And Ade wasn’t around to help soothe her.
She busied herself unpacking a box of herbal creams and soaps in a small but effective effort to quell the urge to call him. He would be back. Or he wouldn’t. She would deal with whatever happened. It’s what Savannah Callowell had done all her life. Deal with it. Make the best of it. Move on. At least the time apart had given her the distance she needed to parse out all he had confessed. That he never told her he knew of her past had felt like betrayal at first. A more rational piece of her mind understood.
Hello, new employer Savannah. I’m sorry to hear that your husband murdered your children and then killed himself, but it’s a pleasure to meet you.
Yes, he had familiarized himself with her for purely self-interested intentions. It only became harder as the manipulative man who arrived in Bitterly became the Ade she fell in love with. If her life taught her anything, it was not to squander happiness on misplaced grudges, pretense, or pride. It taught her that people changed, for the worse and for the better. It taught her to live in the present, because the past was unalterable, and the future, as she most recently discovered, could be written in whatever way she was strong enough to write it.
“Hold the door!” Benny backed through the swinging door carrying a nursery tray of annuals. Savannah leapt to her feet and held it wide, letting in Julietta Coco-Bowen. She carried a baby in each arm and looked about ready to drop one of them. Savannah hurried to take Irene from her, bounced the child on her hip.
“She’s a lot bigger than Julian.” Julietta blew her white-blonde hair out of her eyes. “And squirmier.”
Benny deposited the tray on the counter and hurried back. “Here, let me take her.”
“I got her.” Savannah clutched the baby closer. “It isn’t often she’ll actually come to me.”
“You sure? Dan got an emergency call about some sprinkler system he installed and my parents are in New York, visiting—”
“When do I ever bother about Irene being here, sugar? Don’t be silly. Take care of Julietta’s order.”
“There are two beauty-berry-bushes out front,” Benny said over her shoulder. “I’m just going to grab a couple gallon containers of the delphinium before the rain starts. It’s black as the plague out there. You sure you have her?”
“Positive. Go.”
Irene watched her mother leave the store, tiny lip quivering. Savannah bounced her, made cooing noises, but the child whimpered anyway.
“Babies,” Julietta groaned. “I don’t get them. At all.”
“Even after having your own little boy?”
“Especially after. Kids, I get. I like kids. I love them. But babies? They’re a mystery to me. Thank goodness Efan is so good with Julian. I’d be afraid for him otherwise.”
“You’re a wonderful mother, sugar.”
Julietta shrugged. “I’m good at a lot of things, but mothering an infant isn’t one of them. Doesn’t mean I don’t love the little wriggler. He just confounds me. I never know what’s wrong with him when he cries.”
“I’ve never even heard him cry. I don’t think I’ve ever even seen him awake.”
“Oh, he’s awake plenty. When the rest of the world is sleeping.”
Savannah patted Irene’s bottom. Dug deep into her newfound strength. Could she say it aloud? Julietta would be a safe first. She wouldn’t startle and demure but offer a bluntly honest reaction without even trying. The welling in Savannah’s belly came less like nausea than it was like joy. “I remember those days.”
Julietta blinked those uncanny eyes. “You do? Wait. I don’t get it.”
“I had two daughters.” The words blew out of her mouth on a whisper. Had she said them? Truly? Savannah’s heart leapt. Joy and fear freed her voice. “I had two daughters. Twins. Ginger and Sally.”
“Twins? Really? Do they live in Georgia?”
“No. They”—she held Irene just a little closer—“died a long time ago.”
Julietta cocked her head, brow furrowed. “Wow. I’m sorry to hear that, Savvy. I had no idea.”
“Most don’t. It’s not something I ever talk about.”
“Why?”
“I…I used to know. Now I’m not so sure.”
“You didn’t want people feeling sorry for you.” Julietta nodded curtly. Surely. “I know how you feel. Try being the freakiest in the Coco Freak Show.”
“You’re not a freak, and neither are your sisters.”
“I guess you’re right. Everyone has escaped mental patients for parents, and watched their father die.”
Savannah tried to hide her wince in a hug for Irene. Saying her daughters’ names aloud, acknowledging their lives and their deaths, that was one thing. The rest? She shuddered. Enough. She had said enough. More than she had in all the years since Doc pushed needles into their tiny veins and pumped them full of opiates.
Benny came backwards through the double, swinging doors of the farmstand, carrying the delphinium and, thankfully, robbing Julietta’s attention. She set the flowers on the counter. “Asleep?” Benny laughed softly. “How’d you manage that, Savvy? It isn’t even naptime.”
Savannah looked down at the baby resting quietly against her chest. Sweet breath tickled her chin. The peace only a sleeping child could instill washed through her.
“I didn’t even realize she stopped fussing.”
“Maybe you should come to my house at four in the morning.” Julietta leaned in and kissed Savannah’s cheek. “I’m sorry, Savvy, about your girls. I know how bad it can be, keeping that kind of thing locked up inside for too long.”
Benny’s lips pressed together. Her eyes darted everywhere but at Savannah who pretended not to notice her friend squirming. “I’ll ring up Julietta’s order,” she said. “You put Irene down in back.”
