Magnolia Nights

by Ashley Farley

  Ellie held the bedroom door open while Maddie entered the room. Gripping the bedpost, she took several deep breaths as she stared at the portrait leaning against the wall. “Lawd, I thought someone broke in here and burglarized the place.” Lines as thick as railroad ties appeared across her forehead. “But I know what you mean about the painting. I never liked her spooky eyes watching me while I worked, waiting for me to break one of her valuable possessions.”

  “We can both relax a little now that the portrait’s tucked away up here.” She gave Maddie a minute to calm herself. “Since we’re here, I might as well ask you. I noticed this door”—she knocked on the door for emphasis—“has a tendency to stick. Do we have a handyman who can fix it?”

  Maddie let go of her apron and smoothed out the wrinkles. “Oh no, Miss Ellie. There ain’t nothing wrong with that door. That’s your grandmother’s spirit refusing to leave the house.”

  Ellie stared at the old woman, waiting for her to admit she was kidding.

  “I ain’t joking, Miss Ellie. We must take the spirit of the newly departed seriously. The Gullah people believe that a spirit ain’t at rest until it passes into the afterworld. Missus Pringle and I have a battle going on over that door. I open it, and she closes it again, sometimes six or eight times a day. We need to keep it open so she’ll know it’s okay for her to move on to the great beyond.”

  “For the record, Maddie, I don’t believe in ghosts. But hypothetically speaking, what happens if her spirit never leaves?”

  “She’ll keep building up energy until . . . well . . .” Maddie fanned herself. “It ain’t a pretty sight. I’ve seen spirits work themselves into furies. They break mirrors and crack floorboards. I even knowed one angry spirit who brought down a whole ceiling.”

  The rational side of Ellie didn’t believe a word the woman said, but there was that other part of her, the part who’d experienced whatever traumatic event she’d experienced all those years ago, that was all ears. “Then by all means, let’s keep the door open as much as possible.” The sight of her grandmother’s black dresses hanging in a neat row in her closet reminded Ellie of prison guard uniforms. “Would it help if we got rid of her clothes?”

  “No ma’am! You can’t get rid of her things until her spirit passes.”

  Ellie sighed. “We’ll do it your way for now.”

  Maddie exited the room, and Ellie, careful to leave the door open, followed her into the hallway.

  “Okay then,” Maddie said, placing a hand on the banister. “I’ll get your breakfast started. How do you like your eggs?”

  “I don’t care for eggs today, but thank you. I’ll have some coffee and a bowl of fruit.” She noticed Pixie at her feet, wagging her tail expectantly. “But I can get that myself. Do you mind running to the grocery store first thing? I left a list on the counter in the kitchen. I used the last of my travel supply of food. My little friend will be grumpy if I don’t feed her soon.”

  Maddie looked over at the dog. “What’s its name?”

  “Her name is Pixie,” Ellie said, picking the dog up and holding her out for Maddie to pet.

  Maddie reached over to pet the dog and then snatched her hand back. “Do she bite?”

  “She’s never bitten anyone that I know of. Let her sniff your hand.”

  Maddie lifted her fingers to the dog’s nose. Pixie sniffed several times and then began licking her fingers. She grinned. “Ooh. That tickles.”

  “Haven’t you ever been around dogs, Maddie?”

  “Not cute ones like her,” she said, rubbing Pixie’s head. “The only dogs I’ve ever known were mean.”

  Ellie waved the dog’s paw at Maddie. “This little girl can be shy at first, but she’s great company once she gets to know you.” Pixie began to squirm in her arms. “I better take her outside before she has an accident. Let me get you some money for the groceries. I believe I left my purse in the kitchen.”

  “I can use the card Missus Pringle gave me for household purchases,” Maddie said as they descended the stairs together.

  “That’d be great. I’ll straighten all that out at the bank. I hope to meet with them later today.”

  They parted at the bottom of the stairs, Ellie toward the front door and Maddie to the kitchen.

