A/N: I just have a few bits of housekeeping! Firstly, I want to thank everyone for the magnificently nice feedback I've been getting! Also, I've been trying to stay as true to the book as possible when writing this, but in working on this chapter I realized that some of my timing may have gotten a little wonky, so the kid's summer activities may seem a little redundant when comparing this to the second chapter (also, if Scout seems OOC I'm sorry! I tried to capture the spirit of a seven year old the best I could haha). In going forward, I'm reassessing things so it'll be as accurate as it possibly can! I also have this terrible habit of writing Jean when I meant to write Louise; I've gone through and double checked everything, but I'm still paranoid that I might've slipped somewhere, so please don't mind me if I did. Lastly, despite the fact that I've studied history, I actually have no clue exactly when snapshots and photos really became easily accessible for people, so if that is historically incorrect I'm sorry (it just worked out really well for this chapter)!
-o-o-o-
Louise's Aunt Bea died in February of 1934. By the time she passed, it hadn't come to much of a surprise to anyone in the family. In the months leading up to her death, she had quickly been deteriorating. Louise, since she wasn't bound to anyone or anything else, had spent nearly every day with her aunt before she died. She felt as though she owed it to Bea to stay by her side and tend to her, considering everything she had done for Louise and her sisters while they were growing up. Bea had never married, and instead focused all of her attention on all of her nieces. For as long as Louise could remember, Bea had lived in the same neighborhood as Edie and was always readily available with warm bread and jam whenever any of "her girls" needed her.
Now, she was gone.
Though the family had been able to prepare for and anticipate her death, it still cut both Louise and Hattie deep. In the days following her death, the sisters assisted their mother and other aunts in cleaning out Hattie's house and dividing her belongings. When no one was looking, Louise had managed to swipe the three chunky rings that Bea always wore. Whenever Louise was upset, Bea would slide the rings off of her fingers and let Louise play with them and they were among Louise's favorite worldly possessions. Once she returned home, she slid them in the velvet sack that also contained a pair of pear earrings and a ring that had once belonged to Jean. She then put the sack in the small chest that contained more of Jean's belongings and other things that Louise cherished. When Jean had passed, she had come into possession of quite a few of her sister's things. Some of these items would eventually go to Scout and Jem, but others were meant for her, always tucked away somewhere nearby so that it was almost like Jean was present.
When Bea had died, Louise had gone to the funeral service but ultimately refused to watch them bury her aunt. This caused much embarrassment for Edie, but Louise remained adamant in her decision despite her mother's nagging. She didn't know why she refused to go, but she was never one to do something she had a gut feeling against. But, that was nearly four months ago.
It was now June. The days were getting hotter and longer, and the moment the children were out of school Louise decided that she was returning to Maycomb. The last time she saw them was for Bea's funeral, where they sat in the chapel stiff and obedient, looking solemn. Watching them, Louise decided that she would return to them as quickly as she could. She would be to them as Bea was to her.
This time, she gave Maudie and Atticus fair warning of her arrival and Atticus told her that he would pick her up from the train station. That evening when she arrived back in Abbott County and spotted Atticus, she noticed the children were nowhere in sight. Smiling as he hugged his sister-in-law, he (almost proudly) informed her that he had failed to mention to them that Louise was coming because he thought it would be a nice surprise. Louise laughed to herself as he took her suitcase, her brother-in-law could be a trickster if he really wanted to.
"Where do they think you are, then?" She asked as they slid into his car. Again, he looked really pleased with himself.
"I called home at the last minute and asked Cal to stay later because I had work to do at the office," he smirked. "Maudie and I decided to keep you a secret the moment you said you were comin'."
"Well, aren't the two of you mischievous?" Louise winked.
"I thought it was quite clever." He chuckled. "I hope you're not expectin' to see Maudie tonight, the children would be beside themselves if you don't stay. I already have the third cot ready to be put in the sunroom."
"I wasn't expecting anything else." Louise responded with a smile.