Savannah put the sleeping baby onto the cot in her office. She brushed back baby curls. Irene suckled in her sleep. Savannah’s heart swelled. Tears stung. She hurried back to the storefront. Benny was already loading up Julietta’s car. Savannah grabbed a jar of the calendula diaper cream from the shelf and ran outside.
Julietta was carefully, lovingly putting her son in his car seat. The child didn’t wake but to wriggle more deeply into slumber.
“For you,” Savannah whispered. “Actually, for Julian. Thank you, Julietta.”
“For?”
“For being who you are.”
Julietta nodded, her eyes straying to her sleeping son. “I don’t know what I’d do if I lost him,” she said. “I don’t know if I’d be much help, but you know where to find me if you, you know, want to talk or something.”
“Thanks.”
Thunder rumbled, a far-off purr. The inky sky crackled. No rain fell. Benny came to stand beside her, slipped an arm around her waist and pulled Savannah in close. Together, they watched Julietta get in her car and drive away.
“How long have you known?”
“Not long,” Benny answered. “After Dan and I got married. Before Irene was born.”
“Did you Google me?”
“Only after I asked Johanna.”
“Did she know?”
“Some. Enough to leave it rest. People love you Savannah.”
“Then wouldn’t that make them leave me my secrets?”
“Secrets?” Benny turned her to face her. “You have no secrets, Savvy. You wear your grief like a medal for everyone to see. Some are going to wonder about how you earned it. Out of love. Out of curiosity. In Bitterly, it’s never been out of malice.”
“I never thought it was. It’s just that…I left Georgia because there, I was always the woman whose husband killed her daughters and then himself. I lived when they died. I couldn’t get beyond what happened because it was there, in everyone’s eyes, no matter where I went.”
“Believe me, I know that feeling,” Benny said. “Not to say Henny’s death was anything like—”
“Loss is loss.”
Savannah dropped her gaze. “I can’t ever stop being their mother.”
“Of course you can’t.” Benny put a gentle finger under Savannah’s chin, lifted her face. “You once told me I was a victim, and you were a survivor. Do you remember that?”
She remembered it clearly. It was the mantra of her life, and one she strove to live by. You live for the future, Benny had answered. I live in the past.
“I guess.”
“Savvy.” Benny hugged her about the shoulders, leaned her cheek to Savannah’s. “I can’t even imagine the horror, the sorrow. Irene cries and my whole world turns darker, because she’s not happy. You came to Bitterly, you live life to honor your girls, but your past followed you in ways you don’t want to believe. I get it. Even after all I’ve experienced, I’m still skeptical.”
“What did you experience,” Savannah asked. “You never told me.”
“Are you really going to try changing the subject right now?”
Savannah laughed softly. “I hear you. I do. And I know you’re right.” She bit her lip. First things first. “Ade knew about everything before we ever met…”
* * * *
They spent the rest of the afternoon unpacking boxes. Slowly. Savannah told Benny about Ade’s confession, though not the confession itself. Dan showed up to gather his daughter just as she started to stir. After kissing him good-bye and shoving him out the door, Benny confided in Savannah, concerning the events of the previous summer. “I know you don’t believe in this stuff,” she interjected over and again.
Savannah listened, silently amazed by how real it all was to her friend. She tried to keep an open mind, even got little chills when Benny told her about the handprints in concrete she couldn’t have known about without her ghostly friend’s prompting. What they did not speak of was Ginger, Sally and Doc. Benny knew everything—almost—and strangely, it made Savannah feel better. Unbound.
“Carmen won’t come back though,” Benny said, breaking down the last box for the recycling bin. “Whatever she sensed here scared the daylights out of her. She says she’s not used to that kind of energy.”
“And you think it’s real.”
Benny shrugged. “I know there are spirits here. And more than one. They’re everywhere, Savannah, if you’re open to it.”
“And you are?”
“I don’t seem to have a choice.” Benny grabbed a bit of stray packing. Her shirt rode up, exposing a tattoo on her lower back that Savannah hadn’t seen before—letters, curled and swirled and difficult to read.
“What are you looking at?” Benny tugged her jeans higher. “Plumber’s crack? Do I have a plumber’s crack thing going on?”
“I was just looking at your new tattoo.”
Benny turned, pulled up her shirt. “Isn’t it great? It’s a quote I’ve always loved. It’s totally me, don’t you think?”
Round about what is lies a whole mysterious world of what might be.
“Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.” Savannah’s recall was sharp, a reason she did so well in med school. The quote and the quoted flashed behind her eyes, just as she’d seen it on the Spirit Reckonings site. Coincidence? Maybe, but Savannah didn’t believe in those any more than she did in ghosts.
“You know it?”
“I’ve seen it before,” Savannah said. So Benny was Spirit Reckoning. How had she not guessed? Storing the knowledge away, Savannah slipped her arm around her friend’s waist. “Thanks, Benny, for the girl talk.”
“It’s not girl talk. It’s bad-ass-woman talk. And I’m only repaying the favor. You’ve always been there for me, from day one.”
