Her frantic eyes swept the crowded porch for her son. Her heart caught.
“Sweet Jesus in Heaven!” The shrill oath came from Polly Davis. Similar piercing cries and screams rose from the other women. Something terrible had claimed their attention.
Clara Douglas fainted.
Martha Grimes tried to soldier Alicia into the house. Alicia fended her off. She would not be moved.
Pulling free, she turned to see the flames and smoke enveloping the old barn, rendering it a blazing inferno. She could hear the sounds of crackling, splintering wood.
And she saw now, for just a moment before the smoke thickened, what the others had seen. There at the cracked window of the hayloft loomed a blanched and bespectacled face. Claude’s face. Behind the dirty glass, the twisted lips mouthed the unmistakable syllables: Ma-ma. Ma-ma.
Now, as if in a slow, surreal dream, tentacles of smoke enfolded him and the pale form fell back from sight.
ONE
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
1999
Margaret Flaherty Rockwell had two secrets. The first, that she had seen a ghost, she had—for the moment—forgotten.
It was her second secret that was her ally in this, the first real argument of her two-year marriage.
“Martini?” Kurt called from the little kitchen.
“No thanks,” she heard herself say. She bit at her lower lip. Yes, she wanted to say, with three olives. Meg listened to the steel and glass tinkling sounds of the quiet, ordered ritual. He’s so certain he’ll have his way, she thought.
She stared out the window, her hands interlocked and unconsciously resting on her belly. The northeast view from the twenty-sixth floor was breathtaking: the park, the golf course, the tiny cars—like her nephew’s hot wheels—following the curve of Lake Shore Drive, and the incomparable lakefront. The view was unobstructed because far below sat the historically designated Pattington, where one of her friends, Wenonah Smythe resided. It was a wonderful old sprawling complex of condominiums that had been—at the turn of the century—rather elite apartments. While out walking, she often found herself daring to breach the walkways in the double courtyards so that she could stare into the oversized windows, some of which held wondrously curved glass. So much more history in a building like that!
But it wasn’t only the characterless feel of the thirty-year-old building they currently occupied that rankled. Or even the vertigo, with which she had wrestled since childhood. No, the fact that this was his condo she had moved into made her feel unsettled, ill-at-ease. Not hers. Not theirs. Oh, she had told herself that moving into Kurt’s bachelor condo would be fine. And yet, somehow, it wasn’t.
Meg wished that she could steel herself with a martini. But there would be no drinking for a while.
“Sure you don’t want anything?” Kurt asked, coming out of the small area that he called a kitchen.
“No,” Meg said. She thought of the house she had fallen in love with and took strength from the image. She would have it—or rather, they would.
Kurt sat next to her on the sofa. She didn’t turn to watch him; she didn’t have to. Her mind’s eye pictured him sipping at the martini as if it were liquid confidence. The blond hair—not a strand of gray visible—fell forward as he bent over the glass, hiding for the moment those blue eyes that could so coolly charm. Too damned boyish-looking for thirty-nine, Meg thought. Did she look the younger by two years? Did she look younger at all? Even with the silver which had begun to invade her reddish brown hair?
Not that Meg was wanting in self-esteem. She never had been. She kept herself in shape although she worried sometimes about her classic Irish look. Someone had told her—who was it? Father?—that Celtic beauty faded faster in alien climates. Still, that hadn’t kept her out of the sun as a teenager. She knew how well a little color brought out her green eyes. Emeralds, Kurt—with his Germanic lineage—called them. Like the Isle itself she would answer.
“Dee-licious,” Kurt purred.
He’s doing his corny schtick, Meg thought. She didn’t respond.
“Not too late,” he said. “You can have this one, and I’ll make another.”
“No, thanks.” Meg drew in a deep breath. “Kurt, what I want is the house.”
There, it was out!
“Oh, for Chrissakes, Meg!”
She sat silent, continuing to stare out, listening to the March winds whip around the building. The lake was dark and cold looking, free of vessels. She could feel his eyes on her.