Atticus went quiet, and for a short while the only noise to be heard in the car was the sound of his thumbs tapping on the steering wheel. After a few moments, without looking away from the road in front of him, he asked: "how's your mother holdin' up?"
"Just fine. Did she tell you about the stand she's opening up at the city market on the weekends?" In the months between Bea's death and Louise's return to Maycomb, Atticus had made a handful of visits to Montgomery as a result of the state legislature being in session. Due to school, he wasn't able to bring Jem and Scout with him, which meant that his free time was spent in Edie's parlor chatting with her.
Atticus chuckled. "She did not," he informed her. "Is she sellin' embroideries or something?"
"Ha! I almost wish that's what she was sellin'. Nope, she's sellin' candy." Louise responded, trying not to laugh.
"Candy?" He asked, almost in disbelief.
"Yes, candy. After school one day she apparently dragged Libby out to a store to buy ribbon candy, those hard stick candies, gum and other silly things, and she's even attempting to make her own." Louise said, trying her best to sound serious.
"Is she actually selling it?" He asked, raising his eyebrows.
"Surprisingly, yes. She thinks she's sellin' more than she actually is though. Clara, Libby and I pick at it every chance we get." She smirked. "She actually thinks that people like those hard, licorice flavored sticks so she keeps gettin' them. Once she brings 'em home I take 'em all."
Atticus smiled. "I think you and Jean are the only two people who actually enjoy those things," he recalled. Secretly, she liked the fact that he referred to Jean in the present tense. "She didn't care for any other candy besides those sticks. I wasn't too fond of them, but every time she got one for herself she'd get one for me, too. She told me that she wouldn't make me do anything I didn't like besides eat those things, because she liked seein' how black my mouth would get from them. She said they weren't the type of thing you could eat alone because they made you look so foolish."
Louise laughed, thinking of Atticus with his tongue and gums stained black from the candy (for some reason it seemed so uncharacteristic of him). "Whenever Aunt Bea would go to the drugstore when we were kids, she would always get stick candy for all of us and every time she would get me and Jean the licorice ones because she knew how much we liked them. We used'ta sit on Bea's porch swing and compare our tongues."
"That's what we would do," Atticus said, his smile still on his face. "When Jem was little we used to tuck him in and sit on the porch swing and eat them. One time, he must've been two or so, he had a nightmare so I went to go get him and he saw how my mouth was stained and thought I was a monster or something, which made him even more upset. Jean came rushing in to comfort him, and her mouth was even darker than mine was and he just had an absolute fit." Atticus laughed and Louise could tell that thinking about Jean made him happy.
"The poor thing!" Louise said as she laughed along with Atticus.
"He was still traumatized the next morning," Atticus said seriously. "It took him hours before he could even look at us the same way."
It didn't take them long to reach Atticus' house. As Atticus parked the car in the car-house, he smiled. "Maybe you should hide somewhere," he suggested, and Louise could tell that he was actually excited about surprising the children. "I can go inside and distract the children, and in a few minutes I'll send them outside to find you."
"You're gettin' more mischievous with age," Louise said playfully as she got out of the car. "I'm enjoying it quite a bit."
He smiled as they both shut their doors softly. "Wait here for a minute while I go inside." He said before leaving her in the car-house. Smiling to herself, she couldn't help but to feel excited about how surprised Jem and Scout would be.
After waiting for a few minutes, Louise quietly sneaked out of the car-house. Looking around Atticus' property to make sure she was safe, she wondered about where she could hide. She looked at the treehouse and was quite tempted, despite her fear of heights. Looking to see if there were any alternative hiding spots, she decided that she would have to simply overcome her fear if this plan was going to go on without a hitch. Inhaling slowly, she approached the treehouse and almost effortlessly climbed the ladder. However, once she was actually sitting at the base of the house and could look at the ground below her, she began to regret her decision. Nervously, she slid back deeper into the treehouse so she would be out of sight.
With no way to tell time, it seemed as though Louise had been trapped up there forever. Finally, she heard the front screen door open. "Alright," Atticus said as she heard Jem and Scout step onto the porch. "I want you to look around to see if you see anything unusual." Louise immediately regretted not picking a more obvious hiding spot, realizing that it might take a long time for the children to find her.
