by Ka Hancock
It was almost noon when I walked into Ghosts in the Attic. Lily was behind the counter with a phone tucked under her chin, ringing up some china for a woman poised to hand off her credit card. I sat down in the parlor and helped myself to a pumpkin cookie. Lily has fresh pastries delivered twice a day by Matilda Hines, who owns Heavenly Hines Baked Goods, two doors up. Lily does this so she can set them out on the obscenely ornate Regency sideboard, which also sports a Tuttle Silversmiths tea service and dozens of hand-painted teacups.
Lily and Ron had transformed this crumbling Victorian two-story (and attic) into a prosperous business. Every inch is utterly inviting, starting with the parlor. Deep-wine-colored walls and floral carpeting set the tone. An Adam-style settee, some Queen Annes, and a Victorian nursing chair offer seating around a mahogany coffee table. Lily keeps her reference material in here—when a serious collector wants to know if Lily’s prices are fair, they can consult one of her myriad pricing guides while noshing on an éclair.
Supposedly, nothing is for sale in this room, though the turnover in furniture is almost monthly. Lily’s parlor has an ambience that people yearn to emulate in their own home. They are seduced in the parlor, then shop the remaining fourteen rooms for tapestries and art, pottery and Lalique crystal, furniture and lace. Lily’s theory is that if she can make shopping at Ghosts an event for the customer, the customer will keep coming back. The theory has proven itself; Lily’s patrons come from all over the place. She keeps in touch with them with note cards, always thanking them in writing for their purchases, and alerting them when she’s acquired something that fits their taste.
I watched my sister bid good-bye to the china buyer and tell her she expected a call when her grandson was born. The woman trilled a delighted promise as she walked out. Lily checked the monitor on her counter and looked up at me. “Let me just look in on these ladies shopping for linens upstairs. I’ll be right back.”
I finished my cookie and, realizing I felt better, reached for a brownie. Then it hit me like a hammer on the head: I’d had morning sickness. The thought exhilarated me! This body of mine was doing exactly what it was supposed to do.
“What is that dumb grin on your face?” my sister said, rushing into the parlor. She startled me and I dropped my brownie. Lily poured herself a cup of hot water, and while she squeezed a lemon quarter into it, she said, “Remember that obscene lamp I was telling you about? The one I bought for five hundred bucks from that kid over in Woodbury?”
I didn’t, so I shrugged.
“Turns out it’s a Daum Nancy, worth about fifteen thousand dollars. And I have a buyer.” She looked up from her lemon-squeezing and grinned at me. Her green eyes, the one trait that links me to both my sisters, were dancing. “Oh, I’m sorry. Look at me prattling on without even asking how you’re doing. Did you ever meet up with Priss?”
“Kind of. Did you?”
“No. There was a message on my machine Sunday that she’d gone back to Hartford and was sorry she missed me. Like she even tried. I’m right here. I’m always right here. And like you, she was a no-show at the Shad Bake.”
“Oh, sorry. We stayed on the boat, and I completely forgot about it.”
“Well, it was great, like always. So, what’s up?”
I looked around to be sure we wouldn’t be disturbed and took a deep breath.
“Oh, no,” Lily said as she sat down, alarm filling her face. “You’ve heard from Charlotte, haven’t you?”
“Well, as a matter of fact, yeah. But it’s not what you think.”
Lily set her teacup on the coffee table with a trembling hand. “What?”
“Lil . . .”
“Just tell me, Lucy. Don’t beat around the bush.”
“I’m pregnant.”
Dead silence. I’m not even sure she inhaled.
“What?” she finally asked.
All I could do was nod.
She stared at me.
“I know,” I said.
“You . . . you’re pregnant? Really? Oh, Lucy.”
“I know.” When Lily didn’t say anything else, I had to ask, “You’re happy for me, right?”
