Ruined Just the Same

Aunt Fanny stood in the parlor with her back to a giltwood mirror which reflected her white hair knotted around an abalone comb in the shape of a butterfly. The parlor, the mirror and the comb were ancient Victorian things, just like Aunt Fanny herself, Imogene thought. Fanny’s arms were crossed, and the afternoon sunlight that filtered through the shutter slats made the creases on her face seem even deeper. 

“Don’t you remember what happened to the girl who went out riding with Rhett Butler? She was ‘ruined just the same.’”

Imogene rolled her eyes. “Auntie, the Civil War was a long time ago, and Rhett Bulter was never in it.” Aunt Fanny never could get her head out of Gone With the Wind. When she wasn’t up in the attic having seances to reach the lover who’d gone down with the Titanic twenty-nine years ago or serving cocktails to Savannah’s other batty old bitties, she was re-reading Gone With the Wind. 

“There are other books,” Imogene would say when she saw Fanny’s battered copy sitting on a table. The spine was broken, and the jacket was disintegrating. It looked like something that would come out of the lost tomb of Herihor if archaeologists ever found it.

Fanny just waved her away and turned the page. Fanny had hated the movie. 

“Aren’t you at all concerned about what people will say?” Fanny asked. Imogene looked past her and checked out her reflection in the mirror. Imogene wore a canary yellow cotton dress, mid-calf length, with a red belt around her waist. The brown suede pumps on her feet were brand new and she’d spent hours copying Joan Fontaine’s hairstyle in Rebecca. Imogene needed a fresh coat of lipstick but wouldn’t put it on in front of Aunt Fanny. Imogene saved that for when she felt like hearing the word ‘harlot.’

“Not really,” Imogene replied. The women who came to the house to swill gin and play cards with Fanny were just as loony as she was, and the rest of Savannah’s gossiping elite thought Fanny was overdue for a ride in a padded wagon. Imogene doubted they’d care if Fanny’s niece was loose. If anything, they cared about the overgrown boxwood hedge in front of the house and the unruly Virginia Creeper that kept threatening to choke the azaleas in the neighbor’s yard. 

“What would your father say?” Fanny demanded.

“Considering he’s in a cemetery plot at Bonaventure? Not much.” Imogene reached into her purse and pulled out the tube of lipstick she kept in a little case covered in Chinese silk. She traced her lips with the cherry-red wax and pressed them together. She saw Aunt Fanny’s mouth open to fill her lungs to make an H sound.

“Save it, Auntie. It’s a date. It’s not one of Satyricon’s orgies.” 

Imogene heard Jesse’s Packard rumbling outside and turned to leave. She felt Fanny’s long, cold fingers wrap around her wrist. 

“Go upstairs, Auntie,” Imogene said. “Light another candle.” Fanny let go and Imogene dashed out into the humid air. 

Jesse grinned as Imogene hopped into the car without opening the door. His green eyes shimmered under the white cap that went with his dress blues. He always wore his uniform when he picked her up. Imogene insisted. 

The sun set as they drove out of Savannah’s city limits. The roads that connected Georgia and South Carolina were narrow and dark. They could only see as far as the Packard’s headlights could shine. Imogene leaned back in her seat and gazed up at Orion’s belt. Jesse’s warm hand rested on her thigh, pushing up her hem. Ruined just the same.

An hour later, after they’d crossed over into South Carolina, they pulled over at the edge of a pine forest. As she got out of the car, she took a deep breath and let the fresh pine scent fill her lungs.

“Did you bring a flashlight?” she asked. 

“In the glove box,” he said. Imogene opened it and found the heavy flashlight. She switched it on and moved the beam of light until it cut through the trees and lit up the tall brick columns that stood naked in a clearing: the ruins of the Old Sheldon Church. A delightful shiver raced up Imogene’s back as she got out of the car. 

Gravestones as old as the Revolution listed to one side as they sank back into the earth. Live oaks with Spanish moss dangling from their long, twisted branches stood guard around the broken shell of the old church. Imogene traced one of the branches with her flashlight and found a red-and-white lichen growing there. It reminded her of the patches of psoriasis that had grown on her father’s knuckles. Aunt Fanny was always prescribing him some new miracle cure, but none of it ever worked. 

“It’s not true what they say about this place,” Jesse said. He put his hand on the small of her back and she shivered again. 

“British troops burned it down during the Revolution, but the Union troops didn’t re-burn it during the Civil War.”

The War of Northern Aggression, Imogene thought. Jesse was a Yankee but she didn’t hold it against him. 

“Well, then who did?” Imogene asked. 

“Nobody burned it. Freedmen came and took it apart.”

