by Karen White
Despite her words, she kept peering up at my father through thick eyelashes, and I fought the urge to gag. “Okay, you two. I think I’ve heard enough.” I moved between them and faced my father, my eyes widening to show him my disapproval of his consorting with the enemy. “Dad, why don’t you go outside and look around and jot down some ideas and a few ballpark estimates of the cost involved in implementing your proposed changes.” I grabbed hold of his elbow and led him to the door. “I’ll call you later to discuss.”
I opened the door and he stepped out. “Thanks, Dad. Later.” He opened his mouth to say something, but I didn’t hear what it was because I’d already closed the door.
My mother had regained her composure by the time I turned around. She’d taken off her coat and thrown it on one of the beanbag chairs but still wore her gloves. Leading the way to the stairs, I said, “Let’s go up to the attic. Follow me.” She didn’t ask why we were going the long way around since taking the back stairs would be quicker. She didn’t need to.
We climbed the stairs to the third floor, then walked around the upstairs hall that encircled the stairwell until we made it to the door to the attic stairs. I’d been up here once with my grandmother and remembered it as a place where the unwanted items of a family with pack rat tendencies discarded items long past their usefulness. Sort of like a pasture for old horses but not as scenic.
Grandmother had gone in for less than a minute to grab a floor fan for my bedroom and then marched me out before I’d had the chance to remove one dust cover but not before I’d heard the cacophony of voices that always seemed to accompany old things. She’d picked up the fan and then ushered me out before any of the voices recognized me and called me by name.
I stood for a moment with my hand on the doorknob, focusing on the task at hand and turning my thoughts inward to block out anything I didn’t want to see or hear. I didn’t have to look behind me to know that my mother was doing the same thing. Slowly, I turned the handle and headed up the attic stairs, my mother behind me, her gloved hand sliding up the banister.
Pale gray light filtered through the oval window on the front of the house, gently illuminating the specters of shrouded furniture and piles of miscellanea. I grabbed what looked like a dismembered chair leg and swatted at the collection of spiderwebs that had gathered in the corners before succumbing to age by sagging into the walkways somebody had once designed by pushing back furniture.
I lifted the flashlight I’d stashed in my purse and flipped it on to peer into the dark recesses of the attic space. “The current owners aren’t interested in taking anything that’s up here, so if you want it just say the word. Otherwise, they’re going to hire somebody to dispose of it.”
She nodded, her hands held tightly together in front of her. When I was small, I’d asked her why she always wore gloves and she’d told me it was because she was always cold. It wasn’t until I was much older when I’d touched a hat in a vintage-clothing shop and seen somebody else’s life flash before my eyes that I began to understand. Whereas it only happened on occasion with me, I assumed it must have been often enough to compel my mother to always cover her hands. My father’d had no patience for it, and I remembered him hiding her gloves more than once.
We both turned slowly, taking in what the flashlight could illuminate. There was a large assortment of garage sale-type junk, but there was also an equal amount of furniture and other smaller items like brass fireplace andirons and a stack of paintings against the far wall under the window. I paused by a cradle—completely intact, with a moth-eaten baby blanket still inside. If one were sentimental about one’s family history and past, such a thing would probably be valuable intrinsically if not financially. I looked away and walked past it, glad I wasn’t one of those misguided people who put the memories of people long gone at the top of their priority lists. These same people spent an inordinate amount of money on old houses for the sheer desire of spending even more money restoring them. I’m not sure how much of this I still believed in but it didn’t matter; I had inherited my house and therefore was excluded from my own scorn.
I watched my mother’s face soften as she examined the tangible memories of her family’s history, and I looked away, doubting the sincerity of her sentimentality. I’d been her daughter, after all, but apparently not valuable enough to keep.
“I’d like to keep all of this. Tell the owners to leave it all intact and I’ll sort through it later.”
I nodded and turned away, not able to look at her.
“What’s that over there?” My mother pointed to a large rectangular frame leaning against the wall next to a wooden hat rack where an old fedora, minus its brim, perched precariously on one of the prongs.
I swung the flashlight to where she pointed but could see only the back of a gilt frame. Walking toward it, I remembered what Rebecca had said to me about there being some sort of portrait in the attic that I needed to see. I paused—feeling suddenly chilled—and I thought I heard somebody whisper my name. “Did you say something?”
My mother’s eyes met mine and she shook her head almost imperceptibly. “Focus,” she said as we both moved toward the frame.
“Hold this,” I said and handed her the flashlight. I reached down and put a hand on either side of the frame, then lifted it before turning it around to lean it back against the wall. “Shine the flashlight on it.”
The circle of light danced over the dark oil paint like a spirit orb. I squinted and stepped closer to get a better look, feeling compelled to see something I didn’t really want to.
“Dear God.” My mother’s voice sounded tight and constricted and not really hers at all.
“What is it?” I was still standing too close to see past the glare of the flashlight. I moved back, stepping into a pile of telephone books and knocking them over but I barely noticed. I was too busy staring at the portrait in front of me.
