“I met a woman yesterday. She said she knew you. May Crandall. Does that sound familiar?” The names of old friends and acquaintances she can often recall with ease. It’s as if her memory book has fallen open, a persistent wind tearing out the most recent pages first. The older the memories are, the more likely they are to remain intact.
“May Crandall…” As she repeats the name, I can tell immediately that she recognizes it. I’m already reaching for my phone to show her the photo when she says, “No…it doesn’t ring any bells.” I glance up from my purse, and she’s looking at me very directly, thin white lashes narrowed over seawater eyes that suddenly seem strangely intense. I’m afraid we’re about to have one of those moments where she stops in the middle of a conversation and without warning starts the visit over with something like I didn’t know you were coming by today. How have you been? Instead, she says, “Is there a reason you would ask?”
“I met her yesterday…at the nursing home.”
“Yes, you said. But many people know of the Staffords, dear. We must always be careful. People look for scandal.”
“Scandal?” The word jolts me.
“Of course.”
The phone suddenly feels cold between my fingers. “I didn’t know we had any skeletons in the closet.”
“Gracious. Of course we do not.”
I scroll to the photo, look into the face of the young woman who reminds me even more of my grandmother now that I’m right across the table from her. “She had this picture. Do you know the person in it?” Maybe these are woodpile relatives? People my grandmother doesn’t want to acknowledge as part of the family tree? Every clan must have a few of those. Perhaps there was a cousin who ran off with the wrong sort of man and got pregnant?
I turn the screen toward her, watch for her reaction.
“Queen…” she murmurs, reaching out to pull the phone closer. “Oh…” Moisture wells up in her eyes. It beads and spills over, sketching trails down her cheeks.
“Grandma Judy?”
She’s a million miles away.
Not miles, years. Years away. She’s remembering something. She knows who that is in the photo. Queen. What does that mean?
“Grandma Judy?”
“Queenie.” Her fingertip trails across the image. Then she turns my way with an intensity that bolts me to my chair. “We mustn’t let people find out….” she says, her voice lowered. She glances toward the door, leans close, then adds in a whisper, “They can never know about Arcadia.”
It’s a moment before I can answer. My mind swirls. Have I ever heard her mention that word before? “What? Grandma Judy…what’s Arcadia?”
“Sssst!” The sound is so sharp she spits a fine spray across the table. “If they ever found out…”
“They? They who?”
The doorknob rattles, and she sits back in her chair, folds her hands neatly one over the other. An eye flash silently instructs me to do the same.
I pretend to relax, but my head is cluttered with possibilities—everything from a Watergate-style cover-up involving my grandfather to some secret society of political wives acting as Cold War spies. What has my grandmother been involved in?
A friendly attendant enters with coffee and cookies. At Magnolia Manor, residents not only have meals, they also have snacks and drinks in between.
My grandmother jerks a secretive backhand toward my phone, her head turning to the server. “What do you want?”
The attendant isn’t flustered by the uncharacteristically gruff greeting. “Morning coffee, Mrs. Stafford.”
“Yes, of course.” Grandma Judy again covertly indicates that I should put the phone away. “We’ll enjoy a cup, certainly.”
I glance at the time. It’s later than I thought. I’m supposed to join my father for a luncheon and ribbon cutting in Columbia. A golden opportunity to be seen rubbing elbows in the home state, as Leslie put it. Press will be there, as will the governor. With the recent rumbles about Washington insiders and career politicians, these local events matter. I get it, but what I really want to do is stay with Grandma Judy long enough to see if I can gain some clarity on this May Crandall issue and find out what Arcadia has to do with it.
Maybe she’s talking about a place? Arcadia, California? Arcadia, Florida?
“I really have to go, Grandma. I’m scheduled to accompany Daddy to a ribbon cutting.”
“Heavens, then I shouldn’t be holding you up.”
The attendant moves in and pours two cups of coffee anyway. “Just in case,” she says.
“You could take it to go,” my grandmother jokes. The coffee is in a china cup.
“I probably don’t need any more this morning. I’ll be bouncing off the walls. I just stopped by to ask you about May—”
“Tsst!” A hiss and a raised finger stop me from finishing the name. I’m given the snake eye, as if I’ve just cursed in church.
The attendant wisely gathers her cart and leaves the room.
Grandma Judy whispers, “Be careful, Rill.”
“W-what?” The intensity is once again startling. What’s going on in that mind of hers? Rill. Is that a name?
“Ears”—Grandma Judy points to hers—“are everywhere.”
Just as quickly, her mood changes. She sighs, tips up the tiny china pitcher, and pours a dab into her coffee. “Cream?”
“I can’t stay.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry. I wish you had time for a visit. It was lovely of you to pop in.”
At this point, we’ve been chatting for at least thirty minutes. She’s already forgotten. Arcadia, whatever it is, has disappeared into the mist.
She gives me a smile as blank as a freshly washed blackboard. It’s completely genuine. She’s not sure who I am, but she’s trying to be polite. “Come again when you don’t have to rush off.”
“I will.” I kiss her on the cheek and walk out of the room with no answers and even more questions.
There’s no way I can let this thing drop now. I need to find out what I’m dealing with here. I’ll have to unearth some other source of information, and I know where I intend to start digging.
CHAPTER 8
Rill
The shadow of the big white house slides over the car, swallowing it whole. Tall, thick magnolia trees line the curb, making a leafy green wall that reminds me of Sleeping Beauty’s castle. It hides us from the street, where kids play in yards and moms push prams along the sidewalks. There’s a baby carriage on the front porch of this house. It’s old, and a wheel is missing, so it leans. It’d likely dump the baby out if you put one in it.
A little boy squats in one of the magnolia trees like a monkey. He’s about Lark’s size—maybe five or six. He watches us drive in but doesn’t smile, or wave, or move. When the car stops, he disappears into the leaves.
A second later, I see him crawl from the tree and squeeze under a tall iron fence that circles the backyard of this house and the place beside it. The little building next door looks like it might’ve been a school or a church once. Some kids are playing on the teeter-totters and swings there, but the doors and windows are boarded shut, and there’s hardly any paint on the wood. Brambles grow over the front porch, which makes me think of Sleeping Beauty again.
Camellia stretches upward from the floorboard to see. “This the hospital?” She gives Miss Tann a look to let her know she don’t believe it for a minute. My sister has rested up on the drive, and she’s ready for another fight.
Miss Tann turns her way and shifts Gabion, who’s gone plumb asleep on her lap. His little arm flops down, chubby fingers gripping and ungripping. His lips move like he’s blowing kisses in a dream. “You can’t go to the hospital looking like that, now, can you? Stinking of the river and infested with vermin? Mrs. Murphy will take care of you, and if you are very, very good, then we will see about the hospital.”
A hope spark tries to catch fire in me, but I can’t find it much tinder. It snuffs out when Miss Tann looks my way.
Fern crawls up my chest, her knees poking into my belly. “I want Briny,” she whisper-whines.
“Hop to. Time to go inside. You’ll be just fine here,” Miss Tann tells us. “If you’re good. Am I understood?”
“Yes’m,” I try to answer for all of us, but Camellia’s not giving up so easy.
“Where’s Briny?” She ain’t happy about this whole thing and she’s working up to a blind-mad fit over it. I can feel it like a storm blowing in.