A Long Time Gone (41 page)

The thought of Angelo Berlini in his fedora and expensive suit fishing in the pond at the Ellis plantation was almost laughable. “But . . .”

John looked at me and gave me a quick shake of his head. I fell silent.

“Was anyone with him?” Willie asked, a smile behind his question. He took a sip of coffee to hide it.

John just stared at him, not answering.

I reached over and slid the paper toward me, seeing the photograph of a smiling Angelo in white tie at a party. Carmen stood beside him, decked in jewels, tall and elegant. My eyes slid over the article, reading what John had already said, then stopped.
Mr. Berlini appears not to have been alone, as fresh tire tracks from vehicles other than his own were discovered nearby. An anonymous source stated that the area was well-known by illegal moonshiners, who might have seen something or even have been involved in Mr. Berlini's death, but so far no one has stepped forward to corroborate that story. Mr. Berlini was a New Orleans businessman with ties to several area businesses. Repeated calls to his fiancée, Miss Carmen Bianca, daughter of Louisiana senatorial candidate Louis Bianca, have been unreturned as of this printing.

My hands were shaking so badly that I had to put the newspaper down. How could Angelo be dead? I wasn't naive enough to believe that it had been an accident. Had it been the same people Angelo had been trying to protect us against? Had they found out that he'd tried to warn us? I needed to speak with John, but I had to wait until we were alone.

The door to the dining room swung open. “Look who's just had a bath,” Mathilda said, holding a smiling and damp-haired Bootsie. Mathilda stopped in the threshold when she saw Willie, as surprised as I had been that he was there. I stood, eager to have my child in my arms, somehow the weight of her making all seem right in the world even when everything was off-kilter.

“Thank you, Mathilda. I'll take her. If you could go ahead and hang her laundry in the kitchen today—I'm afraid nothing's going to get dried outside.”

She nodded, but I saw her gaze settling on Angelo's photograph in the paper, and then moving to the headline. I knew she could read, that she'd gone to the colored school until she was twelve, and I watched as her gaze moved upward and settled on Willie.

We all turned at the sound of the front door opening, and then Uncle Joe was standing behind Mathilda, his hat dripping from his hands. He was drenched through his overcoat, and his shoes were darkened with water. He shivered with cold, and I could tell he was clenching his teeth together to keep them from chattering. I handed the baby back to Mathilda so I could pour him a cup of coffee.

“Willie, John. I need you to go change your clothes and come with me. All able-bodied men are being asked to start sandbagging just in case there's a crevasse in the levee. It won't do no good, but this way we can all feel like we're doing something. But I'm on the levee guard and I have to do what I'm told.”

I gave my uncle his coffee and he nodded with appreciation. John stood, the newspaper forgotten for now. Willie rose more slowly, and I expected him to argue, but instead he left the room to go change, telling his father he'd be back shortly.

Aunt Louise entered the dining room with a steaming plate of eggs meant for John, and began fussing at Uncle Joe for dripping on her rug. “Stop it, woman,” he said, but I could tell he was more distracted than annoyed. “Are those eggs for me?”

With an apologetic glance at John, she set the plate in front of her husband, then helped him shuck his overcoat before he sat down. With his mouth full of eggs, he said, “I need you women to listen for the fire whistle. That means there's a crevasse and you need to head toward high ground just like we talked about. Don't wait. The water's so high right now that if there's a break, it's going to rush through here like Niagara Falls. Depending on where the break is, we could have three hours or less than thirty minutes to evacuate.”

I nodded, hugging Bootsie close to me, the possibility of a flood becoming a reality for me. I'd been so distracted by other concerns that the more imminent threat of the river bursting through the levees had completely passed me by.

John turned to leave, and I followed him upstairs, waiting until the door was shut behind us. Without speaking, he took us in his arms, and the three of us stood there in the middle of the room feeling one another's warmth.

“Angelo . . .”

“I know,” he said, kissing my forehead, and then Bootsie's.

“Who would have killed him?”

He shook his head. “I don't know.”

“John, we need to leave Indian Mound. Angelo came to see me, before. . . . He told me that we needed to leave right away, and that he would help make arrangements. . . .”

John pulled back, his eyes questioning. “You didn't tell me.”

