Summer in the South Read online

  The daytime sleepiness and medication issues made school difficult, and she had to work twice as hard as everyone else to compensate. It also made sleepovers with friends difficult, as Ava was always nervous about having an episode in front of someone. When she moved to Chicago and began high school, the episodes gradually became less frequent, and she slowly weaned herself off the medication. By the time she graduated from college they had become an unpleasant memory, like so much else that she took pains to overcome and hide, and throughout most of her twenties she had been able, for long periods, to forget about the sleep disorder entirely.

  She stopped for a cup of coffee at a fast-food restaurant just off I-94. The skies above the landscape were gray and wintry. The closer she got to Detroit, the more nervous she became. What would she say to Frank? What if he didn’t want to see her?

  Her stomach lurched suddenly, and she pulled to the side of the road and was sick.

  Garden City was a neat little blue-collar suburb of small houses and big trees. She drove slowly down the narrow streets, crisscrossing Hennipen until she gathered the courage to turn onto the street.

  It was a tiny green cement-block house nestled beside a towering hemlock tree. A swing set and colored plastic toys littered the yard, which surprised Ava, because it meant some of his children were young. She sat for a long time staring at the house, trying to work up the courage to knock on the door.

  While she sat waiting, the door opened and a large heavyset woman stepped out onto the stoop, eyeing Ava suspiciously. The two stared at each other for a brief moment and then Ava looked away, pulled slowly into the street, and, without a backward glance, drove away without ever having met her father.

  The day after their trip to Longford, Will showed up for Toddy Time with a bouquet of wildflowers. Ava was in her room, sitting at her desk overlooking the garden. She had spent the day reading through the Longford plantation journals, an occupation she found much more agreeable than working on the outline for her novel. She was beginning to understand that daydreaming about writing a novel and actually writing it were two very different things.

  He tapped lightly on the door and when she said, “Come in,” thinking it was one of the aunts come to check on her, he opened the door and stepped inside.

  “For you,” he said. He had already put the flowers in a vase and he set it down on the nearest dresser. He seemed jovial and relaxed, and Ava was glad to see that whatever trouble had passed between them yesterday seemed to have been forgotten. She stood, going over to the mirrored armoire to check her appearance.

  “You look pretty,” he said.

  “Do I?”

  “Yes.”

  He clasped her wrist, delicately yet exactingly, as if preparing to sweep her into a dance.

  She said, “Behave.”

  He kissed her lightly and let her go. She ran her fingers through her hair until it stood up in short curling tufts around her face. He sat on the edge of the bed watching her with such a look of frank admiration and respect that Ava averted her eyes in embarrassment. It wasn’t in her nature to be so openly amazed and worshipful.

  “I came to remind you that today you meet my cousin Fraser, Alice’s son.”

  “He’s the one who dresses like Edgar Allan Poe?”

  “Right.”

  She smirked, and was rewarded by a faint flush of color in his face. “And why does he dress like a dead poet?” she asked innocently.

  “It started in college. He was asked to join the Raven Society up at UVA. They’re the ones who keep Poe’s room as it was when he was there, who leave a glass of cognac and three roses out every year on his birthday. It’s really a big deal to be asked to join. It’s one of the oldest societies on campus, and Fraser picked up his interest in Poe while there. Plus he double majored in history and drama.”

  “That would explain it.”

  His manner was casual, complacent. He acted as if nothing had happened between them yesterday, which she found somewhat jarring. She had the impression that she should not mention it at all. So much of what happened down here seemed to pass beneath the surface: thoughts, desires, hurts trolling like icebergs beneath a placid sea. She wondered if she had the subtlety for it.

  “There’ll be a crowd today,” he said. “In addition to Fraser, several of the neighbors are invited round for drinks.”

  “More cocktails?” she said. “Good God, they don’t drink every day, do they?”

  “Every day but Sunday.”

  “How is it they’re not all alcoholics?”

  “They drink less than you might think. And I’ve never seen any of them drunk. It’s a generational thing, a social ritual, like the English drinking tea.”