She smiled then, but her heart wasn’t in it. Still, she came over and put her arms around me. “Of course I’m happy for you, Lu. You just took me by surprise.” When I pulled away from her, there was something in her eyes she was trying to hide, and then there were tears. I knew what it was, and I was suddenly mad. I wanted this to be about me, not the baby she lost thirteen years ago. I shook my head and wouldn’t look at her. “I’m sorry, Lil, I have to go,” I snapped.
“Lucy, don’t leave. I’m sorry. I just—”
The front door chimed, and Lily quickly wiped her face with her hands, but it was just Ron. He took one look at us and said, “Oh, this can’t be good. What’s going on?”
Lily stood up too quickly, knocking her teacup to the floor. Her tears had surfaced again, and she ignored the lemon water on the rug as she said, “Honey, Lucy has some news. I’m just going to check on Mrs. Flowers.” Then she was gone.
I felt like I might vomit.
“Are you and Lil fighting?” Ron asked, picking up the teacup.
I looked at my brother-in-law in his crisp khakis and chambray shirt. He hadn’t even taken his sunglasses off.
“I think we might be.”
“Is it bad?”
“I’m pregnant, Ron.”
He slid off his dark glasses, slowly, and stared at me for a few seconds. “Oh, wow. That’s a surprise.”
“Yeah.”
“And she’s upset?”
“Apparently.” I shook my head, growing even more annoyed with my sister.
“Ahhh, Lucy,” he said, glancing down the hall after his wife. He stared in that direction for a long moment, clearly weighing the situation, then he looked back at me. “She’ll be okay,” he said, putting his arms around me. “She’ll be fine. But are you okay? I thought no Houston girl was allowed to get pregnant. What’s the deal?”
I shrugged. “A failed tubal ligation, a determined little swimmer . . . you do the math.”
He chuckled. “Is this a good thing or a bad thing? I need to tailor my response.”
Despite myself, I laughed. “I’m pretty sure it’s both.”
“How’s Mic?”
“He’s good right now. He’s happy about it.”
“Well, then I’m happy for you. Both of you.” He looked me in the eye and nodded. “Everything will be fine.”
“I don’t know what I expected, Ron. I just really wanted her to be happy for me. But . . .” I trailed off.
He was still nodding. “I better go check on her. You okay?”
I waited for several minutes, long enough for the wine-colored walls to close in on me. When it was clear that Lily wasn’t coming back, I walked out. What had I expected? That Lily would fall all over herself with joy? I knew something in Lily had shattered the day she had to give that baby boy back. She’d cried every time we had talked about it, so I should have known how tender this would be for her. But was I so wrong to just want her blessing? Yes! Apparently.
After I’d sat in my car for several minutes, I decided to call Priscilla and get the rest of the unpleasantness out of the way. Her assistant put me through, and my sister answered with a professional “Priscilla Houston.”
“Hey, Priss.”
“Who is this?”
“It’s me, and you know it. I called to tell you sorry about the boat.”
“Really?” Sarcastic tone.
“Yes. And to tell you I’m pregnant.”
Silence.
“Well, that’s all I called for. I’m having a really crappy day so I won’t keep you.”
“Lucy, wait while I shut my door, I want to talk to you.” I heard a slam, then she picked the phone up again. “Start from the beginning. Are you okay?”
“I’m okay. But Lily’s not.”
“She didn’t take it well, huh?”
“No.”
“Lucy, what are you doing pregnant? Aren’t your tubes tied?”
“Apparently they came untied, or grew back together. Something happened. Obviously.”
“Do you want it?” Priscilla said bluntly. “I thought—”
“Yes, Priss, I want it. We want it. It wasn’t planned but we’re going to do it.”
“Really? Are you sure?”
“Priss . . .”
“I’m sorry, sweets, but really? Has some miracle happened to change your situation? Is Mickey cured, or is he still . . . ?”
“Priscilla, I have to go now. I just wanted you to know.” I snapped my phone shut and threw it on the floor of my car. What did I really expect from either of my sisters?
Almost immediately my phone rang and I nudged it toward me with my foot. Of course it was Priss, and I was tempted to let it go to voice mail, but I forced myself to answer.