  Once Pixie had concluded her business, Ellie showered and dug through her suitcase for a pair of dress shorts and a lightweight cotton sweater. She would need to go shopping soon. The remainder of her wardrobe would arrive with the moving truck, but most of her clothes were geared toward the cooler climate of San Francisco.

  Maddie had already returned from the market with the dog food when Ellie went back downstairs. After she fed Pixie and devoured a bowl of berries, she took her coffee and her lists to the big desk in the library to make her calls. By the time early afternoon rolled around, she’d accomplished a great deal. The Goodwill truck had already come and gone. She’d requested estimates for painting the exterior of the house from three different contractors. She’d scheduled an appointment at the bank for three o’clock that afternoon. She’d spoken to the lawn service about reseeding the grass, trimming the shrubs, and spreading fresh mulch in the beds. And the roofers were currently stomping around on the roof to assess the damage.

  Her stomach growled, and ten seconds later Maddie entered the room with a pimento cheese sandwich, chips, and an icy glass of lemonade. Her grandmother’s housekeeper was turning out to be a mind reader as well as a lifesaver. Maddie was on the way out of the door when Ellie stopped her.

  “Maddie, did my grandmother own a car?”

  “No’m, she didn’t go out much.” Maddie turned back around to face her. “I drove her in my car wherever she needed to go. She sold her Cadillac years ago after they took away her driver’s license.”

  Ellie froze, her sandwich positioned near her mouth. “Why’d they take away her driver’s license?”

  “She ran over a fire hydrant one day on her way home from a doctor’s appointment.” Maddie’s hand flew to her lips. “I know I shouldn’t laugh, but I can still see Missus Pringle’s face. She was fit to be tied that day.”

  “How’d she manage to run over a fire hydrant?” she asked, taking a bite of her sandwich.

  “She was driving too fast for the speed limit. Tore the whole front end off her Cadillac. Water shot out of the hydrant like Niagara Falls.”

  Ellie laughed. “Okay, that is kinda funny.”

  Maddie grew serious, and tears welled up in her eyes. “That’s when they discovered she had cataracts.” She shook her head. “Stubborn old woman refused to have the operation. She was nearly blind when she died.”

  Ellie had never considered Maddie’s feelings for her grandmother. She’d worked for her for more than forty years. Of course she’d cared about her, regardless of whether she liked her or not. With no family around to take care of Eleanor Pringle, the responsibility had fallen on Maddie alone.

  Ellie pushed her chair back and came around to the front of the desk. “It must’ve been hard on you, watching her deteriorate like that.” She gave Maddie’s arm a gentle squeeze.

  Maddie sniffled. “It wasn’t always easy, but we managed all right.”

  “Do you think that’s why my grandmother ignored the repairs, because she couldn’t see the house was falling down around her?”

  “Trust me, she knew. I done told her nearly every single day.” Maddie removed a tissue from her apron pocket and wiped her nose. “I don’t mean no disrespect, but your grandmother was stingy with her money.”

  “I’m learning that about her. I understand from Mr. Calhoun that she never gave you a raise. We’re changing that right now. How much do you make?”

  Maddie told her, and Ellie tripled the amount. “Plus, a week’s salary bonus at Christmas.”

  “Lawd, Miss Ellie. You are too kind.” She dabbed at her eyes with her tissue.

  “You work hard, Maddie, and you were loyal to my grandmother, even though she didn’t treat you very well. You de
serve to be rewarded.” Ellie made a mental note to ask the bank about the credit card Maddie used. “Were you able to make any home improvements using the credit card she gave you for household expenses?”

  “Nah, that card was mostly for groceries. And doughnuts when your gramma got a hankering for Krispy Kreme. But she demanded to see every single receipt. She fussed at me if I overspent. Not that I ever did. I was scared to death of Missus Pringle. When her eyesight failed, she asked Mistah. Calhoun to read the bills out loud while I was in the room. She reprimanded me right in front of him more than once. She swung that old stick of hers at me.” Maddie snickered. “Course, by then, she couldn’t see well enough to hit me.”

  Ellie narrowed her green eyes. “I remember that stick.”

