Part 7 (1/2)

”The recipe was contributed by a Mrs. Carlton Dennis. Does that strike a gong?”

I giggled. Couldn't help it. ”Strike a gong? Do you mean 'ring a bell'? Nope, I don't even hear the faintest ding. When was that thing published?”

Although she tried to hide it, I could tell Augusta was annoyed at my reaction-or vexed, vexed, as my grandmother would say. A dainty little flush spread across her perfect cheeks. ”I don't know, but I'll look,” she said, and disappeared into the kitchen, returning seconds later with a small blue paperbound book that was little more than a pamphlet. It was speckled with age and possibly with food. Augusta glanced at the fly leaf. ”1912,” she said. as my grandmother would say. A dainty little flush spread across her perfect cheeks. ”I don't know, but I'll look,” she said, and disappeared into the kitchen, returning seconds later with a small blue paperbound book that was little more than a pamphlet. It was speckled with age and possibly with food. Augusta glanced at the fly leaf. ”1912,” she said.

”This Mrs. Dennis could have been the mother of one of the Mystic Six,” I said. ”I don't know anybody with that name here, but I'll bet Vesta would.”

Augusta spoke softly. ”Then why don't we give her a call?”

I'd had almost nothing to eat since the day before, so I put my grandmother on hold while I inhaled two bowls of Augusta's pumpkin-peanut soup with several pieces of her honey wheat bread. The nondescripts, I found, made an elegant dessert.

”It's not a thing in the world but egg yolks and flour with a little vanilla,” Augusta said, ”but you have to roll them thin enough to see through. It was hard to lift them from the frying pan without breaking them.”

”Maybe you can teach me to make them,” I said, but Augusta didn't answer-which usually meant she didn't want to.

I waited until mid afternoon to phone Vesta-I wanted to get a report on Mildred, too. ”Do you remember a family here named Dennis?” I asked when she finally answered the phone. She sounded breathless, as if she'd run up a flight of steps. ”What's the matter? Your elevator not working?”

”I was in the shower, Arminda. Now, who's this you want to know about?”

”Oh. Want me to call you back?” I pictured her towel wrapped and scowling, dripping water on her lush burgundy carpet.

”No, it's all right. I grabbed a robe. Dennis who?”

”A family named Dennis. We-I found that recipe for nondescripts in an old cookbook, and it was submitted by a Mrs. Carlton Dennis.”

”The name sounds familiar. I know I've heard it somewhere. When was this?”

”1912. It was published by a club your grandmother belonged to. Sort of like a garden club I guess-called themselves the Daisies. I thought maybe her daughter might be one of the Mystic Six.”

My grandmother laughed. ”The Daisies. Met faithfully once a month. I don't think they ever gardened...but I don't remember a Mrs. Dennis belonging.”

”Maybe they moved away.... I was hoping you might know if they had a daughter.” It was hard to keep the disappointment from my voice.

”I'm sorry, Minda. Is there some special reason you want to know?”

”Well...no. Just curious,” I lied.

”Wish I could help you, honey, but I do well to remember my social security number.”

It wasn't until I'd hung up the phone that I realized I hadn't thought to ask about Mildred, but I decided it might be wise to give Vesta time to get dressed before I called again.

She saved me the trouble. ”Minda, I've thought of where I saw that name,” my grandmother said when she phoned me a few minutes later. ”It was in the cemetery. The Dennises have the plot down from ours. I've walked past it for most of my life, going to the hydrant for water.”

”The Carlton Dennises? Are other family members buried there?”

”I don't know. Don't think so. I just remember the name on the stone. You've seen it, Arminda. It's a big old thing with lilies carved on it. Mama used to say she thought it was ostentatious.”

”Good,” I said.

”What?”

”I mean, thanks for the information. How's Mildred?”

Vesta groaned. ”Well, I'd really like to tell you how she is, but Mildred's flown the coop.”

I tried to picture that. ”What do you mean? Where is she?”

”Called from the hospital this morning to tell me her friend Lydia was driving down to get her and she'd see us in a couple of weeks.”

”I can't blame her for wanting to put Angel Heights behind her for a while,” I said. ”Maybe this visit will be good for her.”

”It's just as well, I suppose,” my grandmother said. ”They phoned a few minutes ago to tell me they're ready to settle Otto's estate, and I don't have a good feeling about it.”

Chapter Nine.

I'd had enough of cemeteries. After Jarvis died I visited his grave site several times a week, but the experience did nothing to comfort me. If anything, the sight of the s.h.i.+ny new marker against raw, red earth made me hurt even more. Before leaving for Angel Heights, I had left a pot of bright yellow chrysanthemums and said goodbye. Jarvis was in the laughter we'd shared, the love we had for each other. He wasn't there.