It was a painting of two young girls, about nine and ten years old. They wore clothing of the late nineteenth century, with high necks and straight skirts, and black leather ankle boots. Both had their long brown hair pulled back with satiny bows, and matching bangs that highlighted wide hazel eyes. One was slightly taller than the other, making me think they were sisters very close in age. It was only after scrutinizing their faces closely that I was able to make out subtle differences in their features—the height of their brows, the angle of cheekbones, the shape of their chins.
But it was mostly the light in their eyes, the auras of their personalities that had been captured by the artist that differed the most. The taller girl had a slight smile on her lips that hinted at the held-back laughter of a secret joke. Her eyes were guileless, looking directly out of the painting as if she had nothing to hide.
The other girl was smiling, too, but not with amusement. It was more like the smile of a person who has done something wrong and gotten away with it. Her eyes glittered with a long-held secret—a secret I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.
But what was even more arresting than the girls’ resemblance to each other was their resemblance to me.
“Who are they?” I asked my mother, my gaze fixed on the portrait.
“I have no idea. I’ve never seen this painting before. It must always have been in the attic because to my knowledge it has never hung anywhere downstairs. I just . . .” Her fingertips gingerly pressed against her lips.
“I know. They look like me. And you, if you look at the hairline of the taller girl; she’s got a widow’s peak just like yours. So they must be ancestors, right?”
She nodded. “But not your grandmother, she was born in 1900. Maybe her mother. Although I was pretty sure my grandmother was an only child.”
I knelt in front of the portrait, hoping to see it better. Squinting, and wishing I could forget vanity long enough to actually throw my glasses into my purse, I peered closely at the two girls, seeing something new this time, something that seemed to catch the light and nestle into the lacy fabric of the ta
ller girl’s blouse. Leaning closer, I saw a small golden locket in the shape of a heart. Moving forward so that my nose was almost pressed to the canvas, I noticed the letter M engraved in the gold.
My mother saw what I was looking at and shifted the flashlight over to the shorter girl. “She’s wearing one, too.” With a look of reproach, she handed me the flashlight before opening her purse and pulling out a pair of stylish reading glasses. After sliding them on, she bent slightly forward. “This one has an R on it.” She stepped back, her brow furrowed. “That’s really odd,” she said. “My grandmother’s name was Rose, but I’m positive she didn’t have a sister—or any sibling, for that matter. I would say that these girls aren’t members of the family at all except for the uncanny resemblance to you.”
“Uncanny is one way to describe it,” I said, studying the portrait again. My scrutiny moved from the girls to the scene behind them, and again I felt the odd sensation of thinking I should know what I was looking at, but I had no clue. They were standing in the shade of a huge oak tree situated on a rise of land, a large body of water glittering behind them, a stretch of sandy beach just visible in the corner of the portrait. In the distant background, a white antebellum mansion squatted in the center of a row of oaks.
“Do you recognize the house?” I asked, turning to my mother.
Her face had paled, and she appeared as gray and transparent as a photo negative in the dim attic light. “No. But the ocean . . .”
She didn’t say any more because she didn’t have to. I’d been remembering the sunken sailboat, too—and the human remains found on board. And the trail of salt in the kitchen.
“I know. I thought the same thing. But what’s odd is that . . .”
I felt my mother quietly watching me.
I continued. “Yesterday a friend of Jack’s, Rebecca Edgerton, told me she’d had a dream about this attic, and how if I looked I’d find a portrait or picture of some kind of someone who resembles me.”
“Really?” She cocked an elegant brow. “So this reporter is an acquaintance of Jack’s. How interesting. She keeps leaving me messages, you know.” Her eyes narrowed slightly. “And she’s just a—friend?”
I frowned, wondering why she’d be more concerned about the relationship between Jack and Rebecca than Rebecca’s psychic abilities. Of course, to us acknowledging psychic abilities would be on par with the excitement generated by the purchase of a new toothbrush in another household.
“Old friends. They used to date before Rebecca introduced Jack to her friend Emily. What’s so weird is how much Rebecca and Emily resemble each other. And I get the feeling that Jack might be attracted to her because of it.”
“Ah, yes. Emily, the fiancée. Poor girl. Jack’s mother told me how Emily jilted Jack before the wedding without telling him she was sick.” She shook her head. “But for Jack to find out later, after she’d died. That’s the most tragic part of all.” She fixed me with a piercing gaze. “No wonder he’s attracted to Rebecca now.” She patted my arm. “But don’t worry, Mellie. I’m sure what he’s after from Rebecca is more of a closure with Emily than any other kind of relationship. He never had his chance to say good-bye, and Rebecca’s offering the chance to him now. Like a surrogate of sorts.”
I pulled away. “I really couldn’t care less, Mother. If you knew me at all, you’d realize that Jack and I are completely wrong for each other. We just don’t have that kind of relationship, if you even want to call it that. It’s more work related than anything and when he finishes his book and doesn’t need to be around my house so much for his research anymore, I doubt I’ll ever see him again.”
Ignoring her dubious expression, I grabbed the frame with both hands. “If you could open the door for me, I’d like to bring this downstairs to examine it in better light. And I’d like Jack to take a look at it, too. He might recognize the setting.”
