“Yeah, Gawd, I always heard your husband was a few bricks shy of a load.”
“That’s one way to put it.”
He put his helmet back on, opened the car door for me, and as he closed it he put on his sunglasses. “I’ll come by some evening, Caroline. It would be fun to catch up. Y’all have a nice day!”
I looked at Miss Nancy. “I used to date him.”
“I gathered as much,” she said.
In the time it took to drive halfway to Tall Pines, I had ripped off and wadded up my mourning clothes, thrown off the mantle of sorrow, and flirted my guts out with a state trooper. Nice work! Down south when we ran short of men, we recycled.
MISS LAVINIA’S JOURNAL
When Sweetie and I got in the car, we carried on like girls. I think the old gal was almost as excited as I was to see Eric and Caroline, but Sweetie’s always been a gusher. I pride myself on restraint. But, Lord! Eric has grown so! What a beautiful boy and what a vocabulary! Nevil would’ve eaten him up! God, her disaster has brought me such happiness! Did I say that right?
Twenty-five
On My Shield
MY daddy always said that when soldiers went to war, they came home either carrying their shield or on their shield. I guessed I was on mine, and feeling pretty darn defeated. In everyone else’s favor, they didn’t hold it against me.
Millie came out to greet us when we arrived and hugged me until I thought she’d crack my ribs. When she hugged Eric she began to cry.
“Come on, Millie,” I said, “I can’t take it if you crash!”
“I been saving these tears for a long time, Miss Caroline, and they got to flow now. Can’t hold them back no more!”
“Get a hold on yourself, you old fool,” Mother said, hurrying by her, “we need to get dinner on the table! My grandson is starving!”
Millie dried her eyes and started laughing. She released Eric to Mother’s outstretched arms. As they walked away, Millie said to me, “She is one cantankerous old bird, you yanh me?”
I nodded and said, “Come on, I’ll help you.” I linked my arm through hers and we walked into the house together.
Dinner was filled with small talk and anything but questions about what had actually happened between Richard and me. Y’all have a good trip? Cold in New York? Isn’t it a beautiful day? In one way, that was a relief and in another, it was waiting for the inevitable. Millie called everyone to the table at noon and we all assembled in the dining room—me, Eric, Miss Sweetie, Miss Nancy, Mother, and, at the last moment, Trip arrived.
The buffet was arranged with Mother’s old Sheffield covered dishes filled with a sausage and shredded chicken dish in one, steamed rice in another, and fresh corn and tomatoes in a third. They were practical as well as beautiful, each one having a well in the bottom to hold hot water, designed to keep the food warm throughout the meal. I hadn’t seen them in years.
“Oh, Mother! I remember these casserole dishes!” I put my plate at my place and helped myself to a biscuit.
“I’m not sure I’d refer to them as casseroles, Caroline! They are hardly Pyrex!” But that remark lacked its customary sting, as Mother was honestly teasing me.
“They are ex-quis-eete, Lavinia!” Miss Nancy said.
“Lavinia? Aren’t they the ones given to your mother by Senator Sanders and his wife when she married your father?” Miss Sweetie said.
Senator Sanders’s family had saved their plantation, Beech Hill, from Sherman’s torches by calling out, “If you burn the house, you burn me!” Unlike the live oaks of Tall Pines, it had an avenue of palmettos. The Sanders family had quite a history, but they had not given Mother that silver. Daddy had bought it in New York for Mother when they celebrated her fortieth birthday with a vacation there. I remembered the day she unpacked them and I played with all the pieces like a puzzle, fascinated by their detail.
“Why, yes, I believe you’re right, dear!” Mother said.
Trip shot me a glance—a straight face with arched eyebrow. I giggled. Mother never passed up any opportunity to distinguish her reputation—honestly or otherwise. We all served our plates and found our places, Trip giving Eric the first of many lessons on protocol.
“Come on, boy,” Trip said, “help your uncle seat the ladies!”
“Sure!” Eric said and followed Trip’s lead until we were all seated.
This caused the eruption of many little remarks on how Eric had grown and my, my, what a little gentleman, and aren’t you proud of him, Caroline? Yes, yes, I said, I certainly was. Eric grinned with the realization that this wasn’t Kansas at all, while we all waited for the Great and Terrible Oz to lift her fork.
