busy. What can ancient history give them that they don’t already have?”
May looks at me deeply, watches me teeter on the dividing line that has shifted from her generation to mine. “Will you share the story with your family?” she asks.
I swallow hard, at war with myself. “I’ll tell my father. It’s his decision more than mine. Grandma Judy is his mother.” I have no notion of how my father will respond to the information or what he’ll do with it. “Part of me thinks Hootsie is right. The truth is still the truth. It has value.”
“Hootsie,” she grumbles. “This is the thanks I get for selling her that piece of land next to my grandmother’s old place so she and Ted could have their farm on it. After all these years, she tells my secrets.”
“I really think she felt it was in your best interest. She wanted me to understand the connection between you and my grandmother. She was thinking of the two of you.”
May swats at the idea like it’s a fly buzzing around her face. “Pppfff! Hootsie just likes to stir the pot. She has always been that way. You know, she was the reason I ended up staying with the Seviers at all. By the time we reached their home, Silas almost had me talked into taking to the river with him. He stood on the shore and grabbed me by the shoulders and kissed me. The first time I’d ever been kissed by a boy.” She giggles, her cheeks reddening and her eyes taking on a childlike glitter. For a moment, I see that twelve-year-old girl on the banks of the oxbow lake. “ ‘I love you, Rill Foss,’ he said to me. ‘I’ll wait here an hour. I’ll wait for you to come back. I can take care of you, Rill. I can.’
“I knew he was making promises he couldn’t keep. Only a few months before, he’d been hoboing trains, trying to survive. If there was one thing I’d learned from watching Briny and Queenie, it was that love doesn’t put food on the table. It doesn’t keep a family safe.”
She nods at her own conclusion, frowning. “Wanting to and doing are two different things. I guess in a way, I knew it wasn’t meant to be for Silas and me. Not while we were so young, anyway. But when I started up the path with Fern, all I wanted to do was run back to that dark-haired boy and back to the river. I might’ve done it if it hadn’t been for Hootsie. She made the choice for me before I could choose for myself. My plan was to sneak to the edge of the trees, hide there, and watch to be certain the Seviers would take Fern in again. I was scared to death that if they caught me, they’d send me back to the children’s home or off to some sort of workhouse for bad girls or even to jail. But Hootsie was out digging roots for her mama, and she spotted us there near the yard, and she went to hollering. Next thing I knew, there was Zuma, and Hoy, and Mr. and Mrs. Sevier rushing down the hill, and the dogs bounding ahead. I had no place to run, so I just stood there and waited for the worst to happen.”
She pauses, and I feel myself dangling on the precipice where she’s left me. “What did happen?”
“I learned that you need not be born into a family to be loved by one.”
“So they welcomed you back?”
A smile teases the corners of her mouth. “Yes, they did. Papa Sevier, and Hoy, and the other men had been out searching the swamps for us for weeks. They knew we must have left in the jon boat with Arney. By the time we came back, they’d given up hope that we would ever be found.” She laughs softly. “Even Zuma and Hootsie hugged us that day, they were so relieved to see us alive.”
“You were happy with the Seviers after that?”
“They were understanding of what we had done, after they knew the truth about the Arcadia, that is. Or what I could bring myself to reveal of the truth. I’d made up my mind never to tell them that there were other siblings beyond just Fern and me. I suppose in my twelve-year-old heart, I was still ashamed that I’d failed to protect Camellia, and Lark, and Gabion. I feared that the Seviers