I put my hands on his, stilling them. “Can I see the pictures?”
“Sure,” he said, sliding them over to me. “I remembered there were pictures of the garden taken when your grandmother lived here in the sixties and early seventies. I had a box of photos that I took from the house after your grandmother died, and I figured they might be in there.” He tapped the photo on top. “I was right. These pictures will be a great blueprint for me to use to restore the garden to the way it was.”
I began to sift through them, each photograph a memory of the best part of my childhood. There were shots of the herb parterre garden and the climbing Confederate jasmine that clung to the front gates, and the ornamental brick walkways edged with precise boxwoods whose scent always reminded me of home.
But there were pictures, too, of a much younger me sipping tea from real china cups on a wrought iron table, my grandmother sitting next to me on the bench and smiling into the camera. And I noticed how much the adult me now resembled her and it made me smile. I stopped before one photograph of me laughing in front of a statue my grandmother had bought in Italy—and that I had found uproariously funny because the little boy was naked. But the thing that caught my attention most was the diamond-and-sapphire necklace and earrings I wore. I’m sure they were worth a lot of money, but my grandmother never hesitated to let me wear them during one of our tea parties. I remembered, too, how Rebecca had asked me about them and how she’d seen my mother wearing them in a newspaper photo.
“You laughed a lot as a little girl.” His gaze searched mine.
I stared at the picture recalling the time before my mother left, of afternoons spent in my grandmother’s garden, and of early mornings whiled away tucked between my parents in their large bed while they shared the newspaper and drank coffee.
“Yes,” I said slowly. “I did.” I didn’t want to meet his eyes, afraid he’d see the little girl again—and compare her to me.
“It wasn’t such a bad childhood, was it? Despite—things?”
I raised my gaze to meet his, remembering, too, the traveling I’d done with my father when I’d gone to live with him, of seeing the pyramids of Egypt, the Taj Mahal, the Eiffel Tower, and the Thames River. I’d liked traveling with him; I’d found it easier to forget my mother when we were in exotic places, and my father had always made it a point not to drink until he’d put me to sleep at night. In those dusty hot places, I could pretend that I was someone else.
“No, Daddy. It wasn’t all bad. I have good memories, too.”
His expression of relief made me want to cry, and I had to look away.
My dad pointed at one of the photos. “There must have been something wrong with the camera because every single one of these photographs has the same white spots on them. Never in the same place, but always there.”
I looked to where his finger pointed to a cluster of white balls of light flitting over my left shoulder. Slowly, I flipped through the remaining photographs, noticing the same light splotches on all of the pictures. I didn’t bother to point out to my father that the photographs had been taken by different cameras—some with a Polaroid, others with a 35 millimeter camera. I had a pretty good idea what had caused the blotches, but I wasn’t about to get into another argument with him.
I paused at the last photograph of my grandmother and me. We were in the garden at the side of the house where the beautiful stained-glass window was. I was smiling into the camera with the kind of cheesy smile that only young children can get away with, but my grandmother was facing the window, pointing at it. My gaze traveled to where she pointed and I paused, bringing the photograph closer to my face and wishing I’d worn my glasses.
It must have been about midday because the sun was shining full force on the window. But something about the way the sun hit the glass transformed it into an image I’d never seen before. I’d always marveled at how the stained-glass looked different inside than it did outside. I’d noticed the same thing in churches with large stained-glass windows. But this looked like an entirely different glass layer had been placed on the back of the window, created in such a way as to only show the image in a certain angle of light.
What was so astounding in this image was that it no longer even resembled the one on the inside glass. Instead of random lines and patterns, it appeared to be some kind of aerial impression of a place foreign to me, yet complete with shoreline, trees, and the unmistakable columns of a Greek Revival house. But superimposed over the left quadrant of the image and overlapping the shoreline, was an odd representation of an angel’s head with long, flowing hair and large wings that swept behind the head and came to a precise point. The figure was slightly tilted, so that the point of the wings swept over the water, but its tip was seemingly buried in the land.
I turned the photograph around to show my dad. “Did you notice this one?”
