Dovetail: A Novel(73)

“I’ve felt guilty about his death my whole life.”

“You didn’t know.”

“So many times, I’ve thought that I should have run into the room and made them stop fighting. Maybe if I’d gotten between them, I could have calmed things down, and it wouldn’t have gotten to that point . . .”

“It wasn’t your fault.”

He cleared his throat. “I know that, but some part of me doesn’t believe it. I was there, and I didn’t do anything to stop her viciousness. That’s a tough thing to live with. And you want to know the kicker?”

“What’s that?”

“My mother played the grieving widow at the funeral. She cried and carried on like you wouldn’t believe, and then once everyone was gone, she turned it off like it was a faucet. I asked if she even felt bad for how my dad died, and she said it didn’t matter how she felt. He was already gone, and nothing was going to bring him back. She was so cold, it made me sick. As soon as I turned eighteen, I moved in with my grandparents at the farm. They paid for my college, and that was it. I never saw her again. I didn’t take her calls, never answered her letters. I didn’t want to have anything to do with her. As far as I was concerned, she’d killed him.”





CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN





1983


Driving the truck from his grandmother’s house to Pine Ridge Hollow, Joe couldn’t help but think about his father’s words. As far as I was concerned, she’d killed him.

Mentally, he made a comparison to what his grandmother had told him about the reason her son wasn’t in her life. Your father believes that I killed someone. And when Joe asked if she had, she’d answered, Not on purpose.

He hadn’t picked up on any remorse on her part. Cutting a family member out of your life forever was pretty extreme, but now that he’d heard his father’s take on it, he understood. Still, Pearl was old and dying and seemed to want to make amends. And she hadn’t actually killed him; his grandfather had taken his own life. The fact that they’d had a vicious argument was beside the point, he thought. Would it hurt his dad to talk to her? One short conversation, just to put this behind them before she passed away? Because once she was gone, the opportunity to talk it through would be over as well. He knew this, and yet somehow he knew his father’s mind was made up. Joe shook his head. Why did family relationships have to be so complicated?

Joe found an open parking spot close to the front door of his grandmother’s building. He checked in at the front desk and was directed to a hallway that led to his grandmother’s apartment.

Her face lit up at the sight of him. “Joe! What a pleasant surprise.” She ushered him into her small apartment and indicated he should sit in the plaid recliner in the corner. He took a seat, Alice’s metal box resting on his lap. Pearl sat down on a plump upholstered chair. The end table between them held a TV Guide magazine and a remote control.

He said, “I’m sorry I didn’t call first.”

“No need to call. I’m always glad to see you.”

“I came across this box recently.” He held it up. “Does it look familiar?”

She shook her head. “No. If it was in the barn, it was probably my father’s.”

“Actually, it belonged to your sister Alice.” He opened the lid and proceeded to tell her about the storm and the way a bolt of lightning had struck the tree, freeing the metal box from its hiding place of more than sixty years.

“I’m almost afraid to ask,” she said quietly, “but what’s in it?”

“Nothing bad,” he assured her, pulling out the contents and putting each item on the table next to him. He kept the stack of letters in the box, saving them for last, while his grandmother exclaimed over the jewelry. “All these years, my mother’s jewelry was in a box in a tree.” She pursed her lips. “My sisters and I wondered where it went. We asked my father, but he said he didn’t know and wouldn’t say any more about it. He was devastated after . . . well, after Alice was gone, he was shattered, as were the rest of us. First my mother, and then my sister. I suppose he knew she had it but didn’t know her hiding place.” She put the engagement ring on her finger and held out her hand. “They didn’t have big diamonds like they do now. Getting betrothed was an event. The ring wasn’t for status. It showed the world that you’d found your true love and were going to be together forever.”

“Do you know why she kept these other things?” Joe pointed to the seashell, book of poetry, and the tiny china frog.

“I haven’t a clue. Just keepsakes, I guess. It’s been so long, Joe.”

He pulled out the stack of letters and set them alongside the book of poetry. “There were also these love letters from that John Lawrence who worked at your father’s mill. Did you know he and your sister were secretly meeting and writing back and forth?”

She sighed and didn’t answer, her gaze dropping to her hands resting on her lap. He was about to repeat the question when she whispered, “Yes, I knew. I was the one who found the letters Alice wrote to him.” She looked up, and her voice got stronger. “I found them in his trunk in the barn, and I burned them.”

Joe was jolted by her words and the bitterness in her tone. “You burned them? Why?”