by Karen White
My mother opened the door. Her usually perfect chignon was lop-sided and half hanging down her face, and I noticed that she had changed clothes to something that might actually have been velour sweatpants and a matching jacket. But it wasn’t until my gaze had taken in her feet that realization dawned on me.
“When was Sophie here?” I demanded.
She looked surprised. “While you were at work. How did you know?”
“The Birkenstocks.”
She pointed her toe and twisted her foot back and forth to give me a better view. “Sophie and I happen to wear the same size, and she thought it might be easier for me to wear these while unloading and lugging things up the stairs. And you know what, she was right! They are actually quite comfortable. She loaned me the warm-up suit, too.”
Before I could think of something to say that didn’t involve the words “intervention” or “psychologist,” we turned our heads toward the sound of heavy footsteps in the hallway. Chad appeared at the door, two arm-loads of clothing in each arm. “Yo, Dudette.” He smiled broadly, his teeth shining brightly in his perpetually tanned face. He turned to my mother. “Yo, Miss Ginnette, here’s the last load.”
“Hi, Chad.” I placed the journal on a side table, then stepped forward to take some of the clothes from his arms. As I placed them carefully onto the existing pile on the bed, I asked, “And why, exactly, aren’t we letting a moving company do this?”
A shocked expression covered my mother’s face. “I don’t let just anybody touch my clothing. I’m very particular about my things.”
I eyed her outfit again, and muttered under my breath, “Apparently not anymore.” Turning to Chad, I asked, “How did you get roped into this?”
My mother, with a long sequined gown folded over her arm, interjected, “Because your father was working in the garden and was about to volunteer when Chad showed up. It was the perfect solution.”
I wondered why Chad would be at the Legare Street house. “Did you need something from me, Chad? Everything all right back at my house?”
“Everything’s fine. We’re almost through with the stripping of the second floor and I’m about to tackle the staircase. Jack’s been helping a lot, too, with removing all the baseboards. He’s developed what he’s calling the ‘Melanie Middleton method’ of numbering all the pieces so we know where they go when it’s time to put them back. I even showed him how to use a spreadsheet to keep track of it all.”
I wasn’t sure if I should be flattered or annoyed. If Jack was involved, I’d bet on the latter. “Jack’s been helping?”
“Yeah. He’s been spending a lot of time with the papers in the attic doing research for his book, but he comes and helps us when he wants to take a break.”
The news of Jack’s being at my house and interacting with my friends stung. It made me feel like the only kid without a Valentine’s Day card. It was especially painful because I was fairly sure that one of the main reasons why he was there was because he knew that I wouldn’t be. I kept going over his parting words to me the night of the tour. Maybe it’s because she reminds me of you. I’d planned on ignoring them, and never bringing them up again between us. But it seemed that I needn’t have bothered thinking about them at all. He’d apparently taken to heart the things I’d said to him in anger, and I should have been thrilled that he wasn’t interfering in my life anymore. Only, I wasn’t.
“Great,” I said, and my mother slid a glance toward me as if she recognized that my tone of voice and what I was saying were out of sync. Just like a mother who’d been around her child all of her life would do. Or maybe it was just one of those skills that mothers picked up in the first few years and never quite forgot.
I forced a smile. “Tell him I said hello. And, um, tell him that they’re tearing out the plaster covering the kitchen fireplace tomorrow. He might want to be here to see what’s behind it.”
Chad looked at me oddly. “Sure will. But he said he was going back to his condo to try and get some writing done, so I don’t know when I’ll see him next.” He shoved his hands in his jeans pockets and stood there, staring at the dentil molding as if he’d never seen anything like it before. I waited for him to leave, but he continued to stand where he was without saying anything.
“Is there something else?”
He looked back at me as if remembering I was there and shuffled his feet. My mother ducked discreetly into the closet. “I need your help.”
“With what?”