She heard Jem and Scout running around both the front and back yard, shouting to each other over whether they found what their father was talking about. "Atticus," Jem called. "We don't see anythin'."
Louise saw Atticus walking around the yard to see if he could find her, when he caught her eye. "Maybe you two should go to your treehouse." He advised them as she silently thanked God.
Quickly, she heard the children running once again, and Scout's head bobbed up to the entrance of the treehouse. As soon as she saw her aunt, the girl shrieked scaring both her brother and Louise. Scout climbed up the rest of the stairs and threw herself into Louise's lap. "Aunty!" She nearly shouted. "Why, Aunty I thought you were afraid of heights!"
"Wait, what?!" Jem exclaimed as he climbed into the treehouse. Immediately after seeing Louise, his face lit up. "Hey, Aunt Lou!" He exclaimed as he tried to hug her as best as he could (Scout being on top of her made it a little difficult).
"What do you say?" Atticus asked, chuckling. "Is this a nice surprise?"
Jem and Scout both excitedly gave Atticus positive assurances as they continued to marvel over Louise's arrival. Clearing her throat, Louise looked at both of them and said: "I hope you know we're stayin' up here forever because there's no way in hell I can get down."
-o-o-o-
Much to Louise's liking, that summer was progressing rather slowly. Shortly after Louise had returned to Maycomb, so did Dill. For a while, the children had great fun rolling each other in old tires and playing their imaginary games. Their interest in their reclusive neighbor continued to intensify, but Atticus quickly caught on and told the children to stop tormenting the man.
Just like the summer before, Louise spent a great deal of her time entertaining the children by taking part in their games. However, it was easy to see that Jem and Dill were becoming closer and wanted to do things that didn't particularly interest Scout. Louise hadn't been surprised, Jem was growing up and he was bound to want some time away from his sister. Noticing how dejected Scout looked, Louise couldn't help but to wonder whether Harriet had felt the same way towards her and Jean.
On one particular day in late June when Jem and Dill had run off somewhere to play, leaving Scout behind, Louise had an ingenious idea. Usually, when Scout opted to play by herself (or when Jem and Dill left before she could even notice), she would go to Maudie's house where the three of them would eat cake and mindlessly chat with one another. However, on this day Scout had opted to sulk in the tire swing, listlessly kicking her feet in the dirt as she occasionally sighed while Louise watched her from her seat on the porch steps. "Hey," Louise called as her niece looked up.
"Yes'm?"
"Do you still have questions 'bout your mama?" Louise asked, and almost immediately Scout's eyes light up as she nodded.
"Yes, ma'am!" She replied.
"Come with me," Louise told her as Scout slid out of the swing and followed her to Maudie's.
Maudie, who had been sitting in her garden tending to her flowers, looked up at her cousins as they walked by. "I'm goin' to show her somethin' in my room." Louise explained as they climbed up the front porch and entered the house.
"I've never been upstairs before," Scout informed Louise as they made their way to the room she was staying in.
"It ain't much, Maudie's a simple gal."
Louise opened the door to her room, and almost immediately Scout threw herself onto the bed. Not surprisingly the room was very simple, containing merely a bed, dresser, end table and mirror. The only signs of life in it was the dress Louise had draped over her closet door, the brush on the dresser and the trunk that sat at the foot of her bed containing some of her worldly belongings. Sitting on the floor by the trunk, she opened it and took out a small chest as Scout observed her. Holding the chest close to her, she sat down next to Scout.
"What kind of questions do you have?" She asked. "I can answer any and all of them."
Scout grinned and genuinely looked excited. "What did mama look like?" She asked eagerly. "Atticus says Jem looks like her, but I want to know what she looks like. Was my mama pretty?"
Louise smiled as she set the chest to the side of her. "Your mama was very pretty," she began. "She had flowy hair that was almost always messy because she fidgeted around all the time. She was the only one of us sisters who got our daddy's blonde hair and she always spent time outside so it always got real light because of the sun. She had brown eyes like you do and she was a little bit shorter than me."
