In the mirror, I was a different woman from the one I’d been a few weeks earlier. My face was puffy from oversleep, and the skin at my jaw looked slack, as though I were forty-seven instead of twenty-seven. Was my mouth harder? Less soft and appealing? I tried to think of how Press might see me now. Of course Rachel had been right about Press and J.C.; she had no reason to lie.
The door between our bedrooms was closed. On a mild day like this one, he often played tennis or golfed, but J.C. would be arriving in the afternoon. Press had assured me that she didn’t need a thing that he and Terrance and Marlene couldn’t provide, and that she would be there mostly to work on the theater. Mostly. I tried to imagine J.C. rolling up the sleeves of one of her expensive silk blouses to take up a paintbrush with the crew already at work in the ballroom, exposing her too-long, too-thin, insectile arms. A female praying mantis towering over the workers, biting the heads off of each one after—Oh, God, what was I thinking?
Even before Rachel and I had gotten out the door of the Racquet Club, Rachel had said “Do not trust her.” Behind us, Press and J.C. were finishing their lunch. I glanced back to see J.C. lifting a glass of red wine to her lips, an act that had, indeed, made drinking red wine at lunch look unseemly.
Enough.
I ate a quick breakfast and showered and dressed, giving a thought to my clothes in the same way that Rachel had encouraged me the day before. Grief had made me thinner and pale, and, in truth, a part of me didn’t care what I wore. But there was also a warning voice in my head that told me to dress carefully. With that in mind, I slid into a pair of bright pink slacks and a soft white cardigan with pearl buttons of which Eva had been particularly fond. There was still a similar one in Eva’s middle drawer that she would have insisted on wearing when she saw mine.
It was always going to be like this. Always What would Eva have said? What would she have liked? I ran my lipstick over my lips almost in defiance, thinking: I must do this now. I must bear it. I must remember.
My fault.
I was in the nursery when the telephone outside Olivia’s room rang. We had four telephones: one in the kitchen, one in the front hall, one in the second-floor gallery, and one in the library. Nonie was outside, hanging Michael’s laundry (she insisted on doing it herself in the wringer washer in the mudroom). The call went unanswered, and when the ringing started again, I put Michael on my hip and hurried to answer it.
Buck Singleton, my father’s best friend of thirty years, was on the other end of the line.
On hearing my voice, he immediately launched into what he’d called to say.
“Charlotte? Darlin’, your daddy was crossing the street the same way he does every day to get to the store—you know he never goes up to the corner—and a car came out of nowhere and clipped him, knocked him over. There weren’t any witnesses that we know of, but the car didn’t stop. I didn’t even see any brake marks on the street.”
For a moment, I couldn’t speak. My father was two years younger than Olivia had been when she died, but he was in excellent health, and even though it wasn’t rational, a part of me had believed he would stay exactly the same as he was the day Preston and I married.
“Are you there, Charlotte? Did you hear what I said? He asked me to call you, but to not get you upset. He said he doesn’t want you to come, but his leg is broken along with a couple of ribs. No one saw him hit, but they found him right away.”
“Have you seen him? How is he?”
In my arms, Michael began to tug on the handset, saying “Unh unh unh!”
In the confused moments that followed, I learned that my father was, indeed, in the hospital, but was conscious. Buck had promised to call me but was supposed to discourage me from coming. His wife, Callie, who occasionally helped at my father’s office-supply store, had said she would look after the store and cook any meals he needed.
“But someone needs to be there with him,” I told Buck. “I’ll come. Tomorrow, if we can’t get the train today.” I knew my aunts would certainly want to help, and that if they went instead of me, the stress would slow his healing considerably.
Buck demurred. “He won’t be happy about it, honey. He was adamant he doesn’t want you to leave that baby boy of yours. Is that who I hear?”
“Then I’ll bring him with me.” Even as I said it, I knew it wasn’t a good idea. But together Nonie and I could certainly take care of both my father and Michael.
“We’ll get things ready on this end. You let us know when you get here.”
Michael let out a howl when I hung up the telephone without letting him have the handset. I held him closer, kissing him on the forehead.
“That wasn’t very nice. It wasn’t your turn to talk on the telephone today.” I shifted him. “How would you like to see Grandpa?”