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Chapter 24

T he days that followed felt like a nightmare I couldn’t wake up from.

I couldn’t sleep. I had to force myself to eat. At the restaurant, I was an automaton, barely performing my tasks, zoned out when anyone tried to engage with me. All I could think about was getting Peter back down to Georgia so I could talk him out of a divorce, but he wouldn’t answer my calls or texts. I had to save my marriage; I just had no idea how I was going to do it.

I told Mere that he was on a business trip. I hated lying to her, but the truth was difficult enough for me to understand; there was no way I was going to be able to adequately explain it to my six-year-old. She burst into tears when I broke the news, which made it all the more awful.

We were fully into the blazing hot, humidity-drenched Georgia summer. The trees had greened all the way out, the grass soft and lush and dotted with swaths of wildflowers I couldn’t identify. Purples, whites, yellows—they painted the meadows outside of town, and I promised myself I’d learn their proper names one day. The garden Mere and I had planted was bursting with tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, squash, and heirloom lettuces. Mere helped me weed and water and harvest in the twilight hours. One of those days, she said she wished she could squirt the hose right in Peter’s face. I let it pass. Later, she walked over and stomped on one of the smaller lettuce plants until the stalk was broken and all the leaves lay shredded in the mud.

“Mere, stop!” I cried. “What are you doing?”

“That’s Daddy and I smooshed him,” she said petulantly.

I closed my eyes and took a breath. I couldn’t cry. I had to hold it together if I was going to fix this. “That’s not nice, Mere.”

“I’m mad at Daddy, so I don’t have to be nice,” she snipped right back. I didn’t correct her. She was going to have her feelings about all this, now and later. To be perfectly frank, I dreaded the later.

With Peter gone, I’d gotten laxer with her. I figured if Peter and I hadn’t been able to locate the well, she wouldn’t either, so I let her run free over the property, wild and barefoot, mud-spattered and sweaty. She loved it. Ramsey did, too. I called Dr. Undergrove’s office and told them Ramsey must’ve somehow broken out and made his way to our house. The vet apologized profusely and asked if I wanted to bring the cat back, but I declined, saying I thought it would be fine. I still couldn’t get over the idea that he might’ve let Ramsey go on purpose at Dixie’s direction.

After about a week and a half of misery, something happened. One morning I woke up to discover that suddenly, inexplicably, I felt, if not great, certainly better.

I didn’t know why, not precisely. I was sleeping again, soundly, with few dreams, which probably had something to do with it. And the weather was spectacular. The sky was almost always light blue and nearly cloudless. It got hot—up to the high eighties and then the low nineties—and I found the intense heat a balm, a strange, blanketing narcotic.

My body seemed to like it down here. My hair went wild, frizzing and curling and expanding in the humidity, and I decided I liked it that way. My muscles uncoiled, and I felt a languidness I’d never experienced before. My skin glowed and I sweated without caring. I moved slower. I spoke slower. Whatever space I was in, it seemed I occupied fully.

One part of me, the part that was connected to Peter, to the idea of our family, was still in pain, but another side of me, the sensory side, was settling into a slower, lower gear. I couldn’t explain it. I didn’t want to. I just accepted the contradictory state of existence with a sort of grateful nod to my new hometown. In my grief, Juliana was consoling me.

So I would let her.

Mere and I started attending church. Juliana First Methodist, one of the four places of worship in town, had a minister who was an Initiative recipient recently relocated from Illinois. I assumed they knew about Peter, about Jamie and me, too, and were undoubtedly talking behind my back, Tilda Brennan in particular, but no one made me feel unwelcome or judged. As long as they left us in peace, Mere, specifically, I didn’t care what they thought of me. The sermons made me feel calm and even occasionally hopeful. I would take what I could get.

I repeated my daily cycle: work at the restaurant, look after Mere, text Peter. He never answered any of my messages. I responded to the silence with paragraphs begging him to come home or blistering, angry diatribes. None of it made any difference. He was stonewalling me. At night, I found myself drifting into grim scenarios. What if this was fate at work—because we’d been meant to live here in Juliana, Mere and I, but not Peter? Maybe he’d had to leave so the two of us could truly be happy in Juliana. Was that even possible? Did fate work that way?