"Shorter than you?" Scout asked, sounding shocked. "Why, you're the shortest person I know!"
"I know it's hard to believe, but your mama was only about five feet tall! Your daddy was nearly a foot taller than her." Louise told her.
Scout looked wildly amused. "That must've looked real funny."
"It did," Louise smiled as she reached for her chest and began to fumble through it. "I've got a snapshot of all four of us if you want to see it."
"Yes, please!" Scout nearly shouted. Locating the snapshot, she gave it a quick look before turning it over. There weren't many snapshots taken of the family, but when there was Edie usually inscribed the date on the back of the photo—but it seemed as though she had forgotten to on this one. Turning the picture around to study it once again, she assumed this was taken before Simon had died (Charlotte actually looked happy) so Jean must've been only eighteen or nineteen at the time.
"I'm not sure when this was taken, but it looks like your Aunt Charlotte was about twenty-five, your mama was around nineteen, I was seventeen and Aunt Hattie must've been fourteen." Louise explained before handing the photo to her niece. "It'll be easy to guess which one your mama is." Even though the photo was awfully faded and in black and white, Jean's blonde hair stuck out.
"She's that one," Scout said proudly, identifying Jean. She held the picture closer to her face. "She was pretty."
"She had a loud laugh, too. She was always laughin' and always happy, you could hear her from a mile away." Louise informed Scout, who continued to examine the photo intently.
"Mama kinda looks like Clara," Scout observed. "Is that Aunt Charlotte?"
"It sure is."
"What was she like?"
"She liked to tell everyone she was the most serious outta all of us since she was the oldest," Louise said. "But she liked to goof around just like the rest of us. Whenever we were sick when we were real little she would put on these one-girl plays for us to make us laugh."
Scout smiled, her eyes not moving from the image of her mother. "She was Clara and Libby's mama, right?"
"You got it right, honey."
"Do they get sad talkin' 'bout her?" She asked. "I don't hear much about her when I visit nanny."
"I reckon so, sweet."
Scout went quite, gently fingering the edges of the photo. "Do you wanna keep it?" Louise asked as Scout's eyes widened, and for the first time in ages she looked at Louise.
"Are you sure?" She asked. "Won't you want to look at it?"
"Baby, I remember what your mama looks like." Louise said, smiling sadly. "You keep it to give yourself a reminder every now and then."
"Atticus' got a picture of her too," Scout said, holding her new gift close to her chest. "He keeps it in his office but sometimes when I go to see him I take a peek at it. I think it's from their weddin' 'cause she's wearin' a pretty white dress."
"He may have some more pictures of her, you should ask him sometime." Louise smiled but noticed Scout quickly looked hesitant. "What's wrong, baby?"
"I don't know if I should ask him, that's all."
"Why not?"
"I don't want him gettin' sad or anythin'," Scout explained.
"I'm goin' to tell you a little secret," Louise sad as she put her arm around her niece. "Your daddy wouldn't mind one bit if you talked about your mama to him."
"How do you know that?"
"Me and him talk about your mama all the time."
"You do?"
"Mm hmm, he loves talkin' about her." Louise said. "Honey, he was married to her for nearly eight years, the way he copes with missin' her is by talkin' about her."
"You promise?" Scout asked with a hint of nervousness in her voice.
"Honey, I wouldn't lead you to do anything that would put in you in any sorts of trouble. I promise." Louise said firmly.
"Can I still ask you things about mama?"
"Of course you can."
Scout paused for a moment, looked at the picture and then looked at her aunt again. "Was mama as old as Atticus?" Louise nearly laughed.
"Your mama was fifteen years younger than him," she said.
"Then how did they meet?" Scout asked, looking slightly confused.
"That's probably a better question for your daddy, but I can give you a little bit of information." Louise chuckled. "When your mama was twenty and I was eighteen your nanny had us livin' at the Buford Place to take care of your great-granddaddy, and your Aunt Alexandra would have us over for tea every day."
