Not Quite Clear

by Lyla Payne

  He gives me his classic once-over followed by a shrug. High praise.

  Henry doesn’t follow me out the door or down the stairs, which is typical. Anne hasn’t been back to visit, which makes me wonder whether she thinks everything should be taken care of after her last appearance. It worries me that we’re missing something that even a ghost can’t see.

  Amelia’s on the front porch, looking gorgeous with her hair curled and her new body accentuated by a wrap dress and stylish flats. Her face, however, suggests that she’s plotting ways to murder me if I don’t get my ass out the door in the next two seconds.

  “Coffee?”

  “No time, but I’m sure there’s a cart at or near the courthouse. Let’s go.”

  We take her car because she claims that the stink in mine is capable of sticking to her clothes and she doesn’t want to smell like old cheese in front of the judge. I drive, though, to avoid her nerves killing us before we get there.

  It’s a short drive but seems to take forever. Now that the day is finally here, and we have every reason to believe it will go as we hope, it can’t be over fast enough.

  We find a parking spot and go through a back entrance as Phoebe suggested, meeting her in the conference room set aside for defendants in upcoming cases. My cousin’s lawyer looks like she stepped off the pages of GQ, or possibly Maxim if she left just one more button undone on her pressed teal shirt.

  “Why did you have us come in the back?” I ask, a tad winded from the sprint. “You’re not worried about press, are you?”

  She glares at me, her anger clear in the way she’s yanking files out of her briefcase. “You never know, with the plaintiffs in this case—one of whom is a United States Senator, in case you’ve forgotten—being subjected to misconduct at their accountant’s office and also having their home broken into the same week.”

  “Hey, you’re the one who said we needed evidence—”

  “Yes, and I should have known you weren’t competent enough to get it without leaving a couple of turds in the punchbowl.”

  “It’s not Grace’s fault,” Amelia interrupts, glaring right back at Phoebe. “She’s not a lawyer or a private investigator. She’s just a professional troublemaker, and that’s what you got when you hinted she should get involved—trouble. Let’s focus.”

  “Fine. But you’ll see the extra hours of negotiation it took to keep the Middletons on track after those incidents reflected on your bill.”

  I wince, hoping Aunt Karen doesn’t have a stroke when she opens that piece of mail. They have some cash, but there’s no way Phoebe comes cheap. Now that she’s pissed, probably even less so.

  “What’s the deal? They agreed?”

  Phoebe nods at her client, taking a few visible breaths to calm down. “They agreed. You’ll retain full physical custody and the right to make all major decisions without input. They are requesting—and expect you to agree to—visitation once the child is old enough.”

  “Old enough?” I snort. “Because they don’t want to be up all night with an infant.”

  The look Phoebe shoots me could send a colony of rats scurrying back inside their nest, and I shut up, figuring none of this is really my business, anyway. It sounds as though she’s got things locked down.

  An hour later, we’re in front of the judge. Despite our attorney’s unwavering confidence and all the work we’ve done to get this far, my palms start to sweat. The Middletons look like the same giant assholes they did at the deposition a few weeks ago. This time, I know they are, and not just with their finances. The memory of their old chemist claiming they tested drugs on unsuspecting children churns my stomach. If there were a way to really make them pay, I would do it in a heartbeat.

  Brick looks handsome, more like Beau today in his expensive suit. His expression is shuttered, unemotional, and impossible to read. He catches my cousin’s gaze at one point and gives her the smallest of smiles before turning back to the paperwork on his table. The Middletons sit as far away from him as possible while remaining at the plaintiff’s table, and the feel of the entire scenario spikes my curiosity.

  “All rise, the Honorable Judge Nicole Pauletti presiding.”

  The bailiff’s proclamation gets me out of my seat, but we all settle back in soon enough. The hearing starts, and the way everything goes according to plan helps slow my heart rate back to some semblance of normal. It spikes when the judge reads the report from the Middeltons’ shrink, which claims Amelia is unfit and should not only lose custody of her child but be committed for violent delusions and borderline personality disorder.

