The Time Between (10 page)

I recognized the old brown leather satchel that Eleanor had been using as a purse.

The man placed his hand on top of the girl’s head, and the gesture made me stare a little harder, move a little closer. It had been an unconscious movement, but it said so much about this man and how he felt about the world.

I could see that Eleanor was trying to move them all back onto the porch, so I wheeled my chair closer so they could see me from the doorway.

“Aren’t you going to introduce us, Eleanor?”

She stood so still that for a moment I thought she would refuse. But then she took a step back, opening the door wider. “This is Finn Beaufain and his daughter, Genevieve. It seems I left my purse at their house this afternoon when I went to pick up the car.”

I nodded hello, studying the man. I stared at him a little longer than necessary, wondering why he seemed so familiar. He was tall and lanky, like Glen, and I assumed he probably played tennis or ran or both. But his eyes were an unusual shade of gray, the kind of eyes that seemed friendly and easily readable until you got to know the man. Shadows clung to him in the way they clung to Eleanor, and I wondered if they’d recognized this in each other.

“This is my sister, Eve Hamilton,” Eleanor continued, and Finn took my hand in a firm clasp and shook it.

“It’s a pleasure meeting you,” he said. His voice was deep and accented with old Charleston, sounding very much like our mother’s. She’d used it to her advantage to gain customers for her costume designing, making them feel that class and prestige could be stitched into each seam. But Finn Beaufain had no need for his accent to impress others. His bearing and those eyes commanded all the attention and deference he needed.

Genevieve took my hand, too, and shook it. I found I couldn’t take my eyes off her. She reminded me of an angel in one of Raphael’s paintings, with perfect pink and white skin and wide gray eyes like her father’s that seemed to miss nothing. But it was her smile that was truly captivating, a smile that suggested things might not be all right in her world but she’d chosen to smile anyway.

“It’s nice to meet you,” she said. She leaned forward, as if to study me more closely. “You look like an Eve,” she said, tilting her head. “Eleanor said that I could call her Ellie because she definitely looks more like an Ellie.”

My gaze shot to Eleanor. Ellie had become the name I’d associated with my lost sister, the sister with the infectious laugh and mischievous bent who could play the piano as if the music tethered her to heaven. I studied her face, wondering if hearing the name had conjured Ellie’s spirit, but I saw only Eleanor.

Our mother approached the door, smoothing down her hair, which hadn’t seen a comb all day, and running her fingers down her housecoat as if to make sure everything had been buttoned properly. Her slippers slapped across the wood floor, but all of us had been raised too well to allow our expressions to register anything besides a polite regard.

“I’m Dianne Murray, Eleanor and Eve’s mother. It’s so good to finally meet you.” She made the statement sound more like an accusation, as if Mr. Beaufain should have issued an invitation long before now to meet her. “I used to be an Alston. I believe my father, James Ravenel Alston, and your grandfather were classmates at Porter-Gaud.”

Finn’s face betrayed no emotion at the blatant name-dropping as he grasped my mother’s offered fingertips as if she stood in the foyer of a grand mansion and wore a ball gown. Judging from Finn’s expression, one could believe he saw her that way, too.

“I see where your daughters received their good looks, Mrs. Murray,” he said, his Southern drawl a little more pronounced as he spoke to her, as if he were an actor in a play. Which, I supposed, we all were.

Mama actually blushed, as did Eleanor, and just as I thought the moment couldn’t get any worse for my sister, Glen returned from his run, tanned and muscular and drenched in sweat. He must have noticed the Mercedes at the curb, because he opened the door with caution, peering inside like a child watching the lid of a jack-in-the-box.

Flushing scarlet, Eleanor made the introductions again, and I watched as Glen took his measure of Finn Beaufain. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you. We’ve been curious about the man who demands such long hours from his employees.”

Nobody said anything for an extremely long moment as we all tried to decide where to look.

Finn’s eyebrows rose. “Eleanor is an extremely conscientious employee who makes sure the work gets done regardless of how long it takes. Which is one of the reasons why I thought of her for assisting with my great-aunt’s care.” He smiled at Eleanor, whose color was now a faded shade of rose.

Glen moved to stand closer to Eleanor, and I wondered if anybody else could see the way she leaned toward him, like a magnet searching for true north. Glen, still breathing heavily from his run, was working his jaw, tasting his words first. Before he could say anything else, I rolled my wheelchair closer. “We all appreciate the opportunity that you’ve given Eleanor.”

“Especially now that Eve is expecting,” Mama said, unwilling to be left out of the conversation.

Finn shot a glance at my sister, something like realization crossing his face. “Congratulations, to both of you,” he said to Glen and me.

