Low Country (31 page)

course. The Charleston parties.”

274 / Anne Rivers Siddons

His grin widened evilly. I could not remember if I

had told him how I hated parties or not, but I knew

that he knew somehow that I did.

“It’s the only time of the year I go to them,” I said

defensively, and then laughed aloud. “Though why I’m

explaining myself to you I do not know.”

“Why, indeed?” he said, and then his smile faded.

“What
is
wrong, Caro?” he said, and the softness in

his voice startled me so that I told him.

“And you’re afraid you’ll hear your daughter in the

night? Or see her?” he said, when I fell silent.

“I’m more afraid that I won’t, I think,” I said help-

lessly, at a loss as to how to make him understand and

wishing I had not spoken of it. “Or that I will, and that

she’ll just…fade away then. That would be worse than

not seeing her, but either of them just seem like more

than…I could bear right now. I know it’s stupid. I

know I need to get myself over this.”

“It’s not stupid. But you do need to get yourself over

it. Not only does it hurt you in more ways than I think

you know, it dishonors your child. She should not be

the agent of your fear. She would not want to drive

you from the place you and she loved so.”

“I know,” I whispered, feeling tears but knowing

dully that they would not, could not, fall.

Low Country / 275

“I feel responsible,” he said presently. “It was Lita,

after all, when she came that night after the ponies. I

know that you thought…”

“I did, for a minute, and finding that I was wrong

was one of the worst moments that I have ever had in

my life,” I said. “But that was scarcely your fault, or

Lita’s. And it’s not that I’m afraid of my child. Oh

God, of course not. If I thought she could truly come

to me there I would go and never leave. I guess I’m

afraid…of the long nights alone. I’m afraid of being

afraid. Franklin Roosevelt would not be proud of me.”

“Perhaps you should go and spend a night there and

see that it does not happen,” he said soberly. I was

grateful to him beyond words that he did not laugh at

me, or try to tell me that I was really being silly and

hysterical. I knew that I was.

“I would be glad to stay with you,” he said. “I would

not even speak if you didn’t want me to. I’d just be

there. Do you think that would help? Or maybe your

husband…”

“No,” I said. I did not tell him that I would rather

die than tell Clay I was afraid that our daughter would

come to me in the night on the island and even more

afraid that she would not. It would be a knife in his

heart. Worse.

He nodded as though he knew.

“I think…that I’ll have to do it by myself,” I said.

“And I will. Maybe in the spring, when it’s light longer

and everything’s green again…I

276 / Anne Rivers Siddons

don’t know. The thing is, Luis, I think that I can’t stay

there all night awake, waiting…and not drink. And

somehow to drink over there is abhorrent to me. I

hated it that time I did it. It feels as if it might finish

me off somehow, just kill me. And…I don’t know.

Poison the island somehow.”

I took a deep breath and looked up at him. I had

never even admitted that to myself, and there it lay,

out on the little marble-topped table between us,

pulsing like a beating heart.

“It’s a first step, Caro,” he said, and covered my hand

briefly with his own. It was enormous, and so callused

that it felt like a leather glove that had dried in the sun.

It was very warm.

“If you’re going to start that twelve-step business

with me, I’m going home,” I said, annoyed that I had

told him and near panic that I had actually named the

beast. And not to Clay, but to Luis Cassells.

“No. It’s not time for that. It may never be,” he said.

“I agree with you. The island house is no place for you

to drink. And I also think you’re probably right about

doing it by yourself. Let me think on it.”

“It’s not your problem, Luis,” I said, gathering up

my purse and keys. “I didn’t mean to burden you with

it.”

“You are no burden, Caro,” he said, and he was not

smiling. “I have burdens, but you are not

Low Country / 277

one of them. I have an idea, though; why don’t you

come and spend a whole day there, and I’ll bring Lita

and perhaps we’ll find the ponies, and maybe Ezra

would come and bring Sophia and Mark, and we could

just sort of…have a day at your place. Live a day in

Caro’s world. You’ve had one at ours, after all. It

would be wonderful fun for the children, and who

knows? It might start to give you back your island.…”

“Maybe,” I said slowly, thinking of it. The sun on

the greening marsh, and the quiet lap of the water

against the dock, and the ponies, and the lazy banter

and laughing, and maybe a picnic lunch…

The shadows that had lain thick over the house and

the island in my mind lifted a bit.

“Maybe I will.”

“Name a day.”

“Well…after the holidays. Maybe a little later, when

the marsh starts to green up?”

“You don’t want to let it go too long,” Luis said.

And as it turned out, I did not.

Two days before New Year’s Eve Clay came home

to dinner and said, “How would you like to spend New

Year’s in Old San Juan?”

I looked up from ladling the Portuguese kale soup

that he loves on winter nights.

“Puerto Rico?” I said.

He read my face.

278 / Anne Rivers Siddons

“It’s a long way from Calista. And it’s beautiful. A

lot like Key West, in the oldest parts. Or vice versa, I

guess. I thought you like Key West so much…”

“Oh, Clay…”

I did not know how to tell him that, for me, the very

earth of Puerto Rico would always be stained now

with Jeremy Fowler’s blood.

I did not have to. He sighed.

“I know. I don’t want to go, either. I swore I never

would again. But Carter has a buyer, I think, and he

won’t talk to anybody but me. It’s not going to do the

company much good; the payments are spread out too

far. But it’ll get the investors off us for a while, and it’s

the only offer we’re apt to get. The main man is

spending the holidays in San Juan on his yacht, doncha

know, and he insists that we do this right now or not

at all. I think it’s another case of jerk-the-CEO, but

right now I’m not in any position to argue. I thought

you just might want to come. You’re apt to be lone-

some here by yourself. I mean, you’re not painting

much anymore, are you? I didn’t think you’d been

over to…the other house for a while.”

