A LETTER FROM
JULIETTE CARLTON

Greensville, NC

September

I could tell you a story about how my uncle Grey Alexander left me Magnolia Hall because I was his favorite niece. About how on the day he died I found out he made sure I, Juliette Carlton, a forty-year-old, three-time divorced blackjack dealer, his beloved niece and misplaced Southern belle, inherited all he had, including the memories of a loving Southern family.

But none of it would be true.

And before all this happened, I believed money would make my life better, different, worth living. What I didn’t know was that no amount of money could help me. It took something so strange to make me see what’s really important.

Mary Schramski

Mary Schramski began writing when she was about ten. The first story she wrote took place at a junior high school. Her mother told her it was good, so she immediately threw it away. She read F. Scott Fitzgerald at eleven, fell in love with storytelling and decided to teach English. She holds a Ph.D in creative writing and enjoys teaching and encouraging other writers. She lives in Nevada with her husband, and her daughter who lives close by. Visit Mary’s Web site at www.maryschramski.com.

What to Keep
Mary Schramski

www.millsandboon.co.uk

From the Author

Dear Reader,

You and I have a connection. I’m a reader, too. When I hold a book in my hands, an excitement begins because, with just the turn of the page, the possibilities are endless. And I believe novels polish hearts and souls to a lovely brilliance.

I wrote What To Keep because I want you to experience a Southern town and live in an old Southern mansion. I want you to become acquainted with a woman who inherits her family’s home and all the memories that go along with it. Most of all, I want you to breathe Southern air, taste a bit of Southern food and hear the singsong cadence of a Southern accent.

Come on, take my hand, let’s go together.

Mary

www.maryschramski.com

To my editor, Gail Chasan, who has been my guide

and the ultimate professional.

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

PROLOGUE

Greensville, NC

September 2000

I could tell you a story about how my uncle Grey Alexander left me Magnolia Hall because I was his favorite niece. Then you might think I visited him every summer to attend reunions, and our family was close and very loving. That’s when I’d explain that Uncle Grey always sent me beautiful birthday cards, telephoned me on Christmas morning to wish me a happy, peaceful holiday. And at the end of our conversation he’d go on and on about how he wished I were home instead of in dusty Las Vegas.

I’d also tell you on the day he died I found out he made sure I, Juliette Carlton, a forty-year-old, three-times-divorced blackjack dealer, his beloved niece and misplaced Southern belle, inherited all he had, including the memories of a loving Southern family.

But none of it would be true.

Someone once told me the reason people lie is because it sounds better. They were right. And life, as my mother used to remind me over and over, is raw and ugly. Part of that is true. Life is raw and ugly if a person makes it that way. Maybe that’s why my mother lied so much.

I’ve decided not to fabricate anything, especially to myself. At one time I was big on that. I’d tell myself I was happy when I wasn’t, tell myself a man cared when he didn’t.

So the truth is I inherited an old Southern house from a man who just happened to be my uncle. I barely had a few faded memories of him. I became the owner of his house because I’m the only family member left. And that one little mistake of Grey Alexander not making a will changed my life forever. Because before all this happened I believed money would make my life better, different, worth living. What I didn’t know was that no amount of money could help me. It took something so strange, like inheriting an old Southern mansion that shouldn’t have belonged to me, to make me see what’s really important.

CHAPTER 1

Las Vegas, NV

June 2000

Barbara, the only other female blackjack dealer on day shift, just tapped me on the shoulder for my break. I’ve been dealing blackjack to two deadbeat guys for the past forty minutes. Dealers deal for forty minutes, then break for twenty, over and over until their eight-hour shifts are finished, just like in a factory—in this case, a big, smoky money machine.

I clap my hands to show I’m not stealing chips, and I’m halfway down the middle of the pit when the pit boss motions me over to the center podium.

“Message for you,” Joe says. He adds, “Casino policy says no personal phone calls.” Even so, he hands me the yellow Post-it note he’s holding between his thumb and forefinger. Joe, as always, is wearing plenty of gold jewelry. And I just know his navy suit must have cost him at least a thousand. Joe makes two thousand a month before taxes watching people deal cards. Most pit bosses try to pretend they own the casino, probably just to make their lives bearable.

“Thanks,” I force myself to say. I’ve worked at the Golden Nugget for three years. Joe has only been here six months, and he’s been on my ass since the first day he walked into the pit. He’s asked me to go out and have a drink but of course he doesn’t talk about his wife when he suggests we walk across the street to the Horseshoe after work. He’s just trying to get laid. Casino bosses think they have a right to the help, but even if I found him attractive, I’m totally through with men, especially men like Joe who pretend they have more than they do, or that they’re single, or both.

I fold the Post-it note in half, smile and walk back to the break room. A moment later I unfold the yellow square. Joe printed “Ron Tanner,” a name I don’t recognize. And now I’m thinking Bill, my ex, might be in a jam. And this scares me, how easily he can pop into my mind. I’ve been working extra hard to forget. Guess I’ve got to try harder.

I walk over to the table by the pay phone, pick up the phone book and check the area code. Whoever Ron Tanner is, he’s calling from the western half of North Carolina. And he probably doesn’t have anything to do with Bill. That man, I am sure, has never been east of the Arizona border.

However, my father was born and buried in North Carolina, and he, my mother and I lived there for a brief time. I have one uncle who lives there, but we haven’t seen each other or spoken in thirty-five years. I ball up the tiny piece of paper and walk to the trash. Before I can pitch it, my curiosity gets the best of me. A moment later I dial the number using the last bit of credit on my phone card.

The voice on the other end announces law offices. I tell myself to hang up. With Bill, I found out law offices can only mean trouble with a capital pain in the ass, but instead I identify myself and ask to speak to Ron Tanner.

A minute later, in a strong Southern accent, Ron Tanner announces that he’s acting as the court-appointed executor for Grey Alexander’s estate. I hear him take a deep breath then, at a quick pace, he explains he’s sorry to have to tell me, but my uncle passed away three weeks ago, and I have inherited his estate because I’m his only living relative.

“Are you all right?” he asks.

“Yes. What happened to my uncle?” I ask, confused.

“He had cancer. From what I understand he fought it for quite a while. I’m very sorry.”

“Thank you.”

There’s a long silence while my mind tries to wrap around what I’ve just been told.

“I’m sure you have a few questions,” Ron says.

A little sound like “oh” bounces out of my mouth.

“No?”

“Sorry. What exactly do you mean by estate?”

“It consists of your uncle’s house and his belongings, which aren’t much.”

My uncle. I hadn’t thought of him in years, and now all of a sudden I have his house.

“Are you okay?” he asks, his smooth, deep accent getting deeper.

“Yeah, I’m okay, just surprised.” I shake my head—feel dizzy. When was the last time I saw my uncle? Then I remember. My dad, mother and I were driving away from my uncle’s house. Grey Alexander, a tall man with blond hair, in a navy jacket and cream pants, was standing on the front porch of his large house, his arms crossed, staring at our car. I waved a five-year-old goodbye—he never lifted his hand.

“I certainly had difficulty locating you,” Ron Tanner breaks in. “Do you know your phone’s disconnected?”

Did I know? I’ve been without a phone for a month, hoofing it down to the 7-Eleven on Sunset and Green Valley Parkway to make calls in an attempt to straighten out the mess Bill left me in. But I don’t tell Ron Tanner this. He probably doesn’t want to hear my sad story.

“What exactly is in Grey Alexander’s estate?” I ask, and then remember I’ve already asked this.

“A house. A car. Not much else.”

“What’s the house like?” I wonder if it is the same one, the one I stared at through the back window of our family car, the same one where I ran down the hallway to a roomy kitchen.

Ron explains it’s very old and pretty run-down.

“How do I sell it?” I ask, thinking about the extra money I so desperately need.

“You might consider coming back to Greensville. The house has to be inspected. Then you could talk to a Realtor.”

I think about how Joe hates me ’cause I won’t go out with him; he would never let me off, even for a few days.

“I can’t. I have to work. No vacation left. Can I get in touch with a Realtor from here? Have her take care of the inspection?”

“You can,” Ron says. “I can get you a few names.”

