C.J. followed behind them, reeking of alcohol either from the previous night or that morning. He’d always managed to stay sober during the week, when he would show up at his law office or court or wherever he needed to be, but on the weekends he was always deep in his cups. But since Cecelia’s accident, his weekend binges were ending later and beginning earlier, so that it was hard to determine whether he ever sobered up in between.
Cal was nowhere to be found. He’d been dressed for the funeral earlier at breakfast, looking sullen as he pushed his breakfast around his plate with a fork without apparently lifting any food to his mouth. He’d left the table as soon as his father had come in, and Edith hadn’t seen him since.
She’d already told C.J. that she didn’t think Gibbes should be at the burial, so she continued to hold his hand and led him out of the cemetery to Church Street, just a short walk from Bay Street and home. She would finish laying out the food in the dining room for the crowd of people expected after the funeral, the family china, crystal, and silver gleaming on the white lace tablecloth, exactly as Cecelia would have liked it.
Gibbes tripped on an uneven part of the sidewalk, and when Edith slowed to help him regain his footing, she saw that his face was streaked with tears. She got down on her haunches and pushed his hair out of his eyes. They were his mother’s eyes. Edith had finally gotten her wish: a grandchild who resembled his mother in all ways, including a warm and tender heart. It was up to Edith to make sure it was preserved.
He’d always been a sweet and quiet child, somehow knowing that his place in the family was as an observer instead of a participant. He watched everything, coming to his own conclusions, and never offered his thoughts unless asked. And Edith was the only one who knew to ask.
“It’ll be all right. Maybe not tomorrow or even the next day, but one day it won’t hurt so much,” she said, wishing she could force sincerity into her words.
“How come they couldn’t fix Mama? I want her to come home with me.”
She hugged him tightly to her. “The doctors tried, sweetie, but she was too broken.” It had been a silly New Year’s Eve party, her heel clipping the back of her dress as she descended the stairs on her way out of the house. Edith had been up in the attic, finishing making a wind chime, hearing the arguing through the closed door. She’d wanted to believe it was an accident, wanted to believe that she had not raised a monster.
“I could fix her,” Gibbes said with all the sincerity of a five-year-old.
“I wanted to fix her, too,” Edith whispered in his ear. “But sometimes people don’t know they’re broken or that they need fixing.”
Gibbes’s eyes widened. “I told Cal I could fix her, but he told me to go away.”
Edith pulled back. “When did you say that to Cal?”
“After Mama fell and she was sleeping on the floor. Daddy was there, too, and told me to go to my room, so I did. I thought they were going to fix her.”
Pinpricks of ice dusted the back of her neck as years of denial and excuses jammed against her conscience. “Maybe when you’re older you can become a doctor and fix people. You can do that to honor your mother.” She leaned forward and kissed his forehead, then wiped his face with the sleeve of her black coat.
Taking his hand again, she continued to lead him toward the house, pretending that her shivering was due to the winter wind that swept off the river and settled over Beaufort like a cold breath.
She heard a rhythmic pounding as soon as they walked through the driveway gate, following the drive toward the back garden, where Cal stood facing the oak tree. As they watched, he drew back his fist and drove it into the trunk of the tree, making a hollow sound as impotent as his rage. He dropped his fist to his side, and she saw the blood running from his knuckles and staining the oyster shells beneath pink.
“Cal!” Edith called out, realizing it was too late to shield Gibbes. Dropping the boy’s hand, she walked quickly over to Cal and examined his injury. “You probably have a broken finger. Let’s get you inside and put some ice on this and get it wrapped.”
He didn’t move. “I told her to leave. So many times I told her to leave. But she wouldn’t. She said she loved him. Can you believe that? She loved him.” He turned back to stare at the tree trunk. “It’s her own damned fault.”
His breath came out in quickly evaporating clouds, carrying his words away.
She grabbed the sleeve of his coat. “Come on, Cal. Let’s go inside. . . .”
He yanked his arm away. “Why is there no punishment? You taught me that, Grandma—that every bad deed gets punished. Where’s the justice?”
Gibbes had started to cry again, and she moved back to put her arm around his shoulders. She thought of a younger Cal and his fire truck, how punishment had been carefully meted out to those who were careless. But his mother’s death had shaken his world order, showing him cracks in the facade of black and white, right and wrong. Edith wasn’t sure whether she could glue them back together or if it was fractured forever.