  Maddie walked over to the fireplace and removed a wooden stick from the mantel. “This belonged to your grandfather.” She handed the jogging stick to Ellie. “Mistah Edwin used it to beat off the dogs on his way to his office or to church. Or so I’ve been told. That was before my time.” She lowered her head and stared at the floor. “It’s wrong of me to speak ill of the dead, Miss Ellie. I wanted you to know your grandmother’s way so you’d understand how things got so bad around here. I tried to keep up as best I could.”

  Ellie ran her hand along the smooth walnut stick. The sterling tips shined as bright as every other metal surface in the house. “Thank you for telling me, Maddie. You’ve done an admirable job of keeping things up despite your limitations.” She returned the jogging stick to the mantel. She would use it for kindling the first time she built a fire. Turning her back on the fireplace, she clasped her hands together. “I’m going to need your help. I’ve never owned a house before, and there’s so much work to be done around here.” Starting with buying a car, she thought, but she’d worry about that later.

  “You can count on me, Miss Ellie. I know every inch of this house like the back of my hand.”

  “If you have a few minutes, we can brainstorm on what needs to be done,” Ellie said, motioning her hand toward two chairs positioned in front of the desk.

  Maddie nodded, and Ellie returned to her seat behind the desk.

  “I noticed they hauled off the furniture from your gramma’s sunny room this morning,” Maddie said as she eased herself into the chair.

  “A moving truck is coming with my things from California tomorrow. That seemed like the most logical place to put some of them.”

  “Be nice to freshen things up around here. Will you get rid of all Missus Pringle’s books?”

  “Not until I’ve had a chance to go through them.” Ellie was eager to comb through the shelves. She suspected some of the books were valuable first editions and that some maybe contained her grandmother’s personal documents as well.

  At two thirty, Ellie left for her three o’clock appointment at the bank. Despite the midday heat and humidity, she enjoyed her walk up East Bay Street, taking note along the way of the restaurants, galleries, and boutiques she wanted to visit.

  Virgil Bates, she discovered, was a jolly little man with pink dots on his chubby cheeks. He opened accounts and transferred money before she had a chance to sit back in her chair and cross her legs. He sent her on her way with a wallet full of cash and a promise that her cards and checks would be in her possession by week’s end. In no rush to return to her grandmother’s dismal home and feeling the need to stretch her legs, she walked several blocks north on East Bay before cutting over to Church Street. She ducked into a pet boutique and, on a whim, purchased a froufrou bed for Pixie—a fluffy pink mound fit for a puppy who thought she was a princess.

  When she returned to the house on South Battery, she found Pixie bouncing around and barking excitedly as Maddie pretended to chase after her with the vacuum in the living room. When they noticed her standing in the doorway, Maddie turned off the vacuum and Pixie stopped barking.

  Ellie faked a frown at her dog. “You’ve been holding out on me. I thought you hated the vacuum cleaner.”

  Maddie unplugged the cord and wrapped it around the upright unit. “I hope it’s okay for me to let her out of her cage. I heard her whining—saddest thing I ever did hear.”

  “I don’t mind at all, as long as she doesn’t get in your way.” Kneeling down, Ellie clapped her hands, and Pixie leaped into her arms. She nuzzled the dog’s neck and received licks on her face in return.

  “Not at all. She’s good company.” Maddie glanced at her Timex. “Lawdy, the day has gotten away from me again. Time for me to be heading home.”

  The day had flown by, but Ellie dreaded the lonely evening ahead. She trailed Maddie as she wheeled the vacuum down the hall to the utility room and then stopped in the kitchen, where she retrieved her bag from behind the pantry door. She stood at the back door for a long time after her housekeeper’s old Chevy sedan backed out of the driveway. In California, when she needed company, she called a friend. She knew no one in Charleston to call, aside from Bennett, who wasn’t the type of friend she had in mind. What she was feeling was more than loneliness. Could it be that she was still not over losing Jake?

