My parents’ house in Cape Carolina could only be described as rambling. And thank goodness. Because thirty-eight years earlier, my aunt Tilley had—as Southerners describe it—gotten “the vapors.” She still had them. People said my mama and daddy should put her in a home.
My father was all for it. But my mother said she wasn’t going to abandon her sister. So the east wing was converted into an apartment for Aunt Tilley, with a bedroom, bathroom, living room, dining room, and a kitchenette with a refrigerator and microwave—nothing that Aunt Tilley could use to burn the house down. Or so my parents thought. The fire department had to come that one time Aunt Tilley put a frozen macaroni and cheese into the microwave for sixty minutes instead of six minutes. But Chris at the appliance store rewired it so that it would only turn on for one minute at a time, an idea of my brother Robby’s that he hadn’t been able to figure out how to implement.
Chris had been two grades above me in high school, and he could rewire anything, including Principal Trusken’s car. How he got it onto the roof of the school remains an urban legend. He and his friends all had to go to summer school and didn’t graduate on time because of it, but if they could, they would do it again. Glory days are fleeting. One must make the absolute most of them.
The classic white colonial might have seemed out of place compared to the beach houses that had taken up residence all around it, with their cedar shakes and hardy board siding. Butthis grand estate at the long end of a narrow peninsula—alone except for the Thaysdens’ house beside it—was the oldest home on the beach. Saxtons had lived in this house for hundreds of years. We had moved into it when I was seven, after my grandparents retired to Florida. I knew every back staircase and hidden nook, every ghost, every creak of the stairwell. And I loved it all. As I drove down the long, live-oak-lined street, I smiled at how the ancient trees made a canopy over me. Not for the first time, I thought that I would love to live here one day. It seemed a little bit crazy, since I wouldn’t have children to brighten the shadowy corners or fill the antique beds.
But Robby and his wife, Trina, already had three adorable but very rowdy boys. They, no doubt, would be the next Saxtons to inhabit Dogwood. I always teased them that when they moved in, I would take over Aunt Tilley’s apartment. Every Southerner needed a batty relative living in the attic—or, in this case, the east wing. Trina would squeal and go on and on about how much fun we would have while Robby looked horrified. I shuddered, thinking of it now. It had been all fun and games until my recurring nightmare about turning into Aunt Tilley had started.
I had a hard time deciding whether to go see Daddy at the farm first or to head straight home. I figured that, either way, my parents’ worlds were about to be shattered by the news that their golden girl had disappointed them.
I decided to go home first. As much as they drove mecrazy, I really couldn’t get enough of Mom and Aunt Tilley, especially when they were together, a little codependent disaster area full of hairspray.
I pulled into the grassy lot—well, mostly dead grass, since it was winter—that served as Dogwood’s overflow parking, opened the door, and was finally embraced by the smell of the salt air that had begun wafting in through the lowered convertible top the moment I reached the beach. As I stepped out of the car, it actually brought tears to my eyes. When I lived here, I got used to it, couldn’t smell it. After a day or two, I would lose it again. But, for now, it was the scent of coming home.
Despite the near-Christmas chill in the air, Mom and Tilley were sitting side by side in rocking chairs on the front porch when I pulled up in my rental car, Mom in a pair of sensible but stylish black pants and a yellow double-breasted jacket and Aunt Tilley in a white lace corset dress with matching parasol. She really seemed normal a lot of the time. This was not one of those times.
They both stood and began squealing for me to hurry up, waving their arms and gesturing to me, but they wouldn’t step off the porch, as though contained by an invisible fence. The porch floor was, as always, painted black for winter, to attract heat and keep it warmer. In the summer, it would return to the palest gray. The ceiling remained blue all year long to keep the evil spirits away. (And the mosquitoes.) But my separation from Thad was one evil spirit even the bluestof blue couldn’t scare off. Long and healthy marriages were a hallmark of the Saxton family, and I was ruining that streak.
“My baby!” Mom said, as Tilley lilted, “Liabelle!”
Even their joy couldn’t keep me from noticing the two broken spindles on the front porch and that the house, which would look stately to anyone else, seemed to sag a little. If I’d had time to think about it, it would have scared me. But I didn’t have time to be afraid because I had barely gotten over the threshold, the expansive water view beyond the porch nearly blinding, before “You are much too thin” and “Darlin’, you look exhausted” began. Tilley was dragging me inside, toward the kitchen. Stepping over the threshold felt so good. I loved the worn Persian rugs and the English antiques that had been inside this house for generations. I loved that I could see the soothing water from almost every room. Tilley was cutting me a slice of fresh pecan pie on the familiar blue-and-white tile counter when the doorbell rang and Mom went out to answer it.
I had just swallowed the first sweet, delicious bite when I heard Mom say, “Why, Parker Thaysden! To what do we owe the pleasure?” On her lips, the words sounded like “Parkah” and “pleashah.”
Aunt Tilley gasped and pointed her fork at me. “You are seeing Parker Thaysden, aren’t you? Admit it!”
“Aunt Tilley, I’m married to”—I cleared my throat—“to Thad.”
She was saying, “You can take the girl out of Cape Carolina—” but stopped herself when Mom and Parker walked into the kitchen, Mom saying, “Liabelle, you have a visitor.”
“A gentleman caller!” Tilley trilled.
I rolled my eyes and whispered, “He is not a gentleman caller.”
“Well, he’s a gentleman, and he’s not calling on us old ladies,” Tilley said, kissing Parker on both cheeks.
Parker looked terribly amused, while I was hoping the floor would open up and swallow me. I grabbed his wrist and said, “I am so sorry, Parker. Let’s go out on the porch.”
“But I want some of Aunt Tilley’s pie,” he whined.
“Oh, I’ll bring you some, sugah,” she said.
“What the hell are you doing here?” I whisper-shouted as we made our way to the door.
I had grown up with Parker, thinking of him as that annoying younger boy who wouldn’t leave me alone at church. I mean, he had always been cute, obviously. But I wasn’t a member of his fan club, one of the hordes of girls that swooned over him.
No one had been more shocked when one of my idols had chosen to marryhim. I wanted to call Greer up and say,Parker Thaysden? Do you realize that this kid used to hang worms out of his nostrils?
But I had gained a new respect for Parker when Greer had died. He had loved her in the way that every woman dreams of being loved. He honored her every day during and since, some might say too much. But I thought people were too cynical. They had forgotten that true love never dies. I guessed I would never know what that was like.
“Amelia, you can’t tell a man that you have something really important to talk to him about and then leave him hanging like that,” he said as Aunt Tilley wordlessly delivered a piece of pie to him and slipped away as best one could in a five-foot hoopskirt.
I rolled my eyes. “This is a little bit insane.”
He shrugged. “I tried to tell you yesterday that I was on my way here, but you hung up too quickly.”
“Ohhhh…” Well, that made more sense.
