She felt a deep wave of longing and regret—and something else—as the car passed. And then Millie squared her shoulders and drove back toward Shellhaven. She allowed herself to feel nothing. Except relief.
82
Brooke stood up and kicked off her shoes. She unzipped the sleeveless black sheath dress she’d worn to the funeral and pulled it off over her head. “Who’s up for a swim?” she asked.
Lizzie and Felicia jumped to their feet and immediately began to strip.
“Come on, Marie,” Lizzie urged. “There’s a first time for everything.”
“Yeah, Mom,” Brooke said, reaching down to help her mother stand.
“Oh, my goodness.” Marie giggled. “I’m too old for this nonsense.” But she turned around to allow her daughter to unzip her chic black silk dress, then folded it neatly and placed it on top of the basket with the wine bottles.
“I’ll just swim in my bra and panties,” she said.
“Nuh-uh. No way,” Felicia said. “Skinny-dipping means naked.”
“As a jaybird,” Brooke agreed, tugging at the back of her mother’s bra.
“Y’all going in without me?” Varina struggled to get out of the lawn chair.
“Auntie Vee! Of course we’re not going without you.” Felicia and Lizzie each took Varina by the arm. She stood, and her fingers fumbled as she tried to work the buttons on her blouse.
“Let me,” Felicia said, and a few minutes later, the old lady stood naked and beaming up at the full moon overhead.
By unspoken agreement, the five joined hands and walked slowly toward the waves, pausing as the warm ocean lapped at their ankles, wading farther in until the water was neck-high on the tiny nonagenarian Varina.
“Ooh, this feels so good,” Varina squealed. “But don’t let go, y’all. You know I can’t swim. I’m afraid that tide will pull me clean out to sea, and I’ll end up naked in some country where they don’t even speak English.”
“We’ve got you,” Lizzie promised, clutching Varina by the elbow.
The old woman let the water sweep her off her feet, and for a few minutes she floated, bobbing tranquilly in the gentle waves, until one swept her under and she emerged, sputtering and coughing, then giggling at the sheer absurdity of the situation.
***
It was nearing midnight as the women, laughing and talking softly, finally made their way back to the Packard.
It took two tries, but finally the engine turned over, and Marie carefully backed the car onto the pavement. They were passing the lighthouse when Lizzie tapped Varina on the arm.
“Varina, do you ever think about that night? The night y’all skinny-dipped and then slept at the lighthouse keeper’s cottage?”
“Hmm?” Varina yawned. “Sometimes I do. Other times it seems like everything that happened that night and the next day was all a dream, it was so long ago. I miss my old friends Ruth and Millie. And now Josephine. Can’t hardly believe I’m the last one here.”
Lizzie gave her a conspiratorial look. “Since everybody else is dead now, it wouldn’t hurt, would it, if you told us where Russell Strickland is? I mean, it would make such a powerful ending to my magazine story if we knew.”
“Hush!” Felicia said fiercely. “She doesn’t want to think about that. Or talk about it.”
“It’s all right, honey,” Varina said. “I don’t reckon it matters anymore. Maybe it would give C. D. peace to know it.”
“You really don’t have to tell us,” Marie assured her.
“No. I think it will be like finally owning my own story,” Varina said. “Go ondown the road here a little ways, Marie, then turn like you’re going to the dock. When you come to the two oaks that look like they’ve grown together, right before the road to the dock, you take a right at that fork, and you keep going until you see the creek running in front of you.”
Marie drove slowly, following Varina’s directions until the pavement ran out, and they were on a narrow shell road that grew narrower still, and darker, with the thick oak canopy overhead nearly blocking out the moonlight.
Varina peered into the inky night. “I hadn’t been back here since that night. We all swore we’d never come near here again.”
“It’s okay,” Marie assured her. “You don’t have to do this. I’ll back out of here, and we’ll go on back to the house.”