“No, I…well, maybe I will start again,” I said, not

wanting to get into my reasons for avoiding the island.

“The weather’s wonderful. And I need to give the house

a good cleaning.…”

“Take Estelle for that, for God’s sake,” he said,

lapsing into his pre-Christmas abstracted

Low Country / 279

irritablility. “You don’t need to be humping out houses

yourself.”

“I think it might be just what I do need,” I said

stubbornly. There was no reason on earth to quarrel

with Clay about who cleaned the island house. I could

simply do it myself and not tell him, if I wanted to.

The fact was that I felt the walls of the bubble begin-

ning to erode badly, and it frightened and angered me.

Had it been so much to ask, this period of giddy

peace?

“Suit yourself,” Clay said coolly, and went upstairs

to his office. Thus it was that when he left for Puerto

Rico two days later, the kisses we gave each other were

cheek kisses only, and glancing ones at that. I hated it

but did not know how to get the past three weeks’ in-

timacy back, and he gave no sign that he wanted to.

When he was gone, I sat down in my shining, empty

house and suddenly could not bear it. I dug out my

battered Day-Timer and consulted it, and then dialed

the number I had written down for the little nameless

store in Dayclear.

Janie answered.

“Sto’.”

“Janie, it’s Caro Venable. Could you get a message

to Mr. Cassells for me, do you think?”

“Reckon so. They outside playin’ football right now.”

When he came to the phone, I said, “Don’t you ever

work?”

280 / Anne Rivers Siddons

“Ah, if only I could,” he said lugubriously. “But in-

stead I must hang around this store waiting for you to

call. I’m weeks behind. Mengele will gas me. Or con-

nect my ear to my fat
Cubano
butt.”

I laughed; I could not help it. The fragile sorcery of

Christmas came drifting back.

“Do you think you could take your fat
Cubano
butt

over to my house today? I’m going to be around, and

we’re not apt to get a better day to show Lita the

ponies. If I can find them.”

“My butt is yours,” he said. “As a matter of fact, I

think the ponies are around your place somewhere.

Ezra was out on the creek yesterday and saw them

hanging around under your porch.”

“Lord, I hope they’re not chewing on the supports

again,” I said. “They aren’t pressure treated, and I’ve

found enough teeth marks on them so that one day

they’re going to gnaw through them like beavers.

Granddaddy said it was the salt that soaked into the

wood that they like.”

“I think it’s more apt to be the six tons of windfall

apples I’ve been lugging over there every week, at Lady

Lita’s direction,” he said.

“You’ve built a pony trap under my porch,” I said,

grinning into the telephone.

“
Sí, senora
,” he said in a dreadful Latino whine.

Low Country / 281

“I’ll be over directly,” I said. “I’ll bring a picnic lunch.

You bring whatever you want to drink for the two of

you.”

When I got out of the Cherokee there was no one

in sight, and I stopped still and looked up at the

weathered gray house on its stilts, dreaming in its

shroud of silvery moss and the mild sun. It was a

warm, sweet morning, so much like the spring that

was still six weeks away, that I could almost hear the

little liquid sucking sound that the wet earth sometimes

makes in spring, as the dormant roots come alive again

and drink in the standing rain. Out on the creek the

water danced and sparkled, and the sky over it was the

pale washed blue that March brings. The sun was

already warm on my forearms and the top of my head,

and I took off the hat that I had worn. I waited.

Nothing happened, nothing broke the silence except

the distant cacophony of the returning ducks and wa-

terbirds in the big freshwater pond across the river and

the tiny rustlings of small things that should, by right,

still be sleeping in the mud. Well, I thought, what did

you expect to hear? But I knew.

Anxiety crawled out of the pit of my stomach and

closed around my heart. I shook my head and walked

briskly up the steps to the house. I would not have

this. Not on this most beneficent of days. Not here.

Not now.

There were baskets and grocery bags piled at

282 / Anne Rivers Siddons

the door, and a small sack of the tiny, gnarled Yates

apples that lay everywhere in the long grass of the is-

land, the last spawn of centuries-old orchards. I knew

they would be as sweet as smoke and honey, but that

you were quite apt to meet half a worm if you bit into

one. Pony bait, I was sure. So Luis and Lita were

already here. But where? I saw no vehicle, and there

was no sign at all of the herd.

And then there was. The familiar, half-spectral sound

of their hoofbeats in soft, wet earth came bursting

down the road that led into the hummock. My breath

stopped. Then the herd itself swept into view, still

looking like clumsily made toys. They were not gallop-

ing, as they sometimes did, but trotting phlegmatically

along in a messy knot. At the rear, I saw the awkward

sprite’s shape of Nissy’s colt, capering on longer legs,

and then Nissy herself. Lita was on her back, sturdy

little legs clamped around Nissy’s fat, shaggy stomach,

hands intertwined in the scabrous mane. Beside them,

Luis Cassells trotted, breathing hard but keeping up.

I put my hands to my mouth, my heart pounding. I

had seen this before, in another, distant lifetime. I did

not know if I could handle it again.

Nissy set her splayed hooves in an abrupt, skidding

stop and Lita slid off her back, crowing with joy. She

ran straight to me and threw her arms

Low Country / 283

around me and buried her head in my stomach.

“
Ay
, Caro! The
jaca
, she let me
montar
…”

“English, Lita,” Luis said, puffing and laughing.

“
Ingles, por favor
.”

Lita threw her head back and looked up at me.

“Nissy let me ride her! It’s the first time!