Her silence was annoying him.
“We went to see it on a lark, didn’t we?” Kurt asked, sipping at his drink. “Because that nurse in cardio-pulmonary said it was a real find. Like something out of the Old South and cheap. We went to look, Meg. It was a little day trip. We didn’t go out there to buy a house, Meg—and in Indiana, for Chrissakes!”
“It’s only thirty minutes away.”
“From here?” Kurt scoffed. “When?—At three in the morning, maybe.”
“I can get a job out there. You know I hate what’s going on at the hospital. All the politics. And the days of the medical social worker are numbered.”
“Great! And what about me? I’ve worked my ass off to get where I am. I’m a vice-president now, Meg. What about my fricking career?”
“I’m not suggesting you quit. You could commute.”
“Do you know what the expressways are like at rush hour?”
“The South Shore train will take you right into downtown Hammond.”
Kurt laughed. “Downtown Hammond—yeah, right!”
“You say that like it’s an oxymoron.”
“A what?”
“Never mind. Hammond is coming back, didn’t the realtor say so? And those who invest now in the historic district— ”
“Are going to be shit out of luck when they find their realtors are just trying to make a living. Like I do—in Chicago!” Kurt lifted the nearly empty glass as if to toast the lakeshore.
They sat in silence several minutes, watching dusk fall and listening to the whoosh of traffic on the drive and the occasional exclamation of a horn or siren.
Meg’s gray-and-white cat, Rex, sidled up against her legs, then instead of jumping into her lap, he walked away as if he sensed the tension in the room. Meg watched as he carefully avoided the window ledge and the sharp drop that had terrified him the day they had moved into Kurt’s condo. He had leaped onto the man-made marble windowsill, looked down, meowed in fright, and leaped to the safety of the sofa. The twenty-six stories above ground had not amused him. Truth was, the height had terrified them both.
How Rex will love the house, Meg thought.
Kurt spoke at last. “Meg, our friends and family are here in the city.”
Ah, the tactful approach, Meg thought. “And the Cubs?” They were walking distance from Wrigley Field. “You see Sammy Sosa more often than you do your parents.”
“Yeah, and the Cubs. Okay, I won’t deny it. They plan even more night games now.”
“I’m sure our Wrigleyville neighbors will be glad to hear that.”
“Now, don’t go cynical on me.”
Meg turned to look at him now. “Kurt, it’s not Alaska.”
“It’s a 1910 huge frame house, a money pit. Ever see that movie with Tom Hanks? Damned funny, but damned true. Meg, it’s old and in disrepair. It’s going to need everything—paint— ”
“Roof, furnace, plumbing, and electric—we’ve been through all that. But at the price it’s being offered we can do all that as needed.”
He stared at her with what seemed amazement. “You really want this place, don’t you?”
Meg nodded. “Yes.”
Kurt sighed, and without taking his eyes off her, he set the empty martini glass on the steel and glass table she hated. “Why?”
“I—I don’t quite know. I just want it.” That Meg didn’t know came as a sudden revelation to herself. She knew only that from the time she had seen it, it had, in some inexplicable way
, become a part of her—or was it the other way around?
“It’s a whim, then?” Kurt’s question was more accusation.
“No, it’s not!” Meg’s immediate and strong reaction surprised even herself.
Kurt was staring at her in a way he never had before.
Had he seen through to her will in this matter? To a determination he had not expected? Was he weakening?
Meg was not about to be intimidated or bullied. Not now. Not about this. Her mother had told her to choose her fights, the ones worth fighting for.
He’s going to concede now, she thought.
“Meg,” he said, the blue eyes round as stones and as serious as she had ever seen, “I won’t live in Hammond—no matter how beautiful, how historic, or how cheap the house is.”
Meg’s heart fell, rebounded. “It’s a home, not a house.”
“Okay, it’s a home—but it’s not ours, Meg.”
His statement was meant to be the final word. He stood. “I think I’ll have another drink. You’re absolutely certain you don’t want one?”
