At the Corner of King Street

by Mary Ellen Taylor

  Daisy shook her head. “Why are we doing this?”

  “To create good intentions,” Margaret said. “Can’t have enough of them.”

  Rachel swayed gently as she held Carrie. “I could use good intentions.”

  I set my bag of empty bottles on the table, as well as my odd collection of tidbits. “I’m game.”

  “Good. It’s settled.”

  We each ended up with two bottles: one large and one small. The small bottle was to be filled with the items we chose from the table, sealed, and then dropped into the larger. I sat, grateful to be free of the baby’s weight while also missing it a little. I opened a beer and took a long sip.

  “You work on a vineyard, I hear,” Rachel said.

  “I do. For the last seven years.”

  “So, what do you do?” Daisy asked.

  “I started in the fields. That lasted a week and then I offered up my skills as bookkeeper.” The story was an old one, and told so many times it sounded a little distant and foreign, as if it belonged to someone else. “I’m doing most of the marketing now. We just launched a new wine.”

  “Last week’s party?” Daisy asked.

  “Yes. And thank you again for helping Grace.”

  Daisy smiled. “That kid has got some lungs.”

  I glanced at Carrie, content in Rachel’s arms. “She does that.”

  “The vineyard work sounds kinda cool,” Rachel said.

  I glanced around the bakery kitchen. “My guess is it’s just as much hard work as running a bakery.”

  “She’s a master at packaging,” Daisy said. “She and Margaret got that delivery out.”

  Rachel smiled. “I can’t believe I forgot to thank you. It was a miracle when Daisy called and said the packages were ready to go.”

  “Glad to help. It was a nice break.”

  “So have you heard any more from Janet?” Daisy asked.

  “Still in the hospital. I talk to her doctors every couple of days. They say she’s doing better.”

  “I was sorry to hear she was sick,” Rachel said.

  “Yeah.” I really did not want to open up this line of discussion. “It’s nothing new.”

  Daisy fiddled with a mound of dried rose petals. “So what’s the deal with the baby?”

  “I’m taking care of her until Janet is well enough to make a decision.”

  “Why don’t you take the baby?” Daisy challenged. “You seem good with her.”

  I watched as Carrie stared up at Rachel’s smiling face with wide eyes. “It’s complicated.”

  Daisy frowned, wrestling with thoughts that begged to be voiced. “You’re her family.”

  Margaret clapped her hands. “No serious talk tonight. We should have a little fun. Maybe we all need good intentions.”

  And so we began to fill our small bottles. I didn’t pay much attention to the other women and what they chose to include in their spell. My gaze, my focus, was on choosing the items that would bring me a good future. I chose an old metal button engraved with a rose from the pile. Next I chose a pink crystal, lavender leaves, and then one of the small keys I found at the warehouse. As I held the key, my fingers warmed and the smooth tarnished brass burrowed close to my skin. I thought about Janet and me both as outsiders, locked in by the curse. For the first time in a long time, my heart ached not just for me, but also for her. If I thought my burden was heavy, surely hers was more.

  I dropped the key in the small bottle and sprinkled more rose petals on top of it. When the bottle was filled, I sealed it and lowered it into the larger jar.

  “What do you wish for, Daisy?” Margaret asked as she sealed her small bottle.

  “I wish to hold on to what I have.” She circled the top of the unsealed bottle, summoning her wish. “And I would like to be friends with my birth mother.”

  “That’s important to you?” I asked. “I kinda remember Mrs. McCrae as being really great.”

  “She’s a great mom. She is Mom. But Terry is a part of me, and I feel . . . I don’t know . . . whole, when we talk or communicate.”

  Whatever happened with Carrie, I knew that I’d somehow be in her life. She needed a solid connection to the Morgans and Shires. We would communicate, so if the time came when she needed my help, I could give it. “Does she want to be close to you?”

  “Sort of. She answers my questions without me pestering her. But we aren’t really close.” She shuddered out a breath. “Someone else answer the question before I get emotional.”