Moments later, still dazed and wondering if this is all a big joke, I cradle the phone and lean against the wall. Leanne, the break-room waitress, walks up to me, glances at her watch and asks if I want anything to eat. I look up.

“Are you okay?”

I shake my head, blurt out I’ve just inherited a house in North Carolina.

“You’re lying!”

“No, it’s true, or at least I think it is. I just spoke with the attorney.”

“I’m so sorry about your loss.”

“I really didn’t know the person.”

Leanne pats my shoulder then steps back a little. “Well, now there’s no excuse not to get out of this hellhole.”

My mother, when I’d talked about moving away from Vegas, always placed her hand on her chest, right in the middle and whispered how alone she was in the world, how she needed me. Which now, years later, I know was total bullshit. But her drama gave me a good excuse for not moving—this glittering desert town sucks people into its dreams.

Leanne’s brown eyes grow larger. “When are you going to see your house?”

I shake my head. “I’m not. I’ve got to work, and I don’t have any extra money.”

She stuffs her hands in her pockets and looks hard at me. “Are you kidding? Someone loves you enough to leave you a house, all their things, and you aren’t going to go and look at them? You’re crazy.”

I think about telling her that my getting the house doesn’t have anything to do with love, but what’s the point? Grey Alexander didn’t leave me his house; some probate judge flung it to me because I’m from a small family.

“I don’t have the money to go,” I say again, and this is so true. Bill left me in debt, took almost everything good we owned. “Besides, Joe isn’t going to let me off for a week. The lawyer said he’d give me the name of a Realtor who would handle everything.”

Leanne sighs. “What’s a Supersaver cost? I never saw a house sell for anything without the owner being there. We sold our house up in Salt Lake after we moved down here and got screwed. You’d better get back there and take care of business.”

I stand, wish I hadn’t told her about the call. “I’d better get back to the pit before I get the ax.”

Leanne shakes her head, clucks her tongue and heads toward the kitchen.

I slip my time card in the clock, and the deep thunk clocks me out at 8:01 p.m. The Golden Nugget time office pulses with boredom, greasy concrete floors, and bright fluorescent lighting that shows too much reality. Up front the casino, restaurant, and lounge are all gold, red and satin under soft lighting. Back here, this is the truth. The timekeeper nods and I walk down the stairs into the parking lot. Furnacelike air engulfs me. Eight o’clock at night and it is still eighty-five degrees. For the next three months the desert heat will cook everyone slowly, in our own sweaty skins, like poached eggs. I open my car, go around and roll down all four windows, curse the air conditioner that gave out two months ago.

Twenty minutes later I’m sitting on the garage-sale couch I bought a week ago to replace the Ethan Allen one my ex-husband stole, along with all my underwear that he forgot to take out of the top dresser drawer and put on the floor when he was cleaning out our house.

Just for the hell of it, I remind myself I own a house in North Carolina. Christ, life can turn on a dime! On the drive home, I tried not to think about the house, the extra money, but I couldn’t help myself and decided as soon as I can sell the house, I’m going to move to a better apartment, or maybe even buy another home and get my car air-conditioning fixed.

I dig in my purse and find the orange tip envelope I picked up right before I left work. It feels fatter than normal and for one brief moment I feel joy. A big tip day, the phone call to Ron Tanner. What more could a girl want?

A twenty, a ten and two ones are wrapped around a pink paper. I unfold it. It’s one of those weak-ass carbon copies of a layoff notice—Reduction In Staff—signed by Joe Gamino, the dickhead.

Great! Stunned, yet not surprised since I’ve known he’s been after me for months, I go to the fridge and grab a Coors Light, twist off the top, listen to it sigh then take a big swig.

Over at the window, I pull back the thin drapes and rest the cool amber beer bottle against my cheek. Fired! Crap.

To make myself feel better, I think about the house in Greensville, how maybe it will sell quickly. It’s just got to.

When I was five my parents moved back to Greensville for two weeks, and we stayed at Magnolia Hall until our apartment was ready. I remember the house was white with bricks, really big and filled with antiques. At night my mother, father and I, along with my uncle, would sit on the porch that wrapped around the front. I played on the steps with my doll or ran out into the grass, trying to catch fireflies while the grown-ups’ whispers floated through the air.

After we moved into an apartment, and as my mother was unpacking the last box, she started crying and couldn’t seem to stop. Two days later my father announced we were going back to California, where it was cool in the summer, warm in winter, and maybe it would be a place where my mother might get her sanity back.

I never understood this two-week, six-thousand-mile trek; it is one of those mythical family stories that children aren’t allowed to enter, just watch from the outside and wonder about.

Most of all I remember the cool morning air feathering my face, touching the trees as the three of us walked to our car, me in between my mother, who was crying softly, and Dad, his hand wrapped around mine. I felt wounded for them that day, like now, aching and not knowing why, afraid of the unknown.

I let the drape fall, take another sip of beer and, for the first time in many months, I admit my life has turned to pure crap.

CHAPTER 2

Magnolia Hally

Greensville, NC

June 2000

Ron Tanner and I are in his black BMW headed down a magnolia-lined, gravel driveway. It’s been three days since I got fired from the Golden Nugget. That night I ended up drinking the last four beers in the fridge, sitting on the couch, in a beer-hazed stupor for, I guess, about an hour thinking about how my life had not just turned to crap, but how it had always been crap and I needed to do something about it. Leanne’s words kept thumping through my mind. How I’d get ripped off if I didn’t go back to sell the house. And I’m tired of people pissing on me.

I nodded off on the couch, then stumbled to bed, didn’t bother to take off my black pants and white dealer’s shirt until twelve the next day. When I got up, I walked down to the 7-Eleven and called the Golden Nugget, asked to speak to the blackjack pit boss and when Joe answered, I whispered, “You asshole,” then hung up, my hand shaking a little. I knew it was stupid and immature, but I did feel better.

I went home, brushed my teeth then sat on the couch wondering how I was going to pay the rent and feed myself. I dug in my purse and found my checkbook, thumbed through the register. Ten minutes later, and a hundred-and-eighteen dollars overdrawn from a subtraction error I’d made standing in line at Walgreen’s, I put my checkbook back in my purse.

I had one credit card that wasn’t maxed out and the thirty-two dollars I’d left on the coffee table. Without changing clothes, I slung my purse over my shoulder, walked back to the pay phone, called the Delta eight-hundred number, got a flight for $694.50, leaving at six-thirty the next morning, with a two-hour layover in Des Moines. Then I called Ron, the lawyer. I told him I’d be in Greensville tomorrow and could he pick me up from the airport? He put me on hold, came back and said he would, and that it was a good idea I was coming.

Now Magnolia Hall, a two-story brick house with white-trimmed porch and dull green shutters, sits at the end of the lane, looking much smaller than I remember.

I glance over at Ron. He doesn’t look like I thought he would, either. His black hair is cut short—I expected longer blond, for some reason. I guess because the last man I saw in Greensville had blond hair. It’s funny what our memories become and what they do to our perceptions.

Ron stops in the circle driveway, in front of the house. Closer, I can see someone has painted the bricks to make it look like the house still has green shutters. He shuts down the engine. The digital clock stays on—it’s three-thirty.

I stare through the tinted window, try to remember more about this house, but can’t. Ron gets out, comes around and opens my door.

“Thanks.” He’s parked in the shade of a huge magnolia and it’s relatively cool. There’s no breeze, no noise.

“This is it,” I say, glancing around. The yard is overgrown.

“Yes.”

“It’s pretty run-down.”

“I talked to the housekeeper. She said Mr. Alexander fell on hard times before he died. You never heard from him?”

“No.” I leave out that I might not have recognized the man if he had a sign around his neck on a deserted street. I’m sure Ron has heard too many stories, him being an attorney and all. I cross the yard to the porch, climb the stairs, turn around. Huge trees surround the house, cut the ground from the cloudless sky. The air smells green—unfamiliar, and I wish I could dig up more memories to take me back to the last time I was here, but it’s impossible. I was too little and it’s been so long. Besides, thirty-five years in a desert town has imprinted dust and cement on my soul.

Ron pulls my black carry-on out of the trunk.

