Ghost Moon

by Karen Robards

  Olivia sent Seth a small smile of thanks, which he acknowledged with a glance and a wry twist of his lips.

  ‘‘You always did take her part,’’ Belinda said bitterly, and turned on her heel, walking into the waiting room with her head held high.

  ‘‘She’s upset,’’ Phillip said excusingly to Olivia.

  ‘‘You wanna go down to the cafeteria, get a cup of coffee while you wait for Aunt Callie to be ready to go?’’ Carl asked, smiling at her.

  Olivia hesitated, then nodded. ‘‘That’d be great.’’ She certainly didn’t want to stay in the waiting room with the others in the face of Belinda’s hostility.

  ‘‘I’ll bring Mother down when she’s ready to go,’’ Seth said.

  ‘‘And—when I feel it’s appropriate to do so—I’ll tell Big John you were here.’’

  ‘‘Thank you.’’ Olivia smiled at him briefly, then turned away with Carl.

  As Olivia and Carl walked toward the elevator bank, Seth went into the waiting room with Phillip. Olivia could hear the murmur of their voices joined with Belinda’s. She guessed, without really knowing for certain, that they were talking about her.

  That was because the single word she overheard clearly before moving out of earshot was uttered by Belinda, in a tone of high-pitched contempt. It was trash.

  CHAPTER 17

  THE BIG WHITE CAT SAT ON THE PORCH RAIL, looking at her. Sara glanced up from her book, and there she—or he—was. The Persian was really fluffy, with big blue eyes. For a moment Sara returned the stare. Then with a flick of its tail the cat jumped down to the floor, heading toward the blue earthenware bowl that held the melted remnants of her peach ice cream. Sara had finished eating it about an hour ago, set the bowl down on the porch floor beside the swing, and forgotten about it while she curled up with a book she had found. It was Misty of Chincoteague, a horse book, and it was really good.

  If she could have anything she wanted in the whole world, Sara reflected, what she would wish for first would be a horse of her own.

  The second thing she would wish for would be a cat. Or maybe she would wish for the cat first. It was hard to say.

  No, the very first thing she would wish for was that her mom would have lots of money, enough money so that she wouldn’t ever have to worry again. Then her mom could buy her the horse, and the cat. That would be best of all.

  The cat—the real cat—was licking up the melted ice cream, its little pink tongue moving busily in and out of the pale orange goo. Setting the book print-side down on the blue-upholstered cushion, Sara slipped off the swing and dropped to her knees on the wooden planks beside it.

  ‘‘Hello, kitty,’’ she said. When the cat did no more than flick her a look and continue to lap at the ice cream, she reached out to pet it. Its fur was silky-soft and thick, and as she ran her hand along its back the cat began to purr.

  ‘‘What a nice kitty,’’ Sara said in tones of praise, stroking it, and its purr grew louder. The cat glanced at her, and she saw that a drop of melted orange-colored ice cream dangled from its whiskers. Sara began to smile. Her vacation so far had been more tiring and scary than fun, but the presence of the cat made it a lot better.

  ‘‘What are you doing to Ginger?’’ The accusing voice was so unexpected that Sara jumped. Her shoulder hit the swing’s metal frame. The swing bounced away, then into her shoulder again, and it hurt. Wincing, she scooted forward out of the reach of the swing, rubbing her shoulder and looking around at Chloe, who had materialized out of one of the long window-door things that opened onto the big upstairs porch.

  ‘‘What are you doing to Ginger?’’ Chloe demanded again, as the cat abandoned the now-empty bowl and began to walk in stately fashion toward her.

  ‘‘Nothing. I was just petting her.’’

  ‘‘She’s my cat.’’ Chloe took a step forward and snatched Ginger up, cradling the cat tightly in her arms. Ginger suffered this with good grace, merely running her tongue over her whiskers to get at the last drops of ice cream and fixing Sara with an unblinking gaze. For a moment two pairs of eerily similar blue eyes stared hard at Sara.

  ‘‘She’s beautiful,’’ Sara said with sincerity, looking at Ginger. ‘‘I wish I had a cat.’’

  ‘‘Why don’t you get one, then?’’

  ‘‘We can’t have one in the apartment where we live. Pets aren’t allowed.’’

  ‘‘You live in an apartment?’’

  ‘‘Yeah.’’

