Heart of Palm (17 page)

There’s fennel for you, and columbines. There’s rue for you, and here’s some for me.

Sofia sensed a movement on the bank, and she tensed, scanned the yard behind the house, but saw nothing. A few more laps. The water was delicious tonight.

Oh, Arla would have a
cow
. She imagined her mother standing on the bank. She’d brandish her cane, demand Sofia get out of the water. “Before some drunk with an outboard cuts your fool head off!” she’d scream. But nighttime on the Intracoastal was quiet. Sofia could hear a boat coming from miles off, north and south. Plenty of time to get out of the channel if a boat came slicing through the waters, even at high speeds. She could swim the entire width, from bank to bank, in under four minutes. Plenty of time.

The water was starting to feel warmer around her legs, under her arms. In the distance the music at Uncle Henry’s still played—what was that? Bob Marley. Of course. Didn’t a night at Uncle Henry’s always devolve into Bob Marley? Every little thing is gonna be all right. Keep telling yourselves, suckers. She could picture them all: the women past their prime, broad backsides squeezed into too-tight jean shorts and sagging breasts near-about falling out of tank tops (because
young
women didn’t come to Uncle Henry’s after all, God knew; as soon as they could find boys to take them, they made a break for the clubs in Jacksonville); the men growing by turns bawdy and brawly as they approached last call and desperation battled with panic while they negotiated their battling priorities of getting laid and getting a last shot before the bar closed. But Frank must be doing a good haul—a holiday night, business booming. She just hoped nobody puked in the restrooms tonight. That was the worst, when they puked in the restrooms. Take it outside, cowboy! If you’re going to drink till you hurl, take it outside, where there’s eight billion palmettos you can barf your brains into and nobody will have to clean it up! For
gosh
sakes.

All right, now. Swim, she told herself. Balance. Recalibrate. Don’t sully this precious night with visions of regurgitating rednecks. Pivot. Reach. Pull.

It was her grandmother who had taught her how to swim. Pivot, Sofia! Reach! Pull! Sofia could scarcely remember what Vera looked like, but the sound of her voice, coaching, was clear. When Vera and James had died she’d been—what—six? Seven? No more than eight, she guessed. But she remembered her grandmother, and how every once in a while, when Dean was at work, and when her grandfather James was away on business, Arla would pack all the kids into the Impala and drive down to the big house in Davis Shores to visit with Vera.

One afternoon, Vera took Sofia to the pool at the clubhouse and taught her how to swim—really swim—not just splash around and float like Sofia had been doing all her young life. Vera taught her real strokes, taught her how to manage her breathing, how to count rotations on the backstroke to avoid banging her head against the side of the pool. And Sofia was good! Vera clapped her hands, laughed, her flower-topped bathing cap bobbing crazily in the sun.

“You’re a little mermaid, Sofia,” Vera said. “A beautiful little mermaid.”

Later they went back to her grandmother’s house for lunch. She remembered Frank and Carson tumbling on the manicured green lawn, remembered the lunch table set up on the lanai, baby Will jumping in a playpen in the sun. When Arla and Vera started arguing, something about Dean, Sofia got up and wandered into the house, into the cold living room. The terrazzo floor felt like ice under her bare feet. She picked up a photo album from a small table and turned to sit on the sofa. But then she was conscious of her wet bathing suit, and of the sofa’s velvety fabric, so she sat on the table instead. The photo album was gorgeous—heavy and square, with tiny gold triangles mounted on the corners of every creamy linen page. She flipped through, and the gold triangles clicked against each other. There were black-and-white photos of people from another time, it seemed: people waving from old-fashioned cars; people at long tables covered with white cloths and dishes; people on boats; people on porches; even one clownish man hanging upside down from a tree branch. None of them looked like a person Sofia would know. Everyone smiling, all the time. The women wore tiny white hats that looked like bowls atop their heads, flowered dresses, enormous white shoes, dark lipstick. The men wore white shirts, tweed jackets, and funny, baggy trousers. So
much
clothing. So
much
smiling.