“I’ll get that,” I say, feeling embarrassed I forgot my suitcase. He shakes his head, carries it up to the front door.

“Want me to put it inside?” He nods toward the door.

“No, thanks. It’s not heavy.”

Ron’s face is tan. I’d guess he’s about forty-five. Really mainstream America, clean-cut. Father and mother probably still play golf at some expensive country club, his two brothers, maybe a sister, all have families, dogs, the works.

He’s loosened his tie enough so he could undo the top button on his white-and-blue oxford shirt, but he hasn’t. I bet his wife picks up his shirts from the cleaners every Wednesday. She’s probably someone he met in college, who put him through law school by teaching third grade and is now in good standing with the Greensville Junior League. But there’s no ring on his left hand, not even a tan line.

“I have the key to the house,” he says, and digs in his pocket.

“Thanks for picking me up at the airport.”

Ron takes his hand out of his pocket. He walks to the edge of the steps, stands across from me. A tiny breeze brings his aftershave to me. It’s one of those citrusy, clean kinds. I imagine him splashing it on this morning, standing in front of his bathroom mirror, naked from the waist up, a towel wrapped around his somewhat slim, forty-five-year-old waist.

“This happens every once in a while,” he says.

“What?” I look at him. He’s staring at me, then he smiles.

“Houses dumped on unsuspecting, long-lost relatives.”

I shake my head. “No way.”

“I specialize in wills, probate, estate tax. Believe me, this happens. Sometimes there’s no immediate family. If the deceased hasn’t left a will, then it all goes to the closest relative or the state. Your uncle was lucky he had you.”

“I’m not sure how lucky, since he’s dead.”

We laugh at the same time, and then all of a sudden for some odd reason I think about my mother and when she died two years ago. How I had to sort through her underwear, wonder if I should put her Hanes size-seven briefs in the Goodwill bag. I decided that her underwear being worn by a homeless woman who lived one block off Main Street in a cardboard box was too sad. So through guilty feelings, I threw the crotch-stained nylon panties in the kitchen trash.

“One relative is better than none. But too many can make for big problems,” Ron says.

I smile. “Never had that problem. As you know my family’s pretty small—really nonexistent.” I look up and notice the white trim under the porch roof is flaking badly. On the airplane I let myself daydream of what I’d find, all the while telling myself that doing it was dangerous. Yet I let my imagination dredge up an out-of-focus, black-and-white photograph—a large house—breathtaking, like in one of those happy movies, easy to sell, a cash deal.

Ron’s voice cuts in. “I did a complete search. There was your uncle’s sister, who passed away years ago, and your father. That’s it.”

My mother’s monotone voice had always told me thin stories about strange ex-in-laws. She had acted as if I wasn’t related to them, as if I’d only been issued from her.

Ron’s cell phone, in his slacks pocket, rings. Bill and I both had cell phones when we first got married. We’d call each other all the time until we couldn’t pay the bill.

“Your pocket’s ringing,” I say, and then wonder why I said something so stupid.

He laughs, checks the caller ID then looks at me. “Mind if I take this?”

“No, go ahead.” It’s probably his wife, the one who doesn’t make him wear a ring, checking in, seeing if he’ll be home for dinner.

He walks to the other side of the battered porch, clicks a button and begins talking. And I’m glad I don’t have to say anything for a few minutes.

I push my hair back. My face is sweaty. I look out into the yard. There are no houses close, just magnolias and overgrown bushes, dirty brown with dead spring blooms. This land has to be worth something.

“Sorry about that,” Ron says as he walks back. “Major problem with a client. I should get back to the office.”

“Thanks for bringing me out here.” I glance around. “You said there was a car?”

“Carport is at the back of the house. I never gave you the house keys.” He digs into his other pocket, finds a set of keys. “Buick Riviera, 1977. Eighty thousand miles. A cream puff. I came over after you called and started it. Even has air. Drove it to charge the battery. If you want to sell it, I’m sure you’ll find a buyer.”

“I want to sell it.” I take the keys. They swing, glint, hit my palm.

“House key’s the one with the red yarn tied in a bow. I think your uncle’s housekeeper did that.”

I pick it out while Ron walks down the steps. He turns around. “I had my secretary arrange for a county inspection late this afternoon. Every house over a hundred years old in Guilford County has to be inspected before it’s put on the market.”

“Do you think it’ll pass?”

“I don’t know. They’re pretty stringent these days.”

“I hashed out a plan on the airplane—sell the house or at least sign with a Realtor that I trust and get back to Vegas.”

“Sounds like a workable plan. The county wants to save the historical homes, so the owner is responsible for repairs. That way when it’s sold, the buyer knows what they’re getting into. You have my card. Call if you have any questions, problems. I’ll need you to sign the probate papers when they’re finished, which should be in the next couple of days.”

“What about your fee?” I just finished paying six hundred dollars for my latest divorce. God only knows what a probate attorney costs.

“My billing clerk will get in touch with you when everything is assessed.”

“Great.” I watch as he walks to his car, climbs in. He’s tall, well built and moves with confidence. I go to the front door, try again to remember standing on this porch but can’t. I slide the key in the lock, turn it the wrong way then back again. The dead bolt clunks open, and I seize the knob and open the door.

“This wall has to be fixed.”

“Fixed! Why? It looks fine to me,” I say.

Clay, the Guilford County inspector, is running his finger down the bedroom wall. I’ve been following him for the past thirty minutes, hoping—no, wishing—the house passes inspection. And now, it looks like I’m not going to get what I want.

“See this green line? Mildew. Happens all the time. Rain seeps in and mildew takes over just like that.” Clay snaps his fingers.

I squint, barely able to see the mossy green line. “Are you sure? Maybe it’s just a stain.”

He looks at me and grunts. “Lady, I’ve been doing this kind of work for a very long time. This is mildew.”

Half-moon sweat stains are rising on his blue work shirt. The house is hot, stuffy. I didn’t have time to open windows, if they’ll open. And Clay has informed me of many other things. Greensville is experiencing a heat wave, the likes of which the folks here haven’t seen in fifty years. Some have dropped over from the heat. I expect Clay to be one of them any minute. He’s also told me outsiders, mostly Northerners, are coming down in droves—with this information, he gave me a sidelong look—building in the area has exploded, and more important, Magnolia Hall is a dump.

Clay thumbs through papers on his clipboard then searches in his back pocket, finds a white handkerchief and mops his forehead.

“If you plan on selling your house anytime soon you can forget it.”

“Look, can’t you just sign off? The green line is barely there.” I move closer to the wall. “I swear it’s so small you—”

“Underneath there’s trouble. Doesn’t seem like much from the outside. Can’t give you the okay until the wall’s cleaned up. You’re darned fortunate that’s all that’s wrong, the way this place has been let go.”

Resolved, I step back. “How do you fix something like that?”

“The way the town’s growing, it’ll take you a month of Sundays to get someone out here. Does that air conditioner work?” Clay nods to the old unit clinging to the windowsill.

“I don’t know.” I walk over, find the On switch and push it in. Nothing. I look at Clay. His lips press together.

“Preventative maintenance, that’s the key to these old houses.”

“I inherited this place. That wall,” I say, “sounds like a major expense. I have less than zero money.” I don’t know why I’m telling him this, for God’s sake. What does he care?

Clay taps the checklist. “Depends on what you consider major. Some of those new construction companies charge a lot. First thing with mildew is you gotta get to the problem. From what I can tell, it’s coming from the window.” He walks over to the window, three feet from the mildew, runs his hand over the sill. “I’m surprised the one with the air-conditioning unit isn’t leaking. Best thing to do is seal all the way around, that’ll stop more damage, then when the wall’s replaced make sure they seal it up real tight.”

“Wall replaced?”

“Gotta take down part of the plasterboard.” Clay taps one of the dull white-and-green magnolias that make up the wallpaper.

“Christ! I don’t have the time or money for this.”

“You aren’t a Southern gal, are you?”

“No.”

Clay looks at me like he’s about to take pity on me. “You can buy caulk at Home Depot. Probably only take half a tube.” He shakes his head. “After the drywall’s taken down, they’ll wash the wood to get rid of the mildew then put up new drywall, tape, paint or wallpaper.”

