Not Quite Mine

by Lyla Payne

  She frowns, flitting around the room and making my stomach hurt until I find the offending shoe under the bed. “Aha! There you are, you little sneak.”

  I put the shoes on and head down the stairs to grab coffee and my bag, wondering whether Ellen plans to join me for the drive. She’s not visible as I climb behind the wheel of my Honda, wrinkling my nose at the smell. I already can’t wait for spring, when I can drive with the windows down, but I can’t exactly stop driving until then. Maybe one of these days I’ll make the time to take my car to one of those fancy detail places down in Charleston.

  There’s probably about a fifty-fifty chance they’ll be able to get the stink out, but they can at least use those little scented trees to cover it up for a while.

  It doesn’t take long to get where I’m going anyway, and when a woman answers my knock and opens the door to reveal a cluttered, slightly odorous living room, it’s clear that even if my car’s stench does stick to me, no one would be able to notice it in this mess.

  “Can I help you?” When she realizes she doesn’t know me she closes the door a sliver and stands in front of it, blocking my view with a hard expression and folded arms.

  “Um, I’m looking for Mrs. Hargrove?”

  “What for?” She narrows her eyes at me a moment before there’s a spark of recognition. “You’re Graciela Harper, the new librarian. And you’ve been…” She trails off, looking unsure or maybe embarrassed about continuing her train of thought.

  “Revolutionizing the library system in Heron Creek?” I guess sarcastically, assuming she’s about to mention my ability to see ghosts. Or perhaps how I almost died in the fire that destroyed Sonny and Shears, or maybe how I’m dating the mayor, or…

  “Well, that’s news to me. What do you want?”

  “I want to talk to you about your daughter.” I stop there, unable to figure out how to keep going.

  I realize too late that I should have come up with a plan or cover story before showing up here. The Hargroves have lived in Heron Creek their whole lives, so the possibility of her recognizing me, either from my childhood or recent events, complicates things. She wouldn’t have bought a lie, but now that I’m faced with telling her the truth, my tongue ties into half a dozen knots.

  How do I tell a mother her daughter is dead?

  She saves me from having to say the words, her eyes filling with tears as they take in the expression on my face. “She’s gone, ain’t she? You seen my girl like you seen Anne Bonny?”

  It’s so odd, to have someone just believe I’ve seen a ghost without scoffing or trying to pretend such a thing isn’t possible. It’s a relief in many ways, but I have a feeling that even if I stood in front of her a thousand times it would never be easy. There’s probably a class or training session that police officers and doctors have to take on how to make it better for her. And for me.

  A smarter person would have thought about that before now.

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Hargrove.” As someone who has lost more than my fair share over the past couple of years, those words feel as inadequate as they are, but what else is there to say? Nothing makes it better. I know that, she knows that, and we both acknowledge it with a moment of silence. “Can I ask you a few questions?”

  She spends a moment getting her emotions under control, and then she nods and steps aside. “Of course. Come in.”

  I follow her into the living room and let her clear a spot for me on the couch, even though I’d rather stay standing in light of the mess.

  “Would you like something to drink?” she offers.

  Not really, for the same reason, but I sense that she needs a few minutes alone to really pull herself together. “A glass of water would be great.”

  She leaves me alone, and I do my best not to look too hard at the contents of the piles of clothes and dishes, praying that nothing crawls up my leg. The sound of running water from the kitchen comes after several minutes and fills me with relief. I cannot wait to get this conversation over and get out of here. Something about the house gives me the willies, and it’s hard to imagine the girl I vaguely remember growing up in a place like this.

  The Ellen in my long-term memory is pretty, with clean, shiny, white-blond hair. She preferred to wear dresses, even if we were running around outdoors, and obsessed over keeping them clean. A frown tugs at my mouth while I try to line up my memories of her with the reality of this house, and I can’t help but wonder whether it’s always been this way or the mess is a physical manifestation of her mother’s grief.

