Luanne Rice (34 page)

Granny
stood before me, looking into my eyes. We were the same height, and we laughed,
because we were both so happy. I wore a white wedding gown; she wore a pale
yellow chiffon dress. My veil blew in the sea breeze; my bouquet was white
roses, off-white lace hydrangeas, and ivy from the wishing well. Granny wore a
yellow straw hat with a band of blue flowers.

“I wish
Edward’s family had been able to come,” she said as we stood by the wishing
well, ready to begin the procession.

“I know,” I
said. “He’s trying to make the most of it.”

“Well,” she
said. “Things happen … you’ll see them soon, I’m sure. One thing I know,
Mara—your parents are with you today.”

“Granny—
don’t
get me started.”

“I won’t,”
my grandmother said, wriggling her shoulders with resolve. “We’re staying
strong as I walk you down the aisle, or I’m not Maeve Jameson.”

“My parents
would be proud of you,” I said, because I knew she was thinking of them every
bit as much as I was trying not to—and I gave her a big
smile,
just to prove I wasn’t going to cry.

“Of us
both,” she said, linking arms with mine as the quartet started playing Bach.

So much
time has passed, but certain memories are still clear and sharp. The pressure
of Granny’s hand on mine, holding steady, as we walked across the grass; my
beach friends Bay and Tara beaming at me; the smell of roses and salt air;
Edward’s short dark hair, his golden tan set off by a pale blue shirt and wheat
linen blazer; his wide-eyed gaze.

I remember
thinking his eyes looked like a little boy’s.
Hazel eyes.
He had been so helpful all morning—taking charge of where the tables went,
which direction the quartet should face. It was sort of odd, having a man “in
charge,” here on this point of land filled with strong women. Granny and I had
exchanged an amused glance—letting him do his thing. But here he was, standing
at our makeshift altar in the side yard, looking for
all the
world like a lost little boy as I approached him. But then I caught that blank
stare—blank, yet somehow charged—and it made me hesitate, holding tight to my
grandmother’s hand.

Yes, I
remember that stare, the look in his hazel eyes. It was fear—standing there under
the striped tent, watching me approach,
my
betrothed
was afraid of something. The years have gone by and told me all I need to know
about his fear—but let’s go back to my wedding day and pretend we don’t have
all this knowledge. Back then, in quick succession, I thought one thing and
felt another. No—that’s backward. I felt first, thought second.

I felt
cold—the same chilly primal shiver I’d experienced looking up at his car,
seeing that salt-pitted, rusty metal arch. But I chased the unwanted, ugly chill
with this thought: Edward—hey, honey, Edward! Don’t be afraid … please don’t
worry that it’s too soon, or my grandmother doubts you, or that I care about
the jacket. I love you … I love you.

I love you.

Words I had
said so rarely up until that time—but since meeting Edward I had used almost
constantly. The old Mara Jameson had been too closed off and guarded to let
them slip off her tongue; but the new Mara Jameson couldn’t say them enough.

This was my
home, my side yard, my family and friends—Edward was far from everything
comfortable and familiar to him. His family hadn’t been able to make it. He
felt really bad about the whole blazer debacle. These thoughts were flying
through my mind as my grandmother passed my hand into his with the whispered words,
“Take care of her, Edward.” Edward nodded, but the expression in his eyes
didn’t ease.

Memo to
self and brides everywhere: if you’re standing in front of a justice of the
peace, about to get married, and all you can think about is why your husband-to-be
looks very uncomfortable, it’s a red flag worth paying attention to.

The
ceremony occurred. That’s how I think of it now: words and music. What did they
all mean? It’s hard to say, harder still to not be cynical. The ceremony
disguised one basic truth: marriage is a contract. Let’s put romance aside.
First and foremost, marriage is a legal, binding contract, where two people are
joined in partnership, their assets merged, their fates legally entwined
through powers vested by no less than the state.

When I
think back to the look in Edward’s eyes, I believe that he was afraid that I
might not follow through on the deal, might not sign on the dotted line. What
would have happened if I hadn’t? If I had listened to that tiny voice inside,
if I had felt the cold chill and known that it meant something worth paying
attention to?

But I
didn’t listen. I pushed my feelings aside and pulled other things out of the
summer air: love, hope, faith, resolve. I held Edward’s hand. “I do,” I said,
“I do,” he said. He kissed the bride. People cheered, and when I looked out at
my friends, I saw more than one of them crying and grinning at the same time.
They were so very happy for me.

We stood
there, husband and wife. Our brilliant summer wedding day, blue sky and sparkles
on the calm water, Mozart and the sound of leaves fluttering in the
breeze—everything was so beautiful, so spectacular, it had to be a harbinger of
a joyful life to come.

I turned to
look at him. It’s true, my own eyes were moist, and my voice was thin with wild
and rising emotion. “Edward,” I said, trailing off into all the hopes and
dreams and possibilities of our future together. He stared at me—the fear gone
from his eyes, replaced by something else. It was the first time I saw—well,
you’ll hear about what I saw as my story goes on. All I can say is, I felt the
earth—the thin layer of grass on granite ledge—tilt beneath my feet.

He touched
the flowers in my bouquet and said, “You’re so delicate, Mara. Like a white
rose. And white roses bruise so easily. Is that what your grandmother meant
when she said I should take care of you?”

His words
took my breath away. Don’t they imply great tenderness? Show true depth of
caring, of understanding? Of course they do. He could be so tender. I’ll never
deny that. But do you also see, as I do now, that his words implied a threat?

It was as
if he’d been focused on Granny’s gentle direction—just an offhand comment was
how I’d taken it, a rather protective grandmother giving away the bride. Had
Edward even heard the ceremony? Had he even
been
there? His hazel eyes flashed black as he mentioned Granny’s words.