“Right,” I say, but feel overwhelmed. “How much do you think this is gonna cost?”

“’Bout eight hundred dollars.”

“Oh, God!”

A bead of sweat trickles down my forehead into my right eye, and I blink, wipe at it, know I’m smearing my mascara.

“Plaster dust gets into everything and there’s nothing you can do about that. Make sure whoever does the job puts Visqueen up.”

“Are you sure I can’t buy some Lysol and wipe down the wall? I’ll seal the window.”

“No. When it’s gone this far, you can’t. It’s like the silent killer of walls.”

“Shit. The silent killer, ha-ha.”

“Just sign on the line.”

I take the blue pen and clipboard that says Guilford County and look at the small-print form. It’s smudged with Clay’s sweat, now mine. “There’s no other way?”

Clay looks at me like I might be trying to bribe him. I laugh.

“Something funny?”

I study the paper. “Am I signing my life away?”

He straightens a little. His face is red, more sweaty than mine. I changed into shorts and T-shirt after Ron left, thank God, but now they’re sticking to my skin. As soon as Clay is gone I’m going to open windows, drink some water.

“Your signature acknowledges you’re aware of this infraction and that you’ll be in compliance before you sell.”

“Right. And what if I’m not?”

His eyebrow rises. “County can sue you.”

“Guess I won’t go there.” I write my name, wish I would have asked the judge who granted me my quickie divorce to change my name back to one I can stand.

“Okay, that’s about all. When you get the repairs done, give me a call.” He hands me a copy of the paper I’ve just signed, takes back his pen and points to a phone number in the right-hand corner. “If I’m not there just leave a message.”

I nod, walk to the edge of the doorway and look back. Clay is still writing. The room is empty except for a four-poster bed with white sheets and a yellow blanket. I look at the wall and realize I could easily begin to hate this house. He finishes, clips his pen in his shirt pocket, holds the clipboard like a football and walks toward the door.

“Don’t feel bad about the mildew. Lots of folks have problems and don’t even know about them.”

“Lucky them.”

Hemsley House

Greensville, NC

March 1861

I am to marry James Alexander in three days!

Father insists we not wait. He stated clearly he believes Mr. Alexander to be the right choice. Thankfully, Father didn’t mention I have not had any other proposals and that is why I am expected to marry James Alexander.

When my father announced what he wanted for me, I stamped my foot and fussed. Mama ushered me to my room, and informed me I will behave like a lady and a dutiful daughter. I did not tell her I don’t want a “lord and master” to honor and obey, for I knew then as I know now, my words would not change her or Father’s mind.

More than anything my parents want their only daughter to be a wife. As my father clearly stated, he and my brother do not need an old maid in this house and on their hands.

Months back, when I arrived at the age of eighteen, I heard my parents discussing with much trepidation that their eldest would not find a husband if she remained so quiet.

I am not quiet! I am just not very social. I don’t understand myself sometimes. I do not like to go to parties like other girls. I have always liked to read, write letters, write in my diary. My parents do not believe this behavior is good for their aging daughter.

“Who will marry her?” they whispered to each other in not so gentle whispers.

Then, three days ago after Mr. Alexander asked for my hand, they decided I should accept his proposal. The next day, when neither would listen to me, I started sobbing. I ran up to my room, stood by the window and thought about leaping to the ground. Maybe my bones would break, then they would listen.

I imagined my body drifting out the window, lifting up into the air then plunging through the warm Carolina sunshine, like a bird in flight. I felt the air on my face, the breeze fanning my ankles as I leaned out farther.

Suddenly I knew I could not smash myself on the ground. However, I remained by the window until the sky was silvery and sugar-strewn with moonlight.

After Father had gone to bed, Mama came to see me. Her face was drawn, her mouth tight. Her fingers touched my hairline, smoothed it back from my temples. She spoke softly, claiming that it would be much easier on all of us if I accepted my fate. Father was doing what was best for me, and I needed to trust in him and the Lord.

I seized her hand and asked if she could do what I had to do, marry someone she wasn’t sure she loved, someone she hardly knew. She tried to laugh, then breathed in deeply, brought her hand to her throat.

“Charlotte, don’t make yourself weak trying to be happy. If you do not hate Mr. Alexander, you might love him one day, like I do your father.”

I do admire Mr. Alexander. We became acquainted a year ago, a month after he moved to Greensville. He always has a kind look about him. He told me he likes to read history books, then he smiled a nice smile. And his laughter brought to mind the large church bell ringing across Greensville on a Sunday morning.

Yet my heart never pounds hard in my chest like I heard other girls say their hearts do when they are around someone they are fond of. I know I do not love him.

Will I ever love him? I do not know. Mama told me not to worry about married love, it will surely find me. And as long as I’m a good wife to Mr. Alexander, that is all that matters.

In the past few weeks, Mama has schooled me on how to handle the servants, how to plan meals and tell the cook what to prepare. All the general ways to keep a home. She also whispered in my ear there are certain other obligations I will have as a wife. Then suddenly she pulled back, her round face pale as a magnolia blossom, her lips flat against each other. She fanned herself with her hand.

“You’ll find out soon enough, oh, Heavenly Father!”

Soon she left my side, marched down the stairs and called in a high-pitched voice for her servant, Isabell. I know the obligations she whispered are what the other, more sophisticated girls giggle about—the duty of a wife. Some say these duties are very uncomfortable.

Night after night, I sit by my window and wonder how I will feel when my life as a—

Mama came in and I hid this book in the folds of my skirt. She would be very upset to know I’ve been writing before my wedding. Many, along with Father, believe writing leads to worry for young ladies.

I would think she would be desolate that Mr. Alexander is building a home miles from town and I will live so far away. When I hint at these fears, Mama shakes her head and claims I am a true Southern girl, one who is too attached to her family and someday I will be happy and not want to come home.

This morning Mama found me sitting by the window, tears dried upon my cheeks. She said very sternly that I must grow up and start a family of my own because it will soon be time to have babies. I feel like cloth being torn and readied for a wedding dress. I pray James Alexander is a patient man, for he will have to be with his new bride. He will need years of tolerance, because it is difficult for me to imagine myself old and stooped over and still his wife with adult children, if the Lord sees fit to give us their souls.

I do not understand fate, my life, and said so to Mama. She told me I think too much for a young woman. I should trust in Father’s decision. The Lord’s purpose is to make me a wife—what I was born for. Try as hard as I might, I do not believe this. Yet, I am now resolved that in three days, Mr. Alexander will be my lord and master for eternity. Tonight as I contemplate giving up everything that is familiar, I do not believe eighteen is so very old.

CHAPTER 3

Magnolia Hall

Greensville, NC

June 2000

Clay climbs in his white utility truck, starts the almost soundless engine and rolls up the window. Then he leans over and fiddles with the air-conditioning. He looks back, doesn’t smile. Why couldn’t he have just signed off on the inspection? My life would be a lot easier.

I walk back into the house. Late-afternoon sunlight races down the hallway before I close the door, turning the scratched oak floor, for a moment, into a gleaming lake.

Two summers ago, four weeks after we met, Bill and I spent a July week on Lake Mead, right outside Las Vegas. We rented a houseboat at the marina, packed the boat’s kitchen with sliced ham, soft wheat bread, Swiss cheese, medium-priced merlot, three six-packs of Coors, bottled water and my new CD player.

I have to admit we were in a sexual frenzy, and this trip only increased it. Lake Mead, a man-made lake, is a breathtaking lie, and in the summer the air is hot, dry—like another planet that’s closer to the sun.

That week Bill drank all the beer and most of the wine. The idea I’d found the perfect person made me drunk with happiness—who needed booze? What I didn’t know then was I should have drunk myself into a stupor, jumped overboard and swum to shore. But of course I fooled myself into believing the relationship was just right. I was blind to the truth. Bill shoved signs in my face that he was a shit-heel right from the beginning. In the houseboat-rental office, he claimed he’d forgotten his credit card and I let myself overlook that tired old excuse! I paid for the entire trip, as if I were some rich broad with a gigolo. I knew he was a con artist. I really did, but I lied to myself.