  “Is your husband at work?” I ask when she returns, accepting the glass of water and taking the smallest sip possible. Tap water in Heron Creek is almost as clean as the stuff in Iowa, but white spots dot the glassware and I can feel my immune system hitting the emergency response button.

  Mrs. Hargrove settles on the edge of an overstuffed chair, her hands pressed together between her knees. “He left. We never… We couldn’t keep it together after Ellen… What did she look like?”

  “Like herself,” I say honestly, even though I haven’t seen her in years. “Healthy.”

  “How did she die?” She swallows, pain deepening the lines around her mouth and eyes. “What happened to my baby girl?”

  My throat tightens in the face of her loss and I swallow. “I don’t know. They can’t talk to me. I have to figure out what they need so they can move on. I was hoping you could tell me about when she left, or disappeared, and what you think happened.”

  It takes her a few moments to respond. I risk another couple sips of water in the hopes that it will soothe the lump in my throat. It helps, if only slightly.

  “We don’t know what happened. She was here one day and gone the next. Just up and disappeared. The police at the time thought she must have run away, and I don’t know, maybe she did. Ellen had a wild, independent streak in her that couldn’t be beaten out.” She bites down on her lower lip while I consider the implications of that statement. Namely, that someone had tried to beat it out of her at some point. “But I know my girl. She is— She was impulsive as all get out, but she wasn’t stubborn, and she needed us. If nothing bad had happened she would have come right back home, or at the very least called to let me know she was okay.”

  “I heard that she and Trent Boone had broken up. Was she seeing anyone new?”

  “No. They had broken up, but the two of them never stayed separated for long. They had passion, and you know how that goes—they’re a minute away from hating each other’s guts and two minutes away from making out like their ship was goin’ down.” She shakes her head, but the fondness in her expression tells me she doesn’t have a bad association with Trent Boone, or his on-again, off-again relationship with her daughter.

  I want to ask where her husband went when they separated because it might be good to get his take on things, too, but I’ve brought up enough touchy subjects for one day. He won’t be so hard to find on my own.

  “So no one you can think of had a grudge against Ellen or would want to hurt her? Did you two fight, or her and her father maybe? Any reason she’d want to run away?”

  “We were always fightin’. She and her daddy were peas in a pod, always gangin’ up on me, and he made me do all the dirty work as far as keepin’ her in line.” She grimaces. “Or trying to, at any rate.”

  “Did she take anything with her? A suitcase? Clothes?”

  She shrugs. “Could be. Not everything, but her purse was gone. I didn’t keep track of her things.”

  Not very helpful, but I wonder if I took a single bag from my room if anyone close to me would be able to tell. We have so much stuff these days that I think it would be near impossible for most of us. When we have closets full of clothes and shoes, drawers packed with T-shirts and underwear, piles of purses that we switch out depending on our outfits, it might take days or even weeks for me to notice if any of my own things had disappeared.

  I don’t judge this woman. If Ellen wanted to leave and hadn’t wanted t
o be followed, she would have been careful. The world makes it as hard to keep track of people as their things.

  “You said she was impulsive and a little wild. What kind of trouble are we talking about here?” The question seems to offend her based on the defensive look in her eyes, but it needs to be asked.

  If Ellen was into drugs or sleeping around or anything, really, those would be places to start, as far as her disappearance.

  I don’t even know yet if Ellen wants me to figure out what happened to her. She’s not pointing me toward this house or anywhere else in town. That makes me think whatever she needs isn’t here, so I’m not looking for a diary or a letter or something like that. But how can I find out what happened after she left if she’s the only one who knows and all she’s doing is pointing at me and getting more and more anxious?

  “Ellen was into everything at one time or another, but she wasn’t serious about any of it. Not an addict, not a slut, not really even a partier, though she was accused of all three.” Mrs. Hargrove shakes her head, her lips pursed. “I ain’t explainin’ it very well.”

