The Wedding Dress(61)

“Or altered.” Charlotte took the invoice from Tim. “It’s possible for a gown to fit from one bride to the next without alterations, but it’s highly improbable. Something has to be changed. The hem. The bodice. Something. Unless the dress wasn’t really made in 1912 and the auctioneer just made up a story to trick me into buying it.” She was shaking. While she was further down the trail of discovering the heritage of the dress, she felt miles away from the truth.

But in her hand she held a piece of a man’s life that history and time had forgotten. Except “Your Wife,” who’d posted on Joel’s wall. Except God. “Do you think Mrs. Pettis will let me have this? At least borrow it?”

Tim fit the lid on the box and returned it to the shelf. “Why not? It’s the reason we came.”

At the stairs, Charlotte picked up her jacket and draped it over her arm. “On the wall where I found Joel’s name, it said his body was never recovered.”

“Bet that would be hard on a new bride.” Tim walked over to her and brushed her hair off her shoulders, then quickly stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Ready?”

“Ready.” It was getting hotter and hotter in that old attic.





Chapter Fifteen



Saturday just before noon, Charlotte pulled into Hillary Saltonstall’s Crestline driveway. It curved like a concrete river past the front of her terra-cotta brick home and cut through the plush, manicured lawn. Shading oaks and elms canopied the house and cooled away the noonday sun and the rising May heat.

Charlotte stepped out of her car, her low-heeled pumps tapping on the driveway. She removed her suit jacket, tossing it into the passenger seat.

The clear-blue-day breeze shifted the light and rearranged her emotions. On the drive over she’d mentally worked out a pragmatic interview with Hillary, planning how to forge into the woman’s past. Which enabled Charlotte to ignore the fact that she herself was driving into her own past—her old Crestline neighborhood.

To get to this place and time, she’d called every Saltonstall in the Birmingham phone book until she found Hillary’s elderly aunt, who graciously listened to Charlotte’s story and after a few questions, passed along Hillary’s phone number.

The fact that Hillary lived in Charlotte’s childhood neighborhood where she played with her friends and rode her bike, the fact that Hillary might have waved at Mama as their cars passed in the street didn’t register on Charlotte’s emotional scale. Until now.

She walked to the edge of the drive and stood at the apex where Baker Street met Monarch. Seven houses on the right sat a little white house with redbrick trim, a concrete porch, and a wood-slat swing.

Charlotte strained her senses to hear, to see, to smell the essence of that house. But all that came to her were a few faded snapshots.

The upstairs, the alcove room that once had been pink with yellow daisies growing up from brown “dirt” baseboards.

Mama, standing in the driveway, dressed in her tight jeans and midriff top, hollering for Charlotte to hurry home, supper was on.

Charlotte squinted into the waving noon light. Seven houses down, only the walls remembered Mama’s voice.

Glancing back at Hillary’s, the wind coiling her hair about her face, she wondered how long Hillary had lived here. Had young Charlotte ever encountered Mrs. Joel Miller, the grieving war widow?

Only Hillary was a Warner now. Not a Saltonstall. Nor a Miller.

Taking her phone from her bag, Charlotte dialed Dix. But the call went straight to voice mail. Dixie had a consultation with a new client this afternoon so she must be getting ready. Charlotte hung up without leaving a message, stared at her phone, then dialed Tim.

“Hey.” Hesitant. Expectant. Revving motorcycle engines in the background.

“Where are you?” Charlotte scooped her hair away from her face.

“At the track. Where are you?”

“Standing at the curb of Baker and Monarch.”

“So you called her?” Tim’s voice grew louder as the background engine rumble faded.

“She lives seven houses down from where I grew up. The house where I lived when Mama died.”

He whistled. “Did you know that going over?” The creamy tenor of his voice sank through Charlotte like sweet caramel.

“Didn’t really think of it until now. It’s weird being here, Tim. I haven’t been here since Mama died.”

A thick, muffled knock resonated from his end of the phone. “Hey, Charlotte, can you hold for a second?” She heard rustling, then, “I’m on the phone, man.”

The muted, distant conversation revealed Tim needed to get off and head to the track. His heat was coming up.

“Char, I’m sorry, but I need to go in a second. So—it’s weird?”

“In a way, like Mama should be here. In that little white house with the bricks. But she’s not. What’s worse is I can’t remember much of anything about living here.”

“She’s been gone a long time, Charlotte. You were a girl who lost her mother. Now you’re a woman, making your way in life and succeeding.”

“But a girl should never get over needing her mother.”

“Who said that? Charlotte, every day people get over their mothers and fathers, siblings, friends leaving and dying. Getting over things is part of life.”