  Please. My cousin is the most stable person I know, in normal times.

  The psych report from our side says the opposite, that she’s suffered a trauma but is working through it, something that takes time but that is a normal human experience. The judge asks the lawyers to present their wishes, and that’s when Brick starts talking.

  “Your Honor, my clients have had a change of heart regarding their initial filing. They would like to allow the mother, Amelia Cooper Middleton, to retain custody of their grandchild after his birth but humbly request visitation rights.”

  The judge, a young woman who might not be all that much older than I am, raises thick, dark eyebrows. She tucks a lock of short brown curls behind her ear and turns a sharp, probing gaze on Phoebe, who stands. “What does your client say to this?”

  “Ms. Cooper is amenable to arranging visitation with the paternal grandparents in this case.”

  “She feels mentally capable of caring for the child.”

  “Yes, Your Honor. She’s looking forward to it.”

  The judge riffles through more reports, or statements, or whatever else is in the folder in front of her while the rest of us wait. Phoebe warned us that even though the Middletons could request whatever they wanted, the judge has the final say. I hold my breath until she looks up again, the fact that she’s made a decision clear in the relaxed expression on her face.

  “I’m going to honor the wishes of the parties involved; however, I do feel as though the details of this case require continual monitoring.” Every last nerve in my body stands at attention. At her table, Amelia goes still. “I want you to continue to see a psychiatrist, Ms. Cooper. One of your choosing. And we will have someone from the court out for mandatory visits once a month for the next year.”

  She pounds her gavel and dismisses us without another word. It’s not so bad, what she’s asked for—Millie wants to see a shrink anyway, and as for the visits, I don’t know. It feels like nothing after what could have happened. What we could have lost.

  The Middletons leave the courtroom without speaking to anyone, leaving even Brick behind at their table. Phoebe speaks softly to Amelia, and I catch something about paperwork that needs to be signed as I walk up to the railing that separates them from the peanut gallery.

  Amelia, however, forgoes a celebratory hug with me to fling her pregnant self at Brick.

  He catches her in a solid hug, a soft, surprised smile on his hard features. Phoebe looks on with an expression of shock that’s similar to the one rearranging my own features. They release each other, probably because they have an audience, and Brick clears his throat.

  “I, uh, congratulations. You’re going to make a wonderful mother.”

  “Thank you. And thank you for giving me Dr. Frank’s name. He’s lovely.”

  “Wait, you’ve been seeing a shrink?” For some reason, that’s the question that comes out.

  “Yes. I couldn’t say anything because I wasn’t supposed to be during the hearing period.” She shoots a guilty look toward Phoebe, who raises her hands.

  “It’s over now. I’m done with you unless one of these court visits goes badly.” She snaps her briefcase shut and gives Amelia what passes for a smile. “I’m sure it won’t.”

  Then she’s gone, and Brick follows, shuffling out like a boy who got busted in his girlfriend’s bedroom. I don’t know if I’m the dad in this scenario but
I do know that if even one less thing were hanging over my head right now, my cousin would totally be grounded.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Amelia went to bed straight after dinner, leaving Beau and me alone in the living room. It’s the first chance we’ve had to be by ourselves without talk and worry about the custody case hanging over our heads, and it’s nice, just being together. It’s weird, not talking about Leo or Mel, but we’ve exhausted the topic and there’s nothing we can do tonight. Instead of fretting, we’re making an effort to lounge in front of the television like a normal couple. My feet are propped up on his lap and our drinks are mostly empty on the coffee table as we enjoy the peace and quiet.

  He looks at ease, with happy wrinkles around his hazel eyes every time he catches my gaze. It’s getting harder and harder for me to pretend everything is okay. I have one more day to figure out what’s going on with Mama Lottie’s curse and fix it or the deal is off. Then Jack, if he makes it to term, won’t see his thirteenth birthday, and my cousin could be carted off by a miniature spirit in the middle of the night, never to be seen again, just to punish me. For what? I still haven’t figured it out.

