But then the letters started coming—the letters from Him. They went to Mama’s house and it took her two months to bring them to me because I think she knew what they were. And she was right—they were love letters from Africa. I read two of them and then while Redmond was at work, I sat on the back porch and burned the unread letters one by one, lighting them in a trash can and watching them turn to ash while Ellie slept. That life was done; over; burned thoroughly. I told Mama to never bring another letter to the house; my heart and my bones began to remember Him and this could not be.

Nineteen

Nineteen

That next morning, I walked over to the Summer House and sat at Birdie’s breakfast table. “Do you remember your life when you were very young?” I asked.

“Dang, I hardly remember my life yesterday,” she said, laughing and then sitting. “Do you?”

“No. I have this dress at home in the cedar closet from a father-daughter dance when I was seven years old. I took it out last year and looked at it, and then went and found a photo from that same dance. I think I remember it—but maybe I just remember the picture: Dad and I stand in the middle of a ballroom at the Cherokee Town and Country Club, a buffet table with an ice sculpture of a princess behind us. So do I remember that or do I just remember the photo? It’s all so weird that there’s these things that happen to us that make us who we are, and then we don’t remember them. I know more about Lil’s days than she does, and still, and still … I can’t know her completely.”

Birdie took my hand. “Is it nice to see yourself from your mother’s eyes?”

“Yes,” I said. “Yes, it is.” I took a deep breath before I finally asked the question I’d held beneath all the other discussions we’d had. “Birdie, were you here when Mother came back for him? I’m not asking who it is or anything. I just want to know if you remember that day.”

She nodded. “I do. It was the last time she ever came here. Of course I wasn’t here—I still lived in Atlanta—but I knew she’d driven here to see him.” Birdie turned so I wouldn’t see the pain on her face, but I did see it and I cringed.

“So, I’m right. She didn’t come here after that because of him.”

“Yes, you’re right about that.” She paused. “We all have our own reasons for why we do and don’t do things; for why we go and don’t go places.”