Lowcountry Summer (3 page)

Eventually Frances Mae sobered up, and Amelia, who was beside herself with embarrassment, drove her and Chloe home to Walterboro and then she and Eric continued on back to school. All glibness aside, the whole incident was deeply upsetting because of what happened to Chloe. But instead of raising hell in the moment, I took a cool step back because number one, it was Trip’s place to do the hell-raising. And second, I didn’t want to rile Matthew and have him feel an urgent obligation to arrest Frances Mae. But unfortunately Trip did not step in except to soothe Chloe. Maybe he was so shocked that he didn’t react. Maybe he would react later.

There would be an aftermath because there was always an aftermath. It began when Mr. Jenkins had Frances Mae’s SUV hauled out of the ditch and sent it off to the body shop. He said it had a dozen empty water bottles, apparently thrown in the back along with assorted fast-food wrappers and old magazines. And in an uncharacteristic piece of criticism, he remarked that the interior of the car had a rank smell. If Mr. Jenkins was reporting
this,
then her SUV must have been absolutely disgusting. Then he said that Trip, whose veins occasionally pumped the holy blood of saints, had rented a veritable tank for her to drive in the meanwhile.

It was expensive for Trip to have an estranged wife like Frances Mae because you could neither rent her a tuna-can car nor could you rent a car based on some algorithm that determined her worth as a citizen of the world. According to Mr. Jenkins, Trip kept saying that she was still the mother of his children and drove three of their four daughters all over the place and that their safety was paramount to him. I couldn’t have agreed more on that point.

But any way you shake it up, the fact that Chloe had been hurt while in the car with her mother was a
huge
warning sign to all of us, gnawing away at my normal reserve and desire to mind my own business. Okay, maybe I didn’t always mind my own business and Chloe’s precarious
situation
was way over the limit of what I was willing to silently endure as the child’s aunt. Frances Mae was flat-out dangerous.

On Monday, Millie and I discussed the
situation
all morning while sitting in the kitchen, going over invoices and considering some new labels for Sweetie’s
.
Every time I bumped into her during the day, the discussion continued, growing into a simmering stew. Well into the afternoon she brought me a pile of checks to sign that one of Miss Sweetie’s minions had delivered to Rosario, our housekeeper. By then we were in agreement that something had to be done. She stood by the sink, rinsing a glass and talking to me in that tone of voice that all family members knew meant “you had better listen to what I’m saying.”

“All I did last night was fret over that child, ’eah? I couldn’t sleep for beans! And all day long I can’t even eat. This is a terrible thing going on and it’s gotta be stopped. Frances Mae’s getting drunk up and running the road can’t continue.”

“Oh, Millie. You’re right. I’m sick with worry, too. But you know, this is Pandora’s box. If we get involved, I can smell huge drama.”

Millie looked at me with her most serious Mount Rushmore expression.

“Gone be worse drama iffin we find ourselves standing over that baby’s grave. That chile was all kinda shook up and so was I. So wrong. Jenkins was so mad I thought he was gonna bust. What you gone do?”

“Me?”

“Yes, ma’am!
You!
What? You think if Miss Lavinia was alive she wouldn’t do something?”

“Oh Lord, Millie. I know, but I’m not Trip’s mother.”

“You the eldest? You need to have a little ‘come-to-Jesus meeting’ with him.”

“Fine. Oh, fine. You’re right.”

I called Trip and asked him to stop by for a glass of tea on the way home from his office. It was around six when he came in through the kitchen door looking like utter hell. Signs of stress were digging narrow gullies all around his eyes.

“Hey there, brother of mine! How was your day?” I stood on my tiptoes and gave the poor rascal a smooch on the cheek.

“Mondays have a reputation for a reason.”

“You’re telling me? Good day, huh?

“Yeah, great. So, what’s going on?”

“Nothing. I just wanted to talk to you. That’s all.”

