Read Online The Time Between by Karen White - Free Book Online

it, she can take you to church or out to see friends.”
    I stilled, wondering how he could think that I could return to my old life, as if all that had happened had been a made-up story like the old movies Bernadett and I would sometimes watch. And then I remembered.
He doesn’t know.
My secret was mine alone now, like a piece of ripe fruit perfect on the outside, its rotten core visible only after one had bitten into it.
    I turned my face away, afraid that he could read my thoughts.
    “She plays the piano, Aunt Helena. As well as Aunt Bernadett, I think. When you’re feeling better, you can ask her to play for you.”
    The girl tensed, and I turned to study her again, her coltish body seeming to cleave to the shadows. She had one of those delicate, lovely faces that one sometimes overlooked in the presence of blatant beauty, a tulip in a garden of red roses. And it was almost painfully clear that she had no idea of her own beauty.
    “She does not look like a musician,” I said, watching the girl closely.
    Her chin rose slowly, her fine eyes taking their measure of me. “Neither do you.”
    Finn looked at her in surprise, while I forced my mouth to remain in a frown. “Who is your favorite composer?”
    Keeping her eyes on mine, she said, “We can talk about that once you’ve eaten something. I believe Nurse Kester said she’d left your lunch in the fridge. Would you like me to get it?”
    I shook my head. “No, let Finn do it. You may stay.”
    Finn glanced at the girl and she nodded. “I’ll be right back,” he said.
    We watched him leave, and then I closed my eyes. “I do not want you here. It would be better if you told Finn that you do not want this job anymore. Tell him I am too much trouble, too feisty for you. That I am not worth your time.”
    She was so quiet, I wondered if she had left. But then she spoke. “I can’t do that. I’m sorry.”
    I do not know what made me angrier—her refusal or her apology. How could she be sorry? I was the one who was sorry—sorry that I had not been allowed to die with Bernadett and silence the sorrowful songs that haunted me still. My voice trembled. “Have you ever known grieving that ends only when your own heart stops beating?”
    I wanted to look away, my own pain mirrored in her darkening eyes. “Yes,” she said, so quietly that I did not hear her. But I felt the word as if I had been struck, the waves of pain slow and undulating.
Ah.
I closed my eyes in understanding, knowing now why Finn had brought her. I just had no idea how to tell him that he was wrong, that a broken heart stayed broken even in the company of another.
    “I’ll be back on Saturday,” she said, her chin lifting slightly before she turned and headed toward the door. She paused on the threshold, then spoke without turning around. “My favorite composer was Chopin, but his music reminds me too much of my father.” She stepped aside to allow Finn and Nurse Kester to enter with a food tray. Facing Finn, she said, “I’ll meet you in the foyer when you’re ready to leave.”
    We watched her go, listening to her unhurried tread on the wood floors of the hallway, and I imagined Bernadett’s ghost nearby, applauding.
    Eleanor
    As a child growing up on Edisto, I spent as much time with Lucy’s family as with my own, loving how they kept a spot open for me at their Sunday supper table, and grasped my hands during the blessing as if my pale skin wasn’t any different from their own.
    It was to their house I’d run after my father’s boat was found, where I’d gone to be gathered tightly into the large bosom of Dah Georgie, Lucy’s grandmother. I had stayed with them until my mother came to get me, saying she needed help planning the funeral. I had never gone back to their small house near Store Creek, wanting my memories of it to fade so it wouldn’t hurt so much.
    But I could still hear their voices. The Gullah language, a mixture of West African dialects and English, had always