His Haunted Heart

by Lila Felix

  “No. I won’t. Get out of my house.”

  She stood and swiped at invisible crumbs on her shoulder when she should’ve been swiping at the clearly visible ones on her skirt. “This isn’t your house. Don’t be a fool, Delilah.”

  “This is her home. Her name is on the deed and her name is attached to all of my money. Anything I owned, own, or will own is hers. If she says get out, I suggest you comply before I get involved.”

  His voice shook. He was still rattled from whatever Adele referred to before.

  “I won’t be visiting anymore if this is how you’re going to treat me.”

  “You weren’t welcome to visit in the first place, Adele.”

  With my hand on her elbow, I pulled, rather than escorted her to the door where Eliza and June were already standing at the ready with it wide open. The only thing wider were their grins.

  “I—wait—I don’t have money for the man who brought me here.”

  Porter pulled out some bills and held them in the air for her. With a snide mumbling, she snatched them from his hand and never looked back. We all stood there and watched as she got smaller and smaller in our minds and in our vision.

  We proceeded through the rest of the day in silence. Porter hadn’t said a word about Adele’s telling and I hadn’t asked. He would tell me in good time and I would believe him.

  I had no choice.

  My heart had no choice in the matter.

  The back porch called to me and so did the Louisiana night air. I sat in one of the rockers and let the lull of the back and forth motion calm me. I didn’t wonder about the first part of Adele’s confession. Porter didn’t strike me as the type to visit prostitutes if that was even what she alluded to.

  Maybe there was something even more sinister in the city.

  I’d never know. The city had always been like a dungeon to me—some may be curious, but I was not.

  I’d seen a little of hell.

  I didn’t want to go back.

  As I looked beyond the once-white railings on the porch and out to the pond, I noticed movement along the other side of the porch. Someone was in the grass.

  “Who is there?” I called, chastising myself for not sounding bolder.

  “Rebel.”

  Of course it was Rebel.

  “What are you doing skulking around? Shouldn’t you be gone for the day?”

  He took a few minutes coming to the stairs of the porch, looking down the entire time. He searched for something.

  “I’ve misplaced something—important to me.”

  “What is it? I’m sure it’s here somewhere. It’s getting dark, you’d better find it before then.”

  The chagrin on his face unsettled me.

  “I have to find it before night falls. I don’t know what will happen if I don’t.”

  He talked to himself more than me. His face was red and splotchy from worry, I guessed.

  “Rebel, I’m sure we can find it, but I can’t if I don’t know what I’m looking for.”

  “It’s none of your concern. I had it in the stable.”

  Without alerting him, I pressed Marie’s necklace against my chest, just to make sure I still had it. As if I’d conjured her with the movement, her form emerged from the line of fog along the water, but this time she was an entirely different creature.

  Her skin sagged off of her face in clumps of wrinkles. Her hair, once shiny and bright now slithered like snakes from her head, wet and clumped into chunks that threatened to fall out with the slightest tug. Her dress and that ribbon in her hair remained the same.

  “I’ll find it Marie,” he whispered. His voice had taken on a tone that matched Marie’s appearance.

  “What will you find?” Porter’s tone startled me, causing me to jump in the chair.

  “Nothing. I lost something that belonged to me.”

  “Better than something that belonged to me, I guess. Then again, you’re good at losing things that belong to me as well.”

  “Shut up, Porter!” Rebel hissed.

  “Go home, Rebel. The night is already coming in. You won’t find anything tonight. I’m sure the squirrels won’t steal whatever you’ve lost.”

  “Fine. I’ll be back at the break of dawn.”

  “That will be a first.”

  Rebel shot Porter a glare that was meant to be deadly but stalked off anyway, swearing until we could no longer hear him.

  “I want you to stay away from him—please.” The ‘please’ came after several seconds of pause.

  “Porter, I came out here to get some air and he was in the bushes looking for God only knows what. He looked distraught and then…” My voice trailed off as I noticed Marie was no longer in her place or anywhere at all for that matter. “Marie was there.”

  “Do you want to come inside?” He looked around, now concerned about my ghost sighting.

  “No. I’m enjoying the cool air. Why don’t you come sit with me? You look like you’ve got a hundred ghosts in that head of yours.”

  He said nothing but sat in the chair next to me. It was a his and hers set, the woman’s rocked and the man’s did not.

  Women needed rocking chairs for babies and for their nerves.

  “I don’t care what she said about you, if that’s what you’re so sullen about.”

  “Sullen? Is that what you think I am?”

  “Yes. You’re not speaking to me. You’ve been avoiding eye contact.”

  He leaned forward and raked his fingers through his black hair. There was nothing more I wanted to see at that moment than those gray eyes, but he refused. “I’m worried, Delilah. Didn’t you hear what your sister said? It’s all beginning to make sense now—well, not really, but it’s got me thinking.”

  “You’re not making any sense.”