  “Let’s go to bed, Gracie Anne. I’m beat, and if I lie here much longer I might be too beat to enjoy the rest of the evening.”

  A distracted smile tugs at my lips. “Oh? What exactly does the rest of the evening entail?”

  “I’m hoping some snuggling.”

  “Did you bring your snuggling clothes?” I tease.

  He snaps his fingers and moves my feet off his lap, standing up. “I knew I forgot something. I guess we’ll just have to go without.”

  We’re laughing, smiling, finding excuses to reach out and touch each other as we take our glasses into the kitchen and rinse them in the sink, turn off the lights, and set the alarm. It’s so ordinary, such a blissful peek into the future of a regular couple. I want to believe that’s waiting for us, just for tonight. We can pretend a little bit longer.

  Beau chases me up the last couple of stairs, and we tumble into the blue-and-cream bedroom muffling our laughter. Then he’s serious, pinning me up against the wall and stopping me from turning on the lights. Our mouths find each other’s like magnets, hands undoing buttons and sliding off undergarments with frantic but practiced movements.

  The sheets are cool against my back, bathed by the October air that’s filtering in through the window. The sensation, combined with the heat of our flesh slipping against each other’s, sizzles awareness along my nerves. I get lost in this man, the one I don’t deserve, don’t want to lose. But I don’t have a choice.

  It’s not until the intense high of connection and pleasure that I realize I’m crying. Beau reaches over, catches two tears, turns a questioning face toward me.

  I shake my head. “You just make me feel so much. It has to go somewhere.”

  “You’re amazing.”

  We lay there for a few minutes, cuddling, but this isn’t a movie where everything’s clean and nice right afterward, so eventually I have to get up, go to the bathroom, and clean up. I slip back under the covers into his waiting arms.

  I’m nestled against him, my head tucked under his chin and entirely too warm, when it happens. He starts talking.

  I start losing my grip on my ability to keep it together.

  “I was thinking you and I might discuss what we talked about the other day.” His hand caresses my arm, but I can’t relax. “The future?”

  “Hmm,” is all I can manage. Screaming at him to shut up seems overdramatic, even for me, but I can’t handle this. Not now, not with everything going on.

  Everything I’ve done.

  “I really would like to talk about running for national office in a few years. Maybe four. That would mean us moving away, and of course, we don’t know where we’ll be by then. In our relationship.”

  The way he says it leaves no doubt what he means. He’s not wondering whether we’ll still be together. He’s talking about whether there will be rings on our fingers, maybe babies on the way. Houses bought, honeymoons taken. All of it.

  “Yeah.” My voice is so soft it’s barely audible, but it doesn’t deter him.

  He keeps talking—about places we might live, how he promises we won’t have to see his parents any more than necessary, but he thinks I’ll really like Birdie and his youngest brother, Bennett, once I get to know them better. I start to feel sick.

  It’s the lies. Not the overt ones—though I’ve told those, too—but the latent untruth that’s unraveling our relationship at its core even as Beau keeps knitting into the future. There won’t be proposals and governors’ mansions and engagements and holidays endured at the Drayton home because, all this time, while he’s been dreaming about the future that waits out there for the two of us somewhere, I’ve been destroying it.

  “Stop.” I sit up, distancing myself. Trying to muffle the words, the meltdown, the truth, but there’s no way now. It’s beyond my ability to control. The need to have the reality of our future out there, in the open so it can stop killing me from the inside. I run a shaky hand through my hair, pushing down the bile threatening to rise. “Just stop, Beau.”

  He sits up, too, reacting to the tone of my voice, or the look on my face, or just the general outpouring of dread that’s filling the room like poison. He reaches for me, then halts. “What’s wrong?”

  “I have to tell you something,” I choke out.

  “Okay.” He licks his lips. “I have a feeling it’s not going to be something good.”