Scout shuddered. "That seems awful." Louise had to hold back her laughter.
"It was," she smirked. "I couldn't stand it, to be honest. So one day I didn't go to tea with your mama and when she went there, your daddy was visitin' with your aunty for lunch and that's when he first met her."
"Did they love each other right away?" Scout asked.
"Honey, it never works that way." Louise chuckled as she messed up Scout's hair. "Your daddy had grown up knowing my granddaddy, so he would come to visit and that's how they got to know each other. Even when he died and we moved back to Montgomery, your daddy would visit at every chance he could."
Scout smiled. "How old would mama be now?"
"Nearly thirty-eight."
"If she were alive, do you think she would play pretend with us like you do?"
"She would love every minute of it."
"Did she go around talkin' like Miss Stephanie does?"
"Oh hell no. Your mama hated gossip."
"Did mama like to read?"
"She read almost as much as Atticus did."
"Was I nice to her when I was a baby?"
"What do you mean?"
"Did I like her?"
Louise could tell that Scout's inability to remember her mother made her nervous. Smiling at her niece, she gave her a little hug. "Baby, you loved your mama."
"I did?"
"Your first word was mama!" Louise recalled. "Every morning when you woke up or whenever you got up from a nap, you would just call out 'mama' until she came for you. She once told me that when Atticus would go to get you, you would shake your head and call for your mama. You were so stubborn he would have to put you back in your crib so your mama would be the one to get you."
Scout giggled. "Really?" She asked. As a baby, Scout had been the most loveable thing there was. She had hardly been nervous around strangers and was always hugging and kissing anyone within reach. While she did demonstrate that partiality towards her mother, she was close to both of her parents. In the absence of Jean, it only made sense that she would further attach herself to Atticus.
"Your second word was Jem," Louise said. "That's why we call your brother that, and you would call and call for him until your face went red. He would always come for you with toys or milk or somethin'. He was very proud to have a little sister to take care of."
Scout gave her a small smile. "Did I like him back?" She asked.
"Of course you did! You were always climbing all over him and when you were real little you couldn't fall asleep unless he was next to you, so your mama and daddy used to put you and Jem in their bed and they would sit with you two and read until you both fell asleep and then your daddy used to carry you both to your rooms." Louise laughed as she remembered that. One time she had come to visit for a week from Montgomery, and after witnessing the ritual Jean had explained that it was the only possible way to get both of the children to fall asleep at a decent hour.
After a few moments, Louise got up and went back to her trunk. Since it was nearly empty, it wasn't hard for her to find the perfume that she had brought from Montgomery. "I have something special for you to see," she said, fingering the delicate glass bottle. "I found some of your mama's old perfume when I was at your nanny's house, I thought you would want to smell it."
Scout sat upright and watched her aunt carefully, as if she was handling something incredibly precious. Taking the small cap off of the bottle, she handed it to her niece. At first, Scout didn't smell it. Instead she carefully examined the bottle and ran her fingers along the designs in the glass. Louise wondered what her niece was thinking at that moment. Maybe she was imagining her mother dabbing this on herself every morning as she got ready, using the newly found image of her mother as a guide. Slowly, she gently brought the perfume to her nose and smelled it. Again, she smiled. "Did mama smell like this all of the time?"
"It was her absolute favorite, she wore it for as long as I could remember." Louise responded as Scout sniffed the bottle again.
"Did she even use this when I was a baby?" She asked.
"She sure did."
"She smelled awfully nice." Scout said, closing her eyes.
"Whatcha doin', baby?"
"Now that I know what mama looked like and what she smelled like, I'm tryin' to imagine it all together." She said happily.
"Is it nice?"
"It sure is." She responded happily. Louise smiled to herself, feeling incredibly happy (and almost proud) that she had been able to share so much with Scout. Despite the fact that she had been completely happy talking about Jean, a part of her still felt empty. It wasn't fair that she had gotten to spend so much time with her sister, while Scout was merely left trying to imagine what her mother was like.