  “Don’t you see? From the moment Marie got here, she was preoccupied with Rebel—where he was—what he was doing. She claimed it was all friendship. But I knew better. She was adopted, did I tell you that? She was—at the age of five. Even her parents were weary of her behavior. Delilah, what if it’s true? What if she’d planned it all along, marrying me and then killing me off just to take my money, my property, and she’d get Rebel as a parting gift.”

  “Honestly, I don’t know. But if that was the plan and it was working, why did she kill herself?”

  I kept my own notions to myself about Marie and that note.

  “Something must’ve changed her mind. Maybe she felt guilty and decided that was the only way out.”

  “Are you interested in my opinion on the subject?”

  “Of course, Delilah.”

  “Well, you said Marie was raised here and sent to the best of schools. I’ve seen several of her letters and yet the one she wrote to you looks as if it were written by a completely different person—not even a woman.”

  From his troubled post, he turned to face me. Lines of distress marred his otherwise handsome face.

  “Are you saying she didn’t write it?”

  Everything he’d believed for who knows how long was being untangled and unraveled in one question. I didn’t even have to answer it for him to see the truth in my quiet.

  “It never occurred to me. I took it at face value.”

  “Porter, you and I know better than anyone to accept things at face value. Often they are the opposite of truth.”

  The night descended on us. The crickets signaled our bedtime, but it came and went as he rolled the events of the day through his head over and over again. I understood his pain.

  “Porter, let’s get to bed. You’re accomplishing nothing by sitting out here punishing yourself. We’ll figure all of this out.”

  “Will we?”

  “It’s the least I can do. I’ve brought so much strife on your house.”

  For once, I was the one comforting him through the scars.

  I took his silence as agreement.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Porter

  Rebel shows up at the mos
t peculiar moments. If he was smart enough to have a gift, that would be it.

  There’s always been something about him that crawled down my spine. It was the way he looked at people when they weren’t paying attention. It was the way he never kept regular hours—always here in the mornings or at night when the last thing you wanted to see was his face.

  He skulked around the property. He was more a ghost than Marie herself.

  What circumstances forced my grandfather into signing a contract that cemented us into giving his family permanent employment was beyond me. They’d all given pathetic efforts at their work.

  Then again, it would cost me three times as much in attorney fees as it did his annual salary to get out of the contract.

  I didn’t like the way his eyes grew darker when he looked at Delilah.

  I hated the way everything I knew crumbled to pieces, the more I learned about Marie and Rebel.

  When I’d seen Delilah in that shamble of a house, frail and weak, I wanted to save her more than anything I’d ever desired in my life.

  Yet, here she was letting me lean on her like a crutch.

  On the other side of the closet, that was as large as the smaller bedrooms, I watched her undress. Much had changed between us. She no longer clung to me—she stood more confident—her posture revealed a self-assured woman instead of the oppressed creature I’d found that night.

  The night that changed my life.

  I watched as she took a necklace off and shove it into the top drawer of her dresser.

  “I never noticed you wearing a necklace.” I mentioned, turning around to toss my shirt over the top of a chair.

  “I—I found it.”

  “It must be my mother’s. She left some things here for you. I’m glad you like it.”

  I heard the swish of the tie on her robe and her feet pad across the Cypress floor, onto the rug, and back to wood again. Before she reached me, I felt the hairs on the back of my neck rise. My chest tightened as she came near, every time.

  “You’re okay?” Her question was coupled by long and lithe arms encircling my waist. She pressed her cool face between my shoulder blades. As she spoke, her breath skittered along my skin.

  It broke me.

  “I just wanted to save you—bring you to my home and take care of you—even if you never loved me or even liked me. It’s all gone to hell now.”

  “She hasn’t been around much since—since the last time. Maybe something happened to make her stop. The way I see it, the good far outweighs the bad.”

  I brushed off her sideways compliment and the kiss on my shoulder that went with it.

  “If the note wasn’t her writing—do you think Marie was murdered?”

  “What other reason would there be for someone else writing a suicide note?”

  Her tone grew more and more disenchanted as the days drew on. Before long, the angel that had by accident come into my life would grow to despise this life if I couldn’t put an end to the constant upheaval around us.

  My name, once sapid on her tongue would sour and grow to be a bitter word in her mouth.

  Like Marie’s name had become to me.

  “I don’t know. I don’t want to speak on the matter anymore.”

  She giggled, letting go of my waist and rounding my body to stand face to face with her husband.

  “I would be happy to let it go if you would stop bringing it up, husband.”

  A bit of laughter huffed from my nostrils at the word. It still had a breath of honey coming from her. Not too late to salvage my wife’s love.

  As we strode into the bedroom, I noticed her wardrobe and the drawers to her vanity were open. After asking her to stay behind me, I investigated. Nothing was misplaced and the clothing and items inside the open drawers and cabinets were untouched.

  “Maybe your mother has been in here looking for something.” In desperation, Delilah attempted to rationalize the out of turn incident.

  “She was looking for something but moved nothing?”

  Now I was the one who sounded haunted.

  “Let’s go to bed. I can’t think about this anymore.”

  She crawled into bed without a second look in my direction.