  ‘‘Just you and your mom?’’

  ‘‘Yeah.’’

  ‘‘Where?’’

  ‘‘In Houston.’’

  ‘‘You’re really poor, aren’t you?’’

  Sara shrugged. She’d never considered the matter in quite that light, but . . . ‘‘I guess.’’

  ‘‘I could tell from your clothes.’’

  ‘‘What’s wrong with them?’’ Sara looked down at herself questioningly. Her pink shorts and striped blouse looked fine to her.

  ‘‘They’re cheap.’’

  ‘‘How do you know?’’

  Chloe made a face. ‘‘I can tell.’’ Her gaze slid past Sara and lit on something behind her.

  ‘‘Hey, that’s my book!’’

  ‘‘I didn’t know it was yours.’’ Sara glanced at the book. ‘‘It’s really good.’’

  ‘‘You shouldn’t have touched it without my permission!’’

  ‘‘I’m sorry,’’ Sara said humbly.

  Chloe frowned. The cat stirred in her arms, and her hold on it shifted as she lifted it higher and rubbed her cheek against its fur. ‘‘Do you like horses?’’

  ‘‘I love horses.’’ Sara’s reply was fervent.

  ‘‘I’m going to get one for Christmas. My dad promised.’’

  ‘‘You are so lucky.’’

  Chloe looked her up and down. ‘‘Do you have any Beanie Babies?’’

  Sara nodded. ‘‘I have almost thirty.’’

  Chloe snorted. ‘‘Is that all?’’ she asked scornfully. ‘‘I have all of them. Well, nearly all, except for some of the very rarest ones like Trap the mouse. But my dad says he’ll get them for me when he can find them.’’

  ‘‘Do you have the Princess Bear?’’ Sara asked, awed. ‘‘That’s the one I want most right now.’’

  ‘‘I have two. My dad bought me one, and my nana bought me one. Want to see them?’’

  Sara nodded with open eagerness.

  ‘‘Come on, then.’’

  Sara stood up, and followed Chloe along the porch. Chloe disappeared through one of the open window-door things. Sara didn’t like having that kind of window in the bedroom where she slept, it made the room too spooky, like anyone could come in anytime they wanted, even when she was asleep. But everybody else, even her mom, didn’t seem to mind, and she didn’t like to be a baby and act scared.

  Following Chloe through the opening, Sara found herself in Chloe’s bedroom. It was decorated in shades of blue and yellow, with fluttery blue gingham curtains draping the open windows, and a matching bedspread that cascaded to the floor in layers of ruffles on the four-poster. Chloe was standing in the doorway of a smaller, adjoining room as Sara entered. Stopping beside her, Sara saw that the room was lined with shelves, and the shelves were stuffed with toys. More toys than in a toy store, Sara thought, eyes widening.

  ‘‘See?’’ Chloe pointed to a painted cabinet that took up all of one corner. The cabinet was fitted with shelves, and the shelves were filled with Beanie Babies.

  Sara stared for a moment, then glanced at Chloe.

  ‘‘You are so lucky,’’ she said again, meaning it.

  Chloe smiled. ‘‘Want to play Beanies?’’

  CHAPTER 18

  THE FOLLOWING MORNING, SUNDAY, THE family went to church. Although she and Sara had been less than regular churchgoers in Houston—the lure of a Sunday morning to sleep in was often just too great to resist—Olivia remembered the Sundays of her growing-up years with fondness. Every week, wit
hout fail, the Archers attended church en masse. The only excuse was sickness—and sickness did not include staying up too late on the Saturday night before. As a child, Olivia had enjoyed the togetherness of the church community, with its Friday fish fry and its summertime bring-a-dish suppers. As a teen, she had hated being dragged to services. But at LaAngelle Plantation, the rule was every member of the family attended church. No excuses.

  Remembering, Olivia had packed accordingly. Her own dress was an inexpensive (Kmart again) knee-length white cotton pique, with short sleeves and a self-belt, which she wore with nude panty hose and white high heels. Sara’s dress was costlier (it had been on end-of-season clearance in a pricey Children’s World catalogue). It was a three-tiered pale pink cotton knit strewn with deep pink flowers. Cut very loose, in floater style, it had short sleeves and reached just past her knees. With white lace-trimmed socks, her black ballet flats, and a deep pink headband to keep her hair out of her face, Sara looked darling. Chloe, who was seated next to Sara in the back of the Jaguar, wore an obviously expensive pale blue dress with short puffed sleeves, a white Peter Pan collar, and a sheer organza overlay. Her blond hair was tied with blue ribbons at the crown, and allowed to cascade down her back. Looking at the two girls together, Olivia was thankful that she had splurged on Sara’s dress: Her daughter would have no reason to be ashamed of what she was wearing.