My sister wore her Eleanor smile, the bland smile she put on to face the world in the same way a widow would wear black.
Go,
I wanted to shout at her.
Run.
Whatever she thought she felt for Glen was part of a life that no longer existed, or maybe never had. And I had given her the perfect escape with my pregnancy. But just because we were sisters didn’t make me a fair jailer. I sat back quietly and just watched.

“I wasn’t aware you didn’t have a cell phone, Eleanor,” Finn continued. “I would like to be able to reach you when you’re with Aunt Helena, so I’m going to go ahead and get you one—at my expense, since I’m requesting it.”

He wasn’t asking, like he was accustomed to giving orders and people following without question. Eleanor bristled but didn’t argue, and I could see it pained her. It reminded me of the times as a child when our father would remind her to practice the piano. She practiced all the time, but on her own schedule, and only balked when
told
to do it. I had secretly admired this about her, wishing that my mother’s requests wouldn’t send such fissures of alarm through me. It was as if I’d known, even then, that what Eleanor had was real and solid. And that what I had, the looks and the pretty costumes, was like powdered sand in a windstorm.

It was probably why, when Eleanor wanted to play chicken with cars or hitchhike to Myrtle Beach, I was her willing accomplice. I needed to believe that I had a little bit of Eleanor in me.

Genevieve tugged on her father’s hand. “It’s getting dark and we haven’t stopped for ice cream yet.”

Finn smiled down at his daughter, and it was in that unguarded moment that I knew why he seemed so familiar to me. He was that boy on Edisto who never joined our group, who sat in church and stared at Eleanor instead of me. I remembered still how much that had bothered me, and how I’d worn more and more outrageous outfits to church so he’d notice me.

“It’s a pleasure meeting you all,” he said politely as he led his daughter to the door.

I watched him carefully as they walked out onto the porch before giving a final wave as they tucked themselves into the black car. But Eleanor was looking at Glen, and then he was touching the small of her back as he followed her inside.

Go!
I shouted to no one at all.
Run!

But nobody did. Instead they both joined my mother on the couch in front of the television set. Slowly, I wheeled myself to the sofa and waited for Glen to lift me and place me next to him, my hand holding his tightly as I thought again of the unused suit pattern and how nothing had turned out the way it was supposed to.

Eleanor

A
s a child, I spent long hours with Lucy watching Dah Georgie make her sweetgrass baskets. She’d give us a nickel for each bundle of grass, palmetto leaves, and pine needles we would collect for her, and then we’d sit at her feet watching her build her baskets. There was a rhythm to it that sank into my skin as she fed layer into layer, adding rushel for color, using pine needles and palmetto strips to start. It was like watching a symphony being written, or a painting being painted, as each layer revealed more and more of the artist. Dah Georgie called the basket patterns names like Dreams of Rivers and Path of Tears, but all the baskets with lids she’d call secret keepers.

She taught us that building baskets was like building a life, finding materials from different places—bits and pieces with their own purpose—and creating a vessel that could pour out or keep in. I thought about this now, driving to Edisto, wondering what sort of basket my life would be and what it would be named.

I pulled down the Volvo’s visor to block the morning sun, then flicked on the GPS. I knew how to get to Edisto, the roads and bridges across the marshes and creeks as much a part of me as the blue veins that ran under my skin. But I wanted to see them in color on the GPS screen, as if I needed to make sure that all of this was real and not some crazy and dangerous adventure I’d imagined to create a bump in the flat road of my life. I was supposed to have outgrown that need years ago.

Despite the heat, I rolled down the windows to catch the scent of my island before I even reached her. I left the radio off, not wanting to be distracted. No matter how mundane, I couldn’t have music playing without focusing my attention on it and relegating everything else to the background, and I had no intention of damaging the Volvo with distracted driving. Still, I found myself humming to the beat of the tires on the pavement, my fingers playing an imaginary melody on the steering wheel.

Helena’s white Cadillac stood in the driveway next to a blue Toyota, presumably belonging to the nurse on duty. Finn had called me earlier to say that he was taking Gigi to the beach and would be back sometime in the late afternoon, so I hadn’t expected to see them when I arrived.

Although Finn had told me to walk right in, it felt odd, so I rapped on the front door a couple of times and waited, unwilling to use the doorbell in case Helena was asleep. Eventually the door was opened by a frazzled and tall blond woman who started speaking before she’d even opened the door.

“I’m so sorry to keep you waiting!” she said in a thick Southern accent. “I was in the kitchen up to my elbows in wood stain trying to fix those kitchen chairs. They’ve been bothering me since I first started working here. I’m thinking I need to make cushions and curtains, too, when I’m done, but I suppose I need to ask Mr. Beaufain first. Not that I’d want him to pay me; I just enjoy that sort of thing.” She paused long enough to catch her breath and stick out her hand. “I’m Teri Weber, by the way. You can call me Teri, but Mr. Beaufain and Miss Szarka like to call me Nurse Weber.”

