Suspicions
As I came up the shadowy drive, my heart gave a little jump when I saw Nonie, head down and slightly bent at the waist, pulling Michael in Eva’s Radio Flyer wagon. Nonie’s coat, the color of a gold chrysanthemum, and the red wagon were cheerful splashes against the hay-colored grass and brown-red leaves of the oaks. Eva had liked to pull her dolls in the wagon while Michael rode in his stroller, but one day she had insisted that she be allowed to have Michael in the wagon instead of her dolls. Press and I had watched as she pulled the heavy wagon, her little face reddening beneath her curls, as she pretended it was no effort at all.
“See? It’s easy, Mommy.”
Press had laughed behind his hand, but I whispered for him to stop. It seemed so important to her that we be impressed.
Before reaching them, I stopped the car and turned off the ignition. When I rolled down the window, I heard raindrops falling from leaf to leaf as though it were still raining. Nonie wore a scarf over her hair, and she’d put a cap and light jacket on Michael. She didn’t believe in keeping children indoors all day, no matter what the weather.
“He saw the wagon and would have absolutely nothing to do with his stroller. Fussed like a banshee.” Nonie glanced back at Michael, who was waving a giant yellow maple leaf that had blown over from beyond the driveway.
“You gave in? That’s not the Nonie I know.” But of course she knew he was missing Eva. Though she was always strict, she was also genuinely kind. “Doesn’t that hurt your back? The handle’s so short.”
“Not all of us are troubled with generous height, Lottie. Sometimes I think you forget that,” she teased. She looked down at Michael. “You’d better hope you have your mother’s height, Michael. Or she’ll make fun of you too, one day.”
I laughed, surprising myself. It felt natural, and I was momentarily grateful to her. Poor Michael had seen plenty of tears and sadness and was likely to see more.
“Your husband is home.”
“So early?”
“It’s not as though he keeps a schedule, is it? There was a decorator’s van here a little while ago. But it’s gone now.”
“Decorator?”
Nonie shrugged. “I have no idea.”
I blew Michael a kiss and reminded Nonie to come inside if it began to rain again. She nodded, humoring me, and they moved on. I waited until they were well past me before I restarted the car.
I parked in front of the house and left the keys in the ignition. There were some things that Terrance took care of that I very much appreciated, and parking the cars in the garage for us was one of them. The original carriage house had burned around the turn of the century, and the inside of the new carriage house set off to the east of the house was a gray, grim place, with cinderblock bays for three cars and an unused apartment built above. But the bays themselves, though plain, had exposed beams and dark corners. I’d once looked up—I’m not sure what led me to do it—to see a copperhead curling along one of the beams, and I hadn’t wanted to go in there again.
As Terrance opened the front door of Bliss House for me, I suddenly remembered the black snake in the lane. Had that been what spooked the Heasters’ horse? It had to be. I wondered if anyone else had seen it, or if I was the only one. Only Zion and, perhaps, Helen would know. Helen would have been frightened of the snake. She was a woman of the city and, given the way she’d talked about the inadequacies of Old Gate, I had the impression that she was never truly comfortable here. Of course, they had lived in Old Gate proper, in a cluttered cottage with several cats. I doubted they had a snake problem.
“Good afternoon, Miss Charlotte.” Terrance nodded.
I turned back to look down the lane for Nonie and Michael, worried that they might come across the same snake. Certainly the black snake was harmless and would hurry into the grass if it weren’t already hiding there. If it didn’t hide, I would be more worried for it than I would for Michael and the very protective, stick-wielding Nonie.
“Hello, Terrance. Can you tell me where Mr. Preston is?”
There was a fire laid in the library, even though it was probably still over seventy degrees outside. Press stood at the desk, a Scotch in one hand. The ice cubes were still large, so he probably hadn’t had it very long. My father didn’t understand why a man would put ice in a single malt, but then he still didn’t understand why some grown men didn’t bother to take their hats off when they went into buildings.