  On this steamy Sunday morning in August, St. Luke’s bell pealed in a beautifully melodic call to worship. The sound could be heard from the edge of town, and it immediately transported Olivia back to her childhood. The ringing of that bell had marked Sundays in LaAngelle for as long as Olivia could remember.

  There were three other churches in LaAngelle: Our Lady of Sorrows Catholic Church, which was the largest; LaAngelle Baptist, which was larger than St. Luke’s; and a Pentecostal church that was so tiny Olivia wasn’t even sure it had a name.

  ‘‘I hate church,’’ Chloe muttered resentfully as the Jaguar nosed toward St. Luke’s. Earlier, she had tried— and failed—to get out of attending by using the argument that nobody went to church anymore. Olivia, who had tried that one herself as a child, could have told her that she was wasting her breath.

  ‘‘No, you don’t.’’ Callie’s response was tranquil. She was in the front passenger seat beside Seth, who drove. Olivia sat with the two girls in back.

  ‘‘Oh, yes, I do.’’ Chloe’s expression was mutinous. She was scowling with her lower lip thrust out, and she had her arms crossed over her chest. Glancing at her, Sara chewed her lip nervously. Olivia didn’t blame her. Chloe looked like she could explode at any minute.

  ‘‘That’s enough, young lady,’’ Seth said, in a voice that brooked no defiance. Chloe’s scowl grew even more fierce, but she said nothing more.

  The Catholic Church predominated in most of the southern parishes of Louisiana. In the northern parishes, Protestants were the dominant religious group. In this area, which was right on the borderline between Acadia and the upstate parishes, Catholics and Protestants mixed in roughly equal numbers. The Anglo aristocrats, such as the Archers, attended St. Luke’s. The congregation of LaAngelle Baptist were basically the town’s typical rural southerners, who worked for a living at the Boatworks and at other area businesses. A few had their own hardscrabble farms. Some drove a few miles north or south to work in the gas or lumber industries. Those of French Creole descent, although there were few who could claim such ancestry in LaAngelle, attended Our Lady of Sorrows. So did the Cajuns, who made up the bulk of Our Lady of Sorrows parishioners. Descended from the Acadians of Nova Scotia who were forcibly relocated to southern Louisiana in the eighteenth century, the Cajuns were historically looked down upon by the other groups. In years past, ‘‘Cajun’’ was a pejorative term, and Olivia had been raised with a vague sense of shame about her Cajun origins. The family had openly felt that James Archer had married beneath him when he wed the Cajun widow Selena Chenier.

  They passed Our Lady of Sorrows, which was housed in a white clapboard building at the end of West Main Street. The antebellum courthouse with its graceful green lawn was situated directly opposite, in what had once been the center of town. Olivia had always found it amusing that the main artery through their small town was called West Main Street, because there was no East Main Street. It had existed once, but all its buildings and the roadway itself had been washed away in the hundred-year flood of 1927, and no one had bothered to rebuild it. West Main Street now ended abruptly at Chitimacha Street, which ran perpendicular to it. The T-shaped intersection where the streets met was where Our Lady of Sorrows and the courthouse stood. St. Luke’s was on the other end of town, on Cocodrie Street, more gracefully situated atop a small rise amidst a stand of live oaks.