I shook her hand and introduced myself, asking her to call me Eleanor, and smelled the distinctive scent of wood stain wafting from the back of the house. Her fingers felt a little sticky to the touch. “I’m sorry to bother you. I didn’t feel right just walking in.”

“Don’t worry about it—I told Mr. Beaufain that I’d be listening for you just in case, and see, I was right! He said you’d be here to keep Miss Helena company, but she’s sleeping now, so I guess you can do whatever you like. I have the TV on in the kitchen watching my shows, but you’re more than welcome to watch something else. I’d be happy for the company.”

“Thanks,” I said, “but I think I’ll explore the house a little more, become familiar with it while I wait for her to wake up. Will you give me a shout when she does?”

“Absolutely. I put a baby monitor in her room so I’ll know the second she opens her eyes.” She beamed at me, then excused herself to return to the chairs and the wood stain.

I stood in the entranceway, wondering what I should do after I was done exploring if Helena still wasn’t awake. Maybe I could make lunch or mop a floor, but I’d already learned that the housekeeper and nurses took care of all that. My gaze strayed to the room with the piano; then just as quickly I glanced away, focusing instead on the paintings in the dining room and on the staircase wall.

It was almost like looking at them underwater, the light from the chandelier hitting the loose rolls of canvas. I had to move my head from side to side to be able to see an entire painting. I thought of Helena refusing to have them reframed, and how stubborn a person would have to be not to have these fixed. The problem was too rampant and obvious to have been overlooked, and I sighed inwardly, remembering Finn mentioning his great-aunt’s “eccentricities.”

The stairs, with their heavy wooden balustrade, rose in front of me. I recalled the closed bedroom doors upstairs and how Finn had said one was the guest room that I would be free to use if I ever ended up staying the night.

It was almost as if the old Eleanor propelled me up the stairs, moving my legs up each riser. I wasn’t trespassing, I assured myself. I just wanted to see which room I would use.

The door to Finn’s childhood room was open. I paused outside, the sight of a duffel bag on the floor holding me back. I suppose it made sense that he would sleep in his old room when he visited, but the image of the grown man sleeping under the paper stars and planets brought a smile to my lips.

The door at the end of the hall, behind which Finn had said was the room Gigi used, was also open. I peeked inside and noticed the pink suitcase with the ballet slipper motif on the outside, and the clothes strewn around the room. I pictured Gigi racing to put on her bathing suit—probably pink—after her father told her they were going to the beach.

Not wanting to invade her privacy, I stayed on the threshold to examine the room. It was tastefully furnished with a dark wood double bed with a tall headboard, a brightly colored quilt folded neatly at the bottom. A braided rug in the same colors as the quilt covered the wide plank pine floors, and white lace curtains hung at the two corner windows.

I moved on to the guest room, satisfying myself that it was perfectly fine—if a little dated—and had its own bathroom. It was an inviting room, and if I ever needed to stay overnight, I knew I’d be comfortable.

I closed the door and headed back down the hallway, mentally preparing myself to watch
The View
or whatever weekday TV program Teri Weber was watching, but I found myself pausing in front of the remaining bedroom door. I recalled Finn telling me that it had been Bernadett’s and that Helena didn’t want anybody going inside. I recalled how hard Helena had been trying to get me to leave, and the part of me that couldn’t resist late-night mysteries on TV couldn’t help but wonder if the reason why lay beyond the closed door to her dead sister’s bedroom.

Again I felt the old Eleanor pushing at me, her fingers and palms a physical force, and I found myself reaching for the door handle and turning it. I half expected to find the door locked, but the handle turned easily in my hand. Before I could stop myself, I’d pushed the door open and found myself looking inside Bernadett’s bedroom.

I just stared for a long moment, wondering if perhaps somebody had already come to take away Bernadett’s things, because the room was devoid of anything personal. Even the bed had been stripped of its mattress and bedclothes. But as my gaze skipped around the Spartan room, I noticed a pair of beige bedroom slippers on the rug beside the single twin bed, the hairbrush and comb sitting on top of the small dresser between two windows. An empty glass, the bottom tinged with the white crust of evaporated water, still sat on the nightstand, where it had been placed near the edge.

A small dressing table without a mirror was pushed up against the far wall. On its polished surface sat a small sweetgrass dish, a black onyx rosary coiled inside it like a snake. Behind it was another sweetgrass basket, this one shaped like a short urn and with a lid that had a small acorn-shaped knob at the center.
A secret keeper.

I took three steps into the room, feeling a little like Alice at the rabbit hole, trying to pinpoint what was so off-kilter about the room. I spun around slowly, taking in the twin-sized plain metal bed, the simple wooden crucifix hanging over it. And then I realized. Except for the crucifix, there was nothing on the walls.