She turned a page and found a photo of a man on a horse. He was handsome, but with an old-fashioned hairstyle Sofia found funny, and she smiled. She studied the man for a moment, and then her gaze drifted to the horse, which was glossy and dark and rippled with muscle. The horse was looking at the camera with a sidelong stare that could have been fear or boredom, it was difficult to tell.

Sofia jumped when she realized Vera was behind her in the living room, sitting on the sofa.

“That’s my brother,” Vera said. Her voice was warbly, and she was rubbing her nose with a tissue. Sofia glanced through the French doors to the lanai; Arla was gathering their things, packing them into a bag, calling for Frank and Carson.

“He died a few minutes after that photo was taken,” Vera said.

Sofia looked back at the picture.

“What happened to him?” she said.

“He fell off the horse.”

“
He
fell off the horse
? And it killed him?” Sofia couldn’t imagine. She’d fallen off things plenty of times. She’d fallen off her bike, had fallen off the swings at school. Just yesterday Carson had fallen down the stairs at Aberdeen, and other than some whining and a scraped knee, Arla had dusted him off and he’d been just fine.

“Well, the horse was jumping at the time,” Vera said. “It was an amateur steeplechase. My big brother Walter. He hit his head and died right on the spot. That was up in Connecticut.”

Sofia looked again at the man on the horse. He was grinning, like he’d just heard a joke.

“Left behind a wife and three children, one a tiny baby, too,” Vera said. “And with no way to make a living for themselves. This was the thirties, you see, Sofia. It’s different for ladies now.”

Arla came struggling in from the lanai with Will on her hip, a tote bag of bathing suits and towels on her shoulder. She was sweating and muttering, leaning heavily on her cane to counterbalance the added weight of the baby and the bag. She hitched her skirt, then turned around and hollered into the yard for Frank and Carson.

“Well, for some women, it is,” Vera said. “Some women today have careers, what have you. Ambitions. But back then, my sister-in-law Helen, she was helpless.”

“Oh, the Walter story?” Arla said, rolling her eyes.

“What happened to the children?” Sofia said. “The little baby?”

“Well,” Vera said. She brightened. “Helen, you know, she always did have the men lining up. And my
other
brother, Thomas, as it turned out, had been carrying a torch for Helen all along. A secret love, what have you. So after the funeral, after we buried poor Walter, Thomas just stepped right in, and he married her, children and all, and he took care of them for the rest of his life.”

Sofia looked back at the photo one more time, and now she saw the danger in the horse’s eye, the rage, and she saw also the dumb gullible trust in Walter’s eyes. Fell off the horse! She wondered if the horse had done it on purpose.

“Is there a picture of Helen?” Sofia said, flipping pages.

“Well, let me see,” Vera said. She started to reach for the book, then shrieked and jumped up off the sofa.

“Sofia!” Vera swatted at her. “Get up!” Sofia stood and looked down, at the two small crescents her damp backside had left on the shiny coffee table.

“My word! Mahogany! That will never come out!” Vera hunched over and rubbed frantically at the table with the hem of her dress.

“Oh, Mother,” Arla said. “Calm down.”

“Ruined,” Vera said.

“I’m sorry, Granny Vera,” Sofia said. She felt her eyes filling with tears.

“It’s fine, Sofia,” Arla said.

“Arla! It’s not fine. You have no idea about what’s valuable,” Vera said. “None.”

Frank and Carson bumped into the room behind Arla, squabbling.

“Come on, Sofia,” Arla said. “We’re going home.”

They said good-bye, and that was that. Sofia had never seen her grandmother again. Vera and James had died soon after, and the house was sold, and whatever became of that photo album Sofia would never know. The horrible Steinway was saved, of course. But do you think Arla held on to the photo album? Gosh sakes.