“No, I didn't. But he told me that you'd quit, and that you were in danger and we needed to go away for a while. He was planning on getting us to Missouri. And he didn't want me to tell you until the last minute, because you're stubborn and would have fought it if you'd had time to consider it. Only, I never heard back from him.” I clenched my eyes shut. “What if he was killed because he tried to warn us?”

“You can't think that way, Adelaide. Angelo's dead and we can't bring him back.” He closed his eyes and exhaled deeply. “But he was right. I would have fought to stay. After I'd made the split with him, and even though I'd tried to get you to move to Missouri before, I don't think even you could have persuaded me.” He moved to the window and looked out at the flooded fields and sodden yard. “As soon as I get
back from sandbagging, we'll make our plans to leave for Missouri. But just for a while, all right? Just for a while.”

“I'm afraid, John.”

He turned around and touched my watch. “I love you forever, remember? We'll get through this, and when we're old and gray with Bootsie's children on our knees, we'll look back and remember how strong we were together.”

He hurriedly changed his clothes, then kissed Bootsie on her nose and cheeks before kissing me deeply. “I love my girls,” he said, his old smile on his face again.

“We love you, too,” I said.

We watched the men leave on horseback—the mud too thick for trucks where they were heading—from the bedroom window, but even as I waved good-bye, I kept thinking of the last time I'd seen Angelo Berlini alive, and of the seven black crows that had flown out of the cypress, their oily feathers shining dully in the gloom.

Vivien Walker Moise

INDIAN
MOUND
, MISSISSIPPI
JUNE
2013

O
n a night about a week after Mathilda's visit, I was doing another nocturnal wandering through the house, listening to the way it breathed at night, the sighs of the rafters and the creaks of its old floors like ghosts passing by. As a child, I'd thought the creaks were a memory of the muddy water that had filled the first floor during the flood, like a baptism to ward off future disaster. Until the body had been found under the tree, it seemed to have worked.

My mind was full of what Mathilda had said: how Adelaide had been beloved, and how she in turn had loved her husband and daughter. How nobody had wanted to harm her. Yet the fact remained that she'd been presumed drowned, yet had somehow been buried in her own yard, her story buried with her for more than eight decades. I kept seeing her face from the wedding photo and the studio photo with Bootsie, her eyes seeming to be asking me a question. I knew what the question was. I just wasn't sure if I wanted to know the answer. What if, by finding out the truth, I'd finally have to confront the past we'd all clung to, a belief that would disintegrate like a dandelion in a strong wind? Then who would I be, and how would I justify my life thus far?

I thought of Adelaide's friend Sarah Beth, Emmett's mother. She'd been pregnant when she'd married Adelaide's cousin. Back then it would have been quite the scandal. I hadn't returned several of the newspapers when I'd gone to sort through and organize the archives. I'd bring them back—just not yet. But I had decided to keep the photo of Bootsie, tucking it into the album from where it had been taken, knowing that was where it belonged. I just wasn't ready to give back the newspaper containing the wedding photo of Adelaide and Sarah Beth together. Wondering what secrets they'd shared. What secrets they'd kept.

I passed the attic door. I'd yet to go up there to search for the ring. Tripp had promised to help, but I hadn't seen much of him since he'd brought Mathilda for supper. He'd called, but I'd let the calls go to voice mail. I knew without listening to them that it would be empty air, him just waiting for me to speak. But I had nothing to say. No plans made, and I was afraid that my feelings for him weren't as innocent as I'd once believed. I knew I'd hurt him once, and I was in no hurry to do it again.

I didn't worry about what I might find in the attic, because I knew there was no rush. Finding the ring there wouldn't tell me anything—not how it had been removed from Bootsie's finger, or who had done it. Maybe she'd simply lost it, an easy enough thing to do, and it had long since been buried in the yard, or accidentally discarded.

I stepped out into the garden, a waxing moon with its clever smile looking down on me, its angle in the sky making it seem as if it had asked me a question. And was waiting for an answer. All of Chloe's plants were thriving, and soon it would be time to start harvesting them, before the vegetables got too big and pulled the plants over. The hardest thing would be getting her to eat the lima beans, especially cooking them with fatback. Cora said she had some great healthy recipes she'd share with us, and as long as the idea came from Cora, I had no doubt we'd be happily eating lima bean soup and lima bean salads.