I moved closer to the wall behind the bed and could see now the telltale rectangular patterns that dotted the walls. But in the dining room and living room the nail holes had been filled so as not to draw attention. Here, the nail holes were ragged and gaping, as if the frames had been removed with brute force. As if they’d been ripped from the walls.

I rubbed the pad of my thumb over one of the spots, noticing as I did so the fresh feel of powdery plaster and paint that flecked off onto the floor and clung to my skin, as if the damage to the walls had been recent.

Wiping my hand on my skirt, I turned away from the wall. A tall antique wardrobe sat against the wall across from the bed, a gold key dangling from the keyhole. Without even thinking about what I was doing, I walked across the room and opened the door.

The heavy scent of mothballs hit me first, and I had to step back. After taking a deep breath of fresh air, I moved in to get a closer look. There were exactly four skirts, one dress, and six blouses hanging inside. I stared at them, wondering if this really was Bernadett’s complete wardrobe, or if Finn had been mistaken about nothing having been touched. I looked at the floor of the wardrobe and found a single pair of low-heeled black pumps and a pair of navy blue Keds, a few grains of sand still clinging to the sides of the rubber soles.

Two small, mirrored doors sat closed above the hanging rod, and I reached up and tugged on one of the knobs. As I looked closer, I saw that a small keyhole had been placed in the mirror on one of the doors, but this lock had no key. I tugged on it harder, not really sure what I expected the doors to do. There was something about this room, something that told me before I’d even tried that the lock without a key was meant to stay locked.

“What are you doing in here?”

I stepped back quickly from the armoire, my blood lapping through my veins. Jerking around, I saw Finn standing inside the doorway, his face unreadable but his eyes dark and serious.

As if I’d just returned from a trip down the rabbit hole, I became suddenly aware of the sound of thunder outside and the lashing rain against the windows. I smelled suntan lotion and noticed that Finn wore a T-shirt and swimming trunks, his feet clad in loafers, so at least that part of him was recognizable.

I realized I was staring and that I’d pressed the heel of my hand hard against my chest as if I could slow down the thudding. “I’m sorry,” I said, sounding breathless. “I was waiting for Helena to wake up and thought I’d do some exploring. I didn’t mean to pry.”

He stared at me for a brief second before he spoke, repeating the words he’d said the first time I’d visited the house. “This was Bernadett’s room. We don’t go in here.”

He stood back away from the door, and I hurried past him into the hallway like a schoolgirl caught running in the hall. I didn’t look at him until I’d heard the click of the door latch behind me.

“I’m sorry,” I said again. “I was looking for the guest room to see where I might stay—”

He cut me off. “Aunt Helena’s awake. Gigi’s with her, but it’s a one-way conversation, I’m afraid. I was hoping you could go down now and sit with Helena while Nurse Weber gets her lunch tray ready.” After pausing for a moment, he said, “You’re the only person who’s elicited any kind of reaction since Helena’s come home from the hospital. I think that’s a good sign.”

I remembered my conversation with the old woman from my last visit and wasn’t exactly looking forward to a rematch. But then I thought of Eve and Glen and I found myself squaring my shoulders, knowing there were things much worse than facing an old woman who did not want me to stay.

“Of course,” I said. “That’s what I’m here for.” I walked ahead of him down the stairs, sensing him watching me from behind.

When we reached the foyer, he said, “I enjoyed meeting your family the other day.”

“No, you didn’t.” The words were out before I could call them back.

As if I hadn’t rudely interrupted, he said, “I’ve met Eve before, but I don’t think she remembered.”

“Eve doesn’t forget anything.” I bit my lip, wondering where I’d left my filters. My father had taught me to be kind but to speak my mind. Maybe the salt air was reminding me of the girl my father had known.

He shook his head. “No, she probably blocked it out on purpose.”

I frowned up at him. “What do you mean?”

“It was after church, when we were kids. I was with my aunts, and you and your sister were with your parents. Eve was wearing a ridiculous purple dress with lots of bows and ruffles. It was after I’d heard you play that one night—my aunt Bernadett had pointed you out to me.

“You and your family walked past us outside and I decided I wanted to say hello to you, but just as I turned, Eve stepped in front of me, blocking my way, and introduced herself. I didn’t mean to be rude, but you were walking toward a group of your friends, and I wanted to reach you first.” He shrugged, a boyish gesture that he wouldn’t have made in one of his suits. “So I ignored her and kind of, well, shoved her aside so I could catch up to you. But I was too late. When I turned back to Eve to apologize, she looked so angry that I pretended I didn’t see her and walked right past her to my aunts. I felt badly and planned to find her the next Sunday to apologize, but I didn’t see you at church after that.”

I didn’t remember any of it, of course, except for the dress. Eve had worn it to my father’s memorial service because it was new and her favorite.

“Mama stopped taking us to church after my father died, and then we moved,” I said simply, forcing a smile I didn’t feel. “Let’s go see how your aunt and Gigi are doing.”