  “Right. Eighty proof tea.”

  “How’s the work coming along?”

  “It’s not, I’m afraid.”

  He looked around the room, mildly alarmed. “They haven’t been bothering you, have they?”

  “Who?” She stared at him in the mirror. “The aunts?”

  “They promised to leave you alone to write.”

  “They’ve been lovely. No noise. No interruptions. They left breakfast on the stove with a note, and lunch was chicken salad on the verandah, just the four of us.”

  He seemed relieved. “I knew you’d like them,” he said.

  “Josephine is a bit cool. I’m not sure she likes me.”

  He shook his head. “You mustn’t read too much into her manner. She’s that way with everyone. Very reserved and private.”

  She turned to face him, smoothing her skirt with her hands. “What’s her story, anyway? She never married?”

  “No. There was someone. A long time ago. I don’t know who, I’ve just always heard that she was unlucky in love.”

  “That’s a nice way of putting it.”

  “Yes,” he said. “I thought you’d like that.”

  Later, standing in the library with a glass of red wine in her hand, Ava was amazed at Fraser Barron’s resemblance to Poe. He had come in with Alice, and was dressed in a long black frock coat and carried a gold-headed walking stick. He was a small man, no taller than five feet three or four, and he wore his hair in damp curls around his face.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” Ava said to Will in a low voice.

  “I told you.”

  Fraser advanced across the room toward them with a strange, high-stepping gait, his hand extended, and Ava fought a sudden desire to giggle. Will leaned against her, as if to check the impulse.

  “William,” Fraser said in a slightly effeminate voice, firmly shaking Will’s hand.

  “Fraser.” Will turned to Ava. “This is my friend, Ava.”

  “Yes, yes, I’m so excited to meet you,” he said, taking Ava’s hand in his small, soft one. “My mother’s said so many wonderful things about you.”

  “I like your walking stick,” Ava said.

  “Thank you.” Pleased, he held it up for her review. “I order them specially from the UK. They’re so hard to find in the States.”

  “Fraser, we were just talking about the time Edgar Allan Poe spent up at UVA. Ava was questioning why he’d left without graduating.” Fraser immediately launched into a lengthy discourse on the poet, and Will excused himself, giving Ava a slow grin, and went to refill his drink. Most of what Fraser said was interesting. Ava had read Poe’s literary criticism in college, and was a fan of the gothic genre, preferring Poe’s fiction to his poetry, but after a while her attention began to drift.

  Across the room, Maitland and Will were discussing baseball, while over by the sideboard Fanny and Alice stood talking to a couple of neighbors. Alice turned her head, noting Ava with Fraser. She smiled and went back to her conversation. She was an attractive woman but somewhat domineering. Her husband had died young, leaving her to bring Fraser up on her own, which she had done admirably, the aunts agreed. No one mentioned Fraser’s eccentric dress and preoccupation with a dead poet; he was family (in addition to being Fanny’s sister
-in-law, Alice was also a distant cousin) so that excused any censure they might have heaped upon an outsider.

  As far as Ava could tell, eccentricity in the Woodburn family was not necessarily frowned upon. What was frowned upon, however, were members who didn’t appreciate the family’s history and standing, “sellouts” who promoted progress that threatened the “old ways.”

  Disloyalty in any form was never tolerated.

  She could see Josephine sitting on a long sofa, deep in conversation with Clara. One fair, one dark, they were a striking contrast; yet there was something similar in their profiles, something kindred in their height and bearing and grace. Ava had been curious about Clara from that first night at Woodburn Hall, pelting Will with questions. But in that teasing manner he had with her, slightly amused, mildly offended, he’d told her just enough to make her more curious. Clara lived on the block behind the aunts. Her parents had worked for the family when Josephine and Fanny were girls. She had grown up with the Woodburn girls as a sister might. “As part of the family,” Will had told her.

  “Only she didn’t go to Vanderbilt,” Ava had remarked innocently.

  “No,” Will said, his smile fading. “She didn’t go to Vanderbilt.”

