The Watery Part of the World - Michael Parker [93]
The O’Malleys took them across for the service. They were the only white people up in that church. It was so hot the air-conditioning was sweating. They held hands and cried and hugged and Whaley said to her sister, “Maggie, I’m sorry all these years I never acted like I love you but I do,” and her sister didn’t say anything just made that hush sound with the s’s streaming out of her mouth like water lapping the beach at night. She made a noise like the surf at night and it did not comfort Whaley for she knew all the wrong she’d done but it calmed her a little. That noise Maggie made with her mouth took her back across to the island.
“I told myself it was for the best, I reckon.” Liz nodded her earnest red head. She said, “Hold on, now Miss Whaley, I’ll be right back, okay?”
But while she was gone Whaley kept talking.
“No hell that’s a lie it won’t for the best I didn’t I did not tell myself a goddamn thing,” she was saying when Liz returned with her sister in tow, and she heard Maggie laugh and say to little Liz, “That’s the only time I ever heard that word out of her mouth.”
Whaley said, “I just blamed it on the wind.”
Maggie came over and sat in the chair she’d set out for Liz.
“What are you saying, sister?”
“About what happened,” said Whaley. “I’m just telling her what she needs to know.”
“Why don’t you share some of your recipes?” said Maggie.
Whaley laughed. “She’s the one asked,” she said, pointing to little Liz. “Come sit,” she said. “I’m not through.”
But Maggie would not get out of the chair. She said she’d stick her head in. Maggie had a story to tell too. Woodrow had one. Whaley said to little Liz, “Y’all never did get Woodrow down. Whatever he told y’all, it wasn’t exactly a lie …”
“Hush, now, Theo,” said Maggie, the s’s streaming out of her mouth like water lapping the beach at night.
“I’m just saying,” said Whaley.
“I’ve got an idea,” said Maggie.
“They’re the ones asked,” said Whaley. “They’re wanting to put it in the paper.”
“How about—” her sister said.
“I just wish,” said Whaley.
“You tell us a story from when we were little.”
Whaley looked at her sister. Beyond her, white sails and the inlet asparkle. Ducks and egrets would light on the water, so many it looked like an island. Decorations for women’s hats out of the plumage.
Whaley laid her head back in the chair. She opened her mouth to speak. Said to her sister, “Move so I can see across.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Though some of the people and places mentioned in these pages are real, this is a work of fiction, dependent upon the necessary fabrications, hyperbole, and transmogrification. Distortions notwithstanding, books are made from other books, and in this case I owe much to Richard N. Côté’s Theodosia Burr Alston: Portrait of a Prodigy and Nancy Isenberg’s Fallen Founder: The Life of Aaron Burr, as well as a shelf or two of memoirs and natural histories about the Outer Banks of North Carolina.
I am indebted to everyone at Algonquin—Craig Popelars, Michael Taeckens, Brunson Hoole, Kelly Clark Policelli, and especially Megan Fishmann—for their help with this book. Deep thanks to Bland Simpson for sharing his knowledge of coastal North Carolina and patiently answering my queries.
Table of Contents
Cover Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Theodosia Burr Alston
Woodrow Thornton
Theodosia Burr Alston
Maggie Whaley
Teodosia Burr Alston
Woodrow Thornton
Theo Whaley
Acknowledgments