share a light celebratory meal. She had arrived with a great armful of white lilies and Honey in her carrier, and she and I were sitting on Camilla’s porch, while Britney and Honey chased each other on the lawn, drinking orange blossoms and turning our faces up to the blessed sun.

It was a diamond day, when even the light trembles in glittering shards. The tiny new green leaves glittered, the light chop on the creek was like dancing tinfoil, and the sky was so blue that it hurt to look at it. The fresh smell of damp loam and pine from somewhere came in on the wind. When Henry got out and unfolded the wheelchair and helped Camilla into it, we all cheered, and she smiled the old enigmatic, V-shaped Camilla smile. Britney came dashing up to her and laid a bouquet of early tulips on her lap.

“Mama got them for me to give you,” she said shyly.

“Thank you, dear,” Camilla said. “Tulips are my favorite.”

Britney squirmed with pleasure and dashed off after the little dog, who was yipping frantically on the bank of the creek.

“Bring her closer to the house, Britney,” Lila called. “I don’t like her being so close to the water. Not with that gator around.”

“I’ve never seen the gator around here, Miz Howard,” Britney said.

“Just do it, Brit,” Gaynelle said briefly, and Britney did.

I had bought Camilla a new lavender cashmere cardigan, and we draped it around her, over her housecoat, as we sat on the porch for lunch. She looked revived, reborn, pink flushed in spite of the garish bruise that made us all wince.

“This is heaven,” she said, closing her eyes and breathing in the sweet breeze. “Why would anybody want to be anywhere else?”

“Except maybe that gorgeous loft of yours, or Anny’s perfect little jewel of a house on Bull Street,” Lila said. “And as for Henry, with that wonderful old pile on Bedon’s Alley—”

“It’s decided,” Camilla said. “We’re staying. Except if I can persuade Anny to go home and just come on weekends. She’s a pretty young woman still. She ought to be somewhere there’s companionship and a little fun—”

“I’m staying,” I said. “End of discussion. Don’t you think I love it out here, too?”

Camilla studied me, and then smiled and nodded.

Gaynelle brought out trays of shrimp salad and tomato aspic and fresh-baked cheese straws, and we had a wonderful, light trifle with fresh berries for dessert. After coffee, Henry went out and scooped Britney up from the lawn and carried her off, squealing and giggling, for a ride in the Whaler.

“Did you put Honey in the house?” Lila shouted after her.

“Yes, ma’am,” Britney called, and they glided slowly out of sight down the creek. Camilla wanted a nap, and Gaynelle settled her and went into my kitchen, where she had made lunch, to wash up. Lila and I went out to the end of the dock and sat in the sun, swinging our legs.

“This reminds me a little of the island,” Lila said. “When we’d sit out on the dock and wait for the guys to come in from sailing. Does it you?”

“No,” I said. “That’s one reason I can stay here. It’s just itself. It’s not much a part of any other time in my life.”

She nodded in understanding.

“But you do think about the beach?”

“Oh, Lila. Every day. Every day.”

“You’ve been braver than I could ever be,” she said, and squeezed my hand.

“I’ve got a good support team,” I said.

She turned to face me.

“People are asking me if there’s anything, you know, between you and Henry. I mean, being out here all the time and all…”

“Lewis was it for me, Lila,” I said, annoyed. I didn’t want Charleston’s ceaseless speculations to stain the creek for me.

“Besides,” I said, “I thought it might be Henry and Camilla. I mean, Lewis said they were so close before Charlie came along….”

“Well, they were. Almost joined at the hip. We were all surprised, but Charlie came, and that was it. But he’s been gone a long time.”

“Lewis once said there was just too much history between them,” I said, and she nodded.

“That can happen.”

After a while a brisk little wind came up, and we grew chilly. We got up and ambled toward our houses, agreeing to meet for lunch one day soon, after my half day at the office. I was suddenly stunned with sleepiness, and wanted a long nap. Lila said she had to get back to Charleston. We hugged briefly, and I turned into my walkway and went inside my little house. It was cool and silent. My lids were heavy.