The Guests on South Battery (Tradd Street #5)(52)
“I know. I’ll keep you posted,” I said.
We said good-bye and I made my way to the converted carriage house we used as a garage. I sat in my car for a long moment, feeling the weight of the necklace and broken chain in my hand until on a whim I decided to wrap it around my rearview mirror. The memory of Adrienne’s reflection and the grief in Veronica’s voice wasn’t something I could easily forget.
I watched as Jayne jogged by on the opposite side of the street, heading toward the river with the stroller, her ponytail swinging, her posterior not even shaking in its Lycra prison. She looked as though she belonged in this neighborhood with those children and that house. With a handsome husband who looked just like Jack.
I forced my thoughts away from that train wreck and turned the key in the ignition, something Nola had said niggling at my brain. I was sliding into my parking spot behind Henderson House Realty when I finally remembered what it was. She’d said something about feeling as if a curtain had fallen down inside her brain, blocking the place where her creativity existed. I knew what she’d meant. Because that was exactly what I’d felt the first time I stepped into the Pinckney mansion on South Battery Street.
My father was in the garden at my Tradd Street house when I came home later that afternoon. The twins were parked in their double stroller, watching him trim the remaining Louisa rosebushes by the fountain, their attention alternating between the snapping of his pruning shears and the splash of water from the peeing statue.
A small Jetta sedan with a Citadel bumper sticker was parked at the curb in front of the house. “Anybody I know?” I asked, indicating the car as I covered the children’s faces with kisses and sat on the bench in front of them. They both bounced up and down, so I unbuckled them and put one of them on each knee, jostling them gently as I’d seen Jayne do.
“Oh, yes,” my dad said, lowering his shears. “It’s that Cooper Ravenel—Alston’s older brother. Seems he’s come to ask for Jack’s permission to take Nola to a Citadel dance.”
I raised my eyebrows. “I guess I’ll be staying outside for a little bit, then, waiting for the thunder to clear. Did you hide Jack’s hunting rifle?”
“Probably should have,” he said, glancing back at the house and making me worry.
“Where’s Jayne?” I asked.
“Apparently, she’s a bit of a cook, and when Jack said he was in the mood for Italian, she asked Mrs. Houlihan if she could help her in the kitchen tonight. I don’t know what’s going on in there, but it smells wonderful and I don’t think tofu is involved at all.”
“How nice.” There must have been something in my tone of voice, because he sent me a hard stare. Eager to change the subject, I said, “Rebecca told me something interesting the other day that I hoped you might clarify for me. She said that Mother was crazy about Sumter Pinckney, and that she thought they would get married.”
He lifted a branch with the tip of the shears and tilted his head each way to analyze it. “Why don’t you ask your mother?”
“Because I thought if she wanted me to know, she would have told me. It’s just odd, though. I’ve been practically living and breathing the Pinckney house, and even brought her there, but she never mentioned anything about him other than that she remembered him, and that she had a schoolgirl crush on him. But Rebecca said it was much more than that.”
With a sigh, my father put down the pruning shears and sat next to me on the bench. “I met your mother at a Citadel dance when we were both nineteen. She was someone else’s date, but that didn’t stop me—I’ve always been one of those people who believes that once you see something you want, you figure out how to get it. That’s how it was when I saw Ginny. It was love at first sight for both of us. So even if she had a schoolgirl’s crush on a friend’s older brother, it was never more than that. She chose me, and I chose her, and we loved each other hard and we loved each other completely so that there wasn’t any room for anybody else. And that’s all there is to the story.”
I didn’t mention their divorce or subsequent reconciliation because that would complicate things. They were together now anyway, so none of it really mattered. But I felt reassured, somehow. That despite my rocky early years, their love for each other and for me was real and lasting, even with the bumps in the road we’d navigated to get where we were now. Maybe I just needed to hear it, regardless of what Rebecca might believe and feel the urge to tell me.
“Thanks, Dad. I don’t know why I let Rebecca get under my skin like that. Like Mother wouldn’t have mentioned it if it were true.”
“Exactly.” He put his hands on his knees and stood, catching sight of the broken gold necklace and pendant I’d knotted around my neck; I’d meant to bring it into the house instead of leaving it hanging on my car mirror.
“What’s that?” he asked.
Before I could answer, Sarah reached for it, the pendant disappearing into her tiny fist. Her eyes popped wide-open and she screamed, her small fingers opening as if they’d been burned. She jerked back from me so fast that she would have fallen from my lap if my father hadn’t been there to catch her.
Despite the fact that the roses hadn’t begun to bloom yet, the heavy scent of them invaded this corner of the garden, acting as a pacifier for Sarah, who quickly quieted, her gaze focused on something near the fountain.