Meg shook her head. “Absolutely certain.” The time had come to play her ace. “Kurt, you said we could one day relocate out of the city.”
“Yeah, I guess I did. I said maybe if we start a family.”
“No, you said when we start a family.”
“Okay, when— ”
“Kurt, when is now.”
Kurt Rockwell retraced his steps and dropped down onto the sofa, his square jaw sagging. “You’re not?” His eyes were widening into blue discs of surprise, happiness, childish reprimand.
Meg said nothing.
His gaze moved down, his expression registering the protective way Meg was holding her belly.
Meg smiled.
Kurt tried to speak but couldn’t.
Instead, he reached out for her, pulled her to him, held her. It was not something he did often and the action came a beat or two behind spontaneity, but Meg responded, warmed by his touch. They kissed.
Kurt drew back, launching into a litany of questions: how long had she suspected, when had her test proven positive, how did she feel then, how does she feel now?
One by one, she addressed the questions, assuring him that she was delighted and feeling perfect.
“Now I really do need another drink!” Kurt announced, springing up. “Oh, my God!” he blurted, flushed with excitement and pride. There had been no children in his first marriage. “And I’ll get you some mineral water, young lady!”
Meg lost no time in following up. Strike while the iron is hot. Her father had such a fondness for the adage. While Meg hated the cliché, she respected its core truth.
Before Kurt reached the kitchen, Meg made her own announcement. “Mrs. Shaw will be calling back at nine.”
“Mrs. Shaw?”
“Yes, Kurt. The realtor.”
Late into the night, Meg lay awake on her side, staring out to where a quarter moon shone on the darkly placid waters of Lake Michigan.
She had not played fair. She had used her pregnancy to get what she wanted. And after they had given the realtor a go-ahead to prepare a bid on the house, she had encouraged Kurt to make love to her. He had never been so gentle, and instead of easing her guilt at manipulating him, the lovemaking increased it.
But the guilt dissipated as she began to consider the child. The baby was what was important. I have life inside me, she thought, cradling her belly. As her single years had ticked by, she wondered whether this time would ever come. She could remember herself at thirteen telling her mother she would have seventeen children. The memory made her smile. She would settle for one now. This child would be her reason for living, sustaining her, renewing her. After all, her career in medical social work had not lived up to her expectations.
And her marriage . . .
Meg turned away from the window, switching to her other side and toward Kurt, who was sleeping soundly. She watched him. She was glad that he was pleased by the news. Perhaps the decision to marry him had been a good one. She had been doubtful. When his pursuit of her started, she had had her own pursuit: to have a child before time made it dangerous or impossible to do so. The problems facing a single mother didn’t faze her, and she had spent the two years before dating Kurt exploring the several avenues that could lead her to motherhood, including adoption. She was determined to have a child.
The appearance of Kurt Rockwell in her life had been a Godsend, or so her mother said, and Meg thought perhaps she was right. He had loved her from the start, she was certain, in a straightforward—if less than impassioned—way of his own. He had been tireless in his attention, quietly persistent despite her initial rebuffs. She had told herself—when she finally agreed to marry him—that she would come to love him.
She took stock of her feelings now. Although she had come to care for him and worry with and about him in a day-to-day life of big concerns and little details, she knew that she didn’t love Kurt.
At least not like she had loved Pete. Meg lay on her back now. Just the name conjured up those high school years. Golden years. Golden Peter Stoltmeyer. Two decades later her heart still raced at the thought of him.
Meg’s family had just moved from Chicago to a suburb, Oak Park, and without friends her freshman year at Oak Park-River Forest High School had been a disaster. She went through it blindly, head down against the wind, looking forward only to graduation. But in sophomore year she met Pete. He came up to her locker one day and introduced himself.