  Besides the churches, LaAngelle was home to an eclectic mixture of houses and businesses that were thrown randomly together as if the town fathers had never heard of zoning (which, at the time most of the houses were built and the businesses were established, they probably hadn’t). The newer, bigger houses were mostly located on several-acre lots on Melancon Pike, on the far west side of town. The house where Seth had lived with his wife and Chloe was there, as were Phillip’s house and Charlie and Belinda’s. The houses in town tended to be smaller and older, and their city-size lots were jumbled in among the local business establishments. These businesses included Mike Lawson’s Grocery and Gas Station, Patout’s Bakery (the Patout family had been making mouthwatering desserts for generations), Mary-Jeanne’s House of Style, the LaAngelle Inn and Restaurant, Like-New Consignments, Broussard’s Pharmacy, and Curly’s Hardware, among others. LaAngelle Elementary was at the northern end of Chitimacha Street. It was a long, one-story building with a red-tiled roof that educated local children from kindergarten to grade eight. After that, they moved over to the LaAngelle High School, a newer, two-story brick building that stood next door for grades nine through twelve. Olivia had never attended either school, although she had many friends who had. The Archers, for generations past, had attended private school in Baton Rouge. Olivia assumed Chloe did as well.

  ‘‘See? I told you nobody would be here.’’ This came from Chloe, as the Jaguar pulled into the parking lot of the gray stone church. There were, indeed, only about ten other cars in a lot that could easily have held fifty. To judge by the vehicles dotting the parking lots of the other churches they had passed, none of the houses of worship were enjoying capacity crowds that morning. Which was not surprising: Sundays in August were traditionally a somnolent time. Come September’s marginally cooler weather, and increasing steadily as the year wore down toward Christmas, the churches would begin to fill up.

  ‘‘We’re here,’’ Callie said with gentle emphasis.

  Chloe made a rude sound that indicated quite clearly that she would rather not be. Olivia’s gaze automatically flew to Seth. As she was seated directly behind him, she had to gauge his reaction through the rearview mirror. Engaged in parking the car, he seemed not to have heard. Callie, who had to have heard, ignored Chloe.

  As Seth turned the engine off, a man emerged from the white Lincoln Town Car in the adjacent parking space. Olivia recognized Ira Hayes. Dressed in a navy sport coat that did a great deal to hide his paunch, red tie, pale blue shirt, and white slacks, he looked much more attractive than when Olivia had first met him in the kitchen two nights before. He opened Callie’s door for her, and stood waiting. Looking way too thin in a butter linen dress that had obviously been purchased when she was heavier, Callie got out to stand beside him. Her smile of greeting was so warm that Olivia realized her aunt must be fonder of this man than she had guessed.

  Olivia released her seat belt as Chloe scrambled out the door with Sara right behind her. Olivia’s own door swung open from the outside. She glanced up to find Seth holding the door for her, an inscrutable expression on his face as he looked down at her. He appeared very distinguished in a light gray summer suit with a white dress shirt and a navy tie that brought out the blue of his e
yes. With the sun glinting down on his blond hair, and a slow smile stretching his mouth, he was—handsome. The realization rattled Olivia. She had never before had such a thought about Seth.

  ‘‘Are you planning to get out?’’ he inquired politely, reaching in a hand to assist her to alight. Olivia realized that she had been sitting there staring up at him for several seconds. Flustered, she dropped her gaze away from his face. Grasping his hand, she scooted out. His hand was warm and strong, and far larger than hers. Clasping it made her suddenly very aware of him as a man. It occurred to her that she could be—might be— was—attracted to Seth, a mind-boggling thought. Not daring to glance at him again lest he should somehow be able to read the stunned realization in her eyes, she dropped his hand with all possible speed. Apparently unaware that anything untoward had occurred, he shut the door. As she walked across the parking lot, she was conscious of him behind her. He was close enough so that their shadows touched on the pavement. His shadow was tall and broad-shouldered. It engulfed her petite one.

  His hand came up to cup her bare elbow, in a gesture as automatic as it was polite. Olivia had to repress an urge to pull her arm away. Seth had touched her before, casually and in anger and to help her in or out or up or down, countless ways and countless times over the years, and it had never affected her one bit. What was wrong with her, she asked herself, that out of the blue she was reacting to him this way?

  ‘‘Olivia! My stars, young lady, it’s good to have you back with us! I had heard you had married and had a child, of course.’’ Father Randolph took her hand and pumped it vigorously, a broad smile splitting his face. Seth’s hand dropped to his side, and Olivia was conscious of a strong sensation of relief as she smiled back at Father Randolph. She had always liked the priest. Not much taller than she was, he was a rotund man with a ruddy face, pale blue eyes behind silver-rimmed spectacles, and a full head of white hair. He wore his black priest’s robes with dignity. ‘‘Was that your little girl who just ran by with Chloe? Of course it was! She looks just like you.’’