kidding, sweetheart. You know I think you’re the best.”
“My mama told me I was the hostess,” she told Cara earnestly. “Since she’s back at the house fixing dinner. Do you want anything else?”
“Just a kiss.”
The little girl obliged, leaning far over to give a bumpy kiss on her cheek, then she was back on duty. “Grandmama Lovie, do you want something cold?”
Linnea moved across the boat, holding tight to seat backs, knees, anything she could grab to keep from tumbling over as the boat sped along. The child was trying so very hard to do her job right.
Cooper was only interested in driving the boat. His small but stout frame stood rigidly near his father, his round dark eyes trained on the gears and every move Palmer made at the wheel. Sadly, Palmer was too busy shouting out his comments to the adults over the roar of the engine to pay the boy mind.
“Daddy, can I hold the wheel? Please?” he asked for the tenth time.
“Cooper, go on over to your grandmother for a spell,” Palmer shouted, shooing the boy away.
Cooper’s face fell to a scowl but he obliged, moving stiff-leggedly to sit in the shade of the awning beside Toy and Lovie. Cara watched the boy as he squirmed in his seat for a few minutes, then chuckled to herself when she saw him sneak his way back to the wheel again to stare at his father, his brown eyes pleading. It was both funny and sad for Cara to watch, remembering how Palmer used to be the same way with their father, and how Daddy, too, had shooed his son away.
Palmer, Palmer, she thought to herself. Careful what you’re doing.
The red sun was sinking into the horizon as they headed back to Charleston and the waters took on a marvelous, glassy pink hue. The powerful engine churned as they cut through the choppy waters of the harbor.
“Look, Aunt Cara. There’s Fort Sumter!” Linnea exclaimed, pointing to a small island in the middle of the entrance to Charleston Harbor from the Atlantic.
Cara smiled and nodded, having seen the historical spot a million times in the past.
Linnea moved closer in an attempt to strike up a conversation with her. “Aunt Cara, did you know the first shot of the War Between the States was fired at that fort?”
Cara opened her mouth but was too surprised to find the words to reply.
Palmer let loose a loud belly laugh and shouted, “She thinks you’re a Yankee! That’ll teach you to live up north so long.”
Lovie only smiled and nodded her head as if to say, I told you so.
“Honey pie,” Palmer said between laughs, “if your Aunt Cara’s a Yankee, then so am I.”
Linnea looked at her father with confusion. “But Daddy, she lives in Chicago.”
“All too true, darling. But she was born and raised right here in Charleston. Just like you.”
Linnea turned to look at Cara again, the wonder in her limpid blue eyes mixed with speculation as to whether Cara was to be scorned or pitied for having lost her mind and leaving the Lowcountry.
Cara knew that she’d become something of an oddity in the family, the exile who lived somewhere cold and unfamiliar to warm-blooded southerners. Someone who only came to visit when duty called, wearing clothes that were different, and preferred to stay in a hotel than with the family. She felt the distance most acutely with these children who studied her now with measured glances.
“Don’t you worry, honey,” Cara assured her niece with a wry smile. “It’s not your fault for not knowing. I left long before the Civil War.” She exaggerated the phrase that marked her as a Yankee, just to tweak her brother.
“You just keep dating yourself, sister mine,” he drawled, not missing a beat. And though she couldn’t see his eyes behind his black sunglasses, she knew they were sparkling. “But I’ll always be your older brother, our mother’s darling and superior in every way.”
Cara took the ribbing in her stride, knowing full well that this was only the appetizer portion of what was yet to come. It was his way to make light of painful subjects—and it worked. Linnea warmed up to her once the family ties were straightened out. She took a seat next to Cara as much out of curiosity as affection. Cara felt the line of her slim body bump against hers as they headed straight for the tip of the Charleston peninsula and felt a surge of affection for her young niece. It was a new experience for her and she smiled warmly, gratified when Linnea smiled back.
Everyone in the boat quieted as they drew near to the city. Cara lifted her chin and felt a stirring of pride at seeing the cluster of historical homes along the Battery that gave the city its distinction. They loomed over the high stone embankment as pretty and desirable as a line of well-bred beauties leaning over an iron balustrade. No matter how many times one saw the view, stranger and local alike never got over the thrill of viewing the city in the same manner that travelers approaching by sea had seen the city for hundreds of years. Charleston showed herself off best from the water, she thought, still smiling.
The big motor slowed and the propellers churned the waters as the boat eased into the Charleston marina. The smell of gasoline mingled with saltwater. Cara’s stomach tightened as the boat rocked.
“We’re almost home,” Linnea said. Then, pointing toward the shore, she added with a child’s boast, “Our house is right back in there.”
Cara lifted her chin to look beyond the tall masts to Bay Street and the familiar row of stately homes. Home? She drew in a long breath while her thoughts traveled the few blocks farther back in that cluster of brick, wood and iron to the house that she had grown up in. She looked to her mother and was surprised to see Lovie’s gaze upon her, a small, knowing half smile upon her lips.
Under the cloak of night the loggerhead comes ashore. She slowly drags her body in a tanklike crawl to a dry site high on the beach. Only the female loggerhead comes ashore to nest. Once the male hatchling swims into the sea, he almost never will set flipper on beach again.
CHAPTER SIX
Her mother’s house was a handsome Greek Revival located on one of the narrow, palmetto and oak shaded side streets “South of Broad,” that golden perimeter of blocks where affluence still reigned in splendor. Charming was the word most people used to describe the distinctive architecture of the historical, pastel houses, churches and gardens with their elaborate grillwork. Olivia and Stratton Rutledge had purchased the house in the early 1960s soon after Cara’s birth for a fraction of its current worth and it was the only house Cara had ever lived in growing up. Her mother had fallen in love at first sight with the grace and charm of the rather dilapidated house. Owning it had been an adventure. Lovie had found countless artifacts in the yard as they dug the earth for the pool, and over the years she’d painstakingly brought the mansion, with its gracious three-story piazza, back to its former glory. It was Lovie’s glory that every fall for years the house was included in the Preservation Society’s annual house-and-garden tour.
Sitting at the curb looking at her childhood home surrounded by majestic oaks, Cara knew that a beautiful house was not always a happy one. She got out of the car, stepping into the mist drifting in from the harbor. She closed the door and quietly walked along the crooked sidewalk toward the front gate. Even as she moved forward she felt as she always did the urge to spin on her heel and run. Inside this grand house there were memories she preferred not to revisit. Nothing morbid or incestuous, nothing that would make scandalous headlines. Theirs was a more quiet and insidious kind of trauma. Palmer and she had suffered a long series of insults and sad incidents that curled thick and musty around her like the fog on this gunmetal-gray night.
Her chest constricted and she took a deep breath as she stood at the front door beside her mother and Toy, waiting for someone to answer their bell. Inside the house she heard the sound of children’s high-pitched laughter and a pounding of feet on the stairs. A moment