I walk into Magnolia Hall’s living room and drag my toe across one of the carpet dents where a piece of furniture used to rest. I pull the white sheer curtain back, yank on the roll-up window shade and expect a cloud of dust.

There isn’t any. The fading sunlight showers the room in pink hues, accenting the emptiness. I turn the old window locks out, lift the window. Moist, cooler air floats in, bellows the curtains around my legs.

Two brocade chairs sit in the middle of the room and look like old ladies who have forgotten to leave. I must have been in this room when I was little, but I don’t remember.

After Ron left, before the inspection from hell took place, I walked around the house, and I’m still astounded that there is hardly any furniture in the house. Magnolia Hall is shaped like a two-story box with a hallway running down the middle. Downstairs there are two front rooms, this one and the one across the hall. That room only contains a sagging green couch.

Behind it is a library or office with floor-to-ceiling bookcases where five tired books stand on one shelf. There’s a rocking chair in the corner by one of the windows. Across the hall a dining-room table and three chairs stand polished, ready, lonely except for a small hutch.

Upstairs there are three bedrooms, two of them completely bare. The huge bathroom has a claw-foot bathtub, no shower. A blue towel and three bars of Ivory soap, still in their wrappers, are stacked neatly on the back of the toilet.

And there’s no trace of Grey Alexander.

I looked in the medicine chest and the old white chest by the door. Nothing. What happened to the man’s razor, comb, shampoo? And his clothes? It’s as if he never lived here. I expected piles of things, or at least some pictures, something to prove he was alive.

The living room curtain fans against my legs again. I walk back to the kitchen, touch the dead rotary phone that sits on a tiny table. There’s something very ironic in the fact that I’m still going to have to haul my ass down to the local convenience store because I don’t have a working phone.

I walk to the room with the bookcases and notice the fireplace is immaculate. At one of the bookcases, I draw my finger on a shelf. There’s no dust. I trace the spines of all five books. I pull out the Mark Twain Anthology, look at the bookmark. It’s a picture of a man with light hair, straight nose and thin lips. He’s wearing a tuxedo, a white pleated shirt and bow tie. On the back is written in pencil “Grey Alexander.” In this picture, he looks like I remember my father looked the last time I saw him thirty-four years ago. My heart hurts a little.

Grey’s hair is cut just so, his tie so straight. I wonder how he could ignore the upstairs mildewed wall, and why isn’t there more of him in this house? His silent black-and-white eyes stare back at me.

Magnolia Hall

March 1861

It has been two weeks since I was married and my husband brought me to his new home. I try not to think about how far I have come in these few short weeks. I miss so much—my mother and father, my room, the house I lived in since the day I was born. I also miss the mornings in Greensville, the soft footsteps of servants around Hemsley. I am so sick with feelings of loss I do not know what to do.

I did my best to hide my feelings the day Mr. Alexander and I left Greensville after the wedding, but Mama detected my sadness as I was dressing. She petted my hair and told me my life would be fine someday. I looked up at her, asked how she knew, how she could be so very sure.

With my question she straightened as if something had come over her and announced I was acting foolish, I was a married woman, with a good husband and I should be happy, and if I were not, I was to find some way to make myself happy—I was to endure. Then she sat down beside me as if she could not make up her mind, either, took my hand in hers, and said she would always love me, but for her sake I had to endure until I found a way to be happy.

I asked why Father wanted me to go away, why was it so important that I wed.

Mama shook her head, studied my fingers for a moment too long.

“That is just the way our lives are. Father wants you married, and you do not seem capable of choosing a husband or even finding and keeping a suitor. You are too shy, Charlotte. Reservedness is becoming—however, you are very queer in your actions.”

I have always lived away from people. I do not know why. I feel a distance at times. I am not one for change or exciting events. I have always liked to stay home, be in the same place. I love a room when I have been in it a thousand times. I adored the everyday view from my window.

My husband and I are different in that way. Mr. Alexander seems joyful with the house he built. He talks about the newness of the entry hall and the sitting room, the fine dining room and library. How, over time, he will bring new and beautiful things to our new home.

The house is beautiful. Late in the afternoon, when the front door is open, sunlight turns the floor to glistening silk. I saw happiness burst forth on my husband’s face yesterday afternoon when he walked through the front door and the house was ablaze with sunset.

Two nights ago after dinner, my husband asked me into the parlor. I went in thinking he wanted to discuss the management of the house or the night’s menu—that the greens were bitter or the bread was too tough.

He sat next to me on the divan, took my hand in his. In the firelight his eyes looked bluer than I have ever seen them. I asked him if he were displeased about my management of the house, the kitchen?

“No, I am not.” Then he said very quickly, “I worry you are not happy.”

I blinked, looked down at my lap, embarrassed that my feelings are so transparent.

“Charlotte, you must always be truthful. I am your husband and you must be honest with me.”

I could only nod.

“I do not want you to be sad and I sense that you are, Charlotte.” And then he squeezed my hand. I dipped my chin more. I did not wish to dampen his spirits.

“Tell me, Charlotte.”

And suddenly words began to pour out of me.

“My sorrow for what I used to know is great, silly as that is. I am afraid this makes me a very selfish person.”

His arm went around my shoulders and we sat silently.

A moment later he stood, announced that he would retire to the library, he had much work to do. He kissed my forehead and I was alone and could think more clearly.

I watched the flames of the fire, forced myself to remember how long ago I attended the Greensville sewing circles with Mama. There I heard women professing their adoration for their husbands, and I began hoping to experience the same kind of union. I am still praying some wifely devotion will find me—make me tremble on the veranda when my husband appears from the foggy mist.

Last night Mr. Alexander and I were sitting out on the veranda, and he told me in a delicate way how much he has loved me from the moment his eyes fell upon me at the evening party my parents hosted. With the night breeze fanning my warm face, I smiled.

“Thank you, for the very dear compliment, Mr. Alexander.”

“Why don’t you refer to me as James, it being a more familiar, loving term?”

When I did not answer, he stood and stared down at me.

Why didn’t I tell him the truth—that I am blind to what a wife should feel or do for her husband. The sadness in his eyes told me he knew, yet he did not press me. Late that night when he held me close and whispered promises to me, I felt dizzy and wondered what it will be like to spend the rest of my life in his arms.

But I did not say a word.

Magnolia Hall

Greensville, NC

June 2000

“Good holy God!”

A black woman is standing on the back porch with her face pressed against the kitchen screen door and my heart is thumping into my throat.

“You shouldn’t use the Lord’s name in vain,” she says, and straightens a little.

“What? What do you want?” I ask, then step back and wonder if there’s a knife close by. I came into the kitchen this morning hoping to find coffee, maybe tea. But there was nothing. And now this!

The woman laughs and puts her hands on her hips. “Why, child, don’t you remember me? I’m Tildy Butler.”

Tight black curls lie in swirls close to her head. She smiles again and her teeth, very white and perfect, take up a lot of her unfamiliar face.

“Hope I didn’t scare you.” She opens the screen, comes into the kitchen. “I was going to call and then I remembered the phone had been shut down, so I thought, well, Tildy Butler, you are acting inhospitable. Then I decided I needed to come right over and see Miss Juliette.”

I take a step back and wish my heart would quit beating so hard. “Who did you say you are?”

She gives me an up-down look. “My, you look the same. A little bigger, but you’re still that pretty little blond child. How are you, Miss Juliette?”

“I’m afraid—”

“You don’t remember me? I was hoping you would. No one likes to be forgotten. I’m Tildy, your uncle’s housekeeper. I met you a long time ago. Remember?”

“Oh…yes,” I say, because I do remember that my uncle had a housekeeper, but I don’t remember this woman specifically.

She smiles, nods. “My, it’s good to have you back. My friend Sara found out you were in town through her brother-in-law’s son who works for the attorney who’s taking care of Mr. Grey’s things. I hear he’s a very nice man. She called me right away, told me I’d better get over here and help you out.”

I mentally follow the trail. “Oh.”

“Honey, it’s so good to see you.”

“Thank you.” I finally offer my hand, but she brushes it away and her arms go around me. She feels smaller than she looks and smells like lemons or bleach, maybe a mixture of the two.

