The Time Between (23 page)

Our eyes remained locked for a long moment. “It is of no consequence, is it? Bernadett is dead. Her wishes need no longer be understood.”

Her expression softened. “Maybe Finn should know. Maybe Bernadett had unfinished business that should be taken care of.”

Her words lacked malice, which made it clear to me that she was more concerned about my dead sister and her legacy than about shining a light into the dark corners of my past.

“Do not concern Finn with such trivial matters. He has plenty to keep him busy.” I indicated sweet Gigi, praying that for once God would forgive me.

Eleanor nodded. “All right. I’ll go tell Nurse Kester that you’re finished with your breakfast, then start with Gigi’s piano lesson.”

“I would like to hear Mendelssohn. I am especially partial to his
Songs Without Words
.”

Eleanor’s eyes lit with interest. “Are you familiar with the Venetian gondola songs?”

“Not really. I never played them. My mother considered them too foreign.”

“Good. Then those are the ones I’ll play. Maybe that way you’ll be less critical.” Eleanor reached for Gigi’s hand and began walking out of the room.

I waited until they were both out of sight before I allowed myself to smile.

Eleanor

“I am more than capable of driving my own car.” Helena stood by the side of her Cadillac, stamping her cane into the sandy ground.

Nurse Kester had already gone home and Nurse Weber hadn’t yet arrived, so I had no one except Gigi to help me coerce the old woman into the passenger seat of the Volvo. And it was a good thing that Gigi was there, or I might have resorted to foul language or just thrown my hands in the air and stormed into the house. It was startling to realize how much the presence of a child could make adults act more like adults.

“Aunt Helena, you get to sit up front. And the seats have air conditioners or heaters for your bottom in case you’re hot or cold.” Gigi smiled encouragingly up at her great-great-aunt but was rewarded with only a softening of the old lady’s frown.

“I would like to drive. I always have and see no reason why I should stop now. Besides, I have more years of experience than Eleanor.” She looked at me smugly, as if daring me to argue that point.

I refused to take this on a personal level—I didn’t have the energy. So I tried another tactic. “I already called Finn and he said absolutely not. Especially not with Gigi in the car.”

Helena stayed where she was, her hand tightly grasping the top of her cane. “He is not here. And he will not know unless somebody tells him.”

I resisted the impulse to roll my eyes. “I know you didn’t just ask Gigi and me to lie to her father.” I took a step toward her, an idea forming in my head as I recalled her sneaking second helpings of cake and ice cream at Finn’s birthday party, away from the watchful eyes of her nurse. “Let’s compromise. We’ll take the Cadillac, but I’ll drive. And after we drive to wherever you want to go, we’ll stop by Island Video and Ice Cream for a treat. We’ll eat it there so Nurse Weber will have no idea what you’ve been up to.”

A bright gleam formed in her eyes. “I suppose that will work. But next time, I drive.”

I didn’t say anything as I led her around to the passenger side, then helped her in. Gigi climbed into the enormous backseat and buckled her seat belt.

I started the engine, then turned to Helena. “Where to?”

“To see Magda.”

I looked at her closely, wondering if I had heard her correctly. “Your sister Magda?”

“Do you know of another? Of course my sister.”

I continued to stare at her, needing more direction.

She looked at me with exasperation. “I am not suggesting we go ghost hunting, or that I have become unhinged, if that is what you think. I would like to visit her grave.”

I hid my sigh of relief as I put the car in drive. I drove slowly down the long driveway, admiring the way the late-afternoon sun wove through the branches of the pecan trees and shot arcs of light through to Steamboat Creek. “I wasn’t aware she was buried on Edisto.”

“She loved it here, even though she lived in Charleston. That is why she requested to be buried here. Finn’s father had a box of Hungarian soil shipped to us here to be buried with her.”

I paused at the end of the drive onto Steamboat Landing Road. “At the Catholic church?”

“No. She is at the Presbyterian cemetery. Magda converted when she married Finn’s grandfather. I am just glad our mother was not there to witness it. She was very Catholic and wanted at least one of her daughters to be a nun.”

“But you and Bernadett remained Catholic?”

She twisted in her seat to look at me more closely. “Why would you assume we remained Catholic?”

I thought of the crucifix in Bernadett’s room and the rosary found in the basket under her bed and knew I couldn’t tell Helena about either of them. “Gigi mentioned that you and your sister would go to another church on Christmas and Easter, so I just assumed. If you’d like, I’d be happy to take you to Mass on Sunday.”

“Perhaps. Although God and I have not been on good terms for a long time.”

I stared straight ahead through the windshield, unwilling to dig any deeper. I was here as an employee and not as a confidante and friend. Borrowing her darkness would not lighten my own.

I stopped at the intersection with Highway 174 and then turned right. “I remember you and Bernadett at the Presbyterian church with Finn when we were children. We were always late and had to sit in the back because Eve took too long getting dressed, but the three of you were in the front pew without fail.”

Helena actually chuckled, the sound so rare it startled me. “Bernadett made us get there twenty minutes early, regardless of which church we attended. Before the Catholic mission was started here on Edisto, we would have to drive all the way into Charleston to attend Mass. There are so many churches here on Edisto that I would tell her that we could just pick one, but she insisted.” Her voice grew softer. “She was always very strict about doing the right thing.”

We’d reached the Presbyterian church, with its bright white clapboards and steeple, the green shutters making it look like we’d accidentally stepped into New England. But the palmettos and Spanish moss were easy reminders of where we were.

The church was deserted as I parked beside the cemetery and helped Helena out of the car. I knew she wouldn’t ask, so I took her elbow and pretended that she wasn’t leaning on me as heavily as she was. She had her cane, but it seemed to me that she might need a walker. I would not, under any circumstances, be the one to suggest it to her.