  I shake my head, determined not to cry. I’m going to get through this the way I’ve gotten through the rest of the shit in these past weeks and months—strong and alone. It still isn’t the time to break down.

  Soon. Soon, Gracie. Hold on a little longer.

  “Do you remember the night the snake bit you?” I laugh at my own idiotic question. “Of course you remember. Well, the reason I didn’t stumble into that snake first was because I saw a ghost, and she warned me away.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me there was a snake?” He looks befuddled by my confession, not realizing this is only the start of the story.

  “I couldn’t. She, like, froze me or something.” It’s only now that I admit to myself that Mama Lottie had been after Beau from the very first night. Not him alone, of course, but this is more proof that he’s better off without me. As though I need it.

  “Okay… Who is she? Why did she help you?”

  “Her name is Mama Lottie. She was a slave on the Drayton Hall property when your ancestors farmed rice there, and she was a powerful healer, to boot.” I suck in a breath, blow it out. “And she helped me because she wanted me to feel indebted to her. She knows about Amelia’s curse, and she said that she could help us break it for good.”

  He lights up, relief flooding his pretty eyes. Dimples popping in his cheeks. “That’s great, though!”

  “It’s not great, Beau. Do you seriously think a witch, or voodoo practitioner, or even just the angry slave she was in life is going to do me a favor like that without asking for anything in return?”

  Our eyes lock. He sees my despair but doesn’t move closer, instead going still. Swallows, and in my heart, I know that he’s trying to prepare himself for what’s coming. There’s no way he can.

  “What does she want, Gracie?” His voice is quiet, now, and hard. “What have you done?”

  This is it—the moment I break his heart. The second it all comes tumbling down.

  I jump in the water.

  “She wants my help to put a curse on your family.”

  It takes a moment to sink in, but when it does, he doesn’t react the way I expect. He smiles. “Come on. A curse? By a ghost, after all this time? I don’t buy it.”

  For some reason, his response triggers anger in me. “What, so you don’t believe in curses, now? Maybe you think Millie and I have been making this up the whole time!”

  “No, Gracie, calm down. Of course I don’t think that, bu
t it’s harder to believe it’s happening to me. Why? What does she have against our family?” He pauses, thinking. “Besides the obvious enslavement.”

  I bite my tongue to keep from commenting that enslavement would be enough. “She has it out specifically for an ancestor named Sarah Drayton. Mama Lottie says she wasn’t born a slave, that she was a Northerner and from a free family before she was kidnapped and sold. That Sarah and maybe her husband—and others, I don’t know—knew she didn’t belong but kept her because of her talent with healing, improving crops, things like that.”

  “That’s terrible, if it’s true.”

  “I seriously doubt she would hang around all this time—” a shudder works down my spine at the memory of her tantrum last week “—or be quite so angry and determined to get revenge if it weren’t true…”

  All the color drains from his face over the next thirty seconds, as though all this is finally sinking in to a place where he realizes what it means. “Wait. Are you telling me… Did you agree to help her?”

  “I had to—”

  “Oh my god.”

  “Beau, I had to! It’s the only way Jack will live. Amelia and I can’t figure out curses and voodoo and witches without help, and you know it.” My heart races. “I told her I wouldn’t hurt you, though. No physical harm, that’s what I said.”

  “You’ve been working on this behind my back for…how long? How long have you been pretending to love me and lying to my face?”

  “I’m not pretending to love you! I do love you! And it’s been killing me keeping this to myself but what choice did I have?” The sheets are balled in my fists, wet with sweat. “It’s just been a couple of weeks, that’s all.”

  “That’s all?” This time, there’s nothing remotely funny about his laugh. It’s full of disgust and betrayal and disbelief barked out in a hoarse rasp. “How many times have we talked about being open with each other? Not keeping secrets?”

  “I know, but how could you understand this?”

  Beau takes several moments to answer, visibly calming down. He gets up and starts to dress. I don’t move, numb from head to toe. Hurting on a scale that’s hard to quantify, but I’m partly relieved. This isn’t only my burden anymore.