The Restoration of Celia Fairchild - Marie Bostwick Page 0,18
my mind, like a book on a shelf that you’re looking forward to reading someday, when life calms down.
When I returned the voicemail from the stranger with the slow drawl who said he had news of Aunt Calpurnia, and I learned she had suffered a massive stroke and died two weeks before, I didn’t just cry, I sobbed. In spite of everything, a part of me always thought I’d see her again. Now I never would.
The lawyer, Mr. Holcomb, didn’t tell me to calm down or say it might be better if we talked later. He just stayed on the line, waiting, letting me do what I had to do. It was kind of weird, looking back on it. But it made me feel a little less alone.
When I finally pulled myself together, he told me the rest of the story.
Aunt Calpurnia had died intestate, without a will. According to the laws of South Carolina, when that happened, the estate went to the closest living relative, in this case the only living relative, so the house and its contents now belonged to me.
It was hard to wrap my head around that. But then I remembered Calpurnia, who could see wisdom in even the most tired clichés, saying, “There’s always a silver lining, sugar. Always.”
Was there?
The real estate market in downtown Charleston was booming. Would selling Calpurnia’s house give me enough to buy an apartment of my own, or even a house? Maybe in New Jersey? A kid really should have a yard. When I was growing up, Calpurnia’s garden, cool and shady and colorful, had been my favorite spot, the center of my imaginary world.
It was a Hail Mary pass, I knew that. Or maybe Hail Calpurnia. There were so many things that could go wrong. To start with, who knew if the birth mother would pick me? Three families were hoping for this baby, and being the only single mother in the pool certainly didn’t help my chances. But supposing the birth mother did pick me? Even without the column, if I owned a home outright, no mortgage, surely I could find a job that would support us, couldn’t I? Still . . . To sell a house, buy another, and move in within two and a half months would take a miracle.
But considering the timing, you can’t blame me for wondering if she might not be up there somewhere, arranging for one.
After hours of tossing and turning, I finally fell asleep only to wake three times during the night, with the cobwebs of a dream clinging to me. The third time was the most vivid.
There was a man with a beard, stationed a pace or two beyond Aunt Calpurnia’s right shoulder. It struck me as odd because I didn’t know anybody with a beard, and even though he was standing so close, his face was in shadow so I couldn’t make out his features or see what he looked like. The man didn’t say anything but neither did Calpurnia. She stood directly in front of me, holding a swaddled infant in her arms. She gazed into the face of the baby and then at me with an expression that radiated love, and then held the child out, inviting me to take it in my arms. That was all.
Of course, it could have been wishful thinking, the nocturnal emergence of my subconscious desire. But . . . what if it wasn’t?
When I woke up the third time, the first fingers of dawn were shining through the slats of the wooden shutters. I sat up in bed and hugged my knees to my chest, convinced I had Calpurnia’s blessing.
Chapter Six
It was early in the morning and only the middle of May but already the air felt thick and juicy and full of history, mine especially. Calvin was my closest friend; I trusted him with almost all my secrets. But I’d never told him much about my early life in Charleston; it just felt like ancient history, a different world, because it was.
“I’m sorry?” Calvin asked as we passed a storefront that had once housed a stationery shop, the scene of my first conscious transgression. When I was five years old, I pocketed a handful of pink erasers and ran out the door. I knew exactly what I was doing but that doesn’t mean it made sense.
“Who steals erasers?” he asked. “Were these particularly cute erasers? Covered with glitter or shaped like animals?”