“All right, then. Tell me. Why in the world would you think that?”
“Because in my heart I know that if I hadn’t wanted that puppy? Rusty wouldna died.”
“Baby, maybe not or maybe she would’ve. The point is that Rusty was a whole big grown-up and she made that decision to go to Beaufort on her own. You didn’t push her into her car! You didn’t even know she was going, for heaven’s sake!” I was going nowhere fast with this mule-headed child. It was time to change tactics and just pull out the big guns. “Look. You believe in God, don’t you?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, didn’t they tell you in Sunday school that God knows everything, even the number of the hairs on your head?”
“Yeah.”
“So then it follows that He also knows when it’s your time to go to heaven. Look, sweetheart. Rusty died doing a good thing. She wasn’t on her way to rob a bank or to set somebody’s house on fire.”
“I don’t get it. What’s the point?”
I was thoroughly exasperated, so I stood up and handed her back the baby doll.
“The point? I’ll tell you the point! The point is that if it was your fault, I would tell you. Believe me. I would tell you. In fact, you’d be hearing it from everyone. You’re not hearing it from anyone. So it’s not your fault. Get it now? Okay. So. So, now I’m going downstairs to get a glass of wine and to thank all the nice people who are coming to express their regrets over this family’s great sorrow. I would advise you to do the same.”
She giggled.
“What’s so funny?” I asked.
“I don’t drink, Aunt Caroline! I’m too little.”
The lovely, sweet Aunt Caroline, the one who lived her life inspired at every moment by His Holiness the Dalai Lama—that one? Yeah, well, she’d had it with little girls who thought they were smart enough to raise themselves and didn’t need or believe the opinions of their elders. I left the room and went downstairs, straight to Millie’s side.
One look at me and she read my mind.
“That chile gone be okay. Don’t worry so.”
“I know.”
“How’d it go down in the Holy City?” she asked. She was cutting pimento-cheese sandwiches into fourths and putting them on a tray. “Terrible?”
“About the worst thing I’ve ever seen. Ranks right up there with seeing Mother dead. Except worse somehow.”
“Oh, Law. I expect it was,” she said, shaking her head. “Oh, Caroline, I’m so sorry you had to see that. And your brother.”
“Thanks. Let me help you with that,” I said, and she stepped aside.
“Thanks. Miss Sweetie brought the biggest strawberry shortcake I ever did see. It’s out in the dining room. And we got five hams already. Jenkins is over there slicing ’em up to beat the band. And Trip’s friends done bring enough fish to relive the Bible story where they multiplied the food? Yes, ma’am. That’s in Mark.”
“Chapter nine!” Mr. Jenkins called from halfway across the crowded room.
Millie was startled. I had to smile at her surprise. She looked back at me with that spark in her eye that I love so much.
“Ever since he got them hearing aids? He can hear a dollar drop clean across town,” she whispered.
“I heard that!” Mr. Jenkins said.
“Humph,” said Millie, and I just shook my head, smiling, really smiling.
Somehow, we were going to get through this horrible tragedy. And somehow, we were going to be fine.
17
Spirits Fly
I WOKE UP THE NEXT morning still thinking about my dreams, which were confusing and fragmented. I hated those kinds of dreams because they were disturbing and left me feeling unsettled. Then, as I reconnected with the world, I remembered that Rusty was dead. No wonder I had passed the night in fits. And no wonder I would begin the day in a bad mood. I would have given anything to turn the clock back forty-eight hours. Maybe Millie and I could have figured out how to save Rusty. But maybe Millie’s prayers had saved me. I did not know. I simply did not know and neither did my bones.
There were a thousand details to see to in order to put together Rusty’s memorial service and there were some situations, too, that were sticky matters of etiquette. For example, we could not say in the obituary that Rusty was survived by Trip and the girls because in actuality he was still married to Frances Mae. Awkward. So how would Trip’s friends and associates know he had lost Rusty? And what would Frances Mae say when she heard?
I decided to add something to the obituary to clarify the point without fueling the tongues of all of Charleston and Walterboro to propel their wag fest. After all, we knew people talked about us. Sometimes Mother would say she damn well hoped they did. But in truth, our challenge had always been to give them as little as possible to work with.