“This smells so good, Mother!” I said, famished from our trip.
“Good, darling!” She slowly unfolded her napkin and draped it across her lap, smiling at everyone, knowing they waited. Then, in a dramatic sigh, she finally picked up her fork and took a small bite.
“I made it this morning!” Miss Nancy said.
Eric looked at me. “What is this stuff ?” he whispered.
“Young man, it’s the food of the gods! Chicken Pilau and fresh vegetables! Try it!” Trip said.
Eric wasn’t a picky eater, he was a plain eater. We were always watching our weight, so he wasn’t accustomed to sauces, spices, and gravies. Chicken Pilau had a reputation in our kitchen for as long as I had lived. Every time anyone passed the stove, they sprinkled more pepper in the pot.
It was a wonderful dish for a crowd and indeed there were many family stories where it played a leading role. Daddy loved to tell the story of Louise, his mother’s cook. His mother would say, Louise? I’m having company! Let’s make Chicken Pilau (pronounced perlow). How many? Louise would ask. His mother would say, Twenty. Louise would pause and say, Get me four chickens then. If his mother said fifty were coming for dinner, Louise would pause and say, Well, then get me four chickens. It was the Biblical loaves and fishes. Easy to make too. You just boiled the four chickens with celery, onions, and a bay leaf in plenty of water. When the meat fell off the bones, you strained it and used the juice to cook the rice. When the chicken cooled, you shredded it and added it to the rice with cooked sausage. With pepper. And more pepper. And still more. Extra juice was used for thin gravy.
All eyes were on Eric as he piled his fork with suspicion and chicken. He ate it, then blew a little air from the spiciness and grabbed his iced tea, gulping it down. He began to devour it with the typical gusto of a starving boy. “Damn, Mom! This is awesome! How come you never made this?”
Everyone burst out laughing that he had said damn. On any other day, the table may have held back breath while Mother chastised the offender, but not today. I began to view this lunch as a celebration of sorts. Not a celebration that said Mother was right about Richard, but one that showed the affection we all felt for each other.
“How’s Frances Mae?” I said, thinking I should at least be polite enough to inquire.
“Big as the broad side of a barn and looks like she’s due to pop any minute,” Trip said. There was more than a trace of disgust in his voice.
I felt sorry for Frances Mae, but only for that moment. I was not looking forward to seeing her any more than she probably wanted to see me.
“I’m sure she’s ready for that baby to come,” I said.
“To be sure. Does anyone care for a glass of wine? Trip?” Mother said.
Everyone declined, including Louie the Liver. “Have to be in court at three,” he said.
“What for?” Eric said.
“Well, son, I got me a case this afternoon, all right. Seems this fellow got lost in the middle of the night and wound up crawling through the window of his own house. Said he lost his keys or some such fool. Well, his wife, my client, got scared at the noise and shot him with his own pistol right in the jewels.”
“Mercy!” Miss Sweetie said.
“Tomcat. Serves him right,” Miss Nancy said.
“You don’t know that, Nancy!” Mother
said.
“Well, she’s right. We all know he had been running around with every kinda loose woman in Colleton County—got pictures to prove it. Anyway, he says she tried to kill him. She says she thought he was a robber. Now, they’re getting divorced.”
“Heavens! No wonder!” Miss Sweetie said.
“Yeah, this fellow says he’s broke but we know better. Got copies of his bank statements from the Cayman Islands.” He looked at Eric with his serious face. “You don’t want to know how I got those.”
“Cool! It’s just like television! Judge Judy!” Eric said. “Can I come with you? Mom?”
I looked at Trip and shrugged my shoulders. Trip wiped his mouth carefully and put his napkin on the table. He took a long look at Eric, who waited for his verdict.
“Why not?” Trip said. “If we get back here at a decent hour, and if you behave yourself, maybe I’ll take you fishing!”
“Cool,” Eric said. “Yes! This is very cool.”
“Okay with you?” Trip said to me.
“Sure, it will give me a chance to unpack our clothes and get settled.”