Trip stared at me as he loosened his tie, pulled it off, wound it around his fist, and dropped it into the pocket of his jacket. He knew me so well that sometimes it was frightening. Trip looked really exhausted, something I had not seen on his face in a long time.

“Want to walk down by the river?” he said, sensing that this conversation could wander into serious territory.

“Yeah. That sounds good.” I handed him a frosty traveling mug of iced sweet tea and filled one for myself, casually screwing on the tops after I tossed in some sprigs of mint from Millie’s garden.

“I can’t stay long. Rusty’s cooking fish.”

“What kind?”

“Frozen.” He looked at me and smiled. “Some salmon from Nova Scotia I caught a while back.”

“Sounds too good to miss! So, let’s go.”

As we had done probably a thousand times in our lives, we ambled across the grass, down the sloping lawn toward the dock. There was a nice breeze, and suddenly, as though we had been folded into some invisible gauze of magic, we were children again, brother and sister surrounded by all the music and smells of the magnificent Edisto River. In the distance, a scattering of great blue herons flew overhead, gliding on the airstreams, resembling creatures from the days of dinosaurs. This place, these acres, were the center of my universe. And Trip’s.

The river often summoned a part of us that it seemed to own, especially in times of trouble. We approached the water as though drawn by a beckoning finger, stopping to lean against the rails on the platform that led to the floating dock below. It was the same spot where we always stood to adjust our bearings when a shift in our world was happening.

Now there was the addition of Eric’s boat in the landscape, hanging above the water in dry dock. It was a blue-and-white Sea-Pro with a seventy-five-horsepower engine. Trip chose it for him as a graduation gift from all of us last summer, a little runabout that didn’t give me a nervous breakdown when Eric took it out alone. Eric had become quite the accomplished river rat, thanks to the patience and gracious attentions of my brother. Once again I was reminded of the many loving ways that Trip had filled in for Richard.

We never said this out loud but it was obvious to everyone that Trip couldn’t handle his daughters and had all but thrown them into Frances Mae’s lap. He was naturally drawn to Eric because Trip was a man who should’ve had sons.

Richard, on the other hand, couldn’t have put a boat in the water if his life depended on it, even to escape a global nuclear attack from the Klingons. And yes, mentally castrating Richard was one of the ways I released the contempt I felt as the years went by and he continued to treat Eric so poorly. Richard’s day of reckoning would come and there would be a hefty price to pay. I believed in karmic justice.

But for today, I was down by the river with my brother trying to tactfully broach the subject of his daughters’ safety.

“I didn’t sleep all night,” he said.

“That explains why you look like you been rode so hard. And FYI, who slept?”

“Truly.”

“So, did you talk to Frances Mae today?” I said.

“No. Hell no!” Trip cut his eyes at me and then took a long drink of tea. “Why would she call me?”

“Well, I was thinking she might call to say thanks for the rental car. Or maybe to apologize? And say that what happened yesterday would never happen again or something to that effect. Although we all know it could happen again this afternoon.”

“You think she’s gonna drive drunk again? After what happened yesterday? Is she that stupid?”

“Well, let’s see. She’s drunk all the time, so if she wants to go somewhere, and she’s gonna drive there, chances are about one hundred percent that she’s gonna be driving drunk, right?”

“Her butt is gonna wind up in jail. I mean, she can’t expect the police to overlook her problems forever.”

“Yeah. It’s true. Matthew’s a great friend, but the law’s the law. And yesterday he rescued Chloe while she was bleeding from the head.”

“It was just a little scrape,” Trip said.

I squinted my eyes and tightened my jaw. “A little scrape. Trip? Are you serious? You’ve got a big problem here, bubba.”

“Yeah? What’s that?”

“The kids shouldn’t be in the car with Frances Mae. Period! And let’s face it. Belle can’t be expected to run car pool for Linnie and Chloe, and Amelia’s off at college.”

“So? That’s Frances Mae’s inconvenience, not mine.”

Sometimes Trip could be exasperating.