“Honey, it’s been so long.” She pats my back then lets go, steps back.

“It has.”

“And what? You’re twenty now?” She laughs, her head back, her hand over her heart.

“More like forty.”

“Thirty-five years? Seems like yesterday. It’s about time you came home. I’m so happy I get to tend you and Magnolia Hall. Why, I’ve been missing you both.”

“What?”

“Why, honey, you can’t take care of the house all by yourself. This place needs me, like you do. Everybody needs some help now and then.” Tildy claps her hands as a child would, and through the screen I see a cardinal dart from the tree and disappear.

I blink. “I’m leaving soon, selling the house.”

“I’ve taken care of all the owners of Magnolia Hall, I couldn’t stop with you.”

She turns, goes out to the porch and comes back with a shopping bag and places it in the corner by the refrigerator. “Brought some food. Didn’t think you would have time to go to the market. Isn’t it a beautiful summer morning? You’re going to love it here.”

“I’m only staying until I can list with a Realtor,” I say again.

Her head turns a little like a dog hearing a high-pitched whistle. “I grew up in this kitchen. Know Magnolia Hall like the back of my hand.”

I suddenly realize I’m tired. I didn’t sleep well last night, between thinking about the wall, wondering how the hell I’m going to get it repaired when I don’t have any money or space left on my credit cards. Then, about one in the morning, I started wondering where I’m going to find another dealing job when I get back to Vegas. After all that, sleeping wasn’t an option. Besides, the house is noisy with groans and cracks—probably more structural problems.

“Mr. Grey always talked about your daddy. He was crazy about his brother. It’s too bad he couldn’t come home much. And then when we lost him, why it was like losing Charlotte all over again.” Tildy smiles, nods.

Charlotte. My mother would sit on the couch, full glass in one hand, cigarette in the other. She always described how my father’s family had canonized Charlotte, his sister. Charlotte this, Charlotte that, only because she died so young.

“I’m sorry about your daddy. Didn’t see him much after Charlotte passed, but we still loved him. Mr. Grey always said his brother needed to come home. Now his daughter has. How’s your mama? I knew her, too. Not well, but when they moved back to Greensville for that brief time, she seemed so nice. Very pretty, like a movie star.”

“She passed away a couple of years ago,” I say, then add, “liver cancer.”

Tildy’s eyes widen. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.” She leans forward. “My goodness, you’re an orphan now.”

I blink. I’d never thought of myself like that. But she’s right, I am. “Yes, I guess so.”

“That’s why it’s good you’ve come home. This is where you belong. Everything’s going to be all right now.”

It would take a million bucks to make my life all right, but I don’t say this. “This isn’t my home.”

Tildy crosses the room, digs through her shopping bag, pulls out a cooked chicken wrapped in plastic. “Thought I’d make some chicken salad. That’s always good in the summer. Cool, refreshing. When I heard Magnolia Hall was yours I was so thankful. Mr. Grey wasn’t much for contacting people. I told him he ought to call you, but he always said he’d do it later. Then it was too late for later.”

She opens the fridge, clucks her tongue, finds the plug and sticks it in the electrical socket. A giant hum grinds through the room.

“Thank the good Lord the electricity is on. You get it turned on?”

I shake my head. “No, the lawyer must have.”

“Nice man to be worrying about all that.”

“He’s getting paid as soon as I sell the house.” I look around, laugh. I’m standing in a strange kitchen, talking to a woman I don’t know, about people who, after this, I will never see again, and I’m jobless.

“See, you’re happy. My, Mr. Grey loved people to be happy at Magnolia Hall. And he loved this house like she was one of his relatives. So he’d want you to have her. You know he would.”

“I don’t know that. He hadn’t seen me in thirty-five years.”

“Honey, you’re family. That’s all that matters.”

Tildy walks to the large stack of paper plates I left on the counter last night, turns back and raises an eyebrow. “These paper things are for picnics, not dining in the house.”

“I picked up Chinese last night,” I say, but for a moment I feel like a kid who just made a mud pie on the kitchen floor.

Tildy lifts her brow again. “That’s no excuse. There’s beautiful china and silver for meals, especially supper. Mr. Grey would expect you to use the right dishes. They’re yours now.”

“I didn’t want to dirty the…” I stop, wonder why the hell I’m explaining myself.

“The blue-and-white morning dishes are what you should use when it’s not fancy.” She points to the cabinet in front of her. “They’re stronger than they look. You need to use the china, child. Why let it go to waste?”

“China! There are only two plates, from what I could see. Unless there’s more somewhere else.”

Last night I went through the cabinets and drawers. I found the kitchen immaculate but almost empty, like the rest of the house. An old set of pots and pans in the space by the stove, and dishes, two of each piece, were stacked neatly in the cabinet next to the sink.

“Quality, not quantity, is important. The best dishes are in the dining room.” Tildy raises her arms a little, as if she’s announcing this information to a crowd.

“I looked in there. There are only two plates.”

“Your next meal, you should eat off the china, honey. We use the blue-and-white before five. The Minton for dinner and supper, the Adams for holidays.”

“Mrs. Butler, I’m fine. When I’m home I use paper all the time. Really, I’m from Las Vegas, we’re very informal out there.”

My apartment has crappy garage-sale furniture, plastic forks I stole from the casino coffee shop—and now I wish I had taken more—paper napkins and cheap orange plastic plates I bought at Sam’s Club.

“My name’s Tildy, really Matilda is my given, but everyone calls me Tildy. You can do the same, honey.”

She turns as if I haven’t said a word and reseals the paper plates then crosses the kitchen and puts them on a shelf in the pantry and comes back smiling.

“You are just gonna love Magnolia Hall. I’ll help you. Talk in town is the county might be taking the house for back taxes if they couldn’t find any family to come home.

“Back taxes?”

“Oh, they’re paid up. I was thinking last night if you don’t have a lot of cash we can go to garage sales and pick up a few things, maybe paint. Everything’s better when you take care of—”

“Tildy, I’m going back to Las Vegas just as soon as I can. And now I have to worry about back taxes.”

She stares at me for a moment like I’ve turned a cold hose on her, but then she shakes her head.

“Honey, that back-tax thing was just a rumor. In case they didn’t find you. I know Mr. Grey paid them up. And you’ll change your mind about leaving. We’ll do some of the fixing up. New curtains in here would be nice. I saw some daisy curtains with scalloped edges at The Big K over off Market Street. They’d look real fine at that window—not too expensive, either.”

I rub my tongue against the back of my teeth and wonder what I should say, wonder if she’s got a screw loose. But before I can think of anything, she starts up again.

“Mr. Grey didn’t know how to add the feminine touches around here. Now you and I can make the changes we need to. Might take some time, but we’ll get it all done. Some people don’t realize that a little bit every day makes a world of difference, makes a person feel at home. Soon you got a whole big pile of good in front of you.”

“I can’t stay. I’m going home.”

“Magnolia Hall is your family home. Now you have to take care of her. You don’t give back a gift. A gift is a gift!”

“He didn’t give me the house! It’s mine because I’m the only one left!”

“It’s all the same. You are the rightful owner.”

“I’m selling the house just as soon as I can. You wouldn’t want to buy it, would you?”

“Goodness, no. I don’t have that kind of money after I put my child through school. You gonna sell it as soon as you can?”

“The wall upstairs didn’t pass the county inspection.”

“I knew it wouldn’t. Mr. Grey was sick the last few years. We didn’t have much time for fixing. I took care of him till his dying day. Then Jeff Hollis, fine young police officer, came out and locked up the place. That was the very first time after Miss Charlotte and Mr. James built her nobody lived here. Mr. Grey used to talk about the first Miss Charlotte all the time.”

“My father’s sister?”

“No, he talked about her, too, but I’m talking about your great-great-great, oh, you know a long time ago, her husband, James Alexander built this house in 1860. Your daddy’s sister was named after her.”

“Oh.” I look around and think about how much I don’t know about this family.

“Now you’re here. Too bad you didn’t get back before your uncle died.”

“I didn’t know he was sick.”

“That’s right. I told him to call you. Your daddy would have told you, though, if he was still here.”

