“Remind me again why we’re doing this?” Merritt slapped another mosquito on her arm, her face red with heat under the floppy brim of her straw hat. She stood inside the towering arches and columned brick walls of the old Sheldon church ruins, the missing roof and doors making it no less grand than before the fire that had destroyed it.
Loralee looked up at the open sky, wondering whether prayers might get to heaven faster without interference from a roof. “It’s important that children don’t forget everything over the summer that they learned in school the previous year. And field trips like this make history come alive. It’s so much more fun and interesting than reading about it in a book.”
Merritt slapped at her ankle and glared up at Loralee. “Yes, so much more fun.”
Loralee turned away to hide her smile. She’d doubted Merritt would enjoy today’s outing, but she’d been sure she would come once Loralee asked. When they’d managed to coerce Merritt onto the boat ride through the marsh, Loralee had realized that Merritt’s usual motivation was not to disappoint anybody. She just wasn’t sure whether she’d been that way as a girl, or it was something she’d learned during her marriage.
Owen turned from where he’d been studying the charred bricks on a segment of the wall, his backpack loaded with waxed-paper rolls and gold and silver crayons. “This place is so cool. Is it haunted?”
“There’s no such thing,” Merritt said quickly.
That was the second time Loralee had heard Merritt say that, making her think about what she was so afraid of. Or maybe Loralee already knew. It’s not only ghosts who haunt us. Our memories follow us through life, surprising us now and again when we are forced to turn around and look behind us. She’d written that on the back of a drugstore receipt as she’d waited in line at the pharmacy, reminding herself that she still needed to transfer it into her pink journal.
“Yes, there is,” Owen said. “Maris says there’s an old man at the stables where she rides who rattles the horse harnesses in the middle of the night.”
Merritt straightened from scratching at her calves. “Then how does anybody know that if it only happens in the middle of the night? Aren’t people usually asleep? Seems to me somebody made up the story to keep burglars away.”
Owen considered this. “You might have a point.”
Loralee stared at the two of them, wondering whether she was the only one who saw how similar they were in the way they viewed the world. How much like Robert they were.
“There are some really old graves over there,” Owen said, tramping across the tall grass and through what might have once been a window. “Can I do a rubbing now?”
“Not yet,” said Loralee. “Not until you tell me the significance of this building. Did you read the historical marker near the road?”
Owen and Merritt shook their heads in unison, and if Loralee hadn’t been so exasperated, she would have laughed. “The original church was built in 1745, but was burned by the British during the revolution in 1779. It was rebuilt, only to be burned again in 1865.”
Merritt stood with her hands on her hips as she studied the shifting shadows on the old brick walls made by the branches of encroaching oak trees and their sweeping shawls of moss. It seemed to Loralee as if the oaks had grown close to the church over the years to protect it with their long arms, like a mother shielding her child.
“Who burned it in 1865?” Merritt asked.
“The damned Yankees,” Loralee said, trying not to grin.
“Really, Loralee?” Despite her trying to look stern, Merritt’s lips trembled as they fought a smile. “Not just the Yankees, but ‘damned’ ones?”
“Daddy said that the only time I was ever to use the word damned was in front of the word Yankees. But I think he meant the baseball team,” Owen pointed out.
Loralee smiled at her son. “Yes, well, and when people talk about General Sherman’s march to the sea, they’re expected to use it, too. It was his troops who burned the church, although, as you can see, the exterior walls refused to fall.” She lifted her face to the sun, feeling its warmth on her bare skin. “I like that, how even a fire couldn’t completely destroy this place. I think it’s still beautiful. Maybe even more so, because you can see its scars. It tells you the story of where it’s been.”
Merritt stared at her for a long moment, as if she wanted to say something. Instead she slapped at another mosquito on her leg.
Loralee shook her head. “You were the one who insisted on wearing a skirt instead of the nice pair of jeans I gave you. I’ll give you some calamine lotion later, but don’t expect any sympathy.”
“They were too tight. I couldn’t wear those out in public.”