“Actually, you are technically correct. But if something happens to your girls at the hands of Frances Mae, when you know she’s perfectly fine with getting behind the wheel of a car drunk as a dog, you’ll never forgive yourself. And that’s where she’s headed. She’s the proverbial disaster waiting to happen.”

“Shit. Great. Fine!” Trip looked at the floorboards of the deck and then out across the water. “So what are you suggesting I do?”

“Somehow you’ve got to get the girls out of harm’s way. You have to!”

“Aw, God! Come on, Caroline! What are you trying to say?”

“I’m saying that as long as those girls remain with Frances Mae? They’re in danger, Trip. You know it and I know it.”

Trip turned his attention back to the breadth and length of the river, watching for the nearly imperceptible movements of the placid water. Even the tiniest bug gliding over its surface caused ripples, seismic echoes that extended out a thousandfold from the epicenter, a Lowcountry reminder that one decision could have a disastrous impact that lasted forever.

My brother was not a stupid man. Even though Rusty managed the most minute details of his daily life, from what he would enjoy most for entertainment to which necktie would intimidate the defendant’s attorney in the courtroom, Trip would acknowledge that he had and would always have a tremendous obligation to his daughters. But, like people say, talk was cheap.

So, as Millie and I had planned, I planted the seed and watered it. I hoped I wouldn’t have to wait long to hear him say that he understood and agreed. I didn’t know how much time was on the side of the girls’ safety, but I knew the odds did not weigh in their favor.

“Well,” Trip said, with a loud sigh, “there’s rehab. But we’ve already tried that four times.”

“Alcoholism is a fiendish disease, an absolute monster.”

“And you know she blames Rusty for her drinking. She blames Rusty for everything.”

“Look, Trip, there’s enough blame to go around for everyone to choke on it, but at the end of the day somebody has to be the parent here and I’m afraid that’s you, big brother.”

“You’re older.”

“A minor detail.”

“Humph. So, let’s slice this mess as thin as we can. You think I need to take custody of the girls, somehow, and send Frances Mae to a rehab program that will work, somehow. Is that about it?”

“Basically, yeah.”

“Yeah right! I can see this now. Let’s say they all say
okay,
which they won’t. I move them over here, right? After Belle and Linnie wreak complete havoc at every blessed turn, Chloe turns into a thumb-sucking bed wetter, shrieking through the night. Then Rusty can’t take it anymore and leaves me forever.” Trip’s arms were flailing in the air and his face was getting redder by the second. “Forget it. I’m not doing it.”

“Trip? Have you checked your blood pressure in a while?”

“The answer is N-O!”

“Oh, Trip. I’m gonna agree that it wouldn’t be the easiest of situations from the get-go, but don’t you think they’d come around?”

“Those scheming, manipulating, lying troublemakers?”

“Trip! These are your daughters! Come on. I mean, Rusty is a sweetheart! She adores children!”

“Yeah. Yeah, she does. And they adore her! But my children? My lovely girls are the only ones in the world who despise Rusty. I mean despise! They think the sole reason their mom and dad aren’t together is because Rusty is the tramp who stole their old man.”

“Well, that’s just ridiculous.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. Sometimes I don’t know what’s true and what isn’t. You know what I mean? I was perfectly miserable in my marriage but I was functioning well enough. Well, not really. My life was actually a sham. I was drinking and gambling . . .”

“I remember it well. The glory days.”

“Very funny. But look, I was functioning. Then I got bailed out, thanks to Mother, got myself reasonably together, and somewhere in the process I met Rusty. Nothing else has mattered since then but her. She changed my whole world! Now I’m a model citizen—well, sort of—but my career is going gangbusters because she brings all this peace—yes,
peace
and stability to my life. And such happiness! For the first time in my entire life, I’m actually happy! Can my girls see this? Don’t they realize that Rusty, not that shit-bird mother of theirs, is the reason my life is back on track? Hell no! My girls are plenty old enough to care about my happiness but they don’t.”