Nash faces the swamp, which I now see has a bright white bridge crossing it, and effortlessly slips into historian mode.
“Long Bridge,” he begins. “It’s believed to have been built by enslaved workers in the early 1840s. After the Civil War and the abolition of slavery, plantations in the South suffered—a lot of them going under.”
“No free labor to keep them in the black,” I say cynically. “How ironic.”
“Exactly. Either way, the owner of this one decided in the early 1870s to repurpose the land by opening the grounds to outsiders in hopes of generating income. The beauty of the gardens and history of the place did the trick. Where we’re standing, with the reflection of the trees on the water and view of the bridge, became one of the most popular spots on the property.”
Even with the bugs and despite it being a swamp, I can see why. There’s an untamed peacefulness to it, and compared to the bold, punchy colors of the garden, it feels private.
“1870?” I ask. “Anson Burns was here in 1865. Does that make sense?”
Nash smiles, proud, and gives me a playful nudge. “You pay better attention to history than you used to.”
I snort a laugh. “I’m less distracted than I used to be.”
He gifts me with another smile, this one filling my belly with the whisper of butterfly wings.
“Either way, you’re right,” he says. “I thought the same thing when I read it. My only guess is that the owner at the time—John Drayton—was desperate for money. He sold nearly three hundred acres off just to stay afloat. If someone had wandered up and offered payment to walk around—” He shrugs one shoulder. “He likely would’ve taken it.”
On the large, algae-framed pond in front of us, the water is completely still, a perfect mirror of the cypress trees and kneessurrounding it and the bright blue sky above. The white bridge cuts the scene in half. Green, brown, blue, and white, just like Anson wrote.
A turtle rests on a log; Bennie would love it.
“You into turtles?” Nash asks as I squat to take a picture.
“Not me. My—” I eat the rest of that sentence. I can’t finish it truthfully. Not yet at least. Judging by the sick feeling in my stomach, maybe never. “Friend.”
He gives me another testing-the-waters look. “Bee?”
At this, I fully panic. “Bee?”
He dips his chin. “Your mom said Bee on the phone.”
“Ha!” Nothing is funny. “That Bee. Bee is not a friend.” His eyes narrow. “That’s not true. Bee is-is kind of a friend.” His eyebrows lift; this is a fucking disaster. “A psychic.”
“A psychic?” Disbelief fills his face. “You’re seeing a psychic now?”
He knows I haven’t changed that much.
“For my mother.”
I force a too-big smile that he shakes his head at but drops it.
Around us, it’s all nature. Not a single man-made element as we approach the bridge except modern signage instructing visitors about where to walk beside a few benches and trash cans. Even if Anson stood in this very spot, there’s no way any evidence still exists. Fires, hurricanes, and human intervention would have destroyed everything.
“You think there’s anything here?”
He shakes his head. “You?”
My shoulders pitch forward, deflated. “Same.”
At the bridge, teenage girls and couples pose for photos in the middle.
“I’ll take y’all’s picture,” a woman with a thick accent says. “You’re such a cute couple. Dan” —her voice turns to a holler—“aren’t they a cute couple?”
Dan—a man with knee-high socks and binoculars around his neck—nods, disinterested.
My “We aren’t a couple” is lost to Nash’s “We’d love a photo.”
