‘I was very, very young when I was married and still practically a girl when I fell pregnant with Paul,’ she explained. ‘I wanted them to live at least a little of their lives before they settled down. So I asked him to wait until he and Angelica had both graduated before there was any kind of official engagement.’
‘But they got married when they were still in college?’ I said with a frown I saw mirrored on my grandmother’s face.
‘Love is impatient and so was your father. A few months after our conversation, we skipped the engagement altogether and held a wedding here, in the garden.’
‘They were too in love to wait?’ I guessed hopefully.
‘That’s one way to look at it. Another is that your mother was three months pregnant with you.’
My dreams of romance were immediately wiped away by the reality of my parents’ unstoppable horniness. Another thing I could not and did not want to imagine.
‘But it was seventeen years ago not the 1950s,’ I said. ‘Surelythey didn’t have to get married right away just because they were pregnant.’
She twisted her aquamarine ring around on her finger as she answered.
‘A lot of people still call this place Slow-vannah and not only because we like to take our time. I don’t expect you to understand completely but Savannah society doesn’t move at the same speed as the rest of the world – certain things are still done a certain way, especially in families like ours.’
Lydia’s warning about the debutante circuit loomed over me like a white ballgown-sporting spectre.
‘If we could control when we fall in love, life would be a lot easier but we can’t, can we?’ Catherine went on. ‘Regardless, Angelica’s pregnancy was a wonderful time for us all and when you arrived, born under a beautiful full moon, well, I don’t think there will ever be anyplace filled with as much love as Bell House was on that evening. Those were glorious, happy days. Until things took a turn for the worse.’
‘Until my mom died.’
I felt a tremor and gripped the arm of the chair. The walls of the library throbbed like there was a heartbeat trapped behind the bookshelves but Catherine looked unmoved.
‘And took your father’s heart with her to the grave.’
The eerie pulsing faded away and I let go of the chair when the old wood creaked in protest. None of the books had moved even though I was sure something should’ve been shaken loose. Unless I’d imagined the whole thing …
Catherine opened a drawer on her side of the desk and pulled out a worn Manila folder stuffed with photographs and pieces of paper. With long, slender fingers, she handed me the documents one by one: a wedding certificate; a death certificate; a birth certificate. Paul Spencer James Bell and Angelica Caroline Smith, married in Savannah, Georgia, 24 December 2006.Angelica Caroline Bell, died in Savannah, Georgia, 24 November 2007. And Emma Catherine James Bell, born in Savannah, Georgia, 21 June 2007.
My birthday but not my name.
‘I wanted to raise you the same way I had been raised, according to our family’s traditions,’ Catherine said. ‘Your father did not. After we lost your mother, he became even more resistant to the idea. That’s why he left, to protect you from something he thought was wrong.’
‘But my name is Emily Caroline,’ I said, staring at the birth certificate and only half-listening. ‘Not Emma Catherine.’
She shook her head and passed me a stack of photographs.
‘You were named for me, just as I was named for my grandmother and she was named for hers. My grandmother went by Emma so I go by my middle name, Catherine. You were meant to be an Emma. Paul changed your name after you left town.’
The first photo in my shaking hands was of Catherine and even though she was clearly younger than she was now, the harsh look in her eyes aged her by decades. Her gentle smile was a burgundy slash and there was no colour in her cheeks at all, just a sickly pale complexion against violently red hair. The next photo was in black and white but the similarity undeniable. Another Emma Catherine Bell, her grandmother, and even with the sepia tones, I could tell she was another redhead. I leafed through the stack of long-gone relatives until I reached painted miniatures and pencil-drawn portraits, eventually left with just one.
‘She was the first of us,’ my grandmother said, so much reverence in her voice I could have sworn I saw the lamplight flicker out of respect. ‘She arrived here in 1733 and ever since that day, there has always been an Emma Catherine Bell in Savannah.’
The portrait was so old, the facial features of the womanhad mostly faded away but my imagination filled in the blanks. Catherine’s hair, Ashley’s eyes, Dad’s lips, my nose. The first Emma Catherine Bell. And I was the latest.
‘My name isn’t my name,’ I said, the first Emma Catherine’s eyes following me as I laid her down on top of her descendants.
‘Emily, your daddy had what he believed were good reasons for his behaviour. You are who you are – who you’ve always been.’ Catherine collected up everything laid out on the desk and slipped my history back inside the folder, returning it to its place in the desk drawer. ‘We could call you Ulysses S. Grant and it wouldn’t change a thing. You know what they say, a rose by any other name.’
It didn’t make sense but this lie felt bigger than the others, or maybe it was a culmination of everything I’d discovered over the last couple of days and this was the final straw. My father took away my family, he took away my home, he even took away my name, and he wasn’t even here to explain himself. I wasn’t sure which part I was the most upset about.
‘Tell me what else did he lie about?’ I demanded. ‘Are there any other surprises waiting for me?’
‘I’m parched,’ Catherine said calmly as she locked the drawer with a quiet click. ‘It’s time for tea.’
‘I don’t want tea!’ I exclaimed. ‘I want to know why my dad lied!’