“I didn’t have any contact with my father, either.” I say, and cross my arms.

“My land, your daddy was such a nice man.”

“I wouldn’t know about—”

“I remember years ago, when he came home for three weeks in the spring. Told me you’d moved to Nevada with your mama. He seemed so sad. I’ve never been there. Actually I’ve never been out of the state.”

“Maybe you should travel,” I say, but I’m thinking of my father and wondering why he never wanted to share me with his family.

“Are you married?” Tildy glances at my left hand.

“Not anymore.”

“Oh, child. I’m sorry.”

I realize Tildy is the first person to say this to me. People in Las Vegas expect divorce—don’t think anything about a marriage dissolving into lies and crap.

“It was for the better. I couldn’t afford the man’s bad habits.”

Tildy touches my hand for a moment. Her skin is cooler than I expect. “Honey, everything is going to be okay. You just wait and see.”

CHAPTER 4

Magnolia Hall

Greensville, NC

June 2000

I’m staring at Grey Alexander’s picture. Weird, I know, but after I spent a half hour trying to convince Tildy I can’t let her work here because I have no money to pay her and there’s really not much for her to do, I came into the library, picked up the picture I found yesterday. Maybe I was trying to center myself or some damned thing.

The centering thing isn’t working. I honestly thought Tildy would agree when I explained there was nothing that needed cleaning. But when she said she couldn’t possibly leave me all alone in this house, I knew I wasn’t making any headway. Then she told me she could dust the baseboards, mop floors, wipe out the cupboards, cook and, with a big smile on her face, she announced she wanted to keep me company!

I’m still wondering what “keeping me company” means to her. However she brought coffee, cream, sugar with her. She made a pot and the first sip was heaven.

Finally, I gave up trying to convince her to go home. She was blabbing on about family and my father, how he grew up here and she was so fond of him. Maybe that’s why I wandered into the library and picked up Grey’s picture.

“Your head hurting you?”

I look toward the door, and Tildy’s voice. “No, I’m fine.”

“Your forehead’s all wrinkled up like you have a headache.”

“I didn’t sleep well last night.”

“Mr. Grey never had trouble sleeping. Something bothering you?”

“Not much.” I laugh. “I’m only in a strange house, in a strange town. And I have no idea how I’m going to get the wall upstairs repaired so I can sell this place and get back to my life.”

“It’s gotta be more than that.”

“Isn’t that enough? Think if you had to go out to Vegas, didn’t know any one.”

“What you got there?”

“It’s a picture of Grey. I found it yesterday.” I stare at it. “He looks like my father—at least what I remember.”

“Yes, they do resemble each other. But they were different. Mr. Grey, why, he loved this house and the idea of family. He was a real Southerner.”

“And my father?” A wave of regret washes over me. I don’t want to know any more. My father left me years ago and I don’t know anything about him.

“As I recall, he always wanted to go away, travel. He joined the air force when Mr. Grey begged him not to. Mr. Grey even found a way to get him out of what he signed. Then he met your mama on leave in California. When your daddy came back with you and your mama, he just seemed restless, like he needed to get away again. And your mama was a mess. She didn’t like it here. Said she was homesick, missed the ocean. So off you all went.”

My mother was full of contradictions. Although she claimed to love the ocean, she never went back after she and my father split. She kept huge, full boxes that had been opened and closed too many times. Every Thanksgiving she would rustle through them, show me sparkling dresses, memory after memory. She’d hold up a blue velvet and sigh, then explain how pretty she looked when she wore it. I stopped asking questions because she’d never answer any.

Another cardboard box was filled with picture albums. Her fingertips touched the images and she’d say how she wished I looked like her. She never talked about my father, and if I asked, she’d stare at me with those soft blue eyes and shake her head, then mention a time before she married, when her life had hope. She’d hold up her yellowing souvenirs, make up pretty lies, then drop them back in their hiding places.

“Your daddy was different. Mr. Grey loved memories, loved his history.” Tildy’s words bring me back. “I remember how your mama and daddy used to sit out on the porch, right out there—” her hand kind of flutters toward the front of the house “—and talk about going home. California certainly wasn’t your daddy’s home. But he seemed to love your mama so much. I guess that’s why he went back.”

Love.

The idea of my parents loving each other is so foreign to me. When she spoke of my father or his family her voice was always brittle. Yet, I hold one image so clear. It was before they divorced. Right before my father was due to come back from a trip my mother would shower, comb her hair and spray Emerada perfume in a halo around her, then sit on the couch and look out the window, as if she couldn’t wait to see him. She always told me it wouldn’t be long until his plane landed and he drove up the driveway. Then months later, she packed our bags, climbed into the blue Oldsmobile and drove all night to Las Vegas, not saying a word, just the glow from the dashboard on her Grace Kelly cheekbones, her tight jaw like a cup, holding all her anger.

I look at Tildy. “I don’t really care about my father.”

A tiny gasp escapes from her. “Sure you do! He’s your family. And Mr. Grey loved family, loved this house, his things because they reminded him of family.”

I shake my head. “Right! Then why is the house practically empty?” I fan his photograph at her.

Tildy takes the picture, as if to protect it. “That’s a real long story. We’ll get to that.”

“There’s nothing personal of his…” I stop. Why am I saying all this? I don’t care.

“I cleaned up when he died. I knew you wouldn’t want to see his hairbrush, maybe find dandruff in it, his toilet items. He was a very private man. He would have wanted it that way. I wanted you to know the nice things about him, know how orderly he was.”

“Orderly! He didn’t even make a will.”

“He thought about living, not dying. Even when your daddy died and we took his ashes to the Greensville family plot, your uncle said your daddy was living in the trees, the grass, the wind. Right after he said those words, an airplane cut a path over us. Not one of those big jets but a little tiny thing, looked like it was just big enough for one person. We all looked up, even the preacher. Mr. Grey said it was a sign from God that James Alexander, your daddy who’d been a pilot all his adult life, was right there with us, and real close to the sky that was so blue.”

I try not to laugh but can’t help myself. Tildy’s big brown eyes widen.

“I’m sorry, that’s just so…silly.”

“It’s the truth.”

“I didn’t mean it didn’t happen. It was probably a coincidence.”

She steps back just a little, looks at me. “I thought you’d like that story.”

I feel like a shit for saying anything. “I did, really. It’s just a lot to take in.”

Her hand touches my shoulder then it’s gone.

“I know.”

“This is the first time I’ve heard anything about my father’s funeral.” I shake my head. “What the hell difference does it make? I don’t even care, really. I was young.”

“Yes, you do. Anybody would.”

“How many people attended?”

“Oh, honey, not many. Mr. Grey and Sara and Sara Lee, they’re old friends of the family. My Alexandria attended, made me proud. The preacher knew your daddy when he was a little boy, and he read that poem about flying. I only remember a few words—‘Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth and’…my land, I can’t recall the rest. But it was beautiful.”

I close my eyes and remember the poem my father used to recite when he drove me to kindergarten. I look at Tildy, “‘Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth and danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings.’”

“That’s it. I thought it was appropriate.”

I wonder what it would have been like, standing in a graveyard, watching what was left of my father go into the ground and hearing that poem read by someone else.

“Your daddy would have wanted you there.”

“Maybe not.” My voice sounds so small. I think about my mother telling me, weeks after my father’s death, that he had died. I was fifteen, sitting on the couch by the window, painting my fingernails with Pink Puff Maybelline Fast-Drying Nail Polish. She walked into the living room, stood in front of me, her arms crossed.

“Don’t get that on the couch.”

“I won’t.”

“Your father—” she took a long breath “—died.”

I looked down and thought, who? When I glanced up, she was gone. I could hear her in the kitchen, filling a glass with ice, then vodka and orange juice. I swallowed hard, told myself I needed to cry but couldn’t. I felt dead inside. It was as if Peter Jennings had announced one of the cast from a black-and-white sitcom had passed away. I knew the character—but not really.

“Sad things happen in life,” Tildy says.

“Did anyone cry?” I imagine myself crying, the wind blowing through my hair, the early May sun practically blinding me as I look up, watch the airplane cut the blue sky.