He reached into his pocket for his bifocals—apparently hidden from my mother, although upon my last calculation they were nearly the same age—and perched them on his nose.
“Now, then, isn’t that interesting? It’s a completely different image, isn’t it?”
“Most definitely. I wonder why.”
He handed the photograph back to me and snorted. “Those Prioleaus—always ones for puzzles. Your own mother made me solve a riddle to figure out her answer to my marriage proposal.”
“Which was yes,” I said, unable to stop my grin.
“Yeah, it was.” He rested his chin in his hand and stared at me, but I didn’t think he was seeing me at all.
“You’re right about the puzzles. There’s one on Grandmother Sarah’s tombstone that I can’t quite figure out, although to be honest I haven’t given it that much thought. Nothing like a mother reappearing in one’s life again to reorganize one’s life. Anyway, I don’t think Jack’s seen it yet but he needs to. He’s good at solving puzzles, but don’t tell him I said that.”
“Don’t tell me that you said what?”
My father and I turned in unison to the saloon doors that Jack was holding open to allow Sophie and Chad, their arms laden with what appeared to be fabric and decorator books, into the kitchen.
My father stood and took the pile from Sophie’s arms and placed them on the table before taking the ones from Jack’s free hand and doing the same. Chad’s armful slammed down on the counter and he looked at us apologetically.
“Dude,” he said, apparently to my dad, who fisted his right hand like Chad’s and pressed his knuckles against Chad’s.
“Dude,” my father repeated without a trace of sarcasm, “what’s with the entourage?”
“Can’t fit all Sophie’s stuff in her Beetle or on my Schwinn, so Jack offered to use his pickup truck.”
I raised my eyebrows as I slipped the photographs into my jacket pocket to study again later. “Jack has a pickup truck?”
Jack grinned. “I am a born-and-bred South Carolinian male who can shoot straight, treat his mama nice, and could once hold his liquor. I do believe it’s against the law in the great state of South Carolina for a guy like me not to own a pickup truck.” His grin widened as he looked at me, making the temperature in the room do funny things. “So, what did you not want me to know?”
“That you’re good at solving puzzles,” my dad said.
“That you’re annoying and intrusive,” I said at the same time.
Both men sent me a reproachful look before my dad said, “Melanie was telling me about how the Prioleaus have always been into puzzles. I believe my motherin-law, Melanie’s grandmother, even had a room here at the house where she kept all sorts of puzzles and cipher books and that sort of thing. Anyway, Melanie mentioned the rhyme on her grandmother’s grave and how she hasn’t been able to make heads or tails of it.” He gave me a sidelong glance. “She mentioned you might be able to shed some light on it.”
With a deferential tone, Jack said, “I’d be more than happy to accompany Mellie to the cemetery to see if I can help. I have been known to solve a puzzle or two.”
“Melanie doesn’t like to go in cemeteries, Jack,” Sophie interjected.
I turned to Sophie, noticing her getup for the first time. “What are you wearing?” I asked, almost afraid to hear the answer.
She twirled for my inspection. “Isn’t it great? A student of mine is from Nepal and she gave me this sari thinking I might like it. A friend had given it to her and it didn’t suit her style.”
I could see why, but I didn’t mention it to Sophie. It was tie-dyed in hues not normally seen in the natural world with weird splashes of rhinestones that looked like someone had vomited them out and not bothered to clean up. Alone, it was an eyesore; mixed with a striped chenille turtleneck, paint-splattered sweats, rainbow-striped toe socks, and Birkenstocks, it was something from which nightmares are made.
“You look amazing, Soph,” Chad said with such a sparkle in his eyes that I almost had to look away. Then he glanced at me and winked, and I knew without a doubt that Chad didn’t care what Sophie looked like on the outside because to him she was the most beautiful woman in the world and nothing she wore could ever change that.
I caught Jack’s gaze and realized with a start that he was thinking the same thing, and I felt myself coloring. It wasn’t because he knew my thoughts or even that he might have caught a wistfulness in my eyes; it was because despite a brash exterior and irreverent quips, Jack Trenholm knew what true love was and could recognize it in other people. Even though I’d come to learn how deeply he’d loved his late fiancée, his behavior usually made it very easy to forget that he had any depth of feeling. I realized I’d felt much better when I thought of him as simply shallow and crass.