My mother lay in this cemetery, and for that reason I hadn't been back here in years, but I knew where she was buried as if I'd made it a daily ritual. Now it was time to go there for real. A magnolia shaded her headstone-a simple slab of granite engraved with her name and the dates of her birth and death. There was a place for my father beside her, but I didn't think he'd be using it, since there wasn't room there for his second wife. Mom had died of a brain tumor, sudden and final. We hardly had time to say the things we wanted to say, do the things we needed to do to ease her going. I was only fourteen, and she was my lifeline. Her death left frayed ends.

But today Augusta walked with me, and I brought the last of the lingering roses from the bushes under the dining room window. Pink and yellow, they weren't nearly so vibrant as my mother had been, but they would have to do. After a couple of days of rain, the weather had turned warmer and I shed my sweater as we walked the mile or so through residential streets and up the curving road to the town cemetery on the hill. The sky was so blue it almost hurt my eyes, and here and there leaves still clung to trees like colorful confetti. The angel-like rock formation on the hill above us seemed to smile her blessing. It was the kind of day that made me glad to be alive, and I felt a slight pang of guilt as I walked past those who weren't here to enjoy it.

Augusta left me alone to spend some time by my mother's grave, and I cleared it of fallen magnolia leaves, arranged the roses in a jar, and said some things to her that were in my heart. I was getting ready to leave when I heard a car approaching on the gravel road nearby and saw Sylvie Smith get out with a large white potted mum. She seemed to be heading for Otto's grave in the adjoining lot, and not wanting to intrude on a private moment, I stepped behind the magnolia. I heard the rustle and crunch as she waded through the mound of now-dead flowers on his grave to make room for her chrysanthemums. And then I heard something else.

”I'm sorry, Otto. I hope you can forgive me. I didn't know what else to do.”

I stood for frozen minutes with my face pressed against the tree, my hands digging into its sooty black bark, until I heard the car start up and she was gone.

Augusta, of course, was nowhere in sight. I found her on the far side of the hill, arranging a spray of autumn leaves on a lonely looking grave set apart from the rest. The person buried there had died in the early part of the twentieth century. ”Family must have moved away and left her, ”she explained. ”She's not here to care, I know, but it doesn't hurt to brighten the spot a bit.”

I told her about Sylvie Smith. ”What do you think she meant? She asked Otto for his forgiveness, Augusta. Do you suppose she killed him?”

”Was she grieving? Remorseful? How did she act?”

”She didn't stay long, and I couldn't see her without giving myself away, but she sounded sad. Kind of quiet. I wonder what she's sorry for.”

Augusta didn't answer, but I could tell by her tiny hint of a frown she thought it worth considering.

The Dennis family plot was right where Vesta had said it would be, and easy to recognize because of the huge lily-festooned stone. Augusta gingerly stepped over the low rock wall to read the inscription. ”Louise Ryan Dennis ”Louise Ryan Dennis and and Carlton Clark Dennis Carlton Clark Dennis ... Why, they died only a few days apart: February eleventh and February fifteenth, 1918.”She paused with her hand on the stone as if giving it a blessing. ”The flu epidemic, of course! So many soldiers died-others, too. It was merciless, spreading through towns, cities, sometimes taking whole families.” ... Why, they died only a few days apart: February eleventh and February fifteenth, 1918.”She paused with her hand on the stone as if giving it a blessing. ”The flu epidemic, of course! So many soldiers died-others, too. It was merciless, spreading through towns, cities, sometimes taking whole families.”

”Are there other markers?” I looked about for a daughter or daughters who might have met the same fate.

”None named Dennis, but there seems to be another family in the same plot. Relatives, perhaps.”Augusta knelt by a small stone in the corner almost hidden by a holly tree. Carstairs... Susan D. Carstairs. Carstairs... Susan D. Carstairs. Husband's buried here, too. Name's Robert.” Husband's buried here, too. Name's Robert.”

The Carstairses had died in the 1930s, but over to the side we found a third and more recent gravestone from that family dated 1978. Dennis R. Carstairs seemed to have been the last of the clan. ”I wonder if there are relatives still in Angel Heights who might know about the Dennis family, ”I said, pulling up a pine seedling that had sprung up in the middle of the last Carstairs grave. ”Maybe a wife or children.” But I didn't have much hope, as the plot didn't look as if anyone tended to it on a regular basis other than the infrequent mowing.