A Sound Among the Trees

by Susan Meissner

“But sometimes I don’t.”

  The front door opened downstairs. Carson was home.

  Brette jumped off her lap and dashed to the door and then the stairs. Marielle stood slowly, and the little wedding dress floated to the floor.

  fingernail moon sliced the twilight sky as Adelaide looked out one of the utility room’s windows. On either side of her, shelves filled with canned beans, jars of pickles, and unopened bottles of salad dressing shone in a mix of twilight and incandescence from the single bulb above her. Boxes of juice drinks and spray bottles of sunscreen lay in easy reach on other shelves, along with plastic crates of balls, croquet mallets, and squirt guns. Rolls of paper towels, boxes of cereal, cans of bug spray, and an assortment of flashlights, old phone books, and Christmas lawn ornaments crowded other shelves. A mishmash of empty boxes and bags of foam peanuts and stacks of shopping bags with cord handles swarmed in the corner by a door to the outside that no one ever used. It had been called a utility room since Adelaide was little, but it was more a place to put things until you needed them. A waiting room, really.

  Before the Civil War, the room off the kitchen was known simply as Cook’s room. Susannah’s grandfather Eldon Pembroke, who built Holly Oak the summer of 1850, had been a slave owner like most Virginia landowners and kept a contingent of slaves at the house in town while the rest lived at his sheep farm and shearing barns outside of town. The house-workers slept in the slaves’ quarters at the edge of the garden, with the exception of Cook, whose name no one remembered because no one had called her by her name.

  By the time Adelaide was born in 1921, her father—a science teacher at the local high school and a World War I veteran—had renamed it the utility room after having recently spent eighteen months in trenches, longing for a place to store things you might need later.

  Three decades after that, when Adelaide’s husband, Charles, financed the house’s first major renovation, the utility room was shortened by several feet to enlarge the kitchen. A long row of windows was set into the south-facing wall so that Adelaide’s mother could tend her collection of needy, fur-leafed African violets. New shelves and cabinets replaced sagging boards and cubbies. Tile was laid over a new cement floor. A couple of decades after that, when Adelaide’s mother was finally placed in a home for people who can no longer remember that fire can burn down a house or that the river can drown you, the violets died and the room became solely a depository of things waiting for their shot at usefulness.

  Now Adelaide stood in the center of it with Carson at her side. Marielle was upstairs getting the children ready for bed. “It’s been a long time since this room has been gone through,” Adelaide said.

  “I know. I’ve been meaning to take care of it since … well, since before … a long time,” Carson replied.

  She turned to him. “I thought you were finished with stumbling over that,” she said.

  He smiled halfheartedly. “Sometimes I forget I’m finished with it.”

  She watched Carson look about the room, assessing the work ahead of him to clear it of clutter so that Marielle could have it as an office space. Assessing other things too, perhaps.

  After four years they had both reached a point where Sara’s absence seemed normal instead of a cruel deviation. Carson’s marrying Marielle had reminded them both what normal used to be and was no longer.

  “Sometimes I forget I am finished with it too, Carson,” she said.

  He moved his shoulders as if to shake off the momentary weakness. “It shouldn’t take me long to clear this junk out of here. Half of this stuff can go out in the garage. And if Marielle rearranges the pantry, we can move the extra food in there and maybe stop stockpiling so much of it. This will be a nice room for her to work in, actually, once we get that stuff cleared away from the windows and open it up a bit. She can bring her laptop in here and some of her books and her photographs of the desert. It will be nice.” Carson nodded his head as if in agreement with someone.

  Adelaide pursed her lips together, picturing Marielle clacking away at her laptop while Brette and Hudson hung about the parlor doors, bored.

  “What about the children? What are they supposed to do when she’s in here?” she asked.

  “This really isn’t any different than when Sara set up the art studio in the old slaves’ quarters, Mimi. Same thing, really. And Hudson was younger than Brette is now when she started working in there.”

  Carson had a point. But something about Marielle having an office in Holly Oak for a purpose that had nothing to do with Holly Oak needled her. She didn’t know why. “They will come to me if they get restless.”