He looked down at his sandal-clad feet—with socks in deference to the season—and shuffled them again. I watched as his face shifted from easy and open to almost tortured. I touched his arm in alarm. “Is there something wrong with the house?” I had visions of hordes of termites camping out in the mahogany stairwell of the Tradd Street house. Or maybe one of the rare glass sidelights by the front door had cracked in the cold weather. Even worse, I pictured myself writing yet another check out with lots of zeros for a repair that couldn’t be postponed. I felt sick to my stomach waiting for him to answer, not pausing to consider how odd that I could be so concerned about something I’d once referred to as a goiter on my neck and, more kindly, a pile of lumber.
“No. The house is fine,” he said in his slow, California manner. “It’s just . . .”
I waited, resisting the impulse to pull at his shirt collar to yank the words in quicker succession from his mouth. “What?”
“I need to borrow an electric floor sander.”
I blinked at him in both relief and amazement. “You need a floor sander,” I repeated. It looked like he might cry, and I groaned inwardly, hoping he wasn’t about to pull my mother from the closet so we could have a group hug.
His face wrinkled a bit as he spoke. “It’s just that I don’t think I can hand-sand one more square inch of floor in your house. It’s like I’m being punished for some bad karma or something.” He looked directly into my eyes and I could have sworn I saw tears. “Sophie’s doing a field study with one of her classes all week, so I’m pretty much alone at the house to do more sanding. I figured . . .” He stopped, unable to continue.
“You figured that if she wasn’t there to see, you could get some sanding out of the way with the electric sander.”
Chad nodded and I squeezed his arm, trying not to smile. “No problem. It’s being stored temporarily outside in the garden shed for lack of a better place for it. It’s yours for as long as you need it.”
His eyes were worried. “And you won’t . . .”
“My lips are sealed.”
He nodded with relief, his eyes closed for a moment. “I don’t care what Jack says, Melanie. I think you’re one of the nicest people I know. And you’re really not that uptight once people get to know you.”
Before I could say anything, Chad enveloped me in a tight hug, his organic wool sweater scratching my cheek. “I wanted to let you know that I’m having mine and Sophie’s star charts read by a professional astrologer.”
“Really? I thought that Sophie was the only one who bought in to that stuff.”
“She is.” He looked down at his feet. “But I’m thinking that this whole ‘incompatible signs’ thing is just a cover. She’s so independent, you know? And I think it’s just an excuse to keep her independence and keep me at a distance. But together . . .” He smiled and looked away for a moment. “It’s like she’s the sun and I’m the moon and it takes both of us to make a whole day.”
I stared at him, not sure if he was being eloquent or just speaking in tongues. I decided to cut to the chase. “Do you love her, Chad?”
He nodded, and I was relieved that he hadn’t tried to put his feelings into words again.
“Good. Because even a blind man could see that the two of you were made for each other.” I pushed him toward the door. “So go do whatever you have to do to show her how much you care for her and want to be with her. And I won’t tell a soul about the sander. Promise.”
He looked at me gratefully as I propell
ed him out of the room. “Ciao, Miss Ginnette, catch you later.”
My mother stuck her head out from the closet. “Good-bye, Chad.”
After Chad left, my mother turned to me. “Was there something you needed, Mellie?”
I looked around for where I’d placed the journal, having forgotten why I’d come in there in the first place. I held the book in my hands, suddenly shy and unsure how to approach her.
“I’ve been reading the journal we found in Grandmother’s desk. I don’t know who the writer is, yet, but I know she lived in this house with another girl whose name begins with an R. I get the feeling that they’re sisters, but the writer doesn’t come right out and say it.” I glanced up at my mother to gauge her reaction to my next words. “She mentions a protector who she can see and talk to, but R can’t see him.”
I knew what I needed her to do, but still I hesitated.
“I’ve been thinking about what’s been going on in the house. We’ve both seen the soldier, but he’s not—foggy anymore. And a couple of times he didn’t disappear when I looked him in the face.”
