in silence for several minutes before Caldonia turned to Margaret.
“If you ever start to wonder why your mama did what she did, look in the mirror and see the woman you’ve become, Margaret Rose. You’re smart, pretty, dressed nice, got yourself a home, and had a good marriage. None of them things would a’ happened if your mama had kept you here with her. She knew what this life is like, so she sent you away. You might know a lot of loves in your life, but you ain’t ever gonna know a love as big as your mama’s.”
The minutes turned into hours as they sat and talked. Margaret told of her life with Albert, how she’d struggled with the thought of never having children, and how she’d been like a lost soul in the days after his death.
“I was in his office feeling sorry for myself one night when I noticed the paperweight he kept on his desk; it read, ‘If you never try, you will never succeed.’ He lived by that rule. No matter what, he never stopped trying. Not during the Depression; not when the business had its ups and downs; never. Over the years I’d thought about my sister and brothers a million times, but we’d lost touch with one another and I figured that was that. It was the same as if I had no family, except that I did.
“I sat there thinking about Albert’s rule for a long while, and I realized why I didn’t know where my family was.” Her tone brightened as she glanced at Tom and smiled. “It was because I hadn’t tried, really tried, to find them. Finally, I got up enough courage to ask Tom if he’d help me try and find everyone, and he found you. I never dreamed—”
“That I’d still be alive,” Caldonia said and gave a cackle that filled the room.
Morning became afternoon, and the sound of thunder could be heard in the distance. Caldonia warned that a storm was coming and said she could always tell by the ache in her bones. When the thunder drew closer and heavy raindrops began to pepper the roof, Margaret scooted her chair closer so as not to miss a word as she listened to Caldonia relay what Eliza had said about Oliver.
“He never came back. Not while your mama was alive and not after. That was how she wanted it, and he did as she told him.”
“But why would Mama tell Oliver not to come home?”
“I done said, that ain’t my story to tell. You got to ask your brother.”
Caldonia said she’d not heard from John Paul either, nor did she know where he might be.
“He’d come and go while your mama was alive; show up one morning, stay a few days, then be gone for weeks. When he was here, he was happy enough to do what had to be done—check there was meat hanging in the smoke house, chop wood, fill the coal bin or whatnot—but after a few days, he’d disappear and you’d wonder if he’d ever be back again. Eliza always said he felt most at home when he roaming through the woods.”
“Did he keep coming after Mama was gone?”
“While Louella was still alive he did, but she never once saw him. She’d wake up in the morning and find a bunch of wood stacked by the door or the coal bucket filled and know he’d been there. After she died the house sat empty, and far as I know he never came back.”
It rained all afternoon. As they huddled close with the crack of thunder sounding overhead, Caldonia told tales from a time when Margaret was too young to remember.
“You were two the summer Jeb built the barrel door. Your mama had gone to Charleston and came home with a fistful of your daddy’s money. She was worried he’d find out, come back in a rage, and do something to hurt one of her babies. Jeb built that secret door and didn’t put a lock on it so if there was trouble you kids could come hide over here.”
“Was there ever any trouble?”
Caldonia pulled a deep breath and leaned back into her pillows. “Just that one time, but you young’uns mostly used that door to come bothering me for cookies.” She looked down at the gnarled hands in her lap and shook her head. “Lordy, how I miss those days. Having Eliza to talk with, you kids running in and out all the