Imogene swept the ruins with Jesse’s flashlight. The round brick columns surrounded high walls with long rounded archways. On one of the walls, a cement plaque read:

Church of Prince William’s Parish

Known as 

Sheldon

Built between 1745 - 1755

Burned by the British Army 1779

Rebuilt 1826

Burned by the Federal Army 1865

Then in smaller letters:

Tablet placed by Columbia Committee

South Carolina Society

Colonial Dames of America

1937

“See, look,” Imogene. “It says right there that the Union troops burned it.”

Jesse grinned. “It’s a lie. Freedmen gutted it and used the materials for their own houses.”

“How do you know?”

“Fella at the train station in Yemassee told me. He said his grandad was one of them.”

“What did you go to a train station for? You’ve got a car.”

“My buddy was coming back from leave,” he said. “He was up in Baltimore and took the train down. I picked him up.”

Jesse took the flashlight from her and trained it on the front of her dress. Then he switched it off and wound his arm around her waist. She knocked the cap off his head and ran her fingers through his sweaty hair as he kissed her. They collapsed on top of a broken headstone.

As she undid his belt for him, she remembered that Satyricon was the name of a book, not one of the characters in it. 

Imogene slept in the car on the way back to Savannah and had a dream: flames burst through the window of the turret of the house on 37th Street while Aunt Fanny’s silhouette hunched over the table where she conducted her seances. 

Imogene woke up to see the dawn breaking just as they arrived back in the city. Jesse looked over at her and smiled. His white cap sat atop his head and the flashlight rested in her lap. The car shuddered as it rolled over the cobblestones. 

The butter-yellow sunlight reflected on the windows as they parked in front of the house. 

“Wouldn’t you like to come in for a cup of coffee? You’ve got a long drive back to Parris Island.”

“I would but your aunt would come at me with a butcher knife.” He leaned over and gave her a long kiss, his fingers tapping her spine like piano keys. 

“She sleeps late on Saturdays. Necromancy always tires her out. Besides, she’s really just all talk. She was no saint in her day. Why do you think she’s always having seances? It’s because she wants him to come back and tell the world that he really had promised to marry her before he sailed to England. She swears he sent her a telegram telling her to meet him at a church when he got back to Savannah -- that he sent it from on board the Titanic -- and it’s in the house somewhere but it’s been almost thirty years and she still can’t remember where she put it.”

Jesse chuckled. He kissed her again. “I wish I could. But I’m pushing it as it is. If I’m late, there’ll be hell to pay. I’ll write to you and I’ll be back down here as soon as I can get away. You can bet on that.”

Imogene watched the Packard rumble away and then went inside. Outside, it was already hot even though it was barely morning, but the inside of the house was cool. Imogene went into the kitchen and brewed some fresh coffee. When Fanny came down and saw Imogene in the dress she’d worn the day before, she didn’t say a word. In fact, she didn’t say a word to Imogene for several days after, and that was just fine. 

A week later, Imogene was walking home from her job at the diner and passed two women sitting on a veranda on Abercorn Street. 

“Is that Fanny Grieving’s niece? The one who spent the night with a Marine from Parris Island?”

Ruined just the same. A sly grin stretched across Imogene’s face.

In December, Jesse wrote that the Marines were shipping his unit off to fight in the Pacific. 

She never heard from him again. 

Author’s note: While I hope this piece works as a standalone story, it is going to be part of my novel, which is about women’s baseball in the 1950s. The novel spans two women’s leagues — the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League and the National Girls Baseball League — and Imogene plays for both of them. This piece will be a flashback for Imogene. In the novel’s present-day — 1954 — she’s playing pro ball in Chicago and is married to a man who lies to her about his gambling problem. This piece will fit in as a memory that conjures a daydream of what might have been; Jesse dies young before she can really get to know him, so he gets to be perfect and is a stark contrast to her husband, Bernard. Imogene is fearless and impish but with Bernard, she’s discovering her limits.

The idea for this scene came to me while I was traveling. I recently visited the ruins of the Old Sheldon Church near Yemassee, South Carolina. I wasn’t there very long before I started picturing Imogene there, doing something scandalous. She’s a Savannhian so it made perfect sense for her backstory. I made Imogene a Savannhian after my first trip to the Hostess City in 2021. Never underestimate the value of travel; it really helps the creative process.

On an unrelated note, I wanted to let you know that I’ll likely be posting on here less frequently going forward. I’ve run through most of my backlog of polished pieces. Now, I’ll be working on older pieces that need more refinement, finishing unfinished stories and writing new ones. For all of those things, I need more time. So I hope you’ll bear with me, dear readers, because you deserve more than slapdash. Stepping away from traditional literary magazines to publish on Substack is scary and potentially risky, so your support means a lot.

Until next time, readers!