  Carson shook his head. “You won’t have to do anything. Marielle will be right here in the house. The kids don’t need her every waking minute. Besides, when they go to my parents’ house for those three weeks, Marielle is going to need something to do. Something that she’s familiar with and knows. It’s … it’s not been easy for her. She’s …” His voice fell away.

  “I know it’s not been easy.”

  He swiveled his head to face her. “Has she said anything to you? Did she say something?”

  “No, she hasn’t. But I’m not blind, Carson. She relinquished a lot to marry you. I know that. I’m sure you do too.”

  Carson said nothing. A flicker of pain moved across his face. “Marielle loves me. And I love her.”

  “I didn’t say she doesn’t love you; I said she relinquished a lot to marry you. She gave up her home, her job, her friends, her independence. And you made her an instant mother; don’t forget that. And then you plunked her down into the house you shared with Sara. This house of ghosts.”

  “Don’t start on the whole ghost thing, please.” Carson picked up an empty box and began to toss random items inside it: rain boots, a jump rope, citronella candles, and a faded box of rose food. “The last thing Marielle needs to hear now is that you do think there are ghosts in this house.”

  “But what is a ghost exactly, if not a startling shimmer of the past that you still see from time to time? I’ve been thinking about this. A ghost doesn’t have to be a person. Pearl doesn’t know what she’s talking about.”

  Carson threw a bottle of car-wash detergent into the box. “I don’t want to talk about this. Marielle will be back down here any minute to tell me the kids are ready for bed. All this ghost talk of Pearl’s is only making it harder for Marielle to feel at home here. I wish she’d stop. It’s unsettling for Marielle.”

  Adelaide sighed. “Yes, I am sure it is. All of it.”

  Carson dropped a whiffle ball into the box and looked at her. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Adelaide grabbed a couple of boxes of cereal to take to the pantry in the kitchen. “I think we all have our ghosts, in some shape or form. How can we not?”

  “Ghosts and memories are not the same thing,” Carson said quietly as he taped the box shut. “Memories are things we get to keep. I’m not going to forget I loved Sara. Marielle and I talked about this, before I ever proposed to her. She doesn’t expect me to forget I loved her. I don’t feel about Sara the way you feel about this house or the way Pearl feels about your great-grandmother. Sara isn’t a ghost. Give me those.” He reached for the cereal boxes.

  “I can help empty this room,” Adelaide said.

  “You don’t have to. Marielle and I can do this. I think it will be good for her and me to finish this together. Besides, you’re missing Jeopardy.”

  She handed him the boxes, and he took them, turning swiftly away from her.

  “I’m sorry I said that,” she said.

  “Said what?”

  “Well, whatever I said that made you say what you just said.”

  He put the cereal boxes into an empty Rubbermaid tote. “That you’re missing Jeopardy?”

  She smiled.

  Carson peeked over his shoulder at her and grinned easily.

  “I mean, about all of us hanging on to our ghosts,” Adelaide said. “I shouldn’t have said that. I
miss Sara too.”

  Carson reached for two boxes of graham crackers and said nothing as he placed them in the tote on top of the cereal.

  “I speak my mind too freely. I know that. I am sorry.”

  “Look. I don’t care so much what you say around me. But I do care what gets said around Marielle. I don’t want her having to handle more than what she’s already having to deal with. She doesn’t need to know what you believe about this house, Mimi.”

  Adelaide at once remembered what she had said to Marielle the day of the reception about the record player and the needle. She’d already said too much.

  At her silence, Carson looked at her. He frowned. “What did you tell her?”

  Adelaide shrugged. “Hardly anything.”

  “What did you tell her?”

  “I only said that the people who say Holly Oak is cursed don’t know what they’re talking about. It’s not the house’s fault.”

  Carson tossed a carton of granola bars into the tote and stood erect. “Was that really necessary?”