We still had plenty of time to grow more summer vegetables, and maybe even a few flowers for all of Bootsie's empty pots. I'd already started thinking about what we'd plant in the fall, but had stopped when I realized that I might not still be here, and Chloe probably wouldn't either. I'd been unable to think beyond that. It seemed that
years of inertia had stolen my forward momentum, my ability to want something enough to make a plan. During the seven months of my pregnancy I'd made concrete plans, thought ahead as to the life my baby would have, and the marriage and family life I wanted to build. But ever since my miscarriage I'd been walking up a down escalator, keeping busy while getting nowhere. Even without the pills, I couldn't seem to push my thoughts forward.

The light was on in Tommy's workshop, and I pictured him with the blue enamel watch, examining the tiny pieces with his patient hands. I'd always loved that about him: his ability to take his time to get things right. He was that way with his fields, too. Waiting for the right moment to plant, even when his neighbors had already jumped aboard and started planting. Except for his love life, his patience had always proved right. Even the way he'd always promised us that our mother would one day be coming home for good.

My cell phone rang, the sound incongruous in the sleeping garden. I'd brought it with me to keep track of the time, telling myself that I needed to stop my wandering by three in the morning. As if I could fool my body into thinking it had to be asleep by three-oh-five. Sometimes it even actually worked.

Mark's name appeared on the screen and I felt suddenly cold. But I'd known it would be him as soon as the phone rang. Nobody else would call me with no regard to the time of day.

“Hello, Mark,” I said, not bothering to lower my voice, since I was away from the house, and the drone of the air conditioner would block out any noise.

His voice sounded chipper—happy, even—two words I wouldn't have immediately used to describe my ex-husband. He also sounded as if he'd been awake for hours. “Good afternoon, Vivien.” I heard what sounded like an announcement on an intercom in the background.

“Where are you?”

“Funny you should ask, since that's why I'm calling. We've decided to cut our honeymoon short. Actually, Tiffany has. She's been feeling a little homesick and wants to come home and do some nesting.”

I thought I could feel my heart slowing its beat. “Nesting?”

I could hear him grinning through the phone. “Yeah. We're expecting.”

“Tiffany's pregnant?” I asked, not sure if I'd heard him correctly.

“That's right. I'm going to be a daddy.” He actually sounded happy.

“You're already a daddy, Mark. You have a daughter, remember?”

He couldn't even pretend to be embarrassed by his gaffe. “Yeah, well, this is the first baby I've wanted. We were actually trying to get pregnant. Just didn't think it would happen so fast.”

I struck out blindly with my hand, unable to see past the red that seemed to be coating my vision, my womb tightening on its emptiness. My hand made contact with one of the green chairs and I fell into it.

“Okay.” It was the only word I could think of.
Congratulations? How exciting?
It would be like throwing confetti at a funeral.

“‘Okay'? Is that all you can say?”

I looked up at the sky and the questioning moon and somehow found the courage to respond with the truth. “Yes, Mark. It is. Because I wanted our baby. And you have a twelve-year-old daughter who never needs to know that you didn't want her.”

The sound of blown air reached me. “Yeah. Like you can criticize my parenting. Like you're a contender for the mother-of-the-year award—you and your pill popping. What makes you think that all of a sudden you know how to be a good mother?”

Being here
. The thought came to me in the warm breeze that swept across the fields and past the cypress trees and around the old house and into my garden. It brought with it the memory of Chloe and me on the Indian mound, staring up at the stars and listening to the night music, and an earlier memory with my mother in the same spot as she held my hand and said a prayer I couldn't hear.

“I don't know how to be a good mother, Mark. But I'm trying. I've been clean ever since you told me I needed to get clean to keep Chloe here.” My voice was shaking and I prayed he couldn't tell.

“You know you only wanted Chloe to spite me. You've always been spiteful like that, Vivien.”

I wanted to throw the phone as far as I could if it meant I never had to talk with him again, but I held on to it, knowing I needed it to move forward. If there was ever a moment for that, this was it.