I mentally drafted the addendum while taking a fast shower:
Friends and colleagues of Ruth “Rusty” Peretti are invited to join the family of Caroline Wimbley Levine and James “Trip” Nevil Wimbley III at the chapel on the grounds of Tall Pines Plantation for a memorial service this Saturday at one o’clock in the afternoon and then immediately afterward for refreshments at her home. For directions and contact information please e-mail
[email protected] or call them a. . .
Yes, I decided, that’s what I would do. Or something like that. So then, I thought, how many people would show up? Would we need a caterer? Valet parking? Flowers? Rentals? I got up, threw myself together, and hurried downstairs.
It was only seven-thirty and Millie was already in the kitchen, taking inventory of the boxes of glasses we used to serve large numbers of people. They were spread all over the counters. She was planning Saturday’s event and both of us would rather have fallen on the swords of Sherman and Grant than use plastic goblets, even the really good kind that looks like cut glass.
“Morning!” I said. “Coffee?”
“I already had two cups. Moses. That mess gimme the shakes. And these glasses are dusty. Woo! They are dusty, dirty!”
I poured coffee into a mug for myself and added a dash of cream. If Matthew liked it, maybe I would, too.
“I’m trying to get Rusty’s memorial service organized in my brain and I’m thinking we need to get Trip over here. Did he bring the morning newspapers yet?”
“I ain’t seen hide nor hair of him yet this day. Maybe be best for you to go over there and see what’s going on. I’d better run these things in the dishwasher, ’eah?”
“Yeah, I guess. Can’t hurt.” I looked at Millie’s face. “What’s the matter, Millie? You look worried.”
“I’m always worried. I think we’re gonna have a hard time with Trip, Caroline. Never saw a man so broke up like he was last night. Can you imagine what it was like to go to that bed without her at his side? Every widow and widower I ever did know say that first night? Terrible.”
“Yeah. Must’ve been awful.”
Millie was right. Last night, after everyone left, Trip had parked himself in his favorite armchair and wept openly with his face in his hands and his elbows on his knees. He just couldn’t reconcile himself to her death and he couldn’t get over seeing her on a slab at the morgue. He was absolutely inconsolable and I remembered wishing that he would come around or hoping he would. Trip was not usually so emotional and always seemed to take things in stride, better than I did anyway.
“I expect it was. I keep wondering, if your mother was alive, what would she do?”
“She’d guilt him into action in about two seconds, right? If that didn’t work, she’d drag him out of bed and into a shower.”
“Humph. You are right.” Millie laughed a little then and shook her head. “Yes, ma’am, she would. Ain’t nobody ever who could lay on the guilt like Lavinia Boswell Wimbley! Nobody, no, ma’am!”
“Hmm, look, it wouldn’t be unusual for him to take a day or two off. Who would blame him? I mean, she was the love of his life.”
“Yes, she was, but them girls ain’t g
onna be no kinda source of comfort for him, ’eah?”
What was Millie trying to tell me?
“Okay,” I said, “who’s Miss Lavinia now? You give me the guilt and I go give it to him. I’ll be back in a little bit. Maybe I’ll go make them all breakfast or something.”
“See? Now, that’s a good sister!”
“Whatever,” I said, and blew her a kiss.
I picked up the papers at our gate in my SUV and drove the distance to Trip’s because it was faster than the golf cart and I didn’t feel like a hike. The day was so beautiful and clear. It was confounding and even infuriating to me how the world could go on spinning in light of our tragedy. Shouldn’t it have paused for a moment? Shouldn’t there be a sign that Rusty made it to heaven and that she was all right? Like the sun sending fantastic streams of light through the clouds? There was no sign. Nothing but a cosmic silence so loud I ached to think of it.
