She read it aloud—that handwritten announcement on the cheap notebook paper. It had faded, but was clearly legible.
Something in my brain tried to split. The reality? The clash of realities? The young-adult Ellen reading the birth announcement of her predecessor? Roger put his arm behind me, around my waist. I’d forgotten his presence. Only when I felt his body alongside mine did I realize I was cold. My vision, which had grown unaccountably blurry, cleared, but a tiny vibration, no more than a shimmer inside me, caused me to shake.
“Oh, Mommy,” Ellen repeated, then added, “that’s beautiful.” She turned the page, and there was my drawing of Gran holding our sweet baby Ellen. Ellen sighed, then laughed. “It says I was born with blue eyes! Imagine if they’d stayed that color?” She picked up a plastic bag. Within it was a keepsake—soft golden-brown curls.
Then it happened. I don’t know exactly what. Roger was saying something about how lots of babies’ eyes change color as they get older, their hair, too, but his voice faded, and then . . .
He was beside me. Ellen was upset and crying out. My head ached. Somehow, I was on the pottery cabin floor.
Roger’s arm was around my back, and he was saying, “You’re dehydrated. You’ve been out here all day.”
“Mommy. Mom? Are you OK?”
I touched my face. It felt a little numb, and my skin was clammy.
“Get her some water, will you? There are bottles in the cooler in the back of my truck.”
“I fell?”
“You fainted,” Roger said, his voice calm. “Luckily I was right beside you.”
“My head hurts.”
“Dehydration.” He lifted me to a sitting position. “How’s that? Any dizziness?”
I saw the edge of the box on the table above and the book lying beside it.
“Hannah?” he prompted.
My nails were pinching him. I forcibly relaxed my grip, and Ellen came rushing back in, flushed and twisting the cap off the bottle of water. She tried to press it to my lips, spilling it down my shirt.
“Wait,” I said. I sat up the rest of the way and leaned forward. I drank the water. It was cool and felt good going down. I closed my eyes and nodded. When I opened them, I saw their worried faces. “Help me up, please.”
Their voices sounded around me. “Are you sure?” and “Take it easy. You might be light-headed.” But back on my feet, I felt steady. I brushed at my wet shirt. “I’m fine, truly.”
“Come sit out here,” Roger said. “I’ll drive you home as soon as I let the guys know. We can pick up your car tomorrow.”
“What?” I shook my head. “I’ll sit for a minute and drink the water, but I’m fine. I don’t know what happened. Maybe it was dehydration, but I’m good now. No need to worry.”
Roger looked doubtful. “Are you sure?”
“I am. I’m fine.” I was grateful for the chair.
Roger brought a second lawn chair over for Ellen. She perched on the edge of it, only inches away from me, looking very uncomfortable and ready to grab for me at a moment’s notice.
“Mom?”
“Yes, sweetie?”
“How are you feeling?”
“I was dehydrated, that’s all.”
“You scared me.” After a moment, she said, “Thank you for drawing those pictures of me. I never had any baby pictures, and I understand why, because of the fire and everything, but now to have some and to know they were drawn by you is the most amazing feeling, Mom.” She pressed a hand to her eye and sniffled, then made a show of shaking off the emotionalism. “I’m being silly.”
“Not at all. I wish I had real baby pictures of you. I don’t have any of me, either.”
“Mom, let me drive you home.”
I gave her a look.
“We’ll knock off soon,” Roger said. “I know you want to be here for the work, but you’ve had enough today. Besides, we’ve made good progress.” He went into the cabin and returned quickly, holding the opened tin box. He stopped beside me.
“Hannah, what about the rest of these things?”
In all the excitement, we’d forgotten there were other items in the box. Ellen moved closer again. I picked up a small oblong box. It looked like a carved wooden jeweler’s case, and I knew.
“My grandmother’s pearls.” Tears pricked at my eyes.
“They’re beautiful, Mom.”
I nodded. “She rarely wore them. They were her mama’s before hers.”
“Can I touch them?” Ellen asked.
I thought I’d lost them forever. I picked up the pearls carefully, fearful the string would break, and laid them on Ellen’s palms. Ellen didn’t speak, but after a moment she handed them back. Silently, I received them and returned them to the case.
Gran had managed to pack these away and then get herself down to the floor and back up again . . . during those dark few days after our baby left us. I didn’t remember those days. Or nights. But that was the only explanation.
She’d tidied up loose ends—things that might hurt me and that hurt her, too. She’d tucked away the pain, hiding it with her treasures. I’m sure she intended to remind me someday that this box existed, otherwise what was the point of putting it in safekeeping? But something had interfered . . . had changed that plan, had perhaps even changed Gran’s memory of it, as her reality had apparently rewritten itself on the day that a child showed up on our porch and restored her happiness.
I allowed Ellen to drive us home. I wanted to reward her for her kindness, to show I trusted her, and to give her another opportunity for practice and experience.
“I know you probably worry about me driving because of how your mother and father died.” She looked over at me as she pulled from the driveway onto the main road. “But you don’t need to worry. I’m a good driver.”
“Keep your eyes on the road and your mind on what you’re doing.” I laid my head back against the headrest. Because of how your mother and father died, she’d said. Should I tell her the truth? Why? If not for Duncan Browne, I would never have known . . . unless some busybody someday broke that code of silence and told me.
My grandparents’ withdrawal from social life, at least Gran’s, was probably to avoid the gossip. Maybe also to reduce the opportunity for me to hear about it? And then time had passed, and the memory of it, surely hot when the crime happened, had dimmed and been pushed out of the limelight by new gossip.
We’d accepted Gran’s ill health as the reason for her not going to town or church or socializing. I knew now it was more than that. She was doing what she could to control her world, her reality.
I guess my brain was still addled from the dehydration or the fainting spell, but it occurred to me that I could solve the problem of Ellen hearing about it from someone else. I said, “Actually, it’s private family business, and I’d prefer to keep it that way.”
“Like a secret? What?” She frowned.
“It’s a very sad story. Are you sure you want to hear it?”
She glanced over. “Tell me.”