  Rachel glanced into her bottle filled with rose petals, a ring, herbs, and pieces of paper filled with rolled-up wishes. “I want a life filled with love.”

  “I love you, Mommy,” Anna said.

  Rachel smiled. “And I love you, too, baby. I’m talking about a grown-up kind of love.”

  Ellie grimaced. “Like kissing boys.”

  She laughed. “Yes.”

  “I want to be tall,” Anna said. Her voice carried a weight and power that belied her petite frame. Judging by her mother’s size, she’d be lucky to top five foot one.

  Ellie sprinkled glitter in her jar. “I want to fly like a butterfly.”

  Margaret sipped her beer. “I want a really fast metabolism and to have long legs.”

  We all laughed as I stared into my bottle.

  “Addie, spill. What do you want?” Margaret asked.

  As much as I hated Mom’s and Janet’s mood swings and their disease, they shared a connection. But I was the odd man out. The one who ruined the party. Even with Scott, there were brief moments when I sensed we were running alongside each other. Very, very close, to be sure, but not quite touching. Not quite connected enough for me to tell the whole truth.

  I held up my bottle. “I want a normal life.”

  “Is that it?” Margaret asked.

  A smile tweaked the edges of my lips. “That’s a lot for me.”

  Margaret looked ready to argue but instead held up a bottle of wine. “You can also fill your bottle with wine. You being on a vineyard and all that kinda makes sense. However, I’m refilling my glass with wine.”

  I glanced toward the bottle, half full with wine. Margaret and Rachel filled their larger bottles with water and though it made sense for me to use the wine, I realized I was making this bottle not just for me, but also for Carrie. I wanted to feel connected. And I wanted her to feel a connection as well.

  She would never be a part of the vineyard. This, I knew. And so I reached for the water that reminded me of the Potomac River. The Chesapeake Bay. The ocean. All would carry her to a great future. To happiness. To a life far and free of the curse.

  The waters crested the top of the second bottle. I sprinkled in glitter and sealed the top. I would bury this at the warehouse, Carrie’s first home.

  By the time we cleaned up the table and readied to say our good nights, it was after nine. The girls were tired and fussing that they didn’t need to go to sleep as Rachel led them up the back staircase to their second-floor apartment. Walker had fallen asleep on Daisy’s shoulder and Carrie was again in the front pack, cradled close to my body and sleeping.

  “Thanks again,” I said to Margaret and Daisy. “It was fun.”

  “We’ll do it again,” Daisy said. “Don’t be a stranger.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” I said. Who knew if we would keep to our promises, but it made sense in the moment to pretend.

  As I walked the street with Carrie, I held the witch bottle in my hand. In the moonlight, I walked to the alley behind the warehouse and found a patch of dirt not covered with asphalt. The day’s heat cooled and the evening breeze smelled of sweet grass promises. Carefully, I squatted, and keeping a supporting hand on Carrie’s bottom, I found a stick and dug a small hole next to the warehouse foundation. The ground was hard, brittle, and resistant to my digging. But I w
as suddenly determined to see this through and kept chipping away at the soil. Finally, when the hole was deep enough, I set the bottle into it.

  “To be normal,” I whispered.

  Carefully, I covered the bottle with the cracked, dried dirt and then patted the earth with my hand. “To feel connected.”

  Rising, I tamped the dirt mound with my foot and then moved out of the alley and around the corner to the front door.

  A dog’s loud, deep bark cut through the darkness and I turned to see Zeb step from the shadows, holding a leash and restraining Shep, the golden retriever. “Addie?”

  His face cast in shadows, he looked different. Darker. More intense. “What are you doing?”

  The beer had left me a bit light-headed, enough to explain the witch bottle, but somehow I couldn’t bring myself to share something so silly. “Carrie and I were up at the Union Street Bakery. Kinda a girls night out. Now we’re just enjoying the evening breeze. I forgot how pretty it is here at night.”