  Adelaide sniffed. “Few things are necessary, Carson. And I’ll have you know she asked me if I’ve been happy here. And she asked me because, if you will recall, you brought her here to live and now you expect her to be happy here. So I told her that all the things that have happened to me are not the house’s fault.”

  “For crying out loud—”

  Adelaide’s breath and voice tightened in her throat. Carson didn’t often raise his voice. He was mad at her. She felt behind her for the shelving unit and grasped a metal rung for moral support. “What? It’s not the house’s fault my father had cancer or my mother had dementia or that Charles died of a heart attack in his fifties or that Caroline became an addict or that Sara was taken from the both of us when she was only thirty-four!”

  “Adelaide!”

  “It doesn’t know how to get past the scratch! I’ve told you that before!” She tottered slightly for a moment and grasped the rung tighter. Carson did not notice.

  He lifted the tote of food off the floor. “This is exactly what I don’t want you telling Marielle,” he said quietly. “It’s nonsense. And you can think it if you want, but I told you a long time ago that I didn’t want you talking this way around the kids—”

  “I haven’t!” Adelaide exclaimed.

  “And I would appreciate it if you also didn’t talk this way around Marielle.”

  “She asked me.”

  “She asked if you had been happy here.”

  They stood there for a strained moment, staring at each other.

  “You called me Adelaide,” she finally said.

  Carson’s facial features took on a conciliatory look. “I’m sorry, Mimi. How about if we just move past this. Please?”

  Another long moment of silence passed between them.

  “She’s having lunch with Pearl next week,” Adelaide finally said.

  Carson began to walk past her with the box in his arms. “All the more reason to drop this. I don’t think Marielle believes Pearl. But I’m afraid she could believe you.”

  And he stepped past her with the tote in his arms, leaving her alone in the mix of light and shadow.

  he drumming whir of a sewing machine greeted Marielle as she stepped off the last stair and made her way to the slightly ajar parlor door. The house was silent except for the mechanical piercing of the needle into fabric. She had already taken Brette and Hudson to swimming lessons, and a family friend had offered to pick them up so that Marielle could have lunch with Pearl and not worry about the time. She was glad. It surprised her a little that she was looking forward to lunch with Pearl. She tapped lightly and the whirring ceased.

  “Yes?” Adelaide said from within.

  Marielle gently pushed the door open. Adelaide was seated at her sewing table with folds of gray frothing at her hands. A gooseneck lamp perched over her sewing machine looked as though it were inspecting her work. She looked up as Marielle poked her head inside the room.

  “Just wanted to let you know I was leaving,” Marielle said.

  Adelaide cocked her head as she studied the gauzy, violet-hued cotton dress Marielle had chosen to wear. “You look nice. Lavender looks good on you. And it’s Pearl’s favorite color. She’ll think you wore it for her.”

  Marielle smiled. “Should I just let her think it?”

  Adelaide reached for her scissors and clipped a dangling thread on the seam she had just sewn shut. “Pearl will think what she wants, dear, no matter what you do. Keep that in mind.”

  There was unspoken weight under Adelaide’s words. A warning. “Um. Thanks. I will. The kids are all set to go home with Lynn Jarrel. I’ll pick them up from there on my way home from Pearl’s.”

  Adelaide snipped another thread. “You don’t need directions to Pearl’s?”

  “I’ll be fine. I’ll just use my phone.”

  “Your phone.”

  “I have GPS on my phone. I’ll be fine.”

  Adelaide pulled the half-sewn jacket out from under the raised needle. “I know I should know what that is, but today I am just not interested in knowing. Call me if you get lost. I know you can do that on your phone.”

  Marielle laughed lightly. “I will.”

  She turned to go, but Adelaide called out her name. Marielle turned around.

  “Look, maybe I shouldn’t be saying this, Marielle, but Carson doesn’t want you having to deal with any more ghost talk. And I know Pearl. She’ll bring it up.”

  Marielle took a step into the room. “Carson said that? When was this?”

  Adelaide turned back to her sewing machine. “When we were cleaning out the utility room for you, I said something about this being a house of ghosts. I shouldn’t have. That’s when he said he didn’t want you to have to hear any more of Pearl’s stories.”