“I did. Your daddy was nice when we were children. My mama always went on about how Mr. James picked up his clothes and was neat as a pin in the bathroom.”

That day my mother told me about my father’s death, I got off the couch, heard my mother place the vodka bottle back on the top shelf above the silky green ironstone dishes. I walked into the kitchen, my hands in my pockets, nail polish sticking to my soft blue cotton shorts. I needed her to say something to me.

She was leaning against the white counter, the small of her back pressing against it. The glass rim rested against her red lipsticked lower lip, her eyes dull—flat.

“What should I do?” I asked.

“Nothing. Not one goddamned thing. He never came around, and the funeral is over anyway.”

“Mr. Grey didn’t believe in death,” Tildy says, breaking into my memory. “I don’t think he ever accepted Mr. James or Miss Charlotte’s death.” She studies my uncle’s picture. “This was taken a few years back when Mr. Grey used to go out. That was the night of the Sons of the American Revolution annual dinner.”

“Sons of the American Revolution? They still have groups like that?”

“Yes. Mr. Grey, he was big into his groups. Liked to carry on the family name. When he got cancer his life was just sliced away, little by little. Every step was a big shock to him and I think up to the very end, he believed it wasn’t happening—like maybe it was a bad dream. Magnolia Hall held him tight, but then she had to let him go.”

Tildy takes my hand and pats it. “Don’t worry. I knew him all my life. He would have wanted you to have this house. You’re family. It’s like giving it to your daddy—no, more like giving it to his sister, Charlotte. You have to trust in what has happened.”

My mind is swimming with all the memories, stories. “What I need is a drink.”

“Can I get you some iced tea?”

I laugh, realize my chest aches. “I was thinking about something stronger.”

“There’s no liquor in the house.”

“Maybe that’s why my mother was crying.” I laugh again, I guess to combat the uneasiness I feel.

Tildy gasps then covers her mouth.

“My mother was an alcoholic. I came to grips with that a long time ago.”

Tildy hands me the picture, and I look at it again, feeling like a ship without an anchor.

“There’s more of your father in you than your mother,” she says.

“Well, he was pretty much an SOB, too.”

“You’ll find out different. Maybe we shouldn’t be talking about this right now. Have you had anything to eat this morning? All that caffeine and no nourishment can make you say things you don’t mean. Just like my daughter. Goodness alive, doesn’t anyone take care of themselves anymore?”

I lay the picture on the bookshelf. Her hand brushes my elbow and before I can take another breath, the woman guides me to the kitchen.

“It’s been a month of Sundays since I had somebody to cook for, take care of. Feels good.”

She goes to the kitchen sink and looks out the window. Recognition flashes through my mind. I watched her in this room, years ago, right before we left for California, right before our lives came unglued.

“I’m gonna cook you something real Southern, something so sumptuous your little mouth is going to water—”

“You don’t have to cook for me.”

Tildy shifts, rests her hands on her lush hips. “I have cooked for everyone in this house. You aren’t going to be any different. No arguing. What did you say you did in Las Vegas?”

“I’m a blackjack dealer.”

“Well, my, my. You don’t look like a blackjack dealer. If you wore glasses, maybe a librarian. They have libraries in Las Vegas?”

I laugh. Everyone from the outside thinks Las Vegas isn’t a real town. “Sure.”

“So why didn’t you become a librarian or a teacher?”

“I don’t know.”

“Mr. Grey, he loved books and the room he kept them in. So did your daddy.”

“It’s not much of a library.”

Tildy’s smile slips away, which makes me feel bad.

“I mean, it’s a nice room, and all, but there’s only a few books.”

“It was a wonderful library long time ago. Every shelf full with all the classics, real comfortable chairs and a sofa that was covered in a beautiful green brocade—don’t you remember?”

“No. What happened to all of it?”

“After he got sick, doctors took a lot of the money. He’d let his insurance lapse. The state helped him a little with social security. But to get all the benefits he would have had to give up Magnolia Hall and he wouldn’t. So he gave things away.”

“Gave them away…how would that help?”

“That’s what we called it.”

“What? Why?”

“The last Saturday of each month, Mr. Grey had me take something up to an antique store in Mocksville so people around here wouldn’t find out.”

“So he sold them?”

“We like to think of it as giving them away. The man had his pride. After a while, the owner came down here with a truck, every third Saturday of the month. It was so sad to see bits of Mr. Grey’s life slipping out that door, like ham on a cutter—one thin piece after another. I don’t think he died of the cancer. Giving up all his family possessions was what really killed him.”

“Maybe he would have been smarter to sell the house, buy a nice condo, go on vacation. Not worry about this place, his memories.”

Tildy looks around like she’s not listening. “It’s a better day with you here. Don’t you worry, this house is gonna be just fine. It always survives.”

She’s serious. “As soon as I get the bedroom wall fixed, I’m going to list with—”

“I told Mr. Grey he shouldn’t put off fixing that wall. Said he’d do it when he had time. Then he didn’t have no more time, no more money.”

“Do you know anyone who might repair the wall?”

“I can check around, but, honey, Magnolia Hall’s never been sold. Any of your mama’s family out there in Nevada? Or a boyfriend that might help you?”

“No and no.” I make check marks in the air with my right index finger.

“Then that’s not much of a home to go back to.”

“But it’s where I live, work. I can’t deal blackjack here.”

“You have a house here. You could do something else.”

It seems like years since I stood at my apartment window and looked over the parking lot, read the pink slip from the Golden Nugget.

“What did your mother think of your husband?”

I look at Tildy. She’s smiling. It’s amazing how her mind slips from one subject to another. Maybe she does have a screw loose.

“Ex-husband. And she died before I met him.”

I met Bill one night with some people from work. We went to the Paris Hotel to eat at the buffet. The Paris is supposed to make visitors feel like they’re in France. Bill was dealing blackjack. The man had great hands, a great body. As he was shuffling the cards, he looked at me, winked. Twenty minutes later on his break, he walked around the table and started talking, and that was the end of my life as I knew it. Before Bill, I paid the rent, the gas, the lights; after, my overdrawn checkbook tells the story.

We went out the next night and Bill told me he was dealing blackjack until he could get his computer company started. Claimed he had a degree in computer science. Right!

Three months later we were married. He charged things on my credit cards, didn’t pay one goddamned bill, then split with everything I owned.

“What do you think she would have thought of your husband?” Tildy asks, smiles again.

“Who?”

“Your mama.”

“She probably wouldn’t.” I look around the kitchen. “My mother didn’t have much use for husbands.”

CHAPTER 5

Magnolia Hall

April 1861

Mama made the trip out to visit day before yesterday. She fawned over the new house and my husband, claimed he is perfect for her daughter, then raised her eyebrow in that way she has, and I knew what she really meant. That I was spoiled and might not deserve the things I have.

She went on about the brightness of the rooms, the nice, new furniture. And, oh, she talked about the china, the silver tea set and the green brocade for settees James has brought back from Raleigh and Charleston. On and on she trilled!

“My daughter is so blessed to have all these possessions.”

Mama loves pretty things. She always says that beautiful possessions make a house a home. She buys even though Father lectures her about spending so much money on furnishings. It is the one thing she does not listen to.

As she roamed the house, she talked about how impressed her friends were going to be when they saw the lovely home her daughter’s husband had provided.

I asked when her friends would be arriving and Mama just smiled and informed me I should ready myself for them to call any day.

A married woman must be prepared for visitors any time, day or evening. Then she went on to tell me how fortunate I am. We stood in the hallway by the stairs, and she stopped for a moment, looked at me a long time then took my hand in hers. She bit her bottom lip until all the color was gone, then whispered,

“Do you love your husband, Charlotte? Tell Mama you are happy.”

Her brown eyes looked so serious, I could not hurt her so I nodded, just once. The small lie seemed to make her feel better.

“I knew you would. Father always makes the right decisions. Now when my friends come to visit, show them everything, and be sure to act as happy as you are.”

I’m not looking forward to visitors, yet I kept this a secret from Mama, too.

Suddenly Mama laughed and announced that soon, if I am a good wife, we will fill our home with babies and Mr. Alexander and I would be considered old married folk.

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