very ironic in the fact that I’m still going to have to haul my ass down to the local convenience store because I don’t have a working phone.
I walk to the room with the bookcases and notice the fireplace is immaculate. At one of the bookcases, I draw my finger on a shelf. There’s no dust. I trace the spines of all five books. I pull out the Mark Twain Anthology, look at the bookmark. It’s a picture of a man with light hair, straight nose and thin lips. He’s wearing a tuxedo, a white pleated shirt and bow tie. On the back is written in pencil “Grey Alexander.” In this picture, he looks like I remember my father looked the last time I saw him thirty-four years ago. My heart hurts a little.
Grey’s hair is cut just so, his tie so straight. I wonder how he could ignore the upstairs mildewed wall, and why isn’t there more of him in this house? His silent black-and-white eyes stare back at me.
Magnolia Hall
March 1861
It has been two weeks since I was married and my husband brought me to his new home. I try not to think about how far I have come in these few short weeks. I miss so much—my mother and father, my room, the house I lived in since the day I was born. I also miss the mornings in Greensville, the soft footsteps of servants around Hemsley. I am so sick with feelings of loss I do not know what to do.
I did my best to hide my feelings the day Mr. Alexander and I left Greensville after the wedding, but Mama detected my sadness as I was dressing. She petted my hair and told me my life would be fine someday. I looked up at her, asked how she knew, how she could be so very sure.
With my question she straightened as if something had come over her and announced I was acting foolish, I was a married woman, with a good husband and I should be happy, and if I were not, I was to find some way to make myself happy—I was to endure. Then she sat down beside me as if she could not make up her mind, either, took my hand in hers, and said she would always love me, but for her sake I had to endure until I found a way to be happy.
I asked why Father wanted me to go away, why was it so important that I wed.
Mama shook her head, studied my fingers for a moment too long.
“That is just the way our lives are. Father wants you married, and you do not seem capable of choosing a husband or even finding and keeping a suitor. You are too shy, Charlotte. Reservedness is becoming—however, you are very queer in your actions.”
I have always lived away from people. I do not know why. I feel a distance at times. I am not one for change or exciting events. I have always liked to stay home, be in the same place. I love a room when I have been in it a thousand times. I adored the everyday view from my window.
My husband and I are different in that way. Mr. Alexander seems joyful with the house he built. He talks about the newness of the entry hall and the sitting room, the fine dining room and library. How, over time, he will bring new and beautiful things to our new home.
The house is beautiful. Late in the afternoon, when the front door is open, sunlight turns the floor to glistening silk. I saw happiness burst forth on my husband’s face yesterday afternoon when he walked through the front door and the house was ablaze with sunset.
Two nights ago after dinner, my husband asked me into the parlor. I went in thinking he wanted to discuss the management of the house or the night’s menu—that the greens were bitter or the bread was too tough.
He sat next to me on the divan, took my hand in his. In the firelight his eyes looked bluer than I have ever seen them. I asked him if he were displeased about my management of the house, the kitchen?
“No, I am not.” Then he said very quickly, “I worry you are not happy.”
I blinked, looked down at my lap, embarrassed that my feelings are so transparent.
“Charlotte, you must always be truthful. I am your husband and you must be honest with me.”
I could only nod.
“I do not want you to be sad and I sense that you are, Charlotte.” And then he squeezed my hand. I dipped my chin more. I did not wish to dampen his spirits.
“Tell me, Charlotte.”
And suddenly words began to pour out of me.
“My sorrow for what I used to know is great, silly as that is. I am afraid this makes me a very selfish person.”
His arm went around my shoulders and we sat silently.
A moment later he stood, announced that he would retire to the library, he had much work to do. He kissed my forehead and I was alone and could think more clearly.
I watched the flames of the fire, forced myself to remember how long ago I attended the Greensville sewing circles with Mama. There I heard women professing their adoration for their husbands, and I began hoping to experience the same kind of union. I am still praying some wifely devotion will find me—make me tremble on the veranda when my husband appears from the foggy mist.
Last night Mr. Alexander and I were sitting out on the veranda, and he told me in a delicate way how much he has loved me from the moment his eyes fell upon me at the evening party my parents hosted. With the night breeze fanning my warm face, I smiled.
“Thank you, for the very dear compliment, Mr. Alexander.”
“Why don’t you refer to me as James, it being a more familiar, loving term?”
When I did not answer, he stood and stared down at me.
Why didn’t I tell him the truth—that I am blind to what a wife should feel or do for her husband. The sadness in his eyes told me he knew, yet he did not press me. Late that night when he held me close and whispered promises to me, I felt dizzy and wondered what it will be like to spend the rest of my life in his arms.
But I did not say a word.
Magnolia Hall
Greensville, NC
June 2000
“Good holy God!”
A black woman is standing on the back porch with her face pressed against the kitchen screen door and my heart is thumping into my throat.
“You shouldn’t use the Lord’s name in vain,” she says, and straightens a little.
“What? What do you want?” I ask, then step back and wonder if there’s a knife close by. I came into the kitchen this morning hoping to find coffee, maybe tea. But there was nothing. And now this!
The woman laughs and puts her hands on her hips. “Why, child, don’t you remember me? I’m Tildy Butler.”
Tight black curls lie in swirls close to her head. She smiles again and her teeth, very white and perfect, take up a lot of her unfamiliar face.
“Hope I didn’t scare you.” She opens the screen, comes into the kitchen. “I was going to call and then I remembered the phone had been shut down, so I thought, well, Tildy Butler, you are acting inhospitable. Then I decided I needed to come right over and see Miss Juliette.”
I take a step back and wish my heart would quit beating so hard. “Who did