  “It’s okay. Take your time.” Even though I’m going to have to set my bag on fire because there are probably roaches having sex in it right this second. No big deal.

  “I love my daughter, but Ellen never figured out who she wanted to be—she was whatever her friend or boyfriend at the time wanted her to be, or what they were. So she did drugs with the druggies, slept around with the guys who wanted that, threw parties with the girls who thought doin’ keg stands made them cool.”

  “And what about Trent?” I ask, curiosity getting the best of me.

  “Trent was like Ellen. They were a matched pair, still searching for themselves. I think maybe the reason they could never stay apart was that when they were together, it was like they found enough of the truth to hold on to.”

  I let that sink in, watching her fingers tremble as she picks up a mug of coffee and takes a drink. I’m out of questions, and while I’ve learned a lot about who Ellen was, if only through the eyes of her mother, I don’t know where she might have been going if she left here on her own.

  Or who might have taken her away if she didn’t.

  My heart aches at the sight of this poor woman, and even if Ellen never came to see me again I think I would have to see this mystery through to the end just to find her some closure.

  “How old was Ellen when she disappeared?”

  “Just twenty.” The tears are back, shining in her eyes, and she doesn’t bother to dab them away. “Too young to be gone. Mamas aren’t supposed to lose their babies, not like this.”

  Not at all, I think, my mind on Amelia and how hard she fought for Jack and he hasn’t even drawn his first breath. How hard we all fought.

  “She was just twenty,” I reiterate. “I’m six years older than that and I still don’t know where my life is going. Still wonder if I’m ever going to be the person I want to be, or even if I’m one-hundred-percent sure I know exactly who that is. Ellen would have figured it out if she’d had the time.”

  The tears spill over, and Mrs. Hargrove nods, wiping her eyes and nose with the sleeve of her blouse. “Thank you for sayin’ that.”

  “I’m going to do my best to find out what happened to her, and to make sure I get her what she needs to be at peace, okay?” I hear the words come out of my mouth before I think too hard about the promises I’m making and if I’ll be able to keep them.

  Or if I should make them at all, considering I’m not a police officer and I had really hoped to avoid putting myself in situations fraught with potential danger.

  Oops.

  “Thank you,” she whispers again. “It’s not enough, to know she’s at peace, but I suppose now it’s all I have left.”

  The next stop on my interview tour is in Seabrook, a couple of hours up the coast. I know nothing about commercial fishing seasons or anything like that, but if Google is to be trusted—and when isn’t it—there’s some big meeting or town hall tonight with one of the state representatives, and the unions are asking everyone to attend. I think I actually heard a report about it on the news. The fishermen are all up in arms about new regulations being up for approval in Washington.

  I shake my head and turn up the heater, trying to thaw my frozen fingers in front of the vents. I will never understand why Beau—or anyone else—wants to work in politics. It wouldn’t be so bad if you could actually help people, like the fishermen who are trying to make a living the way their families have been for generations, but it seems like there is so much red tape and so many backroom deals that it’s probably hard to keep anyone happy.

  Movement from the passenger seat catches my eye, and my hands jerk the wheel, the resulting swerve running my poor tires over onto the gravel lining the highway. I manage to right it before the tires slide farther off the road, my heart pounding and my palms slick as I glance over to find Ellen staring coolly out the windshield. Even with only the quick look, I get the sense that she’s trying to mentally prepare herself for something. Maybe having to face the truth of what happened in order to show it to me. Maybe seeing Trent again, if she’s planning to come the rest of the way with me. I know I’d be nervous to see a boy who obviously meant so much, regardless of their relationship status at the time of her disappearance.

  Or maybe he had something to do with it. A prick of dismay comes along with the thought. Leo and Lindsay may be estranged from the rest of the Boone clan these days, but I’d hate to have to face one of my best friends with the news that his brother is a murderer. That would be a downer of a day.