High school came alive for Meg Flaherty at that moment. A whirling, blinding flash of friends, parties, fun, romance—but, most of all—Pete. Gregarious singer, basketball player, record-setting swimmer, inveterate poker player, passionate lover. The relationship developed, deepening until senior year when they made love for the first time in Pete’s old pink Buick Electra convertible, the rain pouring down on the canvas-like roof and beading on the windows.
Pete was the only one from school that year accepted into Yale, but he vowed to decline the offer and go to the University of Iowa—with Meg. She had said nothing to bring him to that decision. He had come to it on his own—and she loved him for it, looking forward to their days in Iowa City.
In retrospect, she sensed something different about Pete in the weeks after graduation, but she had not seen the end moving toward her, like some terrible storm whipped up out of a perfect summer day. In July he told her he had changed his mind—at his parents’ urging—and he was to go to Yale after all.
Sick inside, Meg took it with a smile. Despite what he said, what they said to each other, it was the end and she somehow sensed it. There were letters at first when the fall term started, but after Pete stayed out east for the semester break—his parents went to see him—communication fell off, and by the end of the second semester, stopped altogether. Had she stopped writing, certain that he would awaken to the void in his heart, certain that he would pick up the pursuit? The scenario that he would do so had been a fantasy of hers. Or had he stopped writing, his interests placed elsewhere?
What if distance hadn’t separated them? she wondered.
Meg’s eye traced a crack in the ceiling. Time is a strange thing, she thought. Twenty years and yet the passion and hurt remained so real, so fresh, like the death of an immediate family member. She could bring it to the surface in a heartbeat. She recalled a Bee Gees’ song of the era about mending broken hearts, silly and maudlin to her adult mind, but it had been her anthem after Pete. Her heart hadn’t mended; it had tired.
Meg was not one of those who could look back on her past and say, Oh, it was just one of those high school romances. You know how it was.
Meg did know how it was, couldn’t forget, couldn’t let time reduce it in perspective, and for years her memory was her worst enemy, still could be.
Kurt started to snore. He did that when he had had a few drinks. She turned her head to watch him, praying she had done the right thing in marrying him.
The chil
d would make it right, she thought. The child will make everything right.
Meg thought back to the evening’s argument and the question Kurt had asked, a simple question that somehow unnerved her: Why did she want the house so badly? In truth, she couldn’t say. The white house on a triple lot—with its columns, balconies, mullioned windows, stained and leaded glass—was a steal, no doubt about it. But there was something more—a feeling or emotional connection much stronger than wood and glass at a bargain price—that had engaged her heart, some unnamable attraction or affinity to the place.
What was it?
And there was something else. On the day they had seen the house, Meg had witnessed a strange occurrence. Set back from and to the right of the house was a coach house, gray and dilapidated, its shutters askew. Kurt and Meg wondered if it was included in the low price. The realtor assured them that it was.
They had met Mrs. Shaw on the side of the house, halfway up the long gravel drive that led to the coach house. While Kurt and Mrs. Shaw moved toward the the street and around to the entrance of the house, Meg held back, pausing a moment to study the coach house and consider its possibilities. Did it need to be torn down? Could it be fixed up as a rental? A guest house?
Suddenly a movement or shadow at an upper window drew her attention. Meg squinted in the sunlight and shaded her eyes.
There behind the filthy glass, Meg was certain, was the face of a child. A little boy and a mist of some kind that was enveloping him. He seemed to stare out at her with unnaturally large, pleading eyes—his visage like some old Renoir portrait—as if to call for help. Yes, the mouth seemed to be moving . . .
The sun blinded Meg for a moment, and she blinked. When she looked again, the image had vanished.
“Meg! Hurry up!” Kurt called. “We’re going in!”
Inside the main house, she took the realtor aside. Mrs. Shaw laughed politely, her high platinum hair shifting slightly. “A child? In the coach house? Impossible, my dear. Impossible! I’ll tell you the truth, Mrs. Rockwell, the coach house is in falling-down condition, and it’s been sealed tighter than an Egyptian tomb. No child would be at play there, I can assure you. It must have been a reflection you saw.”
Hologram Page 2