I saw Jamie Cleburne every day, but in my head, I put him on a shelf labeled DO NOT TOUCH . He hovered on the periphery of my consciousness, literally and figuratively, constantly there, always kind and attentive, never pushy. I tried not to notice him. I tried really hard. But I didn’t know if I’d be able to say no if he made another move in my direction. I was tired. Tired and lonely, and pissed off.

When Peter had been gone for two weeks, I realized he wasn’t the only one missing. Major Minette hadn’t shown up to work for nearly the same amount of time. We made do, but at the end of the second week, I’d had enough. After Cam, Libby, and Susy cornered me after a particularly insane day, complaining about the impossibility of keeping up with serving, bartending, and bussing the tables, I decided it was time to pay old Major a visit. I untied my apron, grabbed my purse, and set out on foot in the oppressive heat for Minette Street.

Dixie met me at the door of her Pepto-pink Victorian, which surprised me. “Why, Billie Hope. Hello.” She seemed less than pleasantly surprised to see me.

“Hi, Mayor Dixie,” I said.

Her face took on a sympathetic expression. “How are you?”

“Can’t complain,” I said brightly. I was not about to discuss Peter with this woman; I’d rather jump off a cliff. “Is Major here? I wanted to check on him.”

“Well, you know he’s feeling poorly. Which is why I’m working from home.”

“Two weeks is a long time to be sick, though, don’t you think? Has he been to see Doc Belmont?”

“I think I know how to take care of my brother-in-law.”

I straightened. “I’m not questioning that, Dixie.” It was the first time I’d called her that, and she seemed to be okay with it. “I’m concerned about him. He’s a valued employee at Billie’s and we all miss him.”

She seemed to wilt just a fraction.

“Dixie. Let me see him. Please?”

She shook her head. “I’m sorry. I’ll have him back to work in a few days, all right?” She shut the door.

Okay, to hell with that. I wasn’t going to let her put me off. I needed to know what was going on. I slipped around the side of the house. I knew Major lived upstairs in the old kitchen house I’d seen at the party. I glanced back at the main house but didn’t see Dixie watching me from any of the windows.

Pushing the door of the kitchen house open, I walked into the dank, smokey-smelling space. On one wall was a huge fireplace festooned with old cooking implements. A hodgepodge of old appliances—stove, fridge, icemaker—were all lined up along the wall, and a scarred wooden farm table sat in the center of the room.

“Major?” I yelled up. “Hello? It’s Billie Hope, come for a visit.”

“Hey, Miss Billie,” said a voice above me. “I’m here.”

I spotted the stairs, narrow and steep. It was a wonder Major could get himself up and down them. “Can I come up?”

“Well, sure. Watch your step though.”

I climbed the stairs to the second floor, awed at the space before me. The loft was spectacular. Wide open and light, with windows and expensive wood floors. The walls were decorated with taxidermied deer heads and ducks in midflight, as well as oil landscapes that looked old and expensive. There was a bed in one corner, a kitchen area in the other. On the opposite side were two chairs and a flat-screen TV affixed to the wall. Thick Persian rugs layered the wood floor.

And then there was the view. From Major’s window you could see the town of Juliana, leafy trees and rooftops, and the horizon beyond. If you picked this place up and dropped it down in Manhattan, it would cost a million dollars.

Major was dressed in overalls and an old plaid shirt. He stood from the sofa where he’d been sitting and ambled toward me. “Hey, Miss Billie.”

I gave him a hug. “Hey, Major. I just came to check on you.”

“Dixie let you up here?”

“Actually, I sneaked back.” I put my finger over my lips. “Don’t tell.”

“I won’t.” His eyes shifted from side to side. “I’m sorry I ain’t made it back to work yet.”

It made me smile, the country vernacular. “Are you still feeling bad?”

“I was just feeling nervous is all. Just a bit nervous.” He returned to the long, low sofa and fidgeted with the tarnished gold-and-green ring he wore with pride. It said Class of 1932, I knew. His father’s high school ring. Major had never gone past the tenth grade himself.

I sat at the other end of the sofa. “What’s making you nervous, Major?”

He twisted the ring around his knobby finger.

“Is it something at Billie’s? At the restaurant?” I leaned over and elbowed him gently. “Did you see a mouse in the kitchen?”

That got a smile out of him. “I ain’t scared of mice. Get ’em all the time up here. Mice get in barns, and they get in palaces. They don’t know the difference.”

“Then what is it? Why did you quit coming to work?”

He sighed heavily. “I guess I don’t want to see Jamie, is what it is.”