  Discovering Jake’s secret life had shot a dagger straight through her heart. You mean, his legitimate life, Ellie corrected herself. His wholesome-looking, sandy-haired wife and her two snaggletoothed clones were the real deal. He’d kept Ellie hidden and out of the way. He’d been in the shower that morning when she decided to run down to the corner for the shirts he said he needed from the cleaners. She discovered the photograph when she’d gone to his wallet for money to pay for the dry cleaning. They’d never shared expenses, which should’ve been a red flag for her long ago. Jake had always visited her at her apartment in San Francisco but never invited her to visit him in San Diego, where he claimed to live. He rarely took her out to dinner, seldom offered to pay for their takeout, and never reimbursed her for the money she spent on groceries to cook him gourmet meals.

  Six weeks and twenty-eight hundred miles offered a clearer perspective on their relationship. She’d never loved him. Well, maybe a little in the beginning. Somewhere deep down inside, she knew he would never ask her to marry him. How could she commit her body and soul to marriage when there was so much about herself she didn’t fully understand? She’d been in mourning since their breakup. Not the loss of him, but the loss of too much valuable time. Most of her thirties—biologically speaking, her productive years. Some of her friends’ children were already in elementary school. Some of her friends were already divorced. Jake had been her only hope for ever starting a family.

  With her life in San Francisco over and her new life in Charleston yet to begin, Ellie felt like a displaced orphan as she wandered around the downstairs rooms in the house. Seeing that Maddie had set up a wooden card table and chair in the Florida room—what she now referred to as her studio even though her things had yet to arrive from California—warmed her heart and gave her hope that this mausoleum would one day feel like home. When she grew bored, she grabbed Pixie’s leash and a couple of her doggy toys and headed across the street to Battery Park. The days were growing shorter, and a chill had set in—the tease of a new season on the horizon. She roamed the five-acre park admiring the civil war cannons and the Fort Moultrie monument. She read the monument’s inscription: To the Defenders of Fort Moultrie.

  She imagined herself as a child running barefoot in the grass, her mother sitting on a nearby park bench reading a novel. But it wasn’t a memory. It was a fantasy. Had her mother been too ill to take her across the street to the park?

  Ellie studied with an artist’s eye the light filtering in through the live oak trees. When her supplies arrived from California, she would set up her easel in the center of the park and paint the row of houses on South Battery Street.

  It was after six when she returned home. Ellie scooped a heaping spoonful of chicken salad onto a bed of leafy greens for her dinner. She poured a glass of pinot grigio from the bottle Maddie left chilling in the refrigerator and took her dinner to her studio. />
  While she ate, she watched a couple of wrens through the window, splashing themselves in the concrete birdbath outside. With the beauty of the garden as a backdrop, the room offered the sense of serenity Ellie craved. She hadn’t asked for the house, but now that she’d inherited it, she might as well make it her own.

  She finished her dinner and then took her plate back to the kitchen and poured another glass of wine. Returning to her studio, she set her glass down on the table and approached the bookcase, running her finger along the spines of the books on the bottom shelf. An hour and a half later, her wine untouched on the table, she was balancing on her tiptoes on the kitchen step stool as she reached for a leather-bound journal in the far right corner of the top shelf. She managed not to fall as she grabbed hold of the journal and climbed down from the stool. She opened the journal and read the first entry. The diary belonged to her mother.

  When her hand began to tremble, she closed the journal and gripped it tight to her torso. She would read it for sure. But what was she hoping to discover? The key to her past? Confirmation of her mother’s love? Her grandmother’s love? Although that was seeming less and less likely, and less and less desirable. Was she ready to finally face whatever had happened to her here? She’d tried and failed for so many years. Could she do it alone with only her grandmother’s ghost to comfort her? She locked up the house and headed upstairs to her room. She was ready to move on with her life. Of that much she was sure. But she was terrified of the experiences she might have to relive in order to do so.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Ashton

  I arrived home late on Saturday afternoon from the hairdresser to find James Middleton and his parents in the dining room with Mother, the silver tea service and an assortment of finger sandwiches on the table in front of them.