“Yes! I was jealous of your money,” Carson shouted back. “You have so much! I was raised by a man who couldn’t hold down a job. I never knew where the next dollar was coming from. Never knew from one month to the next if we’d be evicted or if the electricity would be cut off.”
But Harper was past the point of feeling pity for Carson’s upbringing. Who was to say that Harper had it any better just because the adults in her life had more money to throw around? “First, that man you’re talking about was my father, too. I didn’t know him. Dora barely knew him, either. I was raised by a sixty-two-year-old nanny who farted excessively and sucked peppermints to disguise the liquor on her breath. Want to talk about moving? I was shipped off to boarding schools since the age of six, to my grandparents’ houses for holidays, and Mamaw’s in the summer. Hardly the model family.”
“At least you have money. There’s a fear connected with not knowing if you have enough to eat that you don’t have a clue about. And the worst of it is, no matter what I do, I always seem to end up back in that same place. How do you think I felt when you whipped out your checkbook and paid for the kitchen remodeling?”
“I was trying to make Mamaw feel better!”
“But you also made me feel like shit. Like I was a moocher. Which I am.”
Dora said, “If you are, so am I.”
Harper shook her head. “I can’t win for losing. I try to be generous and you throw it in my face. Would you rather I didn’t help Mamaw? Or you?”
The last point stung and Carson hung her head. “No. Of course not,” she said in a lower tone. “I appreciate all the help you’ve given me. You know that.”
Harper’s voice cracked. “No, I don’t.” She felt her lips quiver and fought the hurt. “I don’t want you to thank me,” she said with despair. “I wanted to help you because I love you.”
Carson’s face contorted and she moved to put her arms around Harper. “I know. I’m sorry, Harpo. I never should have said those things. I didn’t mean them. I can be such a bitch.”
Harper hugged her sister back. “Yes, you did mean them, but I’m glad we cleared the air. I just want you to understand that I don’t live a charmed life. What it’s like to have a mother like mine who always makes me feel bad about myself. Sometimes I wish I didn’t have a mother. That she’d have just given me to Daddy. Like your mother did. We could’ve been raised together. At least we’d have had each other.”
Carson choked out a laugh and wiped her eyes. “Yeah. But I kinda wish my dad gave me to your mother. It’d have been easier. Trust me. Together we could’ve dealt with Georgiana.”
Harper laughed at the idea of the two of them trashing her mother’s elegantly appointed apartment. “I’d put you up against Georgiana any day.”
“Bring it.”
Dora wiped her hands with a towel and took a look around the cottage. “Before you begin the gladiator exhibit, let’s finish up here. Other than the jewelry box, I don’t think there’s anything else that needs to be saved.” She sighed. “I think we’re done.”
Harper looked around the small cottage readied for painting. The pine floors were covered with boxes each filled with items to be donated. The bookshelves were empty, the curtains taken down, the rugs rolled up to be cleaned or given away. The paintings were stacked neatly against the wall.
“A whole lifetime packed into these boxes,” Dora said. “Seems so little.”
“Does it?” asked Carson. “If I packed up everything I owned, I wouldn’t have half this much.”
“Seeing all these boxes makes me realize how unimportant all this stuff is,” Dora said. “I felt this same way walking around my house in Summerville when I was there last. All my possessions were packed up, my furniture covered with tarp. You know, there was a time I’d have been frantic about leaving it all there, terrified someone would steal something. When I saw it all last week, it all kind of made me ill. I couldn’t wait to get out. That house and all that stuff is an albatross around my neck. A battleground for the lawyers. They’re dividing everything, even my furniture. I was upset about that at first, but now . . .” She shrugged. “Let Cal sell it. I can’t take it to the cottage with me, and I don’t want to spend money to store it. All this”—she spread out her arms—“it’s all just stuff.”
Carson opened the cottage door and strolled out to the porch. “It’s going to be a good sunset,” she called to her sisters. “Come join me.”
Harper and Dora followed Carson to the porch. Carson moved a rocker to face the setting sun and slid into it. Dora took the second rocker, while Harper fetched a chair from the house. They sat together on the front porch in a collective silence as the western sky deepened to magenta.
“I was thinking,” Harper said at length. “We packed up all Lucille’s things and they won’t be missed. What we’ll miss is Lucille. The cottage feels so empty without her.”
“What matters is what we remember,” said Carson. “Our memories.”
Dora smiled wistfully and her eyes took on the sparkle of memory. “When I remember Lucille, I won’t think about her wearing the ol’ fox stole or hat. I’ll remember Lucille wearing her shirtwaist dress and standing in front of the stove, shaking her wooden spoon at me.”
Carson smiled at the image. “She used that spoon on my behind more than once.” They all laughed at the shared memory. “When I think of Lucille, I’ll remember her sitting out on the porch with Mamaw, playing cards.”
Harper and Dora murmured their agreement.
“How many times did we see them there?” asked Harper.
“I could kick myself for not once thinking of taking a picture of those two old hens together,” added Carson.
“You have the picture.” Dora tapped her forehead. “In your memory. We all do. That’s what we’re doing here now. This summer. Remembering the past. But we’re also creating new memories that will keep us close in the years to come. After Sea Breeze is sold.”
Dora reached out to take Carson’s hand on her left and Harper’s hand on her right. “We can’t fade from each other’s lives again. Not ever. We need to keep creating memories together.”