Sorry, I might’ve told you that already.” A rueful shake of his head sends nutmeg-brown bangs drifting over the delineation mark between a tan and the part of his face that is regularly shielded by a hat or cap. “You really don’t need to come ask me. There’s no sentimental attachment on my end. My dad died when I was three. Mom was from a family that wasn’t considered of his class, so Augustine was the last place she wanted to spend time after he passed. My sister had more ties here because she was ten years old when Mom relocated us to Asheville, but I didn’t and don’t.”
“I understand.” And yet, you’ve moved back to Louisiana to live.
I would never ask, of course, but why has Nathan, raised far from the bayous and the deltas, settled himself within a short drive of the ancestral homeplace he says he cares nothing about and can’t wait to dispose of? No matter how much he wants to see himself as disconnected from this town, it has some sort of hold on him.
Perhaps even he doesn’t understand what that is.
I feel a weird pang of jealousy toward his ancestral connection to a place. Maybe that’s one reason I’m keen to dig into the mysteries of Goswood Grove. I crave the sense of heritage that rises like mist from wet ground there, old secrets kept closely guarded.
Like Nathan’s, I suspect.
The alarm on my wristwatch goes off. I’ve set it to give me a five-minute warning before my drop-dead time for making it to school.
“Sorry,” I say, and fumble to silence the noise. “Teacher thing. We segment the day between bells and beeps.”
When I return my attention to him, he’s focused on me, as if there’s a question he’s pondering, but then he changes his mind. “I really can’t tell you anything about whatever’s in that library. Sorry.”
I plunge into a description of old books, undoubtedly valuable, and historical documents, as well as plantation records that detail events, offering facts that may not be recorded anywhere else. Things that, quite possibly, no one outside the family has looked at in a century or more. “We need some guidance on how you’d like to handle those items.”
“We?” He retracts suspiciously. Suddenly, the air is so taut it could tear at any moment. “The one thing I did ask was that you keep this between us. The house is—” He clips the sentence forcefully, with effort. Whatever he was about to say is mitigated to “I just don’t need the hassle.”
“I know that. It wasn’t my intention, but things have snowballed some.” I forge ahead, daunted but desperate. These are decisions that must be made by someone in the family. “Is there any possibility you and I could get together and you could look at some of it? I could meet you at Goswood Grove.” That’s a no-go, I can tell, so I quickly improvise, “Or at my house? I’d be happy to bring some things over there. They’re important. You really need to look them over.”
“Not at Goswood Grove House,” he says sharply. His eyes blink closed, remain that way a moment. His voice drops when he adds, “Robin was there when she died.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
“I could come tomorrow evening—Friday. To your house. I have plans back in Morgan City tonight.”
Relief softens the muscles along my spine, pulls the knots loose. “Friday is perfect. Six o’clock or…well, anytime after four-thirty. You choose.”
“Six is fine.”
“I could pick something up for us from the Cluck and Oink, if that sounds good? I’d offer to cook, but I really haven’t settled into the place yet.”
“Sounds good.” But if I had to gauge his countenance right then, I’d say good isn’t an apt description. Goswood Grove hangs around his neck like an albatross; the questions of its future care and feeding and the difficult memories it embodies are things he wants to avoid.
I understand that better than he probably thinks I do. I can’t possibly explain the reasons to him, so I thank him profusely and then reconfirm our time.