“Jamie Cleburne? Why not?”

He shook his head, pressing his lips together. His eyes did that shifting thing again, and he fiddled with the ring.

I leaned forward. “Major, talk to me. You can tell me what’s worrying you.”

He looked at me and I saw his face was pale, his eyes full of fear. “I did something bad.”

“What?”

His chin trembled. “I snuck and went fishing in his daddy’s lake. Nobody’s allowed on that lake, except Cleburnes. Jamie’s daddy’s real particular about that.”

“Okay, but people sneak into places all the time, Major. It’s called bending the rules. No one’s going to be mad at you.”

His eyes were fearful. “Yes, they will. Jamie will.”

“Well, he won’t know. What does Dixie say? Does she know what you did?”

He nodded. “She says I don’t have a poker face. I can’t hide nothing. If Jamie finds out I was fishing in that lake, they’ll send me away. I was supposed to be in jail once, but Dixie got me out. Dixie talked to the sheriff and got me out. But they’ll put me back in if they knew I was poaching.”

Jail. Probably for that shoplifting habit Dixie had mentioned. I sent him a little smile, trying to lighten the mood. “So, what? She’s just going to make you stay up here forever?”

He looked confused, desperate. “She said she might send me off to Atlanta, to live with her niece. I don’t know her niece.”

“Major, I promise, Dixie’s not going to send you away and nobody’s going to put you in jail.”

“You don’t know.”

I hesitated. “What don’t I know?”

His glance bounced around the spacious loft. I waited.

“I killed a boy,” he finally said in a tremulous voice. “When I was just a boy. He was messing with my cat. Hurting her. So, I killed him with a knife.”

I felt hot all over, my heart skittering a few beats. My God. I certainly hadn’t expected that. I didn’t know whether to bolt out of the room and down the steps or ask more questions, so I kept quiet.

“My daddy fixed it so I didn’t go to jail. Minettes don’t go to jail. But I don’t know about now. Juliana’s a different town with all you new folks. I don’t know that the old guard can get up to what they used to.”

The old guard. The Cleburnes, Dalzells, and Minettes.

“ ‘Get up to what they used to’?” I repeated. “What do you mean?”

“The way it’s been is the old guard takes care of everyone in Juliana. They make sure that people don’t pay for much of anything. That everybody looks out for everybody else.” He grinned a little lopsided grin. “You know, there ain’t no property taxes around here. Not if you know the right people.”

“No kidding,” I said.

“The old guard picks the sheriff, too. Always been a Calhoun or a Childers. Calhoun or Childers, them boys like uniforms. That’s why I didn’t go to jail that one time.”

I’d gone cold, chilled to the bone in Major’s dim loft. “Wow.”

“We’re just like the royals over in England. That’s what Dixie always says. Three families, just like Stuart, Hanover, and Windsor.”

I thought about Dixie’s party. Dixie up on her deck, whispering with Ox and Jamie. “Minette, Dalzell, and Cleburne,” I said.

“Right. And just like those royals, we have to keep going. Marry and have children.”

I blinked at him. “Is that why they came up with the Initiative? To get single people to come down here and marry into the three old guard families?”

“We have to keep up the bloodline. Being a Minette is a great responsibility. And they’re not gonna be too happy with me.”

“But you’re allowed a mistake, Major. Trespassing is just a mistake.”

He twisted his father’s ring, shaking his head. He looked so afraid. I just couldn’t understand it.

“Do you want me to talk to Dixie for you?”

He loomed over me and roared, “No! Don’t talk to her! Don’t you dare!”

I flinched and jumped up. “I’m so sorry, Major. I didn’t mean to upset you. I won’t talk to her. I won’t tell her anything.”

“And don’t you go to the lake neither, you hear? I mean it.” He was trembling.

“Okay, Major. I won’t. I promise.”

He backed away from me, turned to face the window. “Get on out of here,” he said. “Go on. Get!”

I ran to the stairs, descending back down as quickly as I could. I slipped out of the kitchen and let myself out the gate through the side yard. I got in the Jeep and headed toward the Cleburne farm. Poor guy. Something in that lake had upset him, and he clearly didn’t want me or Dixie to know about it. Well, tough shit. I was going to find out what it was. I’d had just about enough of the mysteries of this town. And the way the old guard had decided they were the keepers of them.