  Sunlight fell in large bands across the library’s faded Oriental carpet. The sofas, seen in the bright slanting light, seemed somewhat threadbare and worn, although the room was scrupulously clean, the woodwork newly painted and gleaming.

  Beside her Fraser droned on about Poe in his soft little singsong voice. Will, noting that Ava’s attention had wandered, lifted his glass and motioned for Fraser to join him and Maitland.

  “Excuse me, I’m being summoned,” Fraser said breathlessly. He put one small hand lightly on Ava’s arm. “I’m so looking forward to Mother’s barbecue. It’ll be such fun to introduce you around because I can assure you” (and here he leaned toward her, glancing around the room) “we’re not all this stodgy!” He giggled and walked off in that odd, straight-backed manner he had, like a tiny soldier on parade.

  “Ava, come sit with us,” Clara called, patting the sofa between her and Josephine. Ava sat down, smiling at Clara, who squeezed her hand gently, then let it go. There was something warm about Clara, something so welcoming that you couldn’t help but feel comfortable in her presence. Fanny, too, made her feel instantly at home, and Maitland was like a charming, overindulgent grandfather. Josephine, on the other hand, seemed cordial but distant. There was something of Miss Havisham in Josephine. You had the feeling that beneath her polished exterior beat the heart of a woman capable of anything.

  Alice was loudly telling a joke. “How many Episcopalians does it take to change a lightbulb? Ten. One to change the bulb and nine to say how much they liked the old one.”

  The room exploded in laughter but they were all Episcopalians and you could see that they were proud of it.

  “You know what they say,” Maitland said, lifting his glass. “For every four Episcopalians you’ll find a fifth.”

  Fraser whooped with laughter, then stopped and checked his appearance in the heavy gilt-framed mirror above the sideboard. Beside him, Will stood smiling at Ava, his back to the glass.

  Josephine said, “He’s a handsome young man, isn’t he?”

  “Yes,” Ava said. She finished her wine.

  “I see something of my father in him, although he’s dark like all the Frasers.” Josephine was quiet for a moment, her eyes fixed fondly on Will. As if guessing that they were talking about him, he excused himself to Fraser and Maitland and came across the room to join them. “My father was stern, but he was very loving,” Josephine continued. “Unusual in a man of those times.”

  “He was a good man,” Clara said. Will stopped in front of them, smiling.

  “He loved my mother, and when she died, soon after Celia’s birth, he never remarried. And he could have, if he’d wanted to! He was the most eligible widower in town, young, handsome, a man of property.” She stopped abruptly, looking down at her glass. “Well, he had everything, and many were the women who set their caps for him and tried to catch him.”

  “But he was too wary for that,” Will said. He had obviously heard this story many times before.

  “People who’ve been wounded in love are often wary,” Josephine said, lifting her chin. She and Will exchanged a long look, and Ava saw something pass between them. He leaned over and reached for Ava’s glass.

  “Let me get you another drink,” he said.

  1919

  Woodburn, Tennessee

  Papa and John were in the stable killing rats. Papa had told Sissy and Fanny to stay away, so Fanny was sitting on the kitchen steps like he had said but Sissy was squatting behind a camellia bush spying on them. She had a big white bow in her hair that fluttered among the greenery like a bird. Tom Penny sat on Fanny’s lap. He was purring as she stroked him, his claws coming in and out against her leg. Cicadas droned in the heat. They were feeding castor beans to the rats, mixed up in bowls of suet pudding. Fanny knew not to go near the bowls. She knew not to go near the castor bean plants even though their flowers were like little India rubber balls covered in spikes, and their beans were speckled like tiny bird’s eggs. “Don’t ever touch them,” Papa had told them sternly. “They will kill you quicker than a cobra.”

  Across the wide lawn she could hear the thin wailing of her baby sister, Celia. Mother had gone to be with the angels not long after Celia came. The angels had brought Celia and taken Mother, and now Celia stayed in the house across the backyard where John and Martha lived with their dear little baby Clara. Martha took care of Celia and Clara. When she came to the house to cook for Papa and Sissy and Fanny, she brought both babies with her, laying them on a clean quilt on the floor.