“Can I get y’all some lemon meringue pie?” Millie said, circling the table, collecting plates. “More tea?”
Eric got up without being asked and began helping Millie to clear the dishes. As soon as they disappeared into the kitchen, Mother, Miss Nancy, Miss Sweetie, and Trip remarked on Eric’s conduct. “He’s such a fine boy!” “Isn’t he an angel?” The pie was quickly eaten and our first meal at Tall Pines was at an end.
“Well, girls,” Mother said to Miss Nancy and Miss Sweetie, “are we still playing cards this afternoon?”
No wonder Mother had been anxious for lunch. She wasn’t going to let our arrival interfere with her bridge game!
“Unless the sky falls! I made strawberry muffins this morning,” Miss Sweetie said. “You can ride with me, Lavinia.”
“Let me just get my sweater,” Mother said.
“That’s just what we need is more food,” Miss Nancy said, in my direction.
I walked them all to the door, and stood on the porch as each car drove away. When I closed the ancient front door behind me, its thud and clank seemed heavier than usual. And more complete. It had closed the door on Richard and I was back where I started. Tall Pines.
I went to find Millie to do a little self-indulgent moping, but the kitchen was empty. Looking out the back door, I saw her golf cart rolling down the lane toward her house. She must’ve cleaned the kitchen by wiggling her nose, I thought.
That seemed like a good time to take a walk around the yard and maybe visit the rose garden. The afternoon sun was warm and my legs were in need of a good stretch. I threw my sweater around my shoulders and left from the back door. I wasn’t twenty feet from the house when I had this urge to turn around. All at once, I realized that I was alone. In every sense of the word.
Why had I come back here? I could have rented an apartment in New York and just gone on with life, but to tell the truth, I was completely over the pace and the energy of the city. Life there had a black hole where its heart should have been.
Was Mother less happy to see me than her friends were? It certainly had seemed so. Maybe that wasn’t fair. I was being a baby, but I had to say to myself that some part of me wished she would have stopped her life for me. Maybe she was smarter than that. Maybe she wanted me to settle in at my own pace, give me some time to come to her.
Trip had certainly taken a shine to Eric. That was wonderful because maybe he could help take up some of the slack of Richard’s absence. Mother had definitely shown some sweet affection for Eric too. Depending on Trip and Mother made my alarms go off. Could we coexist without some kind of mutual dependency? No, or else I shouldn’t be here. Tall Pines was not a boardinghouse. I had come here with my son for refuge. If I had found any kind of resolve in me it was that I wasn’t going to live any lies. Leaving Richard was just the first step in changing my life. Our lives. I hoped Mother wouldn’t disappoint Eric as a grandmother in that way she had hurt Trip and me when Daddy died. Would I spend my entire life trying to please parent figures? Wasn’t Richard more than that? There were so many issues and I had so many questions. As much as I hated to, it was best to go back to the beginning and examine it. The next thing I knew I found myself sitting in a lawn chair, staring at the Edisto River, smelling the jasmine and remembering.
Twenty-six
Daddy
1974
I had just graduated from Carolina Academy in Walterboro and was spending the summer getting in gear to go to Ashley Hall in Charleston. Ashley Hall was where Mother had gone to school and she announced I would go there as well. Daddy wasn’t too keen on the idea of me leaving home so early, but he understood that the options in our neck of the woods were limited. We were sitting in the kitchen, sharing a Hershey bar—plain chocolate, my favorite.
“You can take me out to supper on Wednesdays,” I said.
“And I’m going to do that too, so you had better not be making plans without me for Wednesdays!” he said, his eyes filled with mischief, then suddenly they clouded, and his face became solemn.
“Daddy? Why are you looking at me like that?”
“To remember, Caroline, to remember your face just like it is now. You are the spitting image of my mother. She was a beautiful woman, a heart-stopping head turner. You will be too. You had better tell those boys in Charleston that your daddy will rip the legs off the first one that tries anything funny with my daughter.”
