Return to Sullivans Island by Dorothea Benton Frank Read Free Book Online

it too, don’t you?”
    “Yep. I know it. Oh, just forget it,” she said, wondering how she could get her back.
    Beth refilled their glasses and thought about the confounding truth of what she had just said. After all, years ago she had certainly seen Livvie in the mirror all through her childhood like many others had. And some unseen hand had most definitely turned down her bed the day that she arrived. They did hear things go bump in the night, all the time in fact, and the family’s possessions moved around from one shelf or table to another on a regular basis while the clock chimed when it wasn’t even wound. The bed in the room where her grandmother used to sleep was perpetually unmade no matter how many times they pulled up the covers, and a man who fit the description of her grandfather was frequently seen in the yard by neighbors, shaking his fist at the house. What in the world did these things mean? It would be an interesting topic for discussion when everyone got sick of talking about themselves. Which could take eons, she thought.
    “How’s that flounder coming? Anything I can do to help?” Maggie appeared in the doorway to the kitchen. “Y’all getting acquainted?”
    “I’ve got her number all right,” Beth said, smiled at Maggie, and hooked her thumb in Cecily’s direction.
    “Now, just what do you mean by that?” Maggie said. “Come on, the buffet’s all set up, so let’s get that fish on the fire. We’re all about to swoon from hunger.” She began slitting the sides of brown paper bags and laying them on the table to drain grease from the fish. “Instant recycling!”
    At the very least, they had to admire her endless ingenuity.
    Eventually supper was ready and Maggie called everyone to the meal. There were nineteen of them if you included Lola, who was being passed around like a beanbag, loving all the attention, yelping only occasionally.
    They held hands while Grant, who had flown in from California for the occasion with Maggie and Simon Rifkin, Beth’s stepfather of the uninvolved sort, led them in a short prayer.
    Just as they were serving themselves from the steaming platters of fish, onion rings, hush puppies, covered dishes of grits swimming in butter, and a huge bowl of salad, the back door slammed. Her aunts Sophie and Allison Hamilton, exercise and fitness gurus to the southeastern United States, popped into the living room from the kitchen like two matching corks.
    “Hello, hello!” they called out.
    In Charleston visitors normally announced themselves with Hey, anybody home? But Beth guessed that in Miami, where the twins lived, they said things like Hello, hello! And probably Ciao, ciao!
    At first glance, she couldn’t tell them apart. Identical twins were a curious phenomenon. Her aunts may have had the same DNA, but their personalities were polar opposites. Sophie was gregarious and generous, but Allison was sort of a haughty, humorless wretch. None of the family could say with certainty who was who until they began to speak, and that was how they knew the difference between them. They made their way around the room, offering more Hello hellos and dispensing polite hugs, back pats, and air kisses directed at cheeks.
    While everyone was piling food onto their plates and looking for a place to sit, Henry offered them goblets of wine, which they both declined. They didn’t drink a drop of alcohol, which Henry said to anyone who would listen made them highly suspicious characters in his book. But to be frank, Henry was suspicious of social interaction with any nonimbibing human.
    It was all Don’t you look wonderful! And Aren’t you excited about Paris, Susan? And Look at these boys! Aren’t they darling? And your girls, Timmy! My my!
    Until Allison got to Beth.
    She said, “Whatever on this earth has happened to you? The last time I saw you, you were just a little bitty bug. It was your daddy’s funeral, wasn’t it? That filthy rotten son of a bitch. Horrible man.