  Sissy stood up and motioned for Fanny to join her but Fanny shook her head no. She always did what Sissy said, but Papa had said stay away with his face all sad and stern like it was these days since Mother went away, and Fanny could not bring herself to disobey him.

  She wondered if the angels would come for the rats like they had come for Mother.

  Fanny cried all the time for Mother but Sissy said, “Don’t be a baby.” Sissy never cried, but at night, in her sleep, she made little mewling noises like a kitten. This was in the nursery where they slept at the top of the stairs. They had always slept together, in two little spindle beds on either side of the long windows, and at night the big house creaked and moaned around them and the moonlight fell across their beds like fairies. Sometimes the fairies would lose themselves in Tom Penny’s fur, blinking wildly until Fanny giggled.

  “Don’t be daft,” Sissy said. “There’s no such thing as fairies.” Sissy was a Big Girl now. She was too big for fairies and grief.

  Sissy was eight years old, and she was turning into a boy. Any day now she would grow an appendage between her legs like a third arm. This is what she told Fanny. Any day now she wouldn’t have to sit down to pee.

  Sissy was too big for fairies and grief, but she wasn’t too big for magic.

  Down in the big kitchen Sissy liked to pour pepper into her palm and hold the hand out to Fanny. “Sniff it,” she’d say.

  “No, Sissy, I don’t want to.”

  “Sniff it.”

  She always did. Later, when she was snuffling and blowing her nose into a clean starched handkerchief, Martha would shake her head and cluck her tongue.

  Once, when they were alone together in the kitchen, Sissy pointed to the big cookstove and said, “I’ll bet you can’t do a cartwheel from the stove to the table.” It was a big thick farmhouse table with a marble slab top. Fanny almost made it, catching her forehead on a corner of the marble slab and opening a long gash that bled terribly while Sissy applied a makeshift tourniquet made out of a flour sack towel. Another time they decided to make a swimming pool out of an old iron washtub they found in one corner of the garden. They filled it with water and then made a diving board out of a cinder block and a pine board perched against the edge of th
e tub.

  “You first,” Sissy said, pushing Fanny out along the board.

  It teetered and dropped into the water, throwing Fanny forward so that she caught her knee on the edge of the iron tub, splitting the skin down to the bone.

  They built a fort under Papa’s bed, rolling around on the dusty floor, careful not to disturb the four legs standing in their little lids of kerosene, set out to discourage the bedbugs. It was dark under the massive bed, and Sissy lit a series of matches so they could see. Papa’s dusty bottles of moonshine gleamed in the darkness against the far wall. His “snakebite medicine,” he used to tell Mother teasingly. When Fanny was bitten by a chicken snake out by the stable, Sissy carried one of the bottles down to the garden and dosed Fanny so liberally she couldn’t stand.

  And when Papa sold the horses and carriage and came driving up in a gleaming new ReVere Touring Car, they “fed” Papa’s new “pet” with sand and rocks stuffed into the gas tank. Not long after that, their cousin Humphrey came visiting from Nashville, pulling up the drive in a Fleetwood Phaeton with a convertible top. He and Papa went into the library to talk, and Sissy decided the convertible top looked an awful lot like the trampoline they had seen used by the trapeze lady at the circus. So while Humphrey and Papa were inside talking business, Fanny and Sissy were jumping up and down on the landau top until their feet went through and they were stuck and pinned like flies on cheesecloth.

  Later that night, when she was putting them to bed without supper, Martha said to Fanny, “Lord, child, why do you always have to do what your sister tells you to do? Why do you let her torment you so?”

  But Fanny just smiled and sucked her thumb sleepily because she knew something that Martha didn’t know, something that only she and Papa knew.

  Pain was part of love.

  After that the family had a meeting to decide what to do about Fanny and Josephine. They drove to the house in a caravan to meet with Papa, following him into his library with solemn faces, while Fanny and Josephine crouched on the verandah outside the window, listening.