“I’m sorry, Lucy. You didn’t need that from me. You just caught me off guard—completely off guard. Are you sure you’re okay?” Priss asked in absolute sincerity, and I wanted to cry.
“I don’t know. I only found out a couple of days ago, and I just told Mickey this weekend, on the boat—that’s why I took it. I wanted to tell him in a place where he couldn’t run away.”
“Well, then I’m glad you took it. But, Lucy, are you sure you know what you’re doing?”
“No, I don’t. But I’m doing it anyway.”
“How pregnant are you?”
“As near as we can tell, about eleven weeks.”
Priscilla sighed into the phone. “I’m worried.”
“I know and I love you for it.”
“I love you, too, you know I do. But, Lucy, it’s not too late to not do this.”
“I have to go, Priss.” I hung up the phone, remembering the last time she said those exact words to me.
eleven
JULY 2, 2000
Not long after I’d recovered from the manic episode that should have scared Lucy away, Priscilla told me to meet her at Colin’s Grill. I really don’t like being ordered around, but I knew whatever Priss had to say was inevitable, so I met her. When I got there, she was in the corner booth and she was not smiling. I sat down.
“Priscilla.”
“Hello, Mickey. Thanks for coming.”
The waiter brought me a Coke that I hadn’t ordered and Priscilla thanked him, then said, “We don’t want to be disturbed.” He handed her the bill and walked away. With no preamble, she said, “This thing with my sister can’t happen. I’m sure you realize that now.”
I didn’t say anything.
“I should have stepped in sooner, but I really thought it would burn itself out by now. You’re a decent guy, Mickey, and this is nothing personal.”
Priscilla paused, but I let her words hang between us heavy and unanswered. She cleared her throat. “Lucy has no idea what she’s doing with you. She’s young and naive and you’re . . .” She shrugged. “You have way too many problems, Mickey. If you really love my sister, please just walk away. She’s not prepared to take you on and this isn’t fair to her.”
I took a drink and kept listening.
Priscilla became agitated and leaned over the table to drive home her displeasure at me. Then she said, “My sister is not a fully formed person yet, Mickey. She’s not even twenty-three years old, and she’s not being rational. She thinks she wants to teach high school in Brinley, which is ridiculous! She graduated magna cum laude! She’s better than that!” Priss pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed. “Lucy doesn’t even realize there’s a world out there; she needs to grow up and see it. You need to man up and do the right thing.”
I took a bracing gulp of my Coke. “My turn?”
“Of course.”
“I think the right thing to do, Priscilla, is forget this little conversation ever happened.”
“I beg your pardon!”
“I’m serious, Priss. I’m grateful for your devotion to Lucy, but apparently you don’t know her at all. And you don’t know me. Do you honestly think she and I have not looked at absolutely every aspect of this? We have. I can be a lot to deal with, everyone knows that. And I guarantee that there will be times when you like me even less than you do right now. But I can live with that, Priscilla, I’m not marrying you. I’d like for us to be friends, but that’s completely your call. I love your sister.”
“Then walk away,” she hissed. “Because you will ruin her life.”
I slid to the end of the booth and stood up. “I’m leaving, Priscilla. You’re very important to Lucy, so I’m not going to tell her what you’ve asked me to do here. We both know it would damage your relationship with her.”
“Walk away from her, Mickey.”
I shook my head. “You get to choose your life, Priscilla, not Lucy’s. The only way I’d ever walk away from her is if she asked me to. So, I guess you’ll have to work your magic with her. You get this one shot, Priscilla, so make it count, because if you ever dare to interfere after we’re married . . .”
“Are you threatening me?”
I smiled. “No. I’m just strongly advising you not to cross a mentally ill man who evidently has the power to destroy lives.”
Lucy’s sister glared at me, and I did my best to glare back. And I’ll be damned if a single belligerent tear didn’t roll down her face and melt the ice. I blew out a breath and slumped down next to her. For a moment neither one of us spoke. Then Priscilla whimpered, “You scare me, Mickey. You really do.”
