decadent, passionate Southern rain that could rant and rave like a banshee, weep till it tore out your soul, make you yearn as it dripped sensually from trailing Spanish moss perched on the ancient branches of the live oaks that bordered the house and the lawn, and stretched on and on, all the way down to the river. Turning, she gazed out across the property toward the Ogeechee, aware that it was in the same state she was: bursting and about to overflow. Yet even as she whipped up her anger again it felt suddenly remote, as though in the past few hours she’d distanced herself mentally and physically from what, only yesterday, had represented a major disaster. Perhaps, she considered thoughtfully, it wasn’t quite as catastrophic as she’d first imagined.
She glanced at her watch. It was nearly 2:00 p.m. Tracing a pattern on the faded carpet with the toe of her loafer, Elm faced the truth: her well-ordered world had been turned upside down, and the protective barriers she’d so carefully built around herself had collapsed as thoroughly and dramatically as an imploded building. Worse, this dreadful lack of inner peace she was experiencing would continue to haunt her until she took action.
Shoving her fingers through her straight, blond shoulder-length hair, aware now that she hadn’t washed it in two days, Elm took a long, stark look at the wreckage. It was time, she realized with a jolt, to pull herself together and get a grip, instead of hiding out at Oleander Creek.
Usually her family’s centuries-old plantation afforded immediate comfort in times of distress. But not this time. Neither had immersing herself in her painting, the one area of her life that Harlan hadn’t taken over and that afforded her not only pleasure, but the beginnings of success, as her landscapes and portraits—usually Southern scenes and people that she captured with a bold, distinctive brush stroke—became increasingly known throughout the country.
But this time, nothing seemed to help.
As suddenly as it had started, the torrential rain slowed abruptly to a trickle, its intense fury spent. Rising quickly from the wicker rocker, Elm knew an urgent need to get outside, to wander around the plantation’s grounds, desperate to rediscover the sense of serenity that the place had always brought her in the past. She longed to be enveloped in that hazy, magical soothing cloak of oblivion that always caught her unawares the minute she stepped past the ancient wrought-iron gates of the property.
Moving through the dining room, Elm automatically straightened the Hepplewhite chairs surrounding the wide mahogany table and reflected that since Harlan’s betrayal she had experienced no delight at the ancient wisteria covering the Oleander’s trellised walls, nor captured that wistful touch of recognition when she’d stepped—as she always made herself—in the crack in the river-mud brick steps where some careless Yankee soldier had smashed his rifle butt almost a century and a half before. Nothing.
Not even a gentle sigh escaped her as she stepped onto the wide porch, home to the balmy breezes that blew softly in from the river, where she’d spent so many dreamy nights of her girlhood, gazing at the full moon shining bright and clear, while moonbeams played a stealthy game of hide-and-seek over the river and the ever-present scent of lavender and thyme seeped gently past the oleander trees and the camellias. Not even the sight of the old canvas hammock, strung up between the two live oaks a few paces from the hunting lodge, had helped one iota. And reluctantly Elm realized that for the first time in memory Oleander Creek had failed her.
Even as this occurred to her, she wondered if it wasn’t she who had failed Oleander Creek. The plantation had long been home to people of great courage and initiative, rare individuals who’d faced stark, seemingly insurmountable obstacles with decisiveness and grace. Maybe it withheld its pleasures from those who didn’t deserve her.
At the thought, she ran from the dining room, through the study—an addition built in the 1920s by her grandmother—into the hall, and grabbed her jacket, confused. She felt irritable, antsy, shaken and desperate, as though the needle of her compass was suddenly spinning. Opening the front door, she headed quickly down the steps to the old Jeep Cherokee parked on the gravel and shells, unwilling to admit that her safe haven wasn’t safe anymore; that the long hours spent churning up trowel-loads of earth in the gardens had resulted in nothing; that slashing swabs of thick, rich, brightly colored oil paint on endless canvases had in no way assuaged her feelings. And that, like it or not, she was going to have to delve inside the closed Pandora’s box deep within herself to find the answers.
Letting out something between a huff and a groan, Elm turned the key in the ignition, drove around the flower bed and down the bumpy drive that stretched for two miles before it reached Ogeechee Road, knowing definitively that her world had changed and was engulfed by a wave of nostalgia. Nothing would ever be the same again. She’d only felt this way once before, when her mother had died—robbed, defiled and defrauded. But back then she’d been too little to understand, with no one to blame except cruel fate and the cancer that had taken her mother, two bewildering forces that had seemed too huge to counter.
But this was different.
Now, she acknowledged, veering past the gate and waiting for a break in the oncoming traffic, she had a say in the matter and knew where the blame lay. It was her own damn fault for choosing to remain oblivious, aloof, content to sail blithely along, pretending—to herself and others—that everything in her marriage was just dandy, never once admitting that her life was not quite the picture-perfect postcard she’d tried so hard to project.
Elm shifted gears, sat straighter and peered to her left before turning onto I-16 and heading toward Savannah, reflecting as she gripped the wheel tighter that perhaps if she’d done something about the situation sooner, she might have—
The harsh, urgent honking of an oncoming car made her sit up and swallow as she wrenched the Cherokee back apologetically into her own lane. She must stop being so distraught and take action. After all, things weren’t going to fall conveniently back into place simply because she wanted them to. It was too late for that.
A clear stretch in traffic allowed her to put her foot on the accelerator. Glancing down, she glimpsed her old beige Gucci loafers and her smooth feet—still tanned, even though it was early December. That she should notice something as trivial and insignificant as a tan when her life was spinning out of control seemed almost funny. It was also superficial and ridiculous, she reflected, pinning her attention back on the road, a knot in her throat. Typical of the person she’d allowed herself to become.
She let out a small sound of repressed frustration. She didn’t smoke, drank only moderately and didn’t chew gum—that was unladylike. But right now, Elm felt like driving straight to the beautiful mansion featured in Southern Living that she’d shared so dutifully with Harlan for the past twelve goddamn years and getting rip-roaring drunk.
Instead, habit won and she drove carefully into town and made her way sedately through the squares and streets she’d frequented all her life. Waving her manicured hand at Mrs. Finchely on the corner of Abercorn, she parked neatly in front of her own garage, turned off the ignition and took a quick peek in the rearview mirror.
What she saw was a brutal reminder of all that had changed since she’d last been home. Her dark eyes, such a contrast with her hair, had rings under them; her usually healthy skin looked dull. For once she actually looked her age, she reflected, making a feeble attempt to right the offending hair that fell lank on her shoulders. Not that it mattered, she argued, glancing at her hands—well tended despite the daily contact with the earth and all her work gardening. Sliding them over the thighs of her beige chinos, she tried to think. She must talk to someone or she’d go crazy.
But whom?
Aunt Frances, her mother’s sister and her lifelong confidante, was out of town. Anyway, she was an elderly lady and shouldn’t be worried by her niece’s problems.
Elm