Just
recently, I dreamed of a woman who lived under veils. Black, gray, white,
silver, slate, dark blue—layers of veils covering her face. Take one off,
there’s another underneath. The woman lived in darkness, even when the sun was
shining. She existed undercover. She could barely see out, and others could not
see in. The question was: Who put those veils on her? Did she do it to herself?
In the dream, she took them off one by one—and at the very bottom, the very
last, or first, was a white wedding veil. In my life, I had them torn from me.
I wanted to keep them on—you have no idea how much I needed those veils.

Women learn
how to hide the worst. We love the best, and show it to all who want to see.
Our accomplishments, our careers, our awards, our homes, our
gardens, our happy marriages, our beautiful children.
We learn, by tacit
agreement, to look away from—and hide—the hurt, the blight, the dark, the
monster in the closet, the darkness in our new husband’s eyes.

But in some
lives, there comes a time when the monster comes out of the closet and won’t go
back in. That happened to me. He began to show himself. My grandmother was the
first to see. Only the wisest people can observe a woman in such a relationship
and not sit in judgment. Judgment is easy: It is black and white, as brutal as
a gavel strike. It keeps a person from having to ask the hard questions: What
can I do to help? Could that be me?

My
grandmother didn’t judge. She tried to understand—and if anyone could
understand it would be her, the woman who had raised me in her rose-covered
cottage by Long Island Sound. A woman patient enough to coax red, pink, peach,
yellow, and white roses from the stony Connecticut soil, to ease her
broken-hearted orphan granddaughter back into life, could sit still long enough
to see through the lies, see past the veils—and instead of judging, try to
help, really help.

People
said, “How could you have stayed with him so long?” The true answer, of course,
is that I had the veils. But the answer I gave was, “I loved him.”
In its way, that answer was true, too.
My grandmother
understood that.

It wasn’t
real love. I didn’t know that for a long time. Love is a boomerang—it comes
back to you. With Edward, it was a sinkhole. It nearly consumed me, taking
every single thing I had, and then some—until I, and everything surrounding me,
collapsed.

I have Liam
now, so I have learned the difference. And I have my daughter, Rose. The day
Rose was born, nine years ago, I was on the run. I had left my home, my
grandmother, my beloved Connecticut shoreline where I had always lived, to
escape Edward and try to save something of my life. The Connecticut motto is
Qui transtulit sustinet
—“He who
transplants sustains.”

Leave it to
the founding fathers to say “he.” Perhaps they knew that “she”—or at least
“me”—“who transplants shatters.” I left home, pregnant with Rose, and I fell
apart. But Rose coaxed the love right from my bones. I built myself back, with
the help of Rose and Liam. And, although she wasn’t right there in person, my
grandmother. She was with me, in my heart, guiding me, every single day while I
lived in hiding, in another country, far from home.

You see, my
grandmother let me go. She made the ultimate sacrifice for me—gave me and Rose,
her great-granddaughter, the chance and means to get away from Edward. She was
a one-woman underground railway for one emotionally battered woman. And it cost
her so
dearly,
I don’t know whether she will survive.

My name is
Lily Malone now. It was my on-the-run name, and it has stuck. I have decided to
keep it forever.
Lily,
for the orange and yellow daylilies growing along the stone wall of my
grandmother’s sea garden, waving on long, slender green stalks in the salt
breeze.
Malone,
for the song
she used to sing me when I was little:

“In Dublin’s fair city, where girls are so
pretty,

I once laid my eyes on sweet Molly Malone.

She wheeled her wheelbarrow through streets
broad and narrow,

Singing ‘cockles and mussels alive, alive-oh.’”

Those lyrics are so sweet; and because my grandmother sang them to me when I
was little and couldn’t sleep, they seemed full of life and romance and the
promise of unexpected love. I took the name Malone to honor my grandmother’s
lullaby, but also for a darker reason. The name helps me stay on guard—reminds
me that someone once laid eyes on me, too. And like Molly Malone, I was a
hardworking woman; he liked that about me. He liked it very much.

I would
like to explain my chosen name to my grandmother. I would like to see her
again.
To introduce her to Liam—and, especially, to Rose.

More than
anything, I’ve come back from my nine-year exile to try to save my grandmother,
as she once saved me. I am remembering all this for her. I want to recapture
every detail, so I can appreciate exactly what she did for me—for the woman I
was, and the woman I have become.

This story
is a prayer for her, Maeve Jameson.

It begins
thirteen years ago, four years before I left Hubbard’s Point for the most
remote place I could find—back when I was Mara. Back when I was a rose that
bruised so easily.

Now
Available in Paperback

BY

LUANNE RICE

New York
Times Bestselling Author
of
Silver Bells

A long-awaited opportunity for readers to discover Luanne Rice’s acclaimed
early novel—one of this cherished storyteller’s most powerful and complex
portraits of the fragile bonds of family and home.

“A highly suspenseful, multilayered novel about the complex subtleties that
lie beneath the surface of a family.”
—San Francisco Chronicle

“Deserves a place among the best fiction of its kind, alongside Judith
Guest’s
Ordinary People
and Sue
Miller’s
The Good Mother.”
—Eileen Goudge

“Powerful…electrifying…The
contrast between romance and reality is what gives this novel its wonderful,
terrifying, always compelling tension.”
—Kirkus
Reviews

“The sense
of foreboding is almost overpowering.”
—Atlanta Journal & Constitution

SUMMER’S
CHILD
A Bantam Book / June 2005

Published by Bantam Dell
A
Division of
Random House, Inc.
New York, New York