The Night Mark(78)

“I’ll tell you how I know in a second. But can I do something first?” Faye asked.

“Whatever you please,” the older woman said.

“Can I hug you?”





18


Faye hugged Miss Lizzie like she’d hug Dolly right now if she could. Miss Lizzie suffered the hug gladly, patting Faye on the back the whole time.

“You’re an odd one, Miss Faye, but you make pie like my grandma made it, so you must be a good one.”

Tears sprung to Faye’s eyes.

“Now, don’t cry, girl,” Miss Lizzie said.

“I miss... I miss my grandmother is all,” Faye said, when what she wanted to say was I miss your grandmother.

“I miss mine, too. I miss her every day.”

By the time Faye had finished crying and pulled herself together, the pie had cooled enough to eat. She and Miss Lizzie sat across from each other at the kitchen table, a piece of pie in front of each of them.

Faye lifted her fork and paused before she took the bite. If she’d screwed up the pie, then maybe it had all been a dream. Maybe she’d read about Carrick and Dolly while studying the lighthouse and it had all come together in some sort of brain stew in her sun-bleached brain while she’d lain passed out on the beach.

Faye took the bite, and it tasted like pie, like Dolly’s pie, like a pie that could save your soul if it needed saving. And it tasted real and true, as real as the peaches on her tongue, as true as her time in 1921. Dolly and Carrick and the house—it hadn’t been a dream. Faye had been there.

“I don’t know how to make pie,” Faye said to Miss Lizzie.

The older woman took a bite and nodded her head.

“Tastes like pie to me,” she said. “Just like my grandmother’s pie.”

“Maybe I found her recipe when I was researching the lighthouse.”

“You said you found some papers about her?” Miss Lizzie asked.

“I found a few mentions of her,” Faye said. She hated to lie, but she didn’t want to burden this woman with the truth. “Dolly Rivers—she worked as a housekeeper at the cottage there. Kept the whole place running like clockwork.”

“Those papers said that about her?”

Faye nodded.

“I believe it,” Miss Lizzie said. “She was always a good housekeeper but you know, that just never was enough for her. In her forties after her kids were old enough, she got a job at a furniture store. It wasn’t her dream job, of course. Until the day she died, she talked about how all she wanted was to go to New York and try her hand at being a real interior designer. It wasn’t meant to be back in those days. She made the best of it, though. One lady who came into the furniture store all the time hired her to decorate her house. My grandmother did such a good job that before it was over, she’d done half the houses in town. Every lady within fifty miles of here wanted my grandmother’s help. You know what my grandmother said to me about it?”

“No, what did she say?”

“She said, ‘They let me in through the back door, but when I’m done I go out the front.’ She made a lot of money doing those houses up, though she would have made more with her own business.”

Faye grinned. Not even bigoted old white ladies could deny Dolly’s talent. It would be like denying the wind while standing in a hurricane.

“Doesn’t surprise me,” Faye said. “The papers I read said she was the best cook around, and she decorated the whole place, made it a home. The keeper and his...his daughter loved her. They loved her very much.”

“Oh, she loved them, too. Now, the first family she worked for in town, she didn’t like them much. They treated her like she was stupid just because she couldn’t hear. But the light keeper and his girl, she was close to them.”

“I can’t imagine anyone treating her like she was stupid. I mean, the stuff I read said she was smart and talented, very artistic.”

“You sound like you know her,” Miss Lizzie said.

“I feel like I do. Tell me more about her. She got married, I guess. And kids and grandkids...”

“Four children, ten grandchildren. And all thanks to her ears. About age twenty or thereabouts, her brother took her to Atlanta. They had a hospital there just for black folks. All black doctors and nurses, too. Now, they couldn’t do anything for my grandmother’s ears there, but one doctor decided he’d rather have her as his wife than as his patient. He didn’t mind my grandmother couldn’t hear. His nurses said he was the sort of man only a hard-of-hearing woman could love anyway.” Miss Lizzie’s face broke into a broad grin. “But that was Dr. Gerald Holt, my grandfather.”

“A doctor. Good for Dolly.” Faye wanted to find Dolly right this second and give her a high five.

“She was the talk of the town because of him. She wouldn’t marry him unless he agreed to take her to New York on their honeymoon, and you better believe he took her there.”

“Very smart man,” Faye said. “I bet the wedding was incredible. I’m sure she made her own dress.”

“She made a beautiful dress, but a month before the wedding her daddy died. But Chief Morgan, he stepped in and gave her away.”

“Carrick gave her away? I mean, Chief Morgan did?”