  It’s nice to think that one road trip together could be all it takes to get her to vacate my life. Nice, but based on my experience, unrealistic.

  “You know, you’re already dead, which is why we’re in this predicament. If I die, too, then neither of us gets what we want.” I frown. “In fact, that’s rule number one. Don’t kill me.”

  She reaches out to pat my hand, as though to apologize, and I’m not quick enough to pull out of her path. Her fingers graze my knuckles and they turn to ice, my bones aching through with the cold. This time when I hold them in front of the heating vents, my teeth chatter.

  “Rule number two,” I manage, my free hand trembling. “Don’t touch me. It sucks.”

  Ellen looks hurt, but I can’t be gentle and look at her and drive the car. “Sorry. It’s just the way it is.”

  I focus on getting us to Seabrook the way we left Heron Creek—one dead, one alive—and try not to let my mind wander to other things. Things like my father’s family, and what he thinks I need to know about his family that will help me deal with these ghosts of mine. It sucks all over again that I’ve only just found out he’s alive—that he’s just learning of my existence. How different would my life have been, knowing about him, and what our family can do, from the beginning? Would the ghosts have started coming sooner?

  Irritation curls my fingers around the steering wheel so tight they turn white, but I know no good can come from being angry with Felicia. She’s gone.

  That much is true, sure, but so is the fact that she left behind more mysteries than love for me to carry with me.

  I glance over at Ellen, unable to help wondering about her relationship with her own mother. Was it how the older woman described it or were there instances of beatings and fights that Ellen would remember now that she has nothing but time to look back? The sorrow in her big eyes contrasts with the anxiety drawing tight lines around it, but the whole of her expression seems to suggest she’s worried about me. The finger she raises my direction, combined with the arch of one bushy eyebrow, confirms my suspicion.

  “I’m okay. I haven’t cracked up yet, and you’re not my first ghost. I’ll survive long enough to figure out how to help you, I promise.” There I go again, throwing that word around without thinking. And even though I’m glad that things have settled down for the people I love, I can’t forget how dangerous helping my ghosts often turns out
to be.

  Ellen went missing a while back, and the fact that she’s now sitting in my passenger seat as a ghost confirms that she ended up dead. Nothing on her body gives me a clue as to how—not like Glinda and her bloody nightgown, or Nan and her noose—but it stands to reason that foul play was involved. How else does a healthy twenty-year-old meet her end?

  I pull up in the grassy area that serves as the parking lot for Seabrook’s commercial fishing dock, apparently—thanks again, Google—and turn off the car before twisting to get a better look at her. It reveals nothing more than I already knew.

  “What happened to you, Ellen? Is it awful?”

  The sadness about her deepens, but her severe anxiety is still the only things that come through inside me. She’s more worried than sad, more anxious than angry, and the thread of fear I sense underneath all of that seems to be about something more than what happened to her. As if she wants something else, or something more. It’s impossible to say how I know this or if I’m imagining it, but I don’t think I am.

  “Well, I guess you’re not coming in?” Ellen’s ghost makes a face at the question, which I take as a no. “I don’t even know if Trent’s here, but I figure it’s worth a try.”

  She doesn’t comment, of course. It seems as though she’s going to wait here just to be safe. I unbuckle my seat belt, push open the car door, and notice the air isn’t as cold as it has been the past several days. It’s common in the Carolinas to get random warming trends in November and December. Mother Nature isn’t going to be getting any complaints from me if we’re on the cusp of one now.

  It looks to me that most of the boats are at home in their slips, rigging and clamps tapping against their masts and railings as they drift in the soft current of the sound. If this meeting is as big a deal as the union people say, I’m guessing most of the fishermen decided to take the day off in order to attend.

  The marina office has no hours or an Open sign on the door, so when I get to the top of the wooden wheelchair ramp it takes me a few minutes to decide whether to knock or go right in. I decide it’s a business, of sorts, and step over the threshold.