Trip’s house was quiet. I just let myself in because he never locked his doors. He kept our granddaddy’s old Parker Reliable next to the bed in case of unwanted visitors and everybody knew it. I walked all around the rooms and found Chloe in the den, sitting on the floor eating a bowl of dry Cheerios and watching reruns of The Sopranos. It bothered me that she had access to adult programming. Not appropriate for this viewing audience, I thought. Trip probably didn’t even know how to work the television, much less turn on parental blocks. I would handle this just as my mother would.
“Morning, honey! Whatcha watching?”
“Hey!” She didn’t even look up at me, she was so enthralled with the television. “I don’t know, but you know what? The family on this program? I mean, their kids are really messed up! You can’t believe the bad words . . .”
“Um, maybe you should be watching something else? Like Sesame Street? Or SpongeBob? Or anything else in the world except this?”
“I’ll change it when they have a commercial.”
“No,” I said, “we’ll change it right now and we’ll find you something better. Young ladies shouldn’t have to be exposed to foul language. Especially before breakfast.” I smiled at her and she gave me a dirty look that compressed her features in a most unattractive way. Arching my eyebrow I thought, With your little rubber face, you could go join a carnival, bless your heart. I picked up the remote and clicked through the channels until I found something animated, with dancing ponies, rainbows, and princesses. “Perfect. Is your daddy up?”
“I don’t know,” she said, and was immediately sucked into the new program. “I didn’t hear him yet.”
Witness the almighty power of television, I thought. She would’ve glued herself to Nova or Gilligan’s Island with the same intensity, which was why adults needed to supervise what kids watched. There was so much wrong with the world. So much.
“Your sisters?”
“They’ll be up in time for supper,” she said.
“Uh-huh,” I said. “Okay, well, I’m going to go and rouse your father and then I might make some French toast, if you’re interested.”
She bobbed her head and I wondered if she had heard a word I said.
When I got upstairs, Trip’s bedroom door was closed. I knocked on it lightly.
“Come in,” he said.
I opened the door and his back was to me. He was in his pajama bottoms and a T-shirt, looking out the window.
“Hey,” I said, “thought you might like some company this morning.” When he turned around to face me, I had to stifle a gasp. His eyes were nearly swollen shut from what I imagined was continuous weeping. He had the shadow of Samson’s beard growing on his face and neck and his hair was sticking up all over the place.
“Wow. You look good.”
“Right. Thanks,” he said. “Who gives a shit?”
“Well, you’ll scare the hell out of the children, that’s all.”
“Children? Maybe Chloe’s a child, but the others certainly are not. Want to hear what Linnie said last night after you left?”
I really didn’t want to hear it but I was going to.
“I’m sitting in the den bawling like a baby and Chloe says, ‘What’s wrong, Daddy?’ Miss Linnie gives me a drive-by and says, ‘Daddy’s whore is dead, Chloe. Haven’t you heard?’ ”
“Please tell me you’re lying or exaggerating or something!”
“No. I am not. This is who my daughter is. I don’t even know what Amelia and Belle think. They haven’t said one word. You know, you’d think they’d say something, wouldn’t you? Like, ‘Gee, Daddy this must be so awful for you.’ Something! Anything!”
“Trip? I’m no shrink but I think Linnie is just full of teenage anger. Period. I mean, her mother has brutally disappointed her over and over again. Your relationship with Rusty never got any support from Frances Mae, so she must have some very confusing feelings about it. As for Belle and Amelia, I think they just don’t know what to say. Seeing you so upset probably reinforces the fact that you don’t love their mother.”
Trip was quiet for a moment and then he said something that really got to the heart of the matter.
“Let me ask you something, Caroline, and you don’t have to answer me now, but do you think my relationship with Rusty was wrong?”
“I don’t need time to consider that. Remember I’ve been a witness to Frances Mae’s outrageous behavior for years. No. It was not wrong. Your marriage to Frances Mae had more than its share of complications and every person in this country is entitled to the pursuit of happiness, aren’t we? You’re not supposed to be made miserable and just suck it up for your whole life. Frances Mae drove you to drink and gamble and ultimately straight to Rusty’s arms. She wasn’t the right wife for you. She made you into your worst self. Rusty made you happy. What else do you want to know?”
“Even though we have four children together?”