Benny. The Coco sisters. There was, after all, a reason why she’d bonded with these women as she bonded with no one else in Bitterly. Not sisters in sorrow, but sisters in survival. For the first time since moving to Bitterly, Savannah saw herself, and her circumstances, clearly.
The sound of tires on gravel split them apart. It was already past closing.
“You go,” Savannah said. “I’ll take the last customer and close up.”
“Okay, thanks.”
Savannah took her place behind the counter.
Benny halted abruptly at the swinging door. “Oh. Hi, Ade.” she hurried past him without looking back.
Savannah couldn’t move, even if she wanted to rush into his arms, to feel his go around her and hold her close, to hear him call her corazón and whisper words of love.
Ade stood as frozen to his spot as she was to hers, his hand still holding open the door. His hair stuck up in all directions, like it did in the photo now her desktop background. His clothes looked slept in. His face was tired. His voice cracked. “I’m sorry, Savannah.”
His words severed the roots holding them both in their places. She went to him, he to her, and they met in the middle of the empty farmstand. Arms grasped. Fingers touched. Lips kissed.
As afternoon turned.
As crickets chirped.
As the breeze picked up and the rain finally burst and the headache always lurking lifted away.
Chapter 16
words, once whispered
“I should not have done what I did…”
Ade held her closer, savoring the feel of her body, the warmth despite August’s lingering humidity. They had talked the rest of the afternoon, through dinner preparation, over food, and finally took it out to the front porch.
“I was being cautious, and suspicious. That is what I learned to be. Can you forgive me?”
“There’s nothing really to forgive,” she said. “As it turns out, most of the people I know and love have done the same. It was silly of me to think keeping it to myself kept it a secret.” She shifted in his arms so she was facing him. “I won’t lie. It did hurt, especially hearing it blurted out like that, like it’s no big deal. She wanted to hurt me, and she doesn’t even know me.”
“She was trying to hurt me. You didn’t matter at all. That is Anita. She doesn’t care about anyone.”
“Not even you?”
Ade shrugged. “I fit into her plan. I don’t know if she is capable of love, and it makes me feel very sorry for the child she is carrying.” A lump rose to his throat. He did feel for the child, any child, born to Anita Durst. But if the baby was somehow, impossibly his?
“You got very quiet.” Savannah touched his face.
Ade met her gaze. “She is absolutely positive the baby is mine. It is the only reason she consented to a DNA test. I know it cannot be, but…”
“But part of you has a tiny bit of hope that it is?”
He nodded.
“What would you do?”
“I honestly don’t know, Savannah. The thought of a lifetime connected to her in any way fills me with such dread. Revulsion. But a child would connect us forever.”
“Then you’d go back to Boston?”
No quivering lip. No misty eyes. A straightforward question that deserved an answer. “No,” he said. “I could never go back.”
“I sense another ‘but’ coming.”
He managed to smile. “But I could not leave my child to her and her family, no matter what. I am left hoping for both, Savannah. I’m afraid to hope. I’m afraid for that hope to become real. This, I believe, is what the popular saying, ‘Karma is a bitch,’ actually means.”
Savannah bit her bottom lip. The lip he wanted to kiss and kiss and kiss. How was it possible to be so enamored of a lip that all other thoughts left his head?
“I asked your father and uncle about you, about your childhood, while you were away.”
Ade dragged his eyes from her mouth. “You did,
did you?”
“I needed to know where you started, what kind of kid you were. I know they love me, Ade. I know they’d never lie to me, even where you are concerned.”
“And what did they tell you?”
“Many things.” She laughed. “But the most important was that you’re finding your way back to who they’ve always known you were. They are very proud of your accomplishments, but it saddened them to see your ideals become corrupted.”
“And I thought I was fooling them.”
“No you didn’t.” She shoved him lightly. “You fooled yourself.”
She settled back into his arm, rested her head on his shoulder. There they sat for a long while. The storm had left behind a dewy dusk of a rain-washed earth and insects singing their way out of hiding. Ade appreciated the comforting song. All that needed saying about both of their pasts and presents had been said, except for three small words he’d blurted without meaning to, but meant with all his heart. He kissed her temple, lingered there while the words tumbled in his head. “There is an elephant in the room.”
“I don’t see one. Or a room.”
He laughed softly, lips again pressed to her temple. The words wouldn’t cooperate, and if Savannah knew what elephant he referred to, she wasn’t helping him out.
“I want to show you something.” Rising from the wicker couch, Savannah held her hand out to him. Ade took it and let her lead him. Into the house. Up the stairs. To her bedroom. His heart thumped and his groin twitched, but instinct told him this was not seduction. Savannah sat him on the edge of her bed. She opened a trunk set under the windows, and from it pulled a box. Sitting beside him, she rested her palms flat to the lid.
“I have never shared what’s inside here with anyone,” she said. “Not even Auntie Bea or Benny or Margit.”
She lifted the lid, set it aside, pulled out items one by one and placed them tenderly on the bed between them.
“They were Sally’s and Ginger’s. Little things I kept. And this.” She touched the newspaper clipping. “You’ve probably read it. I kept it because it was the most clinical, least sensational. Just the facts.”
Waking Savannah Page 17