Sofia wished she could have seen a photo of Helen. Imagine, the kind of woman who had a man “carrying a torch” for her. Imagine, three little children at your feet, and the men just lining up for you, waiting their turn. It was incredible to Sofia that some women should have so many people to love them, when others should have none at all.

Now she watched her arms pulling through the water, her skin rippled and taut. Control. That was it. When she was in the water, she was in complete control. It was really the only place. She once read about the Scottish legend of ashrays, sea ghosts, translucent fibers that take shape at night and haunt the waterways, then disappear during the day. If they were captured, they would melt, and only a puddle of water would remain. That’s what she was, she decided. An ashray. A water ghost. Like Ophelia.

Something
was
moving up on the bank. She was sure of it now. Sofia started, righted herself in the water, and paddled wide circles with her arms to keep afloat. In the moonlight, the figure of Biaggio was now clear. He was thirty yards away, standing on the bank at the edge of Aberdeen’s backyard. His hands were on his hips, and he was looking her way.

“What are you doing?” she said sharply.

“What are
you
doing?” he said. “Swimming at this hour?” His eyes were wide. He looked nervous. “That ain’t too safe,” he said. “It’s almost midnight.”

She thought he’d gone to bed. When Arla left the kitchen earlier, they’d sat for a few moments in silence, and she’d felt something strange in the air, a shift in the karma. Then he’d risen, told her good night, and walked out the back door, stopping for a moment to glance back at her, one time.

“I’m fine,” she said. Her clothes lay in a heap on the bank. Her underwear felt small, suddenly, but she was pretty sure he couldn’t see much of her body through the dark water. Pretty sure.

“It’s dangerous,” he persisted. “Boats. They wouldn’t be able to see you, Sofia.”

She’d rarely heard him use her name, it occurred to her. He’d lived on their property for all these years. But usually he spoke only to Arla, or to Frank. Funny, she’d just realized that. Just tonight.

“I’m fine,” she said again. She hesitated. “Don’t tell my mother,” she added.

He shook his head, frowned. Then he backed up and sat down on the top of the picnic table.

“Now what are you doing?” she said.

“I’m going to sit here,” he said. “I can’t leave you out here by yourself.”

“I don’t need you watching me.”

“Well, I don’t need you to get killed, do I?”

She turned and swam another lap to the west bank, then back again. When she reached the Aberdeen side she was angry.

“My brother pays you to babysit us,” she said. “Doesn’t he?”

Biaggio raised his eyebrows. “No,” he said slowly. “He pays me to look after the house.”

“I don’t need you here,” she said. “I’m not crazy.”

She felt a little bit guilty when she saw how the word stung him.

“I never said you was.” He was embarrassed, self-conscious now, but still he didn’t move off the table. “Don’t pay me no mind,” he said. “Just pretend I’m not here.”

“Don’t just sit there staring at me,” she said. “I can’t relax.”

“I won’t stare at you,” he said. “I’ll look away.” He gazed purposefully up the Intracoastal, toward Uncle Henry’s.

She swam another lap, and then another. The barred owl had quieted. The moon glowed. On the fourth lap she tipped her head out of the water and glanced up toward the bank again. Biaggio’s eyes met hers. Her heart pounded. One more lap. She put her face down again, waited for buoyancy, and then pulled hard at the water, strong straight strokes against resistance and darkness and fear.

O rose of May! Dear maid, kind sister, sweet Ophelia!

S
IX

That Sunday morning, the bells of freedom having quieted, the rockets’ red glare having faded, and another Independence Day dead and buried, Elizabeth Bravo poured a fat mug of coffee and flicked through the St. Augustine Yellow Pages, stopping on page 189: “Attorneys—Family Law.” She peered skeptically at a large, grainy photo of a man with a mullet and a baggy suit, a bookshelf full of what appeared to be encyclopedias behind him.
DON’T GET MAD
, the headline read.
GET EVEN
.

“Good Lord,” Elizabeth said. She sipped her coffee.