It was much, much later when Maggie was awakened by the sounds of bumping and dragging above her. Her room was just a short flight of stairs below the large attic filled with decades of Honeycutt memorabilia. She lay in bed, listening, still too sleepy to be frightened, yet unable to ignore the fact that something or someone was in the attic. When she had dragged herself in from Johnny’s car earlier that night, she had avoided Irene because she didn’t want to share her pain and knew she couldn’t hide it. She had avoided even her own reflection because she knew it was written all over her face. She had crawled into her bed, and Irene had stuck her head in after a while. Irene hadn’t said anything, and Maggie had feigned sleep. Irene had stared for several long moments and then pulled the door shut again, sighing a little as she did.
Now, several hours later, Maggie was pulled from sweet oblivion and felt resentful of the boogie man who had disturbed what little peace she had left. Tossing off the blankets, she grumbled to her bedroom door and wobbled up the stairs to the attic. The stairway was lit, and Maggie could see that the lights in the attic were also blazing.
“Aunt Irene?” Maggie rubbed her bleary eyes and looked at the disorder around her. Just a few months ago she’d organized every inch of the space. Now it was a disaster. Boxes were over turned and dresses pulled out of protective zippered linings. A few hats had been tossed helter skelter, and in the corner, with tears streaming down her face, Irene Honeycutt sat on a faded love seat in a gauzy peach formal, hair done and make-up on. Thoughts of Dickens’ Miss Havisham from freshman year English rose unbidden in Maggie’s head, and she shuddered a bit at the comparison.
The dress was loose at the bust; Irene’s frail shoulders and shrunken chest didn’t fill it out as well as her younger self. The waist was pulled tight, where age had thickened her youthful form, but she had managed to zip it, even still. She looked terribly uncomfortable.
“Irene?” Maggie said again, trying not to overreact at finding the bride of Frankenstein crying in her attic in the middle of the night.
“Hello, dear,” Irene burbled, attempting cheeriness and normalcy, and failing miserably. “I was just wondering if I could fit into this old thing...I was up here looking for Lizzie’s record player. I don’t know what I’ve done with it.”
“You’re all dolled up. Make up and hair at three a.m., Auntie?” Maggie sat down next to Irene on the dusty love seat and reached out to finger the skirt of the peach confection.
“Go ahead, say it, I’m a silly old woman!” Irene tried to smile, but her words ended in a sob, and she mopped at her eyes with an old flannel doll blanket.
Maggie didn’t respond to that. Irene wasn’t silly. She was sad and obviously troubled about something. Maggie wondered if it had anything to do with seeing Johnny Kinross back from the grave, sitting in all his youthful glory in front of her house earlier in the day.
“This is beautiful. Is it the dress you wore to the prom? I think I recognize it from one of the pictures in Roger’s scrapbook.”
“It’s funny...I remember wearing red to the prom. I came up here looking for the dress. I know I have a red dress.”
“So you didn’t come up here looking for the record player?” Maggie poked at her and tried not to smile.
Irene shot her a look that indicated she thought Maggie rude for pointing out her lie. Her tears stopped falling, though, and she smacked Maggie lightly on the arm.
“Smarty pants!” Irene huffed, and Maggie snickered, making Irene smile a little too.
“I remember this dress now. I really am getting old. I did wear this. I had purchased the red dress, but at the last moment I got cold feet. Lizzie, my little sister, informed me that no one would be wearing red and I would feel silly. She was right. It was the only time I ever took fashion advice from a ten-year-old. The funny thing was another girl at the prom was wearing a red dress just like it. I’d forgotten all about her. She stood out like a sore thumb, but she looked wonderful. Johnny danced with her...” Irene’s eyes filled with tears once more, and she stopped talking and suddenly stood. “That dress is here somewhere.”
Irene started pulling dress bags from a long, free-standing rack, unzipping them like she was on a quest. Maggie scurried after her, tidying up the abandoned and discarded articles of clothing Irene left in her wake.
“Here! I knew it was here somewhere,” Irene cackled gleefully, and wrenched an armful of red from a dress bag smashed between two others. Irene’s curled and pinned coif was now a rat’s nest, and her eye makeup was smeared, but she seemed extraordinarily pleased with herself, so Maggie didn’t comment.
“Look at it, Maggie! It’s gorgeous. And here are the shoes and the clutch! I never even got to wear this!” Irene wailed mournfully. Struggling out from the disarray she’d created, she headed down the stairs, the red dress hanging over one arm, the shoes and the little silver purse clutched in the other. Maggie looked around in despair. Shaking her head, she left the chaos for another day and pulled the long strings on the weary bulbs, covering Irene’s mess with darkness. Gingerly she made her way down the stairs and went in search of her aunt. She couldn’t very well go back to bed when Irene was having a major melt-down.
She found Irene in her bedroom, sitting at the ornate vanity in the corner, fixing her smudged makeup and smoothing her ruffled hair. Maggie hadn’t spent any time in Irene’s room, and she looked around at the girlish abode with troubled eyes. The big mahogany bed had a wilted canopy above it with long curtains that could be closed at night. The spread was a faded rose color with matching pillows and a yellowed lace bedskirt hanging below it. The furniture was well made and delicate. A small lady’s writing desk with a slim cushioned chair adorned one wall. Pictures framed in roses covered the dresser and vanity. Even the wall paper was a faded pattern in pale pink. Maggie couldn’t see anything of Roger’s in the room and wondered if they had slept separately.
Maggie sank down on the bed, and a hint of lavender and talcum powder rose from the rumpled sheets.
“Has this always been your room, Aunt Irene?” Maggie questioned softly.
“Hmmm? Oh, no. Not always. When Roger and I moved back into the house after Daddy died, we shared the master bedroom. When Roger died, I moved back in here. Gus and Shad and a few others helped me move all my things from the attic. It looks almost like it did when I was a girl. I love it. It makes me feel young again.”