  It was then I realized how the tables had turned. Once, I sought her in some misplaced sense of heroism or redemption only to find that now she was the one who held my entire being in the palm of her hand and my soul was wrapped around hers.

  The creature that once needed saving had saved me from a purgatory I’d damned myself to.

  Before my head hit the pillow, I felt the wracking sobs coming from the docile creature beside me.

  Oddly enough, I felt honored that she would show me such emotion. For years, I knew, or I assumed, her emotions or any outward show of emotions were kept to herself. Her crying was saved for dark corners or solemn moments of peace.

  “You don’t have to cry by yourself anymore, love.”

  My voice took her by surprise. She froze in place and tried in vain to squash her rapid breathing.

  “Delilah, if nothing else, allow me to hold you while you cry. I’ll be damned if I can change the things happening around us, but I can hold you and keep you. Or I can leave if you wish me to.”

  Her body flipped and she faced me again. I swore that every time I looked at her, another feature became apparent. At that moment, I could see a triangle of freckles by her collar bone.

  I hadn’t seen those before.

  I was a fool.

  “I will never wish for you to leave, Porter. As much as I never wanted to get married, or never thought I had the chance of getting married—there’s nowhere else I’d rather be.”

  “Do you mean that?”

  “I do.”

  Her confirmation rang with the truth that her first ‘I do’ should’ve. With the truth of concrete emotion behind it.

  I pushed one stray strand of hair behind her ear. She pulled it back down immediately, still trying to cover up a part of her that I’d grown to love just as much as the rest of her.

  “Does it ever pain you?”

  “Every once in a while. It stings—here.” She pointed to the top where the deepest cut must’ve occurred, at the very start of the jagged line.

  “Maybe there is still something a doctor could do.”

  “It reminds me. It used to remind me of horrible things and nasty people. But now it reminds me that those days are long gone.”

  I couldn’t help the chuckle that burst from my mouth. This woman was intelligent and wise beyond her years. Anyone who looked beyond her decrepit home and her dreadful family would’ve seen the angel that stayed tucked into the corners of her own hell.

  “You are beautiful.” I whispered down to her. I’d shifted to rise above her, partly covering her with my body.

  She blushed but did not disagree. Her lips, full and ripe begged for mine. Her tongue ran a haughty path along the bottom lip as eyes the color of the sky itself gazed at me in a way that no woman ever had.

  “Porter?”

  I answered her with a groan of sorts.

  “Close the curtains.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Delilah

  After a fitful night of sleep for the both of us, we barely spoke until both of us had ingested enough coffee for a week.

  “I was thinking of going to the city today,” Porter said. The word city made me frightened as a girl. Now as a married woman, it made my stomach turn. “I thought maybe you’d like to come with me.”

  I looked at both June and Eliza whose smiles seemed to encourage the venture.

  “For how long?”

  “A couple of days. Three at the most.”

  I was sure that a visit to the city would seem like a vacation to most, but for someone as obscure as myself, it was yet another place to hide my scar and duck from unwelcome stares.

  “No harm will come to you, as my wife.”

  “Oh yes, Porter is very important in the city. He is well-respected and
listened to. You’ll see.”

  Eliza spoke as if the decision had already been made.

  “All the reason for him to go alone,” I muttered under my breath.

  Porter had impeccable hearing.

  “I changed my mind. I’m insisting you come with me.”

  Just weeks ago, I would’ve folded under that subtle command. Firmly intending to rebel against his insistence, my arms crossed over my chest—until I looked into those gray eyes.

  Any mutiny I thought I’d built up was squashed.

  “When do we leave?”

  In vain, he attempted to squander a smile. “As soon as you can get packed.”

  Not wanting to seem too enthusiastic, I waited a few minutes until Porter went to his office to burst up the stairs and look for a bag. I didn’t even know what to pack.

  Eliza came in wordlessly and plopped a huge leather suitcase on the bed. I stood in the middle of the bedroom, helplessly as she packed for me.

  “These boots are unworn. Walking on the concrete of the city is different from walking on the land. You’ll want to wear your worn boots. They will be more comfortable.”

  She went on and on as she neatly packed everything I would need for a week or more. She didn’t touch Porter’s things and I assumed that fell to me as the wife.

  “Will we need another suitcase for Porter?”

  “There’s one at the bottom of the closet, under his coats. Here, let me help you.”

  I sighed as she bustled around, but took mental notes. Next time, I would’ve preferred to complete the task myself.

  Porter came in and took the suitcases without any effort. “I’m ready when you are.” He smiled at me and winked.

  A shiver willowed through my veins at that wink. Some things I hoped to never get used to.

  ~~

  We trotted along the dusty road in an open carriage which afforded us no protection from the weather or the dust—or the other people we would soon run into.

  “I need to address what Adele brought up. I don’t want to see any doubt of my character in your eyes.”

  I turned to him in a swift tick. “Do you see doubt in my eyes?”

  “No. I don’t. And I don’t want a whisper to turn into that. That’s why I want to tell you.”