Smiling to herself, my mother took one last look around the attic before heading toward the door. As I walked by with the painting, she said, “Isn’t Jack living with you? You could just bring it home.”
I set the painting down, my arms tired. “Firstly, he’s not living with me. He’s staying with me temporarily, in a guest room, because he’s under the false impression that I need him for protection. Secondly, this painting doesn’t belong to you yet and removing it from the house would be considered stealing.”
“I guess you have a point,” she said closing the attic door, then following me down the hall. “But what if the current owners see the painting and decide to keep it?”
We both looked around at the orange shag carpeting and vinyl pin-wheel mobiles that hung suspended from the hallway ceiling light fixtures. “They won’t,” we said simultaneously and continued toward the front stairs.
We were halfway down when I remembered something I’d wanted to ask her. I stopped and faced her, balancing the frame on the step behind me. “Earlier, when you came in, you saw the soldier, too, didn’t you?”
I watched her hesitate as something flickered behind her eyes, like a ghost flitting across the room. “Yes,” she admitted as she resumed her descent, moving in front of me so I couldn’t see her face or read her eyes, and I knew she’d done it on purpose. “I saw him.”
I followed her into the foyer, resting the painting against the newel post. “I remember him from when Grandmother lived here.”
“Yes. I know.” She made a fuss of putting on her coat and buttoning it with her gloved fingers. “He was here when I was a girl, too.”
I looked at her with surprise. “You never told me.” A flash of anger seared through me as it occurred to me that there was so much more we didn’t know about each other. And all because she simply hadn’t bothered to be there.
“No. I didn’t,” she said, her voice soft. She lifted her hand to touch my arm but withdrew it, knowing I’d jerk away again. “I suppose there are many things I never told you, and I’m sorry. But maybe . . .” She gave me a tentative smile. “Maybe we’ll have a chance now that I’m back to talk about things. To get to know each other better.”
My phone rang, which stopped me from telling her that she had long ago missed her chance at sharing any part of my life. She was simply too late. I felt the prick of tears behind my eyes, and I turned my back on her to answer the phone, ashamed to let her see me cry.
“I have to get this,” I said, flipping open my phone.
She waited for a moment and when I didn’t turn around, she said, “I’ll go now. Let me know the details on the closing.”
I nodded and waited for the sound of the door latching behind me, realizing too late that I hadn’t thought to ask her why the soldier had appeared so solid to me for the first time, and why I thought it might have had something to do with my mother’s arrival.
I closed my phone without checking to see who it was and let my gaze return to the portrait—and found myself staring back at two sets of hazel eyes that were so remarkably similar to each other’s and to mine, the subtle differences in shading now apparent in the brighter light. I stepped closer, my own eyes widening as I realized that the taller girl’s eyes were slightly tilted up at the corners, a near mirror image of my own.
A small sound began in the eaves of the old house, racing through the plaster and lumber of the ancient frame, the sound a tiny wail at first and then erupting into a baby’s helpless cries. I’d heard it before as a young girl, but until I’d spoken with Rebecca, its origins had been as elusive to me as those of my soldier.
I swallowed thickly and turned to the door, recalling one more thing I hadn’t known about my mother, then let myself out.
CHAPTER 8
I returned home from the closing on the Legare Street property completely exhausted. The paperwork had been straightforward—I prided myself on having everything organized and laid out so that there was no wasted time—but the personal vibes in the room were both intrusive and uncomfortable. Everyone at the table—except for me—seemed to think a daughter act
ing as her mother’s Realtor was cute and indicated a close bond. Smiling through clenched teeth for an hour turned out to be more exhausting than running a marathon.
I dropped everything in the foyer, not having the energy to bring my stuff all the way inside, then kicked off my shoes, scattering them across the marble tiled floor. “Hello,” I called, hearing voices from another part of the house.
“Yo, Melanie! We’re in here.”
I grinned at hearing Chad Arasi’s voice and followed the sound to the dining room. He was the male equivalent of Sophie’s bohemian persona, right down to the braid he wore at the back of his head and the environmentally savvy bicycle he used for transportation to and from his job as a professor of music at the College of Charleston. He used words like “dude” and “awesome” and didn’t seem to mind Sophie’s fashion choices, which was one of the main reasons why I’d been pushing them together since Chad had first moved to Charleston from California and hired me as his Realtor earlier that year.
He now lived with Sophie—platonically—because according to Sophie their zodiac signs would be incompatible in a romantic relationship. That’s what she said anyway, but I was pretty sure it had more to do with her independent nature—and her unwillingness to view a romantic relationship as anything but a power struggle. Staring at Sophie and Chad—now in matching Birkenstock sandals and having a lively conversation about the merits of Federal versus Georgian architectural styles—I made a note to redouble my efforts to get them together.
They were standing in the large doorway between the living and dining rooms with the warped pocket doors that had been removed now lying supine on two separate workbenches that had been assembled in the emptied dining room.
“It’s the Melster,” Chad said, approaching before kissing me on both cheeks. “We were wondering if you’d be bruised and bloodied after the closing.” He made a big show of checking me out for injuries. “And seeing you whole makes us wonder if your mother’s okay.”