The smell of freshly ground coffee filled my nostrils when I opened the kitchen door. Aunt Hyacinth had the cast-iron skillet heated, butter bubbling, and was just lifting thick slices of white bread from egg batter and plopping them in. Not seeing didn’t stop her from cooking; that was clear.
I opened the jar of berries, drained the juice to save, and spilled them in a little cut-glass dish I found in the cupboard.
“Carry the tray and this cloth into the front parlor directly down the hallway there, won’t you, dear? I love the morning sun in that room. It warms my bones.” Aunt Hyacinth had brought out a tarnished silver coffee service and her very best china and bid me spread the damask cloth across the tea table. “We might as well do this right.” She smiled, delighted as a child at Christmas.
We’d barely settled in the large and brightly lit room when Aunt Hyacinth reached for my hand—so like Mama. I clasped her frail hand in response, and Aunt Hyacinth prayed with the awe of a penitent approaching Mount Sinai. “Dear Lord, we rejoice in this beautiful day that You’ve made! Thank You! Thank You for the morning sun, for the birds that sing, for the love of family and the treasure of Lilliana that You’ve brought me. We sorrow for the reason, Lord, for the loss of my beloved Rosemary, of Lilliana’s precious mama. Comfort us, Father; help us to balm one another’s hurts even as we joy in our Rosemary’s homecoming. Lead us through this day. Make us a blessing to one another and to all who cross our threshold. Thank You for this food and for bodies and minds to enjoy it. In Jesus’ name, and for Your glory, amen.”
I hadn’t even told Aunt Hyacinth yet that Mama had died, but it didn’t seem to keep her from knowing, and how that knowing came about worried me. Still, tears I didn’t want to shed threatened. “The funeral was day before yesterday.”
“I thought it might have been.” Aunt Hyacinth spoke quietly, reverently, stray tears on her own cheeks.
How was it that she could glory in bounty one minute and sorrow in depths the next? How did a person traverse the mountaintops and dip to the valleys and soar up again so smoothly—all the while convinced she could approach the throne of God and be assured of His love? For surely she was. I heard it in her voice.
“Will you pour for us, Lilliana?”
“Of course.” I held the tarnished pot as steady as I could. The coffee service, the grand piano on the far side of the room, the spacious fireplace and faded but fine appointments of the room were like stepping into old-world grace. “Thank you for taking me in last night. For everything, Aunt Hyacinth. This meal is wonderful.”
“Stop thanking me at every turn, Niece. This is your home now, for as long as you want it. After I’m gone, it will be yours entirely.”
“Aunt Hyacinth, that’s not why I came. I came because . . .” I didn’t know how to continue, how much to say.
“Because you had no other choice. You’d nowhere else to go.”
I shifted in my seat, ashamed of my need, ashamed of my transparency, confused by what she seemed to know without a word from me.
“It’s all right. I understand, better than you know. I know that your father did not treat your mother well, that she died of a weary and broken heart. I know that he long ago forced her to will everything to him and to exclude you from that will with the promise that he’d care for you and protect you if anything ever happened to her.”
“Did Mama write that to you?”
“She told me when you were both here, but she didn’t need to. I haven’t heard from your mama since the day your father took you both away. I suspected that was what he was after when she ran off with him as a girl, but hoped I was wrong.” Aunt Hyacinth set down her bone china cup, sloshing just a little of the coffee as the saucer found its nesting place. “She wrote me a couple of years after their marriage, asking about Garden’s Gate—if I’d made a will. She encouraged me to do so and to make her—or better yet, her husband—beneficiary and executor so that nothing would be left to the state but ‘kept in the family.’ I knew then.”
“I don’t know anything about that.”
“He vowed that she and their children would share legally in everything. She wanted to believe him, but I knew it was a lie. Everything that man did was a lie. From the moment he proposed to the day he buried my Rosemary.”
It was a hard conversation. He was my father, after all, and though I knew he was willing to sell me to “insanity” to cover his tracks and save his reputation, that he’d as much as sold me to Gerald as a young bride for whatever favor it bought him in the church, it felt all skewed that I wouldn’t take up for him, that I couldn’t. Honor your father and mother resounded through my brain.
“Your mama, God rest her weary soul, knew the truth, too. Not that she’d admit it at first, mind you, but she came to it later. He was a slick one, a smooth one, a charming sort, and he wanted her money—or what he believed was her money. He’d convinced her she was not smart enough to manage her affairs—that she needed him to handle everything.” Aunt Hyacinth huffed. “Rosemary was a brilliant girl, a brilliant woman. He knocked the confidence straight out of her like straw stuffing.”
I held my breath. She could be talking about me—about Gerald and my lack of stuffing. That she’d known Mama when she was more than a frail woman intrigued me, excited me. It also reminded me that I had a ring to deliver.
“Not getting me to affirm his lawyer’s ‘encouragements’ was surely a disappointment, but I suppose he believed I’d seen the light and acquiesced. In any case, he wanted the recognition your mother’s beauty brought him. I imagine Rosemary just hoped she’d outlive him to make things right . . . for you.”
The stone walls in my stomach shifted and crumbled. Here was the first person I might count as an ally, even if it was too late for Mama. “He doesn’t know I’m here—neither him nor . . . anybody.”
“You mean your husband?”
I swallowed. “You know I’m married.” Would this be it? Would she send me away—back to my rightful place?
“I felt the groove on your ring finger when you placed your hand in mine just now. You must have taken it off recently.” She sighed. “It’s what men like your father do—marry their daughters off young. What sort of man is your husband? A good man?”
Aunt Hyacinth’s deductions made my head swim. It was good I hadn’t lied to her—or “neglected” to tell her I was married, though I’d considered it. I’d become very good at pretending, at lying to cover up for Gerald’s outbursts and for his sometimes-antisocial behavior—or more difficult still, at pretending everything was all right when he fawned charm. But I meant to start fresh now, whatever I did. In barely a whisper, I forced the truth between my lips. “No. No, he’s not.” Silence spread between us, the half-eaten toast and coffee growing cold. “He doesn’t know I’m here. I ran away—from Gerald and from my father.”
Aunt Hyacinth drew a deep breath as if she’d been waiting for me to speak. “Good. I’m glad you did. They won’t hear it from me.”
It was like being handed a pardon—the worst of sinners and I was pardoned. “Why? Why will you help me?”