I took a deep breath, remembering what I'd learned in my short-lived acting classes. I'd taken them after giving up my dreams of being a TV journalist, because I'd met Mark and he thought I should be in the movies. “I'm sorry, Mark. And you're right: I wanted Chloe here to
make you mad. I'm sorry. That was wrong of me. But I'd like to ask you to allow Chloe—”

Mark cut me off as another announcement came over the intercom. “They're boarding first class, so I've got to go. I just wanted to let you know that we're flying directly to Atlanta and spending the night and then we'll fly to Mississippi to get Chloe.”

Panic bubbled in my throat and I forced myself to keep calm. “But that's what I wanted to ask you—if Chloe—”

“Gotta go. I'll text you my flight information.”

“But I'd like to discuss—”

Once again I was met with dead air. I wondered if he'd been like that when we'd been dating, or even in the early, heady days of our marriage. I didn't think so, because surely I wouldn't have married him. But I had. Despite what Tripp had said, that no one's past was written in stone, mine was. I had married badly, and still bore the scars to prove it and always would.

I ended the call, seeing the photo I'd put on my background screen: of Chloe and the unnamed dog in the middle of the cotton field on the day she'd spent with Tommy. He'd texted the photo to me along with “Does she always ask so many questions?” I'd almost laughed, because Chloe had once been so sullen that one day her total word count had been ten. When Tommy had brought her home and I'd asked her how it had gone, she said it hadn't sucked. But later, Tommy told me that she'd said it was one of the best days of her life.

The photo faded as the phone went black, and I recalled Tripp's words again.
Nobody's past is written in stone.
Yes, I'd married badly. But it had put Chloe in my life. Sweet, angry, lost, lovable, surly Chloe. She was all those things, and all the things that made me warm to her. Maybe that was what Tripp had meant. That no past mistake is unredeemable.

A soft sound, like sniffling, made me look up. I stood, wondering if there was some animal in the garden with me, and prepared to make a leap on top of the chair. But another sound, like a moan, told me that it was human, and my heart slammed against my chest when I realized it was Chloe when the white dog stepped out from behind her. If she'd been wearing the oversize white nightgown I would have seen her. But she wore the new navy blue nightshirt, the one with Justin Bieber's face
plastered on the front, and she'd been almost completely hidden in her corner of the garden.

“Chloe,” I said, walking carefully over to her, not wanting to crush any of the plants. “What are you doing out here?”

“Leave . . . me . . . alone,” she said between sobs.

At the same moment I realized that she'd heard every word of my side of the phone conversation, I knew what she was doing in the garden in the middle of the night. She'd been tending her babies, making sure the deer and rabbits stayed away. I'd told her that I'd done that as a little girl, when the gate was broken on the enclosure and I hadn't wanted to lose any of my babies. That was what I'd called them, and she'd laughed.

“Chloe, sweetheart. What you heard . . .” In my mind, I went back over everything I'd said, and I cringed. I started again. “Chloe, your dad's on his way to come get you. But I wanted to ask him if you could stay here until school started, and then maybe come back for regular visits. . . .”

“Go away!” she screamed at me. She struggled to stand, stumbling into the middle of her garden plot, her foot landing on the newly sprouted plants. “That's not what you said. You don't want me here. You only did it to piss off my dad.”

“No, Chloe. That's not it. If you'd just let me explain . . .”

But she'd already started her blind run from the garden and to the back of the house, the dog running after her. In the glow of the back porch light I watched as she paused to wipe her feet, something Carol Lynne and I did without thinking, thanks to Bootsie, and that one action cut my heart into a thousand little pieces.

I raced after her, reaching her bedroom door just as it slammed in my face. I knocked on it gently, calling her name, but all I could hear were her muffled sobs as she cried into her pillow. I sank to the floor and stayed there until morning, watching the sunlight steal through the windows and creep stealthily across the ancient wooden floors.

Chloe didn't come out of her room the entire day, but we could hear her slamming drawers and stomping across the floors, so we knew she was still in there. When I heard a big thud coming from the hallway, I'd run upstairs to find her packed suitcase ready to go outside her door.
Several times I'd knocked on her door, telling her we needed to talk, but after the third attempt, a note had been slid under the door with the words “GO AWAY!” written on it.