  “It’s beautiful.” His voice sounded rough as his gaze held mine. “The baby’s all right?”

  I rubbed the top of Carrie’s head. “Yes. She’s fine. Sleeping. Where’s Eric?”

  “At my mom’s. Sleepover.”

  The dog barked and tugged on the leash.

  “I’m glad to see Shep again. Why did you get a dog?”

  Zeb gently tugged on the dog’s collar until he heeled. “Eric wanted a dog. In a moment of weakness, I said yes.”

  Shep glanced up at Zeb, sensing he was the topic of conversation. He barked and wagged his tail.

  “He’s cute,” I said.

  “He’s a good dog.” No missing the affection in Zeb’s voice.

  Relaxed and oddly at peace, I enjoyed the play of moonlight adding depth to the creases and edges of Zeb’s face. “That must be nice for Eric to spend time with his grandmother.”

  “She’s been great. A rock.”

  “I remember your mom from the wedding.” The woman Addie remembered was tall with thick gray hair she wore in soft curls around her face. Mrs. Talbot’s expression was one of worry at the wedding, clearly sensing the trouble looming around the corner. Days after Eric was born, Zeb argued with his mother about Janet. Janet always found a way to toss a grenade into the middle of everyone’s lives. “What brings you here?”

  “I found a stroller in the attic that was Eric’s. Thought you might be able to use it. Grace let me inside, and I left the stroller in the warehouse.”

  “My shoulders and my back thank you.” Fiddling with my keys, I opened the front door to the warehouse. As I held the keys in hand, the old key found years ago warmed with energy in my hand. Smiling, I tucked the key in my pocket. We walked over to the stroller.

  “It’s not fancy, and it’s older, but it will help.”

  I touched the well-worn handle and imagined Zeb pushing it alone. “How did you do it? How did you manage your business and take care of Eric?”

  A faint smile twitched the edges of his lips. “There are days that I wonder that myself. I don’t know how I did it. I’m sure I made lots of mistakes.”

  “Eric seems to be doing really well.”

  “Thanks.”

  Absently, I patted Carrie’s backside, which was sagging into the folds of the front pack. “You never heard from Janet again after she left you two, did you?”

  “A few postcards but never a phone number or a permanent address. It took three years for me to track her down so that she could sign the divorce papers. I hate to think of the money that private detective cost me.”

  “Where did you find her?”

  “Portland.” He glanced at his palm and traced a callous at the base of his index finger. “I flew out there and found her at a diner where she was waitressing.”

  “I never realized she lived in Portland.”

  “She wasn’t there for long. She looked thin and drawn, and I could see she wasn’t taking good care of herself.”

  “Never has.”

  I thought about adoption papers and custody agreements. “Did she give you any trouble signing the papers?”

  “No. She signed the divorce papers easy enough. It was the custody agreement that made her hesitate.”

  “She had not seen Eric for three years at that point.”

  “I know. I know. And it took all that I had not to explode. She kept asking what kind of woman walks away from her kid.”

  “Do you think she’d sign adoption papers and release Carrie?”

  He frowned. “I don’t know.”

  Adoption still made perfect sense. It did. But I no longer imagined a loving couple taking Carrie. I imagined me holding her in my arms and calling her daughter. “What did you say when she made that comment?”

  “I invited her to move back to Alexandria and be a mother, if that’s what she wanted. Eric was already asking questions at that point. His friends talked about their mothers, but there wasn’t much for him to tell.”

  “But she said no.”

  “She didn’t articulate the words, but she signed the papers. When she did that, my remaining hopes for us died.” He shook his head. “I actually went to Portland thinking I could still save us.”

  “She isn’t a bad person, Zeb. She’s very sick. She’s always been sick.”

  Absently, he rubbed the top of Shep’s head. “In the clear light of day I get that, but when push comes to shove, it doesn’t matter why she can’t function. It only matters to Eric and Carrie that she can’t.”