“I can understand that.” I put my arm around her. “I scare me sometimes, too. But no matter how hard I try, I can’t seem to scare your sister.”
Priscilla looked up at me, and I was deeply moved by the raw concern in her eyes. I pulled her closer, and over the knot in my throat I said, “I’ll take good care of her, Priss. I promise.”
After I found Mickey’s letter, I knew there was no turning back. I loved him, but I didn’t know what my love should have looked like during that awful time. The hospital wouldn’t let me see him, which filled me with so much anxiety I could barely function. But Gleason assured me it was best because Mickey was still grossly psychotic. So, though I couldn’t see him, I stopped by the hospital each day on my way home from school anyway, just to leave him a note. I left the same note every day: I love you. Call me when you get back.
And one day he did. Sort of. My phone rang but there was no sound on the other end, and then he hung up. I knew it was Mickey and I immediately called the nurse on duty, who told me he was improving, that he was better but exhausted. “Less than twenty hours of sleep in a week will do that,” she said.
I drove straight to the hospital. Thankfully Gleason was there. He gave me a fatherly hug and said Mickey’d had a good day. To simplify things for me, he described Mickey’s journey as falling—which he’d been doing for some time, but started in earnest seven or eight days ago, landing, which had prompted his admission to the hospital, and then the climb back, which he was apparently slowly doing now. Gleason told me the time it would take to complete the climb varied depending on Mickey’s response to the medication.
“Can I see him?”
“Of course.”
I was only planning to stay a few minutes, but when I saw him, I couldn’t leave. Mickey was sound asleep on his bed, covered with a thin, worn sheet. He had showered and I could smell his shampoo when I bent to kiss his cool forehead. He didn’t stir as I ran my fingers lightly down his arm and over his hand, where I could see he was holding my notes against his chest. I must have sat with him for an hour and a half, maybe longer, just watching him. I’d missed him and I so wanted to be there when he opened his eyes. What a week he’d had, what a contrast to find him so still and peaceful tonight.
Up the hall, the patient phone rang and someone yelled for Terrance. They yelled for Terrance three times, each time louder than the last, and I hurried to shut the door so Mickey wouldn’t be disturbed. But when I got back to his bedside, he wa
s awake. “Hi,” I said.
He didn’t move, but his eyes widened as he looked around, and I read the confusion and fear in his expression. “Mickey? Honey?”
“Lucy?” he whispered.
“I’m right here, baby.” I touched his arm. “Can you feel my hand?”
He looked so intensely disbelieving I wasn’t sure what to do. When his eyes filled with tears, I thought my heart would break. “I can’t believe you’re here,” he whispered.
“Why?”
He opened his hand and showed me my crushed notes. “I called you, but I didn’t know if you . . . I didn’t know what to say.”
I bent down and ran a finger over his cheek. “How about you just say you still love me, and we’ll call it good?”
Mickey looked at me like I had spoken in tongues. He sat up with some effort, and I could tell he was extremely medicated. Again he didn’t seem sure of what he was seeing as he searched my face. “Are you real?”
I took his hand and held it in both of mine. “I’m real.”
He shook his head. “Lucy, I’m supposed to be the crazy one.”
“What does that mean?”
“Did . . . did I write you a letter?”
“Yes. I got it.”
He stared at me, confusion again filling his face. “And you came back?”
“Baby, I never left. And I’m not going anywhere.”
Mickey stayed in the hospital for five more days and I watched his odyssey, from psychotic to less psychotic to fragile sanity and slowly back to my Mickey, albeit very subdued. He told me he remembered just about everything and said it felt like not being able to wake up from a nightmare. He explained that the line between crazy and sane for him was a fine one, and that when he was falling into psychosis, they both felt real.
“The difference,” he said, “is that when I’m sane, I realize the nightmare is psychosis, and when I’m psychotic, I don’t know that. And I don’t trust what’s happening when I’m moving from one to the other. That’s why it takes a while for me to believe what I’m seeing.”