She nodded, her brows furrowed. “And the other spirit, the girl, she likes to appear when you’re alone. Like you’re on an even playing field when it’s just the two of you.” My mother sat down on the bed and a skirt slipped to the floor, but she didn’t move to pick it up. “Except for that time in the kitchen when I touched the locket, she hasn’t appeared when the two of us are together. Like she knows that together we’re too powerful. If we find out her name, if we know who she is and why she’s here to harm you, we can exorcise her. She will work very hard to make sure we don’t figure that out.”
She pointed to the journal. “You want me to hold it, don’t you?”
I hesitated a moment before nodding. “I was hoping you might be able to tell me more than what’s written within the covers.”
She eyed the journal, then looked back at me. “It kills me a little each time.”
“I know. That’s why I haven’t asked you.”
For a moment, I thought she was going to refuse, and I felt the old anger resurface. Instead, she held her hands out. “But I would gladly do this a hundred times if I thought it might spare you even a moment of danger.” Slowly, she opened her palm so that it was facing me, and there—in faded pink where the burn was healing—was the imprint of the locket.
I sucked in a breath of air. “You didn’t tell me.” It was a stupid thing to say, and I shook my head.
She sat down on the edge of the bed. “Give me the journal, Mellie. I want to help if I can.”
I hesitated, and she reached for it. “Give me the journal.”
I swallowed, then placed the book in her hands and she took it, gripping it tightly. The response was almost immediate. Her eyes closed as her hand began to shake. I put my hand over hers only because I didn’t know what else to do, and her skin felt cold and wet like snow. Her mouth moved, but nothing came out, a drowning woman searching for air.
I felt real fear then—fear of whatever force was causing this, and fear for my mother. Clothes slipped off the bed in a small avalanche as she continued to grip the book, her head shaking back and forth.
“Mother!” I shouted, wanting to make her stop. She continued to shake uncontrollably. “Mother!” I called out again and this time she responded by jerking her arm back and hurling the book across the room. It hit the freshly painted wall, denting the plaster, before it landed on the hardwood floor.
My mother stared at me, her chest rising and falling rapidly and her eyes blinking slowly.
“What is it?” I asked, almost afraid to know. “What did you see?”
Shakily, she stood and put her hands on my shoulders, whether to steady me or her I wasn’t sure.
“What did you see?” I asked again.
Her eyes were clear as she answered and it took me a moment to recognize the single word that came out of her mouth.
She dropped her hands and said it again, just to make sure I’d heard, and I watched her lips move as if in slow motion as she formed the one word. “Rebecca.”
CHAPTER 18
I paused on the outdoor steps, hearing the staccato snipping of manual hedge cutters. Until about a year ago, I’d had no idea what hedge cutters were or what they sounded like, and I still wasn’t sure if my newfound knowledge was a good thing or not.
My hands shook as I turned the key to lock the front door, having not yet completely recovered from watching what happened when my mother touched the journal. She seemed disoriented, but insisted it was only because she needed to take a nap and nothing more. I wanted to reschedule my appointment with Yvonne so I could stay with her, but she wouldn’t hear of it.
I followed the sound to the side of the house where my grandmother’s garden had once been the pride of Legare Street. Most of the former residents’ cement blobs and hulking metal monoliths had been removed. I’d instructed for them to be tossed in a Dumpster but instead listened to Amelia Trenholm when she convinced me to get them appraised first.
Shocked as I was by their apparent value, I happily took the money from an independent art dealer and purchased a Queen Anne console table and bookcase for the upstairs sitting room, and still had money left over to convert my bathroom from a bordello to something that more resembled a spa.
My father stood with his back to me, pruning back two large crepe myrtles that had once been no taller than my six-year-old self. He stepped back when he saw me, and lowered the clippers. “Who knows the last time somebody did any cleaning up in this garden? Seems to me those people just let everything go wild.”