She was unusually subdued as she indicated our direction through the old cemetery, through the blackened tombstones and mausoleums, many of the markers leaning toward each other like gossiping old women. I knew the church building was almost two hundred years old, but the congregation and cemetery went back further than that, as evidenced by the familiar names on the ancient tombstones of the founding families of the island: Whaley, McConkey, Pope, Bailey. There were even a good number of Murrays, perhaps more prosperous branches of my own family tree.

“Is Bernadett buried near Magda?” I asked, watching as Gigi trailed her fingers along an old stone on which the writing was no longer visible. I had the brief thought that I should not have brought her here to this place of death, that I was tempting a fate that had already spared her once.

Helena paused for a moment before answering. “No,” she said softly. “I have her with me.”

Confused, I turned to her and then realized what she was telling me. “She was cremated?”

Helena nodded.

“Oh,” I said, surprised. “I didn’t think Catholics—”

“It was my decision in the end,” she said, cutting off my question. “She wanted to return to Hungary. I have hopes that one day she will.”

We’d stopped and I realized that we were in a section with newer graves, where the inscriptions were still legible and time had not yet painted the passage of years on them. I looked down at the marble stone and read the inscription:

I
N
M
EMORY OF

M
AGDA
K
ATHERINA
B
EAUFAIN

1920–1988

B
ELOVED
W
IFE,
M
OTHER &
S
ISTER

Engraved on the top of the tombstone were three beautiful tulips in different stages of blooming.

“Why the tulip?” I asked.

She gave an irritated shake of her head. “You apparently have not been reading your Hungarian history books. The tulip is the national flower of Hungary. And I am hoping you can at least determine why there are three.”

I didn’t dignify her comment with an answer. Instead, I said, “I do know that in Hungary the tradition is to put the last name first. But not on Magda’s tombstone.”

Helena shook her head. “William—Finn’s grandfather—would not have allowed that. But he agreed about the tulips.” She frowned. “I always bring her flowers when I visit. If tulips are not in season, I bring another flower—as long as they are red. I cannot believe that I forgot.”

She seemed genuinely upset, and I put a steadying hand on her arm. “It’s all right. I’ll be happy to bring you back tomorrow, or I can come back by myself. Just let me know in the morning.”

Helena gave me a grateful look. I didn’t expect words of gratitude; her look was enough.

“Why red?” I asked.

She gave a little shrug. “Red tulips are used to symbolize Hungary more than other colors. Did you know we even have two separate words in Hungarian for different shades of red? They are considered completely different colors.”

“Interesting,” I said, looking up and realizing that we were alone. “Where’s Gigi?” I glanced around the deserted cemetery. I was only mildly concerned, having often wandered this same cemetery with Lucy and Eve as a child. I looked for a flash of pink amid the dark green and brown of the cemetery foliage, and when I didn’t see any I called her name.

Her response came from a distance, but I knew where she’d gone. It was a place where all curious Edisto children found themselves at one time or another. I looked at Helena. “Are you okay to walk a little more? Otherwise, I can take you back to the car and turn the air conditioner on while I go get Gigi.”

She gave me a haughty glance as her answer, and I took hold of her arm again. We made our way to the old section of the cemetery behind the church, where a large stone mausoleum sat nestled between an iron fence and thick green foliage.

The name
J. B. LEGARE
was set in bold-lettered relief above the doorless opening. I knew the missing door was part of an island legend, a legend about how one of the crypt’s internees had been mistakenly buried alive and found on the floor inside the door years later when the crypt was reopened for another burial. Afterward, the door wouldn’t stay closed, so it had simply been removed. I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t prowled the cemetery at night with Lucy and Eve to see if I could hear ghostly moans. But I had no intention of mentioning any of that to an impressionable Gigi.

“Gigi?” I called again.

Her head popped out of the opening. “There’s a mommy and a daddy and a little boy in here, and the little boy was only six years old when he died. His parents must have been very sad.”

She said this matter-of-factly, as if her expression of grief had nothing to do with her at all.

I looked at the dates on the three headstones that were part of the far wall of the crypt. “His mother died when he was three, and then his father died two years after he did. How very tragic.”

“Daddy says that happened a lot a long time ago when they didn’t have medicines or shots or clean hands. Or chemotherapy,” she added cheerfully, the long word slipping so easily from her young mouth.

“They say the father died of a broken heart,” Helena said.

“Do they have medicine for that now?” Gigi asked, her upturned eyes reflecting the dappled light.

“No,” answered Helena. “I do not think they will ever find a cure. Perhaps time. But I have always thought that those who did not have long to grieve were the fortunate ones.”

I thought of the young soldier with the blond hair and the enigmatic smile. “Have you ever been in love?”

Her gaze remained focused on the stone pediment. “Yes. Once. A very long time ago.”

“Did you get married?” Gigi asked with the enthusiasm of one who sees weddings only as an occasion to wear a long, beautiful white gown.

“No. We planned to marry after the war.”

I held her arm tighter, feeling her wilt like a tulip in the heat.

“And you, Eleanor. Have you ever truly been in love?”

I thought of Glen and all the feelings I had ever had for him, but I was no longer sure of their label. “I don’t know,” I said, looking away.

“Things do not always work out as we have planned, do they? Sometimes the hardest thing is not to just survive the grief, but to step around it and move on. It helps if your suitcases are not so full.” She took a deep breath. “I am ready for my ice cream now.”

She pulled away from me and began her slow progress back to the car. I stayed where I was, watching her and the small figure of Gigi staying close, wondering if Helena had been talking about herself or about me.

I followed them out of the cemetery as the setting sun sent shadow arms between the stones, embracing those who no longer had the choice to move on.