I cleared my throat. “You’re right, Sophie. I don’t like cemeteries. But if Jack’s not too afraid, he can go by himself.”
“It’s not being in the cemetery alone that frightens me; it’s the possibility that Mellie might get me into a dark corner, so it might be better if I do go alone.” He flashed a smile at me, making me wonder exactly what all I’d said and done the night I was drunk. In a serious tone, he said, “I’ll bring my camera and snap a few pictures. That way we can blow them up and separate the words and play with them a bit to see if there might be a hidden meaning in it.”
The thought to do that had never occurred to me, and I looked at Jack with grudging admiration.
Eager to change the subject, I walked over to the books that Sophie and Chad had brought in. “What are all these?”
“Fabric swatches and paint samples,” explained Sophie. “All of the colors have already been approved by the Board of Architectural Review. I know they can only control the exterior colors, but I know that you, under my expert tutelage, will want to do a thorough restoration and use only those colors that might have been used when the house was first built.”
I flipped through several cardboard strips of paint chips, surprised to find that I actually liked the jewel-like hues of Persian blue and mustardy yellows—until I noticed that written on the back of each card were what looked like recipes using things like iron oxide, ocher, milk, and what appeared to be actual berries.
“What’s this?” I asked, holding up a paint chip of a pale green and flipping it over. “You don’t expect us to actually make the paint, right?” I smiled, to let her know that I was in on the joke.
She looked offended. “Of course. Otherwise it wouldn’t be historically accurate, would it?”
I blinked several times, waiting for her to smile to let me know she wasn’t serious. When she continued with a straight face, I slowly put down the paint chip. “I’ll, um, go over these with my mother and let you know.” I knew there had to be at least one paint company that made historically accurate colors in a good old-fashioned factory and that didn’t involve me actually scraping rust from pipes or collecting berries in a field somewhere.
Jack picked up another paint sample and studied it for a moment. “I’m glad you’re changing the color scheme. Every time I walk into the foyer, I want to bark like a circus seal.”
“Don’t let me stop you,” I said, my voice trailing away. A movement out the kitchen window caught my attention, and I turned my gaze to the street, where I spotted Rebecca’s little red Audi convertible pulling up to the curb. At about the same time, I heard my mother’s footsteps approaching from the hallway.
I grabbed Jack’s arm. “You know, I’m thinking I need to see the gravestone again, anyway. Let’s go to the cemetery now and take some pictures. If you don’t have your camera, we’ll stop by your apartment and get it first.”
I didn’t wait for a response, and was glad he didn’t show any resistance as I dragged him toward the back door. “Bye, Daddy. Good to see you, Chad and Sophie—I’ll let you know what Mother and I decide on the paint.”
Sophie raised her hand. “You’ll need to decide pretty quickly so we can display your choices for the Christmas home tour next weekend. And don’t forget your costume fitting on Wednesday . . .”
I gave a brief wave and had pulled Jack through the door and closed it before my mother made it into the kitchen.
“I think I like it when you’re rough,” Jack said.
I frowned and jerked my hand away from his arm. “I don’t have my purse, so we’ll have to take your car.”
“Where are we going?”
We turned in unison to see a dimpling Rebecca standing on the back brick walkway. Some perverse sixth sense must have sent her to the back door instead of the front.
Jack stepped forward and kissed her on the cheek in greeting. “Good morning, Rebecca. You look beautiful, as always.”
She pinkened, which only made her look prettier and perkier in her pink cashmere coat. “Thank you, Jack.” She turned from his embrace. “And good morning to you, Melanie.” She turned back to Jack. “Where are you heading?”
“To St. Philip’s to see Melanie’s grandmother’s gravestone. There’s some odd wording on it, and I thought we might be able to figure something out together. But three brains are always better than two, so why don’t you come along?”
I thought I might have to use my fingers to force a smile but managed without them. “That’s a great idea, Jack. Let’s all go together.”