* * *

I parked at the mill, in the gravel lot, and walked the mile and a half to the Cleburne farm, keeping close to the brush on the side of the road in case anyone drove past. At the black fence that bordered the farm, I could see the small lake, Mr. Cleburne’s pride and joy, shimmering in the distance. I furtively checked in both directions, and seeing no cars, climbed the fence.

The farm was right out of a storybook with green fields bordered by neat hedges, pines, and huge old oak trees. The lake was the most pristine thing I’d ever seen. Not brown or murky—or rust red, like our creek—but crystal clear and green. Willows planted along the edge dipped delicate branches in the water. Clumps of purple lilies bloomed.

On the opposite side, far in the distance, I could see what must’ve been Jamie’s childhood home, a stately white brick traditional with a row of soaring columns. I wondered where old Mr. Cleburne was now. Sitting on that porch in some ancient wicker settee, peering through binoculars, his shotgun trained on me?

To my right, a stand of pines rose up on a knoll beside the lake, and I headed toward them. I picked my way around the water’s edge, toeing aside fallen branches and piles of leaves as I went. I rounded the shoreline, and a little mound of what appeared to be muddy sticks came into view, just a few yards ahead. I stopped and shaded my eyes against the glare of the setting sun.

A beaver dam probably, not that I’d ever seen one in real life, only replicated at the Museum of Natural History. As I approached the mound of mud and sticks, my steps slowed. I edged down to where the water lapped at the mossy bank, leaned closer, trying to make out the detail of the dam. I didn’t know why, but for some reason, Major’s fear had suddenly become mine. My heart was pounding, and I was taking in deep gulps of air like I couldn’t get enough.

That’s when I saw it.

A human arm, bobbing on the surface of the clear water.

I froze and stepped back. “Oh my God!”

I heaved, then vomited violently, directly into the water. My mind spun into a million different directions.

What ...

Why . . .

The bile rose once more, and I vomited again, tears spilling down my cheeks. At last, my stomach emptied, I wiped my mouth and steadied myself. But I still couldn’t move away. I was seeing stars, feeling like I may pass out. I backed away several feet.

This was what spooked Major, not that he went fishing without permission. And I had to do something. Pull myself together and take note of some real details so I could report it to the police. Covering my mouth in case anything else decided to come up, I forced myself to look again. To take my time and catalog what I saw as best I could.

An arm ...

A leg . . .

The side of what could be a head . . .

What was left of a head, that is.

Behind my hand, I gagged again. The body was a bluish-purple and bloated with strange gases. It was barely even shaped like a body, impossible to tell if it was a man or woman, Black, brown, or white. There was no clothing left on it, not that I could tell, but something did catch my eye. Something at the end of the arm.

The hand, I told myself, even though this . . . gelatinous blob didn’t resemble a hand. It looked more like a jellyfish. But there was something glinting on the surface of it. Something black.

I picked up a stick and waded into the water, drawing closer. I reached out, holding my breath, threaded the stick through it, and lifted it off the body. It was a ring. One of those black rings men wore for wedding bands. Some men. I withdrew the ring from the stick and stared at it, not comprehending. Not understanding what I was seeing.

I turned the band so that the sun hit it and read the inscription.

To P from B, Forever.

I stared at it, reading it over and over. Trying to comprehend.

Forever, the ring said.

Forever, the promise.

But the promise was broken. Forever had just stopped, right there in that lake. Forever was gone, wasn’t it, never to return? It had ended with my husband’s body half submerged, caught in a beaver dam.

Peter, my husband, my love, the father of my daughter, was dead. Somehow, he’d fallen into Cleburne’s lake and somehow. . . wound up wedged into a beaver dam. But no. No. That was impossible. You didn’t just fall into a lake. Into a dam.

Someone had to put you there.

I opened my mouth—whether to scream or cry, I didn’t know—but no sound came out. I was empty, standing at the precipice of the void, waiting for a push. It would only be a second, or maybe another, and something would give me that push and then I would tumble into it and begin falling, falling, endlessly falling, no bottom to ever reach.

My phone, tucked in the back pocket of my jeans, buzzed. In a trance, I gripped the ring, Peter’s wedding band, in one hand, and with the other pulled the phone out. It was wet but clearly still working. A text had just come in. A text from Peter.

I’ll be sending divorce paperwork soon, Billie, the message read. One day we will talk but not yet. I’m not ready .