“That’s the complicated part. But divorce happens every single day. Now, why don’t you get a shower or something and I’ll rustle us up some breakfast. I got the papers this morning, but let’s not make that a habit, okay?”
I closed his door and hoped that my supporting him would help him let go of some of his pall. At least somewhat. I worried about him until I heard the water running in his shower. Trip was flat-out devastated. I didn’t blame him one bit, but I had never seen him like this. Ever. Except when Daddy died.
But guess what? I was devastated, too. Rusty had been my best friend for the past ten years and I loved her like I would have loved a sister. But, as Millie pointed out to me, this was no time for my self-indulgence of grief. The fact was, the moment we had to act was now, not later next week. We had to plan a proper send-off—no, a beautiful glorious send-off for Rusty, and he needed to be a part of it. I set up his coffeemaker and pressed the start button.
That little Linnie was going to hear it from me. Wait till I tell Millie, I thought.
I looked around in Trip’s refrigerator to see what there was, and once again, I was reminded of Rusty. Needless to say, the refrigerator was bulging with packages of sliced ham, just as the freezer was filled with more fish than we could eat in six months. But in between all those baggies and packages wrapped in aluminum foil, there was plenty of everything healthy that a family should eat—low-fat yogurt, fresh-squeezed organic orange juice, organic eggs, and skim milk. In the bread drawer under the counter there was a loaf of whole-grain white bread, a bag of low-salt rice cakes, and an unopened bag of Oreos, Rusty’s favorite guilty pleasure. It was true, or at least it seemed to be so, that modifying the girls’ diets had calmed them down considerably. It had not made them less belligerent or defiant, but at least they were less frenetic in their day-to-day evil pursuits. Every victory with them was small, slow to come, and hard-won. Rusty had possessed the patience of Job. I did not. And then Frances Mae crossed my mind. Her rehab was almost over and then what? Couldn’t she just stay out of the picture until we adjusted to this? But would Trip ever adjust? Probably not, if the looks of him that morning meant anything.
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I took a pad of paper and a pen from the shelf by the phone and sat down at the kitchen table to make a list. Call Reverend Moore, clarify the obituary, call Miss Sweetie to think through food and flowers, clean up the whole chapel area, replace Mother’s picture . . . finally, Trip appeared in the doorway, clean shaven and dressed in khakis, a knit shirt, and Top-Siders, pretty much his uniform. He looked better.
“And here he is! Good morning, sweet brother of mine. You want coffee?”
I poured a mug and handed it to him. “This is only because you are a grief-stricken wretch. Do you want French toast or waffles?” Of course I had hoped that a sassy jab would get a smile out of him, but it did not.
“I don’t want anything. But thanks.”
“Well, look, I’m cooking for Chloe, and you probably never ate dinner last night. So I’m ignoring your polite refusal and making you French toast anyway.”
“I gotta feed my dogs.”
“Fine. Go feed your dogs. Breakfast will be on the table in fifteen minutes.”
I got out his biggest frying pan and filled it with strips of bacon and turned up the gas. Then I made the batter for French toast with eggs, milk, vanilla, a pinch of salt, and a generous sprinkle of cinnamon in tribute to Rusty. I set the table for three, thinking if the other girls wanted something to eat, whenever it was they deigned to lift their lazy backsides out of the sack, I’d make them something then. Or they could make a ham sandwich.
Soon the traveling smells of cooking bacon brought Chloe in from the den, and when Trip came back inside, he lingered in the kitchen, scanning the morning papers and sighing like an old woman, until I finally was able to coax him into taking a plate of food. I sat with him and Chloe and we began to eat. Trip’s sadness permeated the air all around us, hanging like smog. He would take a bite, swallow, and then clear his throat as though the act of swallowing was almost too much for him.
“More juice?” I asked.
“No, I’m good. This is delicious, Caroline. Thanks.”
He was never that complimentary. “Yes, it is and you’re welcome.” I smiled at Chloe, hoping she would catch my sense of humor, but her face was just as sullen as Trip’s. Great, I thought. Today is going to be like dragging giant fish through pluff mud with a gaff.