  Marielle sensed hesitancy. Back-pedaling. “Mimi, Pearl’s stories don’t scare me. The first day I heard about them it was a little weird, but it’s not like I’m having nightmares. Is that what Carson thinks? That I’m afraid?”

  Adelaide stuffed the jacket back underneath the needle. “I think it’s more that you shouldn’t have to deal with Pearl’s ghost on top of having to get used to me and this house and the humidity outside. And he knows I told you about the scratch, and he doesn’t like that either.”

  Carson was miffed that Adelaide had told her her theory about the scratch? A theory that made absolutely no sense?

  “It’s not what you think,” Adelaide quickly added. “We only talked about it for a minute. A minute. All I am saying is when you go to Pearl’s today and she starts talking about ghosts, you can tell her to shut up. That’s all.”

  “But maybe I don’t want her to shut up about it,” Marielle said, now very glad she had called Pearl the day before with a suggestion.

  Adelaide turned her head to look at her. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Pearl’s stories don’t scare me. Just like they don’t scare you. Maybe I want to hear her stories.”

  “Whatever for?”

  Marielle shrugged. She had been giving the matter some thought. It shouldn’t be a big surprise that she was daily becoming more interested in what remained in a house after someone died. She was curious. That was all. “Maybe it will help me understand what you were telling me about the scratch.”

  Adelaide raised an eyebrow. “Pearl doesn’t believe in the scratch. Only the ghost.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  Marielle stood for a moment longer, but Adelaide said nothing else. The woman turned back to the sewing machine, pressed her foot to the pedal, and the needle began to flash with purpose. “I’ll see you later, then, Mimi.”

  Adelaide nodded. “Yes. Have a nice time, dear.”

  Marielle stepped back into the entry hall. Her face was warm. Adelaide probably hadn’t been completely honest with her, but neither had she.

  She had asked Pearl to invite a third person to join them for lunch.

  Eldora
Meeks.

  Fragments of cucumber sandwiches, chicken salad, and melon balls dotted the creamy blue china plates as the three women sat in Pearl’s sunroom.

  They had eaten as soon as Marielle arrived, forgoing a stroll through the garden, owing to the heat and Eldora’s needing to be in Yorktown by five.

  Over lunch, Pearl had described in ebullient detail how Marielle and Carson had met and fell in love, as if Marielle were not sitting right there at the table with them. Marielle didn’t mind, even though Pearl kept embellishing the story. The chatter gave her a chance to study Eldora Meeks without attracting attention.

  Marielle had never met someone who claimed to have special sight or a connection to the spirit world or the ability to talk to the dead. She had never met anyone with any kind of psychic ability at all.

  Eldora looked to be in her late sixties, plump, with silvery red hair and eyes that narrowed into slits when she smiled. She wore a pale pink warmup suit trimmed in white and flicked her tongue to the corner of her mouth every time she said something. Her accent was more fluid than Pearl’s or Adelaide’s and reminded Marielle of taffy being pulled by slowly moving blades. She looked like a kind grandma who watches the shopping channel, makes quilts, and collects porcelain dolls.

  Marielle reached for her glass of sweet tea and took a sip just as Eldora turned to her and smiled, her eyes disappearing into lash-fringed seams.

  “That sure sounds like a right sweet love story,” Eldora said. “But you probably have many questions, don’t you, Marielle? That’s why you asked Pearl to invite me to come today. What can I do for you?”

  “She wants to know about the ghost,” Pearl interjected, and Eldora raised a hand.

  “Now, Pearl, why don’t we let Marielle ask her own questions, shall we?”

  Pearl sat back in her chair, her lips puckered as if she’d swallowed a lime. “I’ll try to be quiet,” she murmured.

  “Are you sensing a troubled spirit inside the house, dear?” Eldora asked Marielle.

  Marielle shook her head slowly. “Well, no, not really. I just … I actually just want to know what you saw or heard at Holly Oak when you were there.”