“Maybe they did it as a distraction so people wouldn’t mind the inside so much.”
He smiled at me, his eyes bright, and it occurred to me how new it was to see him smile, and how hard he had to have worked to have something to smile about.
“Come here,” he said, motioning for me to follow before leading me to the edge of the house. “Look what I found.” He moved aside tall grass that hadn’t yet fallen to the hedge clippers and revealed my grandmother’s prized Miss Charleston camellias. Despite being neglected and overgrown, large deep red semidouble blooms resembling the puffed-out cheeks of cherubs clung stubbornly to their stems. These camellias had been Grandmother’s favorites, but not just for their beauty and scent. She loved them because of how brave they were to bloom brightly in the winter months when everything else slept.
“I can’t wait to clean this grass out and let those flowers go to town. I’ve got some pretty amazing plans for this garden, a sort of mix between old and new design. I’m even going to resurrect your grandmother’s famous knot garden.” He grinned broadly and I couldn’t help but grin back, his enthusiasm contagious.
“Daddy . . .” I began, and he tilted his head toward me, waiting for me to continue. Speaking of my feelings came unnaturally to me. I’d spent a lifetime pretending I didn’t hurt, and making believe that I didn’t require affection or the give-and-take of any close relationship. And somehow along the way, I’d forgotten how to show him how much he meant to me.
“Daddy,” I started again. “You’ve done a great job.”
He met my gaze, and I wondered if he was noticing that my eyes were just like his. He nodded tightly, both of us knowing that I wasn’t talking about the garden, yet each aware of how much I needed to pretend that we were. “Thanks, Peanut.”
I grimaced and rolled my eyes, warmed by the use of my old nickname. I studied him for a moment. “You know, Daddy, I’d be happy to help you find a house. It’s silly in this market to rent when you could get something pretty decent right now.” I thought of the cramped one-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment in North Charleston where he’d lived ever since he retired. Initially, he’d told me it was only until he got settled, but that had been more than five years ago.
He squinted at me in the sunlight. “Yeah, I’ve thought about it. I think I’m going to wait on it a bit, though. Try to limit any more life changes for the
time being.”
I nodded, understanding. “Just let me know. I’ll do it without a fee, of course.”
“I would hope so,” he said, pretending to be offended. Then it was his turn to study me. He seemed to be struggling with words, as if unsure how to string them together in a way that wouldn’t make me run. Finally, he said, “I wish you could find a way to forgive your mother. She tried to reach you all those years, and I wouldn’t let her.You’ve forgiven me. Why can’t you do the same for her?”
Sadness welled up from inside of me, surprising me only because of the absence of anger. I shook my head, wondering when the anger had gone. Maybe it had been when my mother had touched the journal, knowing it would hurt her but doing it anyway because she thought it might help me. I swallowed. “She left, Daddy. You didn’t.”
He didn’t look away and I had trouble holding his gaze. I turned to leave, then stopped. “Can you do me a favor?” I asked.
“Anything. What?”
I smiled to myself, noticing how he’d agreed to help me without knowing what I was going to ask. “I need to go see Yvonne, but Mother isn’t feeling well and is lying down. I didn’t want to leave her, but she insisted that she was okay. I’d feel better knowing that you’re keeping an eye on her while I’m gone.”
He put down the clippers and began peeling off his gardening gloves. “What happened?”
“You don’t want to know.”
His lips tightened over his teeth. “Some of that hocus-pocus upset her?”
I pressed the collar of my coat up to my neck, feeling chilled in the cool air. “Don’t go there, Dad.”
“But . . .”
“Please, Daddy. And if you’re going to go up there to upset her more, then just stay out here. I would have thought after forty years, you might have opened your mind a tad. Stepped out of your box a little. It’s not like Mother and I have been making this stuff up all this time just to annoy you. Maybe if you’d stop to think for a moment, you might discover that life isn’t all just black-and-white.”