The Restoration of Celia Fairchild - Marie Bostwick Page 0,71

me to believe it.

I twisted the key in the lock, lifted the lid, and reached inside. The box was filled with pictures, nearly all of them of me. There were clippings too. I found announcements of my high school and college graduations, another of the dean’s list in the fall of my sophomore year with my name circled in blue pen, three stories I’d written for the college paper, and a copy of the headshot that always appeared next to my Dear Calpurnia column, glued onto heavy cardstock, neatly framed with a length of navy-blue grosgrain ribbon trimming the edge.

The moment I opened the box and saw that first clipping, my eyes started to fill. But it was the discovery of a lined notebook with a story I’d written when I was twelve inside, “Letticia Phoenicia: Jungle Guide,” and a picture of me at the same age, bent over with my head stuck into the gaping mouth of an enormous taxidermied alligator and Calpurnia standing by with her eyes gaping and a hand pressed against each cheek, pretending to scream, that finally did me in.

Sitting cross-legged on the floor in my sleep shirt, I cried so hard that the room went out of focus. And when I had no more tears, that’s when I saw it—a small, separate packet of pictures, some of Calpurnia alone, some of Calpurnia and someone else. She’d tied them together with a blue ribbon, so the images must have been related somehow, and the edges were worn from much handling, so she must have looked at them often. They’d been important to her.

Who was the man in the pictures? I didn’t recognize him. Maybe someone else would.

FELICIA SHUFFLED THROUGH the photos; there were five in all. Her brow furrowed and she paused briefly to look at each one before moving on to the next, as if she were organizing a hand of bridge.

“Have you seen these before? Do you know the man who’s with her?”

“I’ve never seen the pictures but I do recognize the boy. He was one of the cadets at the Citadel. But of course, you knew that from his uniform. I remember that he’d asked her to a formal and Cal came over to introduce him and show me her dress before they left for the dance. Seemed like a nice young man. And very handsome in his dress uniform.”

“Do you remember his name?”

Felicia shook her head. “Calpurnia had so many boys running after her when she was young; seemed like she had a new beau every other month. There didn’t seem to be much point in learning their names.

“She was a beauty,” Felicia said softly as she shuffled through the pictures again, her gaze focused on a Calpurnia who was smiling, laughing, and who seemed impossibly young. “One of the prettiest girls in Charleston. It always surprised me that she didn’t marry. Seemed like something happened to her after your grandpa died, like a light went out inside her. I tried to talk to Beebee about it once, told her that Calpurnia was too young and too pretty to spend the rest of her life taking care of her momma.”

“And what did Beebee say?”

“That I should mind my own business,” Felicia said, flashing a smile. “You know how she was. Stubborn. There wasn’t a poor, invalid widow in all of Charleston with a spine like Beebee’s. Straight as a ramrod and just about as flexible.”

“And selfish?” I asked.

“Sometimes,” Felicia admitted. “But when it came to Calpurnia, I honestly think she was just trying to protect her.”

“From what?”

“Oh, honey, I have no idea. Knowing Beebee, it could have been anything. Grief, heartbreak, black cats. She was so superstitious. Remember that Gullah woman she was always telling her dreams to? What was her name?”

“Sallie Mae,” I said.

“Sallie Mae! That’s right!”

Felicia flipped to the final photo in the stack, a Polaroid snapshot. Calpurnia was standing in front a redbrick building with an arched doorway, wearing a heavy wool coat. She was smiling, but not as broadly as she had been in the other pictures.

The image was a little blurry, but in some sense I found this Calpurnia to be more recognizable. There was a familiar sadness in her eyes that I remembered well. It wasn’t always present but I would sometimes catch a glimpse of it when she was gazing out a window and didn’t know I was watching her. When I would ask what she was thinking about, she would jump a little,