“Mrs. Heyward?” The young officer on the left spoke first. She thought she recognized him, but she was having a problem focusing.
She smiled, forcing the bile back down her throat. “Yes?” She struggled to suck a breath into her lungs, the air now thick with the scent of rain. While she’d been in the kitchen, the moon and stars had disappeared as if ashamed to illuminate the scene beneath them. The splat of raindrops hitting her front walk and the leaves of the oak tree that shaded most of the front yard almost obliterated the sound of her heart thrumming in her ears. “Can I help you?” She knew she should invite them inside, just as she knew she could not.
A figure moved from the shadows of the porch, and she recognized the police chaplain as he stepped inside the arc of light. She blinked in surprise, wondering why he was there with the officers.
A flash of lightning lifted her gaze from the three men to the scene across the river, and she found herself holding her breath. Dozens of blinking flashlights came from the shore and from boats on the water like hovering fireflies, spots of light marking the souls of the departed.
“Edith?” The chaplain stepped closer, so she could now see his kind eyes and the deep creases around his mouth placed there like scars during the war. “I’m afraid we have bad news.”
“Mama?” C.J. called from the kitchen.
Edith turned to the chaplain in a panic. “I’m sorry; I have to see to my son. . . .”
He reached out to take her hands, his fingers as icy as hers. “There’s been an accident. Calhoun’s car was found off of Ribaut Road up against a tree. An eyewitness said it looked like he was distracted by the explosion.” He paused. “He . . . he didn’t survive.”
She felt as if she were free-falling from the sky, the lack of oxygen making her light-headed and strangely calm. She felt nothing. Absolutely nothing. “Was he alone?”
The men shuffled their feet in embarrassment, but it was the second officer who finally spoke. “Yes, ma’am.”
Edith nodded, feeling inordinately relieved that they hadn’t come because of the suitcase. Her son called out from the kitchen again, distracting her from the sight of the blinking lights. She knew she needed to say something, to pretend that she cared that Calhoun was dead, to pretend that she felt anything except relief. She thought instead of the feel of her mother’s cold hand in hers, and her father’s voice saying something about her being free from pain. Edith let out a sob, then pressed her knuckles against her mouth.
The chaplain spoke again. “Can I get you anything? Or can I call someone to come stay with you?”
She shook her head, blinked back the tears. “No. I’ll be all right. I just need to be alone right now with my son. I’ll be in touch in the morning to see what needs to be done. Thank you, gentlemen.” She closed the door on their surprised faces, her last glimpse that of the chaplain’s knowing eyes.
The storm outside intensified as she pressed her forehead against the closed door, feeling guilty that instead of thinking of Calhoun dying alone on a darkened road, her thoughts were occupied with the letter under her refrigerator and the woman who’d written it. Edith felt an odd kinship with the unknown woman, the bond of a secret the other woman would never know she’d shared. A secret Edith knew she’d take to her grave.
Before she turned from the door, a gust of wind pushed at the house, unfastening a shutter on an upper story and slamming the limbs of the old tree against the roof of the porch. As she began walking slowly back toward the kitchen, she heard the wind chime cry out into the troubled night like a prayer to accompany lost souls to heaven. She shivered despite the humid night, then closed her eyes for a moment, hearing only the sound of glass.
chapter 1
MERRITT
BEAUFORT, SOUTH CAROLINA
MAY 2014
Fires can be stopped in three different ways: exhausting the fuel source, taking away the source, or starving the fire of oxygen. Whenever Cal was worked up or upset he would repeat small facts he’d learned at the academy like reciting a prayer. It sometimes worked, which is probably why I’d taken up the habit after he was gone.
My logical and organized curator’s mind wouldn’t allow me to completely push away the thought that my own recitation was some kind of unanswered plea for forgiveness. Because no matter what they told me, Cal’s death wasn’t an accident. I was reminded often that he was a firefighter and walking into burning buildings was what he did, and sometimes a roof collapsed and firemen got trapped. And they were right, of course, because that was how Cal had died. But it didn’t explain why.