  The baby yawned, sensing we were talking about her. I rubbed her backside until she settled back. “Do you think it’ll be different with Carrie? Do you think now that she has two children, she’ll try?”

  “She might try, Addie.”

  But would she succeed, and for how long? Would she try only to be able to give the baby the life we had with our mother? I survived. Janet survived. But it didn’t take a shrink to know neither of us thrived. We both found ways to run away from home.

  “What are you going to do about the baby, Addie?”

  “Janet’s in no shape now to make a decision, but I still believe the baby needs real parents.”

  “She’ll listen to you.”

  “She never has before.”

  Absently, he rolled the stroller back and forth. “Kids have a way of getting under the skin. They have a way of taking over.”

  Sadness curled around my heart and squeezed.

  “You’re good with her. And she’s quiet when you’re around.”

  “Quiet.” That startled a laugh. “That’s debatable.”

  “Wait until she starts laughing and crawling and making talking sounds. It’s hard to resist.”

  I watched as she pursed her little lips and then relaxed them. Was she dreaming? “I can’t keep both Carrie and Scott. He doesn’t want a baby now.”

  Zeb tensed his jaw, grinding words he wasn’t sure should be spoken. “Is there anyone else that would be better suited for her than you?”

  “I can handle the illness better than most. I spent my childhood taking care of Mom and Janet. But adopting her means losing any chance I have of a real life with Scott.”

  He shoved his hands into his pocket, rattled bits of loose change. “All I know is that, sometimes, good luck comes disguised as disaster.”

  A humorless laugh lurched free. “There must be one hell of a pot of good luck waiting around here somewhere.”

  He laughed, his white teeth catching in the moonlight. “I’ve faith you’ll find it. Good night, Addie.” With a tug of the leash, he and Shep vanished out the front door of the warehouse into the night.

  September 24, 1751

  Dr. Goodwin, under the advisement of Mistress Smyth, brought a complaint against Faith in court. He suggested she must have used sorcery when delivering a babe of a tavern
maid and when she broke the fever of an ailing farmer. No doctor can or should relieve women of labor pains or squash a fever as she does. Ben Talbot spoke on behalf of his wife, Faith. The charges were put aside.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  The witch bottle forgotten, I’m not sure how the next few weeks vanished into thin air. Zeb and Eric stopped by several times a week. Grace kept doing her disappearing act and Carrie and I fell into an odd routine that felt natural. I wasn’t willing to risk bringing a baby into the world, but I was making a point to be there for Carrie, one way or another.

  Scott and I spoke daily, though our conversations grew more and more businesslike. It was easy for him to focus on the vineyard. With the harvest just days away, his mind was filled with a million details that, if ignored, would come back to bite.

  Several times I brought up the baby, but he found a way to change the subject in a few sentences, sensing what I wanted to say. Let’s raise her together. I would listen to him run away from the conversation, unable to justify my right to give chase. As we danced around hard truths, I knew the time to decide loomed like a summer storm darkening the horizon.

  Margaret and I took on a couple more salvage jobs. They were small. An old schoolhouse needed desks and chalkboards hauled away. A diner getting renovated sold us a neon sign, barstools, and booths.

  All the items, when cleaned up, could be turned over for a nice profit. With the warehouse space filling, I was soon searching upcoming flea markets to showcase some of our items. Some walk-in traffic found us, but the big designers and builders didn’t have us on their radar yet. We would have to attend more flea market events to spread the word that we were, once again, acquiring.

  Alexandria’s grip was tighter than ever, and I really didn’t mind.

  I was cleaning baby bottles at the sink when I heard the faint closing of a car door. The sound barely registered as I glanced toward the baby seat where Carrie lay. Daisy had dug through her storage room and brought over the baby seat, as well as a bassinet, and more clothes than the baby could ever wear. I could admit, the extra equipment made this temporary motherhood job a lot easier, and I was grateful.