Could something like that explain why Iola’s mother would agree to send her away? Did she really believe it was best for Iola, or was it just convenient —a compromise made in order to keep a job, to maintain a life that was comfortable?
Was her ten-year-old daughter the price she had to pay to please Monsieur and Madame? Would a mother sell her child for so little?
My mother had given us up for less than money —for liquor, for parties, for one-night stands, for her constant need to feed on the chaos and drama of relationship upheaval —anything that kept the momentum going. If life calmed and settled into a pattern, like it had during those months on the Outer Banks, she eventually couldn’t stand it. She’d conjured false accusations to insure that Pap-pap and Meemaw couldn’t seek custody of us. She’d told horrible lies and made everyone believe them.
Folding Iola’s second letter, I set it atop the first one, slowly re-creating the collection from the box, the timeline of a life that wasn’t easy, at least in its beginnings. Yet Iola had ended up owning this beautiful house, having money, gorgeous things.
Bracing a hand on the quilt, I looked around the room, took in the pastoral prints on the walls.
Was that the kind of life Iola had ended up living? Did I really want to know? It hurt to read the words of the little girl who’d been sent away, who was alone and afraid that the people who were supposed to love her had instead forgotten about her. It dredged up too many memories, unearthed feelings I didn’t want to remember, scenes from my life that I’d been trying to bury for thirty-three years, pain that was pointless now. My parents were both gone, victims of self-destruction.
A drop of moisture slid down my cheek, leaving a trail that was warm and itchy. I closed my eyes, wicked away the salt water with my thumb.
This was stupid. I needed to put the letters back in the box and leave them alone. There was no point rambling around in Iola’s life. Reading her thoughts was like dipping a ladle into the toxic waste of my life and pouring it all over myself. It burned as it oozed along fresh skin and old scars.
What good could possibly come of walking through all that pain again?
Swiping the moisture on my jeans, I reached for the stack of letters, slipping one hand on top and one hand underneath, preparing to lift the stack all at once, turn it over, and wiggle it back into the box. It was wrong to invade someone else’s prayers. I shouldn’t have been looking. These things weren’t meant for human eyes.
But why had she kept them? Why had she left them here, carefully stored and boxed all in order?
Did she want someone to see, to understand? Did she want to leave behind a record of her life, of all the things she’d prayed for? Did she know someone was coming —someone who would feel this girl’s words in the deepest parts of her own soul?
She couldn’t have known, of course. There was no way Iola could have predicted that I would come here.
She hadn’t left the letters for me.
The best thing would be to gather all the boxes, take them next door, and toss them into the church Dumpster with the rest of the trash from the house. Surely Iola wouldn’t want her private thoughts to end up being bargained off in some estate sale, possibly distributed all over the island, a freak show for those who were curious about her, who’d whispered behind their hands while she was playing the church organ.
Those people didn’t deserve to see what was inside these boxes, to have Iola’s private life exposed for them to examine, to ridicule, to criticize.
I could empty all the boxes, take the letters to the trash, and put the containers back on the shelves. No one would ever know the difference. When the house was cleaned out or auctioned off or torn down —whatever eventually happened —Iola’s private life would remain private. It was the least I could do for her, considering that she’d sheltered us when we had nowhere to go. A final favor for a woman who took the time to think of the grocery delivery boy, even when she was struggling to save her house from rainwater pouring through the roof.
Setting the stack of letters on the bed again, I rose so quickly that the cat sat up, arching his back, startled.
“Good thing I bought trash bags yesterday,” I said. “Wonder how many it’ll take to empty all those boxes.” I could start with the lower ones, but I’d still have to figure out how to get to the upper shelves. Maybe I could stack a couple chairs on top of each other. It might take three to reach the collapsed shelf near the attic hatch. Climbing that high on a tower of chairs didn’t sound like the most brilliant plan. If I fell and broke a leg, the kids and I would be in worse shape than we were now.
Where in the world could I get a ladder?
If I asked Ross, he would want to know why I needed it. I’d have to admit that I was working in Iola’s house. Knowing Ross, he’d tell the whole surf crowd. Word would get around, and people would be pushing me to let them see. And considering what the deputy had said, and Brother Guilbeau’s request that I keep things quiet, asking at the church didn’t seem like a great idea either.
I’d just have to start cleaning out the boxes at the bottom and figure out the rest later. Something would come to me. I’d always been good at finding a way to make do with what I had. Pap-pap taught me that. He created the most beautiful things from scraps of wood he picked up here and there. Somewhere in the moves from foster home to foster home those last few years, I’d lost a little driftwood treasure chest he made when we were on Hatteras. I’d helped him cut the wood and hollow out the space inside, not knowing that it was for me. I’d seen him make the boxes before and sell them at the roadside stand where Meemaw peddled vegetables and canned goods from their farm. Tourists loved the boxes as much as they loved Meemaw’s blackberry jelly.
While I was sleeping, Pap-pap had created the little treasure chest, pressed shell hash, bits of mother-of-pearl, and chips of softly colored beach glass into the cracks and knotholes, then suspended it in place with clear lacquer so that his creation became a work of art, a piece of the ocean I could hold in the palm of my hand. He’d given me the treasure box on the morning of my thirteenth birthday. Something made from nothing. Inside was a little piece of blue beach glass on a silver chain. A mermaid’s tear, he called it and patted me awkwardly on the shoulder as I slipped the chain over my neck.
The mermaid’s tear. I’d lost it along with the treasure box.
But I hadn’t lost the lessons I’d learned, scrambling around construction sites. I knew how to build things. If I had to, I’d gather up some scrap wood and make a ladder.
For now, I’d take care of what I could reach.
I hurried downstairs for trash bags. A sliver of guilt needled as I glanced past the piano room toward the long hall, where the kitchen doorway loomed, the light in there bright and cheery, a slice of black-and-white tile and blue-rimmed china showing. So much work was waiting for me, and I wasn’t making enough progress on it. I’d spent too much time messing around upstairs and running off with Ross. The trash bags I’d bought were still on the table in the entry hall, not a single one used to contain the refuse in the kitchen. Now I was headed upstairs again.
What if Brother Guilbeau stopped by to check on me?
I’d just have to be quick. Before anyone else could find it, I was going to bury Iola’s junk —and my own —where it would never come up again.
My footsteps echoed through the house as I grabbed the trash bags and ran back up the stairs, taking them two at a time. When I reentered the blue room, the tomcat was lounging in the center of the bed, lying broadside over the letters, the stack now flattened and spread out.
“Get off of there!” I pulled out a trash bag and shooed him with it. “Those aren’t yours to . . . lay all over. Go ’way. Shoo.”
He hissed and held his ground, his tongue curling behind sharp yellow teeth.
“Shoo!” I batted at him with a pillow, and he arched like a tiny panther, moving to the corner of the bed and growling, the primal sound raising short hairs on my neck. “You keep talking to me like that and I won’t feed you anymore.” The show of bravado was as much for me as for the cat. “I’m doing her a favor. She wouldn’t want those people putting their hands all over this stuff, okay? It’s private. You might not know that —well, of course you don’t. You’re a cat. But I get it. I understand, believe me.”
He growled again, his gaze narrow, steady, and eerily bright.
Monitoring him from the corner of my eye, I set the bag nearby and reached for the letters, raking them into a pile with both hands. “You’ve probably got rabies. Or you’ve been in so many fights, you’re not all there, if you know what I mean. That would explain a few things about you.”