“Daddy! I’m almost fourteen! And, in case you forgot, it’s an all-girls school!” I smiled at him and watched him relax, letting out little puffs of air, him trying to hide the fact that he had actually been concerned. That he had realized in that flash of a moment I no longer wore pigtails, that, good Lord, someday I’d have a sex life. It made me want to apologize for growing up without his notice or approval. In another way, I felt myself swell a little as though my possibilities had been discovered. I was growing up. Boarding school a whole thirty miles away! I could come home on weekends and there was nothing to stop Daddy and Mother from visiting me during the week.
I had some anxiety about going away, but I figured all those other generations of girls went there and didn’t kill themselves; neither would I. I’d be fine.
Trip was going to have his eleventh birthday that July and Mother was planning the party. All it took was anticipation of a party to watch the energy surge in Mother. Party? She was the tree in Rockefeller Center, and somebody flipped her switch. God only knew how overboard it would be. I heard her talking to Mr. Jenkins about creating a western town from plywood cutouts and something else about costumes. She was probably gonna fly in Roy Rogers and Dale Evans from somewhere and have a rodeo in the old rice fields. Pigs would die, there was no doubt of that. Mother just couldn’t help herself. She was born to dream up and give the fantastic parties she wanted to attend.
We all knew that Trip wanted a horse for his birthday. The campaign had nearly coincided with his birth. His entire room was swallowed alive with horse mania—posters, sheets, magazines—you name it. If it had a horse on it, Trip owned it.
I was a sympathetic partner. I got my horse when I was eleven. Seemed fair for him to expect the same. But Daddy worried that Trip wasn’t mature enough to be responsible for such a large animal. I rode my horse, Ginger, every day, fed her and groomed her too. Of course, Mr. Jenkins helped me, but I stood on a stool when I was Trip’s age and worked the knots from Ginger’s mane with my fingers. Ginger knew all my secrets and that relationship was carrying me through the jungle of my adolescence.
And, we all had our indulgences. I had Ginger, Mother had about a billion pairs of shoes, and Daddy had his little airplane. It was a little red and white, single-engine Piper, prop job. Mother always said it wasn’t any better than a nasty old crop duster, and refused to fly in it. But Daddy would preen like a peacock when you asked him for a ride.
One Valentine’s Day when Mother was
entertaining a group from the Charleston Historical Society out on the lawn by the river, Daddy buzzed her party with a long flag, slapping the breeze behind the plane that said, LAVINIA IS THE QUEEN OF MY HEART!
Another time, on her birthday, he drove it almost to the front door. We ran outside to see what the noise was and there stood Daddy, in his World War II pilot’s uniform, complete with white silk scarf and a huge bouquet of flowers. He claimed to have a date with a certain young Lavinia Ann Boswell and Mother was completely charmed.
“Who are these beautiful children?” he said, and produced Hershey bars from his pocket for us.
“Why, sir? I’m not sure, but they appear to be ours!”
He and Mother drove all over Tall Pines, drinking champagne.
Naturally, Trip and I thought their dramatics were stupid and embarrassing. I mean, did the whole world have to know they probably still had sex, even though they had children? Jesus! Did they give our personal humiliation a second thought? Not on your life. They were so stupid over each other that the only time Mother and Daddy ever even remembered they knew us was at meals, and when we had “family hour” after supper.
Family hour was another one of Daddy’s inventions of conscience. Every night after supper, we would continue our dinner table discussion in the living room. Daddy would make each of us read something from the Charleston newspaper and then we’d have a great discussion about it. Sometimes the articles we chose were about sports and sometimes they were about politics. Every now and then Mother would use Dear Abby’s column to give us a lesson in morality, Lavinia style. Even though Trip and I groaned about the forced feeding of the state of the outside world, we adored it. There was something reassuring about those hours that made me believe that even though we were a wacky family, we were a family nonetheless.
It was hot that summer, more steamy than usual. All day long the heat would build and deep in the afternoon violent thunder-storms burst forth like it was the end of the world. The rain came down in torrents, the lightning crackled and flashed all around, and then, in minutes, it was over. Afterward, we’d sit outside, eat watermelon, and watch the steam rise from the earth. Hell couldn’t have been that hot. Some nights Trip and I would run down to the dock and jump in the river. Mother had us pretty well terrified of alligators, so to say we took a quick swim would be an understatement.